Small City No. 2 Middle School never had evening study sessions, not even for junior high students.
At most, teachers would keep them until 5:30 PM before letting them go.
The orange sunset cast its last rays obliquely onto the streets.
The school gate was bustling with people: students, parents, and vendors seizing the opportunity to do business after school.
An Jing walked out of the school gate alone, because Fang Qiang and his friends were going to play basketball for a while before heading back.
He occasionally joined them, but only if he had reported it in advance.
The etiquette squad, made up of second-year junior high students, stood by the school gate, which was adorned with banners.
They uniformly chanted, “Goodbye, teachers!”
An Jing walked out of the school gate along with these voices drifting outwards.
After pushing through the crowded masses and crossing an intersection, it finally became a bit quieter.
Though this city wasn’t large, it was still full of upward vitality.
Everywhere, you could see students running or in groups on the street, slow-moving pedicabs carrying passengers, and adults returning from work with tired but relaxed smiles…
Looking closely, this not-so-wide street was actually bustling with people everywhere.
This reminded An Jing of the young people in his village who went to big cities to work.
“Actually, small cities are pretty good too…”
The young An Jing still didn’t quite understand.
“Why do they all have to rush to big cities? Is it just because they’re more prosperous?”
“An, An Jing…”
Just as he was talking to himself, a faint voice came from behind him.
Before he could turn around, the owner of the voice had already walked quickly to his side.
This was a girl with a somewhat grim face, but it couldn’t hide her beautiful features.
Seeing her, he couldn’t help but think of the fried chicken leg she had given him at noon today—carefully wrapped in a clean napkin, the chicken leg crispy and golden, not even stained with a drop of broth.
He was too embarrassed to accept it, but he still took it.
Before he could even thank her, she had already run back to the classroom.
Their relationship was actually a bit awkward.
In fourth grade of elementary school, they had a childish romance that only lasted a year, ending when she transferred schools.
He thought those would simply fade into the mists of time as past events, but unexpectedly, when classes were reorganized in junior high, they were assigned to the same class again.
Before that, An Jing didn’t even know she attended the same junior high as him.
At the beginning of the semester, they had actually discovered each other, but both felt familiar yet strange.
In reality, only the strangeness remained; that childhood familiarity had long since become unrecognizable after this short yet long period of adolescence.
“Uh… Wang Xinru, are you also going this way?”
An Jing stared at the shadow stretched out by the setting sun, not daring to look at her.
“Mhm… my home is in this direction now.”
She paused briefly, and seeing An Jing not speaking, she quietly added, “The, the chicken leg from lunch… was it cold?”
“Huh? Not really, it was still warm, quite tasty. Oh, by the way, thanks, I just didn’t get a chicken leg at lunch.”
“Mhm, I heard.”
“Ha—”
An Jing deliberately drew out his voice exaggeratedly.
“That Zhang Qiqi is really ill-tempered!”
“She seems to really like bullying boys.”
“Yeah, damn it.”
An Jing used the momentum of swearing to turn and look at her, feeling somewhat dazed for a moment.
To be honest, in elementary school, she was a bit of an ugly duckling, but in junior high, she had grown into such a graceful young lady, and her height didn’t seem much shorter than his…
“They say girls change a lot by eighteen…”
“Mhm, wha, what?”
“Ah, cough, I mean, you look quite different from before.”
“Really? I think I’m still the same…”
“No way, you’ve gotten much prettier.”
“Oh, is that so…”
“Uh… but you still look like a good girl.”
An Jing scratched his head hard.
“Ha, haha… there are still quite a few things that haven’t changed!”
“I’m not exactly a good girl, you know.”
Wang Xinru gently shook her head, her half-smile making An Jing somewhat confused.
If only he had mind-reading now—
That’s what he thought.
Or rather, should it be called telepathy?
An Jing put his hand in his pocket and casually grasped the meteorite fragment, which had turned golden.
[He looks like he still has a crush on me, should I try it…?]
[I really want to with a boy, ugh… I haven’t done anything for two months, I… I can’t hold it in anymore…]
[Can he accept doing it before becoming friends? No, no, that wouldn’t be good, right?]
[But An Jing is so cute now, I’ve never tried it with a real person, I really want to try…]
[I really want to do it…]
An Jing stared at her face, instantly frozen in place.
“Wha, what’s wrong?”
Wang Xinru asked softly, timidly.
“No, nothing!!”
He quickly shook his head vigorously, unconsciously letting go of the stone in his hand.
The telepathy immediately vanished.
