Criticizing Love - Chapter 37

Chapter 37

The hazy rays of the slanting afternoon sun loosely shrouded the corridor of the office building, the rarely visited silence trodden to pieces by the sound of high heels.

The woman’s tall silhouette moved with measured paces under the sun, her sealed lips compressing a pressing dash of red.

She Ning went straight to a stop in front of the disciplinary office, and the moment she pushed open the door, the sounds inside quieted down.

Zhou Xiaofeng’s mother, who just a moment ago was still arguing strongly based on reason with the disciplinary director to self-verify she had no problems, instantly lost her voice. She sat on the sofa just like that, her originally aggressive momentum instantly devoured clean by the wind She Ning brought in.

Despite having personally notified She Ning to come over for a trip, the disciplinary director still tensed for a fraction when looking at this person.

Wang Tingxiu, who stood to the side, had it even more so than him.

This was actually her first time seeing She Ning from a close distance.

She watched this person come to a standstill at the doorway. When cheap imitations flooding the streets encountered the genuine authentic version, that Chanel-style outfit that people originally complained about as tacky fit perfectly right on her body, leaking a precious nobility amidst elegance, instantly making one understand what a prominent family depicted in books looked like.

Wang Tingxiu did not suffer from stage fright, proactively going over to break the ice: “Hello, Nianyin’s mother, I am Nianyin’s homeroom teacher, my name is Wang Tingxiu.”

Seeing this person’s speech, behavior, and aura, She Ning gave a slight nod of her head, also willing to extend her hand over to shake hands with Wang Tingxiu: “She Ning.”

She did not have a lot of pleasantries. After speaking her own name, she asked again: “Where is our family’s Niannian?”

“Just now I already had a classmate from the class send her to dress the wound. Rest assured, the wound is not very large, only one centimeter, and the bleeding stopped very quickly. The school hospital side also guaranteed it absolutely won’t leave a scar,” Wang Tingxiu replied. She was also highly worried about Gu Nianyin’s condition, continuously getting to know the situation from the doctor at the school hospital before She Ning arrived.

Hearing this, She Ning lightly nodded her head: “Thank you for taking the trouble.”

Wang Tingxiu: “Not at all, it’s all what I ought to do.”

As she spoke, she was also somewhat self-reproachful: “Blame me as well, for not being able to protect Nianyin in time.”

“You are not the person with primary responsibility for this matter. Regarding your matters, we will talk afterward.” She Ning was casual and brief, her random tone carrying a faint sense of oppression.

She unhurriedly raised her own eyelashes, and after settling down on the sofa, she looked toward the chief culprit of the entire event: “This lady, I think we need to have a proper talk first.”

The location of the disciplinary office was very good. Even though it was afternoon, quite a bit of sunlight still baked in.

Today had a warm sun rare for an autumn day, yet Zhou Xiaofeng’s mother felt herself at this instant seem to drop into an abyss.

Piercingly cold into the bones.

Irretrievable.

The afternoon wind blew across the empty grounds, the sports field brimming with an ambiance of freedom.

The sounds of outdoor activities were loose and active, transmitting into the room through the glass, forming a miraculous balance with the quiet inside the sickroom.

Seemingly because the sports field was a place of frequent occurrence for student injuries, the school’s hospital was built exactly in a place separated from the sports field by a single fence.

After realizing Zhou Xiaofeng’s mother pushed Gu Nianyin down, Lin Xi was beside herself with rage, rushing over wanting to argue properly with her.

It was only under the joint containment of Wang Tingxiu and Zhong Sheng that she calmed down, subsequently being sent away by Wang Tingxiu to bring Gu Nianyin to the school hospital to handle the wound.

“It might hurt a little.” The school doctor held a cotton swab dipped in iodophor, preparing to handle the wound for Gu Nianyin.

Seemingly because of this warning sentence, several fractions of reaction appeared in Gu Nianyin’s uprightly sitting body.

The girl’s scallion-white fingers drilled into the gaps between Lin Xi’s fingers, gripping her all at once.

Truly faint-hearted.

