Chapter 28: Yours is Mine

Li Mu took the kettle and shook it in his hand; the weight of the milk tea inside was reassuring.

“Are you not drinking?”

“I already drank; I poured both cups in.”

“Then I finished it.”

“Suit yourself; you definitely won’t be able to eat later.”

Li Mu twisted open the kettle and gulped it down.

Actually, he wanted to drink it with a straw; drinking milk tea in big gulps would make it hard to taste the flavor.

But if he really did that, Lu Xiaoxi would definitely explode, not only pinching his soft flesh but also telling his mom, “Li Mu drank my saliva!” “Look at the big son you raised!” By then, he would jump into the Yellow River and still wouldn’t be able to clear his name.

Given his mom’s affection for Lu Xiaoxi, he would most likely be subjected to a mixed-gender double attack.

After dinner,

Lu Xiaoxi went to the supermarket to buy a bottle of floral water.

Even if they didn’t go to the nap sanctuary, there would still be mosquitoes on the playground at night. Even if he sat quietly in long pants and long sleeves, the mosquitoes could still find gaps to give him a couple of big bites.

This pig-headed Li Mu would definitely not notice these little details; he must not let Li Mu spray floral water later, letting him feed the mosquitoes. The girl thought fiercely.

“What drink did you buy?”

“Do you want to drink?”

“I’ll take a look.”

“Idiot, are you going to drink floral water too?”

“Uh, then forget it; just put some on me.”

“The supermarket is so close; can’t you buy a bottle yourself?” Lu Xiaoxi crossed her arms and glanced elsewhere.

Li Mu’s way of asking her for help was quite amusing.

“Floral water is something you won’t need later; you definitely won’t finish such a big bottle, so it’s better to let me use it.” Li Mu said with a smile, easily pinching the floral water from Lu Xiaoxi’s hand.

It was the first time he had seen someone say “let me use it” so grandly.

Li Mu applied the floral water all over his face, neck, arms, and ankles.

“If this can still be bitten, the mosquitoes must have mutated.”

“You smell so bad; the mosquitoes will definitely bite you.”

“Smelly? I can’t smell it; you smell it.” Li Mu raised his hand to sniff his armpit; he had sweated today, and having a smell was unavoidable, but he couldn’t be the only one to smell this odor.

“With all this stinky sweat, I feel like throwing up just from smelling it.” Lu Xiaoxi dry heaved…

The military training at night basically had no content; it was just symbolic training for half an hour, followed by talent shows or chatting.

Some talkative instructors would chat with the students about things in the army, and students with talents would go up to perform, vying for priority in mate selection.

At night, there was no need to split into teams, so Li Mu returned to his class’s group, except for the sickly ones.

He was not interested in such performance-based activities, and since he couldn’t play on his phone, he just sat there in a daze, sometimes clapping along or casually shouting a few words when others screamed.

With a light sigh, he couldn’t blend into the cheerful atmosphere, his expression was blank, and in stark contrast, he seemed to have an air of melancholy and aloofness.

Many female classmates cast ambiguous glances at him.

To be fair,

Li Mu’s appearance was already super top-notch.

Some girls in the class even took the initiative to add Li Mu on WeChat, and he agreed, but it was merely an agreement out of hunger.

He didn’t reply when they greeted him, not even seeing the “the other party is typing…” message.

In reality, Li Mu was not really ignoring them; he just didn’t want to spend too much time on WeChat.

He actually didn’t reject offline communication; even if girls chatted with him, he could manage a few words with his talkative nature.

But all these girls ran off to add him on WeChat, and in reality, none of them paid him any attention.

In contrast to the boys, who could easily chat through games, he got along well with many boys except for Lin Sheng. During class, while Lu Xiaoxi sat with other girls, he sat in the back with other boys playing.

“Brother Mu, have you been wearing that bracelet since you were little? How much is it? It’s pretty nice.” Lin Sheng was about the same height as Li Mu, sitting next to each other in both the flag-guarding team and the class team.

“You mean this? A friend gave it to me.” Li Mu pulled up his sleeve, revealing a dog-tooth bracelet made of intertwined black and red threads on his left hand.

“Is it from a girlfriend?”

“I already said I don’t have a girlfriend.”

“Then it’s a female friend.”

“Have you learned fortune-telling?” Li Mu’s eyes widened; how did he guess this? He had never told anyone.

Lin Sheng was surprised, “No, don’t you know what it means when a girl gives a boy a hand accessory?”

“Can giving a bracelet have so many implications?”

Lin Sheng: “Old Yang, give me your hand.”

The boy called Old Yang moved a bit away.

“Tsk, I’m not that; I have something to do.”

Only then did Old Yang extend his hand.

Old Yang was also a gaming enthusiast like Lin Sheng, and he was one of the earliest people Li Mu got to know in this class.

“Look, Old Yang has a hair tie; it was given to him by his girlfriend. Look at the other boys; don’t many of them have hair ties on their wrists?”

Li Mu looked at the other boys, and indeed, a few of them had hair ties.

“Got it? Generally, when boys wear hair ties, it means they are taken.”

“Is there such a meaning?” Li Mu looked at the dog-tooth bracelet on his left wrist, feeling inexplicably.

“But this was given to me by a friend I have a casual relationship with.”

“How could a girl with a casual relationship give you something?”

“Why not?” Li Mu felt he had the right to speak.

Although his relationship with Lu Xiaoxi was not great, they had exchanged greeting cards and gifts on each other’s birthdays.

It was like a pre-set program; even if the two didn’t say a word to each other in a day or didn’t meet once, they would still go to each other’s homes to eat cake on their birthdays, say “Happy Birthday,” and give birthday gifts…

“Come on, I still don’t understand? Anyway, I think that girl must have some feelings for you.”

Li Mu was not too inclined to agree with Lin Sheng’s words.

His relationship with Lu Xiaoxi was somewhat special.

Neighbors across the street, parents knew each other, both families had good relationships, childhood sweethearts, friends as they grew up, cohabiting, and nineteen years of classmates… The accumulation of various relationships made it impossible to conclude their relationship with ordinary standards.

The conclusion that “giving you a hair tie means she has feelings for you” might apply to ordinary boys and girls, but it was unlikely to apply to him and her.

Clearly, this bracelet was just a simple gift.

If one had to say there was another meaning, it could only be that Lu Xiaoxi hoped he would turn misfortune into fortune…

And did he really like Lu Xiaoxi?

Perhaps he did a little, but not much, and it leaned more towards friendship.

It was still too early to talk about love between the two of them.

If either side developed the illusion that the other liked them and acted on it, then the remaining relationship would vanish. The worst outcome would be that they couldn’t even be friends, and meetings would only be filled with awkwardness and silence; this sense of distance could even affect the relationship between their families, leaving both families unsure how to meet and talk, and during birthday celebrations, there would only be three chairs.

This was something Li Mu absolutely did not want to happen.

……

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