Dating Myself - Chapter 11

Jian Yixi was usually terrible at sports and dreaded the bi-annual 800-meter run. Today, however, she sprinted wildly. Her ponytail whipped behind her, and her pleated skirt fluttered as she ran, forcing her to occasionally hold it down to prevent a wardrobe malfunction.

She ran out of the apartment complex and onto the street. The unfamiliar city made her briefly disoriented; she had only been in Weicheng for a few days and had always been driven, so she didn’t know the directions. Fortunately, An Mu had told her to turn left and go 200 meters, which she could manage.

She ran along the sidewalk and soon saw An Mu standing on the curb. An Mu’s hair was tied in a messy bun, and she was staring at a blue and white bicycle. She was tall, and her school uniform skirt seemed a bit short. The wind lifted the hem, revealing her pale legs and creating a fleeting illusion of a wardrobe malfunction.

Jian Yixi quickly scanned her from head to toe. Seeing no bruises or blood, she finally relaxed, slowed down, and walked over, panting with her hands on her hips.

An Mu turned to her. Her deep-set eyes, framed by long lashes, shone like clear glass in the morning sun. A gentle smile spread across her lips, calming the chaotic and noisy city around them. “You’re here,” she said, her voice soft and melodious, like rustling bamboo leaves.

Jian Yixi, drenched in sweat and still gasping for air, coughed a few times before saying, “You scared me to death!”

“I almost scared myself to death, too. I don’t know what to do,” An Mu replied, pointing at the bike chain. “The traffic was too fast. I lost control and hit a curb, and the chain just… fell off.”

“The chain?” Jian Yixi’s eyes widened as she looked at the bike. The chain was indeed on the ground. “The car accident you talked about… was the chain falling off?”

An Mu corrected her seriously, “First, I hit the curb, and then the chain fell off.”

There’s no need to emphasize the word ‘hit’ so much. I understand what you’re saying, Jian Yixi thought.

She sighed in exasperation, pulled a tissue from her school bag, and wiped her face. Her cheeks were flushed from the run, and her hair was sticking to her forehead. “You’re truly… a princess on a pea.” She couldn’t help but smile, “How could you make such a big deal out of a loose bike chain? It’s just like the princess who couldn’t sleep because of a pea under ten mattresses!”

She had rushed over in a panic for something so trivial, but despite her frustration, Jian Yixi couldn’t help but laugh. “You were so cool yesterday, but today you’re a delicate flower? You’re so…”

“So what?” An Mu asked.

“So interesting.”

Jian Yixi had never met anyone like An Mu. She was so calm and collected with the school principal, didn’t hesitate to slap Lu Yuexin, and was sharp-witted when dealing with Jian Yihu. Yet, she was completely flustered by a simple bike chain. It wasn’t just interesting; it was incredibly endearing.

“Doesn’t this count as a car accident?” An Mu asked.

“Yes! Even if a car accident is small, it’s still an accident.”

“So what do we do now? I don’t know if there are any repair shops nearby, and it’s too early for them to be open.” An Mu deliberately skipped the option of calling a taxi to avoid making Jian Yixi suspicious.

“Leave it to me,” Jian Yixi said.

“You know how to fix it?”

“It’s a piece of cake.”

When she was in Shunyi, Jian Yixi’s main mode of transportation was a bicycle. She rode it everywhere. She could even fix a flat tire by herself.

Jian Yixi found a small branch from a nearby flower bed. She told An Mu to lift the back wheel, and she used the stick to put the chain back on the gear. It only took her two minutes to fix what had taken An Mu ten minutes to mess up.

Jian Yixi dusted off her hands, stood up, and smiled at An Mu. The wind blew her hair across her face, revealing the single dimple on her left cheek, which was now filled with the light of the rising sun. “It’s all set. You can ride it now. You should go.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll go back to find my sister. I can still make it to school.”

Go back and give your sister another chance? An Mu thought to herself. She patted the bike’s back seat. “Don’t go back. I’ll give you a ride.”

Jian Yixi hesitated. “I’m heavy. It’ll be a lot of work for you.”

“That’s fine. It’ll be good exercise.”

“You’re already so thin. Do you need to lose weight?”

“Losing weight is a lifelong project.”

An Mu got on the bike, her white sneakers sparkling clean. Jian Yixi noticed how slim her legs were, disappearing into her pleated skirt. Her school shirt was a little tight, revealing an impossibly thin waist.

Jian Yixi got on the back seat, subconsciously pinching her own thigh and touching her waist. Seeing how thin An Mu was, she decided she would eat less at lunch.

“Hold on tight. There’s a lot of traffic during rush hour. I don’t want you to fall off.”

Jian Yixi obediently wrapped her arms around An Mu’s waist. An Mu’s waist was so slender that she could feel the lack of any excess fat, even through the shirt. She felt a twinge of envy and decided again to cut back on her eating.

