Chapter 3

Although everything she said was meant to win the female lead’s sympathy, Yan Can wasn’t lying.

The original owner’s parents were both career-driven people. She had been raised by her grandmother since she was little.

When she was ten, her grandmother passed away. Only then was she brought home by her parents and personally cared for. They called it personal care, but in truth they didn’t pay her much attention. Whenever they got busy, they often forgot there was even a child in the house.

Fortunately, by then the original owner was already old enough to be sensible and take care of herself. She could understand how busy her parents were, but in the dead of night, she would still sometimes feel a hollow ache in her chest.

Maybe because her parents so often forgot her birthday, the original owner gradually came to hate this day.

Come to think of it, she really had been a pitiful child.

Su Ci didn’t know what the person in front of her was thinking; one moment she was full of energy, and the next she looked wilted.

Still, since she had agreed to spend the day with her, she should at least make her happy.

Thinking this, she rarely took the initiative and asked, “Then what do you want me to do with you?”

!!!

Yan Can blinked at Su Ci. This girl always looked cold and distant, hard to get close to.

But unexpectedly, she was easy to talk to. If the original Yan family young lady weren’t such an aloof person and if she weren’t afraid of being seen through, she would at least be hooking her arm through Su Ci’s right now and sweetly calling her, Sister, you’re so nice.

Yan Can coughed twice and cleared her throat. “Um... watch a movie with me for a while?”

It wasn’t even five yet; going anywhere else would be inappropriate. Home was safest. Although Su Ci had agreed to stay with her, Yan Can still couldn’t completely relax. It would be better to keep an eye on her herself at home.

Seeing that Su Ci had gone quiet again, Yan Can started to feel uncertain. She wasn’t unwilling, was she?

Just as she thought that, Su Ci glanced at her and said, “Okay, but I need to finish my homework first.”

Finish her homework first? First... finish...

Yan Can’s eyes widened. If someone truly wanted to die, would they still care whether their homework was finished?

Thinking of that, the curve of her lips widened. “Okay, okay. Homework first. We’ll do it together.”

The female lead should have given up on suicide.

Thinking this, Yan Can felt much lighter.

There was no desk on the first floor, so the two of them went upstairs to Yan Can’s bedroom.

The original room was warm and comfortable, decorated in a simple style.

From the ceiling to the floor, the bedside table, and the chairs, everything was coordinated in a soft light blue, which looked very pleasant. The desk was by the window; from there, you could see the purple lavender in the garden, and when the wind blew, you could even smell the rich scent of the flowers.

They each took one side of the desk. Since it was a one-person desk, the space between them was only about the width of two fists.

It was so close that Yan Can could smell the faint, cool fragrance on the other girl.

What perfume is that? Yan Can thought, and without realizing it, leaned a little to the side.

Su Ci had been working on a math problem. Feeling a very light bump against her shoulder, she thought Yan Can didn’t have enough space and subconsciously shifted over a little.

The distance suddenly widened. Yan Can sat up straight guiltily. Even though she was curious about what perfume the other girl used, she forced herself to endure it.

Then she opened the math test paper beside her and immediately couldn’t hold back.

She almost blurted out a curse.

This was a senior-year math problem?

She clearly recognized every number, so why did they stop making sense when put together?

She flipped the paper front and back twice, confirming that she really didn’t understand it.

No—wasn’t the setup in these book-transmigration stories usually that the textbooks in the book were more or less the same as the real world’s? Otherwise how were so many transmigrated heroines able to brush up on the curriculum after years away from it and still come out first in the class?

Why was it different when it came to her?

She didn’t believe it and pulled the math textbook out of her bag, flipping rapidly from beginning to end. In the end, she pressed her face to the desk and played dead.

Heh. They were studying university-level material...

She thought back to the previous loops; the other subjects had all seemed normal, more or less the same as in her original world.

Maybe only math was different?

If she managed to safely get through today, she would still have to keep living in this world.

And among the elective subjects, her weakest was geography...

It wouldn’t be harder too, would it?

Yan Can panicked a little and immediately started searching through her bag. After checking back and forth twice without finding a geography book, she asked anxiously beside Su Ci,

“Did you bring your geography book?”

She’d been flipping through things for so long just to find a geography book?

But they weren’t in the same grade; what would she need Su Ci’s geography book for?

Su Ci found it strange, but didn’t ask further. She took her Grade 11 geography book out of her bag and handed it to her.

“Thanks.” Yan Can immediately opened the contents page and scanned it. Mm, sure enough, it was a little different. Then, refusing to give up, she flipped from beginning to end. Heh, sure enough, they’d made it harder.

So this was deliberately done to mess with her?

Fine, let it all be destroyed.

