Chapter 7

The first time Xue Ling met Wen Jiuze, she was frightened by him.

At that time, she was 20 years old and a sophomore at Yu City Normal University.

During her breaks, she occasionally helped out at her cousin’s bakery.

That night, around ten o’clock, her cousin left early for an errand, leaving Xue Ling alone to mind the bakery. She was bored, staring blankly at the cake models on the shelf.

The street outside the bakery wasn’t very busy, and at this hour, there were hardly any people. It had been a while since anyone had come into the shop.

Just as Xue Ling was lost in thought, the door suddenly chimed as someone entered. A man swiftly grabbed a loaf of bread from the shelf and walked toward the counter.

“Welcome…” Xue Ling stood up and said half a beat late, but after seeing who was there, her voice tightened and disappeared altogether.

The customer was tall, and his head was covered in blood.

Bright red streaks dripped down his face, even his neck was smeared with large patches of red, soaking into his black T-shirt and wetting his shoulders.

His muscular arms were also stained with dried blood.

At that hour, seeing a tall man covered in blood, Xue Ling’s first reaction was to call the police.

Or an ambulance, at least. Her hand instinctively reached for the phone on the counter.

As she reached for her phone, the man pressed a finger on her phone screen, stopping her action.

He casually wiped the blood dripping from his chin and smiled, saying, “Don’t be scared. Don’t call the police. This isn’t real blood. I was just doing some cosplay.”

Xue Ling, who could still smell the scent of blood: “…”

Do I look that gullible? Do I look like a fool?

“I’m just here to buy some bread. Could you check me out first?” He took out his phone from his pocket to pay.

Xue Ling saw that his phone was cracked and covered in blood and dirt. He tapped it twice, but the screen remained black, refusing to turn on.

The man fell silent for a moment, sighed softly, put his phone away, and didn’t take the bread from the counter. He apologized and started to leave.

“Hey! Take the bread. It’s on me.” Xue Ling called out to him.

The strange man with the bloody head took the bread, tore the packaging open as soon as he walked out, and took a huge bite.

One of his bites was probably equal to ten of hers. He could likely finish that bread in three bites.

Xue Ling watched as the blood from his chin dripped onto the bread, which he swallowed without hesitation. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in three days.

The man came and went like the wind, leaving only a faint scent of blood and a bloody fingerprint on her phone screen.

For a long time after that, Xue Ling thought he was some sort of street thug who had gotten injured in a fight.

Until the second time she met him.

Xue Ling had gone to Yu City University with her friends from the student council to look for someone. They stumbled upon a fight in a secluded corner.

Or rather, it was a one-sided beating.

The man who had bought bread with a bloodied head last time was the one being beaten.

He was tall, with smooth muscles, and looked like he could fight. But the other man, who was half a head shorter, kept hitting him with a stick while he didn’t fight back. He only raised his arm to block when the stick was about to hit his head.

He looked indifferent, one hand even casually tucked in his pocket, as if he wasn’t the one being hit. But the wounds on his arms and neck were gruesome.

Coincidentally, Xue Ling recognized the man holding the stick and swinging it furiously.

It was Wen Xuan, a member of Yu City University’s student council, and her senior by a year.

Xue Ling was part of the external relations department at Yu City Normal University. Her department head was dating the president of Yu City University’s student council, so the two student councils had held a joint gathering, and that’s how she got to know Wen Xuan.

At the time, Wen Xuan had tried to strike up conversations with her, and their department head had even jokingly tried to match them up.

But Xue Ling felt that they were not familiar with each other, so she did not talk to him and the matter was left unresolved.

She never expected to witness such a scene. Wen Xuan looked like he was trying to beat someone to death, his viciousness shocking to behold, a far cry from the refined and gentlemanly image he had shown before.

Xue Ling was stunned by the scene, hesitating on whether to intervene.

She watched as Wen Xuan swung the stick onto the other man’s shoulder, breaking the stick in half, but he still didn’t seem willing to stop.

Xue Ling’s eyelid twitched, and she couldn’t help but shout, “Wen Xuan, what are you doing?”

Seeing her and the other two girls by her side staring at him in shock, Wen Xuan froze. He forced a smile and awkwardly stammered a response.

The man being beaten glanced at them, rolled his injured shoulder, and left, his expression indifferent.

The next day, Wen Xuan came to Xue Ling’s school to find her and rambled about something incomprehensible.

“That guy from yesterday, Wen Jiuze, is my cousin. He’s an illegitimate child. His mom clung to my uncle because our family is wealthy…”

“I didn’t actually want to hit him. Usually, I couldn’t be bothered with him. But he was only recognized by my grandfather at twelve. He had been living outside and picked up a lot of bad habits. Since childhood, he liked to fight, steal, and bully others at school. As his cousin, I couldn’t just stand by and let it happen, so I stepped in to discipline him…”

Listening to him speak during the public class, Xue Ling wanted to escape but found it impossible.

Why was he telling me all this? We aren’t related, and we’re not familiar with each other at all!

Her smile must have been quite stiff at that moment, but Wen Xuan seemed oblivious. He first complained about his unruly cousin, asserting that he was justified in hitting him, and then began to subtly flaunt his family’s background.

“Our family is different from ordinary ones; we have deep roots, and our household is strict… My cousins and I have been learning various things since childhood. You know the six arts of ancient gentlemen, right?”

Xue Ling was forced to listen to this, feeling as if she might crack.

