“Cold.”
Interrupted again. The chain of thought was broken and could not be rejoined — this sensation of being cut off midway through memorizing something was like being forced to stop mid-stream and hold it. Zhu Yun was about to combust.
Li Xun pressed her: “Hurry up.” Zhu Yun took his cup and went to fill it. Li Xun, still in relaxed mode, received the cup without thinking and took a large swallow — then immediately spat it all back out.
Watching Li Xun scalded red from face to the base of his neck by boiling water, Zhu Yun felt a deep and genuine satisfaction.
Watching him suffer really does brighten the day.
Her joy did not survive the next ten seconds. Li Xun threw the cup down, planted a foot hard against the desk, and sent his chair rolling back.
Zhu Yun spun around and ran — but she had clearly overestimated her own reflexes while grossly underestimating the reach of Li Xun’s legs. The moment his hand closed around her neck, Zhu Yun squeezed her eyes shut and thought with the resigned heroism of a soldier sacrificing himself on the battlefield —
So be it. Worth it.
She was hauled back to the desk.
Li Xun’s fingers were long and dexterous from constant typing — flexible, precise, and strong. He pressed her against the desk and looked down at her from above.
……
Whatever violence was being committed, the quality of light at midday was altogether too beautiful.
He was silhouetted against the sun.
His shoulders, his neck, his collarbone, the line of his jaw…
Zhu Yun had to admit: setting aside that explosion of bleached-yellow hair, and the thoroughly aggravating personality, everything about Li Xun was possessed of a certain refinement. It reminded her of the imported mechanical pencil she had saved up to buy as a child — how she had slotted in the lead and pressed it with great tenderness to the page of her workbook for the very first time.
That sensation — impossibly smooth and soft and effortless even on the roughest paper — was exactly like him.
“Choose your method of death.”
……
If only he could keep his mouth shut permanently.
Zhu Yun struggled. “You threw something at me first.”
“Hmm?”
Li Xun’s hand shifted; Zhu Yun’s legs went unsteady. His grip wasn’t a hard pinch so much as a press-and-knead from both sides — an upgraded version of his idle habit of rolling cigarettes between two fingers.
She attempted reason.
“I’m trying to memorize things… and you keep interrupting me.”
Li Xun made a noncommittal sound.
Zhu Yun: “I only have this one hour at noon to review. I barely paid attention to political theory in the second half of the semester. Exams are next week — if I don’t memorize it now there’s no time left.”
You have to be reasonable sometime!
Li Xun looked at her without expression, as though tasting something.
After a long moment, he smiled.
“Your neck is quite slender, actually.”
Her heart gave a single sharp beat.
The sunlight flooding the room seemed to shatter all at once into gold dust.
And at precisely that moment, a woman’s voice came from behind —
“Zhu Yun — what are the two of you doing?”
Cold water poured over her from head to foot. Zhu Yun’s entire back went numb.
Years off her life, right there.
Li Xun turned his head. Standing in the doorway was their homeroom teacher, Teacher Zhang, and beside him a middle-aged woman. It was she who had spoken — her face wore a pleasant smile; she looked kind.
Zhu Yun straightened, overrode the pace of her heartbeat, and walked over steadily. She greeted the teacher first. “Hello, Teacher Zhang.” Then she turned to the middle-aged woman and said quietly: “Mom — what are you doing here?”
Her mother said: “You saw your father yesterday, didn’t you.”
“Mm.”
“He has so much on his plate, no time to spend with you at all. As it happens, I have a few days off from my school, so I came to see how you’re doing.”
“I’m fine.”
Her mother smiled. Teacher Zhang said from beside her: “I knew you’d be here. Your mother came all this way to see you — take a break from all this and go have a proper meal with her.”
“Alright.” She went to get her bag, and told Li Xun: “I’m heading out.”
Li Xun raised an eyebrow. Zhu Yun returned to her mother’s side. “Let’s go — I haven’t eaten yet anyway.”
Zhu Yun followed her mother out. At the last moment she stole a glance back into the room: Li Xun had settled back into his chair, opened his laptop, and was tearing open the bag of cream bread on the desk to eat.
In the dining hall, Zhu Yun collected her food and sat across from her mother.
“You’re not eating enough,” her mother said. “Are you getting proper nutrition?”
“I am…”
All forced down.