Chapter 4: Scandal

Qiu Xuan.

The way he said it was far too intimate. In Class 16, apart from a few people from Class 302, no one ever called her that.

Everyone froze for a moment, no one responding.

Su Liujun shook off her drowsiness, glanced around but didn’t see Qiu Xuan, and politely replied, “I don’t think she’s back yet.”

Actually, she wanted to gossip a little and ask, “What do you want with her?” but the person in front of her carried an obvious sense of distance beneath his politeness, making her hesitate.

He was just standing there quietly, and the native students of Class 16 tacitly took the long way around the front door to enter the classroom, avoiding cutting through by him.

Hearing this, he only pressed his lips together to acknowledge, his expression and movements barely changing.

“Thanks.” He turned to leave.

From a distance, Su Liujun caught a flash of blue and hurriedly called out, “Hey, Qiu Xuan’s back.”

Her tone was openly excited.

Jiang Chuhuai followed her gaze, and the whole class turned to look, their expressions subtly amused as if watching a show.

Qiu Xuan had just returned from the Flag-raising Ceremony, detoured to the restroom, and now she had become the center of attention.

Ten meters away stood another shining figure under the spotlight—a handsome watermelon.

Their eyes met—surely now he would recognize her?

There was no real need for this, yet Su Liujun still shouted from inside the classroom, “Qiu Xuan, someone’s looking for you!”

Qiu Xuan nodded and walked toward him.

Jiang Chuhuai turned around and stepped back to lean against the corridor railing, putting distance between himself and the class’s spotlight.

His face was expressionless, but if you looked closely, the tension around his brow and eyes carried a sense of accusation.

This scene was like Jiang Chuhuai, magnified in proportion.

When they were kids, it had been like this too: first, he would come to the back door of her classroom to call her, then retreat to wait from afar.

He didn’t like cross-class socializing and felt uneasy appearing on someone else’s turf.

So usually, she would come find him in his classroom to leave together.

If he appeared at her classroom door, it was either to retrieve swapped homework or to question why she had drawn little figures in his textbook.

In any case, if he was looking for her, it was never for something good.

She stopped in front of him. “What do you want?”

No sooner had she spoken than the class bell rang.

Jiang Chuhuai cut the long story short: “Add me back. It’s online.”

Her heart skipped a beat—

His voice had changed, unlike before.

It had a rough, sandpaper-like rasp, combined with a low, resonant tone, like the rough edges of a book’s pages brushing against Qiu Xuan’s eardrum.

She was stunned.

Jiang Chuhuai didn’t rush her; he waited silently, his gaze drifting from her hair down to her earlobes, pierced with two studs.

“What to add?” Qiu Xuan came back to herself.

“Q.”

Her eyes blinked wide. “Huh? Aren’t we friends already?”

“No.”

“Oh, sorry. Maybe I thought you were a ghost account and accidentally deleted you?”

He seemed to chuckle lightly. “It’s a block.”

Last night, the question mark he sent out received a red exclamation mark.

“Oh,” Qiu Xuan lowered her head to avoid the judgment, “maybe just a slip.”

“You never reply anyway,” she mumbled, voice disgruntled.

He looked down at her expression. “What?”

She looked up and suddenly shouted, “Nothing!”

Her fists clenched tightly, like an angry little blue bird.

Jiang Chuhuai: …

The subject teacher was approaching from the Classroom Building, his sharp gaze arriving first.

Jiang Chuhuai said, “Add me back. I’m heading up now.”

Qiu Xuan and the teacher entered the classroom almost simultaneously.

Just as she hurried to her seat and sat down, she caught sight of the teacher lingering at the door, staring out at the stairs outside—the direction Jiang Chuhuai had gone upstairs.

Then the teacher glanced at Qiu Xuan with a baffled expression.

Math might as well have been written in a foreign language, but her sister had told her that if you fall behind in math, it would take several times the effort to catch up.

Qiu Xuan thought that was a bad deal, so even when sleepy, she kept her eyes propped open.

As soon as class ended, she couldn’t wait to rest her head on the desk and doze off.

Her roommates quietly gathered around.

Amid their eager yet cautious looks, Su Liujun decided to take a risk.

She brushed aside a few strands of blue hair and leaned close to Qiu Xuan’s ear, softly asking, “What were you two talking about just now?”

Like a soul-calling spell, Qiu Xuan lifted her eyelids, spotted the three faces, closed her eyes, turned her head, and continued sleeping.

The three: …

This kind of topic wasn’t suitable for classroom chatter, so they let it drop for the moment.

After evening self-study, back in the dormitory, the gossip fire blazed—but they found the gossip’s main character sitting at her desk, fully focused on her phone.

Qiu Xuan logged into QQ and took “zz” off her blacklist.

Almost at the same time, she received a message from him.

zz: 1

“What does ‘1’ mean?”

Just as she sent the question, he replied with a question mark.

Peipei: ?

zz: ?

Peipei: ??

zz: Never mind.

Qiu Xuan: …

How could it be “never mind”? What happened just now?

He was fine; she wasn’t.

Peipei: Why did you look for me today?

zz: Have you talked about me with others?

Peipei: Yeah, you’re too famous. What’s wrong? Can’t I talk about you?

zz: Don’t discuss private matters.

