“Xiao Xi.”
Ouyang Xue said seriously.
Li Ruoxi was stunned.
“Ah? Sister Xue… what are you doing?”
“Although every student at this school is rich overall…”
Ouyang Xue pointed at her phone and the necklace around her neck.
“Does this… necklace not suit me?”
Li Ruoxi asked sheepishly.
The necklace was indeed very beautiful, complementing her white dress and fair skin, with the light blue gem softly radiating light.
But now that Ouyang Xue had pointed it out in such a serious tone, she felt a bit anxious, like a child who had done something wrong in front of an elder.
Li Ruoxi covered the necklace with her free left hand and explained awkwardly, “This… is my first time wearing a necklace out…”
Ouyang Xue covered her forehead, hesitated, and looked Li Ruoxi up and down.
“That’s not what I mean. Don’t you know how much that necklace around your neck and the phone in your hand are worth?”
Li Ruoxi’s small lips parted slightly, her gaze full of confusion.
“This… isn’t it just ordinary stuff?”
Vivian had put the necklace on her this morning, and she hadn’t thought it was anything unusual.
“It’s probably worth half of your shares in Lilith Academy. And as for this custom phone in your hand, to exaggerate, even among the world’s top billionaires, there wouldn’t be more than a hundred of them. Showing it off so openly—aren’t you telling those with bad intentions that you’re rich?”
Ouyang Xue retorted.
Li Ruoxi quickly grabbed both the phone and the necklace in her hands.
The pocket on her skirt was too small, or rather, the skirt didn’t have a pocket at all—she had forcibly stuffed them into the seam where the skirt was stitched.
“Then… Sister Xue, how about you keep them for me? But the phone…”
Not having the phone would be very inconvenient.
“Don’t worry. For now, inside the academy, as long as you keep a low profile, nothing will happen. What I’m saying is, if you leave the school grounds, or leave your usual living and study areas, you need to be careful about these things.”
Ouyang Xue took the phone from Li Ruoxi’s hand, entered her own number, and casually added another number.
“If anything unexpected happens, inform me in time. I also saved Xiao Ran’s number. She’ll show you around the new campus this afternoon.”
Ouyang Xue glanced at the time on her own gold-strapped women’s watch.
“I’ll be going now.”
After saying that, Ouyang Xue noticed that Li Ruoxi had no place to store the blue gem necklace.
So she simply put it in her own small bag.
“I’ll keep it for now. I’ll return it to you in the evening.”
“Oh… okay.”
Li Ruoxi didn’t think much of it.
Such a valuable necklace was so well-known that it would be hard to pawn off anyway.
“The phone’s ringing. It’s Xiao Ran.”
Ouyang Xue handed Li Ruoxi her phone after answering the call.
“I already told you to wait for Xiao Ran in a shady spot nearby. She’ll be here soon.”
Ouyang Xue checked her watch again.
“I’m in a hurry. I’ll go now.”
“Mm.”
Li Ruoxi nodded.
Li Ruoxi took the phone, and Ouyang Xue left.
From the receiver came a girl’s crisp and bright voice, speaking in an affectionate tone.
“Is this Xiao Xi? I’m He Ranran. You can call me Xiao Ran, or He Ran.”
“Hello.”
Li Ruoxi replied with a slightly shy tone.
“I’m Li Ruoxi.”
Li Ruoxi walked toward a shaded pavilion attached to a building while on the phone.
Passersby gave her a few extra glances.
A girl looking so clean and refreshing, with a serene and pleasant smile on her face, was common in Lilith Academy, but Li Ruoxi’s eyes carried a cautious, deer-like look that was rare.
Feeling shy from the stares of the male and female students passing by, Li Ruoxi hurried with small steps, head down, toward a less crowded shady spot near a building where there was a garden pavilion.
Hearing Li Ruoxi’s nervous and formal self-introduction, the girl let out a light laugh.
“Hehehe~ You’re really interesting. Where are you? I’m already at the Scholars’ Pavilion in Zone B… right where you and Teacher Xue parted ways.”
“Ah?”
Li Ruoxi hadn’t been paying attention to her surroundings.
She stopped and turned around to see, at the spot she had been standing earlier, a girl with a bright smile, short neat hair, and an oval face, wearing a black little dress, white stockings, and a pair of brown leather shoes.
In her hand was a brown square schoolbag.
He Ranran waved at Li Ruoxi, looked left and right, then jogged over from across the road about thirty meters away.
“Hello. Nice to meet you, my little junior~ I’m He Ranran from Class Seven, Second Year. Well, this year I’ll be a third-year~”
The girl said playfully, extending a fair, slender hand.
“You… hello…”
Li Ruoxi had never been greeted so enthusiastically by a girl asking for a handshake.
This girl was more like a cheerful older neighbor.
With her short hair and oval face, she looked incredibly friendly, especially when she smiled—her eyes crinkled like silkworms.
Li Ruoxi couldn’t look away.
“Why is your face so red? Did you get sunburned?”
He Ranran naturally touched Li Ruoxi’s face.
“Ah… ah… no… it’s nothing.”
