Chapter 16: What’s That Stabbing You in the Back?

Bang—

A basketball came flying at Zhuang Heyang and he caught it.

Guan Jingxu frowned. “Zhuang Heyang, are you… this?”
He curled a finger suggestively.

Zhuang Heyang reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on and shouted, “What the hell! I only called you by your nickname once and now you’re questioning my sexuality?!”

Damn it, he needed to get a girlfriend soon and prove himself.

Guan Jingxu said coldly, “Call me Guan Sweetie again, and I’ll post your number on a gay dating site.”

Zhuang Heyang immediately caved, hands up in surrender. “My bad, bro, totally my bad. I’d rather be stabbed in the back by a knife than by that.”

“Guan Sweetie” was a childhood nickname Guan Jingxu’s family had given him.

He was born into the fourth generation of the Guan family, all boys. Everyone had hoped for a girl, and Guan Jingxu just happened to be the cutest of them all—rosy cheeks, soft skin, and sweet as sugar.

He used to babble and giggle toothlessly, melting the hearts of everyone around him.

Back then, he was too young to care about gender norms. But after two years of kindergarten, a curious boy once asked him why he had a girl’s nickname.

That evening, he threw a huge tantrum at home and finally got rid of the name.

Lin Wan, peering over the crowd, excitedly pointed someone out to Jiang Mingzhi. “Zhi Zhi, look—that’s my cousin!”

But when she turned to check, Jiang Mingzhi was calmly reading exam prep questions on her phone.

Lin Wan: “…”

She slapped her hand over Jiang Mingzhi’s screen. “What, are the handsome guys on the court not worth looking at?”

Jiang Mingzhi looked up. “Mm.”

She hadn’t come here to watch boys play basketball, but still politely followed Lin Wan’s finger to glance at the guy in question.

It was halftime, and Lin Wan waved enthusiastically at Lin Yifan.

Lin Yifan smiled, but his eyes fell on the girl standing next to his cousin. He lifted his foot and started walking toward them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the court, Sun Shiyao nudged Pei Jinyang’s arm. “Hey, isn’t that Jiang Mingzhi? What’s she doing sitting over with the No. 4 High crowd?”

“She knows Lin Yifan. Are you sure she just moved to the capital? Because her connections seem pretty solid.”

Pei Jinyang’s gaze drifted toward the figure in pale yellow.

She looked like a chrysanthemum—bright and in-your-face. And surrounded by bees buzzing around trying to get a taste—just as annoying as flies.

He looked away and gave Sun Shiyao a side glance. “They’re not your opponents. Why do you care so much?”

Sun Shiyao wasn’t sure if “they” referred to the team from No. 4 High—or Jiang Mingzhi and her group.

Chen Zhanbei joined in. “Didn’t you say you don’t get along with Jiang Mingzhi? So why’d she come to watch you play?”

From the side, their logistics guy Sheng Qiaoxi leaned in and joked, “She’s living in Jinyang’s house, of course she’s gotta act sweet.”

Chen Zhanbei smiled faintly but didn’t say anything.
Not necessarily.

He’d heard Jiang Mingzhi had stepped on a girl’s foot the same day she fell—clearly a grudge-holding type. Didn’t seem like the kind who’d flatter someone cold to her.

Now it was Pei Jinyang’s team’s turn to play, and their opponent was Experimental High.

A high-stakes knockout match.

Right from the start, the Experimental team could feel Yizhong’s aggressive offense.

By halftime, the boys on the court were dripping with sweat. One of them wiped his forehead with his wristband, glanced at Pei Jinyang, and muttered to a teammate, “Why does he seem especially intense today?”

Pei Jinyang’s eyes flicked up to the stands—and to the most striking girl there.

Only to find that she wasn’t even watching. Her head was down, focused on a book in her hands. The cheers and shouts from the crowd seemed to have nothing to do with her.

Jiang Mingzhi tucked away her phone. The chatter and laughter of the crowd, along with bursts of cheering, made it impossible to study properly.

