Waking up early is painful, but taking a shower after a morning run is the best feeling.
Su Nian always adhered to a theory: the first thing you do after getting up will determine the state of your day. If you wake up groggy and start scrolling on your phone, you’ll be lazy all day.
Due to adjustments in his plan, he reduced high-intensity bodyweight training and added some cardio. After all, he kept exercising just because he wanted to persist—no ambition beyond that.
He had some basic equipment at home, and for efficiency, the gym was better. But with his face, he really didn’t like going out. What’s more, something terrifying was that at the gym, more men harassed him than women.
He turned on the hair dryer. Since Su Nian had medium-long hair, he dried it very slowly. He was particular about drying his hair—he used a low heat setting with a diffuser, slowly drying it while using his other hand to lift the hair from the roots, ensuring every strand was fluffy.
In fact, Su Nian’s good looks weren’t purely a gift from heaven. He studied fashion, maintained a daily skincare routine, worked out year-round, and put a lot of effort into his hairstyle. He learned how to blow-dry and style his hair, becoming skilled at many different looks. That’s why his bathroom was cluttered with all kinds of products.
On top of that, plus his natural model-like features, he ended up in his current situation.
But on school days, he didn’t bother dressing up. So after drying his hair, he casually used some hair wax to scrunch the ends, then went to wake up that lazy cat.
He wasn’t surprised that the hair dryer hadn’t woken Xiali at all. Yesterday, he’d wondered why Xiali was so quiet during the “game” with Yun Buran—turns out she’d fallen asleep listening.
If Yun Buran had made any physical contact with him, without Xiali’s vigilance, they would have been doomed.
Fortunately, when he left yesterday, Yun Buran was still flushed, looking extremely excited.
According to Xiali, she was steadily recovering her power, but why was she acting more and more like a cat, sleeping so much all day?
Watching the little caterpillar cat curled up by the pillow, Su Nian grabbed her by the scruff and stood her up, but the cat, without even opening her eyes, slid down like liquid.
“Wake up, Miss Lazy of Hell.”
“I’m not lazy, I’m Jealousy…”
The cat muttered.
“Jealousy is Yun Buran, not you, lazy cat.”
Su Nian helplessly stuffed Xiali into his bag. Before leaving, he remembered to bring her a bottle of milk and some chocolate. Last time, when he didn’t make sure she had breakfast, she went ahead and helped herself to the snacks in An Hexi’s desk compartment.
Su Nian had to reluctantly take the blame and bought An Hexi new snacks as compensation in the afternoon. An Hexi both hurt and happy accepted the snacks Su Nian bought for her for the first time—hurt because the other girls had seen it.
Arriving at the classroom, Su Nian couldn’t be bothered with the upcoming morning reading and directly pulled out number theory and got to work.
“Su Nian, this mango milk is really good.”
An Hexi had arrived even earlier than Su Nian today, and she spoke as if she had prepared herself.
“No thanks.”
But when Su Nian entered his highly focused, efficient state, he couldn’t be bothered to lift his head.
“Okay, I just… wanted to thank Su Nian for yesterday’s snacks.”
An Hexi seemed to have expected this outcome, but she still couldn’t hide her disappointment.
So Su Nian hated favors. He tried his best not to owe others, and he didn’t want others to owe him either. Otherwise, it would be like this—strictly speaking, yesterday’s snack exchange should have been the end of it, but then there was the relationship pull brought by exchanging favors.
He lifted his head, saw the girl’s doe-like eyes weakly looking at him, and directly snatched the milk away.
“But after thinking about it, I really like mango flavor.”
An Hexi’s eyes grew brighter as she looked at Su Nian. She hadn’t expected that in just two short days, she would gain two firsts at once.
Once, he proactively gave her something; once, he accepted her gift.
“Then tomorrow…”
The bell rang, and the Honorable Class Monitor had to go lead the morning reading. An Hexi walked resentfully to the podium. She was very gentle and easygoing with Su Nian, but she actually always had a bit of a temper.
So this morning, the students except Su Nian had an extremely strict morning reading. The particularly sleepy and hungry boys were miserable.
When Su Nian was painfully hugging a collection of difficult problems and lamenting that Shu Lao was inhuman, Xiali jumped out of the bag and lazily stretched.
By now it was already the long break, but Su Nian once again enjoyed the privilege of skipping the running exercise.
Xiali lazily stretched, showing off her perfect cat figure, then gracefully walked toward An Hexi’s desk.
Su Nian grabbed her and tossed her the breakfast he had prepared for her in his bag.
“I want the one you made, I don’t want the store-bought sandwich.”
Xiali said pickily.
“Do you deserve to eat? It’s already what time? You slept until when?”
Su Nian said in a tone of disappointed frustration. He had initially thought this guy was reliable—where had that anxious demeanor from before gone? This little cat had been turned into a plaything by this materialistic, hedonistic era.
“Look at you, getting anxious again.”
Xiali leisurely picked out the vegetables, eating only the egg and ham slices.
“After you recover your power, will you transform? Can you turn into a mighty big cat?”
Watching Xiali’s growing size, Su Nian couldn’t help but fantasize about riding a flying, fire-breathing magical cat.
“When I recover my power, of course I’ll take human form. You really think I’m a cat, don’t you?”
“You won’t turn into a succubus, will you?”
Su Nian gave her a wary look and stepped back in disgust.
“Huh?! What’s that look, you foolish human? When the time comes, you’d better not fall at the feet of the Most Beautiful Being in Hell.”
“But you have the right to lick this lady’s feet.”
Xiali elegantly licked her fur.
Su Nian directly retaliated with cold violence, continuing to immerse himself in rigid body dynamics.
…
Yun Buran took off her gold-rimmed glasses and rubbed her eyes. She was actually a bit nearsighted, but she didn’t usually wear them—only during class.
She pulled out her small notebook. Today’s English plan was already completed. She had taken Su Nian’s advice and reduced her burden, picking and choosing which assignments to do, which made her feel a lot more relaxed.
“You know what? When I went to pick up test papers today, I saw Su Nian napping in the pavilion. I secretly watched for a few minutes—it was so satisfying!”
“Why didn’t you call me to go with you? You’re hogging it again.”
During break, not everyone was tense and grinding away. There were quite a few people messing around. Yun Buran heard the conversation between the two girls at the desk in front of her and couldn’t help feeling delighted. She was able to be alone with Su Nian every day. If that got out, she’d surely become the enemy of all the girls in school, right?
She couldn’t help but lightly trace Su Nian’s name next to the row of checkmarks. They had only met three times so far, but each time Su Nian left a different impression on her.
Once polite, once cute, once dangerous—but what was the same was that appearance that even a god would likely love.
She wrote the two characters “Su Nian” over and over again. This was Yun Buran’s first time daydreaming in nearly three years.