Chapter 56: Little Cutie Snuggles – 5

All the gazes around converged on Gu Xizhou. Face red, Gu Xizhou had no choice but to start explaining to Yan Qing. “Ah, here’s what happened. When I was coming out of the subway today, I happened to run into a girl…”

Yan Qing leaned in front of Gu Xizhou and, along with the classmates around them, whose little ears were equally perked up, asked in a gossipy tone, “Ran into her? And what happened?”

Feeling always like she wanted to shrink away under her gaze, Gu Xizhou took a deep breath and said, “She had just differentiated and fainted on the ground. I happened to be nearby, so I covered her with my coat.”

“And then I called the police and sent her to the hospital.”

Yan Qing had an epiphany. “Oh… so you played the hero saving the beauty again!”

She reached out and patted Gu Xizhou’s shoulder, encouraging her, “Not bad, Gu Xizhou. You’re a reliable alpha now.”

This comment felt somewhat off no matter how one heard it. Uncomfortable inside, Gu Xizhou put her hand to her lips and coughed lightly. “Anyway, that’s what happened. Don’t go making wild guesses about things.”

As Gu Xizhou said this, she also turned her head to glance behind her. Finding Su Zhiyi chatting with Zhang Chuchu, her heart felt relieved for some reason.

Well, you see, when Yan Qing had yelled out like that just now, she felt inexplicably guilty, as if terrified Su Zhiyi would overhear.

If possible, she truly didn’t want to get entangled with Xu Erya.

Didn’t want to let Su Zhiyi…

This little interlude was like a stone dropped onto a calm lake, only raising a small ripple before dissipating.

Today happened to be Gu Xizhou’s day for cleaning duty. After school in the early evening, she uncharacteristically didn’t go to the boxing gym with Yan Qing, but stayed behind in the classroom to clean.

By the time she left the classroom, most of the students had already gone home.

The setting sun cast slanting rays. In the empty school, only the various sports clubs and student-athletes, gathered by their coaches, were training on the sports field.

Carrying her backpack, Gu Xizhou glanced at the sports field from the third-floor corridor. Seeing that the sky had already darkened, she then headed towards the stairwell.

At the stairwell on each floor of the school’s teaching building, there was an empty classroom, typically used by students in rotation for class committee meetings.

Today, it happened to be Class 17’s turn to use the room. Passing by the small classroom, Gu Xizhou saw the open door and, by some strange impulse, looked inside.

She stood at the doorway. Amongst a jumble of filing cabinets, she spotted Su Zhiyi at a single glance, sprawled over the long table.

Today, Su Zhiyi was wearing a casual-style long coat that matched their autumn school blazer perfectly. Her long, jet-black hair spread loose as she lay over the table, holding a pencil, sketching lines onto a blank piece of cardstock.

Her expression was deeply focused. Her hand holding the pencil was very steady, just laying down a new line.

Gu Xizhou had initially wanted to call out to her, but seeing her like this, for some reason, she just couldn’t open her mouth. Instead, she held her breath and stood at the doorway, her gaze resting on Su Zhiyi with reverence.

The sunset glow blazed in the sky outside the window behind the girl. The refracted light of the setting sun shone on the girl’s glossy black hair, infinitely tender.

In the distance, the sports field echoed with the coach’s whistle, the thud-thud-thud of basketballs hitting the court, and the faint shouts of young boys and girls running and sweating.

Such a clearly bustling world, but Gu Xizhou felt the surroundings were extremely quiet. So quiet she could even hear the soft scratching sound of the girl’s pencil landing on the cardstock.

An overly silent environment easily allows one’s thoughts to drift far away.

Gu Xizhou looked at the girl’s fair face, her mind flying away.

Her eyelashes were so long, like little brushes. Even though she was focused on the line under her hand, they would unconsciously flutter.

Her nose was so straight, the tip pert and slightly upturned, a very beautiful shape.

