Chapter 16, "Kissing the Mole: Love is Like a Huge Typhoon Passing By..."
After finishing his instant noodles, Qiao Bolin took Ning Jiu to the master bedroom before tidying up the guest room.
Qiao Bolin: "I'm right across the street on the second floor. Call me if you need anything."
The door closed very softly, and Ning Jiu looked around the bedroom.
The space is precisely proportioned, with clean and simple lines, creating a minimalist yet stylish black, white, and gray color scheme.
The walls were largely covered with dark peach wood wainscoting, and light streamed down from the hidden LED strips along the edge of the ceiling, leaving a soft interplay of light and shadow on the wood. A faint, lingering scent of sandalwood could be smelled in the air, just like the scent emanating from him.
The overall layout looks ordinary, and at first glance it only makes people feel comfortable and natural. However, upon closer inspection, you will find that each item seems to be quite valuable.
Ning Jiu's gaze swept over the bed and the desk, two items that occupied a large proportion of the bedroom.
The bed was clean and tidy, the bedding was neatly folded, and the desk by the window was the same. There were no unnecessary decorations, and no carelessly placed items after use. Even the angles at which the pens were placed were almost identical.
Ning Jiu approached the desk and was drawn to two picture frames in the upper right corner.
The photos are framed in finely polished teak. One photo shows an eight- or nine-year-old boy holding a King chess piece. He has big eyes and a handsome appearance that is already taking shape. It can be seen that he is Joe Bolin as a child. The man behind him is holding him, but his face is not shown. He is probably Joe's father.
Another photo frame—
Ning Jiu paused in her observation.
It must have been taken recently. A tall, straight-backed boy stands on the far left, while a man with similar features stands in the center.
The man was wearing a black suit with a red tie, and there were several other staff members in formal attire nearby, with eye-catching name tags around their necks.
The overall atmosphere is simple and solemn. The boy's appearance in the photo does not seem out of place, but rather blends in with the overall atmosphere.
Ning Jiu took a few steps back, processing the massive amount of information, her shoulders going from tense to finally relaxing completely.
She didn't understand.
Given his family background, why did he come to Jianglan Experimental School and study science?
Choosing liberal arts and following in her footsteps through a straight-up career clearly aligns better with her impression of this group.
Thump.
She accidentally knocked something over, and it fell off the bookshelf next to her with a dull thud.
The slips of paper in the book fell to the ground along with the scattered pages.
Ning Jiu bent down to pick it up, and after seeing the handwriting on the note—
He chuckled incredulously.
-
After tidying up the room, Qiao Bolin opened the door and saw a slender girl leaning against the stairs.
The school uniform, now completely dry, has largely regained its original crispness, with faint wrinkles still visible. The double-layered collar edges are slightly upturned, like a bumpy little bridge built over the collarbone.
Seemingly bored while waiting, the girl placed one foot on the stair tread, her toes twitching slightly, causing her slender legs to sway back and forth. She played with a ballpoint pen in her hand, her light-eyed gaze fixed on the pen tip as it extended and then retracted.
Plop, plop.
She was more skilled with his pen than he was with his.
"Are you all packed?" Seeing Qiao Bolin come out, Ning Jiu immediately smiled, glancing at the open door. "Thanks for your hard work~"
Her voice was even softer than when she first arrived. Qiao Bolin subtly glanced at Ning Jiu's expression, but couldn't discern anything from her voice.
"I'm all packed. You can go and rest now."
After he finished speaking, he was about to return to his room when, as he passed the stairwell, the girl's smooth palm enveloped his wrist.
She said.
"I want to take a shower before I rest."
-
“The towels and bath towels in the bathroom cabinet are all clean,” Qiao Bolin said to Ning Jiu, standing outside the guest bathroom door. “The disposable pajamas are on the first shelf of the mirror cabinet; you can see them as soon as you open it.”
Ning Jiu opened the mirror cabinet and, sure enough, saw cotton pajamas sealed in a transparent plastic bag inside.
"Your house really has everything!" She was genuinely surprised.
"This is in case of extreme weather or unexpected guests," Qiao Bolin lowered his eyes and closed the door for her. "It's getting late. Take a shower and get some rest. Goodnight."
"......good evening."
Click.
The bathroom door blocks out the white noise from outside.
The sound of the showerhead fell, splashing tiny water droplets on the bath bricks.
Ning Jiu took off her shoes and stepped barefoot onto the bath bricks, feeling the coolness rising from her feet. She let the cold water droplets splash on her delicate shoulders, but hesitated to make any further move.
Qiao Bolin went back to his room and closed the door.
The room was filled with the fragrance of sandalwood, which was also inexplicably tinged with a sweet and fruity scent that mingled with the increasingly humid air and undeniably filled his nostrils.
