Chapter 20

Probably because she hadn’t expected Yan Can to make such a request, Su Ci’s eyes widened slightly, disbelief flickering across her face. Even her usually cool, expressionless features were tinted with a faint blush, though Yan Can couldn’t tell whether it came from embarrassment, anger, or something else.

Probably mad, Yan Can thought.

But to think she changed color this fast. So interesting. Her face was even red with anger. How could there be such an amusing person? Watching her, Yan Can couldn’t help laughing silently.

Her eyes were especially pretty—almond-shaped, with the outer corners lifting slightly. Her pupils were very dark, and when she looked at someone, it was easy to get the illusion that she was gazing at them with deep affection.

Su Ci knew this girl was beautiful, especially her eyes. She looked at people so intently that even if she was joking with you, even teasing you, once you met those eyes, you wouldn’t feel as if she were hiding any real malice.

And now, she was using those deeply affectionate peach-blossom eyes to smile at her.

Su Ci lowered her gaze. Her long, dense lashes fluttered twice as she silently bent her head to drink her soup.

Seeing that she still wasn’t speaking, Yan Can laughed. “Already angry? If you won’t feed me, then fine, don’t. I’ll do it myself. I can rely on myself and still get fed.”

Angry? Angry at her? It didn’t seem like it. Even though she knew Yan Can was teasing her, Su Ci didn’t feel teased at all.

Instead, being looked at with that smiling expression made something in her heart feel lightly brushed; a ripple spread across her calm lake.

Her hand tightening around the spoon, Su Ci still didn’t look up. Her voice remained flat. “I’m not angry.”

“That’s good.” Yan Can scooped a piece of cod Su Ci had just deboned into her own mouth.

Maybe because someone had helped remove the bones and she didn’t have to do it herself, that sense of getting something for nothing made the cod taste especially delicious tonight.

Her appetite had never been very large to begin with, and ever since the accident she’d been taking medicine with almost no appetite at all. After eating just two small pieces of cod, she put down her chopsticks.

At the sound of Yan Can setting her chopsticks down, Su Ci looked over. The cod she had pushed over hadn’t been touched much at all.

For some reason, a strange, inexplicable sense of disappointment welled up in her heart.

Was it because Yan Can didn’t appreciate her effort?

Like when she was little and her mother painstakingly made a whole table of dishes for her, but she only ate a few bites and put down her chopsticks—her mother would have been unhappy too, right?

Thinking of that, the odd feeling of disappointment was immediately diluted quite a bit.

“Oh, right. Zhang Ru’s having a birthday party this weekend; she invited you too.”

After dinner, when Yan Can saw Su Ci to the gate, she passed along Zhang Ru’s message.

Su Ci didn’t speak. She seemed to be hesitating over whether to go, but Yan Can didn’t wait for her answer. Instead, she smiled carelessly. “Go or don’t go, it’s up to you. If you do go, tell me and I’ll pick you up so we can go together.”

Su Ci was still silent, and Yan Can wasn’t in a hurry to hear her response either. Whether she went or not was her own business; Yan Can was only relaying the invitation.

Anyway, the loop had already been broken, and Su Ci didn’t seem like she’d keep trying to kill herself.

As for traffic accidents, she shouldn’t be that unlucky, right…

No matter how much this book world liked to mess with people, it couldn’t keep making things difficult for the female lead forever.

If the female lead was fine, then she’d be fine too. From now on, she’d just go to school as usual, play the role of the original Yan family young lady properly, live well under the original owner’s identity, and wait for the day heaven let her off the hook and sent her back to her own world.

Thinking of this, she suddenly felt a little desolate.

Would that mean she and the female lead would have less contact than they did now…

Still, she and Su Ci each had their own lives; clinging to her all the time wasn’t a solution. There were plenty of things on the original owner’s side waiting for her to handle too.

After telling Chen Shu to drive carefully, she went over to Su Ci again and told her to message her once she got home safely. Before Su Ci could nod, Yan Can had already run to the front, reminded Chen Shu once more to drive safely, and finally waved as the car pulled away.

