Chapter 33

After eight o'clock, the students of the International Class entered the classroom one after another.

When Ke Chengwen came in, he was holding a bunch of jackets, looking around with his hands on his waist. Then, he came in after confirming that no teacher was nearby. He was acting all mysterious.

“Is Xi ge here already?” He saw that there was a trace of someone having sat in Fu Yangxi’s place, but that person was not in his seat.

Mingxi continued to do her mock papers without raising her head. “He went to the bathroom.”

"Zhao Mingxi, come here." Ke Chengwen whispered excitedly. "I want to show you something precious."

Mingxi felt chills all over when she heard what he said. She put down the pen and looked back at him in disgust. Ke Chengwen looked left and right. Then, he carefully and excitedly lifted the jacket in his arms—

Suddenly, she heard a puppy bark!

It was a husky about two or three months old. It was only the size of a pillow with black and white spots. It looked both fierce and cute. It tilted its head and stared at Mingxi.

It was absolutely adorable.

Mingxi's eyes lit up. She reached out and touched the puppy's head. The puppy looked at her curiously. Instead of biting her, it licked the palm of her hand.

Many students who have already entered the classroom also looked over. A few girls looked excited.

Mingxi asked, “Where did you get it from?”

“My husky gave birth to it.” Ke Chengwen said. “I only recently learned that Xi ge is afraid of dogs. Don’t you think this weakness is way too out of character for Fu Yangxi? If you say that to the people in the Evergreen Class, they will laugh at him. So I thought of bringing a puppy so that he could get used to it. Maybe once he gets close to a puppy that doesn't bite, he won't be afraid of dogs anymore…”

Mingxi thought Ke Chengwen had picked it up at school and it would be sent away soon.

She didn’t expect him to deliberately bring it from home to Fu Yangxi.

She disagreed and said, “I think you should forget it. Didn't he say that he is afraid of dogs? Why must you make him overcome—”

Before he finished speaking, Fu Yangxi came in through the back door of the classroom, still carrying the medicine bottle in his hand.

His gaze slowly fell on the dog in Ke Chengwen's arms.

He swallowed hard, and his expression changed suddenly.

“Xi ge, look!” Without any fear of death, Ke Chengwen held the dog and handed it to Fu Yangxi.

The puppy was eager and pounced on Fu Yangxi.

For a moment, Mingxi didn’t know if it was her misperception, but she saw a nearly frozen expression, as if returning to a nightmare, on Fu Yangxi's face.

It was an expression of someone falling fast, really fast, straight down to the ground.

On that day at the hillside, everything happened too fast, and Mingxi herself was extremely afraid of the Tibetan mastiff so she couldn't see exactly what kind of stiff expression Fu Yangxi had on when he stared at the Tibetan mastiff.

She could see it clearly now.

—That was an expression that would never appear on Fu Yangxi's face at all.

Because of this, Mingxi’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, and her blood rushed to the top of her head.

She hurried over to stand in front of Fu Yangxi and said, “Alright that’s enough, class is about to start. You should send the dog to the school guard, otherwise Mr. Lu will—”

Before she could finish speaking, she realized that something was wrong. She turned her head to take a look.

The figure behind her had disappeared.

Fu Yangxi had left the class with the medicine bottle.

...

Ke Chengwen opened his mouth wide. He was still in shock having finally seen Fu Yangxi's reaction. He belatedly realized that he might have caused trouble for himself.

He felt a chill down his spine and said to Mingxi, “I’m done for. Xi ge is going to beat me to death later. I really didn’t know that he was so scared. Since it’s just a little puppy and it's not scary at all, I thought of bringing it over for fun.”

Mingxi said to him, “Send the puppy away first. I'll go and look for him.”

Ke Chengwen swallowed. Before he could reply, Mingxi had already rushed out of the classroom.

The bell rang. When Mingxi saw Mr. Lu coming out of the office with a textbook, she was suddenly very nervous. Before Mr. Lu could stop her, she rushed downstairs in a panic. She searched the whole of the academic building, yet she couldn’t even find Fu Yangxi's shadow at all.

