Xie Qiaoqiao lowered her head to look at the menu on the tablet.
Zhang Xueji walked over to the front desk and said a few words to the waiter.
When he returned, he held a bottle of grape-flavored soda in his left hand, and a hair tie and two black hairpins in his right.
Zhang Xueji placed the hair tie and hairpins beside Xie Qiaoqiao: “Your hair is about to come undone, use the hair tie to tie it up. This flavor of soda is okay, right?”
The chilled glass bottle, frosted with condensation, was held in his hand and swayed before Xie Qiaoqiao’s eyes.
Once Xie Qiaoqiao nodded, Zhang Xueji twisted the bottle cap loose and placed the soda in front of her.
He remembered that the last two times at the convenience store, Xie Qiaoqiao always bought grape-flavored soda.
But he didn’t just assume Xie Qiaoqiao liked grape flavor—he’d seen her order milk tea several times, and even though grape was an option, she always picked strawberry.
That’s why he asked—if Xie Qiaoqiao shook her head, Zhang Xueji planned to drink it himself.
He didn’t care about soda flavors, as long as it wasn’t Pepsi.
Xie Qiaoqiao pushed the tablet with the finished order to Zhang Xueji, then raised her hand and removed the chopstick from her hair.
Her black hair, bound all day, suddenly fell loose with a slight wave, cascading over Xie Qiaoqiao’s shoulders.
The scent of lemon instantly filled the air, strong for only a few seconds before it faded, but Zhang Xueji clearly caught it.
He couldn’t help but touch the tip of his nose, suddenly losing interest in ordering food, so he randomly added two signature dishes, his eyes drifting up to glance at Xie Qiaoqiao.
Xie Qiaoqiao was carefully tying up her hair, her thick black strands tangled between her fair fingers.
Once her hair was up, the distinct lines of the girl’s face became even more striking.
Suddenly, she looked over as well.
Their eyes met, and Zhang Xueji, caught in her gaze, blinked.
Xie Qiaoqiao asked sincerely, “Are you still very hot? Should we move to a seat by the air conditioner?”
Zhang Xueji was startled by her words and quickly reached up to touch his cheek.
It was burning hot.
He didn’t need a mirror to know his face must be bright red.
He pretended nothing had happened and agreed to Xie Qiaoqiao’s suggestion.
The two of them moved to a seat by the air conditioner and ate together.
This Thai restaurant’s food was delicious, especially the Seafood Tom Yum Soup.
Xie Qiaoqiao sent the location to Hua Lingyue, telling her to come here next time she had a chance to eat out on the company’s dime.
When they finished eating and went home, Zhang Xueji drove as usual, and Xie Qiaoqiao sat in the passenger seat.
The drive wasn’t short, but it passed quickly.
By the time they returned to the 27th floor, the sun had yet to set.
Zhang Xueji said his room was a bit messy, and told Xie Qiaoqiao to wait by the door for a bit—after he entered, the first thing he did was toss the communal bathroom’s shampoo into the trash, then bag up the shoes, socks, and clothes Xie Qiaoqiao had left at his place to return to her.
The shoes and socks had already been washed clean; as for that pile of clothes, Zhang Xueji hadn’t touched them.
There weren’t many pieces—summer shorts and short sleeves didn’t amount to much fabric.
When he went to tidy the bathroom, a glance revealed that aside from the top and shorts, there were also items he shouldn’t see, so he deliberately left them untouched.
He didn’t take this as any kind of special hint—after all, “hinting” was not something remotely related to Xie Qiaoqiao.
Leaving the hair ties behind was already being possessed by a Ghost.
Zhang Xueji looked at the two hair ties on his desk and, a little annoyed, patted his forehead.
He hadn’t meant to do it; it felt a bit perverted.
At the time, he didn’t know why—his mind was a blank, just a guilty conscience; it was just two hair ties, he could have simply told Xie Qiaoqiao: “You left a pair at my place, I was afraid they’d get lost so I put them in the drawer, I’ll give them back to you later.”
Just saying that would have been fine—he hadn’t done anything weird anyway.
But somehow, he just felt guilty, and when people feel guilty, they instinctively cover things up.
Zhang Xueji instinctively hid the two hair ties, even leaving himself an excuse to see her again: to give her two new hair ties as compensation.