Are we living in the same world? What era is this? Still talking about aristocratic families and legitimate versus illegitimate children?

She had heard that Wen Xuan’s family was quite wealthy and that they were a well-known family in Anxi City.

It was said that their ancestors made their fortune from tomb raiding, and hundreds of years ago, they washed their hands of it to start dealing in cultural relics. Wen Xuan’s grandfather was a famous expert in this field.

During social gatherings, aside from showing off his expensive watch, Wen Xuan boasted about how respected his grandfather was and mentioned the famous people who visited them during the New Year.

At that time, Xue Ling thought he was just trying too hard to show off, and wanted to stay away from him. Now, she could see that he truly came from a prestigious family, giving off a vibe like freshly unearthed soil.

After Wen Xuan had explained the misunderstanding to her and cleared up the negative impression, he offered to treat her to lunch. Xue Ling refused with a dry laugh and quickly packed up her things and ran away the moment the get out of class was over.

Other students from different schools were disrupting the class, and no one was going to intervene?

Xue Ling had never liked Wen Xuan and avoided him even more after that. However, thanks to him, she learned that the tall cousin he had hit was named Wen Jiuze, and he was a student at Yu City University.

Wen Jiuze was a freshman majoring in Chinese Language and Literature, only 19 years old, a year younger than her.

Xue Ling: Why is he so full of surprises?

He was so tall, but he was still just a boy, not a man.

Due to her activities in the external relations department, Xue Ling often had to run over to Yu City University and had encountered Wen Jiuze a few times.

Unlike the unruly, aggressive image painted by his cousin Wen Xuan, every time Xue Ling saw him, he was off by himself in a corner, distancing himself from others.

He never bullied anyone. In fact, he didn’t interact with anyone at all. He always carried a sense of disinterest, as if he were bored by everything around him.

His demeanor was unique, and he was exceptionally handsome. Many people noticed him, and Xue Ling even saw a girl approach him with water to strike up a conversation.

She was quite a pretty girl, but when he stretched his long legs and sat there, it was as if he were deaf to her, ignoring her completely. The girl left, her face flushed with anger.

Xue Ling unconsciously stopped and watched for a while and felt that the way he sat there lazily was a bit like a cat lying on the wall to bask in the sun, ignoring people.

Cats have their own world, which is different from that of humans.

She believed she and Wen Jiuze were completely different people and assumed they wouldn’t have any more interactions.

Not long after, Xue Ling received a confession.

The boy’s last name was Wu, and he was also part of the student council, with whom she had worked a few times.

Xue Ling had no idea why he was confessing to her, especially in such a grand manner.

Student Wu set up hundreds of candles in the shape of a heart under her dormitory, surrounded by flowers. He stood in the middle with a guitar, singing love songs at her dormitary while shouting her name.

Xue Ling had just finished drying her hair when she was notified about this. Seeing the crowd gathering below, she felt a wave of darkness wash over her.

Her roommates joked, “Ling Ling, you have so many admirers!”

“Ling Ling is so lovable! Go down and see, don’t keep him waiting too long!”

“Hurry, hurry, change clothes and go! We’ll go with you!”

Listening to the loud shouts from downstairs, Xue Ling painfully changed out of her pajamas, pushed by her roommates and curious onlookers to stand in front of that boy.

The boy she barely remembered acted with deep emotion, performing a fairly smooth love song.

“Xue Ling! I’ve thought about this for a long time and believe you are the person I want to marry. So today, I want to ask you to be my girlfriend and take the first step in our lives together!”

“Your gentleness, patience, and understanding make me feel you are truly wonderful. Remember when I first joined the student council and made a mistake? You helped me. I believe you have special feelings for me; otherwise, you wouldn’t always look out for me…”

The boy rambled on, his face flushed with excitement as the crowd egged him on.

Xue Ling felt like she was being placed on a pyre, listening to the unfamiliar boy speak with such confidence, fearing that her slippers might be pushed off by her toes.

She had come to reject him, yet she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt his self-indulgent speech. The crowd, led by Student Wu’s friends, continued to shout for her to accept, making Xue Ling feel even more embarrassed and headache-prone.

In the midst of this chaotic scene, Xue Ling suddenly spotted Wen Jiuze.

He stood in the crowd watching the fun with his hands in his pockets, as if he was watching a good show. Xue Ling felt that his smiling expression seemed a bit gloating.

Wen Jiuze also noticed her gaze. They locked eyes across the crowd.

Xue Ling wondered if he saw some sort of plea for help in her look.

He seemed to raise an eyebrow, then took two steps back, distancing himself from the crowd. He executed a swift spinning kick, knocking over a half cup of milk tea that was sitting on a nearby trash can.

The half cup of milk tea sailed over the heads of the spectators, perfectly hitting Student Wu in the back of the head with a loud splat.

Suddenly, the area fell silent. The boy, soaked in milk tea, scrambled to his feet, covering his messy head as he angrily turned around and shouted, “Who! Who hit me!”

Wen Jiuze still stood in the crowd with his hands in his pockets, wearing that same smile, showing no sign of guilt.

Xue Ling couldn’t help but chuckle.

The boy, feeling embarrassed, quickly left with his friends, ignoring the pile of candles and flowers on the ground.

With no other choice, Xue Ling borrowed a broom and a dustpan to clean up the mess, shoving everything into the trash bin.

Unlike the others who had dispersed, Wen Jiuze remained, sitting on the railing across the road and watching her.

**

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