In the garden, beneath the cherry blossom tree.
Xia He stood across from Lu Renjia, holding two bottles of oolong tea.
Her fingertips tapped lightly against the bottles, one steady tap after another.
Her expression remained perfectly calm.
She kept her head slightly lowered, staring at her own shoes in a daze.
A breeze swept through, carrying a few cherry blossom petals that drifted down and landed on her shoes.
She was counting in her head.
One, two, three, four, five—
Lu Renjia stood opposite her, mouth opening and closing.
She couldn’t catch a single word he said; everything blurred together into the noisy background.
The garden had cleared out a space around them.
Students who had come out for a walk during break had politely stepped aside, turning the area into a stage while they joined the classmates leaning on the upstairs railings to watch.
This empty patch had become the most lively focal point of the entire break.
Xia He didn’t like being stared at by so many people.
Being watched meant being remembered, and being remembered always brought trouble.
She hated trouble more than anything, and Lu Renjia standing right in front of her was the perfect example—a piece of trouble that had latched onto her like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe, impossible to shake off.
Xia He had occasionally overheard Lu Renjia’s name in her friends’ conversations.
Whenever those girls mentioned him, their faces would light up with dreamy infatuation.
Good at sports, tall, decent looks.
Most importantly, he supposedly knew exactly how to make girls happy—though that was the polite way of saying it. In plain terms, he was a smooth operator.
Lu Renjia’s personality was aggressively confident, born from the assurance his family background gave him.
When facing girls, he never displayed the awkward, stuttering shyness most teenage boys had.
No blushing.
No stammering.
Completely different from the boys whose hands shook when they tried to hand over a love letter.
He was used to being watched. Used to being the center of his own world.
Used to the belief that “if I want something, I can have it.”
Girls in the flush of adolescence were still naive, like baby birds fresh from the shell, pecking at anything that glittered.
How could they have encountered someone as dashing and charming as him?
So when this “heaven’s chosen one” turned his gaze their way, many innocent girls fell for the illusion that they had been specially chosen—like Cinderella receiving an invitation to the prince’s ball, convinced the glass slippers were made just for her, and then melting under the envious stares of her friends.
To be honest, it was boring.
Xia He had zero interest in someone like him.
She figured those girls had simply been fooled.
Because everyone around them was talking about Lu Renjia, he carried a certain filter.
Anyone who got close to him would be lit up by that filter, drawing even more attention and earning a spot at the center of every conversation.
Those girls mistook the feeling for romance, for fate, believing the glass slippers really fit perfectly.
But it was nothing more than the normal craving for attention that immature teenagers felt.
Besides, from the mouths of the girls Lu Renjia had dumped, his reputation wasn’t nearly as spotless as the rumors claimed.
So Xia He had never been interested in him.
No—she had never even bothered to register Lu Renjia as someone worth noticing.
But that was exactly where the trouble started.
Lu Renjia, who was used to being adored by girls like stars circling the moon, could never tolerate an existence like hers.
Xia He—a girl who couldn’t even be bothered to look at him properly—was a direct challenge to his supposedly flawless charm.
She was like a mirror that exposed the cracks in his gilded exterior.
He refused to let that mirror exist. He had to smash it to pieces or force it to reflect the image he wanted.
He wanted this girl—who was flawless in both family background and appearance—to show him that same expression.
Gaze. Longing. Desire.
He wanted to watch that exquisitely beautiful face change for him.
He wanted to see that graceful, alluring figure twist for him.
Only then would his twisted ego be satisfied.
Six, seven, eight, nine, ten—
Xia He kept counting silently in her head. She was waiting.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Lu Renjia had been talking nonstop for a long while before he finally noticed Xia He had spent the entire time staring at her shoes, as if they were far more interesting than anything he had to say.
He frowned, the movement barely noticeable.
“Are you finished?” Xia He asked.
Lu Renjia froze.
Xia He lifted her head and looked around, her gaze sweeping across the upstairs corridor, searching for a certain figure among the sea of heads.
Lu Renjia was thrown off by her attitude.
He followed her line of sight, glanced back, then turned to face her again, his expression darkening.
“Who are you looking at?”
Xia He didn’t answer. Her finger tapped the oolong tea bottle once more.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen—
“Xia He!” Lu Renjia raised his voice enough that the people leaning on the railing upstairs could hear.
“I’m talking to you!”
“Are you finished?”
Xia He asked, lifting her eyes to give him a brief, indifferent glance.
Lu Renjia’s lips moved several times before he finally forced out, “…No.”
“Then keep going.”
Lu Renjia’s fingers slowly curled into fists. He took several deep breaths and swallowed his anger.
He had been chasing her for half a year and knew she didn’t respond to pressure.
“Xia He,” his voice softened. “I’m saying this for your own good. Listen to me—Jiang Yueming—”
“How long have you known him?” Xia He cut him off.
Lu Renjia paused.
“How long have you known him?” she repeated.
Her gaze remained fixed on the garden entrance and never turned back.
“I… don’t need to know him. Just looking at him tells me enough—”
“You can’t tell anything.” Xia He’s voice stayed perfectly calm.
“You can’t even read me. What could you possibly see?”
Lu Renjia’s face flushed deep red with a mix of rage and humiliation.
“You—”
“What exactly do you like about me?”
Xia He finally turned to face him directly.
This was the first time today she had looked him straight in the eye.
There was no disgust or contempt in her gaze—only a quiet, spine-chilling curiosity.
“Do you like my face?” Xia He tilted her head slightly.
“Or my family background? Or just the title ‘Young Miss of the Xia Family’?”
“I—”
“Or is it simply that you can’t stand hearing anyone tell you ‘no’?”
“You don’t know anything.” His voice dropped to a near growl, forced through clenched teeth.
“I do know,” Xia He said.
“You don’t!”
“I know you went to the milk tea shop with that girl from the next class last Friday after school. I know you send ‘good night’ messages to three different people at the same time. And I know every single thing you don’t want anyone else to find out.”
Lu Renjia’s face drained from red to white.
“You… how did you…”
“How did I know?”
Xia He finished the sentence for him. The faint curve at the corner of her mouth never changed.
“Take a guess.”
Up on the corridor, the students still leaning over the railing continued watching.
Someone whispered, “What did Xia He just say? Lu Renjia’s face looks awful.”
“No idea. Can’t hear.”
For the first time, Lu Renjia felt a flicker of fear toward the girl standing in front of him.
Xia He no longer looked at him. Her gaze drifted back toward the garden entrance.
This time, her fingers tapped the oolong tea bottle in a different rhythm—not the steady beat from before, but one heavy tap followed by a light one.
The heavy tap said come.
The light tap said hurry.
The person she was waiting for should be here any second.