Jiang Nuan widened her eyes and saw the boy slowly lift his head, looking towards her window. His gaze was cold, indifferent, as if no amount of tears or pleas could move him. There was no mistaking it—those eyes belonged to none other than Lu Ran.
Jiang Nuan felt as if she had been hit, and she quickly ducked down, almost banging her chin in the process.
Half a minute later, she couldn’t resist the urge to peek again. Who was Lu Ran talking to? If a girl had come all the way to his building, there had to be something going on.
Jiang Nuan thought she was finally going to catch Lu Ran in the act of early romance and couldn’t wait to spread the news to the whole building. But just as she poked her head out, she saw Lu Ran turning to leave.
His hands were in his pockets, his cool demeanor making him seem even more distant.
The girl tried to reach out to him, maybe even hug him, but Lu Ran sidestepped and walked straight into the building.
The girl stood there for a long time, motionless, with only her shoulders trembling as if she was crying.
Jiang Nuan squinted at the water bottle attached to the girl’s backpack. Wait, isn’t that Lin Mixia? What’s she doing here?
What did she and Lu Ran talk about?
No, more importantly, what did Lu Ran say to make her so heartbroken?
Jiang Nuan knew Lin Mixia was very proud. If Lin Mixia found out she had seen this, it would only make her feel worse.
Forget it, forget it…
Jiang Nuan returned to her desk and finished the big problems on her math practice paper. She knew she probably got the last one wrong.
Stretching, she walked to the window again, thinking Lin Mixia must have left by now. But to her surprise, Lin Mixia was still sitting on the steps in front of the building, hugging her knees.
Jiang Nuan scratched her head. In all her life, she had never seen anyone so “devoted.”
But anyone could comfort Lin Mixia—anyone except her.
Jiang Nuan spread out her English workbook and completed the reading comprehension and cloze tests. Unable to resist, she glanced out the window again. My goodness, Lin Mixia was still there!
This is ridiculous… What time is it already?
Jiang Nuan sighed. Maybe if she went down, Lin Mixia would be so embarrassed about being caught talking to Lu Ran that she’d finally go home.
Jiang Nuan grabbed her thermos and took the elevator downstairs.
Seeing Lin Mixia’s back, Jiang Nuan couldn’t resist teasing her, “Hey, isn’t this the class monitor? What brings you to my building? Here to make a home visit or report me for something?”
Lin Mixia jumped at the sound of Jiang Nuan’s voice, like a startled deer.
She quickly wiped away her tears and said coldly, “What are you doing here?”
“Huh? Didn’t you know I live here?” Jiang Nuan retorted.
“You… you live here too?”
“Yep.” Jiang Nuan nodded.
“You live in the same building as Lu Ran…”
Halfway through her sentence, Lin Mixia realized she was inadvertently admitting she had come to see Lu Ran.
“Yep. I fight with him for the elevator every morning. It’s either him or me in there, never both.” Jiang Nuan pointed her thumb at the elevator.
“Are you bragging about how you and Lu Ran interact every day?” Lin Mixia shot Jiang Nuan a glare and stood up to leave.
“I told you I don’t remember ever liking Lu Ran. So when everyone around me keeps saying, ‘Jiang Nuan, you like Lu Ran so much,’ I just don’t get it. What did I ever like about him? So, since you like him so much, I really want to know what you see in him.”
Lin Mixia stared at Jiang Nuan, unsure of what to say.
“I just want to ask you, if… hypothetically, Lu Ran and Liu Yu switched bodies, would you still like Lu Ran?”
“What are you talking about? Lu Ran could never be like Liu Yu!”
Jiang Nuan shrugged. “See? People are attracted to appearances. Guys like girls who are fair-skinned and pretty, and girls like guys who are tall and handsome like Lu Ran.”
Lin Mixia didn’t say anything.
Jiang Nuan stretched and continued, “You’ve done so much for Lu Ran. You bring him water during breaks, protect him when he naps during morning self-study, and even clean his desk after he leaves because you know he’s a neat freak.”
“You… you saw all that…”
“Anyone with eyes could see it, okay?”
“Are you trying to make fun of me?”
“What’s there to make fun of? You came here to confess to Lu Ran, didn’t you? Because I once said that even with Lu Ran sitting next to you, you couldn’t win him over. Plus, today he asked to switch seats on his own, and you’re desperate to know if he ever cared about you at all.”
Lin Mixia forced a bitter smile. “He doesn’t care.”
“But I think he does. It’s because he cares and respects the kindness you’ve shown him that he doesn’t want to keep taking without giving anything back. He’s the type who has too much pride to accept something he can’t reciprocate.”