Peipei: Oh? What counts as private?

zz: …

Peipei: Water deficiency in your fate?

zz: …

Peipei: Any effect?

zz: None.

Peipei: If none, why make such a big deal about it?

zz: Why block me?

Peipei: You’re a ghost account. Why keep it?

zz: ?

Qiu Xuan couldn’t help but snicker, then quickly sent a screenshot proving how he never replied.

She suddenly spoke aloud, drawing all her roommates’ attention, exchanging glances.

Qiu Xuan didn’t notice, her fingers flying across the keyboard so fast it seemed she might get double vision.

zz: I thought messages like that didn’t require a reply.

The moment the message popped up in the chat, Qiu Xuan jumped up, hands on hips, panting.

Peipei: …………………………………

Peipei: Whatever.

“zz is typing” blinked repeatedly, but no message came.

Peipei: If you have nothing to say, just accept it.

After a moment:

zz: Accepted.

Qiu Xuan was at a loss.

How could someone be this boring?

The boring person finally took the initiative to start a topic.

zz: What’s with your hair?

Peipei: Not good looking?

zz: Too bright.

Peipei: I like it.

zz: What does your nickname mean?

Qiu Xuan’s breath hitched.

She’d been using it for three years; he just noticed?

Peipei: Why tell you?

zz: You know mine.

Oh, so he expected to know hers too? He didn’t reply at all but expected the same in return.

Peipei: I’m rude. I want to call everyone Peipei, but I’m civilized, so I’m Peipei.

zz: …

(zz retracted a message)

zz: Accepted.

Qiu Xuan: …

The few who had been silently watching Qiu Xuan didn’t find a good chance to question her, so they talked among themselves about Jiang Chuhuai’s visit to their class today.

“Rumors are true; he really is good-looking,” Chen Zhi said.

Usually reserved, Lin Xiqiao also nodded in agreement, “Definitely handsome.”

Su Liujun, having had close contact, said, “But you can’t tell what he’s feeling; his emotions don’t show on his face at all.”

Qiu Xuan, who had been busy typing on her phone, suddenly spoke up, “That’s called a poker face.”

In the boys’ dormitory, Room 206, the scene was similar to the girls’ Room 302.

Since returning to the dorm, Jiang Chuhuai sat at his desk working on a test paper but was clearly distracted, glancing at his phone every few minutes.

He kept typing the number “1” into one chat window, then repeatedly received red exclamation marks.

Until one moment, he finally received a question mark.

From then on, he put down the pen—barely used anyway—and focused on typing on his phone.

The other three glanced at him deliberately or not; this behavior was unusual.

They’d heard that Jiang Chuhuai went downstairs to find a girl after the Flag-raising Ceremony, said to be a “social elder sister” type. Everyone was curious but no one brought it up first.

After a moment, Jiang Chuhuai actually spoke.

He showed his phone screen to the person next to him and asked, “How do you reply to a message like this?”

The desk mate leaned in to look closely; two others joined.

Peipei: TikTok link “High School Start Checklist…”

Peipei: Xiaohongshu link “Dongzhou No.1 High School and Dongzhou Foreign Language School…”

Peipei: TikTok link “Annual Comedy Moments to Cure Your…”

Peipei: Xiaohongshu link “Dongzhou No.1 High School Clubs List…”

Peipei: TikTok link “Message Reply Types Reveal Your…”

Desk mate answered, “This kind doesn’t need a reply, right?”

Another asked, “Peipei who? Your mom?”

Jiang Chuhuai took his phone back. “No. I also think no reply is needed.”

A roommate casually asked, “Who did you go downstairs for today? Heard it was a girl?”

Jiang Chuhuai: “Mm.”

Short, concise, no elaboration.

“Who is it? Everyone’s guessing.”

“Yeah, probably half the grade is guessing.”

“No exaggeration.”

Jiang Chuhuai didn’t answer; his brow furrowed lightly.

Seeing this, the roommates didn’t press further.

Though they hadn’t spent much time together, it was easy to sense that Jiang Chuhuai was a person with strong boundaries, especially about personal matters.

No one could get much out of him; even they only knew things through hearsay.

They heard his father was a high-ranking official, or maybe a business tycoon—either way, very wealthy and powerful.

Though he was cold in social interactions, he had no airs in the dormitory except when it came to privacy.

“Chuhuai, you’re on the school wall.” Someone scrolling through Qzone suddenly reminded him.

“Big deal? Several times already.”

“What are they asking this time?”

“Probably if you’re single again.”

“Or who you went to see today?”

“I want to know too, haha sorry.”

“No,” he teased, pausing before reading aloud, “Wall people want to ask if Jiang Chuhuai from Class 1 in Grade One is dating a girl from their class?”

“Whoa, a scandal.”

Roommates exclaimed, “Who? Why don’t we know?”

Someone guessed, “Bai Yifei? Heard she was the first to call you ‘Zhanzhan.’”

“Yeah, someone replied saying Bai Yifei even knows your childhood name.” Then seconds later, “Wait, someone refuted that.”

“Refuted what?”

“Bullshit, I was the first to call you that. Nickname—Peipei.”

The three spoke in unison, “Who’s Peipei?”

Jiang Chuhuai exhaled through his nose.

He had known all along.

With Qiu Xuan around, his life would never be peaceful.