The school was too big. If she was to continue looking for him, she would have to skip all of today’s morning classes.

Thus, Mingxi climbed to the top of the academic building again, planning to look down from a high place.

She was out of breath when she reached the roof. It was there when she saw Fu Yangxi.

Surprisingly, Fu Yangxi was lying down on the roof.

There were a few horizontal reclining chairs on the roof for students to come up for early reading, but the reclining chairs often had dust accumulated on it, so no students would usually come up here.

Fu Yangxi lay calmly on one of the reclining chairs. With his hands folded, he looked at the sky.

He looked like he was thinking about something, yet at the same time it was like his mind was empty.

Mingxi panted heavily as she approached him.

Hearing footsteps, Fu Yangxi straightened up and asked in surprise, “Why did you come up here?”

Mingxi walked over and took out two pieces of tissue paper from her pocket. She wiped the chair and sat down before looking at him. “Are you not going to class?”

The corners of Fu Yangxi’s mouth twitched. He sighed and replied nonchalantly, “Your boss here suddenly felt sleepy. The classroom was too noisy, so I came up to lay down for a while.”

“I should be the one asking you, Little Mask, what are you doing up here? You actually dare to skip class?”

This was not Zhao Mingxi’s style at all.

“You can skip class, but I can’t?”

Mingxi also felt that this was not like her. Did she skip class for Fu Yangxi? And she even rushed out without thinking about it. It was not for the young shoots in her flower pot either.

But even though Fu Yangxi was fierce to her at first, he gradually became very nice to her after he decided to accept her into his circle.

On the day they arrived in Tongcheng, Mingxi decided that from now on, Fu Yangxi would be her very important friend.

There was nothing wrong for her to be worried about him.

“Go and sit in another chair.” Fu Yangxi raised his eyebrows and looked at her in a displeased manner. “I can’t lie down with you around.”

"No." Mingxi stayed still. "I only have two tissue papers. After wiping this chair, I no longer have any tissue papers to wipe anything else. Sitting on another chair will only leave a bunch of dust on my uniform."

Mingxi didn't ask about his fear of dogs, and Fu Yangxi didn't mention it either.

This could be regarded as a tacit agreement between the two of them.

Fu Yangxi felt that if Zhao Mingxi wanted to say something about her family, she could always tell him. But if she didn’t want to talk about it, why bother exposing other people's scars?

Zhao Mingxi thought that if Fu Yangxi didn't want others to know that he was afraid of dogs, he must have his own reasons, so she didn't feel the need to keep asking.

Fu Yangxi felt that Zhao Mingxi was worried about him. She cared about him, and wanted to rely on him.

Zhao Mingxi was the one who could tear through the darkness every time and break in regardless of any obstacles.

Life is hard.

But with Little Mask, it feels a little more bearable.

Fu Yangxi tried his best to restrain a smile from appearing on his lips. A warm feeling subconsciously flowed from his heart, and the stiffness in his body just seemed to have melted away.

Suddenly, Fu Yangxi said, “Forget it.”

Mingxi asked, “What?”

Fu Yangxi answered, “Let’s go down.”

If they went any later, he would cause Little Mask to receive a scolding by their teacher as well.

Mingxi froze for a moment. Is Fu Yangxi done sorting out his emotions already?

When the two went down, they were reprimanded by Mr. Lu. While Mr. Lu scolded, he was also worried about delaying Zhao Mingxi's study, so he let Zhao Mingxi in and carried on lecturing Fu Yangxi.

Fu Yangxi was speechless.

After Fu Yangxi came in, Ke Chengwen couldn't even look at him.

Although Fu Yangxi said that he slept well last night, he slept for the rest of the day. He was afraid of noise, so he kept on wearing his noise-reducing headphones with a frown.

