At the same time, Xiang Di was also staring at her own status message, but she wasn’t solving a riddle—because the person who set the riddle was herself.

The numbers were the nine-key keypad pinyin of Bai Jiangxin’s name, and the three emojis that followed were all related to him as well: a cypress tree, a landscape painting of rivers and mountains, and a star.

Bai (柏) stands tall and upright, unafraid of wind and snow. Jiang (江) is like a gentleman’s river, vast and far-reaching. Xin (忻) is a pleased smile, joy and happiness. When you admire and like someone, even his name becomes perfect—like a piece of bubble gum you never get tired of chewing, slowly savoring it in your mouth, always able to taste something special, to interpret all kinds of beautiful meanings.

Xiang Di looked again at her profile picture, a chubby internet-famous little orange cat. The reason she used it as her avatar was that when her senior year of high school had just begun, Qianqian pulled her into the class group chat. There were dozens of classmates’ WeChat accounts, and as soon as she was added, the first thing Xiang Di did was look for Bai Jiangxin’s WeChat.

Bai Jiangxin’s WeChat name was simply the initials of his name, a very lazy way of naming it, perfectly fitting his top-student persona and indifferent personality. But his profile picture was not what she had imagined a cold, aloof male god would use—not the same old gloomy black or some boring artsy landscape screenshot—but a handsome ragdoll cat.

It looked very expensive. Its deep blue eyes were as beautiful and profound as the sea. For some reason, when she realized that Bai Jiangxin actually used a pet cat as his profile picture, she suddenly felt that he was no longer so lofty and unapproachable.

So he also liked cute things, and would use a cute animal as his avatar.

Because the cat was really beautiful, Xiang Di subconsciously assumed it was some internet-famous cat. So she even specially went online to make a post asking about it, saying that this was the avatar used by a boy she had a crush on, and asking netizens to help identify which internet-famous cat it was.

Doing reading comprehension on every detail about that person is the beginner’s course for every secret admirer. At that time, many warm-hearted sisters appeared under Xiang Di’s post. Everyone had experienced unrequited love before, and they could all empathize with her, helping her compare images. So Xiang Di quickly learned the answer.

—This should be a cat that the boy you like raises himself.

—Just add him, then deliberately ask him which internet-famous cat this is. Praise the cat for being cute. If it really is his cat, won’t you have a topic to talk about?

Netizens all like to see stories where secret love comes true, helping her make plans and offer suggestions. At that moment, Xiang Di’s heart stirred, and in that instant, she truly had the impulse to add him as a friend.

But in the end, she still gave up. The reason she envied every brave person was because she didn’t have that kind of courage—not even the courage to add him as a friend.

Xiang Di collected many photos of ragdoll cats, wanting to use one as her avatar. She had already changed it and thought about it for a long time, but in the end she changed it back to this current orange cat.

It could be considered… the same style of avatar as his, and it wasn’t easy to tell. After all, there were far too many people who used cats or dogs as their avatars.

This orange cat—Xiang Di used it for an entire semester. Even Qianqian would sometimes ask her how she could stand not changing her avatar for so long.

Xiang Di only said that she didn’t like changing her avatar often, but actually, before switching to this one, she was the type who would die if she didn’t change her avatar. Her highest record was changing it four times in one day.

Later, she even went to great lengths to come up with a status message related to Bai Jiangxin, and she never changed that status either.

To outsiders, their WeChat accounts would just seem completely unrelated. The only common point was that they both used cats as avatars. But only Xiang Di herself knew that this was her carefully planned arrangement.

People with secret crushes always like to do some meaningless things in the tiny details of life—afraid of being too obvious, yet also afraid of being too unnoticeable.

If she truly didn’t want anyone to discover it, she could have posted a moment visible only to herself; even eight hundred posts a day wouldn’t be noticed by anyone. Yet she deliberately put it in the most eye-catching place, the status message, which showed that in her heart, she was also hoping someone would discover it.

Xiang Di remained caught in this contradictory secret love, until Bai Jiangxin came to ask her what her status message meant.

Would he discover it? Discover that her status message was actually a riddle about his name.

Xiang Di felt her heart beating very fast. If he decoded it, what kind of reaction would he give her? Teasing, rejection, or indifference.

None of those. Bai Jiangxin sent over a simple moon emoji, meaning he was going to sleep, and their conversation ended there.

Of course—he was a favored son of heaven who had never tasted the bitterness of secret love. How would he know about the twists and turns in the hearts of people like them who had once harbored secret feelings?

Xiang Di let out a breath, feeling both relieved and disappointed, then sprawled on the bed and rolled over once.

Afraid of being discovered—thinking too much, you. He doesn’t even have the time to play these childish decryption games with you, okay? People with secret crushes really are full of drama.

How could Bai Jiangxin possibly analyze her status message word by word? He wasn’t her. He didn’t like her. The fact that he added her as a friend was already the greatest courtesy. And she was still expecting him to do reading comprehension on her?