“Wow, you talk like you know exactly what’s going on in his head…”
“Don’t get me wrong. We’ve never had a heart-to-heart in our lives. I just think I can understand his mindset a little. As for you, Lin Mixia… not to be rude, but… do you think you’re pretty?”
Lin Mixia’s expression turned angry, but she held back. “Are you saying I’m not aware of my own worth?”
“Don’t get me wrong. I think you’re really good-looking, just a notch below Rao Can. But you’re also smart, you learn quickly, you’re tall, and you’re well-proportioned. Your parents have great genes and raised you to be beautiful and smart. Shouldn’t you be the one being pursued and cherished? How did you end up getting so caught up with Lu Ran?”
Lin Mixia stared at her for two seconds before suddenly bursting into laughter.
She turned her head, trying to suppress her laughter, and said, “Jiang Nuan, you’re so good at comforting girls—why aren’t you a guy?”
Jiang Nuan grinned proudly. “No worries, I have a harem of beauties waiting for me, but if you want to join, you might not make it to the top.”
“Yeah, right. Don’t forget, our bet is still on. If you don’t make it to the second exam hall in the first monthly exam, you’ll either have to repeat your first year or transfer to the liberal arts class.”
“I remember. If I lose, I lose. What are you going to do, hit me if I don’t follow through?” Jiang Nuan continued to smile.
“You…” Lin Mixia was fuming.
“Class monitor, you should head home early. Your parents might get worried.”
“I’m leaving.” Lin Mixia turned to go.
After taking a few steps, she seemed to remember something and turned back. “Jiang Nuan, I didn’t pour water into your bag.”
Jiang Nuan smiled. “You never treated my bag like a bulletin board, so why would you pour water into it?”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too. You’re too proud to hide your feelings, whether you like or dislike someone. If you were going to pour water, you’d pour it on my head, not secretly in my bag.” Jiang Nuan replied.
Lin Mixia smiled faintly, a bit resigned.
“Lu Ran knows that too.”
“You’re comforting me again.”
“I’m not comforting you. It’s just… Lu Ran may not say nice things, but he’s not an idiot.”
Lin Mixia pursed her lips, then finally walked away.
Jiang Nuan knew she would be okay now.
“Sigh… How does one get over a breakup? The answer, of course, is—just keep walking!”
When Jiang Nuan got back home, she received a text message. It was from Lu Ran.
Jiang Nuan hesitated. Oh my god, what did Lu Ran text her?
Feeling a mix of apprehension and excitement, and prepared to be scolded, Jiang Nuan opened the message. It contained just two words: Thank you.
It was only then that she realized that leaving Lin Mixia downstairs didn’t mean Lu Ran didn’t care about her at all.
Maybe while Lin Mixia was crying, Lu Ran was quietly watching her the whole time.
Jiang Nuan thought for a moment and replied: No need to thank me. Just help me check my math, physics, and chemistry answers.
To her surprise, Lu Ran’s reply came quickly, probably because it only had three words: Work against gravity.
Jiang Nuan felt her forehead twitch.
“Work against gravity? You’re telling me to climb the stairs! Why don’t you perform a free fall instead?”
Forget it!
Tomorrow’s first class was chemistry, her weakest subject. She shouldn’t fight fate.
Jiang Nuan gathered her homework and went upstairs.
This was her first time visiting Lu Ran’s house since she was discharged from the hospital. When she knocked on the door, she felt a little nervous.
After pressing the doorbell four or five times, Lu Ran finally came to open the door. Jiang Nuan wondered if he did it on purpose.
The layout of Lu Ran’s house was the same as hers. His room was minimalist, so clean and orderly that Jiang Nuan felt like there was nothing unnecessary.
The entire space was filled with a faint scent that belonged to Lu Ran—pure, restrained, and controlled, completely different from the mix of snacks, milk, and fruit smells in her own room.
“Sit down. What do you need help with?” Lu Ran sat on his bed, leaving the chair at his desk for Jiang Nuan.
Lu Ran’s legs were folded by the bed, long and strong.
“This one.” Jiang Nuan handed over her chemistry workbook.
“Didn’t you pay attention in class? This is a basic problem…”
Jiang Nuan had anticipated this and cut him off, “Hey, are you going to explain it properly or not? Otherwise, I’ll just go to the liberal arts class!”
Lu Ran suddenly pressed the workbook onto the desk and said, “Come here.”
Jiang Nuan quickly leaned in and understood after just five minutes.
“I find that your explanations are always clearer than the teacher’s.”
“The teacher has to cater to the average student. They don’t have time to tailor their explanations to your unique way of thinking.”
Jiang Nuan pouted. Forget it. No point in arguing with you. Once the college entrance exams are over, you’ll go to a top university, and I’ll aim for a second-tier one. We’ll go our separate ways.
