Lin Tiao truly, truly, truly didn’t expect that with just a casual grab, she would end up being called a lewd person.
The delicate sensation in her palm was clear and unmistakable.
She raised her eyes to meet Jiang Yan's teasing and playful gaze, momentarily at a loss for words or actions, even forgetting to retract her hand.
She remained in an awkward posture.
The atmosphere was suddenly silent and awkward.
It wasn’t until the warmth in her palm became increasingly unbearable that Lin Tiao finally realized something was off. She cautiously pulled her hand back, feeling a bit uncomfortable as she touched her ear and said in a low, trembling voice, “I-I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to! I just wanted to casually grab your arm…”
Who would have thought that her casual move would lead to something so serious?
Jiang Yan looked at her flustered yet pretending to be calm expression and felt a sudden surge of interest. He spoke leisurely, “Whether you meant it or not, I don’t care, but in all my life, I’ve never had anyone touch my thigh—”
Lin Tiao suddenly looked up at him.
Jiang Yan propped his arm on the table, resting his chin on his hand, and tilted his head to look at her, continuing from where he left off, “So you need to take responsibility.”
“?” Lin Tiao thought to herself that this person must have had his head kicked by a donkey.
“I’m just a pure and innocent boy, and I’ve been insulted by you in such an inhumane way. I can’t accept it all at once,” Jiang Yan added.
“…”
Hearing what he said, Lin Tiao truly felt like she had wasted her years growing up.
In her life, she had never met someone as flirtatious as him.
“I think you shouldn’t be called Jiang Yan.”
This was already the last class of the day, and there were still five or six minutes left until class was over. The English teacher had stopped lecturing, sitting at the podium looking at his phone, hardly paying attention to the students below.
Lin Tiao held her breath, looking at Jiang Yan, and spoke clearly, “You should be called Jiang Saosao especially the kind that’s very flirtatious.”
“……” Jiang Yan just rested his chin on his hand, staring at her. It seemed he hadn’t slept well last night, as his eyes were slightly red. Sunlight poured in through the window, casting shifting shadows.
He stared at Lin Tiao for five seconds before suddenly bursting into laughter, “Changing names is a big deal. I have to ask my family before I can change it.”
“Moreover, that’s not the main point right now. The point is you touched me, and you need to take responsibility.”
“……” Lin Tiao felt like cursing. The next moment, she exclaimed, “What? When did I touch you? I just accidentally bumped into you.”
“Who knew you’d be so flirtatious, wearing ripped jeans?”
Jiang Yan relaxed his arm and glanced at his ripped jeans, “How does wearing ripped jeans mean I’m flirtatious?”
Lin Tiao didn’t elaborate, simply muttering, “Flirtatious.”
She sounded quite assertive.
“Fine.” Jiang Yan didn’t force her to explain. He picked up his phone from the table, pressed his thumb on the unlock button, and unlocked it.
He lowered his head, moving both hands simultaneously, his fingers rapidly tapping the keyboard.
In less than half a minute, before Lin Tiao had fully processed what was happening, he turned the brightly lit screen toward her.
Lin Tiao glanced over.
“……”
Oh my.
Jiang Yan's phone was a recently released model from a popular brand, featuring an extra-large and ultra-high-definition screen. At that moment, the chat window for Class 28’s group was open.
The input bar contained a single message.
"I, Jiang Yan, have been molested by my deskmate in class. This is the greatest humiliation of my life."
Lin Tiao didn’t understand why, even though this was a very unexpected situation, it suddenly became so embarrassing when he put it this way.
“Classmate Jiang, I think you need to be a bit more calm and rational.”
If it weren't for the fear that he might accidentally send it with a shaky hand, Lin Tiao would have already lunged to snatch the phone from him, but she didn’t dare to.
Face was something he could disregard, but she still needed it.
Touching the school bully’s leg in class?
If that got out, how could she continue to hang around.
Considering the school bully's market value, she might not even be able to step out of Class 10, or no, even Class 18.
Seeing Jiang Yan remain silent, Lin Tiao tentatively asked, “How about we negotiate on how I can take responsibility?”
Jiang Yan raised a hand to rub his forehead, feeling as if his social status had just risen, and nodded, “Alright, you tell me how to take responsibility.”
“……”
I don’t know anything!
Lin Tiao frowned, thinking hard, but really couldn’t come up with a way to take responsibility for Jiang Yan. Besides, she truly just accidentally touched him!
Why did he have to push so far?
Seeing Lin Tiao’s tortured expression, Jiang Yan decided to drop the teasing and was just about to speak when the bell rang.
The English teacher picked up the textbook and said class was over before leaving.
The classroom became noisy in an instant as students gathered in small groups to head out for food.
