Chapter 11

In the old stairwell, daylight spilled through the gaps in the hollowed floral stone window and fell across the newcomer’s cool, aloof face—arched brows, almond eyes, and slightly parted red lips.

Yan Can was a little stunned by how striking she looked and unconsciously slowed her breathing.

Su Ci had clearly just come back from outside; there were still damp patches on her shoulders from the rain, and water dripped from the black long-handled umbrella in her hand, darkening the ground into a brown stain.

She wasn’t in school, so she was wearing her own clothes: a white long T-shirt, loose black wide-leg pants, and a pair of black canvas shoes with white trim that were starting to come apart.

The shoes looked as though they had been washed many times; the white edging had turned slightly yellow.

A draft blew into the stairwell, and the soft fabric of her wide-leg pants clung to her legs, outlining their straight, slender shape.

The two of them stood facing each other; for a moment, neither spoke.

This was Yan Can’s first time seeing Su Ci in anything other than a school uniform.

How should she put it?

Maybe because it was the first time she’d seen her in casual clothes, the whole impression was especially eye-catching.

Yan Can’s gaze unconsciously stuck to her.

Su Ci opened her mouth. Yan Can thought she had something to say, and the irritation from waiting so long vanished at once; even the unpleasant smell in the stairwell seemed to disappear from her senses.

She waited happily.

But reality proved she was thinking too much. Su Ci said nothing at all; she merely gave her a cool glance and walked past her.

A faint, cold fragrance brushed by. Su Ci passed her and stopped in front of the dark green iron door.

She turned the key; the door opened.

From start to finish, Yan Can’s eyes had been following her.

When the door opened, Su Ci didn’t go in. Instead, she turned her head and looked at Yan Can, who was still standing stupidly at the bottom of the stairs. Her tone was light. “Weren’t you here to see me?”

“Ah, right, right.” As if only just coming back to herself, Yan Can met her eyes and said, “I came to see you.”

Like a little dog that had just been granted permission by its owner, she took one step, then two, and followed after her with a silly grin.

Su Ci didn’t look at her and didn’t wait for her either; she went in first.

When Yan Can stood at the doorway and saw the inside of the place clearly, she froze.

The room was dim, but from the doorway she could tell the layout at a glance. It was barely a one-bedroom, one-living-room place; the area was tiny, not even bigger than the bathroom at her house.

As soon as you entered, you could see a cheap folding bed placed against the wall.

There was nothing on it.

The room was empty, the floor clean. In a situation like this, either the owner had just cleared everything out or nobody had lived here at all.

This was clearly the former.

Because she soon heard Su Ci say, “Don’t come here anymore. I moved.”

“No wonder.” Yan Can murmured.

No wonder nobody answered even after she’d knocked for so long.

Almost instinctively, she wanted to ask why, but something came to mind and she held back.

If she really wanted to know certain things, it wasn’t hard; one phone call would do it.

Su Ci had moved out yesterday. Today, while packing up her things, she realized something was missing.

She’d looked all over and still couldn’t find it, so she guessed it might still be in this room. That was why she had borrowed the landlord’s key again today and come over to search.

Yan Can stood at the door and watched Su Ci go into the bathroom and circle through the living room, occasionally lowering her head as if looking for something. “Did you lose something?”

She also started glancing around the room.

Su Ci gave a quiet “mm” and said, “A stuffed doll.”

“A doll?”

Hearing that, Yan Can was a little surprised. For some reason, she subconsciously felt that a doll and Su Ci didn’t go together at all.

At the thought of that, she secretly smiled and kept muttering “doll” under her breath as she searched, her mouth not stopping.

It was as if she had to keep saying the thing’s name in order to find it.

The place had already been emptied. If something really had been dropped, it couldn’t be seen at a glance, so it had to be somewhere in a corner or a hidden place that was easy to miss.

It was obvious Su Ci thought of that too, because after sweeping the room once, she bent down to check under the bed.