He lay back in his chair, tossing and turning, sighing: “Did she actually hear what I said that day?”
“Should I ask her?”
“What if she really did hear, but just isn’t interested in me, so pretended not to?”
“That can’t be. I look alright—ah, but that advantage probably doesn’t work, she’s a master after all…………………”
Zhang Xueji muttered to himself, his expression relaxing and tightening by turns, as if he were arguing with himself like someone with a split personality.
Zhang Xueji had another nightmare.
It felt like he’d dreamed it many times before: a bottomless pool, blindingly white walls, and colored balls bobbing on the water.
He struggled in the violent waves, his chest and waist bitten by a shapeless monster; the pain was so intense it even drowned out the suffocating feeling of oxygen deprivation.
But this time, the dream lasted much longer—it didn’t end abruptly after he was bitten.
Zhang Xueji felt the monster’s jaws unclench from his body, and the raging waves swept him from the depths to the surface—the waves stirred up by the monster, as if it had been startled by something and was trying to flee, even abandoning the “food” already in its mouth.
Thick blood-red spread through the water, and the world Zhang Xueji saw was stained crimson.
For some reason, he still wasn’t dead.
He was caught on the monster’s shifting scales, forced to surf along the surface with it.
The monster’s heartbeat thundered like a giant drum, so loud he could barely hear anything else.
In his blood-red vision, a black dot appeared—and that dot was rapidly growing larger!
Zhang Xueji unconsciously opened his eyes wide, his unfocused pupils sharpening, finally seeing clearly: it wasn’t a black dot at all…
It was a figure falling from the sky!
In an instant—
Zhang Xueji saw her clearly: a twin-tailed girl with a sword, expressionless as she plummeted from above, her long black hair billowing upwards in the wind, water trails glittering on her fair skin like scattered stars.
Her presence was as imposing as a towering mountain, so much so that Zhang Xueji didn’t even notice the sword in her hand was just a wooden one.
He was completely overwhelmed by her aura, his dying, unfocused gaze unable to look away.
The moment she landed seemed to stretch out endlessly in his senses, like a long shot in a movie slowed to 0.5x speed, so slow Zhang Xueji could see her eyelashes.
The wooden sword pierced the monster’s head, slicing smoothly down its back like a slide, charging forward until nearly colliding with Zhang Xueji—
The girl landed on the monster’s torn back, pulled out the sword one-handed, and her emotionless black eyes lowered to look at him.
The loose collar of her white short-sleeved shirt revealed her collarbones; the monster’s vivid red blood splattered into the hollow of her collarbone, and as she bowed her head slightly, the blood trickled down the edge of her collarbone, winding a crimson path over her pale skin.
That trembling drop of blood hung at her collar, like a string of ruby necklace.
The shadow of death fell across Zhang Xueji’s face, covering his nose and mouth.
The last thought that crossed his mind was—
Her neck would really suit a beautiful ruby necklace.
His consciousness faded, sinking, and he felt his soul leaving his body, as if he were about to hear the call of the universe.
Suddenly a sharp pain in his waist jolted Zhang Xueji awake from the nightmare.
He gasped for breath, staring up at the dark ceiling, his mind blank for a few seconds.
His waist still ached as if it had been jabbed; reaching down, he felt a soda bottle cap.
It was the “Win Another Bottle” cap Xie Qiaoqiao had given him.
He’d stuffed it into his pants pocket at the time, and later, after his shower, had taken it out and tossed it onto the bed—he hadn’t expected it would wake him up like this.
If not for this “Win Another Bottle”…
The vivid sense of death in the dream lingered in his memory.
Zhang Xueji shivered, and reverently placed the bottle cap on his nightstand with both hands.
After his experience with the Clinical Department Female Ghost, Zhang Xueji now believed that anything supernatural could happen—dying in a dream wasn’t impossible.
Especially that dream…………………
Zhang Xueji hesitated, touching his waist.
A week ago, he really had been in the hospital, and it was indeed because he’d nearly drowned in an abandoned indoor water park.
But in his memory, he hadn’t encountered any monster, hadn’t been bitten, and certainly hadn’t… met Xie Qiaoqiao.
