Chapter 10: The shape of the lips resembles a kiss.
When the bell rang, Tan Xinxin closed her English book and said, "Class ends," and the classroom instantly erupted in cheers.
Amidst the chaos of packing bags and chatting, Tan Xinxin, unfazed, turned to leave. Before leaving, she remembered something and instructed the English class representative.
"The lyrics written by the students today are all quite good. I'll collect them and put them in my office. We can make them into a commemorative photo album or something."
"Okay, Teacher Tan."
After Tan Xinxin left, Ruan Qianyi, the English class representative, collected the notes from each group.
When she arrived at Qiao Bolin's desk, she looked up at the empty desk with a puzzled expression, and her eyes met the boy's calm gaze.
“Joe…Joe Berlin,” Ruan Qianyi stammered, not knowing why, when she met those beautiful eyes, “That…your note…”
"It can't be found."
Compared to Ruan Qianyi's nervousness and unease, Qiao Bolin seemed more like the one receiving the note.
He slung his backpack over his shoulder with a flourish, his eyes casually glancing at an empty seat, his tone nonchalant.
"I couldn't find it after class. Could you please inform Sister Tan for me?"
"......OK."
Before the blush on Ruan Qianyi's face had faded, the young man had already turned and left.
As they approached the school gate, Gao Hexin suddenly remembered something and teasingly leaned closer to Ning Jiu.
"Who wrote that note you got? Did they deliberately choose it to give it to you?"
"I don't know." Ning Jiu obediently slung her schoolbag over her shoulder. "Maybe it's just gossip."
“That’s true. Drawing slips is random, who knows who it will be given to?” Gao Hexin raised an eyebrow. “However, the handwriting is still easy to identify. There are only about forty people in our class. Although it’s anonymous, we can actually tell who wrote which one by checking the handwriting.”
Ning Jiu slowed down.
Gao Hexin also stopped, turned his head, and saw the girl lower her head and chuckle softly.
"That's true."
She never intended to hide her handwriting. The moment Qiao Bailin opened the note, with his keen sense, he was sure he could guess that it was written by her.
Ning Jiu thought he would confront her after discovering it was her, just like he did at noon.
That didn't happen.
During English class, he casually quoted a popular song lyric, and she reacted faster than she expected.
After class, he casually folded the note and chatted and laughed with his classmates as usual.
Judging from his reaction alone, Ning Jiu also had a moment of doubt as to whether she had written that straightforward lyric on the note.
Upon arriving at the door, Gao Hexin saw his father and familiarly handed him the heavy schoolbag he was carrying.
Looking around, I realized that the person who usually came to pick up Ningjiu was not there.
Gao Hexin: "Where is your uncle?"
“He’s been quite busy at his shop lately, so he doesn’t have time to pick me up,” Ning Jiu said with a smile and waved to her. “Bye-bye.”
Bye-bye~
After Gao Hexin sped away on his dad's cool motorcycle, Ning Jiu took a few steps toward the bus stop, then suddenly changed direction.
Yuan Liangjing's dessert shop, located in that location, has always had mediocre business. Last week was the peak season for the start of the school year, but he still came to pick her up every day at the appointed time.
Ning Jiu hasn't come recently because she feels it's more convenient for her to go back, and she can also develop her independence.
Secondly, she is currently in a period of cold war with Yuan Liangjing.
Ning Jiu wanted to know the situation at Lingcheng Bar and Ning Xuan's current state, but Yuan Liangjing still treated her like a child and wanted to push her away from adult matters.
Last week, the thing Yuan Liangjing said to her most often was, "At this stage of your life, studying hard is the most important thing. Don't worry about anything else. We'll take care of everything."
Ning Jiu clearly remembered that the last time he said that was when Ning Xuan and Yuan Shu were going through a divorce.
The three of them, in their usual parental manner, excluded her from the matter. As a result, although Ning Xuan and Yuan Shu did not officially divorce, they entered an endless cooling-off period in their marriage.
Yuan Shufei went to work in Germany, and Ning Xuan moved to Jiangcheng because of the bar incident. He developed health problems, and his alcohol addiction became more and more severe.
Self-righteous adults talk about what they think is right, and in the end, zero existing problems are solved.
Ning Jiuzhen's father had had enough of this model.
Thinking about this, his face turned sour. As he walked around the corner, he was drawn to the noise coming from the corner.
Next to Jianglan Experimental School is the primary school section. Several students in primary school uniforms were gathered in a corner, laughing and joking. The one in the middle, surrounded, was probably a younger student. He was not tall and was forced to squat down while others mocked him.
