Ten-Year Loyal Dog’s Road to Chasing Her Wife (GL) - Chapter 43

Chapter 43

Over the next few days, it seemed as if that mysterious senior sister had taken up residence at the entrance of Class 11. She was often seen lingering there as soon as class ended. Because her looks were decent and the length of her skirt was particularly striking, many male students were quite pleased, and some who were especially bored and bold even dared to tease or flirt with her a bit.

To be honest, Qiao Wan truly admired these boys who dared to step up and flirt; they were simply warriors daring to “stroke a tiger’s backside.”

Xiaolei, on the other hand, got along quite well with this girl.

There were no make-up classes this weekend, so the two Qiao “sisters” made an appointment to meet in the afternoon. Qiao Mo and Qiao Rui were to prepare the fishing gear, but Qiao Wan never expected them to bring along an unexpected person: the very senior sister who had been staking out their classroom entrance.

“Let me introduce you, Hua Zhiyun,” Qiao Rui said, letting out a lazy yawn as if he hadn’t fully woken up. “She’s in the same grade as me, a bit older than you guys. You can call her Senior Hua.” After a pause, he added fearlessly, “Actually, she just shamelessly tagged along. I don’t even know what she’s doing here.”

Hua Zhiyun reached out to tug at his messy hair which clearly hadn’t been brushed since he woke up and said righteously, “Shut up! It won’t kill you to say a few words less!”

Qiao Rui said sincerely, “But then my mouth would feel extremely bored, and then I’d die of boredom.”

Hua Zhiyun: “…” Why don’t you just jump in and drown right now.

But in the end, she still reached out and raked through Qiao Rui’s hair. Her slender, long fingers acted like a comb, making his mess of hair look a bit more presentable. While grooming him, she muttered in a low voice, “Staying up late all the time, how have you not dropped dead from exhaustion yet?”

Qiao Rui shook his head nonchalantly. “Do you think I’m like my sister? She’s like she can never wake up. Little fairy if there’s sleep to be had, she won’t eat her meals or do her homework.”

Qiao Wan silently turned her gaze toward Qiao Mo, only to find the latter wearing a face that said: Are you freaking done? I’m going to pummel you in a minute. “…” Seeing Qiao Mo’s “broken” expression, Qiao Wan figured eighty percent of what Qiao Rui said was true. She hadn’t expected that the weekend version of Qiao Mo would be like this.

“I thought you were perfect in every way.”

Qiao Mo looked at her sincerely and said, “I’m not.”

“I know you’re not now,” Qiao Wan said expressionlessly.

Qiao Mo: “…” What, just because I wake up early every day, I’m not allowed to catch up on sleep on the weekend?

“But I’m a bit jealous that you can sleep whenever and for however long you want,” Qiao Wan said. “When I go back to my dad’s house for the holidays, he has a nanny who wakes me up right on time, no matter what time I went to bed the night before. According to my dad, ‘a lady never sleeps in.’ The kids near my house are already up practicing piano at this hour thank god he wasn’t so insane as to sign me up for a piano class.”

Qiao Wan lowered her eyelashes and squatted on the stone steps by the pond, pinching off a bit of the bread meant for bait and throwing it in. Fish have no schemes; as soon as they saw there was food, they swarmed over all at once. The surface of the water was like a boiling pot, churning with deep-black fish. “Wow, so many.”

“They release them every year, so of course there are many. There’s a lot of food here, and sometimes fish from outside come over to join the fun. Anyway, even if they get caught, they’re released back very quickly.” Qiao Mo glanced at her brother, who was preparing the fishing rods and lines, and pulled Qiao Wan’s collar to try and make her sit further back. “Be careful, don’t get too close to the pond. No one knows exactly how deep it is. The last time they drained the water to clear the silt from the bottom was in 1997 the year you were born.”

It had been six years since the pond was last cleaned; who knew how thick the silt at the bottom was. If one fell in, they would sink deeper and deeper and couldn’t be pulled out.

Even Qiao Rui wouldn’t be able to help.

Qiao Wan obediently scooted her bottom back and stole a glance at the senior student duo over there. She whispered, “Actually, I think Senior Hua and your brother really match well. Whether it’s their build, their aura, or their status… nothing is mismatched.”

The implication was that even if they were together, it wouldn’t be “sore on the eyes” at all.

Qiao Mo asked, “Some people also think you and Yuan Tianci match quite well. What do you think?”

Qiao Wan answered expressionlessly and calmly, “They’re blind.”

After thinking about it, she added, “When we danced during military training, didn’t some people say the two of us matched quite well… What do you think?” She said this with a bit of a teasing element, hoping Qiao Mo would also say people were blind after all, she couldn’t be the only one feeling uncomfortable, right?

However, Qiao Mo said, “If I use my own eyes to look, I also think we match quite well.”

Qiao Wan: “Ah… Huh?”

Are you kidding me?

Two girls?

“Black and white swans they were always meant to be a match.”

