Chapter 36

She said she was jealous as if it were the most natural thing in the world. She said it openly, without the slightest hesitation. She said jealousy had nothing to do with time or place. She said it as casually as if she were talking about the weather.

So simple. So carefree.

She tossed out the word “jealous” so lightly, never knowing what kind of storm those same words stirred in Su Ci, who still looked as calm as ever on the surface.

Su Ci pressed her lips together, glanced out the window, and said softly, “Okay.”

By the time they reached Yan Can’s house, the rain had stopped, but the sky remained heavy and gray.

Yan Can hurriedly pulled Su Ci upstairs to the room on the second floor. The same person who had just insisted that Su Ci tutor her homework tossed her bag aside once they were inside and collapsed bonelessly onto the sofa.

Before Su Ci could say anything, Yan Can spoke first. “Rest for ten minutes.”

Knowing how seriously this girl took studying, she added with a smile, “I promise.”

When she smiled, her peach-blossom eyes curved, bright and beautiful.

Su Ci looked away and walked to the desk. She set her bag on her lap, took out the exam papers inside, and spread them out in a thick stack. They had been found in a secondhand bookstore last week.

They were almost new; only the topmost paper showed any signs of having been written on.

The lights were on in the room, and the soft, warm glow fell over Su Ci, making her seem quiet and elegant.

Yan Can lounged against the back of the sofa, limp with ease, phone in hand. She didn’t play games or scroll through apps. She just held it and looked over at Su Ci’s back.

No matter how many times she looked, it was still beautiful. No matter how many times, she never got tired of it.

She opened the camera and snapped a photo of Su Ci’s back. Forgetting to adjust the settings, she made a sharp click the moment she tapped the shutter. She hurriedly switched to a match-three game screen, only to find that the person in front of her hadn’t reacted at all.

Right. Su Ci got so absorbed when she did homework that even if an earthquake hit, she’d probably need a moment before she noticed.

Thinking of that, Yan Can smiled.

“Ten minutes are up.” The person sitting properly at the desk still hadn’t moved; her voice was calm and light.

Yan Can glanced at her phone and blinked. “Has it been ten minutes already?”

Su Ci set down her pen, turned around, and looked at her with a very serious expression. “Didn’t you ask me to tutor your homework?”

She knew Yan Can didn’t actually need tutoring at all. She had only said it on a whim, driven by some possessive instinct.

“Come here.” Su Ci tapped the desk beside her with the tip of her pen. “What don’t you understand?”

There was a saying: if you lift a stone, you may only end up dropping it on your own foot.

Yan Can stood up from the sofa and slowly walked over, then sat down beside Su Ci. She took a test paper from her bag, spread it open on the desk, and casually pointed to one problem. “I don’t really understand this one.”

As soon as she said it, she realized Su Ci hadn’t answered. She turned her head and saw Su Ci staring at her face. Since they were already close, Yan Can watched the little sexy mole on the bridge of her nose seem to enlarge before her eyes, and a pair of beautiful, slender hands slowly reach toward her cheek.

The familiar cool fragrance invaded all her senses; her heart started racing wildly out of control.

Dazed, Yan Can watched as Su Ci picked a loose strand of hair off her face.

“Doesn’t hair stuck to your face itch?” Su Ci said lightly, tossing the hair into the trash.

It did itch, Yan Can thought.

Not just her face; even her mouth itched. She wanted to kiss.

And since she thought it, she did it. She leaned slowly toward Su Ci and pressed her lips to hers.

Su Ci had said before that kissing between girls was normal. Besides, this wasn’t the first or second time, so now when Yan Can kissed Su Ci, she didn’t even need to give a heads-up.

It was just that skipping the warning made it easy to startle people. More than once, those sudden touches had caught Su Ci off guard, her eyelashes trembling.

Yan Can licked her lips and looked at her; sure enough, Su Ci didn’t look offended at all.

“Let’s do homework,” Su Ci said, glancing at her before straightening up and looking at the problem Yan Can had just pointed to. “There are several ways to solve this one. I remember there were two in senior year…”

Yan Can propped her forehead on one hand, most of her face turned toward Su Ci; her gaze fell on Su Ci’s pale cheeks, faintly flushed. “Teacher Su—”

She cut in. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re really charming when you’re focused?”