Ning Jiu didn't really want to get involved, but she was in such a bad mood that the smiles of the guys surrounding her were just too irritating. Just as one of the tall guys was about to rush forward, she grabbed his arm.
"We're still at the school gate, so keep your money to yourself."
The boy was probably in fifth or sixth grade, and he was already as tall as Ning Jiu. He felt his arm being grabbed and glared at her in displeasure.
"none of your business."
Are kids these days so arrogant?
Ning Jiu loosened her collar, and the boy was about to rush forward again, but after taking only one step, he felt a slight feeling of suffocation in his throat—
Someone grabbed my collar.
"Tsk, quite a temper for such a young age."
The kind-faced girl squeezed into the center of the crowd and saw that the person in the very center was a little boy wearing thick glasses. The boy had some bruises on his face and was holding a tattered cardboard box, as if he had found some treasure.
The tall boy tried to break free, but was pulled even tighter. "If you keep doing this, believe me, we'll beat you up—"
Ning Jiu chuckled, her voice low: "If I use a little force, I can kick both of you flying, believe it or not."
Her voice wasn't loud, but it had a kind of oppressive quality that made people afraid to move. When she met the boy's eyes, she calmly started to lift her foot.
The boy didn't expect her to be serious. After struggling to break free, he realized that all the people who were originally there had run away.
He swore, and while the second half of the sentence was still hanging in the air, he disappeared without a trace.
Ning Jiu stopped smiling, feeling much better. She turned her head and saw the boy with glasses holding the cardboard box tightly in his arms, and casually asked him a question.
"Little Glasses, what is this thing? You're treating it like a precious treasure."
"...Sister, do you have anything to eat?"
Ning Jiu was taken aback by what the little glasses said.
Although the child had some bruises on his face, judging from his clothes, he wasn't in a situation where he couldn't afford to eat.
The little guy with glasses realized something, put the cardboard box on the ground, revealing the trembling, curled-up dog inside.
"It's for it to eat." He said softly, his eyes still red.
The edges of the cardboard box were slightly dented from being pressed down, and there was some movement inside. He held the edge of the box with both hands and pressed it down, and a small dog was revealed. Its fur had not yet fully grown, and it looked like a wet cotton ball, huddled in a crumpled old towel.
Ning Jiu glanced down at it.
It was a Border Collie puppy with a swollen right eye, curled up in a ball, and you couldn't really tell unless you looked closely.
She slowly squatted down and gently touched the puppy's nose with her finger. The little guy whimpered and tried to burrow into a more secluded spot.
She slid her backpack off her shoulder, unzipped it, and rummaged through the jumbled things Yuan Liangjing had forced into her bag over the past few days. There was also a sealed bag of chicken breast that she hadn't eaten.
She handed the chicken breast to the little man with glasses, and watching him skillfully feed the Border Collie, she casually asked him a question.
"Is this your dog?"
"......yes."
The eyes are moving too intently, and the volume is unconsciously increased.
In psychology, these are all signs of lying.
Ning Jiu didn't say anything, she just glanced at him indifferently.
The latter felt a little nervous under her gaze, and his throat bobbed.
"W-what's wrong?"
Ning Jiu asked again, "Are you sure? Is this really yours?"
"Yes, this is mine..."
When the boy with glasses heard the second half of the sentence, he panicked and almost bumped his head when he stood up.
A gust of wind swept by, and when Ning Jiu looked at him again, she could only see the boy's retreating figure.
A cold laugh suddenly reached my ears.
"When did you become so compassionate?"
Ning Jiu knew something was wrong. As she tried to leave, one of her hands was grabbed, and her slender shoulder blades were twisted hard against the wall.
The boy, wearing a black mask and a black hoodie, revealed soft yet strong hair strands that brushed against her cheeks. His slightly upturned phoenix eyes held a mixture of doubt, mischief, and teasing.
"I wish my sister cared about me this much."
"......"
Hearing him call her "sister" in the same tone as the boy with glasses, Ning Jiu felt nauseous.
Her back ached from Wen Yi's impact, and her eyes began to feel hot and moist again.
She absolutely hated the reaction caused by this constitution.
Wen Yi glanced at her reddened eyes, paused slightly, and suddenly heard a "smack".
His face was slapped to one side with all his might, and his skin, flesh, and even his teeth felt numb with pain.
She used all her strength.
The bones and blood were fanned to burn, but the heart cooled down.
A ringing sound filled his ears as Ning Jiu's gentle voice, mixed with the sweltering summer breeze, slammed into his ear canal.