His face was expressionless, his calm gaze first sweeping over the desk with its picture frames and stationery, everything as before.
The desk remained unchanged, the bed remained unchanged, and even the bookcase next to it seemed unchanged.
She came, leaving behind nothing but a faint, lingering fragrance.
In stark contrast to her bold and direct language was the person herself.
Qiao Bolin's gaze slid from the desk across the bookshelf, finally settling on the neatly arranged books on the second shelf.
She probably noticed that his bedroom was filled with his habits.
For example, color, and taste.
For example, he has a habit of placing different categories of books on different levels, and each book shows signs of having been read many times. His true preferences are often hidden in the traces of years of reading.
But she overlooked one thing.
Qiao Bolin thought.
Because he knew the location of each book so well, he could recognize it at a glance even when each book was put back in its original place.
Which book was moved?
Qiao Bolin withdrew his gaze, a fleeting smile playing on his lips.
As I reopened the door and stepped out of the bedroom, the sound of a showerhead came from the guest bathroom upstairs, and—
The girl's hesitant voice.
"Joe...Joe Berlin?"
In the bathroom, Ning Jiu heard footsteps outside the door and realized that it was Qiao Bolin approaching.
She looked toward the door and called to him in a louder voice.
"I can't seem to get hot water out, can you help me?"
"......"
As expected, there was no reply after saying this.
Remembering what she was going to do later, Ning Jiu endured the discomfort of being rinsed by cold water and walked out of the shower barefoot.
"I'm all dressed, you can just come in. Aren't we good friends? You can't even do this little favor—"
The moment my hand gripped the doorknob, the door was opened from the other side.
The guest bathroom wasn't cramped, but strangely, when the boy's tall figure walked in from outside the door, Ning Jiu found it difficult to breathe for a short time.
He was tall, and the door was only slightly ajar, so he practically squeezed in.
Ning Jiu realized what was happening and quickly stepped aside to let him in, pointing aggrievedly to her soaked school uniform.
"Where is the hot water switch on this showerhead? I've been looking for it for ages and I still can't find it."
There's not enough space for two people to stand at the entrance.
Ning Jiu only realized something was wrong after complaining.
Something on my arm is burning hot, and it seems to be getting worse...
He was pressing his arm against hers.
With their hands together, Ning Jiu could even feel the throbbing of the veins in his arms.
Unlike being drenched by rain, the water from the showerhead sprayed out, thoroughly soaking her hair. The wet hair clung to her soft nape and fair cheeks, swaying gently with the slightest movement of her head.
The water-soaked fabric clung to her body, water droplets sliding down her flat stomach, leaving glistening trails along her inner thighs, and finally dripping onto the ground.
It was particularly noticeable in the quiet bathroom.
Ning Jiu's face flushed almost instantly, her eyelids twitched, and she looked up at Qiao Bolin.
The latter looked away and took a closer look at the tips of her ears, which were slightly red.
He strode over the small puddle left by Ning Jiu's bare feet, and skillfully pressed the silver switch next to the showerhead, causing a subtle change in the water flow from the showerhead above his head.
Qiao Bolin didn't believe that Ning Jiu really hadn't discovered the switch.
"Here."
Ning Jiu followed his gaze, walked over, and touched the water spraying from the showerhead with her finger.
The water is getting hot.
Their atmosphere was the same.
A slight smile curved her lips.
"Thank you, my friend."
Qiao Bolin seemed not to have caught her sarcasm and did not respond.
He withdrew his slender fingers, turned, and was about to leave—
Suddenly, I felt a force pulling me back.
As the girl touched his outstretched foot, it changed direction, and the two bodies were pressed together. Qiao Bolin subconsciously used his forearm to stabilize her waist, and through the thin school uniform, he could clearly feel the curve of her ribs.
The residual heat from the fabric seeped through his skin, and the warm water droplets, mixed with the scent of shampoo emanating from the girl's hair, dripped onto his collarbone. A clear, straight line of water was splashed onto his freshly changed white T-shirt by the showerhead.
Separated by a wall, inside the wall is the sound of splashing water from a showerhead, while outside the wall is the deafening roar of thunder in a downpour.
A typhoon is approaching.
Ning Jiu hadn't expected that even at this moment, Qiao Bolin would instinctively protect her first.
Water droplets slid down her hair toward her collarbone. She took out her hand from behind her waist and revealed the neatly folded "trump card" to the boy.
The paper strip had neat creases, and even after more than a week, it showed no signs of yellowing or wrinkling, which was enough to show the care the custodian had taken for it.
"good friend."
She repeated those three hypocritical words again, and when she spoke again, she only felt ridiculous.
"How come I didn't know that close friends would secretly keep notes written by each other?"
Boom!
The city was submerged in the sound of rain, and deafening thunder roared through the sky once more.
