Being able to hear what other people are thinking is, in itself, a very mysterious thing.

The first time Bai Jiangxin knew about it was when he was very, very young—so young that he had no memory of it at all. The nanny taking care of him tested the temperature of the formula by taking a sip from the bottle, then fed it to him. Right after that, a sound appeared in his mind—the nanny sighing about how lucky the young master’s life was.

At the time, he couldn’t understand it at all. He thought his brain was broken, was so frightened that he burst into tears, and even startled the nanny.

Bai Jiangxin couldn’t speak, and his parents didn’t know what the reason was. They thought the nanny was unprofessional and replaced her with another one. This nanny didn’t drink from his bottle, and things finally quieted down.

But after all, he wasn’t in an isolation ward. It was inevitable that he would have contact with people. His parents were both busy with work and truly had no time to look after Bai Jiangxin, so they simply sent him to his grandfather’s home.

The first thing Bai Jiangxin did after learning how to express himself in words was to tell his grandfather about how his brain was broken.

His grandfather understood as soon as he heard it, and from then on strictly controlled his grandson’s food and drink.

When Bai Jiangxin grew a little older, his grandfather finally told him that this was a hereditary disease.

Using simple biological knowledge to explain it, the disease gene was equivalent to a kind of trait expression. But it was neither a common autosomal dominant nor recessive inheritance, nor was it passed down with the X or Y chromosome. Instead, it was a very special homozygous dominant hereditary disease.

Suppose the dominant gene is represented by the capital letter D, and the recessive gene by the lowercase letter d. Then this hereditary disease would only manifest in the DD trait that contains no heterozygous genes at all.

Only one in ten thousand people would possess this DD gene. This DD gene is easily diluted by a partner’s heterozygous genes, making it extremely difficult to inherit. Moreover, unlike other hereditary diseases such as albinism, it does not directly manifest in the patient’s physical appearance, nor can it be detected by medical instruments unless the patient voluntarily discloses it. Therefore, at present, this hereditary disease has almost never appeared in any written pathological records.

Bai Jiangxin’s grandfather’s grandmother also had this disease. The reason his grandfather knew about it was because he had heard about it from his grandmother when he was a child.

His grandfather said that unless absolutely necessary, he should not tell this disease to anyone, including his own parents.

Bai Jiangxin asked why. His grandfather only said that this disease sounded magical, like something from a movie, but in reality, it was not a good thing for oneself or for others.

His grandfather had been born in a turbulent era. In that era, soldiers fought wars on the battlefield, and he fought opponents on the political stage. This disease had indeed allowed him to contribute a great deal to the organization and unit at the time. But later, when the war was won, peace arrived, and there were no more enemies, his disease became a source of anxiety for his colleagues.

No one was willing to work with him. His grandfather was well aware of this, and he proactively requested to be assigned to an idle post, far away from the center of power. Only then did he exchange it for a peaceful latter half of his life for himself and his family.

The human heart is the most complex thing in the world. The greatest secrets are often hidden in the deepest recesses of the heart. No one is without secrets at all, so even when facing the closest people, one should not tell them.

“Then does Grandma know you have this disease?” Bai Jiangxin asked.

His grandfather said, “Of course your grandmother doesn’t know. Otherwise, she would have been frightened away long ago.”

At that moment, Grandma happened to come in to bring cut fruit to the grandfather and grandson, and casually told Grandpa that a friend of hers had been hospitalized and that she was going to visit them, so she wouldn’t be home for dinner that evening.

Grandpa said okay. After Grandma left, he snorted with a laugh and said, “What hospitalized? Your grandmother is just going out to play mahjong and making up those lousy excuses.”

Bai Jiangxin was a little puzzled. His grandfather and grandmother had clearly not touched each other just now, so why could Grandpa still know what Grandma was thinking?

Only then did Grandpa tell him that to hear the other person’s thoughts, it wasn’t necessarily required to have bodily contact. For example, accidentally using the same pair of chopsticks to eat could also allow one to hear it.

This was easy to understand—it was just eating someone else’s saliva.

“But Grandpa, at lunch, you were clearly using the public chopsticks too,” Bai Jiangxin raised a childlike, innocent question of the soul. “Then why were you still able to eat Grandma’s saliva?”

Grandpa’s expression stiffened for a moment, then he said, “You’ll know that once you grow up.”

Eighteen-year-old Bai Jiangxin let out a deep sigh in his heart. He indeed knew now and had deeply experienced it.

But why hadn’t the old man told him back then that this damned disease also had an even more mysterious symptom—that if the other person’s inner monologue was too rich, the narration of an audiobook could even turn into vivid images.

Xiang Di was practically like someone who had studied painting. The entire composition and coloring of the scene were extremely rich, the hues and shadows hazy and blurred. Only for some reason, there was no her in the picture.

Bai Jiangxin stared at the face in the image, unable to imagine no matter what that it was his own face.

Yet it was indeed his own features. The cool, detached brows and eyes hadn’t changed at all, exactly the same as himself in the mirror on any given day.