"If you still consider me your sister, you shouldn't have come to Jiangcheng."
"......"
"Berlin?"
A gentle female voice drew Qiao Bolin's attention back, and the cicadas chirping in the surrounding banyan trees became clearer.
The tall, straight-backed boy turned his head.
"mom."
The tall, slender woman wore a fashionable summer dress, and her jewelry earrings reflected the sunlight.
After replying to the message, Wen Xi opened the car door but found that Qiao Bolin was not getting in.
Following her son's gaze, she saw rows of beautifully grown banyan trees in the corner, their green leaves swaying in the breeze, and she could vaguely make out the gate of the primary school behind them.
Why are you coming out so late?
Seeing that Qiao Bolin had turned around, she changed the subject.
“Something came up,” Qiao Bolin bent down and sat in the back seat. “Why did I decide to drive today?”
"Since Xiao Ye is here, I'll take you to Ya Fu for dinner tonight," Wen Xi said gently as Qiao Bolin diverted her attention. She turned on the car's navigation system and said, "Think about what you want to eat later, and ask Xiao Ye on WeChat while you're at it."
Qiao Bolin is typing on his phone.
[Qiao Bolin] My mom picked me and you up to go to Yafu for dinner and asked you what you wanted to eat.
[Xiao Xiye] I fled from Beijing. I'm grateful to have anything to eat. I'll eat whatever I want.
The vehicles drove in the opposite direction, heading towards the city center business district.
Qiao Bolin pressed the screen-off button and watched the banyan forest in the rearview mirror grow smaller and smaller in his field of vision.
He said it didn't matter.
Wen Xi: "And what about you?"
"I don't care, Mom, you can order whatever you want."
Just then, the light turned red, and Wen Xi stepped on the brakes, looking helpless.
Kids these days...
-
Rongye Street is too far from Jianglan Experimental School.
The next day, after another hour-long bus ride, Ning Jiu arrived at the classroom just as it was time for morning reading.
My relationship with Yuan Liangjing improved somewhat yesterday, but not with Ning Xuan.
After failing to make the call on the Nth attempt, a call finally came in from an unknown number.
On the phone, Ning Xuan was drunk and talking nonsense. The man next to her spoke in a strange tone, asking if she knew Ning Xuan.
After some explanation, Ning Jiu finally understood that Ning Xuan had accidentally broken his phone a few days ago after drinking, and had just gotten a new one. He had just inserted the SIM card when he started drinking again.
During the eighteen-minute call, Ning Xuan kept mumbling something, which Ning Jiu could barely make out. He was probably apologizing to Lao Wen, saying that there was a better way to resolve the car accident.
Later, his muffled sobs turned into roars, regretting that he had been too busy to take care of his wife after the accident, and regretting that he hadn't stopped Yuan Shu from going to Germany in time.
They met in a bar when they were young, and in a moment of passion, they chose to get married. They even named their child after alcohol.
Now, the passion has faded, one remains in the past, the other has gone far away, and the drinks that were once considered a matter of fate have turned into a dirty water stain on the wall with the cries of drunkenness.
The sweltering air of late summer mirrored Ning Jiu's mood at that moment.
bother.
Early morning reading is Lao Qin's responsibility. After reading the text, she has to recite it from memory, and she has already memorized the content the night before.
Amidst the overwhelming wave of reading enthusiasm, she turned her head, her gaze idly sweeping over the boy's handsome forehead, his striking eyes, his straight nose, and then—
Lips that open and close.
Perhaps it's because of his fair skin, or perhaps his lips are naturally red, but whatever the reason, people's gazes always end up glancing at his lips, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
When I usually see him, his lips are usually pursed, but now, because he is reading, his upper lip is upturned, and I can vaguely see the tip of his bright red tongue, curled up and straightened.
It looks like they're kissing.
Perhaps it's human nature to relax unconsciously when you see something beautiful, and Ning Jiu's gloomy mood from the whole day eased up a bit.
Unconsciously, I traced his lip movements and tried to guess which passage he was reading, but I noticed the boy's movements falter.
Thin eyelids and thick eyelashes like cicada wings cast a leaden shadow on the lower eyelid.
Qiao Bolin suddenly looked up.
Their eyes met.
A note from the author:
----------------------
Berlin kept the note; pay attention, it'll be on the test later. [Sunglasses]
P.S.: Sweet Wine and Wen Yi are not related by blood; they are childhood sweethearts. The female lead's parents are innocent, and there is no infidelity involved.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