“Hey, it’s really hot.”
He Ranran’s hand felt like it was pressed against a glass of hot water.
“Xiao Xi, are you okay?”
Li Ruoxi’s small face was being rubbed all over by the worried He Ranran.
“Um…”
Li Ruoxi politely stopped He Ranran’s cool little hand.
“It’s nothing. I was just out in the sun for too long, and then I ran over, so my face is a bit hot.”
“Are you sure?”
He Ranran noticed that Li Ruoxi was very shy.
Whenever she stared at her for a bit too long, Li Ruoxi would look away, looking uncomfortable.
Especially…
“Xiao Xi, do you not like people getting too close?”
‘Is it that I like her getting too close but am too shy to show it?’
Li Ruoxi couldn’t say that.
“No, maybe it’s because the weather is too hot and my body hasn’t loosened up, so I’m a bit stiff…”
Even Li Ruoxi felt her logic was muddled after saying that.
“Hehehe~ Xiao Xi, I didn’t expect you to be so funny.”
He Ranran, without any hesitation, stepped forward and grabbed Li Ruoxi’s slender wrist.
“Come on, a little further down this garden is the main gate of the Scholars’ Pavilion in Zone B.”
When Li Ruoxi was grabbed, her heart inexplicably skipped a beat.
“Oh…”
He Ranran pulled her by the arm through the garden until they reached a small round plaza.
In the middle of the plaza stood a huge statue of a figure.
“This is the founder of Lilith Academy, Mo Dingshan.”
He Ranran pointed at the statue, then moved her finger to the right, showing that around the outermost area, there were twelve statues, all surrounding Mo Dingshan’s statue like stars around the moon.
“Why… do these twelve statues all look the same? Is that right?”
Li Ruoxi noticed that there was a statue on each side less than twenty meters from her.
He Ranran couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
“Hehehe~”
Her bright laughter dispelled the summer heat.
Li Ruoxi’s heart skipped another beat.
‘A bright, cheerful girl… I have no resistance against that.’
“These~ are all Mo Dingshan’s wives, Lilith Dosia.”
He Ranran showed an envious look.
“The love story between the principal and his wife is very famous throughout the entire academy.”
“A rich young man falling for an ordinary girl?”
Li Ruoxi instantly summarized a cliché romance drama in her mind.
He Ranran shook her head.
“It’s about a noble lady falling for a genius boy. But they went through the wars of that era, were separated for over ten years, and then met again. In a time with no communication tools and no news, when they couldn’t see each other, they still believed for all those years that the other was alive and here. Finally, they met here, which was Lady Lilith’s territory at the time, and then…”
He Ranran looked at the surrounding statues.
The meaning was clear.
“Don’t tell me… the entire academy has a lot of statues like this?”
Li Ruoxi felt that Mo Dingshan must have been a crazy wife-flaunter.
“Yeah. Hey? Xiao Xi, have you been to other school districts? How did you know?”
He Ranran was surprised.
She herself had only learned the story behind them after actually seeing these statues in other districts.
“It really is an enviable love story. I wish I could run into one like that~”
As He Ranran spoke, her mind seemed to wander to someone as she stared off at the statue.
“Okay.”
She came back to herself.
“We can talk about this later. Following the teacher’s orders~ I’ll take you to see your school district first.”
“Mm.”
Along the way, He Ranran held Li Ruoxi’s little hand.
The bright and cheerful Xiao Ran was like a beam of light, shining into Li Ruoxi’s heart.
Li Ruoxi went from being reserved to later meeting He Ranran’s smiling eyes and smiling back knowingly.
By the time they had toured the entire district, all Li Ruoxi remembered were the bell tower when it rang, the general route back and forth, and the huge tiered lecture halls, spacious office areas and exchange activity zones, and the ‘small’ library that each district had—she didn’t remember any of it.
Li Ruoxi only remembered He Ranran’s cheerful laughter, her warm and bright gaze, and the teasing between them.
“So, you only returned to the Li family less than a week ago? Then who were you living with before? Your grandmother and little sister? Where are they?”
He Ranran asked curiously.
As the two talked about the people close to them, He Ranran mentioned that her closest person was her brother.
Li Ruoxi didn’t know how to say it, only roughly mentioning that she had just come back to the Li family.
“Grandma and little sister… they…”
Li Ruoxi said in a low mood.
“They… I can’t find them.”
“The Li family is so big… can’t they…”
He Ranran suddenly realized something.
“They… did they go to another world? Sorry… I shouldn’t have asked that.”
He Ranran apologized.
She had spoken bluntly and realized it wasn’t appropriate to ask.
The sun was about to set, and the afterglow stretched their shadows long.
On the balcony of the fourth floor, they leaned on the railing outside the classroom door.
Li Ruoxi shook her head, not minding.
“Maybe… I just haven’t found them yet. There’s hope.”
Missing for two years…
Li Ruoxi didn’t know if she could find them.
Thinking of this inexplicably made her mood sink even further.
“It’s okay…”
He Ranran didn’t know how to comfort Li Ruoxi.
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