She was completely panicked. Just thinking about Chen Yiyang made her flustered with anger. She instinctively hung up and turned to flee upstairs.
Chen Yiyang, carrying his schoolbag, was about to go upstairs too. His face was cold, as if he was about to deal with her.
Yun Mi wanted to escape, but just then Aunt Qin came out of the kitchen with dishes, smiling. "Xiao Mi, why are you going upstairs again? Come eat!"
Yun Mi frowned and said, "Aunt Qin, I'm not eating!!!"
Yun Mi didn't know how much Chen Yiyang had heard, but they had a long-standing grudge anyway, so she forced herself not to care.
The girl thought quickly and hurried downstairs. When she met Chen Yiyang's eyes, her expression was fierce. She left behind only a hurried silhouette, saying, "Ding Yuan and I are going to the bookstore. I'll eat out today! Bye, Auntie!"
-
It was late, in the supplementary books section of Shancheng Bookstore. Ding Yuan, beaming, linked arms with Yun Mi and said, "Mimi, you're so nice! Treating me to the sushi I've been dying to eat! I love you forever!" She babbled on for a while, then asked curiously, "What made you think to treat me to a meal?"
Yun Mi thought of someone again. She blinked and brushed it off. "Maybe because I spoil you."
Ding Yuan leaned in suspiciously and stared at her.
Yun Mi looked away, secretly cursing Chen Yiyang a couple of times in her heart.
All because he suddenly came home! If not for him, none of this would have happened!
Her wallet was empty.
Yun Mi changed the subject: "Hurry up. Once we buy the books, we'll go back to school for self-study. The monthly exam is coming."
Outside of class hours, Shanfu still allowed free entry with a student ID.
The teaching building was brightly lit.
The supplementary books Xu Zhiyu recommended were just the right difficulty. After completing two units, Yun Mi felt much clearer in her thinking.
But there were two problems in the Shanfu homework that Yun Mi couldn't solve.
She asked her tutoring teacher.
Ding Yuan lowered her voice, shocked. "Is that tutoring teacher of yours even okay? There was a similar problem in our last Shanfu homework. There's no way his solution is right! He didn't even consider that natural numbers include zero!"
But asking Ding Yuan was useless—she couldn't solve them either.
Yun Mi whispered, "Didn't you say you've done similar ones before?"
"Doing them doesn't mean I know how."
"..."
Yun Mi looked around. It was late, and most of the classmates had already left.
She held her head in her hands, agonizing over the problems, and finally gave up.
Silently, she took a photo. After a long mental struggle, she sent a WeChat message to y2.
Grow Up Well: [Bunny cute emoji]
Twenty minutes later, Chen Yiyang replied with a period.
Grow Up Well: Chen Yiyang, can I ask you a question?
Yun Mi couldn't make sense of his "period" reply. She wondered if she wasn't being obsequious enough.
Biting her pen cap, she hesitated whether to call him "brother," when y2 sent a new message.
y2: Didn't you say "not close"?
Seeing his infuriating message, Yun Mi abruptly stood up.
No!!! He really heard that!!!
She knew it! She shouldn't have eaten at home.
But wait—who was the one who asked her to "pretend not to be close"?
Ding Yuan saw Yun Mi push her chair back with a screech and stand up. "What's wrong, Mimi? Driven crazy by math?"
Yun Mi said, "I'm fine."
—Just driven crazy by Chen Yiyang.
Then added, "I'm going out for a walk."
—If I don't leave, I'll explode.
Yun Mi forced a smile and explained, "The weather is nice tonight."
She glanced sideways—dark clouds everywhere.
"..."
Yun Mi planned to go to 7-Eleven to buy a can of peach yogurt.
As she walked through an alley, the girl was still kicking pebbles, head down. Both her parents were busy with their careers, so she wasn't used to living with others. She never expected that her first "cohabitation" would be with the world's most detestable Chen Yiyang.
She looked up angrily, then unconsciously stopped and quickly found shelter under an eave as rain began to fall.
"What's with the forty thousand yuan withdrawn from your card last week? What are you doing? Do you think I earn money from thin air?"
A man's hoarse voice, suppressing anger, pierced through the wall, mingling with the pattering rain.