At that moment, Bai Shihan was wearing a light blue dress, looking somewhat out of place amidst the crowd. Terrified, she stood frozen near a wooden pillar, afraid to move.
Several kind-hearted people even stepped up to ask if she was alright, but this only frightened her more, and she shook her head repeatedly.
Grievance, panic, helplessness, regret...
It turned out she still couldn't do it. She had thought she was making progress, but in the end, she was only standing still.
Her vision blurred unconsciously, but the stubborn little girl held back her tears, refusing to let them fall.
Unlike early morning on the way to school, this was peak traffic hour. Adults heading off to work had all come out, and the breakfast shop was completely unlike the early hours when mostly students were around.
Listening to the footsteps all around her, Bai Shihan felt as though she could hardly breathe.
She had originally thought she could come out on her own to buy two bowls of tofu pudding, and then proudly call Lin Xinyu over to eat breakfast.
In her mind, she had imagined showing off her progress, but the end result—everything had been completely ruined. Maybe she really was as useless as her family said...
With her head lowered the entire time, all Bai Shihan saw was a figure stopping right in front of her. Habitually mistaking them for just another passerby, she shook her head.
To her surprise, however, the person reached out and patted the top of her head, making it even harder for Bai Shihan to catch her breath.
"You've already done very well."
The familiar words drifted into her ears, and the little girl finally snapped, though she still bit her lip hard. Her nervousness and anxiety slowly began to dissipate...
***
There wasn't just a breakfast shop near the school; there was also a dedicated vegetable market where parents living nearby could buy groceries at more affordable prices.
"You've never gone out to buy things by yourself?" Lin Xinyu never imagined that Bai Shihan already suffered from mild social anxiety and couldn't stay in densely crowded places for long.
In Bai Shihan's eyes, Lin Xinyu's appearance left her both startled and overjoyed. Although he had patted her head to comfort her, judging by his furrowed brow, he was definitely angry.
Even so, Bai Shihan still grabbed onto his clothes with her small hand, and the two of them left the crowded area one after the other.
"I-I'm sorry." Fumbling in her pockets—she hadn't thought to bring any candy this time and didn't know how to make Lin Xinyu happy—Bai Shihan spoke in a faint, timid voice.
"Let's go home." Still expressionless, Lin Xinyu walked ahead.
Like a child who had done something wrong, Bai Shihan followed quietly behind.
***
Back home.
Lin Xinyu placed the bag of tofu pudding on the table, then sat down on the sofa. He didn't say much the entire time, just letting out a brief sigh.
"Come here."
Hearing him finally speak, Bai Shihan slowly drew closer, thinking that Lin Xinyu right now looked just like a father who was definitely going to scold her for being useless...
"How long were you waiting alone?"
Instead of the scolding she had imagined, this took Bai Shihan somewhat by surprise: "I had just gotten there a little while... and you came."
Glancing at her dress, Lin Xinyu could easily guess that the girl musters up all her courage just to go out alone to buy breakfast.
"Why didn't you reply to my messages?"
"I—I didn't bring my phone."
Looking aggrieved, Bai Shihan had thought buying breakfast wouldn't take long and that she would be back in a flash, completely unaware there would be so many people outside.
Without a word, Lin Xinyu stood up, brought the tofu pudding over, opened the container, and scooped up a spoonful: "Since you knew I was teasing you, why did you still go buy breakfast?"
Hearing this, Bai Shihan panicked a little: "I—I promised you that for the next few days, we'd... we'd eat breakfast together."
"When did I say that?"
"Just yesterday morning..."
Lin Xinyu remembered that had merely been an excuse to walk to school with her, yet this silly girl had taken it to heart and obeyed so earnestly.
"Then I also said I'd make you my wife, why don't you admit to that?"
Bai Shihan shook her head vigorously and waved her hands in panic: "T-This... I—I haven't agreed yet."
Lin Xinyu picked up the spoon and motioned for Bai Shihan to sit down on the sofa as well: "I'm not just saying things randomly. You'll grow to like me, and it's the same for me. You really are my wife, only you don't know it yet."
"You said you wouldn't bully me..."
"Fine, you're not right now, but you will be in the future."
Bai Shihan turned her head away, pretending not to pay attention to him, but before she could stand up, his words stopped her.
"Sit properly. Open your mouth, say *ah*."
Despite the gentleness in his voice, the undeniable look in his eyes made Bai Shihan sit back down in her original spot with a pitiful expression.
She obediently opened her mouth and accepted the spoonful of tofu pudding.
The person in front of her really wasn't like her father. In a similar situation, she definitely would have been scolded. So—was this what a gentle-style father was like?
