It really couldn’t be blamed that Xiang Di felt such a huge sense of disparity.

After all, when she first fell in love with Bai Jiangxin at first sight, it was at the opening ceremony of her first year of high school.

Yan No. 14 High School’s uniforms were divided into a formal style and a regular style. At the opening ceremony, all first-year students wore the formal style—boys in white shirts and long pants, paired with vests and ties; girls in white shirts and short skirts, tied with bow ribbons.

Putting on a high school uniform, Xiang Di felt as if she had already become an adult. From today onward, she was no longer a middle school little brat.

And just at this moment, when Xiang Di was filled with boundless expectations for high school life, she saw Bai Jiangxin, also a first-year student, step onto the stage to give a speech.

Cold and sparse, there was nothing but indifference in his eyes. Black hair, pale cool skin, a tall and slender figure—like a winter cedar covered in frost, standing in the cold wind. When his deep voice passed through the microphone and entered Xiang Di’s ears, clearly calm in tone, devoid of emotion, lightly dropping at the end of each sentence, it nevertheless slammed heavily into her heart, carving out a mark.

Xiang Di had a little aunt who loved watching idol dramas. Her aunt doted on her the most. When Xiang Di was barely the size of a fart and understood nothing, her aunt already took her along to watch idol dramas.

Xiang Di’s mother often talked about this younger sister of hers—her niece was still so young, yet she was already being taken to watch this kind of love-and-romance stuff. If the niece grew up and turned into a hopeless romantic, it would all be because this aunt had taught her badly.

Her aunt retorted righteously: “You don’t understand this, do you? I take Di Bao’er to watch idol dramas so she can develop an eye for men from a young age, so that later on, any random man won’t be able to trick her heart away just by buying her a cup of milk tea or cooking her a bowl of porridge.”

Many people say that girls who watch too many idol dramas are prone to developing a romance brain, but from another perspective, watching idol dramas also has its benefits. Watch enough of them, and your standards for choosing men will rise—ordinary men will be very hard to look at.

And because of this, Xiang Di’s aunt remained unmarried to this day, and her ex-boyfriends—whether they were devoted in relationships or scumbags were at least all pleasing to the eye, all handsome men.

Her aunt told Xiang Di from a young age: anyway, relationships will end, and marriages might also end in divorce. If you’re going to like someone, why like an ugly man and then get hurt by an ugly man? Why not simply like a man who’s handsome and smart?

Thus Xiang Di was brainwashed by her aunt just like that. From elementary school to middle school, she’d seen plenty of boys, and there were those who liked her too, but up until now, she hadn’t encountered a single one worth her liking.

Until the opening ceremony of her first year of high school, when she saw Bai Jiangxin.

The first idol drama in Xiang Di’s life was It Started with a Kiss, which her aunt took her to watch when she was in elementary school.

The type of man her aunt liked the most was also someone like Irie Naoki—handsome, aloof, high-IQ. If his family background was good and he was rich too, that was even more of a bonus.

It was just a pity that this kind of man, once stripped of the halo of idol dramas and placed into real life, was usually just a pretentious guy—aside from a face, utterly lacking in personal charm, utterly off-putting. So Xiang Di had always been uninterested in this type.

Until she met Bai Jiangxin.

At that moment, she suddenly understood her aunt’s earnest teachings. Why like someone inferior to herself? A man who wasn’t even as outstanding as she was, what was there to like about him? Liking an average-looking man, she might as well just stay single.

Although Xiang Di had gotten into No. 14 High School by sheer dumb luck in the high school entrance exam, No. 14 actually wasn’t considered a particularly top-tier key high school in the city. A top student like Bai Jiangxin, outstanding in every aspect, should reasonably have gone to an even better school.

Later, Xiang Di heard from other classmates that Bai Jiangxin had transferred from an international middle school in the wealthy district. Originally, his life trajectory should have been a direct promotion into the international school’s high school division, then applying to study abroad—walking the elite cultivation route. But for some unknown reason, he’d come to attend a public high school instead, switching to the ordinary people’s gaokao route.

With conditions like that, no matter who ran into him, they’d at least have to harbor a little crush, just for form’s sake.

At first, she was attracted by his looks and temperament. Over time, watching him for long enough, feelings slowly fermented in her heart, and just like that, she kept liking him for three years.

Later on, liking him became a habit. Xiang Di herself didn’t know why she could persist for so long—even though Bai Jiangxin didn’t know who she was, she still liked him for so long.

She just admired the strong. She just liked the outstanding ones. Men were everywhere—so even if it was a secret crush, she still had to choose the very best, the most outstanding one, to secretly like.

The first time she saw Bai Jiangxin, Xiang Di felt just like the description in the love letter Kotoko wrote to Naoki-kun in It Started with a Kiss—from the moment she saw him, her heart felt as if it had been struck by a shooting star.

In her heart, Xiang Di muttered, Auntie, I think I’ve met my own Naoki-kun.

