In the sweltering summer heat, the air was thick not only with humidity but also with tension.
After the birthday party, it was already late June, with just over a week left until the final exams.
During chemistry class, Lu Yige was puzzling over a math problem. Xu Lu had dug it up from who knows where—it was both difficult and obscure. She had worked on it for half a class period and still had no clue.
"Lu Yige," the teacher called.
She looked up to see the teacher pointing at a problem on the slide with his pointer, his expression stern—he had probably noticed she wasn't paying attention.
"Which option should this question be?"
Lu Yige stood up and glanced at the problem.
It wasn't difficult, just computationally complex.
Her mind raced as she mentally calculated the answer.
"B," Jiang Yu whispered beside her.
Lu Yige frowned. Why interrupt her train of thought?
She paused for a moment, then answered calmly, "C."
"Alright, you may sit." The teacher gestured for her to sit down. "Actually, C is a highly misleading option. I believe many students chose C. The issue lies in—"
"You don't trust me," Jiang Yu said, his face darkening.
"That's not it," Lu Yige smiled. "C is extremely misleading, and that's exactly what the teacher wants to focus on in this question. If I gave the correct answer, wouldn't that be undermining her?"
She looked straight at him. "How could I not trust you?"
"Then you—"
Jiang Yu didn't finish and turned to look at the blackboard.
Lu Yige could guess what he wanted to say. Ever since seeing her dance with Chi Yexuan, Jiang Yu had hesitated to speak several times.
If you want to ask, just ask. Isn't it exhausting to bottle it up every day?
"What do you want to say?" Lu Yige asked directly.
"It's nothing." Jiang Yu lowered his eyes. "I don't have the standing to ask you."
"Say it."
He looked at her and said slowly, "You said you couldn't dance, but you danced with Chi Yexuan."
"Auntie Chi asked me. It would've been rude to refuse."
"And I'm easy to refuse?" he asked.
Lu Yige couldn't help laughing. "She's an elder. Are you an elder?"
Honestly—weren't you secretly delighted to dance with Jiang Nian?
Weren't you?
"What am I, then?" Jiang Yu asked.
"What?" Lu Yige was confused.
He looked at her seriously. "What am I to you?"
Lu Yige: "..."
This man's level was far too high.
"O-okay, class—let's focus. Stop talking."
Seeing Lu Yige turn her face away shyly, Jiang Yu lowered his head slightly, a faint, imperceptible smile curling at his lips. The anxiety that had weighed on him for days finally eased.
That weekend, Lu Yige woke up at eight. She had set an alarm the night before, planning to seriously review.
No matter what, she had to respect the final exams.
She was confident she'd get a good score. Xu Lu might be hard to beat, but surpassing Jiang Yu shouldn't be a problem.
That guy actually looked down on her, thinking she was lopsided in her studies. Lu Yige fumed inwardly. If she didn't beat this scumbag, it would be an insult to her 680-point college entrance exam score.
She went downstairs and found that Jiang Yu wasn't there again.
He was probably out working part-time. Lu Yige felt a bit helpless—Jiang Yu was even more carefree than she was, still doing part-time work with exams right around the corner.
She just didn't know whether he was doing it for money or for romance.
If it was for money, she could spare him some sympathy.
If it was for romance... then she'd just pity him a little.
Jiang Yu walked along the street. It was rush hour, with traffic flowing endlessly.
There was no bus stop nearby. He hailed a taxi and said to the driver, "Qiling Mountain, outside the city."
The driver glanced at him and replied readily, "Alright, let's go."
This was his first time taking a taxi. In the past, to save money, he'd take a bus out of the city, transfer, and then walk a long distance.
This time, he needed to go and return quickly—there could be no mistakes.
Cars weren't allowed further up the mountain. Jiang Yu asked the driver to wait and said he'd be back in half an hour.
As he paid, the driver casually asked, "Visiting family?"
"Yeah," Jiang Yu replied.
Family—what a ridiculous word.
He climbed the steps one by one, watching the early-morning sun rise slowly over the mountain peak, not yet scorching, feeling an inexplicable emptiness inside.
At the end of the steps lay Qiling Mountain Cemetery. Among hundreds of gravestones, Jiang Yu found the most unremarkable one.
The woman in the photograph had bold, striking eyes.
In the memories he never wanted to revisit, she was always laughing wildly and proudly, her words and actions like an aggressive carnivorous flower.
Such a woman, unwilling to live an ordinary life, now lay eternally in the most ordinary place.
Jiang Yu looked at her and said, "Tell me—was I wrong?"
He then let out a self-mocking laugh. "If you could speak, you'd probably say I wasn't wrong, wouldn't you?"
She had always been ruthless. Though he didn't want to admit it, he knew that his own madness and selfishness were exactly like hers—etched into his genes.
What she left him, besides a wretched childhood and a duplicitous personality, was a burning obsession and hatred coursing through his blood.
That hatred was what made Jiang Yu plan everything the moment he saw Lu Yige on the first day of high school.
Now that he finally had the chance, he could not give it up under any circumstances.
He didn't want to consider the consequences, nor should he ask whether it was right or wrong. Everything was destined. In the end, he had become someone just like his mother.
Lu Yige was studying in the study when she vaguely heard Aunt Liu's voice.
"Xiao Yu's back already? Have you eaten breakfast? If not, go have something in the kitchen—you went out so early."
Jiang Yu was back?
Lu Yige checked the time. It was only nine. Had his boss suddenly grown a conscience and let him come back to study?
Her head was full of question marks, but she didn't bother going out to look.
The study door opened. She looked up to see Jiang Yu placing several books by the door.
"You're awake," he said as he walked in.
"Yeah," Lu Yige voiced her doubt. "Where did you go?"
Jiang Yu picked out a few notebooks and placed them on her desk. "I left my books at school and went back to get them."
"Oh, you could've asked Uncle Li to drive—" She stopped mid-sentence when she saw him push the notebooks toward her.
"What are you doing?"
"These are my compiled mistake notes. They should be somewhat useful to you," Jiang Yu said calmly.
Lu Yige pursed her lips. Was he helping her beat him with his own hands?
"No need. Keep them for yourself."
"Take them." He placed the notebooks in her hands and left the study.
"So weird," Lu Yige muttered, setting the notebooks aside.
She refused to accept help from a scumbag.
After a while, her hand reached toward the physics mistake notebook. Physics had been her weakest subject in high school. The more she loved math, the more she hated physics.
Her deskmate back then had called her an oddball—math and physics went hand in hand, so how could someone be so extreme?
Jiang Yu seemed quite good at physics...
She slapped her own hand away. No accepting help from scumbags. She would surpass him fair and square, look down on him, and crush him completely.
Final exams were scheduled to begin on Tuesday, leaving Monday for teachers and students to organize their reviews.
Lu Yige complained inwardly about how the school dragged things out. Most subjects had already finished reviewing last week—why not just start the exams this week?
When the class bell rang, she glanced at the seat beside her. Jiang Yu still hadn't returned.
Just as the teacher walked into the classroom and began the lesson, a cool voice sounded at the door.
"Report."
"Come in," the teacher said indifferently, waving him inside.
Covering his mouth, Jiang Yu coughed lightly a few times and quickly walked to his seat.
Lu Yige turned to look at him. Jiang Yu lowered the hand covering his mouth.
"You..." Lu Yige froze.
She saw blood seeping from the corner of Jiang Yu's lips.
***
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