The two of them walked out of the mall. The rain and thunder outside had both stopped. A cool breeze was blowing, and the air carried a faint scent of moisture. Inhaling the fresh, damp air through the tip of his nose was refreshing and pleasant. The lovely girl holding a plush toy along the way undoubtedly drew a lot of attention, while Lu Mingfei, walking beside her, looked rather redundant.
Rainwater lingering on the tree leaves dripped down, landing right on the back of Lu Mingfei's neck.
"Ouch, that's cold."
Erii looked at Lu Mingfei's frowned expression and burst out laughing.
"You're still laughing?" Lu Mingfei pretended to charge at Erii, and Erii scurried away in a panic.
"Gotcha." Lu Mingfei shook a nearby tree. Like a sudden shower, rainwater fell from between the leaves onto them both, and Lu Mingfei, the culprit, did not escape unscathed.
Erii laughed from ear to ear, completely unaware that a fallen leaf was stuck in her hair. Lu Mingfei stepped closer, wanting to help her pick it out, and Erii's face flushed red.
"There, a leaf." Lu Mingfei handed the removed leaf to Erii, as if explaining his actions.
Erii took the leaf and carefully tucked it into her pocket.
"By the way, I have somewhere on the way to go. Want to come along?" Lu Mingfei remembered the little dog in the park and wondered how it was doing.
"Sure."
Lu Mingfei pulled the steamed buns out of his bag: "I hope it's still there."
The puppy was quite smart and had hidden underneath the park slide. When Lu Mingfei found it, its fur was only speckled with a few droplets of water. Lu Mingfei broke open a bun and fed it.
The puppy lowered its head and nibbled on the filling inside the bun, while Lu Mingfei gently stroked its head.
"Is this Lu Mingfei's dog?" Erii asked curiously, looking at the puppy.
"Just a chance encounter." Lu Mingfei put his hands in his pockets.
"So cute." Erii bent down, picked up the puppy, and took out a handkerchief to wipe the rainwater off its body.
"Yeah." Lu Mingfei looked at Erii. Her smile was as bright as a flower, and her face seemed enveloped in a layer of light. A cute girl and a cute puppy—what a heartwarming combination. Besides being pretty, this girl actually had a kind heart. No, wait, she was also very timid and scared of thunder. If she weren't so clingy, he might actually have started to like her.
Lu Mingfei shook his head. As it turned out, he still preferred the literary girl type.
The puppy originally wanted to struggle a bit—interrupting its meal was absolutely unforgivable. But it realized that this impossibly pretty human female seemed to have no ill intentions toward it, and being petted by her felt so comfortable. The puppy happily let out soft whines.
Erii put it down and looked at Lu Mingfei: "Do you want to keep it?"
"My parents are both abroad, and I live with my uncle and aunt. Auntie would never let me raise a dog." Lu Mingfei spread his hands with a helpless shrug.
"Then let's come check on it every day after school and bring it something to eat."
Lu Mingfei had to admit this was a good suggestion, but it meant walking home with Erii every single day.
"Silence means you agree." Erii smiled brightly.
Lu Mingfei looked at the innocent-looking puppy. *You little loser dog, you've dragged me down again.*
Unbeknownst to the two of them, the school forum was already in an uproar. Their photos had been uploaded to the forum by the same ID as before—Heron.
The night was quiet, cicadas droned in waves, and the moon had climbed to the treetops. Lu Mingfei pulled out his keys and opened the door. By the time he walked Erii home and came back, it was already this late.
Clutching the little crocodile plushie, he walked inside. Aunt and Lu Mingze had finished dinner long ago, leaving only Uncle sitting alone at the dining table waiting for him.
"So you do know how to come back. I thought you'd gone to America to find your parents! In such heavy rain without even an umbrella—do you have any idea how worried your family gets?" Hearing the door open, Aunt stormed out of her room, furious. "A grown man carrying a stuffed toy, you really have no shame."
"Auntie, I had some club business, so I was a little late getting back." Lu Mingfei scratched his head; he really couldn't tell her he was late because he was walking a girl home.
"I can tell just by looking that you were out messing around with some girl and only just got back now. Let me tell you, you're already in your third year of high school—your final year—and the college entrance exam is right around the corner. Can you put some effort into yourself? Even if you want to go abroad, your grades can't be too terrible, you know? Don't be thinking about romance when you're a senior."
"I didn't." Lu Mingfei lowered his head and muttered a soft retort, knowing that when Aunt was nagging, only silence and compromise could resolve the issue.
"All right, say a little less yourself." Seeing that Aunt was about to keep going, Uncle stepped in to smooth things over.
Aunt glared at Uncle: "You have time to look after your own son's studies, you don't need to manage things here."