That night, Jiang Nuan slept soundly.
In her half-asleep state, she had a familiar yet strange dream.
In the dream, the school’s sports field was illuminated by the streetlights, casting long shadows.
Jiang Nuan saw a figure sitting on the steps at the edge of the field, head lowered, arms hanging over his knees.
“Hey, Lu Ran! I heard you lost to Jian Ming again!”
“I still can’t beat him. You must be happy about that.”
“What’s there to be happy about? Don’t you remember who said, ‘Talent determines your ceiling, but effort is your floor’? To be blunt, you’re not even at the level where you can compete with Jian Ming’s talent, so why would I laugh at you?”
“Stop feeding me that motivational nonsense.”
“I don’t have any chickens in my heart, so I can’t make any chicken soup for your soul.”
At that moment, Lu Ran smiled.
The smile was faint but very pleasant.
Before Jiang Nuan could admire it for a few more seconds, the alarm clock shattered the moment.
Jiang Nuan sat up and sighed, “What a weird dream!”
Despite rushing, Jiang Nuan was still late when she arrived at school.
Some students from the neighboring class, wearing red armbands, were jotting down the names of latecomers.
Jiang Nuan stepped back. If her name got on that list, her homeroom teacher would skin her alive!
She crouched down and backed away, moving toward the school’s bike parking area by the wall.
She remembered clearly that there was a large trash can by the wall. She climbed onto the lid, scrambled up the wall, and then realized—getting up was easy, getting down was hard!
Just then, someone parked their bike and bent down to lock it.
A glimmer of hope appeared in Jiang Nuan’s heart.
“Hey, classmate—can you help catch me?”
This guy was tall enough to catch her… but why did his back look so familiar?
The person slowly turned around and lifted his eyes. That handsome face, with eyebrows raised in surprise—it was none other than Lu Ran!
Jiang Nuan suddenly felt an impulse to just jump off.
Lu Ran definitely wouldn’t help her… he’d probably mock her instead.
But Lu Ran slowly walked to the base of the wall, looked up at her, and said, “I thought getting into the second exam hall was your goal. Did I push you too hard by making you do two extra sets of practice papers, and now you’re jumping walls?”
Jiang Nuan forced a smile. “Lu Ran, I’m just late and don’t want my name to be written down. Either pretend you didn’t see me, or for the sake of our class’s collective honor, help me down?”
“I thought you looked happy sitting up there—good view, right?”
Jiang Nuan mentally rolled her eyes at him a thousand times. Most of the students had already gone into the classrooms, leaving only Lu Ran here. Jiang Nuan couldn’t figure out why he was still here if he didn’t want to help her down.
Suddenly, from across the field, the voice of the disciplinary director rang out, “What are you two doing over there—”
Jiang Nuan panicked. She needed to get down quickly, but how?
“I’ll catch you, hurry up!”
Lu Ran extended his arms. Jiang Nuan didn’t have time to think and turned around to slide down.
In that moment, she regretted it. What if Lu Ran didn’t catch her? But almost immediately, she felt something grab her right foot, and then someone caught her from behind.
It was steady, secure.
As she landed, someone gripped her wrist tightly. She heard Lu Ran’s low voice in her ear, “Idiot, run!”
By the time Jiang Nuan realized who was pulling her, they were already sprinting away.
“Stop right there—what class are you from? What class?”
Jiang Nuan’s mind went blank, focused only on the boy’s back ahead of her.
He had long legs and was running fast.
Jiang Nuan tried her best to keep up. Everything in the school blurred as they sped by, and in no time, they reached the entrance of the teaching building.
“Wait—let me catch my breath… catch my breath…”
Just as she was about to turn her head, Lu Ran grabbed her and turned her head back.
“Idiot, do you think the disciplinary director can’t recognize your face?”
“Oh… You go ahead. Even if I get caught, I won’t rat you out…”
“Don’t worry,” Jiang Nuan was about to say, but before she could finish, she suddenly felt herself being lifted into the air. Lu Ran had thrown her over his shoulder and was charging up the stairs.
Thank goodness she hadn’t eaten breakfast, or she would have thrown up all over Lu Ran.
On the third floor, Lu Ran set her down and gave her a push.
“You go in first.”
Jiang Nuan understood that Lu Ran didn’t want them to be seen entering together, as it would make them more suspicious if the disciplinary director asked around.
She slipped into the classroom. The class representative for Chinese was organizing everyone to recite the ancient texts. Jiang Nuan put down her bag and sighed in relief.
What a miraculous escape…
Just then, Zhou Yan leaned over and whispered, “Hey, why was Lu Ran late today?”
Jiang Nuan shook her head, saying, “I don’t know.”