Lin Xi sneered in her heart, yet she didn’t disdainfully draw her hand away.

She lowered her head to look at Gu Nianyin holding her hand, the back of the hand hot with an abruptness. Pausing slightly, she still let her grab it anyway: “If you feel it hurts in a bit, just grip tighter.”

“Okay,” Gu Nianyin said softly.

The school doctor was also patient, watching from the side unhurriedly like this, only starting to apply the medicine after these two finished speaking.

“The dark brown cotton swab rolled across the skin of the temple, covering up the pink color that had just blurred and spread out.”

Fine, dense pain drilled into the skin, pulling at the nerves to throb and leap one beat after another, appearing exceptionally clear within the quiet.

Gu Nianyin lightly lowered her eyes, on the surface still that look of calmness, only the fingertips clasped onto the back of Lin Xi’s hand were continuously tightening.

Senses were transmitting through the temperature. A kind of heartache that in the past only appeared when looking at Xing Xiu’s pale face produced itself within Lin Xi’s heart.

Truly strange.

It was just a small cut, that’s all, not some major injury. Why was her reaction this strong?

With this spare mind, it would be better to find a place with no one around after school to truly give Zhou Xiaofeng a beating!

It would be best to beat him until he looked everywhere for his teeth, also giving his head a stroke like this to vent her anger!

Two types of complicated moods simultaneously appeared within Lin Xi’s mind—one was tightening up, yet one was releasing outward.

The clasped fingers were still continuously tightening, the violence suppressed. Lin Xi’s entire heart was neither up nor down, and she even had a kind of unclear, obscure feeling.

Damn it.

Lin Xi cursed in her heart, and the school doctor also finished applying the medicine at this time.

The look in her eyes when looking at Lin Xi was somewhat different from the very beginning. While putting down the cotton swab in her hand, she commissioned her: “Air it out for her first. I still have matters over here. You apply the gauze for her in a bit, and I won’t come again, okay?”

Lin Xi naturally agreed: “You can just rest assured.”

The school doctor nodded her head, eyes looking at the two carrying a smile, subsequently leaving.

The quiet inside the sickroom switched to another kind, the only two shadows in the room lightly overlapping together.

Lin Xi first fumbled with the gauze, subsequently raising her head to look toward Gu Nianyin: “Are you stupid or what?”

“What?” Gu Nianyin looked blankly at Lin Xi.

Her wound was on her forehead, and the stray hairs in front of her forehead were clipped up with a pink clip by the school doctor.

With her cowlick standing erect, the abrupt pink added several fractions of childish silliness onto her cool face, seemingly truly having the possibility of not understanding Lin Xi’s words clearly.

“What else could it be?” Lin Xi was in a bad mood, looking at Gu Nianyin’s wound only feeling lingering fear, “Your head is broken. A fraction further and it would be your temple, do you not want to live?”

Looking at the tension on this person’s face when speaking, the pain on Gu Nianyin’s forehead abruptly slowed down.

She was calm and faint-voiced, speaking to Lin Xi: “I know what I’m doing.”

“If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t have rushed over,” Lin Xi thought otherwise, displaying her own strength to Gu Nianyin, “Could I really let her hit me? Even my dad can’t hit me, where does she get that kind of ability.”

Hearing these words, a few fractions of a light frown revealed themselves between Gu Nianyin’s brows.

She gazed at the girl standing in front of herself just like this, tone serious: “Thank you, A-Xi.”

Not knowing if she was a bit tired from standing, after Gu Nianyin finished speaking, Lin Xi hitched up her pants and squatted down in front of Gu Nianyin.

The girl’s posture was casual, a pair of arms resting on her knees, subsequently letting out a “hey” to the person in front of her, asking: “Are you awkward or not?”

The sunlight projected the girls’ shadows from outside the window, and the virtual cowlick tightly followed and shook for a moment.

Gu Nianyin seemed to have a guilty conscience; facing Lin Xi’s suddenly launched question, she abruptly froze.

“You call me ‘A-Xi,’ yet you formally say ‘thank you’ to me.” Lin Xi looked up, complaining about that sentence of Gu Nianyin’s just now with dissatisfaction.