-

By the time her oral medicine ran out, the stitches on Yan Can’s forehead had also been removed. The wound was near her hairline, so it wasn’t very noticeable under her bangs. After eating nutritious food for so long, when she finally had cafeteria food again, Yan Can actually thought it tasted especially good; it made her mouth water even more than delicacies from mountains and seas.

Zhang Ru laughed at her for exaggerating, but it was true: ever since the cafeteria had changed cooks, the food really did taste much better than before.

At the moment, the few of them were eating in the cafeteria, and Zhang Ru was already fantasizing about where to go on the weekend and how to celebrate her birthday.

“Just so you know in advance, I have class during the day on the weekend, so I can only come find you at night.” Yan Can explained again why she couldn’t spend the whole weekend with her.

“Got it.” Zhang Ru said, “Oh, right, is your junior coming?”

“Which junior?”

Zhang Ru…

Right. She’d forgotten this girl had a lot of juniors.

She looked around the cafeteria but didn’t see a familiar figure. “Su Ci, of course. Didn’t I tell you to invite her?”

At the mention of Su Ci, Yan Can realized she hadn’t seen her for several days. If Zhang Ru hadn’t brought her up, Yan Can wouldn’t have thought of her at all.

“I told her. I said if she’s going, tell me and I’ll take her along.”

But this girl hadn’t messaged her these past few days, so she probably wasn’t coming.

Zhang Ru had only invited her casually anyway; if Su Ci didn’t show up, she wouldn’t think much of it. After all, she and Su Ci weren’t that familiar.

“Hey, Yu Ting, how are you planning to spend your eighteenth birthday?” Yu Ting was the youngest of the three; her birthday was in winter.

“Just celebrate casually, maybe with my mom?” She smiled a little stiffly.

After finishing their meal, the three of them chatted and laughed as they walked out. When Yan Can brushed past someone, she suddenly caught a familiar cool fragrance. Turning her head, she saw a very familiar back.

Zhang Ru was talking to her when she noticed Yan Can turning around distractedly. She smiled and patted her shoulder, asking what was wrong. Yan Can shook her head and said it was nothing, let’s go.

Su Ci hadn’t expected to run into Yan Can in the cafeteria today. Since leaving her house last time, this was the first time they had met at school.

These past few days, Yan Can hadn’t taken the initiative to look for her, nor had she bothered her on the app. That should have been a good thing.

She had long since gotten used to loneliness, used to being alone; but when Yan Can didn’t come looking for her, she actually found herself wondering why Yan Can had suddenly stopped. Wasn’t she the one who liked having people accompany her while doing homework? Did she already have someone else? New friends? Had she gotten tired of her?

Yan Can would never know that while she wasn’t looking for Su Ci and assumed Su Ci was focusing on her studies, Su Ci had been unsettled these past few days because of Yan Can’s lack of initiative.

Sophomores and seniors weren’t even in the same building, and their dismissal times were different too; unless someone deliberately tried, it was hard to run into each other. Once Su Ci realized that as long as Yan Can didn’t make the first move, the two of them would rarely meet, she actually developed the urge to run into her by chance.

For example, just now. Seeing Yan Can’s profile from afar could make her heartbeat quicken.

Su Ci couldn’t understand why she had such a strange mindset. Maybe she just wasn’t used to it. Before, Yan Can had clung to her too tightly; now that she’d suddenly let go, Su Ci wasn’t used to that either.

Pressing her lips together, Su Ci walked toward the cafeteria. At this point, the line for food was relatively short, so she finished serving herself quickly and returned to the classroom to study on her own.

.

At the end of September, the weather was hot enough to peel a layer of skin off people. As soon as the PE teacher called for dismissal, the students scattered like birds and beasts and rushed into the gymnasium to cool off.

Zhang Ru was playing badminton with a few girls from class. Yan Can’s forehead injury had just healed, so she didn’t join in any sports. She and Yu Ting went to the supermarket to buy popsicles, and on the way back, Yan Can also brought Zhang Ru a bottle of iced mineral water.

Seeing Yan Can and the others coming over, Zhang Ru signaled for a pause and a switch in players, then walked over.

