Xu Lingjing also followed behind Xingyu and walked out.
Seeing them both leave, Ruan Qianqian planned to support the dejected class monitor and depart as well. She wanted to find a deserted place to have a good cry.
She was too devastated.
Even if Xu Lingjing wanted to pretend he didn't care about her, couldn't he at least look back at her once?
Didn't he know she was the person in the entire world who cared about him the most?
Just as she managed to lift the trembling class monitor, she was stopped by the counselor: "Wait, Ruan Qianqian and Li Shuwen, stay behind."
He intended to give them a stern lecture about not falsely accusing fellow classmates at will. Even if someone didn't have the best reputation, that was no reason to point fingers at them arbitrarily.
Because class was in session, the long corridor was exceptionally quiet. Only the lush, towering green shadows behind the academic building swayed, with dappled light and shadow scattered across the hallway. It was a bustling yet gentle autumn.
The footsteps of the two people echoed in a scattered, rhythmic manner.
Xingyu wore an impatient expression. She rolled her dark, glossy eyes—which looked like fresh purple grapes just plucked from the vine—and turned her head to glare at Xu Lingjing: "Don't follow me."
System: [But this is the way to the classroom, Lord God isn't following you.]
[I know, but so what? Being with him puts me in a bad mood. Can't he walk down the stairs from this corridor first, and then go up to the classroom using the stairs on the other side of the first floor? He's doing this just to piss me off...]
[Lord Demon, you're being unreasonable.]
[Oh.]
Hearing this, Lingjing stopped in his tracks, lowered his gaze, and said calmly: "Okay."
System: [...]
He thought to himself: *No way, has Lord God been hit by a spell cast by the Demon? Why is he being so obedient?*
But clearly, the Demon was accustomed to Lord God's absolute obedience and didn't take it to heart at all.
She still looked impatient: "Get lost, I really hate you."
System: [...]
However, after throwing her spoiled tantrum, Xingyu didn't return to the classroom. Instead, she left the school entirely and drove home.
System: [Lord Demon, are you skipping school?]
Xingyu yawned, a tear of physiological fatigue welling up at the corner of her eye.
"School is so boring. I'm not ready to live such a boring life yet. I'll go tomorrow."
What kind of life wasn't boring, then? Was lying on the sofa eating ice cream while watching angsty, melodramatic Thai dramas the only thing that wasn't boring?
Watching the Demon forgo lunch and instead hug a tub of cream ice cream, the System let out a helpless sigh.
[Eat less, you'll get a stomachache.]
Xingyu wouldn't listen at all: [I am the mighty Demon, thick-skinned and immune to all poisons. How could I possibly be afraid of a little ice cream?]
She ate half of the large tub of ice cream right then and there, and finally fell asleep cradling the empty tub under the warm bath of sunlight.
When she woke up again, it was already evening. The sun was sinking in the west, and the entire living room was blanketed in a brilliant, bright twilight.
Xingyu struggled awake, blinked her slightly sore and sleepy eyes, and sleepily messed up her waterfall of black, curly hair.
The girl's hair cascaded down. Her eyelashes fluttered, and the corners of her eyes were tinged with an ethereal, flushed red from her stuffy nap. She looked pure yet spirited, very much like a white locust blossom blooming in late autumn, whose intoxicating, sweet floral fragrance could be smelled from far, far away.
Just as she was sitting there in a daze, spacing out at a single spot, footsteps sounded from the doorway.
Xingyu looked dazedly toward the entrance.
It was Xu Lingjing; he must have returned from school.
With his back to the light, Xu Lingjing stood tall and slender. The twilight cast upon his snow-like skin emitted a warm, translucent glow. Even though he was as white as mutton-fat jade, he didn't give a frail impression.
His brows resembled distant, dark-green mountains, and his slender eyes were like thick, unblending ink. He was so cold and unapproachable, just like clear, bubbling snowmelt flowing down from a snowy peak.
The more he was like this, the more Xingyu loathed him.
Why was it that he was high and mighty, unstained by dust, while she was wild, untamed, dirty, and depraved?
