Criticizing Love - Chapter 26

Chapter 26

In fact, much earlier than this, Lin Xi had already arrived downstairs at Gu Nianyin’s house.

Doctor Tao had performed the surgery on Xing Xiu yesterday. The procedure went very smoothly, and Xing Xiu woke up that same evening.

With her heart full of worry, Lin Xi skipped Cheng Bang’s last class in the afternoon and stayed by Xing Xiu’s side at the hospital for a good part of the day, feeding her water and peeling apples for her.

Xing Xiu felt both comforted and pained for her. Looking at the dark circles around the young girl’s eyes, she chased her out of the hospital right after dinner, telling her to go back and get a good night’s sleep.

Dinner had been eaten too early. When Lin Xi was driven out, the elevator was packed with family members who had just fetched meals.

She left the hospital on her bike as usual. The once-quiet streets were now teeming with pedestrians, the sky completely dark, and lights interwoven among them, creating an indescribable bustling atmosphere.

The young girl’s slender figure wove through the crowd, and it suddenly occurred to her that going home would be boring.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t just wandered around in a long time. Lin Xi gripped the handlebars tightly and began to stroll along the brightly lit streets.

Like a phototactic moth.

“Lin Xi, do you know about the sun moth?”

Gu Nianyin’s words to her during the sports meet suddenly echoed in Lin Xi’s head. The girl’s crimson nose had been veiled by her rough breaths, and her dazed, curved eyes seemed to carry a shallow smile.

What exactly did the sun moth she mentioned look like?

Was that thing even a moth?

Lin Xi frowned slightly, these questions popping into her head out of nowhere.

This seed planted in her heart by Gu Nianyin had quietly sprouted when she wasn’t paying attention.

Thinking along these lines the whole way, by the time she snapped out of it, her bike had already arrived at the villa district.

Lin Xi’s self-made resident card easily swiped open the iron gates. Watching that world, which clearly didn’t belong to her, open up for her, she kicked with her long legs and rode her bike inside.

Withered leaves hung lonely on the tree branches, unable to block the light filtering out from the house.

The villa’s living room was brightly lit all over, with occasional silhouettes passing across the glass windows.

Lin Xi didn’t look inside. Instead, she familiarly raised her head and looked toward the second floor of the villa.

Pitch black.

Gu Nianyin wasn’t back yet.

In this premier-tier metropolis where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold and crowds were dense, the population density of the villa district was inversely small.

The night breeze swept past, making a scraping sound as a fallen leaf dragged across the ground. The surroundings were perfectly quiet, even a bit boring.

The time was only a quarter past eight. According to Lin Xi’s personality, she should have left.

Who would want to wait blindly for Gu Nianyin here for an hour? It was freezing cold!

Lin Xi shrank her neck, which was soaked in the cold wind, and deftly turned the handlebars around.

Her shadow on the ground moved, but in the next second, the person who was about to leave got off her bike.

Better just wait.

…What if she came back and didn’t see her?

Based on her past experience, Lin Xi found a spot where she wouldn’t be discovered, yet could keep an eye on the house’s movements at all times.

And just when she didn’t know how to kill this hour, Zhong Sheng sent her the test paper and answers for Cheng Bang’s pop quiz.

Lin Xi cast a casual glance over it, heading straight for the final big problem.

The problem-solving steps in her head matched up one by one with Cheng Bang’s answers. Looking at the notes on Zhong Sheng’s paper, Lin Xi was rarely proactive: “You didn’t understand this part.”

Zhong Sheng was waiting on the other end for Lin Xi to reply so she could ask about the problem. Now, she sent Lin Xi a pitiful emoji: “A-Xi, teach me.”

Lin Xi raised her eyes to look toward the road of the neighborhood in the distance. Withered leaves rested on the ground. Everything was silent.

She gathered her skirt a bit, then sat down under the tree, starting a free math tutoring session for Zhong Sheng: “Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.” Zhong Sheng adopted a posture of seeking guidance, but her gossiping heart still made her full of curiosity about the other side of the video call: “A-Xi, where are you? Why is it so dark on your end?”

“Outside,” Lin Xi said honestly.

“Outside?” Zhong Sheng was somewhat surprised, her eyes rolling quickly on her end of the video.

While pointing her camera at her test paper, she observed Lin Xi’s background. As if figuring something out in a certain second, she became excited and astonished: “A-Xi! You couldn’t be on a date with that mysterious lady, could you?!”

Lin Xi’s expression stiffened, the night concealing her guilt.

She really felt that her previous answer had been superfluous. Her disapproval of her own behavior on this trip made her a bit irritable, and she said directly: “Date my ass, are you listening or not?”

“Listening, listening, listening!” Zhong Sheng nodded repeatedly, straightening the problem in the camera’s view.

