The little girl’s voice was soft, and now, probably just waking up, it was even softer than usual, with an alluring lilt at the end.
Guan Che was stunned. He was a playboy used to being surrounded by beautiful women, but this was the first time he had encountered Lin Tiao responding like this.
The chopsticks he had been biting fell to the ground with a “clatter.” Coming back to his senses, he bent down to pick them up and glanced back at the person standing behind him.
Jiang Yan said nothing, his expression neutral as he locked eyes with him.
Guan Che felt a bit flustered, thinking that Lin Tiao’s calling him “brother” might sever any ties between him and Jiang Yan.
He chuckled awkwardly, placing the small dumplings he was holding on the table and discreetly distancing himself from Jiang Yan. “By the way, Lin Tiao, where’s your little classmate? Is she still not up?”
Lin Tiao was unaware of the complicated thoughts running through his mind. She had called him “brother” as a joke and hadn’t taken it seriously. Hearing him ask about Meng Xin, her tone was casual. “Meng Xin? She’s probably still asleep. I’ll go call her.”
“Then you go ahead; we’ll wait for you back here.” He pointed to the small lounge behind the bar.
“Okay.”
Lin Tiao turned to go upstairs, while Guan Che leaned against the bar, directing his gaze at Jiang Yan. He raised both hands in a vow. “I swear to heaven, I’ve just gotten used to it; I really don’t mean anything else.”
Jiang Yan didn’t look at him and carried his things into the small lounge.
Guan Che followed, grabbing his things. “You have to believe me, friends don’t mess with friends’ wives. You know what kind of person I am, right?”
The two of them walked in one after the other.
Jiang Yan placed his things on the square table in the center and looked up at him, a hint of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “What kind of person are you?”
He lowered his head and started unwrapping breakfast, continuing, “You’re not even human.”
Guan Che laughed, seeing that he wasn’t really angry. He leaned in closer. “You said there’s no situation with your desk partner, but look at how jealous you are over me being called ‘brother.’”
“It’s just ‘brother, brother,’” Jiang Yan replied, his last words seeming to grind out through clenched teeth. He frowned slightly. “She’s just a little girl, barely an adult. You should show her some respect in the future.”
“Where am I not respecting her? She just called me ‘sister.’ I’ve called you that for two years in middle school. Why can’t I show her a little respect?”
“I am a grown man with a face as thick as a city wall; why should I care?”
Just as Guan Che was about to say something, he caught sight of Lin Tiao and Meng Xin coming down the stairs and held back his words. After a moment, he couldn’t help but say, “Anyway, there’s definitely something going on.”
After saying that, he turned back to Lin Tiao, wearing a nonchalant expression. “Sister, you’re up! Come have breakfast!”
Jiang Yan: “...”
I can’t believe this.
By the time they finished breakfast, it was already late. Jiang Yan and Guan Che quickly tidied up the garbage before the four of them stood up and headed out together.
The early autumn sun wasn’t too strong, and there was a slight chill in the wind.
Guan Che was from the neighboring Ninth High School, and the two schools were separated by a street. As they reached the corner, the four of them split up. Before leaving, he couldn’t resist adding fuel to the fire for Jiang Yan, saying, “Sister, brother’s leaving! Goodbye!”
Jiang Yan: “...”
Lin Tiao awkwardly yet politely waved goodbye, “Goodbye.”
The three of them walked to the school gate, where the director, Li Kun, was watching the clock. Seeing their slow pace, he shouted, “What are you three doing, like an old cow pulling a broken cart? Why are you dragging your feet?”
The three of them: “...”
Lin Tiao couldn’t understand how this man in his forties could be so lively every day, his voice loud enough to reach the heavens, a completely different breed from the other man in his forties, Old Yu.
Under Li Kun’s watchful eye, the three of them hurried inside.
Just as they reached the bottom of the teaching building, the bell for morning self-study rang. Meng Xin, who had self-study with their homeroom teacher, Old Yang, heard the sound and called out, “Old Yang has been strict about tardiness lately. Tiao Tiao, I’m leaving first.”
Before Lin Tiao could respond, she was gone.
Lin Tiao and Jiang Yan stood at the foot of the stairs.
Not sure if it was her imagination, Lin Tiao felt that Jiang Yan seemed quieter than usual today, just like during breakfast.
Besides telling the incessantly chattering Guan Che to shut up, he hadn’t spoken a word since.
“You—” Lin Tiao was about to ask something when he suddenly took a long stride up the stairs. She paused for a moment, then quickly followed him.
Just as the preparatory bell rang, there was no teacher in the classroom yet.