Looking at this seemingly fragile girl in front of him, as pure as an untouched white flower, An Jing simply couldn’t believe what he had just heard was her inner thought.
“Telepathy…” he mumbled softly, but there was no reaction.
“You… said something?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
An Jing feigned relaxation and put his hand back into his pocket.
As he grasped the stone, he suddenly thought of something and unconsciously muttered “telepathy” again in his mind.
[Was An Jing this cute before? I can’t quite remember… His lips are pink, a bit plump, looks delicious. I wonder if there is also pink…]
[I really want to suck his neck…]
An Jing immediately shrunk his neck, as if a cold wind had blown in.
Now, he couldn’t be sure it was his telepathy.
He even suspected that perhaps he watched too much anime, and his brain activity was too intense.
Could it be that the so-called inner thoughts were just figments of his overactive imagination?
“Ah, so, I recently learned a new magic trick. From 1 to 9, you can think of any number in your mind, and then I’ll be able to guess it.”
“Eh? So, so amazing…”
Her face flushed, and she looked at An Jing with some admiration.
“Can you really do it?”
“Yes… so, think of one, and I’ll guess now.”
“Okay, okay…”
[What number should I think of? An Jing should still be a virgin, right? So he’s never done it even once, so that’s 0. So I’ll think of the number 0… If he guesses it, should I give him a kiss?]
An Jing’s heart thumped.
“Ah… it’s 0. That’s the number you’re thinking of, right?”
“Eh? Really? How did you know?”
Wang Xinru excitedly and curiously leaned in closer, her small face so near that he could even feel her gentle breath.
“Ah, ah—I just guessed!”
An Jing hastily said, dodging to the side.
“But you said it was magic?”
“Oh, there’s no such thing as magic in this world, really…” he coughed twice.
To say he wasn’t tempted would be an absolute lie.
After all, what adolescent boy could resist such an allure?
The key was, what he heard was her inner voice, her true thoughts.
If he were just a little more proactive, he might even lose his virginity tonight.
However…
An Jing finally let reason overcome the desire for immediate gratification.
He believed that to “do it” with someone, they should at least be in love, preferably the kind of love where they plan to marry and grow old together.
Not like this…
Acting on impulse like an animal.
“I’m human! I’m human!”
An Jing yelled, and suddenly started running wildly.
“Eh? An, An Jing, what’s wrong?”
“I have to pee, I’m going back first—see you tomorrow!”
He wasn’t lying, but the main reason was that her inner thoughts kept flooding into his mind, making him unsure of what expression to even face her with now…
***
“Bang!”
“What are you doing? Shutting the door so hard?”
“I have to pee!”
“Tsk… you had to pee this morning, and you have to pee again when you get back tonight. Should I take you to see a doctor?”
“No! I just drank too much water!”
“Then just take a shower. Dinner will be ready in a bit.”
“Got it!”
From the bathroom, where the rickety wooden door had been slammed shut, came the urgent, prolonged sound of water…
An Jing looked at his clear reflection in the mirror, feeling a little blush.
“So beautifu… no, so handsome! Although I paid the price of being a few centimeters shorter, this doesn’t seem bad at all…”
An Jing grinned foolishly.
This was the first time in his life he had experienced what it felt like to be handsome.
“No wonder that guy Zhou Chao always changes girlfriends. Being handsome is so damn awesome…”
He then remembered Wang Xinru’s bold and fiery inner thoughts from earlier, and his face instantly flushed hot.
“So, so girls also have those kinds of thoughts? And… and they’re actually so… so desirous…”
He tilted his head to look at his left hand, mumbling softly, “Hmm… it’s been a day apart, that shouldn’t count as frequent, right? Dinner isn’t ready yet, there’s still time to… Oh right, I need to leave the water running so my sisters don’t find out…”
Pleasure, indeed, is addictive.
However, this time it was a bit quick.
In just over three minutes, An Jing had finished his “battle.”
He adjusted the water temperature, then comfortably stood under the showerhead.
But after just a few rubs on his body, he found a lot of—hair—on his hands.
“Huh…?”
He lifted his arm in confusion, touched his armpit, and a large clump of hair came off.
He then touched his thigh, and another large clump came off.
He immediately panicked and touched his hair.
Thankfully, a large clump of hair didn’t come out.
It seemed only the hair below his head was falling off…
Warm water washed over his body, and the fine hairs were washed away with it.
He immediately froze in a panic—
Could it be that even a day apart was still too frequent?
But it had already been a day!
Wang Xinru needs to be bonked. She’s so damn thirsty lmao