She placed her pencil case on the desk and anxiously waited for Lu Ran to come in.
Why isn’t he here yet? Did the disciplinary director catch him?
Halfway through morning self-study, Lu Ran finally entered the classroom.
The Chinese class representative looked surprised. In the year and a half they’d been in the same class, this was the first time Lu Ran had ever been late.
“Lu Ran, what happened?”
“Nothing, I think I ate something bad this morning, so I had to make a quick trip to the restroom.”
Jiang Nuan quickly stood up to let Lu Ran sit down.
On the other side, Zhou Yan asked with concern, “Are you still feeling unwell? Do you need any medicine? I can go to the school nurse for you.”
“No need, thanks.”
Lu Ran took out his materials, placed them on the desk, and immediately started studying.
Jiang Nuan breathed a sigh of relief.
The first class was Chinese. The teacher was writing annotations for the ancient text on the blackboard. Jiang Nuan wrote in the margins of her textbook with a pencil: I thought you got caught!
She lightly nudged Lu Ran with her elbow.
Lu Ran glanced at her but didn’t say anything.
Jiang Nuan had expected Lu Ran to ignore her, but she just wanted to show she wasn’t ungrateful and had been worried about him.
But after a few seconds, she felt her elbow get nudged back. She turned and saw that Lu Ran had written in the margins of his textbook with a pencil: What would you do if I did get caught?
Jiang Nuan thought for a moment and replied: Just don’t rat me out, and I’ll bring you KFC when I visit.
Lu Ran didn’t respond after that. She glanced at him and noticed a faint curve at the corner of his lips—it looked nice.
After the second class, the school’s broadcast system announced:
“Today, the school discovered some students were late and even climbed over the wall! This is a serious offense and will be severely punished if it happens again!”
At that moment, Jiang Nuan and Rao Can were in the school store, buying something to eat. Jiang Nuan had skipped breakfast, so she grabbed a bun to tide her over.
Rao Can leaned close to Jiang Nuan and whispered, “Was that wall-climbing student you?”
Jiang Nuan, with a mouth full of bread, mumbled, “Come on, do I look like someone who could climb a wall?”
“Come on, with Lu Ran and his long legs catching you, how could you not get over it?” Rao Can smirked knowingly.
When Jiang Nuan returned to her seat, she saw Lu Ran quickly working on the physics homework the teacher had just assigned.
“You really make the most of your time, huh.” Jiang Nuan leaned over to see what Lu Ran was writing, but he pressed her face back with his hand.
“Do it yourself.”
“Of course I’ll do it myself. I just wanted to see how many problems you can solve in ten minutes!”
“And you? The monthly exam is this week.”
“We can plan, but in the end, it’s all up to fate!”
Jiang Nuan glanced back at Lin Mixia. Sure enough, she was also studying hard, which made Jiang Nuan feel a bit of pressure.
“In two weeks, there’s a practice match in Haichuan City. It’s B University against Haichuan University’s men’s saber team.”
“Really? Jian Ming is at B University—will he be there?” Jiang Nuan’s eyes sparkled with excitement.
Lu Ran’s eyebrows slightly arched as he asked, “You like Jian Ming?”
“Huh? I like his parry-riposte and his riposte after the bind—they’re so elegant. Didn’t you suffer because of him too?” Jiang Nuan retorted.
“If you score in the top sixty in the monthly exam, I’ll take you to Haichuan City to watch the match.”
“Really?”
“You’ll know if it’s true or not once you score in the top sixty.”
Hearing Lu Ran say this, Jiang Nuan’s heart was racing. She couldn’t wait for two weeks to pass.
But the immediate priority was to ensure she mastered this month’s material.
That night, Jiang Nuan was unusually efficient and finished all her practice papers before ten o’clock. Then she gathered the questions she didn’t understand and went upstairs to knock on Lu Ran’s door.
When Lu Ran opened the door, he didn’t say much and just let her in.
Lu Ran’s dad, Lu Huaifeng, wasn’t home, and his mom was on the night shift at the hospital, so he was alone.
“Your parents aren’t home? Why didn’t you come to my place for dinner?”
“I had practice tonight. I ate with Mu Sheng and the others.”
Jiang Nuan followed him into his room, and it felt almost like a habit. She sat at the desk while Lu Ran sat on the bed.
“The questions you’re struggling with now are all ones with a certain level of difficulty.”
Jiang Nuan grinned and asked, “Are you complimenting me?”
────୨ৎ────
Be my Patron ~ Buy me Ko-Fi
────୨ৎ────
✨Be a part of the story – support my translations✨
✨Buy me some Ko-FI | Paypal to support my effort✨
✨✨Advance chapter at Patreon✨✨