The camera view on Lin Xi’s side was very clean, with a tree that still held some green swaying in the darkness.

Following Lin Xi’s line of thought, Zhong Sheng inexplicably thought of Gu Nianyin, who was also absent today.

Her thoughts flashed, and the person off-camera suddenly shuddered.

Her good sister couldn’t have skipped class to go find the Goddess, right?

Listening to the people in class discuss it, today seemed to be the Goddess’s birthday? No way…

“You didn’t understand this step?” Noticing that the person on the other side of the camera showed a thoughtful expression, Lin Xi stopped her voice explaining the problem.

Zhong Sheng suddenly snapped out of it. Not daring to admit to Lin Xi that her mind had wandered, she nodded falteringly: “Y-Yeah.”

“If it is, just say so. It’s not like I’m going to eat you.” Lin Xi disdained Zhong Sheng’s awkwardness. Turning back, she patiently explained what she had just said all over again: “Look at this step, can it be substituted into…”

The young girl’s voice sounded calm, and Zhong Sheng didn’t think further about the issue of her mind wandering just now.

It wasn’t that she didn’t dare to think further, but rather she feared that if she did it one more time, Lin Xi wouldn’t explain problems to her anymore.

Although Zhong Sheng wasn’t good at math, she was someone who had made it into the top class after all; her brain was still sharp.

Re-catching Lin Xi’s rhythm, when Lin Xi explained down to the third-to-last step, she suddenly saw the light and slapped her thigh: “Understood!”

Zhong Sheng was still immersed in the gentleness of Lin Xi’s explanation just now, her face full of satisfaction: “A-Xi, seriously, if you explain problems to the mysterious lady, I guarantee she will definitely fall in love with you.”

Hearing how sappy this sounded, Lin Xi tossed two words back: “Get lost.”

Zhong Sheng: “Really!”

She then seemed to recall something and asked tentatively: “Or could it be that the mysterious lady’s grades are better than yours, and you’re afraid you won’t be able to explain problems to her?”

“Just her?” Lin Xi’s domain in mathematics was not to be questioned. Without suspicion, she took the bait and let out a cold laugh: “Let me tell you, don’t look at her overall…”

Just as Zhong Sheng watched Lin Xi fall into her trap, a bright light drove into the dim video.

That light came from far to near, bright and overexposed, instantly illuminating the young girl’s originally blurred face with extreme clarity, and pulling her out of her trap.

Lin Xi looked over from a distance, realizing that Gu Nianyin and the others were back.

No, it was just the two of them.

Looking at the slender figures walking out of the villa, Lin Xi’s eyes were full of astonishment.

Lin Deyuan actually hadn’t gone!

Lin Xi pulled the corner of her mouth, her shock transforming into a trace of pleasure from understanding something.

Lin Deyuan was absolutely nothing in front of that woman.

So even if it was just a small matter, it was enough for that woman to abandon him.

Zhong Sheng watched from the other side of the phone. Seeing Lin Xi’s neck remaining on the screen, her heart itched with unbearable curiosity: “A-Xi, who is it?”

Who?

An expensive Maybach, clad in black, came to a steady stop in the courtyard. The car door opened, and a pair of shoes embedded with fine diamonds stepped onto the stone slab path.

Those slender ankles were wrapped in stockings, hazy like moonlight, appearing in a sudden brush before being concealed by the hem of a skirt. The waist enveloped by the dress extended straight and elegantly, naturally connecting to an even more wonderful color.

The lights in the courtyard were plain and direct, dyeing her loose strands of hair with a golden glow.

The moon’s shadow was hazy, and her figure standing sideways radiated a soft radiance. She walked with light steps, causing one to lose themselves.

A long breath came delayed from the other side of the video. Zhong Sheng seemed to hear a sound called heartbeat, which was then covered by Lin Xi’s actual voice: “Your future sister-in-law.”

When she said this, the corners of her mouth were raised high, her tone carrying a flash of proud certainty.

It was hard to tell if this was revenge against Lin Deyuan or if there was another obscure meaning, but she immediately hung up Zhong Sheng’s call and stood up deftly from under the tree.

Lin Xi didn’t care what the woman standing with Lin Deyuan looked like. Her gaze chased Gu Nianyin’s silhouette.

Because of this, she noticed that when Gu Nianyin spoke to Lin Deyuan, there wasn’t much expression on her face. Even when she walked back into the villa with that woman, she still maintained her usual cold appearance.

The light of the courtyard turned and hit her face. The autumn leaves were icy, and the moonlight was dead silent.

Gu Nianyin didn’t look all that happy.

One could even say she wasn’t happy at all.

Was the birthday party unpleasant?

