Chapter 20 The Sun and the Moon

You Nianyao was so shocked she stared with her mouth open. She couldn’t believe her eyes, but the card really did say “your cousin’s husband.”

She stammered, “Jie, you and Senior Ye Xiaoyang…”

“There’s nothing!” Luo Yi hurriedly denied it outright. “That was his slip of the pen.”

“What slip of the pen?” You Nianyao didn’t believe it.

Luo Yi told her the whole story from beginning to end, then pointed out that X for You Nianyao to see.

You Nianyao rubbed the card, thought for a moment, then said, “I say, Jie, could it be that Senior Ye Xiaoyang has feelings for you?”

Luo Yi’s face flushed so red it was about to drip blood.

She had really been too careless. Why couldn’t she see through his little trick?

If one day he sold her off, she would probably still follow behind him counting the money.

“How is that possible?” Luo Yi refused to admit it. “Why would he have feelings for me?”

You Nianyao pondered for a while and said, “That’s true. His standards are very high.”

Everyone said he was a high mountain flower. He was probably an existence that could only be viewed from afar and not played with.

That was Ye Xiaoyang, after all. He should be a perfect academic god without the seven emotions and six desires. How would he like an ordinary person?

“I’m not familiar with him,” Luo Yi said. “You’re overthinking it. If he really wrote that, why would I show it to you?”

Luo Yi said this only to cover up the fact that her brain had been muddled.

The facts proved Ye Xiaoyang had done it on purpose. No matter what he meant by it, his intentions were definitely not simple.

You Nianyao thought about it. Luo Yi had transferred for less than a month. They probably weren’t familiar.

But why was she so shy? Her face was as red as a tomato, as if some unspeakable thought had been poked.

“Jie, what if—I mean what if,” You Nianyao asked, “Senior Ye Xiaoyang really likes you and even confesses to you? What would you do?”

“Your hypothesis doesn’t stand.” Luo Yi refused to answer this question.

“Aiya, I’m just fantasizing a little.” You Nianyao held that pink cardstock as if it were a treasure and said, “If I can’t date Senior Ye Xiaoyang, dreaming a little is still good.”

“Then go fantasize by yourself,” Luo Yi said unhappily. “I have no interest.”

“I say, Jie, isn’t your reaction a bit too big?” You Nianyao slipped the cardstock into a book, carefully closed it, and continued, “I was only joking. Why are you taking it so seriously?”

Luo Yi felt her attitude did seem a bit too serious. She couldn’t say why. When she detected this thought of Ye Xiaoyang’s, a thread of resistance had instinctively risen from the bottom of her heart.

From childhood until now, she hadn’t had any boy she liked, but she had had male classmates she got along with reasonably well.

Yet this kind of relationship would often break off at the slightest bit of goodwill the other party revealed, whether intentionally or not.

When she interacted with people, she generally upheld the principle of “the friendship of gentlemen is as light as water.” She wouldn’t get too close to people. Ye Xiaoyang was the closest member of the opposite sex she had interacted with in so many years.

She was like a moon that could reflect one hundred-millionth of the sun’s light. But once the sun came close, that scorching heat would make her panic and uneasy.

Before this, she had clearly had a tiny bit of admiration for Ye Xiaoyang.

Every girl would more or less have some psychology of admiring the strong, right? His grades were so good, he was handsome, he was heaven’s pride. It was easy for him to win girls’ goodwill.

Psychologists said people often found it easier to like someone who liked them.

But there was a small group of people who were not like that. Once the person they liked started liking them, they no longer liked the other person.

Unfortunately, Luo Yi seemed to be this kind of person.

Actually, it wasn’t that she hadn’t guessed at Ye Xiaoyang’s thoughts.

She wasn’t that slow. From the pile of little things before, she could still smell some ambiguous wind.

She had also secretly fantasized about Ye Xiaoyang liking her.

When she thought about it, her heart was still pretty sweet. She felt she might really have been a little moved by him.

But once this “if” became reality, Luo Yi avoided it as if she couldn’t get away fast enough.

“Anyway this matter is impossible,” Luo Yi said. “Even if it really happened, I would refuse.”

“Refuse?” You Nianyao shrieked. “You’re actually saying you would refuse him?”

If she didn’t understand Luo Yi’s character, You Nianyao would probably have cursed her for putting on lofty airs at this moment.

“The school forbids dating,” Luo Yi explained seriously.

Although dating was forbidden, students were people, not livestock. One ban coming down couldn’t spiritually castrate them.

Right in the restless stage of adolescence, because of the forbidden fruit effect, students would often yearn for and look forward to early romance even more.

“So you have to refuse him because of that?” You Nianyao said. “That’s Senior Ye Xiaoyang. I dare guarantee that even after graduating high school, it would be very hard to find a better partner than him.”

