Criticizing Love - Chapter 22

Chapter 22

After a night of silence, Nancheng High School welcomed back its usual bustling atmosphere.

However, none of this concerned the third-year students. In the senior building, far from the noise of the playground, the gloomy aura was heavy enough to fuel a thousand grudges.

Yesterday was the last sports meet for the seniors, and many students had used it as an excuse to party. Over-excited and yet to recover, most of the class collapsed onto their desks after the first morning self-study session.

There was one exception.

Qin Zhuo bolted out of the room.

Zhong Sheng had just leaned back with the math paper from two days ago to ask Lin Xi a question. Seeing Qin Zhuo launch herself out like a projectile, she let out an unkind laugh.

Lin Xi was puzzled. Seeing that Zhong Sheng clearly knew the inside story, she asked, “What happened?”

“You don’t know yet?” Zhong Sheng sprawled across Lin Xi’s desk, her face full of schadenfreude. “Yesterday afternoon, Old Qin took her girlfriend to ask ‘Big Orange’ (the teacher) a question. Big Orange was busy copying today’s exams and told them to wait a bit. Then, who knows what was wrong with Qin Zhuo’s brain, but she saw the physics teacher walking by, ditched her girlfriend, and ran off to ask a physics question instead, leaving her girlfriend all alone to wait for Big Orange.”

“…Huh?”

Hearing this story, Lin Xi felt a sudden, inexplicable wave of familiarity.

Beyond that, however, was confusion: “Why? What’s the big deal?”

“What do you mean ‘why’?!” Zhong Sheng looked dead serious.

She was firmly on the side of Qin Zhuo’s girlfriend, indignantly explaining it to Lin Xi: “Think about it. You go with your girlfriend to an unfamiliar place to meet people you don’t know. Then, instead of staying with you, she runs off to do something else. Wouldn’t you be nervous? Wouldn’t you… well, granted, you wouldn’t be afraid.”

Zhong Sheng paused, hindered by Lin Xi’s prickly personality, but it didn’t stop her righteous indignation. She slapped the desk with her exam paper like a storyteller’s gavel: “Regardless, ditching your girlfriend to do something else at any time is to be condemned! Severely condemned!”

Hearing Zhong Sheng’s summary, Lin Xi finally realized where that sense of familiarity came from.

…When she took Gu Nianyin to the night market yesterday, she had done exactly that.

Her heart began to drum. Lin Xi stole a sideways glance at Gu Nianyin.

Gu Nianyin seemed to have no reaction to Zhong Sheng’s words; she was still focused on organizing her notes.

Lin Xi struggled internally, still not quite understanding: “It’s not that serious, is it? Did her girlfriend end up asking the question alone?”

“No, Qin Zhuo made it back just in time,” Zhong Sheng replied.

“Then it’s fine!” Lin Xi suddenly felt emboldened. “Look, in the same amount of time, Old Qin finished her own task without delaying her girlfriend. Isn’t that a perfect use of time?”

“Perfect my foot! You think this is a ‘logic puzzle’ about baking bread?!”

For once, Zhong Sheng was completely confident in a “math” debate against Lin Xi: “Since that person went there with you, your time during that period should belong entirely to her!”

“…” Lin Xi bit the inside of her cheek, struggling to concede. “But… don’t we usually do things like that too?”

Zhong Sheng sighed. “Please, that’s totally different.”

Then, she grabbed the nearest person: “Daishen (Great God), you tell us. Is this Qin Zhuo’s fault or not?”

The topic was abruptly thrust upon Gu Nianyin. The pen in her hand stopped instantly.

Having finished her sentence, Gu Nianyin looked up unhurriedly and nodded at Zhong Sheng. “Indeed.”

She was wearing her silver-rimmed glasses, which made her calm demeanor look like that of a scholarly researcher. She then concluded: “The ‘logic puzzle’ approach is not advisable in matters of the heart.”

“!”

Lin Xi’s heart jolted. In her mind, the sound of a newly constructed building collapsing echoed in her ears.

Gu Nianyin hadn’t just heard everything; she had indirectly invalidated Lin Xi’s behavior from the night before.

Recalling the reaction of Qin Zhuo’s girlfriend, Lin Xi couldn’t help but look at Gu Nianyin, wondering if she was also angry.

But this person was too calm; her emotions were never written on her face.

Lin Xi peeked over and saw only a pool of still water. The sunlight reflected off Gu Nianyin’s glasses, casting shimmering patterns across her profile—still waters running deep.

“Daishen!”

Suddenly, someone called Gu Nianyin from the doorway.