Lin Xi stared at Gu Nianyin’s gradually receding profile, a trace of worry inexplicably arising in her heart.

However, at this moment, the young girl didn’t yet understand that this feeling of hers was called worry.

Watching the few people enter the house, Lin Xi then pulled out her phone, wanting to text Gu Nianyin to tell her to come out.

But unfortunately, just as the lights on Gu Nianyin’s second floor turned on, Lin Deyuan and She Ning were drinking and talking romance in the living room downstairs.

No one cared what those two were huddling together to talk about. Lin Xi didn’t even care about Lin Deyuan’s flattering, pleasing smile; her brow was tightly furrowed, praying in her heart only that these two would go back to their bedroom to talk romance and not delay her business here.

After waiting for a while, these two people finally left amidst Lin Xi’s frequent mental complaints.

Not knowing where Lin Deyuan and that woman had gone, calling Gu Nianyin down wasn’t going to work out.

Lin Xi rearranged her mood. Out of some unknown mischievousness, she picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it accurately at Gu Nianyin’s window pane.

Once, twice…

Click!

Whoosh—!!

At the same time Lin Xi threw another pebble from her hand, the balcony door was pushed open.

The night breeze embraced the coolness and rushed toward the warm interior. Gu Nianyin held the door frame with both arms wide open, the hem of her cotton nightgown being lifted by the wind.

It wasn’t the kind of exquisite beauty down to the hair strands from when she just got out of the car.

At this moment, she wore no makeup, her pale face clean and natural. The night breeze drifted everywhere, swirling with the scent on her body and falling right before Lin Xi.

It was still that floral fragrance, faint to the point of being odorless.

Lin Xi looked up, staring blankly for a moment. Then, she quickly concealed her emotions by shoving her hands into her pockets, complaining to the person upstairs: “You sure are slow.”

Hearing this, Gu Nianyin was somewhat surprised, her voice very light for fear of being heard: “Have you been here long?”

“Yeah.” Lin Xi acted awkward, not giving a specific time.

She then pulled out her phone, sending Gu Nianyin the message she had long since prepared: “I put your schoolbag under the rose trellis in the back yard. Remember to go down and get it later.”

“Okay,” Gu Nianyin replied to Lin Xi as well.

The wind brought by pushing open the door just now settled down, gently brushing past the young girls’ hair.

Lin Xi raised her head to stare at Gu Nianyin on the balcony, a very wonderful feeling reflecting in her chest.

It felt as if as long as Gu Nianyin was here, she could stand here for a very long time. Standing here conducting a meaningless, completely futile process.

Realizing this, Lin Xi withdrew her gaze slightly.

She still remembered the expressionless look of Gu Nianyin coming home just now, and followed up by asking: “Did anything unhappy happen at the birthday party?”

Looking at this line of text, Gu Nianyin thought to herself: the very existence of this birthday party is an unhappy thing.

But she still shook her head, saying to Lin Xi: “It was quite pleasant.”

Lin Xi then replied: “You rarely use that word.”

Gu Nianyin froze for a moment.

She hadn’t expected Lin Xi to answer her this way. Lowering her head, she saw Lin Xi sending her another message: “Quite means it’s not enough.”

The two of them were clearly close at hand, yet they were chatting using their phones. They were very far apart, yet very close.

The first tightness of the day finally loosened from between Gu Nianyin’s brows: “You are very smart.”

Lin Xi raised an eyebrow: “I’ve always been very smart, Miss First-in-the-Grade.”

Looking at this title, a trace of a smile appeared in Gu Nianyin’s eyes hidden in the shadow.

She discovered that Lin Xi seemed to have all sorts of titles for her. She proactively asked the person downstairs: “Then what should I call you?”

Looking at it, Lin Xi raised her eyebrows and thought about it seriously.

She quite wanted Gu Nianyin to call her something that could reflect her looking up to her, for example, “Boss Desk-mate,” “Sister Xi”…

But Gu Nianyin gave her the most ordinary answer: “A-Xi.”

That long-accustomed name was typed out from Gu Nianyin’s profile picture, giving Lin Xi a sudden feeling that time had stopped.

She thought that Gu Nianyin had probably been aware of the hostile attitude she held toward her before. Now she wasn’t so resistant to this person anymore, and she wanted to agree to this name.

But she didn’t want to seem too deliberate.

The young girl tilted her head up, asking the person on the balcony recalcitrantly: “Is this your birthday wish?”

“What if it is?” Gu Nianyin asked.

“Then you have to remember it,” Lin Xi said.

She looked up at the young girl standing on the balcony like a moth, basely wanting to leave an unforgettable imprint on her life.

Thus, she announced to her awkwardly and arbitrarily: “Gu Nianyin, the first wish of your eighteen years was fulfilled by me.”