"Here, hold this. I'm still mad, feed me."
*Hoo...*Bai Shihan stood up, picked up the tofu pudding, and hurriedly walked over to the dining table.
The thought that had just flickered through her mind vanished instantly. She was startled—frightened yet again.
This time, it wasn't just about feeding him; she was supposed to use the spoon she had already used. Bai Shihan's face flushed a deep red at a visible rate. Even between good friends, things shouldn't be like this.
"I was just joking with you. Why are you suddenly such a coward?" Lin Xinyu walked over, picked up his own portion of the tofu pudding, and said, "Here, use this portion to feed me."
Seeing her looking like she wanted to stand up and leave again, Lin Xinyu was prepared. He intercepted her with a swift move, and just as she was about to plead with him, he cut her off directly: "Did you want to have breakfast with me?"
"No..."
Her hesitant movements already gave away the answer.
"Then tomorrow you wait at home for my message. I'll call you in the morning so we can go get breakfast together, alright?"
"Alright."
"Be a good girl and don't go out alone anymore, alright?"
"Alright."
"Then feed me a bite, alright?"
"Alright... Ah? No, not alright!"
Bai Shihan was truly adorable. With her simple mindset and naive nature, she fell right into the trap.
"There, you said it. A promise made must be kept." With that, Lin Xinyu placed the tofu pudding in front of Bai Shihan, stared straight at her, and deliberately signaled with his eyes, wanting to see what the girl would do next.
Inside the room, apart from the sound of each other's breathing, there was no other movement.
The little girl was so nervous that even her arms began to tremble. Doing something like this for the first time inevitably brought a flutter of nerves.
"J-Just one bite."
Lin Xinyu didn't speak; he simply opened his mouth.
The two of them drew closer and closer, their breathing growing increasingly distinct. This only made the already nervous Bai Shihan feel even more frightened, but fighting the trembling in her little hands, she finally managed to deliver the tofu pudding to its destination.
"As expected, whatever my wife feeds me tastes better."
"D-Don't go calling me that..."
"Then, classmate Bai, could you feed me another bite?"
"Eat it yourself."
For once, Bai Shihan rejected Lin Xinyu. With a blushing face, she finished her own portion of the food, cleaned up, and stood up to return to her bedroom.
The stuffed toy neatly arranged on the bed had already become the object of her confidences—a cute, prone green little dinosaur.
"Xiao Lv, why don't I hate him?" Bai Shihan reached out and poked the little dinosaur's back, pouting her lips as she looked at it with innocent eyes, hoping for an answer.She then lay flat on the bed, holding the little dinosaur up in the air. As the scene of Lin Xinyu asking her to feed him came to mind, her panic transformed into shyness.
After taking a deep breath to compose herself, she put the little dinosaur down, lay on her stomach, and pulled her phone out from under the pillow. She found the QQ icon, tapped it, and logged in to check her messages.
When she saw the two words he had used as a nickname for her, she couldn't help but pout. She kicked the quilt with her white lace-trimmed socks, expressing her dissatisfaction.
She read through the messages and realized that Lin Xinyu hadn't been lying to her; he had genuinely invited her out. It was just that she had already left the house at the time, and they had missed each other.
Thinking back on everything that had happened over the past few days, Bai Shihan felt her little head struggling to keep up; she had no idea what this feeling even was.
The illusion that he was like a gentle father had already been dismissed. As that thought surfaced again, Bai Shihan buried her face in her pillow.
If she just pretended to be asleep, these strange thoughts would stop.
"Um, may I come in?"
Lin Xinyu had finished tidying everything up. To avoid making Bai Shihan nervous, he knocked on the door with great politeness.
"I-I'm asleep..."
***
To prevent Bai Shihan from sneaking out alone to work up her courage again, Lin Xinyu chose to stay in the room.
"I-I promise, I won't run off," Bai Shihan said, her face flushed red.
It was the first time she had ever had a boy stay in her bedroom, and she was clearly ill at ease—especially since some of her undergarments hadn't been put away yet. If he saw them...
Whenever Lin Xinyu stood up, Bai Shihan held her breath, trying her best to block his view to keep those blush-inducing items out of his sight.
It wasn't that Bai Shihan hadn't tried to get him to leave, but for the thick-skinned Lin Xinyu, it had absolutely no effect.
He was indeed polite enough to knock, but he was also the type to walk straight into the bedroom afterward.
Having never experienced such a situation, the girl nervously dove under her covers and didn't dare say a word, treating the bedding as her final line of defense.