Su Ci froze for a moment and turned to look at Yan Can, her eyes darkening slightly. “Do you really like teasing people?”

Why was she suddenly changing expression? She hadn’t even reacted when Yan Can had kissed her so casually just now, yet a throwaway flirtatious line had actually made her face change.

Yan Can found it unbelievable, and then it struck her as funny.

“Not allowed?” she shot back.

Su Ci said nothing, but her gaze darkened even more. Yan Can got a little scared. She still remembered that the last few times she’d provoked Su Ci, this person had ignored her for a very long time.

“I was wrong,” she said. “I won’t tease you randomly anymore.”

Her apology was very sincere, but Su Ci didn’t seem to care about that. “I don’t mind you saying those things to me.”

“But if you say them to other people too…”

She thought about it very seriously. “…it would make them think you’re frivolous.”

Yan Can blinked, as if she understood and as if she didn’t.

In the end, she nodded. “Okay. I won’t talk so carelessly like that again.”

Then she kissed the corner of Su Ci’s lips again.

“Okay, keep explaining the problem,” Yan Can said, turning back to the exercises on the desk.

Su Ci pressed her lips together. “Where was I just now?”

“Did Teacher Su forget already?” Yan Can teased.

Su Ci looked straight at her, and Yan Can immediately dropped her easygoing attitude, coughed once, and said seriously, “Mm, you were talking about the Mean Value Theorem…”

When Su Ci explained problems, her head was slightly lowered, a pen in her hand as she spoke and wrote down the steps and formulas. Her handwriting was as beautiful as she was. Yan Can stared at the hand that wrote, then thought of how last night this person had used those beautiful hands to knead and squeeze her chest.

Actually, it felt pretty good. She had just been a little unaccustomed to it then and thought it was strange, which was why she’d stopped Su Ci.

If it happened again now, Yan Can thought, she wouldn’t refuse.

From the corner of her eye, she secretly glanced at Su Ci’s chest. She couldn’t tell much from looking, but beneath her bra, it was especially full.

Thinking of the feeling when she’d touched it yesterday, Yan Can’s face slowly flushed red.

Her skin was very fair, so even a little redness stood out clearly. When Su Ci saw it, she set down her pen. Yan Can looked over in confusion, and Su Ci said, “Your face is a bit red.”

Yan Can made an ah sound and used the back of her hand to cool her cheeks, saying guiltily, “M-maybe it’s stuffy.”

She looked out at the sky, where dark clouds hung low, and blamed the weather. “This damn weather is so stifling.”

Su Ci also looked up. It seemed a fierce downpour was about to come.

Yan Can’s speed at solving problems couldn’t keep up with Su Ci’s, but her talent wasn’t low either. Once she got serious, she finished all her homework in less than an hour and even completed three extra sets of exam papers.

When she was done, she rubbed her eyes, looked off into the distance, and rested with her eyes closed for a moment. Then she yawned long and glanced sideways at Su Ci.

This person was still working through that thick stack of math papers.

Yan Can called her softly, “Su Ci?”

Su Ci didn’t like being disturbed when she was studying, but when Yan Can called her, she still stopped writing and turned to look.

“I’m hiring you as a tutor,” Yan Can said. “From now on, come to my house every day after school to tutor me, okay?”

“I’ll pay you according to the market rate.”

Su Ci didn’t speak. Yan Can didn’t know what she was thinking and started to feel uneasy. “Anyway, I was going to hire a tutor too. Rather than spend money on someone else, I might as well hire you.”

Then she smiled. “What do you think? Consider it?”

Actually, Yan Can was a little worried Su Ci would refuse. After all, there had been precedent.

She wouldn’t think Yan Can was trying to take care of her again, would she?

Su Ci remained silent for a long time, and Yan Can began to panic. “Su Ci?”

Su Ci seemed to come back to herself. “Okay.”

Yan Can let out a breath, only worrying that Su Ci might think her behavior amounted to charity.

After they finished their homework, the two of them ate dinner at Yan Can’s house. They had dumplings made by Wei Li yesterday.

Su Ci cooked the dumplings; Yan Can knew absolutely nothing about cooking.

While they were eating, the rain outside grew heavier. Yan Can told her not to go back, and Su Ci didn’t refuse.

Yan Can thought that Su Ci was really easy to talk to now.

