The cicadas were crying loudly during Tang Yao's final tutoring session with Lin Siyin. An old electric fan buzzed annoyingly overhead, and a light sweat broke out on her hand holding the fountain pen, causing a small smudge of ink to bleed across the draft paper.
"This trigonometric function..." she began, only to be interrupted by a sudden clap of thunder outside the window. The downpour arrived without warning, fat raindrops hammering against the glass and instantly blurring the camphor trees behind the teaching building. Lin Siyin suddenly stood up, the movement stirring the hem of his uniform jacket. She caught sight of the pale brown mole on the back of his neck, looking like a single coffee bean dropped onto snow.
"I'll go close the window." His voice blended with the sound of the rain, yet came through with striking clarity. Tang Yao gazed at his retreating back, noticing that his left cuff was always rolled up by an inch—concealing a scar left behind from the week before, when he had shielded her from a group of local thugs outside the school. That day, as she hurried past the alley entrance clutching a stack of homework books, amidst the piercing sound of a metal pipe slicing through the air, he had suddenly darted out to put himself between her and the danger. The muffled thud of his shoulder blade slamming against the brick wall still echoed in her ears.
Chapter 58