Ten-Year Loyal Dog’s Road to Chasing Her Wife (GL) - Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Staring at someone for a long time is clearly an irrational and impolite behavior. Although the family atmosphere during Qiao Wan’s childhood wasn’t great, her parents had hired a teacher specifically to teach her etiquette. That teacher had been quite strict; when she first finished her lessons, every move Qiao Wan made was as precise and proper as a textbook.

Of course, she had forgotten all of it by now.

Just like middle school physics.

The only rule Qiao Wan remembered clearly was: “Do not stare at others for a long period of time.” This was because her etiquette teacher had said that if you lock eyes with someone for a long time, you will gradually start to feel like you actually like that person.

In the process of staring at each other, you begin to feel as if you two are the only people left in the world.

Qiao Wan originally thought this theory was quite absurd. If you don’t like someone, you don’t like them; how could looking at them a few more times turn into “liking”? Besides, a person’s field of vision is so wide; even if you look at two people at once, there is still plenty of room in your eyes for the rest of the world.

But after staring for a while, she did indeed feel that Qiao Mo looked a bit more pleasing to the eye.

Just a little bit, of course.

Not much.

How could she openly admit that someone else looked better than her?

“Why are you staring at me?” Qiao Mo asked.

“Who’s staring at you!” Qiao Wan hurriedly turned her face away, but quickly realized this was far too “guilty as charged,” so she turned back around: “I just wanted to ask if you wanted to go out together, and I accidentally forgot myself while looking at your face to remember something!”

“Go out with me?”

Qiao Mo was a bit dazed after hearing this, looking as if she didn’t believe Qiao Wan would proactively ask to walk with her. After all, Qiao Wan usually appeared to be a loner who never got close to anyone; now that she had initiated this, even if it was just to walk out of the school gate together, Qiao Mo felt flattered.

Only… “It’s only a few steps from here to your dormitory,” Qiao Mo said, caught between laughter and tears. Was it really necessary to walk with someone in this situation? “I’m afraid you’ll wait a long time just for me to unlock my bicycle. It’ll actually be slower than walking by yourself. How about you just head out on your own?”

Longting No. 1 High School had three gates in total: two large ones and one small one. The South Main Gate led to the commercial street and the wet market, and the dormitory area was built right next to it. The North Main Gate led to the main traffic artery and the highway, but the Gaokao Building for senior students was built over there far away from the freshman and sophomore areas, likely because they didn’t want this group of rowdy “bear children” to disturb the seniors’ studies.

There was also a small gate, which led out to the exclusive printing room of Longting No. 1 High School. Every key middle school shared a common trait: they distributed an immense amount of exam papers. If all these papers were printed elsewhere, the profit alone would be enough to sustain a small printing shop. Therefore, the school leaders thought it over and bought printing machines to set up their own printing room keeping the “fertile water in their own fields,” so to speak. It saved students money while letting the school earn a little extra on the side.

The freshman teaching buildings were particularly close to the dormitory area. People on the upper floors of the teaching buildings could sometimes see clothes hanging out to dry on the dormitory balconies while leaning against the railings. To walk such a short distance with a commuter?

Qiao Wan: “…”

Qiao Wan: “Tsk.”

Qiao Mo remained seated gracefully in her chair, tilting her head and looking at the standing Qiao Wan with a faint, knowing smile.

Qiao Wan said: “I need to go out through the school gate anyway, and you happen to be going out too. Why don’t we walk together? It would be nice to have a chat.”

Qiao Mo cautiously corrected her: “I think the most likely outcome of us being together is that we’ll walk the whole way without saying a single word.”

“…Tsk.” This sound indicated that Qiao Wan’s patience was completely exhausted: “Just tell me, are you walking with me or not?”

Qiao Mo’s light-colored eyes darted around. She lowered the hand that was propping up her chin and reached for the books she needed for her evening review: “Let’s go. Wait for me a moment.”

“You were going to agree anyway, so wouldn’t it have been better to just say yes sooner…” Qiao Wan said. “I think we need to establish a ‘Desk Mate Code of Conduct’.”

“Sure, I’ll listen to whatever you decide,” Qiao Mo agreed quite readily.

“Listen to me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll sell you out?”

“If you really wanted to sell me, even ten of my brains wouldn’t be enough.” Qiao Mo tapped her head with her finger. “My brain is a fake; I hope you understand.”

Qiao Wan: “…” I understand your granddad! If your brain is fake, does that mean I, who knows nothing about physics, have no brain at all? Who are you insulting in a roundabout way?

But while going down the stairs, she still carefully asked Qiao Mo: “Is your physics really that good? When I saw you doing the problems, you looked very confident.”

When Qiao Wan had problems, she always had to deliberate for a long time. Qiao Mo didn’t need that; her pen always moved as if guided by a god. She would simply glance at a question and start filling it out fearlessly.

Watching her work, Qiao Wan often felt like the girl might be doing middle school physics instead of high school physics.