After dinner, it was still early.

Yan Can leaned on the sofa playing games while Su Ci sat upright at the desk doing practice problems.

Yan Can finished one round, looked up, and saw that Su Ci was still working.

The wind and rain outside hadn’t let up. Through the window, beneath the warm light, the violet flowers had been bent over by the gale.

Yan Can didn’t feel like touching books right now. She walked behind Su Ci and wanted to peek at what kind of paper she was doing, but the moment she saw Su Ci’s straight back, she suddenly had a mischievous idea. She reached out and tickled Su Ci’s armpit.

Su Ci’s pen paused in her hand. She turned her face slightly and looked at her without expression, saying nothing, but Yan Can could feel her thinking she was childish.

Fine. She really was childish.

She just liked seeing Su Ci lose her composure.

“You’re kind of boring, classmate Su Ci.” Sitting on the stool, Su Ci had Yan Can leaning over her. Yan Can bent down, her body pressing closer; Su Ci instinctively closed her eyes. But the kiss she expected didn’t come. Instead, she heard someone laugh softly. “You didn’t think I was going to kiss you, did you?”

Su Ci frowned and turned around, not saying a word, yet somehow making Yan Can scared.

“Su Ci?” the troublemaker continued to provoke her. “Are you mad? No way, right?”

Outside, the rain came down harder and harder. Even though the glass blocked part of the sound, the wind and rain were still clearly audible.

Yan Can got scared. She sat down beside Su Ci and tilted her head. “I was wrong.”

Su Ci ignored her, eyes fixed on the paper in front of her, pen moving with a scratch, scratch sound.

“I was wrong, I was wrong, Su Ci,” Yan Can said. She knew her own habit: once she got the upper hand, she’d start acting spoiled. If she thought Su Ci indulged her, then she could joke with her however she wanted.

She had thought Su Ci would ignore her for a long time this time too, but Su Ci turned around instead and looked at her with those light-brown eyes, asking, “Wrong about what?”

Wrong about what? Yan Can herself didn’t know. She looked back at Su Ci and said, “Being too mouthy?”

“That I shouldn’t have teased you?”

Su Ci didn’t speak, still looking at her expressionlessly.

Yan Can was at a loss. She really was afraid of this person being angry and not speaking to her for several days.

“Don’t be mad!” Yan Can hooked her arm and said, “Teacher Su, Su Ci, A Ci, sister…”

“Don’t call me sister.” Su Ci sighed, sounding a little helpless.

She didn’t like being called sister? Yan Can followed her lead. “Okay, I won’t call you sister anymore. Don’t be angry, Teacher Su?”

She was practically draped halfway over Su Ci, boneless. They were both wearing the school’s thin summer shirts, their body heat passing back and forth. The softness pressing there made Su Ci’s spine stiffen for an instant.

“Get down,” she said.

“No.” Yan Can wrapped both arms around her neck. Her chest was squeezed, the sensation becoming even clearer, and Su Ci’s ears began to burn.

The instigator noticed the change in her ears with sharp eyes. Finding it amusing, she rubbed them with her fingertips; they were hot.

Watching the whole ear turn red and hot under her hand, she grew excited as if she’d discovered a new continent.

“Teacher Su, you’re really hot?” She deliberately breathed warm, moist air against the sensitive skin behind her ear.

A fierce current shot straight through her body from her spine. Su Ci bit down on her lower lip and held herself back from making a sound.

Su Ci was glad she was sitting right now; otherwise her legs might have gone weak and she wouldn’t have been able to stand.

Yan Can was very satisfied with her reaction. Who asked this person to always look so cold and indifferent? Only in moments like this would she lose control.

She blew another breath into Su Ci’s ear, then opened her mouth and took the reddened earlobe, as if it might drip blood, between her lips. She sucked lightly, then rubbed it with her teeth.

Su Ci tightened her grip on the hem of her skirt. Her lower lip had been bitten into a row of deep tooth marks. Even though she was trying very hard to endure it, Yan Can still managed to push her far enough to draw out a sound.

Su Ci didn’t know how she’d developed such wicked tastes.

But she didn’t resist.

As long as it was this person.

“Teacher Su,” the person behind her whispered against her ear, “I think I’m obsessed with your body.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a hand forced its way through the gap between the buttons of her shirt.