The chaos and noise in the corridor were quickly brought under control by the hotel security, and the man was dragged into the elevator.
The elevator doors opened and closed with a gentle, familiar chime, and the bright corridor returned to the tranquility of the night.
Lu Shizhen looked at the situation, which had now calmed down and even been cleaned up, and froze on the spot.
As if sensing that the commotion had passed, many students who had heard the noise pushed open the door and looked into the corridor, only to be called back by Teacher Chen: "It's all over now, go back to sleep. There's an opening ceremony tomorrow. Students from the provincial first-level school too, go to sleep."
The students whispered among themselves as they returned to their rooms, making the corridor anything but quiet.
Amidst the hustle and bustle of the corridor, Lu Shizhen saw Shen Yanxing nod at her in what seemed like a polite or approving gesture, before opening the door and returning to his room without saying a word.
Aren't you going to say something?
Your future girlfriend just got a fright...
Lu Shizhen suddenly became a little dramatic, and Qiuqiu whispered in her ear: "Host, at the same time you rushed out, Shen Yanxing also pushed open the door."
"Then why did you remind me?" Lu Shizhen questioned.
"I called you, but I'm just a virtual avatar, I couldn't stop you at all..." Qiuqiu said, sounding a little aggrieved. "Besides, you had already lost your mind at that time, host."
Lu Shizhen thought back for a moment and realized that she did hear Qiuqiu calling when she rushed out, and she was indeed in the wrong: "I was just afraid that Xu Shiyue might be in danger..."
Qiuqiu sighed and reminded her, "Host, with Shen Yanxing here, Xu Shiyue will be fine. You don't need to be so anxious."
Qiuqiu's words of advice and admonition echoed in Lu Shizhen's mind, drifting as if they had touched something.
She looked at Xu Shiyue sitting in the living room, with Teacher Chen squatting beside her, comforting her.
The autumn air was slightly cool, and the girl was wearing only a milky white cotton nightgown, revealing a bit of her calves.
Her slender arms couldn't support the empty sleeves, and her thin figure appeared even more frail in comparison to those around her.
The man's unreasonable and loud threats lingered in Lu Shizhen's mind. She bit her lip and asked herself, "Does that mean we'll do nothing whenever Shen Yanxing appears? Even if it's just watching Xu Shiyue get injured and Shen Yanxing arrives late?"
Qiuqiu was stumped by the question, paused for a moment, and then managed to explain, "After all, they've only just met, and the system needs to schedule these kinds of events to quickly cultivate their relationship."
It was this sentence that reminded Lu Shizhen of something that had happened not long ago.
She was only drunk and said some nonsense, but she was warned and punished by the main system, and Xu Shiyue was also injured as a result.
The contrast between the two caused a strange feeling to well up in her heart.
"Shiyue, are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Teacher Chen."
"Good child, I'm sorry to have frightened you. It was the teacher's oversight; I should have been more vigilant when this happened this afternoon."
"This is something we couldn't have predicted."
The quiet corridor echoed with the voices of Xu Shiyue and Teacher Chen. Compared to Teacher Chen's distress and anxiety, Xu Shiyue's response was calmer than anyone else's in the room.
Come to think of it, everything Xu Shiyue experienced in the past six months was far more dangerous than what happened today.
Her composure and calmness seemed to come from within, honed through trials and tribulations. If the person in front of her at this moment were her mother, Lu Shizhen thought that even though Xu Shiyue was calm and composed, she would still be like a little girl her age, leaning against her mother's arms and being gently comforted by her mother's hand.
Lu Shizhen looked at Xu Shiyue in the room and suddenly felt a feeling she couldn't describe.
The oppressive atmosphere weighed on her, making her unwilling to think about the name "Shen Yanxing".
Lu Shizhen knew, of course, that feelings develop gradually, but if it was too deliberate, it would seem fake.
Even though Xu Shiyue's fate was full of hardships, it shouldn't be necessary to force her to fall in love with someone else and prepare even more suffering and setbacks for her.
