Chapter 137: The Uninvited Guest

The small cake in a transparent plastic box showed fine cream through the cover, dotted with jam and fruit.

Hearing her words, Ye Xingmian fell silent for a moment, looking at the item in her hand.

“Thank you…”

She had never eaten this before, but it was given by Lin Ziyan. Not easy to accept. Ye Xingmian put it into her bag. At the same time, Liu Yinuo, who had not yet left, frowned.

“You said you bought medicine for her? What medicine? Can you tell me?”

Lin Ziyan shot her a sidelong glance.

“A topical ointment for injuries. Tsk, you hang around my ‘brother’ all day—you don’t even know she got beaten?”

“I…”

Liu Yinuo was momentarily at a loss for words. She turned her head to look at Ye Xingmian, who sat silently in her seat, her gaze filled with inquiry and concern.

Ye Xingmian, who had been quiet all along, spoke up to rescue her.

“It’s not the class monitor’s fault. I didn’t tell her.”

But Liu Yinuo’s mood did not improve much. She walked over, trying to get closer to Ye Xingmian.

“What happened? Are you hurt? Can I see?”

Yet again, Lin Ziyan blocked her.

She glared angrily and saw a somewhat triumphant expression on Lin Ziyan’s face.

“Class monitor, leave my ‘brother’ to me. No need for you to trouble yourself.”

Hearing Lin Ziyan’s words, seeing the pastry in her hand and the medicine that might be in her bag, and recalling her own hesitation from two days ago, Liu Yinuo felt a bit dazed.

Was it because of her? Because she had backed off, Ye Xingmian got hurt. Because of her hesitation, Lin Ziyan seized the chance to exploit the gap.

Guilt? Embarrassment? Or some other feeling?

She didn’t know. She only felt that it was hard to stay any longer, and she wanted to turn and leave.

Before leaving, she uttered another apology toward Ye Xingmian’s direction, but without lifting her head.

She hadn’t gone two steps when the girl behind her called out.

“Wait, class monitor!”

She turned back at the voice. Lin Ziyan was half sitting in her seat, frowning. The girl who had called her, Ye Xingmian, seemed to have a trace of hope in her pink eyes.

“At noon, can you take me to your home?”

Those words seemed to instantly sweep away the gloom in her heart. She paused, a smile curling at the corner of her mouth.

“Of course!”

***

After Liu Yinuo returned to her seat, some time passed.

Lin Ziyan’s face was so gloomy it seemed ready to drip water.

“Why did you say that? Didn’t I tell you not to go to her house? Why won’t you listen?”

It seemed that Ye Xingmian’s actions had crossed a line for her. Though she lowered her voice, the tone was still filled with anger.

She knew that to mend the relationship between herself and Ye Xingmian, she shouldn’t speak like this, but she just couldn’t bear it.

She had worked so hard to change, to think of Ye Xingmian, to be good to her—so why did Ye Xingmian still want to go to her?

Ye Xingmian, who had been tidying her desk, looked up but not at her. Her empty gaze fixed on some unknown direction.

“Why… don’t you want me to go?”

“Why?”

Lin Ziyan was taken aback. For a moment, she couldn’t figure out her own motive. But being used to being domineering, she naturally had her way of speaking.

“I told you not to go, so don’t go. What ‘why’ is there?”

After she said this, Ye Xingmian didn’t answer. The atmosphere fell into an awkward, silent standoff.

Until Ye Xingmian moved again—but not in the way Lin Ziyan wanted.

“Take this back.”

“Take it back? What do you mean?!”

Seeing the cake Ye Xingmian pulled from the desk compartment, Lin Ziyan was momentarily at a loss.

“I don’t want your food or your medicine. Let me go to Liu Yinuo’s place, okay?”

“Do you absolutely have to go to her?”

Lin Ziyan’s face flushed red as she stared at her intensely.

“Yes, that’s right. I’ll go no matter what.”

Ye Xingmian smiled gently.

With that said, there was nothing left to discuss between the two.

No matter what Lin Ziyan said, she couldn’t shake Ye Xingmian’s determination. Now, she couldn’t resort to violence either, so she could only slump over her desk in powerless rage.

She didn’t understand what was so great about that Liu Yinuo.

She was just a bit gentler in personality, a bit better off in family circumstances—why did that seem to suck Ye Xingmian’s soul away?

Raised in luxury, Lin Ziyan naturally couldn’t understand that mindset, but after yesterday’s events, she had realized that many things might not have been as she initially thought.

Only now, even if she wanted to make amends, it seemed too late.

Maintaining the status quo didn’t seem to work. She needed to change her approach.

That was the problem. How could she prevent Ye Xingmian from willingly gravitating toward Liu Yinuo?

But she hadn’t realized that yet. For now, she only felt defeated and thought she should keep her extra energy on secretly observing Ye Xingmian.

An ordinary morning. The teachers lectured vividly at the podium. Given Lin Ziyan’s level, even slight distraction didn’t affect her lessons.

Then she noticed something quite surprising.

She had always thought Ye Xingmian was just plain dumb, unable to understand class, which made her fall behind and get poor grades.

But from what she had observed for a while, the truth seemed completely opposite to her earlier assumption.

Ye Xingmian wasn’t stupid; she just lacked a lot of basic knowledge.

She could even solve fairly complex problems quickly, but with some basic ones, she’d frown and think for a long time without finding a method.

Lin Ziyan could tell that this mismatch was caused by an insecure grasp of certain knowledge points.

And what caused that unstable grasp?

As far as she knew, Ye Xingmian wasn’t lazy. On the contrary, she was very diligent.

So it could only be… time.

Because of lack of time, because of lack of energy, she couldn’t absorb the lessons, leading to a weak foundation.

And all of this, at the root, pointed to the same answer.

Lin Ziyan rested her chin on her hand, squinting slightly.

It seemed she had one more thing to feel sorry for. Was it true that debt didn’t weigh one down?

This time she didn’t feel a strong sense of guilt, only complex emotions.

That guilt, mixed with a jealousy-like feeling, left her uncertain what she actually wanted to do.

Gentle ingratiation—no.

Forcefully keeping her close—that seemed wrong too.

Time quickly reached noon. The bell rang, and students poured out like a tide. She was one of them.

She didn’t stay to keep pestering Liu Yinuo.

Maybe she didn’t want to humiliate herself further? Or maybe she simply didn’t want to see Ye Xingmian and Liu Yinuo getting close.

She didn’t know, and she didn’t want to think about it.

But just after Lin Ziyan left, another uninvited guest entered the classroom and walked up to Ye Xingmian.

It was… Qin Haiyue.