Now they were in a relationship she had never even dared to imagine in the past, and she was even more willing to like him, to love him, with all her sincerity.

With all her sincerity, with everything she had.

Even if there were no outcome, even if it was a moth flying into the flame—at least she had fulfilled herself, and repaid the obscure, tentative stirrings of mutual affection they had shared in their youth.

“Mhm, you’re different from others.” Jin Zhao nodded lightly.

Meng Yanxi did not speak again. His gaze lowered; those deep, dark peach-blossom eyes fixed on her—first on her eyes, then his gaze slid downward, settling on her lips.

Her lip color was pale, yet very soft and pink, like the first apricot blossom to bloom on a spring branch.

Jin Zhao sensed his gaze. Her eyelashes fluttered rapidly once, and it was as if fireworks had been lit in her chest, surging upward with a rush.

The incandescent light overhead was bright and unguarded, sparks silently bursting and falling in the air.

The man bent down, his tall figure slowly enveloping her.

Jin Zhao tilted her head up, tacitly leaning closer to him.

At the instant Meng Yanxi closed his eyes, Jin Zhao’s pupils suddenly dilated.

On the ceiling, a black spider the size of a palm suddenly descended on a strand of silk, dropping right behind Meng Yanxi.

At the moment his lips were about to touch hers, Jin Zhao turned her head aside.

His lips brushed past the corner of her mouth. Whether they touched, or did not touch—he himself was not sure.

The one who was tense was not only her.

What he felt very clearly was this: the instant she gripped his hand tightly, it carried a softness yet a strength full of protective meaning. In the next second, she pulled him behind her.

“Don’t be afraid.”

Jin Zhao left him those words as she crouched down to catch the spider.

Meng Yanxi: “……”

After that, he stood behind her with a headache, watching as she folded an A4 sheet of paper into the shape of a little shovel and chased after the spider.

He had no idea why such a perfectly good atmosphere had been ruined by a single spider, plunging straight downhill. A fine night and auspicious moment—what should have been an embrace and a kiss had turned into his girlfriend putting on a spider-catching performance for him.

Granted, her reckless protection moved him a little—but not much.

After all, compared to having his girlfriend chase spiders for him, he would much rather be holding his girlfriend and doing something else.

It really was a huge spider, probably as big as her hand. She tried to drive it out with the A4 paper, but the spider was both big and nimble. After chasing it for quite a while, she only managed to drive it farther inside; it scuttled along the wall, and in the blink of an eye was about to crawl onto her bed.

Meng Yanxi pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’ll do it.”

Meng Yanxi caught the spider with his bare hands and threw it out from the balcony.

This was the ground floor; outside was the mountain. Today he showed great mercy and let it live, hoping it would not come back next time to ruin his good business.

After closing the balcony door, he asked somewhat aggrieved, “Do you have any other bugs you need to catch?”

But someone did not hear the resentment at all, lifting her face to look at him with eyes full of admiration.

The bright white light overhead refracted in her eyes into starlike brilliance.

With a girlfriend this cute, he really couldn’t even get angry.

Meng Yanxi resigned himself and went into the bathroom to wash his hands, while someone outside excitedly asked, “Aren’t you really afraid of spiders? How did you dare grab it with your hands?”

When he came out, wiping his hands with a tissue, his movements unhurried and a little proud, he said, “I’m not as useless as Lu Jingyue—being afraid of one thing for a lifetime.”

Jin Zhao: “?”

Meng Yanxi said, “I used to be afraid of a lot of things—afraid of the dark, afraid of ghosts, afraid of bugs. Gradually, I stopped being afraid of anything.”

Hearing this only made Jin Zhao admire him more. Her eyes lit up as she asked, “How did you do it?”

She wanted to learn too.

Meng Yanxi tossed the used tissue into the trash, lowered his eyes, and looked at her thoughtfully. Then he suddenly said, “My younger sister is afraid too. My future wife might be afraid too. Our family has to have someone who isn’t, right?”

In the neighboring apartment, a teacher—perhaps also dealing with bugs—suddenly made a heavy “thud” through the wall.

His gaze was open and direct. The eye contact made her suddenly shy. Jin Zhao quickly turned her eyes away and said awkwardly, “I’m actually okay, not that afraid.”

Above her head, the man suddenly let out a low chuckle and said lightly, “So self-aware, huh.”

Realizing she had put herself in that role, Jin Zhao instantly became even more embarrassed.

Fortunately, at that moment his phone chimed. He lowered his head to check it, greatly easing her awkwardness.

She also hurriedly lowered her head to look at her phone to cover it up.

On the lock screen was the video call from earlier when he had teased her, and she naturally tapped into WeChat.

Messages from the dorm group had been bumped up again—teachers’ daily routines. Someone had found bugs in the dorm again and was borrowing insecticide from the dorm supervisor auntie. Jin Zhao drifted a little, thinking that she should have gone to borrow insecticide earlier too. Then she wouldn’t have had to chase the spider for so long, and in the end still let Meng Yanxi catch it, making her look very useless. But in that situation, suddenly running out to borrow insecticide didn’t seem very appropriate either.

“I’ve already contacted the taxi driver. I had Zhuang Yu drive over to pick it up now,” Meng Yanxi said, his long fingers tapping out a few words on his phone as he spoke.

Jin Zhao was surprised. “So fast?”

“Mhm. I had them check the surveillance at the entrance.”

That process should not have been simple—first identifying which taxi she had taken among so many vehicles passing the entrance, then contacting the taxi company, who might not necessarily cooperate by giving the driver’s contact information. There would have been negotiation involved. Yet he summed it all up in one sentence, making it sound effortless.

Meng Yanxi slipped his phone back into his pocket, paused for a moment, and said, “I’ll bring it to you tomorrow.”

Jin Zhao was subconsciously afraid of troubling others. Thinking about how much she had already troubled him, she was about to blurt out that it wasn’t necessary, but at the last moment, recalling the “wood” character he had used in her contact name, she suddenly realized that perhaps Meng Yanxi did not like her being so polite with him.

She swallowed the words of refusal back down, nodded lightly, and said, “Okay.”

Meng Yanxi said, “Then I’ll go first.”

Jin Zhao said, “Okay.”

Meng Yanxi looked at her again, then turned and walked toward the entryway.

His hand touched the door handle.

“Meng Yanxi.” Jin Zhao suddenly called out to him.

He stopped and turned back.

In the next instant, a clear, sweet breath rushed into his arms, like the tender sweetness of gardenias in early spring.

Meng Yanxi’s back pressed against the door, producing a soft thud.

The man had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, lean muscles taut with strength. Jin Zhao, restrained yet out of control, wrapped her arms around his waist, rose onto her tiptoes, and tilted her head up to kiss his lips.

A very light, very shallow kiss, lingering… for who knew how long.

Meng Yanxi completely lost the ability to count. His pitch-black eyes stared straight at her, unable to tell whether it was excitement or surprise.

He watched as her fair cheeks turned pink, even the pretty aegyo-sal beneath her eyes flushing softly, her eyes shimmering with moisture. She looked up at him, her voice trembling, yet carrying an all-or-nothing fervor.

She murmured, “What about now? Still wooden?”

If her gaze was timid yet blazing, then the way Meng Yanxi looked at her was restraint so intense it was as if he wanted to devour her.

His voice was hoarse and low. “A little better. Not much.”

Jin Zhao froze, then asked softly, “How does it become more?”

The veins on the back of the man’s hand stood out more sharply. In the next second, there was no more restraint—he tightened his grip on her waist and forcefully pressed her into his arms.

The kiss was scorching, irresistible. Once it fell, there was no separating again.

“Like this.”