A true god wouldn't act like that.
“Host, why don’t you try to salvage the situation later?” Qiuqiu suggested, her voice tinged with worry. “I’m afraid the system will detect this and punish you for it.”
"How can I win her back?" Lu Shizhen retorted. "We're not even in the same school. I can't exactly drag Shen Yanxing out of her room and force her to comfort Xu Shiyue, can I?"
Lu Shizhen didn't know where her rebelliousness came from. It felt like something was stuck in her heart with nowhere to go, and her words were filled with fire.
Sometimes she really felt like a twisted branch on a broken old tree; she just didn't want to do it, and no one could force her.
"I'll accept any punishment the system imposes."
This was the first time Lu Shizhen had rejected Qiuqiu's suggestion and disregarded the system's rules.
After saying that, he stepped into Xu Shiyue's room.
"Who are these people? How can they disregard the law like this? We really can't let this person get away with it."
As soon as Lu Shizhen entered, she heard Teacher Chen speaking with righteous indignation.
She took out her phone and said, "I'll contact my brother later to handle this. He won't let this person off easily."
Teacher Chen knew what kind of person Lu Shizhen's brother was, so she nodded and said, "Then I'm relieved."
Then she turned to Xu Shiyue and said, "Shiyue, you don't need to go to the opening ceremony tomorrow. You can come over when we have our competition in the afternoon. Get some rest tonight."
"Thank you, teacher," Xu Shiyue said calmly.
"If there's nothing else, I'll be going now." Teacher Chen had to go to the venue early the next morning to prepare. Seeing that Xu Shiyue didn't seem to be acting strangely, she got up to leave.
But as she reached the door, she grasped Lu Shizhen's arm and instructed her, "I'll have to trouble you to keep an eye on things tonight. If Shiyue needs anything, call me."
"Okay." Lu Shizhen nodded. "Don't worry, teacher."
After giving these instructions, Teacher Chen did not leave.
She glanced down at Lu Shizhen's clothes, reached out and pulled her open shirt closer together, whispering, "Also, button up your shirt."
Upon hearing this, Lu Shizhen felt immediately embarrassed.
She then realized that the white camisole nightgown that Aunt Sun had packed for her was a bit see-through and too revealing; looking down, she could even see her rather thin frame.
In a fluster, Lu Shizhen buttoned her clothes while pretending to be nonchalant and asked Xu Shiyue, "Are you really alright?"
"It's nothing." Xu Shiyue shook her head, watching the girl walking towards her.
Simple blocks of color formed the blurry figure of a girl, her fair shoulders adorned with a pair of extremely thin bra straps.
Her fingers fiddled with the buttons, gradually gathering her translucent skin from bottom to top, the white shirt barely concealing her.
The late autumn night was already a bit chilly, and the wind rushed into the room through the corridor before the door was closed.
Xu Shiyue felt her cheeks getting slightly hot, perhaps because the room's temperature control system sensed the coolness.
She lowered her eyelashes slightly and continued, "His inability to break in was nothing more than impotent rage."
"That's good, let's go to sleep." Lu Shizhen didn't know anything about Xu Shiyue's eye condition, and finished buttoning her clothes as she spoke.
The soft light illuminated the room, and the shadows on the wall slowly aligned side by side.
Before Lu Shizhen was prepared, Xu Shiyue placed her hand on her arm.
The action was natural, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and it was something that the two of them had agreed upon beforehand.
But when the girl's cool fingers rested familiarly on her arm, Lu Shizhen paused for a moment.
I can't quite describe the feeling.
It wasn't an accident, nor was she frightened. It was as if some flower buds were slowly blooming from the overgrown weeds, and with a bang, the frustration that had been weighing on her heart was suddenly dispelled, and she felt a sudden surge of joy.
Lu Shizhen noticed the tacit understanding between her and Xu Shiyue.
With Shen Yanxing already on the field.
The world fell silent at midnight, and half of the yellow lights floating in the air vanished in the blink of an eye.
