Chapter 5 Part 1

Chapter 005: No Escape

Amidst her chaotic thoughts, Xu Yinian had only one firm resolution: before she successfully switched dorm rooms, she absolutely could not let Shen Ruoshuang know her intentions.

Thinking of this, she did her best to suppress the panic in her heart. Only then did she finally brace herself and stiffly reach out to take the chopsticks. The slight residual warmth lingering on them felt almost scalding.

“This is… is my… Senior Sister guide. She has… something to talk to me about.”

“She’s my roommate, Shen Ruoshuang.”

Like Pinocchio, whose nose grows the moment he tells a lie.

Xu Yinian had no talent for lying; when she got flustered, her stuttering would reveal her true colors.

She spent ages stuttering through a single, simple sentence. Although Senior Sister’s eyes were full of worry, she understood Xu Yinian’s intent from her fabricated nonsense. It seemed she didn’t want her roommate to know about this.

“Yes, I was a bit careless when I gave her the file folder earlier; I forgot a few things.”

Xu Yinian had lucked out—the Senior Sister really had served as a freshman guide before, so her reactions and responses were perfectly smooth. Her cheeks, which had turned pale from the scare, finally regained some color, and only then did she dare to steal a glance at Shen Ruoshuang.

Unexpectedly, she met the other woman’s ice-cold gaze head-on. Startled to the point of nearly bristling, she immediately pulled back, pretending nothing had happened.

Xu Yinian always felt that ever since they met, Shen Ruoshuang’s gaze had been glued to her.

“Senior Sister, you don’t know, but Xu Yinian has never been good at lying. Every time she lies, she ends up like she did just now—unable to even speak properly.”

The gentle flow of words suddenly came to a halt.

In those few seconds, the three of them fell into a heavy silence, where even the sound of breathing seemed to tighten until it was barely audible.

The corners of Shen Ruoshuang’s lips curled up slightly, but there wasn’t a hint of a smile in her eyes. She looked directly at the Senior Sister, as if she had long since seen through everything:

“Fortunately, Senior Sister is reliable.”

Senior Sister didn’t think for a moment that Shen Ruoshuang was praising her for delivering the items; rather, she felt the other was pointedly referring to her timely cover-up…

“Stutterer Xu” had been Xu Yinian’s nickname for a very long time.

Back when her grades clearly weren’t good enough, her mother—a math teacher at the school—had forced her into the competition class. In front of everyone, her nervous and comical self-introduction, where she stuttered to the point of incoherence, had drawn a wave of mockery.

Although Shen Ruoshuang had transferred in later and hadn’t witnessed that scene herself, it was only natural that she would have heard about Xu Yinian’s speech impediment from others.

Thus, the moment Shen Ruoshuang mentioned her way of speaking, Xu Yinian reflexively assumed she was referring to her stuttering.

Perhaps it was because this was the first time she had to confront her own flaw in a new environment and before her classmates.

Xu Yinian lowered her head, her mood visibly sinking. Even her signature soft, gentle voice sounded dejected, tinged with a slight nasal quality.

“I-I wasn’t lying… It’s because… I, I have a stutter. When I get anxious, I-I’m like this.”

Rather than letting Shen Ruoshuang be the one to say it, Xu Yinian felt that exposing it herself would at least allow her to maintain a facade of calm indifference.

Shen Ruoshuang sensed this sensitively. Her gaze froze for a moment, and in that instant, a hint of regret and bewilderment flashed through her eyes.

The stubborn, cold aura she had been projecting just a moment ago softened immediately.

No matter how obsessive she was, she couldn’t bear to see Xu Yinian sad.

“Huh? Did you two know each other before?”

The Senior Sister finally couldn’t help but ask.

Whether it was Shen Ruoshuang’s words or the strange atmosphere between the two, they didn’t seem like roommates who had just met for the first time today.

“We don’t know each other.”

“We do.”

Two voices spoke almost simultaneously.

One was soft, yet held a hint of petulant resolve; the other was cool and detached, yet carried an irrefutable certainty.

After realizing their answers were diametrically opposed, another long silence fell between them, neither side willing to yield.

The Senior Sister tactfully shut her mouth, playing the role of a silent spectator for the rest of the meal. Shen Ruoshuang had finished eating long ago, yet she showed no sign of getting up. It was obvious she intended to wait for Xu Yinian to finish so they could head back together.

Being stared at so blatantly by the other party, Xu Yinian felt utterly restless; no matter how delicious the food was, she had lost her appetite.

The silver lining was that Shen Ruoshuang hadn’t seen through her true intention of changing dorms; she just needed to contact the Senior Sister again later. After seeing off the Senior Sister, who was heading in a different direction, Xu Yinian had no choice but to walk back to the dormitory with Shen Ruoshuang.

She deliberately slowed her pace, walking as slowly as possible in a vain attempt to fall behind Shen Ruoshuang and pretend they weren’t together. Unexpectedly, Shen Ruoshuang came to a sudden halt without warning, causing Xu Yinian to crash headfirst into her back. Shen Ruoshuang was naturally tall and slender, her back particularly slight; in that moment of contact, Xu Yinian could almost feel the outline of her butterfly bones.

The sensation against her nose was even more intense.

A subtle scent of winter plum blossoms instantly wafted into her nose, reminiscent of an Ice Queen blooming alone amidst the bitter frost and snow.

Xu Yinian clutched her slightly aching nose and reflexively stepped back, yet she couldn’t help but savor the unique, lingering cold fragrance in the air.

How could someone smell like this?

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

Shen Ruoshuang, who hadn’t spoken until now, suddenly spoke up, startling Xu Yinian.

“…I was just acting out because you lied to me and then went to eat with someone else.”

Xu Yinian had never seen Shen Ruoshuang so humble and yielding; she stood there, completely stunned.

In her memory, Shen Ruoshuang was the most cold and indifferent person, always wearing a faint expression and a frigid aura that kept everyone a thousand miles away.

The strangeness that had lingered since they met finally reached its peak at this moment. She fell silent for a moment, then suddenly voiced her true thoughts:

“Why are you explaining all this to me? We aren’t anything to each other, and you clearly never care about people who don’t matter.”

Her voice was soft and gentle, yet the words she spoke were a blunt rejection. The sky had turned completely dark. The faint yellow glow of the streetlights fell upon Shen Ruoshuang, casting her expression into the shadows. With a soft, self-deprecating chuckle, she said each word deliberately:

“That’s right. Why should I care about someone so insignificant?”