Lin Xi, acting out of a guilty conscience, jumped in her seat.

Gu Nianyin, however, remained composed. She turned her head. “Is something the matter?”

“Someone is looking for you.” The person pointed to a strange male student at the door.

“Okay.” Gu Nianyin took a quick look at the person, then stood up and left the classroom.

Throughout the entire exchange, she had zero interaction with Lin Xi.

For some reason, Lin Xi felt uneasy. She watched Gu Nianyin leave, thinking: She probably, maybe, perhaps… isn’t mad, right?

She accepted the butterfly I gave her, after all!

It couldn’t be that after all that effort last night—and after condemning her own conscience for so long—the result was a glorious negative score?

How was it that her pride-and-joy “logic puzzle” method for efficiency was wrong in this situation?

Dammit, why isn’t there an automatic system that generates points for people you’re trying to woo, so I can see her favorability level…

Lin Xi, whose romantic experience was as blank as a sheet of paper, wore a look of deep distress.

Zhong Sheng watched the now-subdued Lin Xi, her eyes darting around. Her brain was always used in places it shouldn’t be—like right now: “Xi, you didn’t do the same thing, did you?”

Lin Xi looked up helplessly. “In the future, please tell me this kind of gossip earlier.”

Zhong Sheng shook her head. “You ‘straight’ people… I really don’t know how any of you manage to find wives.”

Lin Xi declined the sentiment: “Thanks for the blessing, but I don’t have a wife yet.”

“Hehe, but you’re getting there, aren’t you?” Zhong Sheng took the hint. Realizing what Lin Xi meant, she immediately offered: “I have plenty of ‘what-not-to-do’ examples. Want me to go through my chat logs and tell you about them?”

In the past, Lin Xi had disdained the strategy of “grinding” through practice problems; she was a self-proclaimed genius who never did such things.

But this time, she accepted Zhong Sheng’s “remedial class” and began to “grind.”

Matters of the heart truly couldn’t be judged with logic.

As Lin Xi listened to the cases Zhong Sheng described, she felt her head itching with confusion.

“I just saw the ‘Cold Version’ of Daishen.”

By the time Zhong Sheng reached the third case study, Qin Zhuo walked back in, looking like she had discovered a new continent. She seemed to have successfully apologized to her girlfriend, as the panic from earlier was gone.

Lin Xi was feeling dizzy from Zhong Sheng’s lecture. Hearing Qin Zhuo, she drawled dismissively, “Isn’t she always like that?”

Zhong Sheng, however, smelled gossip and immediately abandoned the lesson. “What did you see?”

“I just passed the West Gate and saw a guy confessing to her! I think he’s from Class 2,” Qin Zhuo said. “The way he kept pestering her, insisting she say yes… he was so shameless.”

The “West Gate” Qin Zhuo referred to was the exit on the west side of the teaching building. That door was always locked, making the area secluded and rarely visited.

Lin Xi recalled the location and the plot, and that sense of familiarity rose again.

—The reason I know Gu Nianyin is gay is because of a scene exactly like that, isn’t it?

“And guess what Daishen said?” Qin Zhuo hung a hook with great excitement.

Lin Xi sneered internally; she already knew the answer.

Zhong Sheng, however, was a great audience, her eyes sparkling. “What did she say?!”

“She said…” Qin Zhuo cleared her throat, straightened her face, and mimicked Gu Nianyin’s coldness. “I’m sorry, you’re blocking my path.”

“?!”

“Pfft—!”

Qin Zhuo’s impression was spot on, and Lin Xi’s shock was covered by Zhong Sheng’s unladylike laughter.

“That’s a total shut-out.”

“Yeah, I felt embarrassed for him just standing there.”

“As expected of Daishen.”

The two of them gossiped back and forth, eventually settling on Gu Nianyin’s terrifyingly stable persona. Neither of them noticed Lin Xi standing quietly to the side, completely lost in the wind.

How could that be Gu Nianyin’s answer? Shouldn’t she have said ‘I don’t like boys’?

She just… ignored him?

Why didn’t she ignore the person back then?

Come to think of it, Lin Xi realized she had never once doubted the truth of Gu Nianyin’s words that day.

Would someone as cold and aloof as Gu Nianyin directly disclose her sexual orientation to a stranger she just met?

She is the dried-leaf pattern on the outside of the Blue Morpho.

Lin Xi’s thoughts suddenly grew heavy, and the world around her went quiet.

It wasn’t for any special reason; there are no bells for self-study in the third year. It was up to the class representatives to watch the time and call the teachers. Whenever the teacher arrived, class began.