"Wow, your wardrobe is much bigger than mine. Come on, let me take a look."Before Lin Xinyu could even open it to take a look, he was blocked by its owner.
"No!"
Bai Shihan had become much sharper when it came to her private space. Her cheeks flushed as she spread her arms to block Lin Xinyu’s path. Even as she tilted her head back to look up at him, the determination in her eyes made her stance perfectly clear.
Letting Lin Xinyu into the bedroom had been daunting enough, but she never imagined he would try to look into her cabinet—and with such a flimsy excuse, no less.
Wasn't seeing the size of it enough? Did he really have to open the cabinet to examine it in detail?The most important thing is that Bai Shihan likes to tidy up the walk-in closet at night, so whenever Lin Xinyu opens the cupboard, he is met with a variety of little panties. If he happens to catch sight of that raccoon print…
"Just one look. I’m just comparing why your closet is bigger than mine."
"No!"
"You're so stingy. Later, when you come over to my place, I'll open my closet and show you what’s different."
"I—I’m not looking!"
How could a boy’s boring underwear possibly be as cute as her own?
Lin Xinyu didn't care what she was thinking and shifted his attention to the drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. "What do you keep in here? Toys?"
"Soc—socks..."
"Can I take a look?"The flush on Bai Shihan's face spread all the way down to her neck, and even her ears turned completely red. "No!"
Why did he want to look at everything? Checking the size by opening the cabinet was one thing, but why did he want to see her socks too?
These were a young girl's most private belongings!
Oh well, he had thought this trip would surely net him plenty of perks, but in the end, he didn't get to see a thing.
"You're so stingy."
Bai Shihan pouted, but she didn't compromise even after hearing him complain. No matter what, she simply wasn't going to let him see.
After a moment of thought, worried that Lin Xinyu might be upset, she picked up a piece of candy from the bedside table and handed it to him.
Realizing that she thought he was unhappy, Lin Xinyu reached out and ruffled her hair.
"Do you have any scratch paper at home?" Walking over to the desk, Lin Xinyu didn't touch her things at random, fearing the girl would start worrying and panicking again.
"Yes." Seeing that Lin Xinyu had finally settled down, Bai Shihan breathed a sigh of relief. She pulled some scratch paper from the bookshelf and handed it to him, her eyes filled with curiosity.
Without a word, Lin Xinyu took the stool the girl handed him, sat down, and picked up a pen to start writing.Bai Shihan sat obediently to the side, initially taking out her textbooks to review, even occasionally tackling college entrance examination problems.
As time went on, however, Bai Shihan grew increasingly puzzled, finding it hard to understand what Lin Xinyu was actually doing.
Her little feet dangled over the edge of the bed as she rested on her stomach, watching obediently as Lin Xinyu wrote.
From her angle, she could clearly see the contents of Lin Xinyu's draft paper.
When she read what was written, Bai Shihan's mouth dropped open. Putting herself in the story, she found the heroine making an appearance to be utterly despicable.
"Bad luck! The Dragon King's envoy is about to descend. Here's two hundred thousand, get lost!"
"I went to prison for your Cheng family for three years, and this is how you repay me?!"
"My Cheng family has won the favor of the Dragon King, and you, a live-in son-in-law, still expect to marry me? Considering your service to the Cheng family, sign those papers right now, or else you and your sickly father can go meet your maker together."
...
The passages written so far were almost entirely about suppressing the crooked-mouthed Dragon King. Novels of this kind didn't exist yet, so naturally, Bai Shihan had no idea what kind of trope this was. Her immediate reaction was a sense of injustice and deep sympathy for the male lead.
"C-can't you... not make him suffer so much..."
Only then did Lin Xinyu notice that Bai Shihan was tilting her head to watch him write, her face full of indignation on behalf of the male lead.
"Alright, I won't make him suffer too much."
With that, under Bai Shihan's watchful eyes, he continued writing the subsequent plot. But what followed showed no signs of a turnaround whatsoever—the male lead even had a glass of water splashed right in his face.
The little girl puffed out her cheeks, turned around, and walked away, deciding never to trust the big liar in front of her again.
She sat by herself on the bed doing her homework, but before long, unable to resist the temptation to find out what happened next, she secretly crept back to her previous position on her stomach and picked up the story where she had left off.
When the Dragon King's envoy finally appeared, the entire tone of the story underwent a dramatic reversal. The antagonists, who had been making things difficult, instantly turned respectful and subservient, bowing and scraping.
Just as they were about to give the male lead a hard time again, the envoy intervened at the sight of his signature crooked smirk, completely turning the tables.
