10. I Don’t Like You

Wan Hanqiu looked at Jiang Ci, who was unable to say a word, and gave a cold snort of contempt. “Did I hit the nail on the head?”

Jiang Ci pressed her lips tightly together. The hand braced against Wan Hanqiu’s shoulder trembled almost imperceptibly.

Jiang Ci had thought she had hidden her feelings well—deeply enough that no one could ever see through them. Yet with a single remark from someone she hated, she had been defeated utterly.

“Jiang Ci, you’re not worthy of liking Zhang Heyu.” Sensing her distress, Wan Hanqiu smiled even more smugly. “He’ll never like you.”

She was right.

Zhang Heyu would never like her.

The bitterness in Jiang Ci’s heart could no longer be suppressed, and her eyes suddenly reddened.

“I don’t like him.”

The instant she finished speaking, a deep, magnetic voice came from behind her.

“What are you making such a fuss about?”

Jiang Ci did not turn around. At the sound of that familiar voice, her heart gave a sudden, accelerated beat, and her entire body stiffened where she stood.

The moment Wan Hanqiu saw Zhang Heyu appear, she struck first, accusing Jiang Ci of the very thing she had intended to do.

“A-Yu, she was trying to push me. She wanted me to fall—”

“Do you take me for an idiot?” Zhang Heyu lazily lifted his eyes. The sunlight was somewhat glaring, and he narrowed them. “Even a snail crawls faster than she does. How could she have pushed you?”

Wan Hanqiu choked, looking terribly aggrieved. “But she really was trying to push me!”

Yu Xijin could not stand it any longer. “Push you? Why would Ci-Ci push you? Who do you think you are?”

“Because she likes A-Yu!” Provoked, Wan Hanqiu stamped her feet. “A-Yu, she liked you even when we were together. We broke up because of her, didn’t we? A-Yu, can we get back together?”

At her words, something deep inside Jiang Ci’s heart suddenly clenched. She felt as though all the blood in her body had begun to flow backward.

She did not want to hear Zhang Heyu’s answer.

“Jinjin, let’s go.”

Even now, Jiang Ci could not stop herself from trying to escape.

Yu Xijin froze for a moment and reached out to support Jiang Ci, but a figure stepped in front of them.

Jiang Ci suddenly felt a warm touch around her wrist. Her thick lashes lowered and fluttered lightly.

“Oh? How do you know she likes me?” A muffled laugh rolled from Zhang Heyu’s throat, and he raised one brow. “Besides, when I broke up with you, you know perfectly well who was responsible, don’t you? Don’t blame others for your own incompetence.”

Wan Hanqiu’s face flushed scarlet with fury. Tears spilled from her eyes, making her look utterly miserable as she gritted out, “Zhang Heyu, you’ll get what you deserve!”

Deserve?

He had never been afraid of that.

Wan Hanqiu left in tears, weeping as though she had been wronged beyond endurance. The next second, Jiang Ci felt the warmth around her wrist withdraw.

She lowered her head and touched the lingering heat on her skin.

“…Thank you.”

Zhang Heyu lowered his eyes to glance at her. His expression was careless, and he said nothing. He simply turned and walked away.

“Ci-Ci, are you all right?” Yu Xijin glanced at the disappearing figure and complained, “Wan Hanqiu is seriously deranged. Does she have delusions or something? She’ll say absolutely anything.”

A faint smile spread across Jiang Ci’s face, though her eyes were still visibly red.

“Forget it. There’s no point arguing with people like that. Let’s go back.”

He seemed to have helped her once again.

When Jiang Ci returned to the classroom, the seat beside hers was still empty. Zhang Heyu had not yet come back.

She did not see him again during the afternoon classes. Fan Mian only told her that he had taken leave for personal reasons.

Near the end of the school day, Jiang Ci was packing her things. Just as she pulled open her schoolbag, the phone inside suddenly lit up.

She paused and picked it up. Two messages had appeared on the screen.

If she had not seen the sender’s name, she probably would never have guessed they were from Zhang Heyu.

[Zhang Heyu: Wait for me in the classroom. Ten minutes.]

Jiang Ci froze. Her fingers unconsciously tightened around the phone’s cool metal edge. After hesitating for a moment, she tapped out a single word.

[Jiang Ci: Okay.]

Jiang Ci remained in the classroom for a while longer. At exactly 5:45 in the evening, the school broadcast began.

