Fei Xiao’s tone was rarely tinged with… Lin Nai didn’t know how to describe it, perhaps it could be called “faint chagrin.”
When she spoke, her brows furrowed slightly, a small crease forming between them, like a piece of paper that had been crumpled and then carefully smoothed out, but the fold marks remained.
“But I didn’t expect it to be so crowded.”
She paused. Her breath landed on Lin Nai’s forehead, warm, carrying a very faint medicinal scent.
Fei Xiao’s lips moved, and her voice dropped even lower, so low it was almost drowned out by the clattering of the train.
“Lin Nai… I may need to get a little closer. It’ll be a bit cramped.”
Before Lin Nai could answer, Fei Xiao’s body leaned forward. It really was “leaning” in.
Her arms retracted a few centimeters, her elbow brushing against the interior wall of the carriage, making a very faint rustling sound. The distance between them was compressed to the limit.
Lin Nai’s cheek pressed against Fei Xiao’s chest. Through the thin shirt of the summer uniform, she could feel Fei Xiao’s heartbeat. Steady, slow, beating against her eardrum.
Lin Nai unconsciously began counting, about sixty-something beats per minute, a bit slower than a normal person’s heart rate, probably because years of martial arts training had made her heart especially strong.
But Lin Nai felt that heartbeat was a little faster than before. Might be an illusion. Or maybe not.
Fei Xiao slipped one hand past the back of Lin Nai’s head, her elbow bracing against the interior wall of the carriage, forming a stable triangular support.
Her other hand remained behind Lin Nai’s head, palm against the back of her head, fingers slightly spread like a small shield to prevent her head from hitting the wall when the train jolted.
Every time the train passed a switch, it would jolt, and Fei Xiao’s hand would gently tighten with the movement, the force controlled perfectly—not enough to make Lin Nai feel restrained, but enough to keep her head in a safe position.
Lin Nai leaned in Fei Xiao’s arms. She was about half a head shorter than Fei Xiao, a height difference that just allowed her forehead to rest between Fei Xiao’s collarbones.
Fei Xiao’s black hair hung down from both sides, the strands tickling her eyes, making her blink several times until she had to close one eye and keep the other barely open.
Through the gaps in the hair, she could see the dense crowd in the carriage, the light cut into thin lines that dazzled her eyes.
At this distance, the mixed smells around were all blocked out. The smell of smoke, sweat, perfume, and air conditioning were all covered by the gardenia scent from Fei Xiao.
Held by Fei Xiao, Lin Nai could only smell the scent continuously emanating from Fei Xiao.
Fei Xiao lowered her head, her chin gently resting on top of Lin Nai’s head. Her nose buried in Lin Nai’s white hair, breathing in soft, slow breaths.
The hair on top of Lin Nai’s head carried a faint medicinal scent, not a bitter one, but the sweet, bloody smell of red dates and goji berries from the blood supplement oral liquid, warmed by body heat.
Fei Xiao’s eyelashes drooped, and with each breath, that scent entered her nostrils, then was carefully stored in her lungs.
If Lin Nai’s body healed, she could…
Fei Xiao’s breath paused for an extremely brief moment. Then she pressed her chin down a little more on top of Lin Nai’s head, the movement so gentle it was like she was afraid of waking something sleeping.
The train’s announcement sounded, calling out the name of the next station. The electronic female voice was wrapped in the noise of the carriage, sounding muffled, as if through a layer of water.
The carriage jolted, and everyone leaned in the same direction due to inertia, like a can of sardines being gently shaken.
Lin Nai’s body tilted forward, her forehead bumping into Fei Xiao’s collarbone, and Fei Xiao’s arms tightened at the same instant, stabilizing her body securely in her arms, the timing between release and hold almost zero.
Lin Nai closed her eyes, leaning against Fei Xiao, and suddenly felt that being treated like a human body pillow wasn’t such a bad thing.
Although in her past life she had been a 185 cm tall man, in this life, with this sickly, frail, beautiful girl body of just over 150 cm, being protected like this was actually quite comfortable.
Then a voice came from the side.
“Uh…”
Very low, very short, as if forcibly bitten off between teeth.
Lin Nai followed the sound through the gaps in Fei Xiao’s hair. About three or four people away from them, stood a girl wearing the same uniform.
Her short, flaxen hair reached just to her shoulders, the ends slightly curled outward, her bangs stuck to her forehead from the heat in the carriage.
Her brows were tightly furrowed, a deep knot between them, her lips pressed into a nearly bloodless line.
Her complexion wasn’t good, an unnatural pallor floating on what should have been fair skin. Her hand was covering her shoulder.
When the train jolted just now, she had been bumped. The one who bumped her was a middle-aged man standing next to her, probably in his forties, wearing a faded dark blue polo shirt, the collar undone by two buttons, revealing the tan line on his neck.
He had a slight beer belly, stretching the front of the polo shirt into an unflattering curve. He held the overhead grab rail with one hand, and held up his phone with the other, the light from the screen illuminating his face, making the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes especially clear.
The content on the screen was probably news or a social app; in any case, he was engrossed, so engrossed that he completely failed to notice his elbow slam into the shoulder of the girl next to him when the train jolted.
After the girl was hit, the man glanced down at her.
“Ah, sorry, too many people.”
His tone was slurred, the syllables stuck in his throat, his lips not even fully parted. After saying that, he turned his head back, his gaze returning to his phone screen.
The light from the screen lit up his face, his thumb swiped, the page turned, as if everything that just happened was just a minor bump during the train ride. He didn’t look at the girl a second time.
The flaxen-haired girl bit her lower lip, saying nothing. She lowered her hand from her shoulder, letting it hang at her side, clutching the hem of her school uniform skirt.
The fabric of the skirt was crumpled into a small ball in her palm. She endured it.
Lin Nai looked at her hand gripping the skirt, then at the man still scrolling on his phone, and then she called up the system panel in her mind.
[Malice Points: 7]
Last time, she put on such a big show on the stairs and only earned seven points. An energy pill costs 100 points.
Raising constitution from 3 to 4 requires ten energy pills, which is 1,000 points. From the time she transmigrated until now, she hadn’t even saved one percent of her goal.
A line flashed quickly through Lin Nai’s mind: ‘Isn’t this the perfect chance to earn points?’
Her eyelashes lifted slightly, the light in her pupils focused tightly, as if gathering a whole patch of sunlight into the tip of a needle.
“Is that the attitude for bumping into someone?”