Jiang Xiao asked the question even though he already knew the answer.
“You’re wrong!”
Song Qiuyu tried several times before her fingers finally broke free from that warm imprisonment.
“It was my finger.”
“Fine, I’ll accept my loss,” Jiang Xiao sighed.
Song Qiuyu stared at him without blinking.
After a long moment, she realized what was happening and felt suddenly flustered, her small hands frantically clutching the cardboard box.
As if her inner thoughts were being broadcasted, the three capitalists began to gossip about it.
“This isn’t just taking it easy on her; it’s a total flood, isn’t it?” Xia Qi covered her mouth, unable to hide her delighted grin.
“My brother is like that,” Jiang Li said, shrugging her shoulders. “He’s always very direct with people he likes a lot. But Qiu Yu is probably the only person who could make him stop acting altogether.”
“That’s so nice,” Sang Tian said with a smile, eyeing the finger Song Qiuyu had curled up.
‘Someone he likes a lot?’
Hearing those words, Song Qiuyu’s drunken brain suddenly cleared a little. Feeling quite alert, she looked at the three smiling people and then at Jiang Xiao, her mind racing.
‘Could it be? Was I really set up? But Xia Qi promised to keep the secret, and Jiang Li wouldn’t go around spreading rumors about her brother liking his roommate.’
‘How did these three become a team?’
‘Does Jiang Xiao already know, or was he just acting with them from the very beginning?’
“Punishment! Jiang Xiao, I’m going to punish you. Take me back to my room right now!” She thought for a moment and then added, “Tonight, you can only sleep on the floor of my room. You’re not allowed to go back!”
She figured that adding that last part made it seem more like a real punishment. She couldn’t think of anything harsher anyway.
“As you command!”
Jiang Xiao took the cardboard box from her hands, tossed it to his sister, and naturally took Song Qiuyu’s hand, leading her outside.
Song Qiuyu was led away by Jiang Xiao. Only three people remained in the room.
Silence. Total silence.
The three of them didn’t speak for a long time until Jiang Li’s phone rang.
“Li, when are you planning to come home? It’s been ten days since the winter break started. Are you still playing outside?”
On the other end of the line was Jiang Xiao’s mother, Hua Shuying.
Her voice was accompanied by the sound of someone singing opera in the background. Originally, her mother shouldn’t have had much interest in opera; she preferred the piano, as she had once been a somewhat famous pianist.
The reason she was suddenly interested in opera was, naturally, out of a desire to understand her son’s current interests. However, something seemed to have gone slightly wrong.
‘Maybe it’s because of that photo of my brother in the stage play…’ Jiang Li could only guess.
She didn’t hesitate and immediately gave her mother an approximate time. If nothing unexpected happened, it should be around February third, four days from now.
Having received an answer, the mother hung up and continued listening to the opera.
Jiang Li clutched her phone and looked at the other two in the room, asking bluntly, “Do you think my brother can successfully kidnap Qiu Yu back home for the New Year?”
Sang Tian and Xia Qi fell into deep thought.
Chinese New Year was on February seventeenth this year.
Today was the last day of January, which meant there were only seventeen days left. Jiang Xiao was running out of time.
Meanwhile, Jiang Xiao had already helped Song Qiuyu back to her room.
He carefully placed her on the bed and then skillfully moved to cover her with the blanket, tucking in the corners.
“Mm, Jiang Xiao…”
Song Qiuyu lay obediently on the bed, the flush on her face still visible. Her thoughts were a muddle as she peeked at the person by the bed, her small white hand clutching the corner of his shirt.
“Tell me, Xi’er.”
Jiang Xiao looked down at her acting spoiled and enjoyed the moment.
“I…” Song Qiuyu pursed her lips. Her expression suddenly revealed a bit of grievance and bitterness as her eyes slowly lowered. “I will grow up…”
“Hmm? What will grow up?”
Jiang Xiao thought he had misheard, so he sat on the edge of the bed and leaned down, bringing his face close to hers.
“I’m just still developing. I’ll grow up in the future! I really will…”
Song Qiuyu bit her lip, tears nearly overflowing from her eyes, her voice carrying a slight sob. Jiang Xiao’s lips twitched; he felt like he finally understood.
“So!” Song Qiuyu tightened her grip on Jiang Xiao’s shirt. Her soft voice sounded part like a plea and part like a demand. “Before I grow up, you can’t look at others, you can’t touch others, you can’t even think about it for a second…”
Hearing this, Jiang Xiao remained silent for a moment.
