Chapter 123: Really well-behaved

Gao Hongyi stood before the mirror in the dressing room, adjusting the red bow at her collar one last time.

The white blouse was ironed crisp, the navy blue blazer outlined her shoulders, and beneath the blue-gray pleated skirt were black knee-high socks.

She spun around, her Oxford shoes tapping the floor.

The girl in the mirror was excessively youthful, in the prime of her adolescence, dazzlingly bright.

‘If only Gao Hongyi could give me just a little space,’ Gu Yebai thought.

‘How perfect would that be? No surveillance, no checking in every half hour, no treating going out like a life-or-death matter requiring approval. Just… a little bit.’

Unfortunately, there was never an “if only” in this world.

‘I need to endure a little longer.’

He suppressed the urge to sigh, burying his repressed emotions deep in his heart.

On the surface, he still forced a smile that pretended to be happy.

Gao Hongyi took Gu Yebai’s hand and led him to the front door.

“It’s time for school.”

“Ah, thinking about school makes me hate it so much… because I have to be briefly separated from my beloved Uncle Bai again.”

“Just the thought of a short separation makes me want to destroy the world.”

“But oh well, patience, patience…”

At the door, Gao Hongyi turned back and wrapped Gu Yebai in a longing gaze.

“You have to behave this time, okay? Don’t push my boundaries again.”

Gu Yebai looked at her.

The huge house felt like a cage.

“Go to school without worry.”

“At this point, where else can I go?”

Gao Hongyi’s lips curved.

“Actually… it’s not that I forbid Uncle Bai from going out.”

“At least wait until I get home. Then, wherever Uncle Bai wants to go, I’ll accompany you as your girlfriend.”

“That’s how it is.”

“Eat well, okay~”

She pressed the elevator button.

The doors slowly closed.

During the last second before the doors fully closed, Gao Hongyi’s eyes remained locked on Gu Yebai’s face.

A satisfied, syrupy smile.

But when the elevator doors clicked shut completely, when the cramped space left her alone, the smile vanished instantly.

Her gaze turned cold, like a ruby veiled with frost.

All warmth was gone.

“Uncle Bai… if only you could come to school with me.”

“Why does even a moment away from you hurt me so much?”

Gao Hongyi leaned against the elevator wall, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the phone case, as if caressing his face.

She opened the front camera and took a selfie.

In the screen was that excessively beautiful face.

Gao Hongyi was not a hypocrite—if the selfie showed ugliness, she would say it was ugly; if it was frightening, she would say so.

In aesthetic matters, she was objective.

She had fair, cool-toned skin, wine-red long hair, and eyelashes that drooped like butterfly wings.

Her features were almost perfect.

She looked seriously for a while.

Prettier than those female celebrities on TV.

Then she looked at recent photos, including her body curves taken by her yoga teacher during practice.

‘Her figure was also better than many models’.

Love truly requires two sincere hearts.

But being beautiful is a built-in cheat in love.

Those suitors at school were like a group of monkeys trying to scoop the moon from the water’s edge.

In other girls’ eyes, those monkeys were like Prince Charmings…

Uncle Bai, how could you be so ungrateful!

I just slightly controlled your life—is that too much?

Isn’t it natural for a girlfriend to control her boyfriend’s social media accounts?

Isn’t reporting before going out also out of concern for his safety?

And the GPS and surveillance cameras—all expressions of love.

Why don’t you understand?

She got into the Maybach.

The driver delivered her on time to the gates of St. George’s International School.

Every day, Gao Hongyi’s arrival at school was a beautiful sight on campus.

Her Oxford shoes clicked on the bluestone path, tap, tap, tap.

Each step seemed to count her heartbeat, or the seconds since she left Uncle Bai.

“Good morning, Gao Hongyi.”

A tall, blond male student approached with a smile in French, holding a rose that was blindingly red.

De Adrian had been waiting here since early.

Gao Hongyi gave a slight nod.

The most basic politeness, nothing more.

She didn’t stop, didn’t give him a second glance.

The scent of rose brushed past her nose—she only felt disgust.

On the training field, a boy in a kimono was swinging a wooden sword in the air.

The blade cut through the air, clean and sharp, like his gaze.

Noticing her passing by, he immediately stopped.

He knelt on one knee and bowed deeply.

“Good morning. I am here waiting for you today as well.”

Gao Hongyi did not break her stride.

She just slightly nodded and hurried past.

For people she wasn’t interested in, wasting even a second was too much.

Behind her, whispers: “Her aura is even colder today…”

“What kind of person could be her boyfriend?”

Gao Hongyi completely ignored them.

First class was Financial Mathematics.

The teacher, wearing glasses, droned on in a flat voice, writing the compound interest formula on the blackboard: A = P(1+r/n)^(nt).

