The afternoon sun was mild and pleasant.
He Yi did not come in the afternoon, but Qin Jiujiu didn't mind. The conquest mission wasn't urgent; after all, puppy love was strictly forbidden, with a big red prohibition sign written right into the school rules and regulations.
Right now, there were things much more important than puppy love: the first mock exams in April, the second mock exams in May, and the college entrance examination in June.
For Qin Jiujiu, academic ability was the least noteworthy of her skills.
Without hesitation, she asked Teacher Huang for all the textbooks from the first and second years of high school, leisurely piecing the knowledge together bit by bit to build her own memory palace.
The next morning, when He Yi walked into the classroom, he saw his makeshift desk-mate's desk lined with a full row of books held up by pink bookends. Arranged just like everyone else's desks around her, she seemed to have finally integrated into this collective.
As for the girl herself, she was half-lying across her desk in utter boredom, lazily sipping from a carton of chocolate milk.
Only when she saw him arrive did she slowly stand up to let him through to his seat.
He Yi sat back down and noticed a bag of breakfast on the desk, with a pink heart-shaped note stuck to the outer packaging that read: "He Yi, I like you~"
With a deadpan expression, he picked it up and tossed it with a thud onto the desk of the boy sitting right next to the aisle.
The classroom had four rows of desks. Except for the window-side row, which ran all the way to the back wall, the other three rows were each one desk shorter than the fourth, creating a passageway at the back.
The boy who received the breakfast sat diagonally ahead and to the right of Qin Jiujiu, separated by the aisle. Qin Jiujiu recognized him immediately—he was Boy Number Three from the grove yesterday, whose name was Fu Yu.
The boy clicked his tongue twice, tore off the sticky note, and called out to share the breakfast among several classmates nearby.
During the long break, most of the students in the back rows went outside to stretch their legs, leaving a clear circle of empty space around Qin Jiujiu.
Someone crouched down, hurried over, and tried to tug at her sleeve, but she sidestepped out of reach. Qin Jiujiu raised her eyes to look at the unfamiliar girl standing before her.The girl looked a mix of excited and deliberately nonchalant. "Hello, classmate," she said. "Uh, someone is looking for you outside."
Qin Jiujiu stood up and followed her to the hallway entrance, where three unfamiliar girls were standing at the stairs corner, staring her up and down without a shred of politeness.
The one leading them had bright red lips and high-pigtails on both sides of her head. Her school uniform jacket had been altered to crop-top length at her navel, exposing her waist whenever she moved slightly. Her uniform trousers had been taken in and shortened into skinny pants, revealing a patch of bare ankle, and she wore a pair of flashy red sneakers. From a distance, she looked like a thorny rose turned into a spirit.
The girl who had just called her circled around behind Qin Jiujiu and shoved her down the stairs.
Qin Jiujiu came to a halt on the bottom step. Standing at one meter seven, she was tall for a girl, and now, perched on the step and looking down at the group with lowered eyes, she cut a rather haughty figure.
"What do you want with me?" she asked slowly.The leading girl flashed a bright smile and said cheerfully, "Hello, Qin Jiujiu. I'm Xu Duodu from Class 10. Nice to meet you."
Qin Jiujiu nodded and waited for her to continue.
This was also Xu Duodu's first time seeing the new transfer student's face up close. She was stunning—far more striking than the photos circulating in the WeChat group.
Furthermore, she felt that the girl exuded a powerful aura. Wearing the standard school uniform properly, paired with her indifferent expression, she looked aloof, aristocratic, and fiercely cold, a complete contrast to her own flamboyant style.
"Here's the thing, Qin," Xu Duodu said, a trace of embarrassment creeping onto her face as she paused. "Well, I've been trying to win over your deskmate, He Yi, but I haven't been able to catch him lately. Could you possibly help me out?"Qin Jiujiu: ......
Thanks for the invite, but I'll pass.
"Sorry, I just got here and I can't really help with anything. You should ask someone else."
How could Xu Duodu possibly find anyone else? The people who used to tip her off had all been warned and put on notice by He Yi.
With no other choice, she put on a cute expression and took out her phone: "Oh come on, classmate Qin, let's add each other on WeChat. When the time comes, just help me out by leaking some of He Yi's business to me~"
"I don't have WeChat."
As soon as those words came out, the expressions on the faces of the few people around turned rather ugly.
In this corner of the hallway, students who had been hurrying past slowed down when they saw the scene, and the bolder ones even snapped a few photos while no one was paying attention.
Ping! A notification from the Class 1 of Senior Year 3 group chat.
[Liu Qing]: image.jpg
[Liu Qing]: The new celestial beauty VS campus belle Xu Duodu
[Liu Qing]: Xu Duodu tries to add someone on WeChat, celestial beauty ruthlessly shuts her down: I don't have WeChat.
[Fu Yu]: Impressive, thumbs-up.jpg
Ping ping ping ping ping-----
The Class 1 of Senior Year 3 group chat was boiling over, with a long line of neatly arranged thumbs-up emojis trailing right behind Liu Qing's message.
Meanwhile, in the middle of the stairs, amid the deadlocked atmosphere, Qin Jiujiu wanted to leave and politely said, "If there's nothing else, I'll be going."
Xu Duodu's smile stiffened slightly, but since she hadn't achieved her goal yet, she instinctively reached out to tug at the other girl's sleeve to act spoiled.
Who would have thought Qin Jiujiu would pull her arm back, so she missed completely.
With things turning out this way, the two lackeys standing behind Xu Duodu couldn't just stand by and watch. Lackey No. 1 stepped forward with a foul look on her face, "Who do you think you are! What gives you the right to treat Duodu like that?!"
Having said that, she felt the other girl's standing position made it hard for her to act, so she took another step forward, intending to grab the person and pull her down the stairs.
Qin Jiujiu narrowed her eyes, raised a hand to coldly grip the approaching wrist, and looked down at her from above.
Lackey No. 1 hadn't expected her to fight back; feeling a sharp pain in her wrist, she was instantly consumed by fury. "You dare grab me?!"
Seeing that the situation was on the verge of erupting, the surrounding onlookers grew even more tense and excited.
Just then, a noisy hubbub of footsteps came from the stairs below—the little group from Class 1 of Senior Year 3 who had gone out for a break were all coming back.
He Yi, the tallest and strongest in the crowd, walked in front. He casually glanced at the few girls standing in the hallway, then withdrew his gaze as if it were none of his business, taking two steps at a time as he headed upstairs without even breaking his stride.
"He Yi!" Xu Duodu's eyes lit up in an instant. She wanted to reach out and tug at the hem of He Yi's shirt, but He Yi was walking extremely fast, brushing past her in the blink of an eye. Failing to catch up, Xu Duodu's gaze darkened again.
"Tsk tsk, gentlemen prefer words over fists, huh!" Fu Yu and a few other boys strolled leisurely up the stairs. As he passed in front of Qin Jiujiu, he spoke in a lazy tone and threw her a flashy wink.
Qin Jiujiu: ......
He Yi's voice drifted from behind, growing more distant. His tone was casual and unrestrained, highly recognizable: "Is your eye having a spasm?"
"Damn it, if you weren't looking back, how would you know..."
Class was about to start. She shook off Lackey No. 1's wrist and, without waiting for the other girl to react, simply turned around and headed back to the classroom.
In the hallway, Lackey No. 1 muttered curses in deep resentment, "Duor'er, does she look down on the rest of us? Look at how full of herself she is!"
Xu Duodu thought for a moment, lowered her head to tap on her phone, and said, "I'll ask Brother Jie what her background is."