“Alright, let’s not talk about this anymore.” Luo Yi didn’t want to keep tangling with these things. She said, “The success rate of early romance is too low. Even if you date a boy in high school, who can guarantee you’ll be together for a lifetime? You even change the object of your celebrity crush once a year.”

In short, this topic was brushed off by Luo Yi like this.

When You Nianyao asked again, she didn’t answer at all.

She had a bellyful of words she wanted to say, but Luo Yi’s attitude was very avoidant.

You Nianyao felt that Luo Yi was too restrained and calm when it came to feelings.

Actually, many things people did in this life had no result.

If you only did something after knowing the result, life would also lose a lot of fun.

Just like the high school entrance exam she was about to face now. Many things were unknowns.

Her probability of getting into No.1 High was very low. Would she stop working hard because of that? Obviously not.

It was precisely because of this tiny remaining probability that she had to study desperately. Even if she didn’t get in at the end, she wouldn’t regret it.

But thinking about it later, Luo Yi being overly rational about feelings probably meant she didn’t like him that much.

In the end, Luo Yi and Ye Xiaoyang weren’t familiar. It was hard for her to develop very deep feelings for him. After all, her jie wasn’t a brainless fangirl.

If she really met someone she liked very, very much, would she still have the mental energy to keep this calm self-restraint? You Nianyao didn’t know either.

In the new week, the school finished installing air conditioning in the classrooms.

Cool wind whooshed out from the vents. All the students’ spirits lifted at once.

Saying they didn’t install air conditioning to temper the students’ willpower—pah. With air conditioning, summer study efficiency was who knew how many times higher.

Some leaders also couldn’t figure things out, always using past conditions to measure the present.

Wasn’t social development meant to let people live better and better lives? Otherwise, everyone studying knowledge so hard in the classroom and swearing to build socialist modernization in the future would be like a joke.

“Which classmate’s angel parents installed the air conditioning for us? Touching China—oh no, touching No.1 High.” Qian Jiayun stretched a big stretch. An air-conditioned room in summer was simply heaven on earth.

Luo Yi smiled and didn’t speak. After preparing the study sheets she would need for the next math class, she went out to get water.

As luck would have it, she ran into Ye Xiaoyang in the water room again. There was no one else in the water room. Only the two of them.

After that matter, Luo Yi’s attitude toward Ye Xiaoyang had clearly cooled.

It wasn’t that she was cold, exactly. It was just that compared with before, she tried as much as possible to reduce contact with him.

For example, she would no longer inexplicably turn back to look at him. When she ran into him between classes she pretended not to see him, and she no longer took the initiative to speak to him.

Like now, her first reaction was actually to go back and come get water between the next classes.

She couldn’t say why. It was like she was avoiding him.

Luo Yi was just about to leave when Ye Xiaoyang called her to a stop. “You’re not getting water?”

“Class is about to start. There’s no time.” Luo Yi hugged her cup and wanted to leave, but unexpectedly she was blocked at the water room doorway by Ye Xiaoyang.

“Have you been…” Ye Xiaoyang wanted to ask if she was angry with him because of the card matter, but he couldn’t be sure, so he changed the question. “In a bad mood?”

“No.” She pretended to be relaxed, but her tone was unspeakably stiff. Even she couldn’t convince herself.

“Then why do you look at me like you’re looking at the god of plague?” Ye Xiaoyang asked. Her attitude toward him before had clearly been very friendly. Why had it suddenly taken a 180-degree sharp dive?

Luo Yi lowered her head and said, “I don’t.”

Seeing that the class bell was about to ring, Luo Yi said, “Move aside. I have to go back.”

She lifted her bright eyes to look at him. His thin lips were pressed tightly together. His expression was more serious than it had ever been.

She had just taken one step when an inescapable pull came from her wrist—Ye Xiaoyang yanked her forearm and pinned her against the wall beside the water room door, shutting the door along with it.

In the ambiguous, unclear light, Ye Xiaoyang braced his arm on the wall above her and looked down at her from above.

Luo Yi was enclosed by him in a small sealed space. Her heartbeat soared.

She could feel Ye Xiaoyang’s warm breathing spilling over the top of her head, heavier and heavier, as if he were a bit… angry?

Luo Yi silently sighed. She disliked herself a little. Why was she someone who loved to run away?

“It’s because of the card, mm?” Ye Xiaoyang leaned closer to ask her. His voice was pressed very low, like a rich bass cannon.

“No.” Luo Yi said dully. “Thank you on my cousin’s behalf.”

“You know what I’m talking about.” Ye Xiaoyang said word by word.

Luo Yi thought for a long time, then said slowly, “I can treat it as you joking.”

“I wasn’t joking.” Ye Xiaoyang corrected her wording. “I—”

The words hadn’t left his mouth yet when two slender white fingers pressed against his lips.

Luo Yi rose onto her tiptoes, stopped his speech, and pleaded, “Don’t say that kind of thing, okay? I’m scared.”

Scared that little her would be unable to bear his scorching light.