Yan Can sighed and returned the book to Su Ci.

She didn’t want to do homework anymore; she wanted to slack off.

She folded her arms, rested her chin on them, and looked out at the sea of purple outside the window.

Listening to the rustle of the pen against paper beside her ear, slow and steady, sleepiness gradually crept in.

After Su Ci finished her homework, she turned her head and saw a delicate side profile. She didn’t know when the girl had fallen asleep, or when she had turned her face that way. She glanced at the time; it had only been half an hour since they’d sat down to do their work.

The sun had begun to sink westward, and light spilled across the pages. Yan Can’s side was facing the sun directly; perhaps it felt too bright, because the girl’s brows had slightly furrowed.

Su Ci looked up, then stood and drew the curtain on Yan Can’s half of the window.

Yan Can remained lying there until dusk. Su Ci didn’t keep writing her homework; instead, she was reading a book in English. Yan Can squinted at the cover and saw that it was Gone with the Wind.

Stretching lazily, she absentmindedly brushed her bangs aside. Seeing Su Ci glance at her, she met a somewhat unreadable look.

Yan Can asked, “What’s wrong?”

Su Ci’s gaze moved between the desk and her face. Yan Can lowered her eyes, and her face instantly turned red. She hurriedly turned away and raised a hand to wipe the corner of her mouth.

After wiping the desk twice, the heat in her face finally faded.

By then it was almost seven, and neither of them had eaten yet. Yan Can thought about it and asked Su Ci, “What do you want to eat?”

She was hungry as soon as she woke up; Su Ci probably was too.

Su Ci put down the book and lightly parted her lips. “Anything.”

“Anything” was the hardest to deal with, but Yan Can still couldn’t decide what to eat.

Then they might as well eat what the original owner usually ate.

The original owner’s meals were handled by specialized staff; she didn’t need to worry about them herself. All she had to do was wait for the phone call and eat.

She happened to want to taste the food of the rich, too.

After Yan Can hung up the phone, she looked at Su Ci. “Are you hungry? The food will take a while. Do you want to eat something to tide you over?”

There were still cakes and fruit in the fridge.

Su Ci shook her head, lowered her gaze, and opened her backpack. Then she took out a book entirely in German... a novel?

Yan Can...

Good lord. She knew the female lead studied well and knew multiple languages, but seeing it with her own eyes was still shocking.

So this was how hard the students at a prestigious school worked...

The meal was delivered half an hour later. Just as Yan Can expected, each portion was small, but there were many kinds and the nutrition was well balanced. It looked plain, but it tasted surprisingly good.

After eating, the two of them went to the third-floor screening room to watch a movie.

They picked a high-rated foreign film at random; after all, Yan Can wasn’t really there to watch a movie, just to pass the time.

But before the movie started, maybe it was just her imagination, but when the title appeared, she noticed Su Ci looking at her in a strange way. It was only for an instant, though, and Yan Can didn’t think much of it.

Just watching a movie was boring; they had to have some snacks to fill the emptiness in their mouths. She set the remote aside and said to Su Ci, “Watch first. I’m going to wash some fruit and bring it over.”

Not long after, she came back with a plate of glistening cherries and two bags of Lay’s potato chips.

She left the barbecue flavor for herself and handed the cucumber flavor to Su Ci. Looking at the cherries, she said, “Don’t be shy.”

Su Ci took the chips and set them aside, but didn’t move to eat the cherries either.

Yan Can didn’t mind. She had already done the polite thing; whether the other girl ate or not was her business.

In a very good mood, Yan Can ate potato chips and watched the movie. It was a Spanish film; within five minutes, a man died.

Looks like it was a suspense film.

She had once watched a very good Spanish mystery movie called The Invisible Guest. That movie kept twisting until the very end, and Yan Can had loved it so much it was almost intoxicating. Since then, she had always held Spanish suspense films in high regard.

This one probably wouldn’t be bad either. Thinking that, Yan Can, who had only meant to pass the time, started watching very seriously.

Until she gradually realized something was off...

Why did the plot keep revolving around the two female characters?

And why was it kind of shippable?

Female solidarity?

Yan Can didn’t think too much of it. After all, the pacing of the movie was fast, and the killer was about to be exposed. One of the heroines was unraveling the clues thread by thread; it looked like she was just about to identify the mastermind behind it all...

Watching so intently, she even forgot to bite down on the cherry in her mouth.

Just as the heroine was about to reveal the killer’s identity...

The screen suddenly cut to a flashback.

On the high-definition screen, two women were pressed together so tightly there wasn’t a sliver of space between them. One of them had a cherry in her mouth; she pressed against the other’s taut... sliding downward, until the two naked bodies moved in rhythmic harmony...