Bai Jiangxin really didn’t want to admit it, but the him in the picture, although he didn’t know what he was doing at the moment, truly looked very erotic.

In the image, he was frowning, lightly biting his lower lip. His Adam’s apple was stuck stiffly at some point along his neck, jutting out conspicuously. Even his breathing had stalled, as if he were enduring something.

He had grown up this long—when had he ever worn such an expression? Yet it was undeniably him, because there really was a mole growing on his Adam’s apple.

Such a tiny mole, and Xiang Di had actually noticed it.

His face was red. The tips of his ears and a large stretch of his collarbones were also red. Seeing his collarbones, Bai Jiangxin suddenly realized that, in the image Xiang Di was imagining, he wasn’t wearing any clothes at all.

His gaze shifted downward in disbelief, and the “camera” seemed to follow his movement at that very moment, arriving at his bare chest and navel.

Bai Jiangxin sucked in a sharp breath of cold air.

He did have muscles, but it was only a just-right layer of lean muscle—enough not to make him look too skinny. With the heavy academic workload of his senior year of high school, he had no extra time at all for exercise, let alone deliberately going to the gym to train himself into some hulking beast and produce such a pair of proud, jiggly pecs and eight-pack abs.

Girls who barely had any flesh on their own bodies sure had high standards for men’s physiques. She, that tiny little thing who could be lifted with one hand, was so lacking in fitness knowledge, yet really thought building muscle was as easy as eating and drinking.

Should he even be thanking her? This way, without exercising, without eating protein powder, and without going to the gym to lift iron, he could painlessly own this kind of broad double-door refrigerator physique in her imagined scene.

Though it was understandable. After all, she had never seen what he really looked like without clothes. It wasn’t strange for her to have her own imagination.

But he still didn’t quite understand where Xiang Di was. He also didn’t understand why the angle was this kind of downward view, nor did he understand what exactly he was holding his breath to thrust against.

Not until he saw his own hand grasp a small ankle, then slide upward along it, his fingertips pinching the soft calf, leaving pink indentations on skin that couldn’t withstand much roughness, before he hoisted those slender legs up onto his shoulders.

“……”

How was this any different from watching porn—and watching a film starring himself, no less?

No wonder it was this angle. So that certain groundhog was underneath.

At this moment, his rhythm was already getting faster and faster. A thin layer of sweat broke out on his forehead, dampening his hair, and a few drops of sweat even fell.

“Ah.”

Another familiar, light cry.

The tone hadn’t changed, but there was a feeling that was hard to put into words.

Like a small hook, tugging at his eardrums—very itchy—giving Bai Jiangxin the urge to scratch his ears.

Bai Jiangxin bit down hard on his lips, not knowing what she was calling out again.

The him in the image was highly synchronized with the him in reality, and was also asking, “What are you calling out for?”

“Your sweat dripped onto me…”

He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her coquettish voice: “It’s so cold.”

It didn’t sound like she was complaining. Calling it acting spoiled was more appropriate.

The him in the picture probably quite liked this sort of thing. He glanced downward, then let out a low laugh. “Then I’ll help you suck it away.”

As he spoke, Bai Jiangxin lowered his head, immediately triggering another series of light cries.

A picture was just a picture—like watching a movie. There was no shared sensation, and wherever the picture didn’t show, he couldn’t see what was happening.

But not having eaten pork didn’t mean he hadn’t seen pigs run. Bai Jiangxin had basic physiological knowledge in this regard, so he could more or less guess where he was kissing her.

Bai Jiangxin pressed his lips together tightly, not wanting to speak.

“You’re not allowed to suck anymore.”

Xiang Di was probably hurt by it. She shoved him away abruptly, then reached out in retaliation. Her boneless, delicate little hand formed an extreme contrast with his hard chest as she pinched him.

“……”

In reality, Bai Jiangxin only felt a sort of phantom pain.

The him in the picture was probably stimulated as well. He suddenly threw his head back, and even the mole on his Adam’s apple—something he himself usually overlooked easily—seemed to turn red at this moment.

After recovering, he lowered his head, looking fierce and cold. “Don’t touch randomly.”

She muttered unhappily, “You’re the one who started messing around first.”

A laugh spilled from Bai Jiangxin’s throat. “Didn’t you say it was cold? I’ll help warm you up.”

“I don’t want you to warm me up anymore. Are you done yet? I’m tired.”

“How could it be that fast? Behave yourself.”

The Bai Jiangxin in the picture suddenly lowered his body. The Bai Jiangxin in reality subconsciously leaned back.

Then he heard himself warn Xiang Di in a hoarse voice: “Move around again and I’ll fuck you to death, believe it or not?”

“……” Was that really something he would say?

Bai Jiangxin closed his eyes in slight collapse.

Xiang! Di!

You perverted groundhog with nothing but that kind of stuff in your head.

Couldn’t he call the anti-porn hotline and get this groundhog taken away already, so she’d stop wreaking havoc on him?

The next second, unable to endure it any longer, Bai Jiangxin slammed his pen down hard. The sound of the desk being struck was infinitely amplified in the dull classroom.