Her lips were also lovely, moist and glossy, looking very healthy, not like in the dream—a bloodless, ghastly pallor…

Perhaps Gu Xizhou’s gaze was too ardent. Su Zhiyi, absorbed in her drawing, instinctively looked up and immediately spotted Gu Xizhou standing at the door.

Their eyes met. Su Zhiyi met a pair of gentle eyes and was momentarily stunned.

She blinked. “Gu Xizhou…”

Gu Xizhou snapped back to reality instantly, her body giving an involuntary little jolt. “Ah…”

Su Zhiyi smiled slightly and asked her softly, “School’s over. Why haven’t you gone home yet?”

Gu Xizhou thought of her behavior just now and felt her ears burning. She couldn’t help blushing. She gave a concealing cough and said in a small voice, “You haven’t gone home either.”

She took the initiative and walked into the meeting room, looking at the blank cardstock on the meeting table. “Are you drawing the poster for our Sports Festival?”

Su Zhiyi nodded, using her pencil to divide the zones on the cardstock. “Yes.”

Gu Xizhou looked at this large blank sheet and finally carefully let her gaze land on Su Zhiyi. “Are all these posters… really going to be drawn by you alone?”

Her tone was hesitant, from which one could detect some worry.

Su Zhiyi explained to her, “No, these are mainly Shiyun’s job. I’m just helping divide the sections right now.”

“Oh…” Gu Xizhou nodded, then asked, “Then where is she? Why are you the only one left here to draw?”

Su Zhiyi didn’t mind this much at all. “She has cram school today. I can handle the initial work myself.”

Ding Shiyun’s family was that standard “tiger-parent” family. Both her parents were 996 employees at major corporations and had been enrolling her in all kinds of extra classes since she was little.

Learning to draw, learning piano, learning to swim, and so on…

Once she reached middle school and high school, the parents felt academics were more important than hobbies and interests. So they deprived her of opportunities to draw and play the piano and began scheduling many academic tutoring classes for her.

But Ding Shiyun loved to draw. On the first day of school, during self-introductions, drawing was the only hobby and interest she mentioned.

It was also because of this that Su Zhiyi took note of her, became good friends with her during military training, and eventually encouraged her to become the class’s publicity committee member.

Gu Xizhou had always known Su Zhiyi, like Yan Qing, had many friends.

But seeing Su Zhiyi drawing posters now, and remembering how she had stood at the bus stop yesterday holding a pile of cardstock, only now did she understand that Su Zhiyi could also be that close with other people.

A discomfort settled in Gu Xizhou’s heart.

She pursed her lips and looked at Su Zhiyi. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

Su Zhiyi looked up at her, curious. “Don’t you need to go to boxing gym training today?”

Gu Xizhou lifted her wrist to check her watch, mentally tallying the latest time she could return home. “I can stay with you until seven. How about it? Want my help?”

Su Zhiyi looked at her in surprise. “It really won’t delay your training?”

Gu Xizhou nodded, her tone very firm. “No, it won’t.”

Su Zhiyi sighed and looked at Gu Xizhou, her tone tentative. “If it won’t hold you back, then please, do help me out.”

Gu Xizhou’s eyes lit up immediately. She walked over to Su Zhiyi’s side of her own accord, picked up the triangular ruler lying nearby, and asked, “What do you need me to do?”

Su Zhiyi promptly directed her. “Just follow the small diagram there. Draw lines within the sections I’ve marked off. Just draw straight lines.”

“Okay.”

The sky quickly darkened. Gu Xizhou turned on the lights in the small classroom and bustled about with Su Zhiyi in the meeting room, until a patrolling teacher came to shoo them away, and they hurriedly packed up and headed home.

By the time dusk was merging into night, the school’s street lamps had all lit up, dispersing the dusky gray night fog.

Carrying her backpack, Su Zhiyi walked to Gu Xizhou’s side, immensely grateful. “Thank you so much for today. If I were alone, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to finish this part of the work so quickly.”

