Wednesday morning, Lin Mo was stopped at the classroom door by Chen Yu.
“Bro, tell me the truth, what exactly is going on between you and Su Ran?”
Chen Yu lowered his voice, his expression serious.
“What do you mean, what’s going on?”
Lin Mo asked back subconsciously, but before he could finish, Chen Yu pulled him into a corner of the hallway.
“The whole class is talking about what happened yesterday. Su Ran went head-to-head with Zhang Wei for you, and you even walked home with her after school. Do you know what people are saying now?”
“What are they saying?”
“That you two are together!”
Chen Yu held up both thumbs and wiggled them toward each other.
Lin Mo laughed. “That’s it?”
“Damn, isn’t that enough!?”
Chen Yu’s eyes widened as he hissed, “That’s Su Ran we’re talking about! The Su Ran who hasn’t spoken more than ten sentences to a guy in 3 years! Now she’s actually tearing into the class beauty for you? This plot could last at least twenty episodes in a TV drama!”
Ignoring Chen Yu’s exaggerated tone, Lin Mo thought for a moment. “We’re just friends for now.”
Chen Yu was too excited to catch the nuance in Lin Mo’s words.
He didn’t believe it for a second and immediately interrogated him. “Then explain this to me: Why did your desk suddenly become so neat? Why do you have the exact same band-aid on your knee as her? And what did you two talk about for 15 minutes alone on the playground yesterday?”
‘Why does this feel like Su-style interrogation humor?’
Lin Mo raised an eyebrow. The idea of being monitored so closely by a guy was actually a bit creepy.
“I didn’t, you’re making things up, and it has nothing to do with her!”
Morning was the best time of the day, and hearing Su Ran’s name first thing put Lin Mo in a good mood.
Baffled by this strange triple-denial, Chen Yu patted his shoulder. “I’m just looking out for you, man. Take my advice: the water in Su Ran’s world is too deep. You won’t be able to handle it.”
Lin Mo shrugged indifferently. “Don’t worry, I never planned on ‘handling’ her.”
‘It’s more like she’s handling me.’
With that, he walked into the classroom.
Su Ran was already there, bowing her head as she organized her backpack.
Hearing the door open, she looked up, her gaze locking with Lin Mo’s.
Lin Mo kept eye contact as he walked toward his seat. One second… two seconds… three seconds…
Su Ran was the first to look away, the corners of her mouth curling into a tiny arc that only Lin Mo could detect.
Lin Mo reached his seat and put down his bag.
He was late today, and as expected, his desktop had already been tidied.
His books were lined up perfectly, his pencil case was in the top-right corner, and his water bottle was on the left.
He gave Su Ran a score in his head: 98 points.
He deducted 2 points because the water bottle was too close to the edge of the desk and could easily be knocked off.
He deliberately moved the bottle further in, then rummaged through his bag—scratching his head as if he’d forgotten something, looking around blankly.
Of course, it was all an act.
Lin Mo had thought about it all night. Su Ran’s ability to dig up people’s secrets was no small feat. Considering she could even see private information in his personal cloud space, she likely had hacker-level skills.
The realization was staggering, so he wanted to test her.
If Su Ran really had a talent for this, did she have even more advanced techniques?
For example… would she know what he “forgot”?
Ten minutes into the morning self-study session, a familiar note suddenly drifted from behind him, landing precisely on his desk, almost right under his hand.
The note read: ‘Forgot your headphones? You can borrow mine.’
Lin Mo’s expression remained unchanged, but he thought to himself: ‘Oh. My. God.’
He looked up to see that Su Ran had already returned to her seat. She was flipping through a book naturally, as if the note hadn’t come from her at all.
Lin Mo thought for a moment, then stood up and walked to Su Ran’s desk.
The eyes of the entire class landed on them like spotlights.
After yesterday’s confrontation, Su Ran and Lin Mo had become the center of attention.
“Let me borrow them,” Lin Mo said, reaching out.
Su Ran pressed her lips together without speaking. She simply pulled a small white cloth bag from her pencil case, untied the drawstring, and took out a pair of white wired headphones.
The wires were wrapped neatly, the plug was polished to a shine, and even the rubber ear tips had been replaced with new ones.
Lin Mo took them, his fingertips brushing against hers.
This time, Su Ran didn’t pull away, but her ears turned red again.
“Thanks.”
“Mm.”
Back at his seat, Lin Mo plugged them into his phone and opened his music app.
A playlist popped up automatically, but it wasn’t his—it was Su Ran’s.
He froze, once again impressed by this god-tier technical skill.
The playlist was titled: **L.M.**
Her naming style, his initials.
He clicked on the list. There were eighty-seven songs in total, and every single one was terrifyingly familiar.
**[Radiohead – Creep]**
The song he had played on loop for 1 year during his depressed phase in 11th grade.
**[Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence]**
A song he’d posted about liking on his birthday last year.
**[Sheng Sheng Man]**
He had only ever marked this one on Douban and had never mentioned it to anyone.
The fourth song, the fifth…
Refusing to believe it, Lin Mo scrolled all the way to the bottom, only to find that the entire list was perfectly tailored to his tastes.
Indie music, film soundtracks, obscure post-rock—there were even a few demos he had only listened to a handful of times late at night.
The most recently added song was timestamped 11:47 PM the night before last—the exact post-rock track he had posted to his private space.
Sigh… the pressure was intense.
Lin Mo resisted the urge to rip the headphones off. Resting his head on his hand, he glanced toward Su Ran.
She was pretending to read, but she hadn’t turned a page in 10 minutes.
Lin Mo clicked on the song from the night before last.
When the intro started, he saw Su Ran’s shoulders quietly relax.
How long had this playlist existed?
Eighty-seven songs. Even if she added one per week, it would have taken nearly 2 years.
Lin Mo closed his eyes and let the music wash over him.
A familiar melody filled his ears, but today he heard something different.
The volume of every song had been normalized, and the high and low frequencies had been fine-tuned to match a preference he had once mentioned in passing—’I like the vocal positioning set slightly further back.’
God, she even remembered that.
***