It was a pity she wasn’t Kotoko, nor did she have her courage and straightforwardness. Let alone writing a love letter to confess, she didn’t even dare step forward to strike up a conversation with Bai Jiangxin.

Fortunately, she wasn’t dumb and had a decent personality. If she didn’t dare to confess her feelings, then she would work hard in silence, striving to get closer to him, little by little. From barely scraping by the admissions score to get into No. 14 High School for the entrance exam, to now sitting in a key class, she had indeed gotten much closer to the “Naoki-kun” she had been yearning for, even becoming his deskmate.

However, this biology exam… even she had scored ninety-two points, while Bai Jiangxin—that lofty, noble figure in her heart, as distant and cool as the moon in the sky—had only scored sixty-eight.

“……” Not that she looked down on sixty-eight points. Sixty-eight was fine, having both six and eight, very auspicious. But what had she been working so desperately hard for these past two years to get into this key class?

【Sigh, the dreamy aura just dropped by more than half.】

Somehow, it felt like an idol she’d been following for three years had suddenly had his image shattered. Even Xiang Di felt her attitude was a bit too snobbish, and quickly tried to make up for it in her mind.

【It’s fine. At least his face is still handsome. Just think of him as a dumb husband.】

Bai Jiangxin’s current expression was stonier than stone.

And she was the one feeling reluctant now?

Ridiculous.

A crowd gathered to look at Bai Jiangxin’s score. The evening self-study classroom was in chaos. The biology teacher patted the lectern to restore order.

“Alright, alright, everyone back to your seats. If the head teacher comes by later, he’ll say our class is the noisiest in the grade again.”

The crowd had no choice but to obediently return to their seats. Someone still found Bai Jiangxin’s score unbelievable and asked, “Teacher, did you maybe mark Bai Jiangxin’s paper wrong?”

The biology teacher said, “No mistake. Bai Jiangxin wasn’t feeling well that night. He didn’t finish the paper. The last two major questions were left blank, so thirty points were lost right there.”

Everyone immediately showed expressions of “I knew it.” So it was because two major questions were left undone. The top student was still the top student after all. No image shattering here.

Ye Minjia suddenly remembered too. Bai Jiangxin really didn’t seem well during that exam. Almost the entire second half of his paper was blank.

For a moment, he felt utterly defeated. Even though he scored better than Bai Jiangxin this time, it was because Bai Jiangxin was unwell. So, he hadn’t truly won fair and square.

Liang Qianqian, however, was delighted, gloating beside him.

“Face reality, Class Monitor. With Bai Jiangxin here, you still want to be number one?”

Ye Minjia retorted without mercy: “Trash who scored 89, don’t talk to me.”

The biology teacher, now back at the lectern, said, “This test was relatively simple, so there’s no need to go over the entire thing. Exchange papers with your deskmate. See which questions you got wrong due to carelessness and explain them to each other. For any questions neither of you can solve, I’ll explain them together for the class.”

The classroom started buzzing with chatter again. Learning the reason, Xiang Di also breathed a sigh of relief.

【Thank goodness, it was only a sixty-eight because the major questions were left blank. Husband’s dreamy aura is still intact.】

Bai Jiangxin gave a cold snort.

What a shame. He had thought he was finally free, no longer needing to be the male lead in her adult film fantasies.

The teacher told deskmates to exchange papers. Xiang Di cleared her throat softly, gathering her courage to speak: “Um, should we exchange papers?”

Bai Jiangxin refused directly: “No need.”

Xiang Di let out an “Oh.” “What about the two major questions you didn’t finish at the back…”

Did he need her to teach him? Bai Jiangxin curled his lip slightly and asked her, “You finished them. So, how many points did you get?”

Not catching the hidden sarcasm in his tone, Xiang Di answered honestly: “Ninety-two.”

Bai Jiangxin’s expression stalled, and his face darkened several shades at once.

That night, he had been disturbed by the images she’d fabricated in her head to the point that he hadn’t even finished writing his exam paper, scoring the lowest mark of his life—and she actually used him to get a ninety-two?

Even if her study methods were twisted, being able to score a ninety-two was her own ability; he had nothing to say about that. But what right did she have to suddenly lose interest in him just because she had misunderstood his strength as being only sixty-eight points and decided he was no longer the godlike top student who crushed everyone else in her heart?

He’d thought Xiang Di would be different, but now it seemed she was no different from those people either. Her liking was too shallow—so shallow that it was no different from theirs.

Back when he studied at a private school, he looked very popular at school, with many friends and many girls who liked him, but he knew very clearly that he wasn’t actually likable.

The only reason those people were still willing to associate with him was purely because being friends with him was something to show off, and because his father was rich and powerful—after graduation, he would be a good resource in terms of favors and connections.

Grandpa was right. People’s hearts were complicated. Being able to read minds wasn’t a good thing, because not everyone would truly love you—not even close relatives.

He had experienced so much before that, so at this moment, he should have felt nothing at all. Bai Jiangxin couldn’t say what exactly he was annoyed about, or what he was disappointed about.