And now, Cheng Jianbang (the math teacher) strolled in with a stack of papers.

Gu Nianyin had returned at some point. Lin Xi took the paper from her hand.

The girl’s finger temperature lingered on the page, but because it was so cold, it dissipated the moment Lin Xi touched it—so quickly that Lin Xi didn’t even notice.

The math problems on this paper were a bit too simple for Lin Xi. As she calculated, her mind wandered, hooking back onto the thread that had snapped earlier.

Why did Gu Nianyin say ‘I don’t like boys’ back then?

She clearly knew a better way to reject him.

Was it all my hallucination back then?

As her pen moved, Lin Xi easily calculated the answer to the last multiple-choice question, but her other train of thought was derailed.

She had never found a problem so difficult to solve, and she even began to doubt herself.

If that was the case, wouldn’t her plan be back at square one?

Cheng Jianbang sat at the podium, admiring the way the students solved the problems. His favorite expression was the sudden enlightenment of a student after a period of struggle; such transitions gave him physical and mental pleasure.

But just as he raised his cup to admire the view, his smile froze.

His most prized student—Lin Xi, who consistently ranked first in math—had her brow furrowed, looking extremely troubled by the paper.

What’s wrong?

Is this paper harder than the placement exam?

Impossible!

A butterfly flapping its wings in the tropical rainforest of South America could cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later. Cheng Jianbang would never have guessed that Lin Xi’s frown was due to romantic troubles; he began to doubt himself and re-examined the paper he had just written.

A second after Cheng Jianbang lowered his head, Lin Xi looked up.

She was fed up with self-doubt. Holding her prepared lines, she intended to test Gu Nianyin.

But before she could speak, she stopped.

The bright sunlight poured through the window, illuminating Gu Nianyin’s profile as she quietly wrote. She looked the same as ever, but the rhythm of her pen touching the paper wasn’t particularly smooth.

The sun can make everything in the world clear, but it can also disguise the bad as the good.

Thanks to her experience with Xing Xiu, Lin Xi immediately spotted a problem in the rhythm and pace of Gu Nianyin’s calculations. She then noticed that Gu Nianyin’s naturally pale lips were even whiter now, as if she might collapse the next second.

The prepared words were pushed aside. Lin Xi spoke awkwardly: “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”

“My period,” Gu Nianyin answered softly.

Perhaps due to the physical discomfort, her calm voice held a hint of stubborn strain.

For someone with a “cold” constitution, every period was like surviving a disaster. Gu Nianyin had long since grown used to it. She kept Ibuprofen in her bag year-round, but she always waited until the pain started—waited until it was severe—before taking it.

Calculating the limit on the paper, Gu Nianyin wrote down the answer. She was unhurried, as if the pain wasn’t happening to her body, before she finally reached into her bag for the medicine.

However, when she looked up again, two individually wrapped red dates had appeared on her clean exam paper.

Lin Xi didn’t look up, but an authoritative voice came from her throat: “Eat them.”

Gu Nianyin’s gaze paused.

She took the items into her hand. The high-quality red dates radiated a warm temperature under the sunlight.

“They’re for replenishing your blood. They won’t interfere with your medicine,” Lin Xi added.

Gu Nianyin’s lips curled slightly. Amidst the paleness were many emotions that others couldn’t see: “Thank you.”

She set the pills aside and bit into a red date.

As the original sweetness—once sealed by dehydration—was revived by her saliva and filled her mouth, Gu Nianyin looked at Lin Xi again: “Lin Xi.”

Lin Xi’s train of thought for the problem was interrupted. She was a bit irritable: “What?”

“Can you do me one more favor?” Gu Nianyin asked.

Her voice was the same as before, but perhaps because Lin Xi now knew she was on her period, she seemed even more “pitiful.”

Lin Xi felt that this person was very good at “taking an inch when given a mile.” As soon as Lin Xi showed her any kindness, she immediately made another request, expecting her to be the “good person” until the very end.

Moral kidnapping!

Pure moral kidnapping!!

Lin Xi utterly disdained this behavior; her refusal was on the tip of her tongue.

But Gu Nianyin was looking up at her. The sunlight hit her anemic face, which was undeniably pale. Only her eyes remained clear and transparent, though they held a sense of frailty as her lashes drooped slightly.

…Then again, a girl’s period is indeed quite miserable.

And when someone asks for help at a time like this, what could it be? Just borrowing a pad or getting some hot water.

Most importantly, she still needed to build up favor with this person.

Lin Xi pursed her lips and relented: “Fine, tell me. What do you want?”

Gu Nianyin’s lips moved softly: “I want you.”

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