While Su Ci searched under the bed, Yan Can bent down to look under the desk and the wardrobe; she even dragged the wardrobe aside with force, not missing a single possibility.

Yan Can was certain she hadn’t left any place unchecked; if it came to it, she might as well have turned the place upside down.

But there was still no result. She called from the small balcony, “Su Ci, did you find it?”

Su Ci’s voice came from the living room. “No need to look anymore.”

Not found it, and not that she hadn’t found it; rather, there was no need to look anymore.

That meant there was no result. She hadn’t found it.

Yan Can returned to the living room and asked, “What kind of doll is it? Just buy a new one.” She could see that Su Ci cared about it a lot. But if it really couldn’t be found, there was nothing to be done.

Su Ci said nothing and looked out the window. The rain was still falling, though much lighter than before.

Seeing that she wasn’t speaking, Yan Can thought she didn’t want to talk to her again, so she stopped pressing.

But just as she fell silent, Su Ci unexpectedly asked her first, “How do you know I live here?”

Not a good question.

Yan Can felt a little guilty. “...I asked someone in your class.”

Inside, she prayed, Please don’t ask any more.

“Is that so.” Her tone was faint.

Yan Can let out a breath.

“Then why did you skip class to come find me?”

Her gaze fell on Yan Can’s face; there was no emotion in the question, still as indifferent as before.

She seemed to have no interest in anything; her speech and expressions were always light.

Yan Can felt that Su Ci was like a wisp of smoke.

If she so much as looked away for a second, the girl would drift off far in the distance.

At Su Ci’s question, Yan Can instinctively denied it. “I didn’t skip class.”

She was a good student; she never skipped class.

Su Ci looked at her quietly and said with no visible change in expression, “Oh. So, what did you come to see me for?”

Thinking of yesterday, Yan Can licked her lips and apologized on her own initiative. “Su Ci, yesterday I was in the wrong. I’m sorry; I took my temper out on you.”

When she finished, she noticed a trace of... confusion in Su Ci’s eyes.

Su Ci said, “When did you take your temper out on me?”

Yan Can...

She had slammed the car door so loudly yesterday. How could Su Ci not tell she’d been throwing a tantrum?

Yan Can didn’t think Su Ci was so stupid that she couldn’t see she’d been upset at the time.

She thought Su Ci was giving her an easy way out and didn’t want to embarrass her.

Thinking of that, Yan Can smiled. “Fine, let’s not talk about yesterday. Su Ci, I’ve been trying to contact you since yesterday, but you didn’t reply, so I got a little worried. I went to your classroom to find you, and then I heard you’d taken leave. I wasn’t really at ease, so I came over.”

After saying that, she carefully looked at Su Ci’s face again, afraid of annoying her like she had yesterday. “Does this make it hard for you to breathe?”

Su Ci glanced at her, then looked away. Her expression remained calm. “No.”

Yan Can was delighted; her smile hadn’t stayed on her face for three seconds when Su Ci added, “Next time, don’t skip class for something like this.”

“No, I didn’t skip class...” she muttered in defense. “I took leave to come.”

She was a good student. How could she possibly do something like skip class?

She didn’t know that, in Su Ci’s eyes, taking leave for no reason was no different from skipping class.

While the two of them were talking, the sound of the rain outside seemed to disappear; it felt as if it had stopped.

Su Ci walked to the corner and picked up the umbrella. Seeing as though she was about to leave, Yan Can followed behind her and asked the obvious, “Are you leaving?”

Su Ci didn’t answer. She turned and glanced at her, which clearly meant, What do you think?

After locking the door, the two of them went down the stairs one after the other.

Only after they reached the bottom did they realize the rain hadn’t stopped; it had just become very light. Light as it was, it was still enough to soak through clothes and hair.

With a soft snap, an umbrella opened. Su Ci raised the black umbrella over both their heads. “I’ll walk you to the entrance of the alley; call your driver to come pick you up.”