One person said she liked him, another said she liked him—liked him to the point of treating him as an object for sexual fantasies, fantasizing about having sex, saying she liked everything about him but the moment he didn’t do well on an exam, she immediately didn’t like him that much anymore.

What did she actually like—him as a person, or the fact that he could get first place in the grade?

If he couldn’t get first place in the grade, if the top student were someone else, would the one she was secretly in love with now become someone else instead?

Seeing that Bai Jiangxin didn’t speak, Xiang Di asked again patiently.

Coming back to his senses, Bai Jiangxin’s tone was icy. “No need.”

That distant, keep-everyone-at-bay attitude of his made Xiang Di feel a bit at a loss for a moment. She awkwardly said “Oh,” then lowered her head and stared at her exam paper.

The discussion in the classroom was lively. She lifted her head and looked around—everyone was discussing the test with their deskmates. Only she and Bai Jiangxin were like strangers.

Not wanting to be alone, she turned her head, wanting to discuss it with Qianqian, but Qianqian was currently bickering back and forth with the class monitor, having a great time, and didn’t notice her at all.

It was like going back to the beginning of senior year. She had just tested into the key class. Although she got her wish and became classmates with the boy she liked, that situation where she wasn’t familiar with anyone in the class still made her feel lonely and uneasy.

She did like Bai Jiangxin, but one Bai Jiangxin wasn’t enough for her to overcome that kind of loneliness that came with arriving somewhere new. What she needed more were friends.

Fortunately, later on she gradually became familiar with the girls in the class, and she even had a good friend like Qianqian, someone she ate with and went to the bathroom with.

Xiang Di, who had originally been very excited about being deskmates with Bai Jiangxin, suddenly found that excitement shifting after receiving his cold treatment.

She suddenly felt that being deskmates with the boy she liked wasn’t actually something worth being that happy about.

Being inexplicably given the cold shoulder by the boy she had a crush on—compared to that small bit of sourness and sadness, what filled Xiang Di’s heart more, someone who had never lacked love since childhood, was resentment and indignation.

【What are you being so arrogant for? I didn’t offend you. I was being nice and polite to you, why are you being so cold to me?】

【People who secretly like someone have dignity and human rights too, okay? I’m not your lickspittle. Don’t take advantage of the fact that I have a crush on you to throw your attitude at me, OK?】

【So what if you didn’t do well on this exam? It’s not like I caused you to do badly. What does it have to do with me? Such a bad attitude, I’ll draw a circle and curse you to get sixty-eight again next time!】

Bai Jiangxin lifted his eyelids and turned his head to look at her.

The girl was pouting, her delicate brows tightly knitted together, visibly unhappy. She was sprawled over the desk, resting her head on her arm, pen in hand—and she had actually drawn a circle on her scratch paper.

She, the very culprit, still had the nerve to feel aggrieved there and even curse him?

Noticing him looking at her, Xiang Di pressed her lips together, turned her head away, and aimed the back of her head at him, continuing to draw circles.

【It’s still happier being deskmates with Qianqian.】

Bai Jiangxin pressed his lips together, a shadow falling across his brow.

If she liked having other deskmates so much, then he would grant her wish. Perfect timing—he wouldn’t have to consider her feelings anymore. As soon as class ended, he would go find the head teacher again and ask to have them separated.

She had lost her fascination with him; probably soon enough she would switch to liking someone else. He couldn’t ask for more. Finally, his world would be quiet again. No more having to co-star in adult films inside her mind.

He thanked her.

This “thank you” carried a fierce, almost gnashing-teeth intensity. The more Bai Jiangxin thought about it, the angrier he became. He sneered inwardly. He couldn’t even wait until class ended, itching to drag her to the head teacher to change seats right now.

Meanwhile, Xiang Di remained completely unaware. After a long internal rant, finally feeling vented, she let out a deep sigh.

【What’s the use of cursing him, Xiang Di? Admit it, you still like Bai Jiangxin, hopelessly so.】

Looking at the back of her head and hearing her helpless sigh in her mind, Bai Jiangxin suddenly froze. What did she mean, still liked him?

Before he could fully digest this yet another unexpected confession from her, she screamed internally again.

【Ahhh but I’m still so angry he gave me that look!】

【Bai Jiangxin, I sentence you to be my licking dog¹Licking dog: It refers to a person who obsessively and unilaterally pursues someone they are romantically interested in, often to an excessive or even self-degrading degree, despite clear disinterest, rejection, or poor treatment from the other party..】

Bai Jiangxin frowned.

Be her licking dog? Unless he had gone insane.

【I sentence you to be a licking dog for me a hundred times! Until I’m fully satisfied!】

…Was she even speaking Chinese?

While Bai Jiangxin was still stunned, Xiang Di had already begun her cowardly, imaginary revenge.

Footnotes

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  Licking dog: It refers to a person who obsessively and unilaterally pursues someone they are romantically interested in, often to an excessive or even self-degrading degree, despite clear disinterest, rejection, or poor treatment from the other party.