Xingyu quickly shed her sleepy, docile expression. Her bright, dark eyes leaked with overt malice.
It was as if her cute docility from a moment ago had been merely an illusion, and that her mischievous, demon-like nature was her true self.
She rolled her eyes, curved her lips into a smile, and beckoned to him as if teasing a puppy: "Come here."
Naturally, Xu Lingjing knew she was plotting to bully him again, and going over to her side would surely yield no good outcome.
Yet, after only a momentary pause in his stride, he walked over to her side.
Xingyu looked up at the tall teenager, huffing with haughty pride: "It's tiring to look up at you. Why don't you kneel on the carpet and I'll tell you something."
What a frivolous demand.
Xu Lingjing's pitch-black eyes fixed steadily on her without shifting, the depths of his gaze gradually filling with thick, dark shadows.
"What, you won't? If you won't, then get lost~" Xingyu's smile vanished abruptly. She picked up a nearby throw pillow and hurled it at him, then threw a second one right after.
"I will," came a cold voice, sounding like clear, splashing water droplets falling from a mountain stream.
Without even blinking, he let the pillows strike him, then bent down to pick them back up.
Xingyu forcefully snatched the pillow from his hands and threw it even further away. The pillow rolled a full circle and came to a stop just below the entrance of the stairs.
"Go pick it up."
Xu Lingjing didn't pick it up again. He took off his schoolbag, set it aside, and obediently knelt on the woolen carpet with a straight back.
Only then did Xingyu curve her eyes again, her slender fingers grabbing his tie and pulling him toward her.
Xu Lingjing leaned forward slightly in the direction of her pull.
She leaned down, closing the distance, and wrinkled her nose slightly, sniffing his scent as earnestly as a kitten.
Xingyu's light, shallow breath brushed against his cheek like a cloud of mist. The sudden flush spreading instantly across his cheeks was the only sign that what had just happened was no illusion.
Xu Lingjing paused slightly, biting his lip unconsciously as the tips of his ears grew hot.
Xingyu let out a huff of laughter, her fingertips practically wrinkling his tie. She raised her hand, resting the back of it against his cheek and rubbing gently, just like petting the fur of a puppy.
Didn't she hate him?
Why was she touching him?
A flush crept from the corners of Xu Lingjing's eyes all the way to his ears. The tips of his ears were burning hot, almost as if they were fully cooked. At this moment, the aloof teenager stood frozen in place like a dazed, foolish puppy, completely at a loss.
Yet he had forgotten that the girl who despised him to the core could never be approaching him out of good intentions.
A sudden sweetness could only be the disguise of a fatal arsenic.
Xingyu casually looked him up and down, pinching his cheek and chuckling: "How fun. Do you blush like this no matter who treats you this way?"
The shyness and bewilderment in the depths of Xu Lingjing's eyes instantly vanished, turning pitch-black and dead still once more.
He pressed his thin, pale lips together tightly, and the veins on the side of his neck bulged, as if he were suppressing something.
Just like the surface of the sea before a storm—calm on the surface, yet exceptionally dangerous.
Was it very dangerous?
Xingyu wasn't afraid of Xu Lingjing in the least.
She reached out a soft, slender hand to pinch Xu Lingjing's jaw, leaning in close—so close that their warm breaths intertwined and wrapped around each other once more.
Xu Lingjing's pupils constricted sharply, and his jagged Adam's apple rolled silently up and down.
Every breath she took and every shift of her eyes was like a sharp sword piercing his heart, bringing indescribable excitement and pain.
Xu Lingjing's throat felt dry, but he couldn't forget the humiliation he had just suffered, nor did he want to let her read his expression. Instinctively, he tried to dodge and shift his gaze away, but his chin was firmly gripped, forcing him to meet her eyes.
Their gazes locked, and she could clearly see the turbulent, churning, viscous darkness in the depths of his eyes.
Tch.
It was the first time Xingyu realized that even beneath the deep sea, there were hidden, turbulent undercurrents.
She curved her lips, finding it amusing.
Yet to Xu Lingjing, Xingyu was simply looking down on him with condescending mockery.