What she’d been reading was an English exam prep booklet, though truthfully, English was pretty easy for her. Especially spoken English—after she and Pei Jinyang went public with their relationship in her previous life, they’d spent two years in London together.

Of course, exams and day-to-day conversation weren’t quite the same.

Sheng Qiaoxi followed Pei Jinyang’s gaze and spotted Jiang Mingzhi chatting and laughing with her friend.

She was all smiles, her eyes curved in delight—breathtakingly beautiful.
And just as breathtakingly irritating.

Now it was Guan Jingxu’s and Lin Yifan’s team’s turn to play.

This wasn’t Jiang Mingzhi’s first time seeing Guan Jingxu play basketball—she’d occasionally catch glimpses of him at the basketball court during free activity time in gym class.

But it was her first time seeing Guan Jingxu in a basketball uniform.

He looked even more energetic, and running around the court made him stand out even more.

A reverse slam dunk from Guan Jingxu brought the crowd to a frenzy, the air filled with excited screams.

Even Jiang Mingzhi couldn’t help but cheer. But when she finished clapping and looked around, several classmates beside her were giving her resentful looks.

She’d forgotten she was sitting with the opposing team.

Lin Wan whispered, “Does Guan Jingxu have springs in his shoes?”

“Oh my god, he’s even hotter in action. I thought he was the type who wouldn’t say more than three sentences a day—each sentence under three words. But look at him now, he’s so sunny and full of life!”

Jiang Mingzhi: “……”

Clearly, you’ve never heard him explain a math problem.

Lin Wan had originally come to cheer on her cousin, but now her eyes were completely glued to Guan Jingxu.

As for Lin Yifan? Sorry, who?

Even though all the boys were in similar basketball uniforms, Guan Jingxu stood out. His chest rose and fell with his breathing, and even the way he shook his head to fling off sweat made the girls swoon.

Lin Wan held up her phone, snapping photos as she sighed, “Pei Jinyang’s good-looking too, but why doesn’t he have the same impact as Guan Jingxu?”

“Maybe it’s the contrast,” someone replied.

A cold-faced ice prince suddenly turning into a sunny boy—who could resist?

Lin Wan added, “But Pei Jinyang is more photogenic. I was scrolling through some schoolmate’s TikTok the other day—he accidentally walked past in the background for three seconds, and the comments were flooded with people swooning.”

Pei Jinyang gave off this rebellious vibe, and with that heartbreaker face of his, you could imagine handing him a love letter and getting it accepted—only for him to tease you afterward.

Guan Jingxu, on the other hand, was handsome but looked so proper that if you gave him a love letter, you’d feel like you had to stand at attention while handing it over.

Lin Wan summed it up perfectly: “Pei Jinyang feels like the type to date eight people a year and not be serious about any of them. Guan Jingxu probably has standards so high he won’t date anyone for eight years—but if he does, he’ll love that one person forever.”

Jiang Mingzhi asked, “You don’t have a crush on Pei Jinyang, do you?”

If she did, Jiang Mingzhi would make sure she got over it immediately.

Lin Wan waved her hand. “Nah, I just admire his looks.”

Jiang Mingzhi glanced at her phone screen. “You like number 8?”

As if her secret had been exposed, Lin Wan’s face instantly turned red. She muttered, “Don’t go saying that…”

Jiang Mingzhi just smiled.

Although Lin Wan had been talking about Pei Jinyang and Guan Jingxu, all the photos she took were zoomed-in shots of player number 8.

Number 8 was the point guard on Lin Yifan’s team—a tall, lean, wheat-skinned boy with a buzz cut that couldn’t hide his handsomeness.

The girl’s got good taste.

When the game ended, Lin Wan dragged Jiang Mingzhi out of the stands.

“Let’s go see my cousin.”

Jiang Mingzhi doubted that—it was probably to see Number 8.

Still, she let herself be pulled along.

Behind the court were the rest areas and changing rooms. The sounds of cheering faded, replaced by the noise of teenage boys chatting.

In a long corridor, the two girls stopped near a window. Lin Wan pulled out her phone and texted Lin Yifan.

“Let’s just wait here.”