He couldn’t help but reach out to touch her soft lips, deliberately rubbing them twice before sliding his finger inside.
“Mmph!”
With her tongue pressed down, Song Qiuyu stared blankly into Jiang Xiao’s eyes, her mind going completely empty.
She forgot what she was going to say next.
Her body instinctively flushed with an uncontrollable heat out of shame, and the tears that had gathered in her eyes finally broke through.
“You’re not willing to date me or be my girlfriend, yet you want to exercise the rights of a girlfriend?”
Jiang Xiao looked at her teary-eyed expression and couldn’t help but soften his heart.
“Jiang… Xiao…” Song Qiuyu spoke with difficulty, her voice a bit slurred. “I like… you…”
Hearing those words, Jiang Xiao withdrew his hand and rubbed his damp fingertip against her burning cheek.
“Promise me, okay? Jiang Xiao?” Song Qiuyu proactively rubbed her face against his palm, continuing to act like a spoiled child.
Jiang Xiao was silent for another moment. Then, unable to hold back any longer, he pressed his lips against hers, kissing her more fiercely than any of the previous times.
“Mmph!”
Her breath was repeatedly stolen away. Song Qiuyu held onto the large hand cupping her cheek and closed her eyes, her body squirming restlessly.
This was a kiss after a long time. Although they had done very shameful things that other day, when she thought about it carefully, Jiang Xiao hadn’t kissed her once.
Her thoughts gathered and then shattered.
She was like a highly malleable piece of clay in Jiang Xiao’s hands, being played with and kneaded at will.
The clay, forced to change its shape, could no longer remember its original form, nor could it return to it.
She stopped merely being passive and learned to take the initiative to kiss him back several times.
Just as Song Qiuyu kissed him back a few times, Jiang Xiao’s breath hitched.
‘Damn it…’
Jiang Xiao lowered his eyes and looked at her deeply. After one final, deep kiss, he pulled away just in time.
He saw Song Qiuyu with her eyes closed, the corners of her eyes stained deep red with tears. Her mouth was slightly open as she panted. Gradually, her breathing leveled out; she had clearly fallen asleep.
‘Can such an intense kiss actually help someone sleep?’ This was the first time Jiang Xiao had heard of such a thing.
‘Maybe she’s just tired because she drank so much?’
He exhaled, straightened his body, and quietly watched her sleeping face. He reached out and gently wiped the traces from the corner of her mouth.
Song Qiuyu fell into a deeper sleep.
Jiang Xiao picked up his phone and looked at the messages she had sent during the game earlier, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He couldn’t help but pinch the cheek of the sleeping girl.
“I wonder how much you’ll remember when you wake up this time. But as for that question you asked, I’ll wait for you to wake up before I answer.”
“Goodnight, Xi’er. Have a sweet dream.”
A long time passed until the horizon began to turn pale. Song Qiuyu lazily rubbed her eyes and woke up from her dream.
She had dreamed of her high school campus.
After meeting many new classmates at school, she accidentally reunited with Jiang Xiao, who had lost Shen Xi.
Unaware of the situation, she chatted with him as usual, but he ignored her completely.
The two of them grew more distant because of it. Just when she thought her life with Jiang Xiao would always be this way, a little creature named Kyubey found her and asked her to become a magical girl!
Coincidentally, her enemy was Jiang Xiao, who was broken after losing his love forever. Jiang Xiao had been fooled by a big boss into thinking that by helping to conquer the world, Shen Xi could return.
So, for the sake of the greater good, she took the initiative to find Jiang Xiao and lay her cards on the table.
In the end, they worked together from the inside out, successfully defeated the big boss, and saved the world. At the very end, Jiang Xiao proposed to her.
Then, she woke up.
“I feel like…” Song Qiuyu reminisced about the passion and youth of fighting side by side in the dream, smiling foolishly, feeling like she hadn’t had enough.
She stared at the ceiling and pulled the blanket over half of her face, trying to go back to sleep to continue the dream.
“You feel like what?” Jiang Xiao’s voice suddenly rang out from beside her pillow.
As soon as he spoke, Song Qiuyu’s body stiffened.
Then, without even looking at Jiang Xiao, she dove into the blanket with a ‘whoosh,’ wrapping herself up with all her might before rolling forcefully toward the wall.