It was an unpleasant thing to say. Jiang Du tightened her grip on her trousers, face flushing with indignation: “What?” The color rushed across her face — pale as near-transparency one moment, crimson the next.
She genuinely hadn’t understood the threat.
“Classmate — we crossed paths at the police station over the summer. Pretend you saw nothing. If you’re not an idiot, you should understand what I mean.” Wei Qingyue spoke with a natural edge in his voice — entirely at odds with what Jiang Du had imagined a top student to be like, and even further from the boy who had stood at the podium and given that speech.
She felt her throat tighten. Slightly at a loss, she looked down: “I haven’t said anything about you to anyone. I don’t even know you.”
Jiang Du thought Wei Qingyue might be about to hit her.
She was genuinely timid, and hated getting into trouble. Naturally, getting hit was also something she’d rather avoid.
Looking back on that accident over the summer, she still didn’t know where on earth she’d found the courage.
“Don’t know me?” Wei Qingyue gave an almost imperceptible smile. His self-assurance carried an edge of precocious sharpness: “You know my name.”
Jiang Du couldn’t deny it. She gave a small, quiet nod.
Wei Qingyue was nothing like any top student she’d imagined. His entire manner was that of a school tyrant — the kind who did nothing but fight and get summoned to the office with parents called in. Though if you looked more carefully at the boy’s features, there was a quality of emerging handsomeness about them, even a faint scholarly air. And yet his every movement was tightly wound and razor-edged.
Those eyes — the eyes she had occasionally recalled during the summer — were watching her now, cold and unwelcoming. Jiang Du, seized by nerves, had the sudden impulse to pretend to tie her shoelace.
She crouched down on instinct, murmuring vaguely: “Don’t worry. I’m not the type who goes around talking about other people.”
Her heart felt like it had shrunk to the size of a tiny apricot pit.
His shadow fell across her shoes. Jiang Du’s fingers passed in and out of it — in shade, then in sunlight — dark one moment, bright the next. When she suddenly stood up, the world in front of her genuinely, truly went black.
Almost by reflex, she grabbed Wei Qingyue’s arm.
He steadied her with an equally reflexive response, his tone chilly: “What is this? What do you think you’re doing? I haven’t touched you.”
It took Jiang Du several seconds for her vision to slowly clear, piece by piece.
Her complexion was not good. She looked at Wei Qingyue with dim, slightly glazed eyes. He frowned: “Are you sick?”
No matter how you heard it, it sounded like an insult.
Jiang Du very much wanted to explain that she was unwell — that her period had come — but naturally that was not something she could say out loud. And right now, whether it was appropriate to say it was beside the point, because a surge of something had suddenly risen from her stomach, shooting straight up her throat.
A second later, she vomited all over Wei Qingyue.
Jiang Du’s head exploded with a sound like a thunderclap. Now, she thought, Wei Qingyue was absolutely going to hit her.
Sure enough, Wei Qingyue’s expression went very dark. His face cold, he peeled off his jacket and stood in the white short-sleeved shirt beneath.
“Classmate — please wash this and return it to me.”
He handed the sour-smelling jacket to Jiang Du, stuffed it into her arms. Jiang Du was nearly in tears. She didn’t dare look at him, absolutely mortified, her brain running purely on autopilot:
“I’m so, so sorry — I really didn’t mean to…”
“Apologies don’t help. Just remember to wash my clothes.” Wei Qingyue had zero interest in hollow words. He glanced at her briefly, pointed: “The medical room is in that direction.”
He made no move whatsoever to walk her there. He said what he had to say and headed off in the direction of the main sports field.
Cicadas shrilled endlessly, loud enough to make the ears ring. Jiang Du stood there clutching the soiled jacket, rooted to the spot for a moment.
---