The early-summer evening breeze carried a restless heat, stirring the wisps of hair at the girl’s forehead.

Jin Zhao’s brows were not dark, yet their shape was beautiful, like distant mountains in the misty rain of Jiangnan. Her apricot eyes were clear and clean, the aegyo-sal beneath them like two faint crescent moons.

She was so clean it was as if she carried a kind of immortal air, making people unconsciously want to protect her.

Meng Yanxi couldn’t even continue to “step on and elevate” Lu Jingyue in front of such a pair of eyes. People who were clean saw everything cleanly—Jin Zhao hadn’t even thought in that direction at all.

She tilted her face up, looking at him in confusion, not grasping what he meant. After a while, it was as if she grasped it, and she tentatively asked in a small voice, “Do you want me to tell him to study hard?”

Meng Yanxi: “?”

Jin Zhao nodded in firm agreement. “Lu Jingyue really is smart. Problems the teacher explains, he can draw inferences after hearing them once. He’s just a bit lazy and doesn’t like doing homework. If he were willing to put a little more effort into studying, getting a top one-or-two ranking in the grade shouldn’t be hard.”

Meng Yanxi: “……” Enough.

“Goodbye.”

Meng Yanxi turned and walked away without looking back.

He even couldn’t wait to cross the road diagonally.

Although this street was just a small road, only wide enough for two cars, not a main road, with not many vehicles—people usually wouldn’t deliberately detour to the crosswalk to cross—but Meng Yanxi was different. Meng Yanxi was relatively noble; he had just looked down on Yu Lei and his spiritual little partners for running a red light.

Jin Zhao was a bit at a loss, watching the boy’s indifferent departing back as she reflected on her own logic.

Meng Yanxi had said to her out of the blue: Lu Jingyue isn’t first in the grade.

With no context to refer to, didn’t the implication mean he hoped Lu Jingyue would become first in the grade? And with Lu Jingyue’s brain, even if he weren’t first, second in the grade shouldn’t be difficult.

Meng Yanxi quickly reached the opposite side and met up with Lu Jingyue. The latter’s gaze passed over him as he waved through the stream of cars, cheerfully greeting Jin Zhao.

Jin Zhao became even more convinced of her logic. Lu Jingyue really was a very good deskmate. She smiled at him, then walked alone toward the bus stop.

“Why are you here?”

As Meng Yanxi walked past him, perhaps because the road was too narrow, he bumped Lu Jingyue’s shoulder, causing Lu Jingyue to step back.

Lu Jingyue didn’t get annoyed. Even though the other’s words sounded sarcastic, he still answered readily: “I came out of the security office and followed you the whole way.”

Meng Yanxi frowned.

Lu Jingyue smiled without quite smiling. “Meng Yanxi, your alertness is a bit low. I followed you for so long and you didn’t notice. If I were a bad person, you would’ve already lost today.”

Meng Yanxi glanced sideways at him. “You’re a good person?”

Lu Jingyue thought about it, then went along with it. “I am. But if you’d really gotten into a fight with those punk kids just now, I would at least have helped you fight.”

“My thanks to you.”

The car picking them up was parked in the lot outside the school’s front gate. The two were now walking toward the back gate, circling around from there to the front. Meng Yanxi strode ahead, his whole body emitting an oddly twisted, lukewarm aura.

Lu Jingyue lagged a few steps behind, studying that sparse, cool, upright back, and mused, “Why do I feel like the person you really wanted to beat up today was actually me?”

Meng Yanxi didn’t make a sound—whether he hadn’t heard or was tacitly admitting it.

Lu Jingyue nodded with full self-awareness. “Then it really must be me.”

He didn’t ask Meng Yanxi what he had done to offend him. Stretching his long legs, he quickened his pace to come up beside Meng Yanxi, walking shoulder to shoulder with him.

“Have you ever thought that you were too impulsive just now?” Lu Jingyue looked ahead, no longer joking, his tone carrying a few more degrees of seriousness. “This is her own matter. She should resolve it herself, at a rhythm and in a way she’s good at. If things get worse because of you, it’ll only bring her more trouble. At the end of the day, directly beating someone up is Meng Yanxi’s method—you can do it, she can’t. But can you walk her to and from school every day?”