The imagination finally came to an abrupt halt. The images instantly dispersed.

The biology teacher on the podium, who had been intently playing on his phone, was startled. He was just about to scold whoever had made the noise when he realized it was Bai Jiangxin.

“What’s wrong, Bai Jiangxin?”

At the same time, quite a few classmates curiously looked over in his direction.

Including a certain instigator.

“……It’s nothing.” Bai Jiangxin forced himself to calm down. “Teacher, I want to go to the restroom.”

It was a pop quiz, so there weren’t many rules. The biology teacher said directly, “Oh, then hurry and go.”

Ye Minjia wore an expression of “I really am a great prophet.”

“I knew it, you just wanted to pee.”

Bai Jiangxin couldn’t be bothered to explain and stood up directly.

As he passed by a certain person’s desk, he clearly heard the quiet muttering in the mind of someone with her head lowered.

【Husband’s been going to the toilet a bit too often lately. These past few days he goes as soon as class ends, and now he can’t even hold it during an exam.】

She still had the nerve to mutter about why he was going to the toilet so frequently—whose responsibility did she think that was?

【Does husband have a prostate problem?】

Bai Jiangxin stopped beside her desk.

Sensing a certain oppressive presence, Xiang Di lifted her head in confusion.

【Why is husband looking at me?】

With an “OvO” expression.

May he ask, then—what right did she have to stare at him with such innocent, guileless big eyes? What right did she have to be innocent?

Bai Jiangxin instantly felt like his fist had landed on cotton.

At the same time, aside from the weakness in his limbs, there was another very strange feeling.

In reality, Xiang Di and Bai Jiangxin were just two classmates who weren’t close. They barely exchanged a few words with each other.

Those entangled scenes just now had been Xiang Di’s one-sided fantasies. Once the fantasies ended, it was only natural for Xiang Di to switch right back to reality.

But Bai Jiangxin couldn’t quite do that.

The school-issued summer uniform—girls’ summer outfits came in both long pants and short skirts. Some girls liked wearing long pants, others liked short skirts.

He had never paid attention to whether the girls in class wore long pants or short skirts in summer, much less paid attention to what Xiang Di wore.

So he had never known what Xiang Di’s legs looked like—until just now.

Even if it was a dream, he had indeed seen her bare, slender calves.

He didn’t know whether he should be grateful that the scene she imagined was in first-person perspective, so he only saw her calves and didn’t see more private parts further up.

Looking at those clear, innocent eyes, Bai Jiangxin’s breathing suddenly became a little difficult.

The hand hanging by his side unconsciously clenched. He actually felt a bit guilty and quickly looked away.

How could she, after fantasizing about him, immediately act like nothing had happened?

And clearly it was she who fantasized about him—so why was it he who felt unable to face her?

At this moment, the biology teacher’s voice sounded again. “Bai Jiangxin, why haven’t you gone yet?”

Bai Jiangxin snapped back to his senses and said in a low voice that he was going right away.

Before walking out of the classroom, he heard Xiang Di’s thoughts again.

【Okay, I really can’t think about it anymore. Now I really have to start taking the exam seriously!】

【Charge!】

A picture of someone brimming with motivation.

She was motivated now, but a whole large section of his biology exam paper was still untouched.

Bai Jiangxin now completely understood why Xiang Di had improved so much in the last joint exam.

She really did have an extraordinary way of relieving stress.

And he was her unlucky stress-relief tool.

─── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ───

The bell signaling the end of evening self-study rang. After turning in the papers, Xiang Di stretched out her arms and gave a big stretch.

Finally finished.

Liang Qianqian asked, “Want to go to the restroom?”

Xiang Di stood up. “Let’s go!”

Girls liked going to the restroom in groups too. The two girls linked arms sweetly and headed toward the restroom together.

The corridor lights were on. Quite a few classmates were standing in the hallway catching some air at this moment, and Xiang Di immediately spotted Bai Jiangxin coming from the direction of the teachers’ office.

Alarm bells instantly rang in Xiang Di’s heart. She hurriedly checked herself—her uniform wasn’t dirty, her shoes were very white. She reached up and adjusted her bangs. Good. Her hairstyle was okay too. Not ugly, not ugly.

From freshman year to senior year, even though they had brushed past each other many times, even though Bai Jiangxin had never once noticed her, Xiang Di still took every single brush-past with him very seriously. She would pay extra attention to her appearance, care about whether her expression looked natural enough, and even if it was just for an instant, she still wanted to try to leave him with the impression of “this girl is kind of cute.”

This time, she took it just as seriously.

Full of anticipation for passing by Bai Jiangxin—yet, for some reason, Bai Jiangxin suddenly turned around.

Although she wouldn’t be so self-important as to think he had deliberately avoided her because he saw her, failing to pass by him still made a very faint sense of loss rise in Xiang Di’s heart.

It was fine. For a secret crush, missing chances was the most normal thing in the world.

Xiang Di pressed her lips together slightly, feeling a bit sour, and optimistically comforted herself.