Peach-Orange! – Chapter 365 – If You Like Her, Give Her a Little More Trust

Su Tao’s acting talent was indeed strong, but her acting skills were almost exclusively displayed in front of Chi Xiaocheng. With her everyday friends, she didn’t have this level of guardedness.

Her current fidgeting, restless waiting was far too obvious in Jiang Nan’s eyes.

The latter’s gaze gradually turned strange. “When it comes down to it, you’ve received plenty of gifts yourself, right? If Xiaocheng gets gifts and is pursued by someone, isn’t that the same thing?”

“It’s not the same!” Su Tao retorted. “Though a lot of people have tried to pursue me, I always reject them outright. But with Xiaocheng’s personality, she’d never have the heart to refuse others. Like this time, she told me someone gave her a gift.

“And then she sent me a photo of the gift box, which means she already accepted it!

“Worse, she might’ve even agreed to someone’s invitation.”

At this thought, seeing that Chi Xiaocheng still hadn’t replied, Su Tao truly couldn’t sit still anymore. “No, I need to go check on her.”

Jiang Nan yawned. “We’re still in class.”

“I’ll just make up an excuse. The teacher will understand.”

Su Tao had just started to rise when Jiang Nan immediately pressed her back down, shooting her a sharp look. “Su Tao, be honest with me.

“You’re not… in love with Xiaocheng, are you?”

The question struck straight at Su Tao’s heart, freezing her mid-motion.

Her usual unguarded acting kicked in, and she quickly turned to Jiang Nan with a smile. “No way! I’m just Xiaocheng’s sister, after all. She’s still so naive. I’m just worried she might get tricked by someone, that’s all.”

“Hmm~” Jiang Nan let out a long hum, propping her chin on one hand as she lazily glanced at the still-lecturing teacher. A strand of hair fell against her delicate face as she said flatly, “If that’s the case, then I’ll go pursue Xiaocheng instead?”

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“Wait! You’re a girl! What do you mean by pursuing her?!”

“What does being a girl have to do with liking another girl?”

The rhetorical question shut Su Tao up completely.

She could tell Jiang Nan was teasing her, so she wasn’t actually angry, but she still felt a little prickly. Lowering her head, she finally muttered in a hushed voice, “Fine, I like Xiaocheng.”

“Should’ve just said so earlier.” Jiang Nan sighed. “Your acting just now was pretty good, but it was too sudden. And that kind of frantic worry doesn’t seem like the concern of an older sister at all.”

Su Tao forced down her impatience. “It’s just that Xiaocheng hasn’t replied to me. I’m worried something might’ve happened.”

“What could possibly happen?” Jiang Nan countered. “Getting caught by the teacher during class? Or sneaking out to run around at this hour?

“If you like Xiaocheng, and if you believe she likes you too, then you should give her a little more trust.

“Or do you think that after all this time together, she’d just run off with someone she barely knows?”

The words struck Su Tao with guilt.

She felt like the boomerang of karma had come back to hit her.

After all, back then, she’d fought with Chi Xiaocheng over Ye Liang.

Looking back now, she realized how irrational she’d been… but the past couldn’t be changed.

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Su Tao glanced at the class’s resident top student hesitantly. “Was it really that obvious?”

“Well, a lot of people do think it’s just sisterly affection,” Jiang Nan said, lowering her head to take notes, her tone unchanged. “But honestly, I was just bluffing earlier. I didn’t actually expect it to be true.”

“…”

Su Tao fell silent for a long while, then tugged at her hair again. But now, she had completely lost any focus on the lecture.

Chi Xiaocheng’s lack of reply left her restless.

It wasn’t until the teacher started rambling about some (uninteresting) past experience of his that she glanced back at Su Tao. “So, when did it start?”

“What do you mean?”

“You liking Xiaocheng.”

“Uh….”

Jiang Nan: “At the start of last semester, you were still fighting with Xiaocheng over Ye Liang and his friends. That whole mess was pretty public. Doesn’t seem like you’ve liked her for long. It’’s more like a recent realization, right?

“Back then, I actually thought you might end up with Ye Liang. But then that rich kid just dropped out for no reason.”

Su Tao gave Jiang Nan a complicated look. She had to admit, this straight-A student who always sat at the front and studied hard was scarily observant.

Perhaps because she needed an outlet for her bottled-up feelings, Su Tao added, “If I tell you, you can’t spread it around, okay?”

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“I’ve never been into gossip. Just stop talking when the teacher gets back to the lesson.”

Right now, she was just bored.

With no mind for the lecture, Su Tao recounted her story with Chi Xiaocheng.

Of course, she left out the yandere parts, summarizing it as: Once, while bathing Chi Xiaocheng, she realized the girl was no longer the scrawny little kid from before. A strange flutter rose in her heart, and upon reflection, she discovered she actually had feelings for this sister she’d relied on for so long.

The simplified version:

While bathing her little sister, she realized how adorably soft and delicate she was.

Her story with Chi Xiaocheng was framed as Su Tao suddenly awakening to yuri.

Naturally, the topic eventually turned to how she confessed to Chi Xiaocheng, only for the latter to see her as nothing more than a sister.

After hearing this distorted version, Jiang Nan cut straight to the point: “So you’re terrified of someone stealing Xiaocheng away, but you also don’t know how to make her fall for you?”

Since she couldn’t do anything about her memories for now, Su Tao nodded in agreement.

“Then your anxiety makes sense,” Jiang Nan said. “But still, you can afford to trust her a little. Being too controlling will only backfire. You need to learn to restrain yourself.”

‘But if I don’t keep watching over her, she’ll just keep getting into all kinds of trouble.’

‘It’s because I took my eyes off her that she kept almost leaving me.’

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Just as she lowered her head again, a new message from Chi Xiaocheng popped up:

“Of course I didn’t accept that guy’s invitation! He just threw the gift at me and ran off. I don’t even know what to do with it. I figured you might misunderstand, so I wanted to tell you first.”

Su Tao froze at the words.

“Afraid I’d misunderstand….”

She understood why Chi Xiaocheng had said that.

That confession, that moment when she poured out her feelings—

Chi Xiaocheng had remembered it all along.

Even if she’d said she only saw Su Tao as a sister.

Jiang Nan peeked at the message and smirked. “See? I told you to trust her a little more. If she cares about you, she’ll be the last person who’d ever want to leave you.”

Su Tao suddenly found her deskmate dazzling. “Jiang Nan, if I remember right, you’ve been single all this time. How do you know so much about this?”

“I write romance novels. Does that count?”