Aunt strode back to her room and slammed the door shut: "When you're done eating, wash the dishes yourself."
"Okay." Lu Mingfei set the things in his hands on the sofa and walked over to the dining table.
"Mingfei, tell Uncle the truth—what were you up to? Uncle won't tell your aunt." Uncle had actually finished eating long ago, probably waiting around for Lu Mingfei to come home.
"It really was club activities." Lu Mingfei scooped a small bowl of rice. The rice was already cold, but luckily he had eaten Erii's bento earlier, so a casual bite would be enough to tide him over.
"Literature Club activities hand out plushies now?" Uncle patted Lu Mingfei on the shoulder. "You still smell like a girl. Uncle's been around the block, you can't pull the wool over my eagle eyes."
Uncle picked up the bowl of rice from Lu Mingfei's hands: "Uncle will heat up the rice for you, you keep Uncle company and chat."
"Uncle, there really is nothing going on." Lu Mingfei knew that only Uncle in this household cared about him like this.
"To tell you the truth, both Uncle and Aunt have already seen the photos." Uncle stood with his back to Lu Mingfei, busy by the stove, so his facial expression was hidden.
"What photos?" Lu Mingfei was puzzled at first, then realization dawned on him: "Curse you, Lu Mingze."
"Look at that, you walked right into the trap. Mingze didn't show us any photos." Uncle smiled warmly as he served a plate of egg-fried rice.
"Uncle, did you mistake sugar for salt?" Lu Mingfei took a bite of the fried rice—it tasted sweet.
Uncle glanced at the condiment jars on the stove: "Seems I grabbed the wrong one."
"It's fine, a little soy sauce will make it edible." Uncle rarely ever cooked anyway, so making a mistake was forgivable.
"Eat slowly and tell Uncle which girl it is." Uncle looked intensely gossipy.
"Nothing's going on, really. I was just walking her home on the way, and halfway there the rain got too heavy so we found a place to take shelter for a bit." Lu Mingfei answered while chewing the soy-sauce-flavored egg-fried rice.
"Never mind that—would someone let you walk them home, give you a plushie, and even hug you?" Uncle shook his head.
"Really, Uncle, cross my heart. She's a new transfer student, and she even came from Japan. She just happens to sit next to me, and our homeroom teacher was worried she wouldn't get used to the local environment, so she asked me to look after her."
"That still wouldn't lead to a hug. Japan doesn't have a greeting-hug custom." Uncle was as sharp as a detective.
"Didn't it thunder this afternoon? She seemed really scared of thunder and just plunged right into my arms." Lu Mingfei had finished his late-night meal and stood up, ready to wash the dishes.
Uncle pressed down on Lu Mingfei's shoulder: "Leave it, Uncle will wash them." Then he muttered softly: "Being this dense with romance means you'll stay single for a lifetime. Think about it yourself—if she didn't have feelings for you, would she let you walk her home? Would she dive straight into your arms when she got scared? When people are scared, they subconsciously choose the person they trust the most."
Lu Mingfei thought about it: "Impossible. There's no way someone like her would ever look at me. Besides, the two of us only met yesterday."
"Love at first sight."
"All right, Uncle, stop guessing. Let's wash these dishes first."
After finishing the dishes, Lu Mingfei picked up his schoolbag and the plushie and walked back toward his room. As he reached the doorway, he turned his head: "Uncle, your cooking skills still need some serious work."
"You brat." Uncle chuckled. "Two campus belles—this kid takes after me."
"Old Lu, I'm thirsty. Pour me a glass of water and bring it to the bedroom."
"Coming right up, Your Majesty."
Erii returned home, happily took the little bear plushie out of her bag and placed it by her bedside, then took out the notebook she used to chat with Lu Mingfei. She flipped to the very back, where her second diary entry had already been written:
*Today I ate lunch with Sakura. Turns out he likes grape-flavored ice cream. I met an interesting girl named Su Xiaoqiang, who seemed quite close with Sakura. Su Xiaoqiang said Sakura likes Chen Wenwen. I wonder if that's true.*
*In the afternoon I went home with Sakura, and we went to the arcade together. He's pretty good at Street Fighter, though clawing plushies isn't his strong suit. We promised to play Street Fighter together again next time, and next time I'm going to win.*
*Though letting him win once in a while isn't bad either.*
*When I hugged him, his heartbeat was so fast, and my heart was beating so fast too.*
*The little bunny and the little puppy are both so cute.*
Erii took a leaf from her pocket and tucked it into the diary, closed the book, touched her burning cheeks, and took out the little rabbit plushie to place it alongside the notebook. On the cover of the notebook and on the rabbit plushie, a line of text was written respectively—*Erii's Sakura's Notebook* and *Erii and Sakura's Little White Rabbit*.