He’d just gone in to help a kid find his hidden friend, slipped on a mossy tile that hadn’t been cleaned in ages, and accidentally fallen into the pool and choked on some water.
He’d checked his own medical report—he was perfectly healthy, all his organs intact.
The only problem was just choking on water, and it hadn’t left any damage.
His gaze finally landed on his wrist—smooth and unmarked, without a single scar.
But just a few days ago, he’d cut it.
“Pinduoduo One Slash, I’m just waiting on you, did you not help me click?” Qi Chen looked at Xie Qiaoqiao suspiciously.
Xie Qiaoqiao ignored him, her cheeks puffing and flattening as she drank her soy milk in earnest.
Qi Chen said, “Don’t avoid reality.”
Xie Qiaoqiao kept drinking her soy milk.
Qi Chen persisted: “Even Hua Lingyue helped me click.”
Xie Qiaoqiao continued to ignore him, at the same time picking up her phone to check the message Zhang Xueji had just sent—after discovering Zhang Xueji would actively share his location with her, Xie Qiaoqiao had set him as a Special Concern.
Special Concern came with notification sounds, making it more convenient for Xie Qiaoqiao to keep up with the latest updates from her unlucky neighbor.
[Zhang Xueji: Location Sharing]
[Zhang Xueji: Guandi Temple, they say it’s really spiritual here]
[Zhang Xueji: Are there restrictions on temples? Is Guandi Temple okay? Will Guandi not care about this?]
[Xie Qiaoqiao: It’s fine.]
[Xie Qiaoqiao: Any temple with lots of incense is fine, no restriction on which deity.]
The soy milk was finished.
Xie Qiaoqiao tossed the empty cup, picked up the unsharpened longsword beside her, and walked into the classroom—she worked part-time at the Youth Palace as a Traditional Chinese Martial Arts teacher, teaching not only sword technique, but also horse stances and boxing.
Qi Chen, seeing she was ignoring him, had no choice but to stand up too, picking up the Bass beside him and heading to the upstairs classroom—he worked part-time at the Youth Palace as a teacher of uncommon instruments, teaching not just Bass, but also Harp and Ocarina.
Since the Youth Palace’s classes were mainly for children fifteen and under, most of the lessons were basic.
Traditional Chinese Martial Arts might sound grand, but Xie Qiaoqiao couldn’t actually expect much from her students.
Human children are fragile—just a scrape on their skin could get a teacher in trouble.
But the higher-ups felt that special talents like Xie Qiaoqiao and Qi Chen, who were too poorly socialized, needed some exposure to people.
Just interacting with peers wasn’t enough, and the Youth Palace was a great choice.
Here you could meet anyone from five-year-old kindergartners to eighty-year-old grandpas.
After who-knows-how-many kids asked her, “Teacher, after I learn this Sword Technique can I stab my dad?”—Xie Qiaoqiao skillfully pretended not to hear and sat by the giant floor-to-ceiling window to daydream.
The sky outside was so blue.
The clouds outside were so white.
Everything outside was wonderful, and there were no kids pestering her about whether she knew Heavenly Sword or Lingxi Finger.
At lunch break, Xie Qiaoqiao and Qi Chen met in the cafeteria.
Qi Chen’s pretty face looked a bit lifeless as he stuffed boiled broccoli into his mouth, asking Xie Qiaoqiao, “How could anyone think a Youth Class teacher should know how to play ‘The Hunt’? And that’s a piano piece, it’s got nothing to do with Bass!”
Xie Qiaoqiao finished eating before she spoke: “Why did you study music?”
Qi Chen answered honestly, “They said they’d pay my tuition, so I picked the most expensive major, and I wouldn’t have to take advanced math.”
Xie Qiaoqiao concluded, “So you’re bad at math—that’s the reason.”
Qi Chen didn’t get it, a bit unhappy: “Why are you attacking me personally? Your math isn’t that great either!”
Xie Qiaoqiao glanced at him, her calm eyes making him feel like an idiot: “That’s not important.”
She was just curious—working together, why was Qi Chen so annoying, but Zhang Xueji wasn’t; why did Zhang Xueji like her, but Qi Chen didn’t.
Now Xie Qiaoqiao understood.
It was a mathematics problem.
Qi Chen was terrible at math, but Zhang Xueji was great at it.
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.