“Today is August 27, 2023. It is now 5:45 p.m., and the campus radio program ‘You Choose the Song, I Read the Letter’ is officially beginning. Our first song is ‘Just Friends,’ requested by Hang Yinsheng from Class Seven, Grade Eleven, for Zhou Song.”

“May all happiness accompany you. When you look up, it is spring; when you bow your head, it is autumn. May every blessing follow you.”

Jiang Ci rested her face in both hands, her dazed gaze fixed on the golden scenery beyond the window.

“I’m willing to change—what can I do?—and start all over again—just give me a chance—”

Suddenly, a figure blocked the view outside.

The boy stepped into her line of sight against the light. He was very tall, his shoulders held straight. The glow outlined the broad shoulders and narrow waist beneath his school uniform.

The light behind him made even his hair shine.

Jiang Ci’s heart jolted.

Zhang Heyu had arranged for someone else to take over his remaining broadcasting duties. When he returned to the classroom, he happened to see Jiang Ci staring blankly out the window.

He leaned both hands against the sill, his voice low and hoarse, with a trace of amusement.

“What are you thinking about?”

The music was still playing.

“I can’t be only an ordinary friend. Our feelings have grown so deep—how could you ask me to let go?”

Jiang Ci looked at him in astonishment. The instant her face flushed, she hurriedly looked away, her red lips parting slightly.

“…Nothing.”

“But you say you love me, only want to be your friend,”

“Just be a friend.”

“…”

Zhang Heyu glanced at her. The little girl’s cheeks were flushed, and her delicate skin was so fine that even the soft down was visible.

“I’m taking you home. Hurry up and get your things.”

“Huh?”

Jiang Ci had thought he had asked her to stay because he needed something from her. She had not expected him to be taking her home.

“Do you want me to pack for you?”

“No…” Jiang Ci waved her hands in denial, hurriedly picked up her schoolbag, and edged toward the door.

She followed behind Zhang Heyu, watching as the setting sun cast a halo over the boy. For a moment, he seemed like a heaven-blessed prodigy who had descended from his altar.

Perhaps he was taking her injury into consideration as well, because he deliberately slowed his pace.

Suddenly remembering something, Jiang Ci hesitated for a long while before asking timidly, “Zhang Heyu, why do you help me?”

Zhang Heyu stopped too. With one hand in his pocket, he stood in a lazy posture and cast a sidelong glance at Jiang Ci behind him. His deep voice was casual, edged with laughter.

“What if I told you I just had nothing better to do? Would you believe me?”

She knew, of course, that Zhang Heyu was lying. She did not believe him.

Jiang Ci knew he would never answer her directly, so she pressed her lips together and said nothing more.

This time, Zhang Heyu did not walk home. They took the same car that had brought them both to school that morning.

Knowing how expensive the car was, Jiang Ci sat stiffly, terrified that she might damage something.

Seeing how timidly she sat, Zhang Heyu’s gaze softened as it rested on her—though he himself did not notice the change.

Ten minutes later, the car came to a smooth stop outside the entrance of an old residential complex.

Jiang Ci carefully opened the door, but Zhang Heyu reached her side first and opened it from outside.

“Hold on to me.”

Jiang Ci paused, then obediently placed her hand on his pale, cool arm, faint veins visible beneath the skin.

Zhang Heyu shifted his gaze away from her. His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. For some inexplicable reason, his arm felt itchy, and a tingling sensation traveled straight into his heart.

After escorting her to the door, Jiang Ci lowered her head to search for her keys in her schoolbag. The movement revealed a small stretch of her snow-white nape, along with the faint pink birthmark barely visible there.

Zhang Heyu wanted a clearer look, but the girl lifted her head at that moment, and her clear eyes met his.

“Is there something on me?” Jiang Ci had long since noticed the unbearably intense gaze beside her. She had endured it until she could no longer resist asking.

Zhang Heyu froze for a moment, then coolly withdrew his gaze.

“Have you always lived here?”

Looking at him, Jiang Ci felt somewhat intimidated.

Zhang Heyu was exceptionally handsome, but he always seemed uninterested in everything. When he was silent, there was a chill between his brows and eyes.

“…Yes.” Jiang Ci nodded, inserted the key into the lock, and answered timidly, “I’ve always lived here.”

Having received his answer, Zhang Heyu nodded in understanding.

“All right. Go inside.”

Jiang Ci suddenly remembered something. Just as Zhang Heyu turned to leave, she hurriedly reached out and caught hold of the hem of his school uniform.

