Ten-Year Loyal Dog’s Road to Chasing Her Wife (GL) - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Once they stepped out of the office, Qiao Wan could see that Qiao Mei seemed to have something she wanted to say; she just hadn’t weighed her words carefully and didn’t know how to say them.

After several rounds of this, starting to speak then stopping, stopping then wanting to speak again Qiao Wan finally couldn’t help herself: “If there’s something you want to tell me, please be quick about it. Can you not hem and haw? Don’t you think keeping someone in suspense like this is also bad?”

Qiao Wan would rather have it straight whether it was to be “killed or flayed,” a quick end was better than being left hanging. It was so uncomfortable.

Qiao Mei gave her a deep look: “Are you truly that thick-skinned, or do you simply feel there’s no need to take it to heart?”

“What?” Qiao Wan had no idea what she was talking about. To suddenly have such a nonsensical sentence pop up made it impossible to know the underlying meaning. What didn’t need to be taken to heart? “Speak more clearly. I’m not a roundworm in your stomach; I don’t like playing riddles with you. However, if you’re talking about those things you just said, then I truly don’t take them to heart.”

Those words sounded like she was just amusing herself at Qiao Wan’s expense, didn’t they?

Qiao Wan wouldn’t fall for this person’s trap; glib-tongued people were clearly not good people.

Qiao Mei looked as if she had been choked by a large mouthful. She stared at Qiao Wan wordlessly for a good while before smiling with a sense of relief: “As long as you’re happy.”

“I advise you not to like girls either,” Qiao Wan said with a frown. “This path is far too difficult. They will point and stare at you and of course, that includes the person you like. As long as you are the one who is ‘different,’ you will inevitably be subjected to different looks.”

And they wouldn’t look very kind.

Humans are exclusionary by nature. Even though it had nothing to do with others whom someone liked whether that person was male, female, or both they would still meddle and worry pointlessly.

Qiao Mei turned around and stared into those clean, pure eyes for a long time before letting out a “pfft” of a laugh. Although she was laughing, no hint of a smile could be seen in her glazed, colored eyes. “I was joking with you. I’m still just a child; what kind of romance is there for us to have? I don’t think I even know what love is yet. However, I am who I am. Whom I like and what gender they are, what does that have to do with the ‘they’ you speak of?”

Qiao Wan was speechless. It took her a long time to find suitable words in her barren mind to assemble into a disjointed sentence. “But even if it has nothing to do with them, and even if they don’t know you at all, they will still point and stare. Unless you plan on coming out at all but if you don’t come out, it seems unfair to your partner, doesn’t it?”

“First,” Qiao Mei interrupted her, “I never said I was ‘bent’ (gay) or that I liked girls.”

Qiao Wan: “…”

Was the Qiao Mei who just said she wanted to have a romance with her a fake?

“Second,” Qiao Mei continued, “whatever they say whether they point and stare or whatever has nothing to do with me. Since you said they have nothing to do with me and don’t even know me, then there’s no need for me to take their barking to heart. Respect is mutual.”

“Finally.” Qiao Mei took a deep breath, turned her face away, and looked at the lush green treetops in the distance. “In my heart, there is no ‘closet’ at all. If I truly were bent, I definitely wouldn’t hide it. Liking someone is liking someone. I would respect my partner’s thoughts; if she also liked to be open, I would generously introduce her to everyone I know, opening my entire circle to her to give her the greatest sense of security. If she preferred to stay low-key, I could likewise hide myself, but I would never hide her.”

“This path is so difficult; how could I have the heart to bring her more harm?”

When she spoke, she was so serious that even Qiao Wan listened in a daze, unable to find any fault in her logic.

But she forgot that when Qiao Mei stated her sexual orientation, she used the phrase “never said,” rather than “I am not bent.” Sometimes, things “never said” are not necessarily things that “do not exist.”

“Next time you go to ask Physics questions, can you call me to go with you?” Qiao Mei asked.

“What are you going for…”

“I can explain the simple questions to you; didn’t you say so yourself? You can ask me the simple ones.” Qiao Mei arched an eyebrow. “But for the difficult questions, I won’t know them either, so I’ll go learn with you. ‘Eating alone makes it hard to get fat’ (sharing is better), Eldest Miss Qiao, Great School Beauty Qiao. Think about it: if your desk-mate becomes impressive, you’ll have more ‘face’ (prestige) when you go out, right?”

“…My ass.” Qiao Wan silently added those two words in her mind, but faced with the request to “go learn together,” she still relented. After all, the Physics teacher didn’t belong to her alone. Compared to being passive where Qiao Mei would bring other problems and follow her every time she went to the office, Qiao Wan was more willing to take Qiao Mei along proactively.

Usually, when she went to the office, she didn’t just ask Physics questions. If she went for other questions and Qiao Mei followed along, wouldn’t that be very troublesome?

Just thinking about it made Qiao Wan’s skin crawl.

Being followed by a little tail all day long was truly not a pleasant memory.