Jiang Yan was just about to delete the message he had typed when Xu Yichuan suddenly rushed in from the back of the classroom, shouting loudly, “Let’s go! Time to eat!”
Startled, he jerked his hand, accidentally sending the message.
“……”
Damn.
Surrounded by people, Jiang Yan discreetly glanced at his deskmate. Taking advantage of her inattention, he nonchalantly averted his gaze, long-pressing the message.
Then, he quietly withdrew it.
The class group remained quiet, seemingly no one noticed that at this meal time, their usually silent bully had posted some gossip.
After Jiang Yan safely retracted the message, he calmly put away his phone, patted Lin Tiao on the shoulder, and spoke with a slight hint of nervousness in his tone, “Let’s go eat.”
Lin Tiao was still preoccupied with taking responsibility, “I can’t eat, I don’t want to eat. I can’t think of how to take responsibility for you.”
“Ah… this.” Jiang Yan pretended to ponder, “Then you can do my homework for a week.”
“Just like that?” Lin Tiao found it hard to believe. Was he seriously making such a big fuss over such a small request?
“Just like that.” Jiang Yan lightly tapped her forehead with his phone, “Unless you want to go out with me early?”
“Not a chance! I said it before.”
“I will absolutely not date early.”
Lin Tiao: “…… I’d rather date your mom.”
---
The five of them strolled around outside the school for a while before finally heading to Chen's small restaurant. While waiting for their food, Lin Tiao went to the restroom.
Jiang Yan sat nearby, looking at his phone.
As soon as Lin Tiao left, Hu Hanghang got up and blocked the doorway, while Xu Yichuan and Song Yuan each grabbed a chair and sat down on either side of Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan slowly raised his head, “……? What’s going on?”
Xu Yichuan sat backward in his chair, leaning forward with his arms draped over the backrest. He glanced at Song Yuan, “Old Song, say what you saw.”
Song Yuan nodded, took out his phone, and read aloud in a formal tone, “I, Jiang Yan, have been molested y my deskmate in class before—hey, what the hell!”
A hand suddenly flashed in front of Song Yuan, and in the next moment, his phone was snatched away by Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan took a quick look and saw it wasn’t a group message, just a screenshot. He let out a sigh of relief.
Damn it, he had just thought he had deleted it instead of retracting it.
Thinking of this, he didn’t dwell on it further. Lowering his eyelids, his slender fingers tapped the screen a few times.
He deleted the image.
Then, Jiang Yan lifted his head and looked at the three gossiping faces in the room, casually saying, “You all didn’t see anything today.”
“Impossible.” Xu Yichuan was the first to disagree. This was a huge scandal; if it got out, the whole school would blow up. “If you don’t explain everything to us today, we won’t let it go.”
Song Yuan was the least afraid of Jiang Yan among the three. At this moment, he kicked Jiang Yan’s calf with his foot, “What kind of little romance are you having with her during class? I thought I was going blind.”
He and Hu Hanghang were right behind Jiang Yan.
They were so close that they could see what the two were doing with just a glance up.
During class, Song Yuan had watched Lin Tiao place her hand on Jiang Yan’s thigh.
The way she moved her hand was too skilled.
“Let’s call it: ‘The Cold-Faced School Bully and His Delicate Deskmate's Little Secrets in Class.’”
Jiang Yan: “……”
Hu Hanghang peeked outside and saw no sign of Lin Tiao in the hallway, then leaned in, “Bro, tell us the truth. Do you like her?”
Actually, he himself couldn’t quite say whether he liked her or not.
The first time he met the girl was at the small convenience store inside the school. At that time, Jiang Yan saw her arguing with the sky, the ground, and even the air. He thought she was a bit amusing.
The second time they met was unexpectedly at the exam venue.
After the exam, he saw the girl walking in front of him. She accidentally lost her balance and started to fall backward.
He instinctively reached out to catch her, and the words he blurted out were also unintentional.
Perhaps there were too many people at the time; she didn’t unleash her full arguing potential, and she just walked away.
When they arrived at the restaurant outside school, Jiang Yan truly felt that there was a certain connection between him and this girl.
Later on, in the second year of high school, they were first placed in the same class, and then unexpectedly became deskmates.
They spent every day arguing with each other, making life quite lively.
For this reason, Jiang Yan had even wondered if they had some unresolved karma from a past life.
He hadn’t known Lin Tiao for long. If he were to say he liked her, Jiang Yan… he really couldn’t be sure. Growing up in a unique environment, the word “like” felt too distant for him.
But it was undeniable that Lin Tiao had already become a very special presence in his life.
Jiang Yan snapped out of his reverie, his gaze drifting, then fixed on the vase on the table. He seemed to recall something, and his voice became somewhat distant.
“Like? What nonsense.”
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