The students bent over their notebooks, scratching notes.

Gao Hongyi sat by the window, her book pushed aside, her phone hidden under scratch paper.

The class she was taking was IB, short for International Baccalaureate, commonly known as the international diploma program.

The final assessment of IB was the “noble college entrance exam” of the international high school world, emphasizing thinking, application, and overall development, not just rote memorization.

Gao Hongyi only wanted to play piano in the future, to become someone accomplished in music.

But as a sixteen-year-old girl, studying was still the top priority.

If she didn’t understand the logic and rules of the world and only played piano, she probably couldn’t play truly moving pieces…

But these lessons were too easy for her.

Compound interest, investment growth, present value calculation.

The teacher lectured with flying spittle, but she found it boring.

Rather than studying the simple game of making money grow, she cared more about whether Gu Yebai was eating properly.

Compound interest means… the longer the time, the more exponential the growth… The teacher’s lecture was like background music.

If it were yesterday, she would have been anxious.

Because she couldn’t see him, only send messages, guessing whether he had eaten, whether he missed her.

Today was much better.

As long as she lit up the screen, she could see him.

“Ah, Uncle Bai…”

Her originally icy face instantly warmed like spring breeze at the sight of the boy on the screen.

In the living room feed, Gu Yebai sat at the dining table.

He stared blankly at the plate, as if thinking about something.

He seemed to have only eaten some vegetable salad.

Gao Hongyi’s fingertips softly caressed the screen, as if stroking his face.

“You must eat well, Uncle Bai…”

Her mutter was so soft that even she could barely hear it.

He didn’t seem to want to eat meat.

That wouldn’t do.

Yi: Uncle Bai, don’t just eat vegetables—you need to eat more meat too.

Yi: Protein is very important!

Yi: Don’t just eat vegetable salad, or else you won’t have any strength…

She paused, her lips curving into an arc visible only to herself.

Yi: In the future, you won’t even be able to push me down, you’ll just have to obediently stay pinned under me… Got it?

Yi: But if Uncle Bai prefers girls to be more proactive, I can understand that, hehe.

Send.

In the video, Gu Yebai was clearly startled.

His shoulders stiffened, and he almost dropped his chopsticks.

Then he looked up, his complex gaze fixed on the surveillance camera aimed at the dining table.

Gao Hongyi’s heart clenched.

‘Why is he frowning… I’m only caring about you. It’s only to make you stronger, so you belong to me completely and fully.’

She leaned slightly forward in front of the screen, her long hair falling to cover half her face.

Gu Yebai stared at the camera for several seconds.

Then he picked up the piece of beef, waved it in front of the lens as if to prove it to her.

He opened his mouth.

Took a bite.

Chewed slowly.

It tasted like wax.

Gao Hongyi’s breath trembled slightly.

He ate.

So well-behaved.

She quickly replied.

Yi: Good boy~

😘😘😘😘😘.

Gu Yebai didn’t reply again.

But she knew he saw it.

She pressed her phone to her chest, feeling her heartbeat transmit through the screen.

“Indeed well-behaved.”

A voice sounded at the same time, in a different place.

Low, with a hint of lazy amusement.

At Tomson Riviera, 28th floor living room, on the leather sofa sat Bai Xialin.

When alone, her voice was far from the usual energetic tone; even the cute foreigner speech patterns were gone.

She crossed her long legs clad in black stockings, holding a cup of iced Americano in one hand and a remote in the other.

The screen in front of her was much larger than Gao Hongyi’s phone, high-definition enough to see the slight quiver of Gu Yebai’s eyelashes.

Bai Xialin’s red lips curled.

She sucked hard and finished the iced Americano…

The day after tomorrow was Bai Xialin’s birthday.

It was also the day Gu Yebai and Bai Xialin would go for an interview and enroll at St. George’s International School.

“I’m really looking forward to it, little Gu Gu…”

“How about becoming my birthday present?”

“Before Gao Hongyi…”

“After all, when I was in Linchuan, I killed someone for you.”

“According to the law of entropy, killing two people accelerates the universe’s disorder, so she must create two more people to bring order and maintain balance. Moreover, we need to test whether there is reproductive isolation between our two planets, don’t we?”

“Ahh…”

“I am approaching you with the scholarly mindset of exploring science and researching the proposition of love…”

“It’s not that I really love you.”

“Well… it’s not that I don’t love you at all, just a little…”

Bai Xialin laughed wickedly.

Imagining the boy who cried over duck leg rice, the boy who stood before a tombstone looking up at the sky, the boy who eventually fell into her arms and cried until his face was red.

Her legs couldn’t help kicking around.

She accidentally knocked over a bottle of beer with the cap off on the coffee table.

“I love you…”