Inside were all boys—some maybe even shirtless—and the place was likely stuffy with sweat. Better to stay out.

While they waited, Jiang Mingzhi opened a set of exam practice questions on her phone.

Tap tap tap—

From the other end of the hallway came the crisp sound of leather shoes hitting tile. Just from the rhythm, one could tell it was a girl—light and full of energy.

The basketball game ended, and everyone went their separate ways. Jiang Mingzhi and Lin Wan went shopping and bought quite a bit of cute stationery.

Pei Jinyang’s group had planned to go karaoke together that evening, but after showering at home, Pei Jinyang said he wasn’t going anymore.

Sun Ziyao bombarded the group chat with messages.

“Why not, Yang-ge?”
“Why do you seem even more down after winning the game?”
“Did you get dumped or something?”
“That pretty girl who asked to take a photo with you is coming too, you know!”
“……”

Sun Ziyao went berserk when he saw he’d been kicked out of the group chat, and it confirmed his hunch that Pei Jinyang must’ve swallowed gunpowder today—his temper was off the charts.

So he went around messaging everyone privately, trying to find out what had gotten into Pei Jinyang these past couple of days.

Everything checked out normal.

After racking his brain for half an hour, Sun Ziyao finally had a faint idea. A figure in soft goose-yellow came to mind.

—

Under the warm light of a desk lamp, the boy carelessly towel-dried his short damp hair. His gaze casually swept across two books on the table, and a faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

The covers featured fighter jets—something he liked. But what really made him happy wasn’t just the jets.

It was the girl who had bought those two books for him.

He owned plenty of books on military subjects, but these two were the only ones he didn’t shelve. He left them out on his desk, and every time he saw them, he thought of that bright, sunny girl.

There was also a bottle of water on his desk now, half-empty. Guan Jingxu grabbed it, twisted it open, and tipped his head back to drink a few gulps.

The mineral water vanished quickly, and even the drops lingering at the corners of his lips didn’t go to waste—his tongue swept them up.

He suddenly realized—he still didn’t have her WeChat.

Guan Jingxu opened the app and started searching through the forty-something green avatars in the class group chat for Jiang Mingzhi.

Her avatar was a cluster of blooming white magnolias, with a blurry wall in the background. It looked like a photo she had taken herself—probably from her southern hometown.

Not long after he sent the friend request, the magnolias jumped into his contact list.

She sent over a cat sticker.

Guan Jingxu typed:
“Thanks for the water.”

A voice message soon popped up. He tapped play, and the girl’s sweet voice filled his room.

“No need to thank me, my friend brought too many bottles, I just helped lighten her load a bit.”

Guan Jingxu’s lips curled upward. He pressed the voice button.

“I heard from Mr. Yu you’re starting to review for the proficiency exam—need any help?”

Jiang Mingzhi listened to the voice message from Guan Jingxu. Glancing at the time in the corner of the screen, she noticed it was nearly late-night snack time. She slipped on her slippers and left her room.

As she passed by Pei Jinyang’s room, she happened to catch him coming out.

Jiang Mingzhi ignored him, pressing a slender finger to her phone’s voice button.

“Then let me borrow your textbooks with the notes, okay?”

After sending the message, she lifted the phone again and said in a deliberately cutesy tone:
“Thank you, Classmate Guan~”

Pei Jinyang stuffed one hand in his pocket and followed her downstairs, eyes fixed on the low bun tied neatly at the back of her head.

Eventually, he couldn’t resist and poked it with his finger.

It felt just as smooth as he imagined.

Jiang Mingzhi turned around and glared at him.
“What are you doing?”

Pei Jinyang rubbed his fingertip and looked down at her.
“Puppy love, huh? Careful I tell your mom.”

Jiang Mingzhi took a deep breath, holding back the urge to roll her eyes.
“Are you mentally ill?”

Under the overhead lights, the boy’s shadow fell across her.

Pei Jinyang was quite pleased with Jiang Mingzhi being covered in his shadow. He raised an eyebrow.
“Your taste in guys isn’t that great, y’know.”