When she saw that Yan Can and Yu Ting each had a popsicle while she only had a bottle of mineral water, she grumbled in dissatisfaction, “You didn’t even bring me one. How inconsiderate.”

Yan Can held up the popsicle she’d already taken a small bite of. “I asked you just now. Who told you not to answer?”

Yu Ting had a crushed-ice popsicle. She broke it in half and handed over one side. “Want the strawberry one?”

“Our Tingbao is still the best.” Zhang Ru smiled as she took it, then stared at the popsicle in Yan Can’s hand. “Hey, Yan Can, what’s the name of the popsicle you’re holding? I’ve never had that one before.”

Yan Can looked at the yellow mango-shaped popsicle in her hand. It only cost a few yuan apiece; it was normal for this young lady not to have tried it.

She said casually, “It’s just a regular popsicle. Want a bite?”

As soon as she said that, she saw Zhang Ru and Yu Ting looking at her in shock. Only then did she remember that the original owner seemed to have a bit of a cleanliness obsession.

She immediately pulled her hand back, but Zhang Ru caught her wrist. “Hey, what are you doing? It’s not like I said I wouldn’t eat it.”

Leaning in, she bit off the untouched side.

The taste was only average, but her heart was pleased beyond measure.

Because in all the time she’d known the young lady Yan, Yan Can had never shared a snack or a bottle of water with her. This was the first time they could finally eat the same popsicle together; what did that mean? It meant their relationship had grown closer, their friendship more solid.

Thinking of this, Zhang Ru narrowed her eyes happily.

The chill spread through her throat, and she suddenly shivered, letting out a hiss.

Yu Ting teased her, “What, one bite of a popsicle and you’re frozen already?”

Zhang Ru wrapped her arms around herself with exaggerated seriousness. “No, it’s just that I suddenly felt a chill run up my back.”

On the other side, Class One of Senior Two was also having PE today.

Su Ci withdrew her gaze and looked toward the students drenched in sweat at the center of the basketball court.

“Hey, Su Ci, isn’t it true that Yan Can-senpai’s class also has PE today!” Zhao Panpan was sitting beside Su Ci on the steps. She had originally been watching their class play basketball against the boys from the neighboring class, but when she turned her head she spotted Yan Can eating a popsicle not far away.

Su Ci’s gaze didn’t move. She gave a soft hmm. “I saw.”

She had already seen it just now.

“Then do you want to go say hi to senior?” Zhao Panpan asked.

She actually suspected it was because she was there that Su Ci didn’t go greet Yan Can-senpai. Although Su Ci didn’t like talking, after spending this time in the same class as her, Zhao Panpan could tell Su Ci was a pretty good person—very kind, and considerate of others.

She must have been afraid I’d be lonely, so she wouldn’t even greet someone she knew, Zhao Panpan thought.

“If you want to go find senior, then go ahead,” Zhao Panpan said very considerately. She didn’t have many new friends, but as long as she took the initiative, she could fit into the class too. “I can go play badminton with Lulu and the others.”

Su Ci shook her head.

There was no expression on her face, and she didn’t say anything, but Zhao Panpan somehow felt that her mood seemed a little low.

Maybe it was too hot, Zhao Panpan thought. In this kind of weather, it was hard to feel energetic about anything.

“She got hit!”

Suddenly, a loud shout came from the other side.

A lot of people gathered together.

“What happened!” someone shouted.

“Yan Can got hit by a basketball and fainted!”

“They said something happened to Yan Can!” Zhao Panpan pulled her gaze back from over there and turned around. “Huh? Where’d she go?”

“Do you mean Su Ci?” asked the girl sitting a row behind her.

Zhao Panpan blinked, then nodded blankly.

“She left long ago,” the girl said.

“?”

“The moment Yan Can-senpai was hit, she rushed over.” The girl said.

TL Note:

peach-blossom eyes (桃花眼) = a flirtatious-looking eye shape with slightly upturned outer corners, often seen as especially alluring.

I can rely on myself and still get fed (自己动手丰衣足食) = a joking saying meaning do it yourself if you want it done.

Tingbao (婷宝) = an affectionate nickname, literally “Ting treasure/baby.”

senpai (学姐) = an older female student / upperclassman.