Yan Can’s hand moved toward the edge of the plaid skirt pocket and paused, but she didn’t put it in.

Su Ci noticed the movement. “What’s wrong?”

Yan Can looked up into her eyes and lied, “My family’s driver is off today.”

As soon as she said that, she saw Su Ci faintly knit her brows.

“It’s fine, the rain isn’t that heavy.” She said, “Just take me to the entrance of the alley, and I’ll get a taxi.”

She deliberately made it sound easy.

She knew it was hard to get a taxi in this area and that she’d have to walk some distance to hail one. She figured that with the rain and no umbrella, Su Ci definitely wouldn’t ignore her; maybe she’d even invite her to sit for a while at the place she’d just moved into.

However, Su Ci said, “Okay.”

?!!

At a time like this, shouldn’t a normal person say, It’s raining, wait until it stops before you go; my place is nearby anyway, come sit for a while at my house…

Yan Can stared at her in utter shock, but Su Ci acted as if she didn’t see it and looked away.

“Let’s go.” Su Ci held the umbrella and walked ahead. Yan Can couldn’t say anything else, so she followed.

When she’d come, she hadn’t felt this alley was deep at all; how had they walked all the way out in no time?

As she watched people passing by, Yan Can thought this to herself when she suddenly heard the person beside her say, “Take the umbrella.”

Yan Can thought Su Ci meant for her to help hold it, so she immediately took it.

Su Ci pointed to a spot. “Walk toward that road; it’s easier to catch a taxi there.”

Yan Can blinked in disbelief. “What about you?”

You’re giving me the umbrella, so what about you?

Su Ci said lightly, “I don’t need it. My home is nearby.”

After a pause, she added, “Message me when you get home and let me know you’re safe.”

“Oh.” Yan Can agreed absentmindedly. She was still about to say something, but Su Ci had already turned and left.

“Hey, wait!” Yan Can hadn’t even had a chance to stop her before she paused, then reached into her pocket. “Hello, Zhang Ru?”

Her gaze followed in Su Ci’s direction and she saw the other girl turn into a side alley.

On the other end, Zhang Ru had just gotten out of class. The receiver was noisy. She covered the phone and said, “I’ve helped you ask for leave. I said you were sick and resting at home for the day. By the way, what’s going on with you?”

Yan Can had hurriedly asked her to help file leave, but hadn’t given any reason, so Zhang Ru had made one up.

She was afraid that if someone asked and the story didn’t add up, she’d be exposed, so she was giving her a heads-up first.

Yan Can looked in the direction Su Ci had disappeared and didn’t know how to explain, so she blurted, “I’m just a little uncomfortable.”

“Ah? Really?” Zhang Ru asked with concern. “Are you okay now? Did you see a doctor?”

As she spoke, Yu Ting, who was pressed close beside her listening to the call, whispered, “Yan Can said she’s feeling unwell.”

“I’m fine.” After chatting a little longer, and hearing the warning bell over there, Yan Can sneezed and hurriedly hung up.

She didn’t know if it was because she had been sitting on the floor just now and caught a chill, but once the damp cold wind blew on her, she was actually shivering.

She felt like what she’d made up might really come true.

With this body’s constitution, she’d probably really catch a cold tomorrow.

After hanging up, the phone returned to the home screen. The social app showed two new messages.

Yan Can was the type to tap away every red dot she saw, no matter what app it was.

When she opened it, the top message that popped up was:

System: sc has passed your verification.

Below that was a message from the other side, just two characters:

Su Ci.

She glanced at the approval time; it had been an hour ago.

That was around when she had been sitting at Su Ci’s door complaining that the smell in the stairwell was awful, and that Su Ci still hadn’t accepted her request...

When Chen Shu picked her up, the rain had passed and the sky had cleared; a rainbow hung on the horizon.

Looking at the young lady sitting in the back seat, eyes closed and unable to keep the corners of her lips from pressing downward, he smiled knowingly.

It seemed the young lady and her classmate had made up.