The small force tugged him back. The leg he had lifted returned to the ground, and he turned his head to look at her.

“What is it?”

Jiang Ci licked her lips. Keeping her head lowered, she did not dare look at him.

“What happened at noon today…”

“Go on.”

She offered a quiet explanation, trying to cover up the truth.

“Don’t take what Wan Hanqiu said seriously. I don’t like you.”

The wind fell silent. It was a summer evening, and the cicadas perched in the camphor trees in the courtyard outside called out one after another. Along with her words, it seemed as though everything around them had come to a standstill.

After a moment of quiet, Zhang Heyu gave an unreadable laugh.

“It’s obvious enough. Besides, I can’t become the person in everyone’s heart.”

Jiang Ci stood there in a daze. The sour ache in her heart made it difficult to breathe.

She had won, hadn’t she?

She, Jiang Ci, was the one who had won.

“…Yes.”

Jiang Ci turned and continued twisting the lock. Footsteps sounded behind her, then gradually faded away.

She lowered her head to stare at her toes, suppressing the ache rising in her nose. After letting out a quiet sigh, she opened the door and went inside.

After dinner, Jiang Ci returned to her bedroom.

She sat at her desk and took a pink leather-bound notebook from the drawer.

Opening to a fresh page, she picked up the black pen lying beside it and left a line of graceful handwriting on the paper.

“Liking you is the best-kept secret I have.”

*

Before long, September arrived, and Jiang Ci’s injuries had healed.

Thanks to the scar-removing medicine her grandmother had specially prepared for her, the scars on her knees had faded away.

Today was the official return to school for every grade except senior year. The school first held an opening ceremony, after which the grade leaders passed down instructions for each class to send students to clean their assigned areas.

After the ceremony ended, Mo Bingyou summoned Jiang Ci to the office.

Jiang Ci arrived at the office, raised her hand, and knocked on the door. Then she walked to her homeroom teacher Mo Bingyou’s desk.

“Teacher, you wanted to see me?”

When Mo Bingyou saw her, he quickly set down what he was holding.

“Jiang Ci, this afternoon, find a few classmates to go with you and clean our assigned area. You know where it is, right? The road behind Dream Building, near the sports field.”

Jiang Ci nodded. “All right, Teacher.”

“Then go back to the classroom for now.” Mo Bingyou waved his hand, sending her back to class.

Before leaving, Jiang Ci glanced at the papers on Mo Bingyou’s desk. They were practice papers the students had completed a few days earlier, and the one he was marking belonged to Zhang Heyu.

Jiang Ci did not dare linger. Just as she was about to leave, she heard Mo Bingyou sigh in admiration.

“Zhang Heyu is truly gifted. He has a limitless future.”

When Jiang Ci returned to the classroom, she repeated Mo Bingyou’s instructions to her classmates.

After entering senior high school, Jiang Ci had found it increasingly difficult to balance her work at the noodle shop with her studies. Combined with her injury, this had led her to quit the noodle shop a few days earlier.

Since that day, she and Zhang Heyu had also interacted less. Although they shared a desk, the only time Jiang Ci spoke to him each day was when she needed to leave her seat and asked him to move aside.

Zhang Heyu was cold by nature and disliked talking. Usually, it was only when Huo Chensi and Fan Mian teased him that he would respond with one of his cutting remarks.

Near the end of afternoon classes, Jiang Ci went to Mo Bingyou’s office to collect several brooms and distributed them among the classmates who would be cleaning with her.

A group of people gathered around her in the corridor. The girl had a gentle nature, and even her voice was soft.

“One broom per person is enough.”

Just after she finished speaking, the corner of her eye caught sight of Zhang Heyu leaning lazily against the wall beside the classroom’s back door.

Unlike the previous day, the boy was not wearing his school uniform. Today he wore black from head to toe, which made the exposed skin of his face and hands appear even paler and brighter. He balanced a basketball on his fingertip, spinning it casually as though it required no effort at all.

He looked as though nothing in the world could concern him.

“Huo Chensi, are you coming or not?” Fan Mian called impatiently from the front door. “The whole court is waiting for you.”

Huo Chensi answered, “I’m coming, I’m coming. Stop rushing me!”

Once Huo Chensi arrived, the three boys finally came out of the classroom.

Jiang Ci saw Zhang Heyu walking toward her. Her breath caught, and she instinctively averted her gaze.