However, Qiao Wan, who intended to “sacrifice a portion of her interests to preserve a greater interest,” soon found she had fallen for Qiao Mei’s trick. Once, when Qiao Wan went to ask a Math question and Qiao Mei saw the “balding Physics teacher” sitting properly inside while she was seeing Qiao Wan to the office on her way to the bathroom, Qiao Mei insisted on following her no matter what kind of questions were being asked.

No matter what Qiao Wan said, it didn’t work.

By the time Qiao Wan belatedly understood what Qiao Mei’s sensitive point was, it was already the 19th the start of the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday. They only had half a day off that day; the previous night’s evening self-study lasted until 7:00 PM the next day, and then they still had to attend evening self-study on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival itself. All the students said such a holiday was like a “chicken rib” (worthless).

Day students couldn’t worship the moon at home, and the boarding students were even more miserable. With such a short break, they couldn’t even make it home, let alone eat mooncakes. They could only stay obediently in the dormitory to pass this boring day.

If one said the school was embezzling national statutory holidays, it didn’t seem so; the school did indeed give a full day off, just that the time slot wasn’t very pleasant.

So, the bored students chose to buy some things and sit in the dormitory chatting, playing cards, or playing chess to pass the time. Normally, the dormitory matron would come to patrol and check for card playing or chess, but now the matron had gone home for Mid-Autumn too. Even the cafeteria was closed for the holiday, so they could only go out to the school gate at mealtimes to grab whatever they could find.

The more the students thought about it, the more aggrieved they felt. They gossiped loudly about the teachers and leaders, their voices growing louder as they spoke. One fierce general in the gossip army was Qiu Liannan, the only person in the dormitory whom Qiao Wan knew and was close to. She was practically a human gossip machine and didn’t hold back at all. As long as she had a bottle of water nearby, she could definitely talk for a day and a night without stopping, as if nothing in the school could escape her ears.

Except for Qiao Wan, everyone else in the dorm listened with great interest, even attracting people from the neighboring dorm. Qiao Wan was listening to music and reading a book at her bunk when she caught a glimpse of Ao Manshan sitting in the dormitory hallway on a small stool, seemingly doing some listening exercises. Just as Qiao Wan took off her headphones to go out and greet Ao Manshan, she heard Qiu Liannan’s new gossip: “That Physics teacher from Class 8 everyone knows him, right? Anyone who goes to the office often to ask questions might see him. Yes, the balding one with the big belly, the one who’s exceptionally ugly. I guarantee you’ll have a deep impression after seeing him once.”

The other girls all laughed:

“I haven’t been to the office yet; it feels creepy.”

“I wish I could stay as far away from teachers as possible.”

“Look, don’t we have two good students and top scholars here who often go to ask teachers questions? They must have seen him.” A girl gestured with her chin toward Qiao Wan. Thinking Qiao Wan couldn’t hear because she was wearing headphones, she was about to join the other girls in a knowing laugh when she found Qiao Wan staring at them with an indifferent expression. Feeling embarrassed for a moment, she softened her tone and asked, “You must have seen him, right? That balding Physics teacher.”

“Perhaps,” Qiao Wan said faintly, preparing to put her headphones back on crude words that were unpleasant to hear. “Why are you talking about this?”

“Have you really seen this teacher?” Qiu Liannan frowned. She was someone who couldn’t hide her thoughts, so once she frowned, her entire face seemed to be inscribed with the words “worrying about the nation and its people.” As if worried Qiao Wan wouldn’t know which teacher they were discussing, Qiu Liannan gestured and described the teacher: “He’s, like, about a head taller than our Math teacher, but chubby, looks about forty-something, balding like a bald patch in the middle of his hair and his teeth are very yellow, with a few teeth already turned a disgusting black. And, and also, he has a beer belly… he looks especially lecherous when he smiles. He teaches Physics.”

“I know,” Qiao Wan said faintly. “I’ve seen him.”

Just nine days ago on Teacher’s Day, she had been alone with this “especially lecherous-looking” teacher in the office.

The teacher had exerted himself to invite her to ask questions as much as possible.

“Don’t be polite.”

“Have you… ever been alone in the office with him?” Qiu Liannan’s expression became even more sorrowful, almost categorizing her as someone who “worries before the rest of the world worries.” “Alone, just the two of you.”

“Yes,” Qiao Wan said.

“Then he didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

This time, even as slow as Qiao Wan was, she saw that something was wrong. The circle of girls around Qiu Liannan had also joined the “worrying for the nation” camp without exception, and even more so. Qiao Wan said, “I was probably alone in the office for two or three minutes, and then Qiao Mei came over.”

Even now when she thought back, she clearly remembered Qiao Mei bursting into the office that day, holding a large bouquet of sunflowers and winking at her. It looked very childish, but perhaps because the flowers in her arms were so beautiful, Qiao Wan actually felt that this person looked a bit more pleasing to the eye.

“It’s good that nothing happened,” an impatient girl said quickly. “He was taken to the station for ‘tea’ (questioning) yesterday because he was suspected of doing that-that-what to a female student.”

As for what “that-that-what” meant, Qiao Wan naturally knew. she just hadn’t expected such scum to be lurking right beside her.

If…

If Qiao Mei hadn’t appeared in time that day, what would she be like now?

Qiao Wan didn’t dare think further.