Gu Xizhou smiled. “It’s only right. I’m also a member of the class.”

Su Zhiyi smiled until her eyes curved, her tone full of praise. “Not bad, Comrade Gu Xizhou. Very strong team spirit.”

The girl turned her head and glanced at Gu Xizhou, her tone sly. “So, can you tell me—you, with such strong team spirit—why were you late this morning, causing our Model Class evaluation to lose five points?”

Gu Xizhou froze. She hadn’t expected Su Zhiyi, who hadn’t asked earlier in the meeting room, to ask about it now.

She pursed her lips, thought for a moment, and answered Su Zhiyi. “This morning, I ran into an Omega who had just differentiated. I sent her to the hospital.”

“Hmm… Omega…” Su Zhiyi nodded thoughtfully. “From our school?”

From the No. 1 High School metro exit, theirs was the only high school nearby, right?

Gu Xizhou shook her head. “No.”

“No?” Su Zhiyi was a bit taken aback. “Then from another school?”

“Judging by the uniform, it was No. 2 High School.” Gu Xizhou thought it over and said to Su Zhiyi, “Probably. I got off at the wrong stop that time and ended up getting off with her.”

Su Zhiyi made an “Oh” sound and said offhandedly, “That girl, she was very pretty, right?”

Gu Xizhou intuitively felt this was a bad question to answer, but she couldn’t figure out why Su Zhiyi would ask it.

She deliberated for a moment before answering. “I don’t remember her face… I had a stomachache this morning, and I was groggy… so…”

Su Zhiyi’s footsteps halted. She turned to look at Gu Xizhou. In her tone, the earlier peculiarity was already gone. Under the gray, hazy streetlamp, the girl’s gaze was extremely gentle. “Stomachache? You got a stomachache again?”

“Gu Xizhou, have you gone to the hospital for a check-up?”

Gu Xizhou let out a sigh of relief and answered honestly, “I have. It’s superficial gastritis. So if I don’t eat properly, I’ll get a stomachache.”

Su Zhiyi had initially wanted to ask why someone so young would get gastritis, but she quickly realized it was the doing of that bastard sister of hers.

Guilt and an unnamable sadness welled up in her heart. Su Zhiyi’s mood suddenly plummeted. She sighed, somewhat apologetic. “I’m sorry…”

Gu Xizhou, I’m sorry.

In an instant, Gu Xizhou understood why Su Zhiyi was apologizing. She smiled, very relaxed and at ease. “You don’t need to apologize to me. The one who should apologize to me isn’t you.”

“Su Zhiyi, you are you, and she is she. I distinguish you very clearly. So the wrong things she did, you don’t need to take responsibility for them.”

“Each of us just needs to take care of ourselves.”

Just like those people who, unable to hold the right person accountable for the grievance, vent their anger on others instead—all of them are idiots.

Including that “future” version of herself.

Su Zhiyi smiled slightly and didn’t speak further.

The air between the two became silent, slightly awkward.

The two walked wordlessly to the school gate. Gu Xizhou changed the subject and asked a question she’d been wanting to ask all evening. “By the way, Su Zhiyi, are you and Ding Shiyun really close?”

“I saw you went shopping at the mall with her yesterday and stuff. Do you guys hang out on weekends too?”

Gu Xizhou had an impression of Ding Shiyun. She was a beta, somewhat tall, with a slender figure. She kept her hair in a shoulder-length bob, had fair skin, was soft and gentle—not the aggressive type.

Like a narcissus flower stuck in a vase. Pretty, but lacking vitality.

Su Zhiyi was a bit surprised and only answered after a moment. “I guess we’re good friends. We went sketching together last week. Why?”

“Oh.”

No reason.

As expected, Su Zhiyi just liked this kind of soft, gentle, non-gender-threatening type, right?!

Damn it, she was getting a little jealous!