The dim yellow nightlight cast a gentle glow around the headboard, illuminating the girl's face on the pillow with a sense of tranquility.
Xu Shiyue seems to be asleep.
Lu Shizhen stood outside the bedroom, judging from a distance.
She thought that since they had been up so long tonight, she might as well let Xu Shiyue sleep as long as she wanted tomorrow. She would take advantage of the fact that she was still in the room now to help Xu Shiyue prepare the dress, shoes, and jewelry that she would wear for the competition tomorrow afternoon, so that no one would disturb her tomorrow morning.
Without hesitation, Lu Shizhen quietly took out the dress that had been neatly folded and filled an entire suitcase, stood on a stool, and hung it on the iron frame above the glass door of the balcony, carefully straightening the creases in the hem.
The damp tissue brushed against her skirt, making a rustling sound, but no one noticed the soft sighs of the sleeping girl in the bedroom.
Xu Shiyue was not asleep, but not because Lu Shizhen was in the living room preparing the dress she would wear tomorrow.
That man from before was indeed vicious and ruthless.
But Xu Shiyue wasn't scared at all. The moment she heard the knocking, she picked up her phone, calmly recorded an audio message, and notified Teacher Chen.
This series of events did not consume too much of her energy, and there was no place for fear to arise.
Until Lu Shizhen kicked the man from outside the door.
The fear and dread that had been suppressed deep within the owner surged forth without restraint now that the owner knew it was safe.
Xu Shiyue had forgotten how long it had been since she had felt this way, yet it also seemed like she had felt this way not long ago.
The flames crackled as they spun across the wood, and the continuous red light flashed before Xu Shiyue's eyes, slowly transforming into the headlights of cars stuck in traffic on an autumn evening.
The chair was moved gently, making two soft tapping sounds with short intervals between them.
This should have been annoying noise, but Xu Shiyue found it very comforting.
The night seemed to have faded a bit, yet it also seemed to still be shrouded in a thick blackness. Lu Shizhen finished straightening the wrinkles on her skirt, too sleepy to keep her eyes open. When she looked up, it was already two in the morning.
"Host, I'm so sleepy." Qiuqiu lay on Lu Shizhen's head and let out a long yawn.
"Me too." Lu Shizhen felt a sudden stinging in her eyes and yawned as she felt sleepy.
Just as Qiuqiu thought she could go to sleep with Lu Shizhen, she saw a pop-up notification: "Host, the system reminds you that Xu Shiyue is showing signs of a cold."
"Cold? Did she kick off the covers?" Lu Shizhen's mind went blank for a moment. Thinking this, she walked towards Xu Shiyue's room.
The night was still, and the bright moonlight and the light from the night lamp intertwined, illuminating Xu Shiyue's sleeping face.
Her long, black hair fell casually but neatly beside her face, and her thick eyelashes shimmered with light, making half of her small face look adorable.
Lu Shizhen couldn't help but take a second look, and then she discovered that Xu Shiyue was indeed not properly covered with the blanket, just as she had expected.
The thin blanket was open at her back, exposing her slender back to the air, making her look like she was very susceptible to catching a cold.
"Was this a nightmare?" Lu Shizhen sighed, her eyelashes drooping as she recalled the harassment from earlier.
She murmured to herself, then carefully placed one hand on Xu Shiyue's side, while reaching out with the other to tuck the blanket around Xu Shiyue.
The girl's back had been exposed to the air for who knows how long, and Lu Shizhen's hand, which she touched unintentionally, felt slightly cool.
She carefully covered Xu Shiyue with the blanket again, and as she was about to get up, she suddenly felt something lean against her hand.
It felt cool yet familiar; the distinct bones pressed against her tiger's mouth, and then...
He shook hands with her.
—In her sleep, Xu Shiyue unconsciously grasped the hand placed beside her!
Lu Shizhen's pupils trembled instantly, and she snapped back to reality.
She also realized with some despair that she simply couldn't pull her hand away without alerting Xu Shiyue.
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