A breath-like chuckle slipped from Meng Yanxi’s throat.

Lu Jingyue understood and nodded. “Mm, my mistake. I forgot you’re best at pulling the rug out from under someone.”

Meng Yanxi shot him a look. He thought Lu Jingyue was just putting on airs, and he thoroughly despised that. Drawing a clear line, he sped up his steps.

Lu Jingyue caught up again, even more excessive this time, hooking an arm around his shoulder.

Anyone who didn’t know better would think their relationship was great. Meng Yanxi disgustedly tried to pull him off, but Lu Jingyue simply hopped, using the momentum to hook his arm around Meng Yanxi’s neck and pull him down. Meng Yanxi was forced into a shoulder-to-shoulder embrace.

At this moment, the two were walking by the back gate. Students were coming out through the small door beside the driveway. Though there were fewer people than before, there were still quite a few. Meng Yanxi slapped his hand away in disgust and warned, “Lu Jingyue.”

Lu Jingyue looked magnanimous, grinning as he yielded. “Alright, the fight’s been fought, the craziness let out. Come on, let’s go home together.”

Meng Yanxi walked off coolly. “Not the same way.”

Lu Jingyue stood where he was and said unhurriedly, “That’s fine. I was originally thinking of talking to you on the way about changing seats.”

Meng Yanxi’s steps halted.

The next second, he turned around and stared at Lu Jingyue. “Why aren’t you leaving yet?”

Lu Jingyue laughed once and lifted his foot to follow.

The two brothers walked side by side, neither speaking for quite a while. With minds that were both top-tier smart, many things didn’t need to be said aloud—they understood each other tacitly.

After some time, Meng Yanxi asked, “Who is that Mu-Huo Tongming¹Mu-Huo Tongming（木火通明): is a classical Chinese phrase that literally means “wood and fire shine together” or “wood–fire mutually illuminate.”?”

“Which Mu-Huo Tongming?” Lu Jingyue played dumb.

Once certain things were thought through, reason and patience returned with them. Meng Yanxi’s temper settled; he was no longer one spark away from ignition. He slowly glanced at Lu Jingyue. “You’d better hope I never find out.”

The youth’s eyes were cold and pitch-black, the unspoken threat clear beneath them—otherwise I’ll finish you.

When Meng Yanxi got serious, even Lu Jingyue was afraid of him. He immediately conceded, leaving himself a way out. Putting on a look of sudden realization, he said,

“Oh, you mean the one whose name has fire in the first character and wood in the second?”

“Fire in front, wood in back.” Meng Yanxi stared at Lu Jingyue and let out a meaningful laugh.

Jin Zhao was wood in front, fire in back. He didn’t believe Lu Jingyue hadn’t said it that way on purpose at the start—deliberately messing with him.

Just wait.

Meng Yanxi turned and continued forward.

That last look from Meng Yanxi left Lu Jingyue feeling chilled. Very aware of the situation, he followed and proactively offered a step down. “Do you want to go watch the show tomorrow?”

Meng Yanxi slung his backpack over one shoulder, one hand in his pocket, his face icy. “Not going. Looking at you annoys me.”

How flexible was Lu Jingyue? He immediately said, “I won’t go. You take Xixi.”

That made Meng Yanxi look at him in a new light.

Lu Jingyue patted his shoulder. “Alright, it’s settled then. Tomorrow you take Xixi to see the show. The little girl likes pretty clothes—once in a while, cater to her tastes and coax her a bit. Don’t always force her to dance. Otherwise, you pour your whole heart and guts into doing what’s good for her, and when she grows up she doesn’t understand your intentions—won’t you die of resentment?”

Meng Yanxi neither confirmed nor denied it.

The two walked on in silence for another stretch. The sun fully sank beyond the city line, and the light grew thin and gentle.

“How did you know?” Meng Yanxi looked at the tender orange-toned sunset on the horizon.

Lu Jingyue also looked ahead and said, “It can’t be hidden.”

Meng Yanxi: “What can’t be hidden?”