Mingxi made an appointment to have dinner with the Dong family after school. As they knew that she was living in the school dorms, to make it easier for her, Aunt Dong chose to eat at a nearby Sichuan restaurant.

To Zhao Mingxi, the Dong family was a family with very close relations to her. Since she didn’t feel like there was anything she couldn’t tell them, Mingxi told them about what happened for the past two years.

Of course, she concealed some things that would make the Dong family very indignant, and only told them that she had recently severed contact with the Zhao family.

...

Meanwhile, Fu Yangxi was still in the classroom.

When Ke Chengwen saw him packing his school bag, he couldn't help but apologize in a low voice, “Xi ge, I didn’t know—”

"Stop it." Fu Yangxi said lightly. “Consider this matter done and dusted. Don't bring dogs in front of me anymore.”

Ke Chengwen hurriedly nodded.

Ke Chengwen thought he had known Fu Yangxi for a long time - is two years long? - but sometimes he felt like he didn’t understand him at all. Nonetheless, since Fu Yangxi says that this matter is over, it’s over. Ke Chengwen quietly let out a sigh of relief.

“Speaking of which...” Fu Yangxi remembered the eyes of the man with the surname Shen from the School Representative Team that had been staring at Zhao Mingxi when he passed the window this morning. He felt unhappy about this and couldn't help but ask, “What’s going on with that guy from the School Representative Team?”

Ke Chengwen knew who he was talking about as soon as he heard this. He quickly said, “Isn't it like what Zhao Mingxi said that day? That he simply knows Zhao Mingxi?”

Fu Yangxi turned to look at Ke Chengwen and asked in a suspicious tone, “Are you hiding something from me?”

Ke Chengwen: “...”

“Xi ge, is there a bottle missing from the medicine bag Zhao Mingxi gave you?” Ke Chengwen caught this with a sharp eye and quickly changed the subject.

Fu Yangxi looked in the medicine bag on the table and found that he had left a bottle in the bathroom. He glared at Ke Chengwen and said, “We’ll continue after I come back.”

After that, he turned and left the classroom.

Ke Chengwen let out a sigh of relief and hurriedly followed Fu Yangxi.

But just when Fu Yangxi and Ke Chengwen walked to the bathroom door, they suddenly heard the words ‘Zhao Mingxi’ coming from inside. At first glance, it looked like it was a boy talking about Zhao Mingxi.

When Ke Chengwen saw Fu Yangxi's ugly expression, he raised his foot and wanted to go in. Unexpectedly, they heard the next sentence—

“Zhao Mingxi's desserts are really delicious. It was great when she used to chase after Shen Liyao. We would get to eat desserts every day. Now that she is in a conflict with Shen Liyao, we don't have the good fortune to eat them anymore.”

"The Hundred School Tournament is coming soon. When that happens, she’ll have to go to training camp with our School Representative Team. I wonder if she’ll reconcile with God Yao then.”

“Now that God Yao is about to loosen up after two years of pursuit, she won’t just give up halfway, right?”

"Do you think she really gave up? Or is she still using the Fu family’s young master to make Shen Liyao jealous? Why did Ye Bai say that she seemed to really give…”

“...”

Ke Chengwen didn't dare to listen to the rest of the sentence.

The air suddenly became suffocating.

As it was the evening, the sky in the corridor was gloomy to begin with, but at this moment, more heavy rain was approaching and dark clouds were covering the sky.

He watched as Fu Yangxi's complexion gradually turned pale.

...

Oh no.

Ke Chengwen thought in despair, what I was most worried about has happened.

"What are they talking about?" Fu Yangxi's face was pale, and his expression was stormy.

Ke Chengwen quickly stopped him, “It's just gossip! It's not true at all!”

"Of course I don't believe them! Little Mask isn’t that kind of person.” Fu Yangxi's unknowingly clenched fists were shaking. He breathed heavily and lifted Ke Chengwen by the collar before pushing him away. Then he rushed into the bathroom.

“What the fuck are you guys talking about? Say it again if you dare.”