These words she had wanted to say very early on. She had known Zhong Sheng for two years and had never spoken such a dialogue, straight up letting out a sigh of mental weariness: “My eldest young lady, can you please not have your family’s foul rules with me? I truly feel so tired listening to it.”

In Lin Xi’s view, Gu Nianyin could still count as a good person.

It was just that her rules were too many, her entire being square and upright, like an ice cube grown up inside ice lattices.

She didn’t like this, and also felt tired on Gu Nianyin’s behalf.

She wanted to drag her into her own world.

She wanted to in the past.

She wanted to even more now.

Amidst the locked eyes, Gu Nianyin looked at Lin Xi’s face, leaning close all at once.

No one knew what she was thinking inside her eyes, only lightly curving them, her voice clear: “But I still want to say ‘thank you’ to you.”

“Thank you for always being able to appear this timely.”

The paranoid one wasn’t only Lin Xi alone; Gu Nianyin was also stubborn and incorrigible.

After Lin Xi’s complaint, she said “thank you” twice in succession.

Gu Nianyin’s gaze faithfully fixed on Lin Xi, her words spoken with refined courtesy.

Within those words that were disdainfully called foul rules by Lin Xi, there was not a single sliver of hypocrisy. Instead, it was sincerity coming from another world.

Never had anyone spoken to her like this.

Never had anyone seriously fed back her impetuous, expression-challenged pride.

Pitch black reflected dark brown colors, like two glass balls overlapping together.

The sunlight hit from behind Gu Nianyin, shrouding her shadow over the top of Lin Xi’s head, also dropping a touch of floral fragrance that had been baked by the sun.

Clear and light, yet leaking warmth within the coldness.

This was a heat that Lin Xi had never felt. Clearly with the passing of time, the afternoon temperature would gradually lower, yet she felt the temperature all around herself was gradually rising.

Dead cicada cries muffled out sounds from the soil.

The dry heat of summer swept through Lin Xi’s body in this deep autumn.

Thump, thump…

“Greasy to death.” Lin Xi was in a state of chaotic bustle, getting up and tossing three words over.

She took the medical tape placed on the tray by the school doctor, tearing it while saying: “I think you’ve aired it out about enough, covering it up for you.”

Hearing their topic just now covered over by Lin Xi like this, amidst the relaxation of her eyebrows, Gu Nianyin gave a nod of her head: “Okay.”

Lin Xi’s hand carried a bit of warmth, gentler than the iodine that brushed across her forehead just now.

Gu Nianyin slightly tilted up her own head to cooperate with Lin Xi’s movements. The girl’s lightly upturned pinky finger scraped across her skin seemingly inadvertently, softer than gauze.

The slanting afternoon sun of deep autumn fell onto Gu Nianyin’s opened palm. She held the sunlight in her hand, feeling today’s weather was rare and exceptionally good.

Finishing all this, Lin Xi didn’t let herself stop.

Stopping would bring quiet, and inside quiet it was easy to give rise to all sorts of heartbeats. She didn’t quite dare let herself stop right now, immediately picking up the water flask placed on the bedside table: “I’ll go get some water for you.”

Saying this, Lin Xi walked toward the doorway.

The silver-white, icy doorknob was pressed down, and a shadow fell into the opened door crack.

Lin Xi walked outward with zero preparation, the doorknob clasped in her hand, subsequently freezing at the doorway the instant she opened the door.

She Ning didn’t know when she had left the disciplinary office; presently she had already arrived at the sickroom where Gu Nianyin was located.

The woman’s tall and slender silhouette blocked the light leaking in from the corridor, standing in the shadow at the doorway to entirely shroud the top of Lin Xi’s head.

Clearly the height didn’t have much of a difference. Even Lin Xi was a fraction taller than this person stepping in high heels.

But she just came to a standstill all at once.

That was an aura that Lin Deyuan never possessed, and furthermore couldn’t even come close to touching in his next life.

It was also the first time Lin Xi felt the un-interceptable gap between herself and Gu Nianyin.

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