“Cough, cough...” Yan Can was so shocked she coughed the cherry in her mouth two meters away.

She suddenly remembered that strange look on Su Ci’s face earlier. So she had known from the start that this was a...

Wait. Did she think she was...

Yan Can turned her head to look. The girl’s face gave away no emotion. Seeing Yan Can look over, she merely gave her a faint glance.

This girl was actually this cold? It made Yan Can look like she had never seen the world.

A strange competitive spirit flared up. Yan Can pretended nothing had happened and sat up straight again.

Fortunately, it was still a suspense movie; the intimate scenes weren’t many. That cherry-eating segment had already been the most explicit part.

Maybe because of the huge impact of that scene earlier, she no longer had much reaction when the later intimate scenes came up.

Still, she glanced at the plate of cherries.

She was probably never going to look at this fruit the same way again.

By the time the movie ended, it was still not even eight. What should they do next?

Just as Yan Can was thinking that, Su Ci’s phone rang.

“Auntie Wei?” Su Ci said.

Auntie Wei?

Yan Can immediately thought of the female lead’s guardian, Wei Li. Was she calling to urge her to go home?

Su Ci was still on the phone. In a gentle voice, she said, “Okay, I know... later. Mm.”

So she wasn’t being called home.

Yan Can felt a little worried. As soon as Su Ci hung up, she immediately said, “You promised you’d stay with me all day today.”

Su Ci...

Realizing she had misunderstood, Su Ci showed her the phone screen.

It was a picture. When Yan Can finally made out the childish handwriting on it, along with the line underneath that said, “How do I solve this problem without using equations?” she realized she had misunderstood.

Su Ci walked over to the side and sat down, typing on her phone for quite a while. Then, as if that still wasn’t clear enough, she took out a pen and quickly wrote on a draft paper, before taking a photo of it and sending it over.

Yan Can watched all of this and awkwardly rubbed her nose. “Um, should we go eat the birthday cake?”

Su Ci didn’t say anything. Her phone vibrated in her pocket; she took it out and looked. The other side had sent two words: “Okay.”

After reading the message, Su Ci looked up at her. Seeing that she didn’t seem angry, Yan Can gave an embarrassed laugh and ran downstairs in a flurry.

She inserted the candles, lit them, then clasped her hands together and closed her eyes devoutly.

“My first wish is that Su Ci will be safe and well.”

Su Ci looked at the person beside her in surprise; a little confusion surfaced in her eyes.

“My second wish is that heaven stops messing with me.”

Su Ci blinked, looking even more puzzled than before.

“My third wish...”

The third wish was that the first two would come true; seriously, just stop messing with me.

Yan Can silently repeated it three times in her heart before opening her eyes.

They had both already eaten dinner, so they only had a few bites of the cake as a formality, and put the rest in the fridge.

The Yan family had many guest rooms, but because no one usually came over, the sheets and duvet covers hadn’t been put on. It was also too late to call an auntie over now, so she simply let Su Ci go shower first while she went to the guest room to make the bed.

When Su Ci finished showering and came out wearing the pajamas Yan Can had given her, the room was empty.

“Su Ci, are you done showering?”

Yan Can’s voice came from next door.

When Su Ci followed the voice inside, she saw Yan Can just crawling out of the duvet cover, her hair all tousled, looking like a sloppy little dog.

The moment she saw her, Yan Can looked like she had found a savior. “I don’t know how to put the bedding on; do you know how?”

Su Ci nodded.

The two of them stood on opposite sides. Following Su Ci’s instructions, Yan Can first reached into the duvet cover, then grabbed one corner of the quilt inside, and finally flipped it over. In no time, it was on.

Yan Can watched as if she were witnessing magic, and couldn’t help exclaiming how amazing it was.

“Shake it once more,” Su Ci said.

They stood at opposite corners and started shaking the quilt.

That one shake made Yan Can’s ears quietly turn red.

Because Su Ci was standing right across from her, it was impossible not to notice. Perhaps because they were both women, and because it was late at night before bed, Su Ci wasn’t wearing a bra.

The nightgown’s design was far too loose; with the movement of her arms, the view inside was on full display.

She was so thin—how could that part be better developed than hers...

“I’m right next door. If you need anything, just call me,” Yan Can said as she looked at the person in front of her before leaving.

Su Ci nodded and said nothing.

Although they had only spent a few hours together, Yan Can had already gotten a pretty good read on her personality.

She didn’t like talking.

So she hadn’t expected a reply and turned to leave.

“Yan Can—”

Su Ci suddenly called her back.

Yan Can looked back. “What is it?”

Su Ci said, “Happy birthday.”