Lin Tiao entered the classroom behind Jiang Yan, and the two behind them, Hu Hanghang and Song Yuan, leaned over to whisper, “How did you two come together?”
“We were together last night,” Lin Tiao replied, stuffing her backpack into the drawer and turning to look at them.
“Damn,” Hu Hanghang slammed the table, looking quite distraught. “Dude, you’re really something!”
“Tiao Tiao is still so young!”
Lin Tiao: “...”
Jiang Yan turned back to glance at Hu Hanghang, his expression similar to that of looking at a fool. “Get your head checked; you need treatment. Don’t drag others down with you.”
Hu Hanghang wilted a bit, then quietly asked Lin Tiao, “What’s going on with you two? Why were you together last night?”
This development was too fast for him to accept.
Lin Tiao felt like she had dug a pit for herself. She wasn’t sure if the two of them knew about Jiang Yan working outside to support himself.
She hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to respond.
To Hu Hanghang, this hesitation meant something else. “Tiao Tiao, speak boldly. Song Yuan and I will stand up for you.”
Upon hearing this, Song Yuan pushed his head away. “You can be foolish by yourself; don’t drag me into this.”
“Listen, are you even speaking human language?” Hu Hanghang questioned for a moment whether the friends he made were real.
Lin Tiao couldn’t help but laugh. Sometimes, she found it strange how Jiang Yan managed to gather so many lively friends with that temper of his.
She beckoned Hu Hanghang closer with her finger, and they leaned in, though their voices were not quiet. “Last night after school, my desk mate wanted to play games, but I caught him. I followed him to supervise.”
Jiang Yan, who was listening nearby: “...”
This is getting out of hand; there’s no family law at all.
Hu Hanghang was even more agitated upon hearing this. “Dude, you’re really something!”
No one responded to him, and he didn’t mind, continuing, “You played games without calling us. Were you secretly having fun behind our backs?”
“Old Song, you need to manage this; does it even make sense?”
Jiang Yan pushed his chair back a little, raised his hand, and slapped Hu Hanghang’s head. “I’m working night shifts; what the hell do you mean by this?”
“Oh, then why didn’t you say so earlier?” Hu Hanghang rubbed his head and quieted down.
The language teacher, Mu Hui, walked into the classroom holding a cup of water, and the chatter instantly turned into clear reading voices.
Lin Tiao pulled out her Chinese textbook and flipped to a random page. Leaning over, she asked Jiang Yan, “Do Hu Hanghang and the others know about you working at the internet cafe?”
Jiang Yan glanced at her, gave a slight sound of acknowledgment, but didn’t say anything more.
His job wasn’t a secret; in the first year of high school, he often skipped evening study sessions to go out, so it was hard to hide it for long.
He just hadn’t expected that even his little desk mate wouldn’t be kept in the dark.
Thinking of this, Jiang Yan recalled what happened in the morning and lowered his gaze to her. “From now on, keep your distance from Guan Che.”
Lin Tiao was taken aback and asked, “Why?”
She thought Guan Che was quite fun and didn’t seem distant; although his speech was a bit casual, he still gave off a stable vibe.
“What do you mean, why? Just because you met him doesn’t mean you should call him ‘brother.’ How can he be anything good?” The memory of her calling him ‘brother’ that morning made Jiang Yan’s temples throb.
He had never realized that young girls could be so easy to deal with before.
Lin Tiao opened her mouth in surprise. “Wait, he didn’t even ask me to call him ‘brother.’ I was just joking because I heard him calling me that. It has nothing to do with him!”
“Oh, so you’re defending him now?”
Jiang Yan’s expression was cold, his gaze fixed on her face. He swallowed hard, wanting to say something but ultimately didn’t.
Lin Tiao looked at him, suppressing her laughter. “Is it really okay for you to speak badly about him behind his back?”
Jiang Yan didn’t reply.
Lin Tiao maintained her gaze for a moment, then compromised, “Alright, I’ll interact with him less in the future.”
She changed the subject, “But honestly, calling someone ‘brother’ isn’t such a big deal.”
“If you want to hear it, I can call you ‘brother’ ten times or so.”
Jiang Yan: “..”
She said this and actually called out, “Brother.”
Jiang Yan froze for a moment, not quite processing it, and Lin Tiao followed up with several “brother” calls in a row, “Brother, brother, brother, brother, brother, brother!”
“...”
Damn. Jiang Yan cursed in his heart.
He had to admit, Lin Tiao had a knack for handling all sorts of frivolous matters.