Lu Jingyue: “What do you think.”

The two brothers spoke as if in riddles, walking together out through the affiliated high school’s front gate. Across the way, the driver waiting in the parking lot spotted them from afar, hurriedly getting out of the car and bending to open the door for them.

The show Lu Jingyue mentioned was a dedicated themed show held in Suiyi by a certain international top luxury brand. It had been promoted half a year in advance, with many A-list celebrities invited to attend, and the buzz was extremely high. That Sunday, Meng Shijin brought Meng Yanxi and his siblings to the venue. As expected, Lu Jingyue was tactful—knowing that his cousin had recently found fault with him no matter what, he didn’t follow them there.

Meng Shijin’s status was distinguished. Before the opening that day, while the stars were entering and signing in, she was invited backstage by the brand. Little Meng Zhuxi held her aunt’s hand and followed at her side, getting to glimpse the beautiful dresses one by one even earlier, before the show began.

Meng Yanxi wasn’t particularly interested in these things. He was purely there because he’d exploited his younger sister as a tool for too long and still had a bit of conscience left—he came along to accompany her and make amends.

The designer was a blond, blue-eyed French man, elderly, very tall, his figure still lean and upright. Walking beside Meng Shijin, he used his French-accented English to introduce the creative inspiration behind each piece.

Meng Yanxi didn’t care what kind of emotional journey others had gone through; it had nothing to do with him. He walked ahead absentmindedly, occasionally lowering his head to glance at his phone. When he lifted his eyes, his gaze abruptly fixed on a red dress ahead, silk adorned with feathers.

Meng Yanxi stopped.

It was a true red that was almost flowing—its color like crimson jade tempered by fire, yet also as if the evening glow had been crushed and soaked into the satin. The long dress was still on a mannequin; within its drape hid an extremely light sense of movement, as though a soundless stream of fire flowed inside it. The finishing touch was that from the waist down, the dress was gradually adorned with fluffy white feathers and plumes tipped in scarlet, arranged irregularly, like feathers swept by the wind and fallen onto the skirt—snow-colored waves of stars surfacing within the flames.

At this moment, the designer led Meng Shijin over. Seeing Meng Yanxi standing there admiring it for a long time, the blond, blue-eyed French man was overjoyed and immediately launched into an unending description of his concept in that French-accented English of his.

He said the inspiration came from goddesses in ancient Chinese mythology, and so he stitched molten gold sunsets and shattered feathers from the clouds into the red dress, stitch by stitch.

The designer’s inspiration was a mythological goddess, yet Meng Yanxi felt he had seen a real goddess.

That day, before the show began, Meng Yanxi bought that silk dress adorned with feathers in advance.

Designers always like finding a kindred spirit among lofty mountains and flowing waters. Although it was a finale showpiece, under the important client’s eyes—completely fallen in admiration—the brand gladly agreed.

Monday morning self-study, Lu Jingyue and Meng Yanxi went to the administration office. By the first class break, the two had already changed seats.

Jin Zhao never would have dreamed that Lu Jingyue would switch seats with Meng Yanxi. It was far too sudden for her. Not only her—even Luo Heng was shocked, passing items back and forth while asking questions nonstop.

It was as if Jin Zhao couldn’t hear their voices at all. She dazedly lifted her head, watching the two boys exchange things back and forth. Waves of cold-mountain pine-and-mist scent rushed at her face, and all she could hear by her ears was the sound of her own heartbeat.

Lu Jingyue and Meng Yanxi didn’t have many things. They finished moving very quickly.

Meng Yanxi sat down beside her, the tall body of the boy together with that aura of cold mountain pine and mist completely enveloping her.

Lu Jingyue stood by the desk and bade her farewell. “I’m off, deskmate. From now on, you can only let Meng Yanxi explain problems to you.”

“That works too.” Lu Jingyue glanced at Meng Yanxi with a smile that wasn’t quite a smile and said, “He’s first in the grade.”

Footnotes

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  Mu-Huo Tongming（木火通明): is a classical Chinese phrase that literally means “wood and fire shine together” or “wood–fire mutually illuminate.”