He probably had just added her as a friend, so he casually clicked on her avatar, glanced at it, thought her status message was unclear, and asked about it offhandedly.

Wait—didn’t that mean he might have casually clicked into her Moments too?

Xiang Di suddenly sat up in bed and hurriedly opened her Moments to check whether there was anything inappropriate for him to see.

Fortunately, there wasn’t. Her outward persona was still that of a reserved little young lady. Her Moments were mostly normal high schooler posts complaining about school and exams, occasionally following a couple of internet memes, and sharing some nice songs.

While she was checking, a notification suddenly popped up in Moments—someone had liked her post.

She clicked in. It was that familiar ragdoll cat avatar.

Her heart leapt wildly. Xiang Di’s eyes widened. Bai Jiangxin had liked her post?! Which one?! Which of her posts was so lucky as to receive his little red heart?

Her Moments were set to six months visible. The earliest post was from half a year ago—when the bakery downstairs from her home had held a like-collecting event, giving out a portion of their newly launched dessert once enough likes were gathered.

Di Di Da Di Da: 【Family, help me out, this kid is really too greedy [pitiful]~】

That post had reached the required number of likes within a few hours of being posted. Qianqian had even commented, telling her to remember to bring it to school for her to try.

The one Bai Jiangxin liked was this post.

So he was helping her collect likes for a post from half a year ago?

Xiang Di collapsed back onto the bed once more.

That meant he had scrolled through all of her Moments from the past six months, all the way back to the earliest one, and then liked it.

…He really looked down on her social connections too much. How could a post possibly still not have enough likes after half a year?

…He was really too aloof. She had so many interesting posts, yet he chose to like the one with the least value.

…He was really too nice. Seeing her asking for likes—someone so aloof—actually lowered himself to like it for her.

No matter how she analyzed Bai Jiangxin’s action of liking her post, Xiang Di only came to one conclusion: she really, really liked him. He had merely looked at her Moments and liked one post, and she was already so happy she didn’t know where she was anymore.

Hugging her phone, Xiang Di grinned foolishly, curling herself into a ball on the bed. Excited, shy, thrilled—just thinking about the boy she secretly liked going through her Moments from beginning to end gave her an inexplicable feeling, like having her clothes stripped off and being seen through by him.

Unable to hold it in, she directly yelled at the ceiling.

“Woo!”

No, still too excited. Xiang Di started humming a song again.

“You are my little star, hanging up in the sky shining bright, I’ve already decided to love you, I won’t give up easily, oh yeah yi yeah yi yeah~”

And she even added some inexplicable vocal runs, thinking she was very skillful, when in fact it just sounded ridiculous.

Sure enough, the next second there was a knock on the door. Xiang Sheng’s flippant voice sounded from outside. “Excuse me, Miss Folk Vocal-Run Queen, could you keep it down? I’m trying to do homework here, are you holding a concert or something?”

Dead brother, such a buzzkill. Xiang Di’s face immediately drooped. “Mind your own business.”

Xiang Sheng said, “If I didn’t mind your business, do you think you’d have grown this big? Hurry up and wash up and go to sleep. Don’t expect me to wake you up tomorrow.”

Xiang Di said, “Sorry, tomorrow is Sunday. I’m. On. Vacation.”

“You’re in senior year and you still get days off?” Xiang Sheng sounded shocked. “Your teachers actually don’t make you attend classes seven days a week? That’s way too irresponsible, isn’t it?”

Xiang Di ground her teeth. “Are you even human?”

“I’m not human, so you can figure out your own meals tomorrow,” Xiang Sheng said lazily. “Dad transferred me five thousand. Since you’re off tomorrow, I was originally planning to take you out to eat something good. Forget it.”

The moment she heard there was free food, Xiang Di’s attitude did a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. She ran over and opened the door.

Xiang Sheng hooked his lips into a smile, crossed his arms, leaned against the doorframe, and lowered his gaze to look at her.

“You’re of course not human,” Xiang Di said, suppressing then lifting her tone. “You’re a super handsome guy.”

Xiang Sheng snorted arrogantly through his nose. “Tell me how handsome. Say it well and I might consider taking you out to eat tomorrow.”

Xiang Di said directly, “So handsome that I want to do sibling incest with you.”

The expression on Xiang Sheng’s face froze instantly.

Xiang Di smiled sweetly at him, using the most innocent, pure tone to say the most worldview-shattering words.

Any man with normal values wouldn’t want to hear something like that from his own sister. Even knowing it was a joke, he’d still be startled.

Just moments ago, Xiang Sheng had been showing off in front of his sister because he had five thousand in hand. Now he immediately felt uncomfortable all over, cursed “damn pervert,” turned around, and left.

His own sister was simply too terrifying.

Back in middle school, she had already started reading pornographic novels. When she got caught, she even dumped the blame on him. Even though he had desperately defended himself in front of their parents back then, all it took was his sister blinking her eyes and putting on an innocent look, and their parents would unconditionally believe that pure, harmless face of hers.