After her teasing that morning, Jiang Yan hadn’t spoken a single word to her for four classes; his expression made it seem like he was trying to sever ties with her.
However, Lin Tiao didn’t take it to heart.
He was just used to this. She thought a cold treatment would work; after a while, things would naturally get better.
At noon, Lin Tiao had arranged to eat with Meng Xin and didn’t join Jiang Yan and the others. As soon as class ended, she left and went downstairs to Meng Xin’s classroom.
The teacher was running over time.
Lin Tiao waited in the hallway for four or five minutes until she heard some commotion inside. Turning around, she saw the teacher coming out with books and teaching materials, and Meng Xin was trailing behind with her head down.
She probably got caught sleeping in class.
Lin Tiao couldn’t help but laugh. A swarm of students poured out of the classroom, but she didn’t follow; she just stood there waiting, casually glancing around.
It’s said that enemies meet, and sure enough, she caught sight of Tang Yushi and her friends chatting and laughing as they exited the classroom.
Tang Yushi clearly spotted her as well.
Lin Tiao raised her brow provocatively and looked at her.
Lately, she hadn’t paid attention to the minor matters since school started. She also hadn’t dealt with what happened on the basketball court last time.
Now that they crossed paths, she figured it was time to get some answers.
Tang Yushi probably had something to say to her, and after saying something to her friends, she approached Lin Tiao alone.
With people bustling about around them, Lin Tiao didn’t worry about what Tang Yushi was planning.
“Lin Tiao.” Standing in front of Lin Tiao, Tang Yushi, about 1.7 meters tall, had quite an imposing presence. She pressed her lips together, “About what happened at the basketball court, it was my fault.”
“...” This isn’t quite right; this isn’t how the script goes.
Lin Tiao leaned back against the railing, creating some distance between them, which made it less oppressive. She squinted her eyes, “So, you’re saying you did it on purpose?”
Tang Yushi didn’t expect her to take this line of reasoning and paused for a few seconds. After thinking of something, she nodded, “Yes, I did it on purpose.”
Lin Tiao didn’t understand how easily this person had given in. She studied Tang Yushi’s face and then said softly, “I’ve actually been quite puzzled. Did I do something wrong to you? Since I started high school, you’ve always had a problem with me.”
“But later, I stopped thinking about it; the answer isn’t that important to me.”
Lin Tiao glanced down, her expression unusually serious. “I hope what happened at the basketball court is the first and last time. You might think I’m not the type to hold grudges.”
“However, I won’t be foolish enough to let others bully me and not retaliate.” She smiled, but her smile was cold. “I didn’t make a fuss before because we were in the same class, and I didn’t want to blow things out of proportion.”
Another reason was that Lin Tiao’s homeroom teacher in her first year was friends with her parents. Used to being independent, Lin Tiao didn’t like to share these matters with her parents.
In her first year of high school, Tang Yushi often targeted Lin Tiao in secret, forming cliques in class and pulling in girls from her dorm and the neighboring one to her side.
Lin Tiao didn’t stay in the dorm; the only one she was close to was Meng Xin. At the beginning of school, she indeed had a somewhat lonely period, but she didn’t mind.
Later, when the class organized a spring outing, although Lin Tiao wasn’t very active, her strong personality soon helped her integrate with the other girls in the class.
Lin Tiao hadn’t thought much of Tang Yushi; it was just jealousy over her being good-looking and performing well academically—who wouldn’t be jealous?
Everyone was jealous.
Lin Tiao’s indifference made Tang Yushi think she was easy to bully. Coupled with Lin Tiao’s soft demeanor, Tang Yushi naturally assumed she wouldn’t dare to stand up to her.
So that day at the basketball court, she didn’t consider the consequences and threw the ball at Lin Tiao.
Who would have known that later...
Tang Yushi remembered her visit to Jiang Yan for a compromise that ended up putting her in an awkward position. Unable to hold back, she shot back, “Yes, throwing the ball at you was my mistake, and I apologize.”
“But this was between us before; why do you think Jiang Yan can cause me trouble?” The more Tang Yushi spoke, the angrier she became. “Do you think just because you have someone backing you up now, you’re something special?”
Lin Tiao was genuinely astonished. Wasn’t this girl’s thinking a bit off?
She scoffed, “If you hadn’t provoked me first, would he have come to bother you? Please take a look at yourself before you speak about others, alright?”
Tang Yushi was furious. “Do you think Jiang Yan will always stand by your side?”
Lin Tiao was both angry and amused. Just as she was about to retort, a lazy voice suddenly sounded from behind her.
“Why wouldn’t he?”
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