Qiao Wan privately let out a sigh of relief. Then she heard Qiao Mo say beside her, “Whether one person matches another isn’t about what others say, nor is it about external things like family background, looks, or height. When you reach a certain level, all that matters is the compatibility of your inner hearts. Therefore, regarding the question of whether you match, no one can answer for you; only you can answer for yourself. If you feel he is a match, then he is.”

“Isn’t that a bit too idealistic (subjective)?” Qiao Wan looked at her cautiously. “After entering society, there are many very realistic problems. Just ‘feeling’ it isn’t enough.”

“My parents say that too,” Qiao Mo said in a low voice, watching the school of fish that had finished the bread and were quietly dispersing. “But they also cautioned me: if I fall in love with a prince and want to lead him out of the castle for an adventure, then I need to become a queen and work hard to be worthy of him. True love never makes a person regress. By the same token, if one day I were to become your boyfriend, I would definitely work hard to make myself worthy of you, so that you wouldn’t have so many worries more importantly, so that you wouldn’t have to lower your standard of living just because you’re with me.” Qiao Mo took a deep breath and said, “That’s what they say in my family.”

The senior duo over there was already arguing non-stop about the fishing spot, acting exactly like two children.

Qiao Rui remained as steady as a mountain, letting Hua Zhiyun tug at his collar and shout while he himself was like an old monk in meditation; he had eyes for nothing but the fishing rod in front of him.

They weren’t the only ones fishing nearby, but others who saw this scene almost put down their rods just to focus on watching the show.

In school, although Qiao Rui wasn’t exactly obedient, he wasn’t “wicked” either; he was just a bit mischievous. Therefore, except for the eleventh graders, the rest of the school basically didn’t know him and if they did, it was because Qiao Rui was quite handsome. Qiao Rui had once joked with Qiao Mo that he was handsome enough to “scan his face” (pay with looks) to get around the school.

Qiao Mo didn’t have the heart to burst his bubble.

She gave his “final stubbornness” a place where it could be settled.

And right now, the usually very irritable Qiao Rui was being tugged like this by Hua Zhiyun yet still hadn’t raised a hand against her. Qiao Mo suddenly felt that perhaps these two really were a good match.

If it were anyone else who dared to tug her brother like that, they would have been tossed into the pond long ago. Yet Hua Zhiyun was still alive if this wasn’t love, then maybe what the prince felt for Snow White wasn’t either.

Qiao Wan clearly had the same thought: “If this isn’t love… Can you pluck your brother’s leg hair?”

Qiao Mo thought seriously for two minutes about the possibility of this question, and finally asked her back with a speechless expression: “Why would I pluck my brother’s leg hair for no reason? Can his leg hair be sold for money?”

“Stop arguing, stop arguing! I’m about to catch one!” Qiao Rui tried to steady his wobbling rod while attempting to swat away Hua Zhiyun’s hand. “How do you have so many hands? Are you the Thousand-Hand Guanyin?”

“You’re the Thousand-Hand Guanyin!” Hua Zhiyun gritted her teeth. “You can’t catch fish here, so just give up! It’s better to go over there. Look how many people are over there. It’s clearly a good fishing spot! Hurry up!”

“Stop nagging…” Qiao Rui was being shaken by her like a ragdoll. Qiao Wan was a bit worried his head would fall off. “Your brother’s head… it should be quite sturdy, right?”

She said hesitantly, so Qiao Mo also took a look and finally decided, “Sturdy. It shouldn’t fall off for a while.”

Qiao Wan: “…” Was this brother picked up from a trash can?

She silently lit a neat row of candles (prayers) for Qiao Rui in her heart. “Your family is really interesting.”

Aside from Qiao Mo’s father, whom she hadn’t met, everyone in Qiao Mo’s family seemed to be quite gentle people. Even Qiao Rui, who looked irritable and fierce, hadn’t heard of getting into fights or anything; at most, he just went to internet cafes to play games or stayed up all night to watch a movie.

At most, it could only be counted as a small teenage rebellion.

Suddenly, the people on the other side of the pond fell into a panic: “The school guard is coming! Run!”

Sure enough, a man in a school guard uniform emerged irritably from the nearby grove, waving his hands and shouting as he ran: “You bored people! The fish are doing fine here, why are you fishing for them?”

Qiao Rui quickly packed everything and led the three girls on a getaway. He was an expert at this and soon vanished without a trace right under the guard’s nose. But since the guard had already come, it was impossible to go back and continue—this old guard was famous for loving fish; if he saw you once, he would definitely crouch there watching to prevent you from circling back.

“I’m taking Qiao Rui back to do the blackboard newspaper,” Hua Zhiyun said. She seemed to be in a good mood today. “What about you two girls?”

“We’ll just wander around,” Qiao Wan said.

She wanted to give this sister a chance to pursue her “God” (crush)—an act of boundless merit. With that, she pulled Qiao Mo away.

But this walk turned out to be quite something; they ran into the ball courts and encountered Yuan Tianci.