…Though even if it were middle school physics, Qiao Wan still wouldn’t know how to do it. Regardless, their IQs were probably not in the same grade.

“Saying it’s ‘very good’ might not be it, it’s just…” Qiao Mo had reached the landing of the stairs, her feet on different steps as she reached out a hand toward her, “…perhaps a bit better than yours.”

“Hmph.” Qiao Wan had originally intended to grab her hand to go downstairs, but hearing those words, she immediately pulled her hand back and said in the dialect she had just recently learned: “Rule number one of the Desk Mate Code: No talking back to the boss.”

“Who is the boss?”

“Me, obviously.” Qiao Wan hadn’t gone down yet and looked down at her from above. The light in this section of the stairwell was broken, so they had to rely on the faint light leaking out from the classrooms on either side to walk.

It was a very dim nightmare for someone like Qiao Wan who didn’t have strong night vision. Usually, she was extremely cautious when passing through here at night. However, with one glance today, she was startled to find that with Qiao Mo there, she didn’t need to be cautious at all.

Qiao Mo seemed to naturally glow. The fluorescent lights from the classrooms shone on her, making her exposed skin look as white and translucent as jade. Her slender wrists, in particular, looked as if they had condensed the moonlight from outside.

From the moment they met, Qiao Wan knew this person was very pale, but she could never have imagined someone could be so pale they actually reflected light.

She was simply a human-shaped reflector!

Inexplicably, a line of poetry popped into Qiao Wan’s mind: The lady at the wine shop is like the moon, her bright wrists are like frozen frost and snow. Especially on such a slender and beautiful wrist, she wore a high-quality emerald green jade bracelet. When the light hit it, the faint green glow reflecting off the bracelet was simply intoxicating, making one almost drown in that beautiful color.

“Alright, Boss. Please hold my hand and come down,” Qiao Mo said generously and properly.

Her face was hidden in the shadows; only a gentle silhouette was visible.

Actually, the contour of Qiao Mo’s face wasn’t ugly one could even say it could easily defeat most people in the class. The “ugly” part was her skin, that face covered in acne and acne scars was truly frightening.

If she hadn’t suffered that illness, the current Qiao Mo should have been a great beauty worthy of her name, right? After all, besides her face, the skin on the rest of Qiao Mo’s body was perfectly fine, better than most people’s. Her original features and facial structure were also good; there was no reason for her to be inferior to those annoying people who mocked her at will.

For some unknown reason, Qiao Wan actually grabbed Qiao Mo’s hand to take the first step down. Qiao Mo seemed to know she couldn’t see clearly in the dark, so her right hand tightened slightly, giving Qiao Wan a very secure feeling. Of course, most importantly, it was because Qiao Mo said: “Don’t worry, my vision is actually quite good.”

Qiao Wan: “…Mine is also very good!” So what if I’m nearsighted by over a hundred degrees in both eyes!

“You almost stepped into thin air several times.” Qiao Mo tactfully exposed her and her last bit of stubborn pride.

Qiao Wan: “Shut up. No talking back to the boss.”

This time, Qiao Mo didn’t shut up immediately as requested. Instead, after letting out two “haha” laughs, she said to her mysteriously, “Do you know what that sentence means with your pronunciation?”

Since Qiao Wan was from the Shenzhen area, it wasn’t that she couldn’t speak Cantonese. However, dialects in the southern regions have a characteristic: the accent changes every ten miles. Generally, they belong to the same dialect system, but in different places, some pronunciations are just different. Thus, hearing Qiao Mo say this, Qiao Wan felt a bit panicked: “Are the pronunciations of those words different from your local dialect?”

Finding out and correcting it now was better than making a fool of herself in a formal setting later.

Qiao Mo pulled slightly with her right hand and whispered a sentence in her ear. Qiao Wan’s face suddenly turned red, though it couldn’t be seen in the dark, and she scolded: “Bah! What a filthy mind. If it weren’t for the fact that you’re a girl, I would push you down right now.”

Qiao Mo laughed: “If you weren’t a girl, I wouldn’t have told you this. Wouldn’t it be fine to let them misunderstand?”

Just then, a classmate from their class came down. Qiao Mo used a little force to pull Qiao Wan toward her to let the person pass. Who would have thought the person was actually Yuan Tianci? This guy had always been a loose cannon; as soon as he saw Qiao Wan, he smiled and said: “Yo, our great school beauty Qiao finally has a companion today?”

“It’s my desk mate, what’s it to you?” Qiao Wan ignored him.

Yuan Tianci rubbed his nose, muttered “What a temper,” and hurried down as if a vicious dog were chasing him. Qiao Mo smiled faintly and didn’t speak much again until they parted at the school gate.

Until she went to bed, Qiao Wan’s earlobes were still slightly red whenever she thought of the sentence Qiao Mo had whispered in her ear.

“Your pronunciation of that sentence sounds a lot like: ‘I can’t kiss the boss’.”

As for who would kiss whom, the answer was self-evident.