The soaked fabric made Ning Jiu's waistline appear even slimmer, and the hem of the boy's T-shirt was washed so tightly by the water that it clung to his abdominal muscles, leaving no space between the two of them.
Qiao Bolin stared at the note in Ning Jiu's hand without saying a word.
To Ningjiu's surprise.
The panic and helplessness of being exposed, and even the slightest bit of shame.
He didn't have any.
Qiao Bolin merely glanced at the paper, as if it weren't her handwriting, nor was it some kind of provocative dirty talk; it was just a sticky note with English words printed on it.
Upright, dignified, and all he knew best: index cards.
"You've trapped me here just to say this?"
After a long silence, he finally spoke his first words.
Along with that came the first step toward her.
The once all-encompassing gaze finally showed signs of cracking. Ning Jiu never expected him to do this. Her confident posture instantly froze. The symbol of victory was still floating in her palm, but her toes could only passively retreat according to his force.
But as soon as she took a step back, the boy took another step forward, giving her no room to think.
Qiao Bolin: "What good would it do us to expose this?"
The sound of the shower water faded, and the increasingly loud rain pounded against the glass, as if trying to shatter all barriers.
The sky was pressed low, the air turbulence increased, and the clouds looked like black satin torn by a giant beast, their edges stained with inky liquid.
This was the first time Ning Jiu had so vividly felt how terrible the weather was.
A damp smell reached my nose, seemingly carrying a familiar yet distant scent of sandalwood.
She could no longer distinguish which side was giving her the feeling.
As dusk seeped into the room, the light shattered into pale gold fragments in his pupils, but Qiao Bolin's expression remained calm.
Ning Jiu hated his calm demeanor that masked the true nature of things.
She was unwilling to remain in a passive position.
“You acted really well, Joe Bolin,” he genuinely praised him, “I almost fell for your act.”
Pure friendship?
Pure friendship is utter bullshit.
"It's just those two words, is it really that hard for you to admit it?" Desperate to provoke him, the consequences no longer mattered. "Oh, I see. Perhaps you don't know what those two words feel like?"
love.
Even if the class is interrupted, it's not hard to guess.
When Lao Qin asked him to answer a question, Qiao Bolin didn't even bother to give a proper answer.
What is love?
It's not important to him.
Therefore, turning uncontrollable love into more manageable friendship is a strategy that someone like him would consider first.
Ning Jiu's rebellious nature was thus provoked.
She was determined to do the opposite of what he did.
The doors and windows were locked.
The pounding of the rain grew more and more intense, like the drumbeats of a heart losing control.
The fabric rubbed together with a dull thud, and Ning Jiu suddenly smiled gently.
While Jobelin was distracted, she suddenly pushed away the body restraining her, surprisingly easily.
Qiao Bolin's back slammed heavily against the wall with a muffled groan, and his neck was already encircled by the girl's slender hands.
The torrential rain raged outside the window, and their breaths mingled in the scorching heat. Ning Jiu pressed her elbow against his slightly tense chest, feeling the strong, pounding heartbeat.
"Don't you know how to answer this question?" Her gaze fell on his prominent Adam's apple, her eyes innocent and pure. "It's okay, I'll teach you."
Qiao Bolin watched quietly as Ning Jiu tiptoed.
The girl's expression was extremely gentle, and her words and mannerisms were those of a selfless teacher.
His gaze slowly moved downwards, his hot breath spraying onto the small mole beside his Adam's apple, his snow-white neck tilting slightly upwards, his wet hair brushing against his neck, hot and damp.
Joel Bolton's Adam's apple bobbed slightly, causing the small mole on his face to rise and fall gently, as if in invitation.
The next second.
A soft coolness touched that burning hot skin.
A bolt of lightning ripped across the sky.
A fine, tingling sensation spread, and the warmth of the girl's lips and tongue glided over the small mole.
First, it licks slowly, then it sucks and nibbles gently.
After a long while, Ning Jiu released the skin that she had sucked until it was red, and her cherry-colored lips glistened with a beautiful sheen.
The instant their eyes met, Qiao Bolin's gaze darkened completely.
Her expression, however, became increasingly cheerful.
In the humid, restless air, the sound of thunder and rain permeated every corner of the room, making our rapid breathing feel suffocated, with no possibility of escape.
Ning Jiu leaned close to his ear and whispered her answer.
"Love is like a powerful typhoon passing through."
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Author's Note: Just like that, all fresh and delicate, I was pinned against the wall by sweet wine.
Do you really believe Joe Bolin if he says it wasn't intentional...?
-
Because I'm going to be on a ranking list tomorrow, the update time has been changed to 11:31 PM on August 6th. [heart emoji]
My dear babies, please add this to your favorites~ [kiss]
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