“Your house is not from here, so why don’t you live in the dorms?” Jian Yixi suddenly asked.

An Mu pedaled the bike, and the wind scattered her words. “Living in the dorms isn’t convenient. I’ll move in when I have to in my senior year.”

It was a tradition at Weicheng No. 2 Foreign Language High School for students to live at home in their first and second years and live in the dorms for their senior year to focus on the university entrance exam.

“So you’re renting a place by yourself?”

An Mu suddenly braked, and Jian Yixi bumped into her back. Jian Yixi instinctively held on tighter, inhaling a sweet, intoxicating scent. So sweet, so fragrant, she thought, remembering she had wanted to ask An Mu what shampoo she used. Now she could ask about her laundry detergent too.

An Mu supported herself with one leg and waited for an old woman pushing a shopping cart to pass. She felt the soft warmth of Jian Yixi against her back. “What shampoo do you use? It smells so good,” Jian Yixi asked.

“What bra do you wear? It’s so firm?”

Jian Yixi froze and subconsciously touched her own bra, then quickly put her hands down, realizing they were in public.

An Mu replied, “The Fresh tea scent series. I use it for my shampoo. What about you? Is your bra an underwire one? Those aren’t good for long-term wear. You especially need to take it off at night. I wore one to bed for a while, and it hurt so much afterward.”

At the intersection, a red light caused a flurry of cars to stop. An Mu leaned back and whispered into Jian Yixi’s ear, “It was a throbbing pain. It took a lot of effort to recover. You definitely shouldn’t do what I did.”

The hushed voice and the proximity were incredibly intimate. Jian Yixi felt An Mu’s breath on her ear. She was only sixteen and her face flushed as she thought about the strange conversation. She wondered, How can An Mu talk about something so embarrassing without a change in expression?

Is it me who’s too conservative, or is An Mu too open? she wondered. Maybe… she just really likes bras? She was staring at them in the pool the other day, too. That must be it.

Completely missing the point, Jian Yixi put one arm around An Mu’s waist and happily asked about the laundry detergent.

They arrived at school at 7:20 a.m. Although An Mu was on a bike, she was earlier than Jian Yihu. The entire class was buzzing with discussions about the forum scandal.

“Do you think it’s true? Given Jian Yihu’s family background, she wouldn’t do something so disgusting, would she?”

“Family background has nothing to do with character. I’ve always thought she was fake.”

“You’re just saying that now. Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I couldn’t say anything without proof.”

“You were probably afraid of her fan base drowning you in their spit, right?” a student joked.

“She doesn’t have that many fans. Could they drown someone who’s six feet tall?”

“I wonder how the school will handle this.”

“How will they handle it? She’s a student who pays tuition, and her grades are good. The teacher will probably just talk to her in private.”

“Hey, look! The forum is back online! The IDs are gone. I wonder what happened last night?”

“The server must have crashed. This forum is always messing up.”

“An Mu’s here. Let’s go ask her.”

Several students gathered at An Mu’s desk, burning with curiosity. “An Mu, was that ‘YanyuZhou’ account yours?”

An Mu looked up. “Yes.”

“And the ‘LinjiangBie’ account you tagged, was that Jian Yihu’s sister?”

“Yes.”

“Did you target Jian Yihu because of her sister?”

“I didn’t target her. I don’t need to. I didn’t even know her before, and I only met her sister yesterday.”

Just as they were about to ask more, the classroom door opened, and a commotion broke out. Jian Yihu walked in, holding her school bag and looking dazed. Her feet seemed to be on shaky ground, and she even bumped into a desk before she finally sat down. Her eyes were red and bloodshot, her face was pale, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup.

Students whispered to each other, and a few girls who didn’t like Jian Yihu started talking loudly. “Some people are masters of fake accounts. It’s an art form. Others make three or five accounts at most, but some people make dozens, even hundreds.”

“I wonder if her fans are fake, too? Hundreds of thousands of active fans—how much money did that cost?”

“Too bad God Qin was used. He was just sitting at home, and all this trouble fell on him.”

“I don’t think Qin Yige wanted to post that. Someone must have shamelessly begged him to.”

“Everyone knows God Qin likes someone. But that person just acts like an idiot and uses him. I’m going to puke!”

Jian Yihu was hunched over her desk, her shoulders visibly shaking. She looked pitiful and miserable.

Suddenly, a student exclaimed, “Sh*t! Qin Yige posted on Weibo!”

The students around him immediately leaned in.

“Oh my god! What is this?!”

#JianYihu# I apologize for using your forum account yesterday. I just couldn’t stand your hypocritical sister and didn’t want you to be a fool and get bullied. I didn’t expect it to turn out this way. I’m sorry. @JianYihuErin; #InspirationalTeenGirl#