As Bai Shihan watched this unfold, she let out a sigh of relief for the male lead Lin Xinyu had created. A rush of satisfaction welled up inside her, making her think her deskmate was truly amazing.Although this tactic would later receive a lot of flak, there was no denying that it was more than enough to earn starting capital.
"If I remember correctly, someone was just angry a moment ago?" Lin Xinyu put down his pen and met Bai Shihan's gaze, making her feel somewhat flustered.
In the end, she pretended to act as if nothing happened, walked over to the table, and picked up a piece of candy. She had no intention of giving it to Lin Xinyu—that served him right for not telling her in advance.
Lin Xinyu very naturally picked up the phone Bai Shihan had left on the bed, checked the time, and put his pen down. "Why aren't you asking what I'm doing?"
Bai Shihan was somewhat displeased by his actions; he had touched her phone without permission.
Pouting, she still answered him: "A-As long as you don't say, I won't ask. If, if there's no one to share with, y-you can tell me, and I'll, I'll listen carefully."
This was why Lin Xinyu liked her.
Just ask yourself, who wouldn't love a treasure of a girl like this?
"Then I'll only share it with you alone. This is my most precious thing."
Bai Shihan had been lying flat on her stomach, but fearing that not sitting up properly in such an important situation would ruin the mood, she scrambled up and sat straight.
Lin Xinyu continued: "The bride price needed to marry you is very expensive, and it requires starting capital. Through hard work, I'll double that capital, and then marry you fair and square as my wife."
The two stared at each other with wide eyes. Lin Xinyu had that look of someone who had completely figured Bai Shihan out, scaring the little girl so much that she immediately dove straight back under the covers, wrapping herself up tightly until only a tiny head was left exposed.
"Not wife!"
Lin Xinyu laughed.
The silly girl probably hadn't even realized that during their conversations, she stuttered very rarely now.
Bai Shihan had a very strange feeling about Lin Xinyu right now.
At first, she thought he was just a bad person, but he kept protecting her, so her impression of him wasn't bad.
The popular snacks at this time were shredded white figs, monkey king pills, deep depth bombs, sour plum candies, and dad meat spicy strips.
When Lin Xinyu carried a large bag of snacks and dumped them onto the table, Bai Shihan poked her little head out, feeling rather curious. She only knew that many things in the bag were items she had never seen before.
"Want some? Have you never bought any of these?" Lin Xinyu waved at Bai Shihan, then arranged the snacks on the table. "Have you ever had spicy strips?"
Bai Shihan shook her head. In her memory, these were all junk food as described by her father.
"I-I won't eat." She glanced at the table. While she could still control herself, she had better leave quickly—out of sight, out of mind.
It wasn't just that Lin Xinyu wanted to; these things were also part of changing this girl. Judging by her self-isolation and cooking habits, she obviously had never eaten them.
Tearing open the packaging, the rich scent of shredded white figs filled the air. How could Bai Shihan possibly withstand such a temptation? When she was little, because her parents were always around, she wasn't allowed to eat those kinds of things.
But now, Lin Xinyu wasn't her father...
"Really not eating any? I only bought two packs." As Lin Xinyu spoke, he didn't forget to lick his lips.
Wow, this guy was simply the most annoying!
"If you won't eat, fine. I'm going to the restroom. I'm leaving the stuff here, so you're not allowed to sneak any."
"I-I would never!"
Sneaking food and things like that—such annoying behavior was something only he would do.
Bai Shihan curled her lips, using her actions to directly refute what Lin Xinyu had said, and deliberately turned her head away so she wouldn't have to look at him.
Only after hearing the bathroom door close did she finally relax her tense nerves and swallow a disobedient mouthful of saliva.
The shredded white figs on the table were simply too tempting.
Especially for someone like Bai Shihan who had never tried them before, she had zero resistance whatsoever.
*I'm just looking, I won't eat.*
Having made up her mind, Bai Shihan shortened her steps and slowly approached where the snacks were placed. Her little nose first sniffed, and then she swallowed her saliva once more.
*Just smelling it should be fine, right?*
Ever since she was little, Bai Shihan's true nature was that of a little foodie. Hindered by overly strict discipline and the fact that no one around her ever took her out to eat such things, she had never even entertained the thought of trying them.
Yet ever since she met Lin Xinyu, she kept being led by that guy to do things she had never done before.
The first time eating with a member of the opposite sex, the first time going out to the street to buy breakfast, the first time making a good friend, the first time skipping evening self-study, the first time running away straight past the head of discipline without paying attention to him, the first time holding hands...
There were too many "firsts," leaving Bai Shihan with no idea where to start counting. She only knew that her current life always seemed to bear traces of him.