"What am I supposed to be doing?" Liu Muye asked Han Juyou, holding up the remaining bottle of liniment. "Didn't you twist your ankle? I'm going to help you put on some medicine!"
With that, Liu Muye took a step by step toward Han Juyou.
"Hey, hey, hey, you're not allowed to come over!"
Panicking, Han Juyou abruptly stood up from the lounge chair and retreated several steps.
"Ha, your leg isn't twisted at all!" Liu Muye said, a mischievous grin playing at the corners of his mouth as if he had guessed it all along. "You really were lying just now, you little fraud."
"You're the fraud." Han Juyou hid behind the medical bed, staring nervously at Liu Muye as she said, "You weirdo, what on earth are you trying to do? You've had ill intentions toward me since the very first day of school!"
Liu Muye curled his lips in a sneer and said, "Give me a break. Who would harbor ill intentions toward you? Do you think you're the heroine of some romance novel, loved by everyone and a total heartthrob wherever you go?"
"Then why did you stare at me with that infatuated look on the day of freshman registration?"
Han Juyou's hit-the-nail-on-the-head question completely cornered Liu Muye.
"I..."
"Uh..."
"This..."
Liu Muye stammered for a long time, utterly at a loss for how to answer.
"See? You really do harbor evil intentions toward me!" Han Juyou bit her lower lip slightly and gave a cold smile. "That friend of yours is definitely no good either. The two of them alone together in that ward are bound to be in danger."
Without another word, she headed straight toward the locked ward where Nangong Ye and Shangguan Yurou were.
"You are not allowed to go over there!" Seeing this, Liu Muye immediately blocked Han Juyou's path, refusing to let her pass.
The more Liu Muye tried to stop her, the more Han Juyou suspected something was amiss. She sidestepped around Liu Muye and bolted toward the ward door.
"Don't, don't go over—"
"Thud—"
"Ah!"
Liu Muye turned to chase after her, only to hear Han Juyou let out a miserable scream. Looking down, he saw Han Juyou sitting on the floor clutching her ankle—this time, she had genuinely twisted it.
True to the law of "always twisting your ankle while running" in Mary Sue novels, Han Juyou had tumbled to the ground in all her glory, and even sprained her foot in the process.
Liu Muye put his hands on his hips and gloated, "I told you not to run. Look at that, you went and sprained it."
"Stop gloating and come help me up!" Han Juyou frowned, beads of fine sweat breaking out on her forehead. It was obvious from the look on her face that the fall had hurt.
"Weren't you just worried that I was a bad guy? Why do you want me to help you up now?" Liu Muye said, walking up to Han Juyou and holding out his hand.
Han Juyou's deep, pretty fox-like eyes widened slightly as she stubbornly retorted, "If you weren't the only living soul in this lobby, I wouldn't let you help me at all!"
With that, she rested her hand on Liu Muye's palm. His palm was much warmer than hers—counting the time Liu Muye had grabbed her hand on the athletic field earlier, this was their second physical contact.
Liu Muye helped Han Juyou back to the lounge chair, then held up the bottle of liniment and asked, "Are you going to apply it yourself, or should I help you?"
"I'll do it myself!"
How could Han Juyou possibly let Liu Muye touch her ankle? She snatched the bottle of liniment right out of his hand, took off her shoes and socks, and gently applied the medicine to the wound with her hand.
The liniment was a pale yellow oily liquid. Han Juyou poured some into the palm of her hand and gently dabbed it onto the sprained area. Her legs were fair and slender; because her skin was so pale, the redness and swelling around her ankle looked particularly glaring.
The spot she had just twisted began to turn red and swell at a speed visible to the naked eye. One look told you it hurt terribly, and it was clear from the way Han Juyou couldn't help biting her lip in pain while applying the medicine that the sprain was quite severe.
Her arches were gorgeous, smooth, and fair, and her pale pink toes had well-defined joints with no nail polish on them... Liu Muye couldn't help taking a few extra glances.
For the record, he was definitely not a foot fetishist!
Seeming to sense Liu Muye's gaze, Han Juyou, who was in the middle of applying the medicine, looked up and glanced at him, then asked with guarded vigilance, "Why are you staring at my feet?"
Blushing, Liu Muye denied it. "I... I wasn't. Who'd deign to look at you anyway!"
With that, he beat a guilty retreat out of the infirmary.
Watching Liu Muye's hurried retreating figure, Han Juyou flashed a sly smile.
***
The soundproofing of the infirmary's ward was actually quite decent. The two people in the lobby had been making a fuss for ages, yet the two inside the room hadn't heard a peep, nor had the two outside heard the shouts from inside the ward.
After Shangguan Yurou and Nangong Ye tried in vain to open the door and shouted for a long time with no response, they had no choice but to stand awkwardly in the room.
Nangong Ye sat on the hospital bed holding his sprained ankle, while Shangguan Yurou sat in the chair beside the bed.
Seeing Nangong Ye covered in sweat, Shangguan Yurou handed over the liniment Liu Muye had just shoved into her hands. "You should treat that."
"Are you... trying to tell me what to do?" Even with sweat pouring down his face from the pain, Nangong Ye didn't forget to deploy his overbearing CEO quotes.
Shangguan Yurou waved her hand. "No, I just saw that you were in a lot of pain. If you don't treat it, the swelling will only get worse."
A faint smile tugged at the corner of Nangong Ye's mouth. "Hah, woman, are you worrying about me? Tell me, what's your motive for getting close to me?"
Seeing Nangong Ye's self-righteous expression, Shangguan Yurou couldn't help herself from reciting her lines from the original storyline.
"First of all, I have a name, so don't call me 'woman'—my name is Shangguan Yurou. Second of all, I am not trying to get close to you, so stop being so full of yourself!"
These lines were supposed to have been spoken on the day of freshman registration, but they had been delayed until now to finally trigger.
"Shangguan Yurou? It certainly is an interesting name." Nangong Ye's mouth curved into a smile once again. "I know what you're thinking. You're definitely trying to use my sprained ankle as an excuse to deliberately help me apply medicine so you can get close to me."
Shangguan Yurou felt a wave of blackness wash over her eyes, and she snapped irritably, "Are you out of your mind? It was clearly your friend who locked the two of us in this room! How did that somehow become me deliberately trying to get close to you? Besides, I never had any intention of helping you put on medicine in the first place!"
Nangong Ye shook his head. "That guy outside isn't my friend at all!"
"Huh?" Shangguan Yurou frowned. "If that guy outside isn't your friend, why would he deliberately help you get close to me?"
"How should I know?" Nangong Ye shrugged. Beneath his deep, handsome gaze still lurked a pure, unadulterated foolishness. "I thought you were the one deliberately trying to get close to me!"
Shangguan Yurou was left somewhat speechless. "Do you think you're some kind of heartthrob? Who wants to deliberately get close to you?"
"What, can't I be a heartthrob?" Nangong Ye raised an eyebrow with absolute confidence. "I'll have you know I'm Nangong Ye, the future head of the Nangong Family. In Shangjing City, when my Nangong family says one, who dares to say two? Women trying to deliberately get close to me to marry into wealth are a dime a dozen."
"Well, I have zero interest in you anyway." Shangguan Yurou rolled her eyes. "Hurry up and take care of your injury. That ankle of yours is swollen up like a giant pig's trotter."
Nangong Ye looked at Shangguan Yurou and muttered inwardly to himself, "Is this woman worrying about me? A giant pig's trotter? What a fascinating nickname. She really is different from other women!"
***