Chapter 38

“I don’t want to eat this. Stay away from me.” Fu Yangxi raised his head and glanced at Zhao Mingxi. Then his gaze fell on her hand pushing against his arm. He added, “Also, it is improper for a man and woman to touch each other so casually, so you should be more careful from now on.”

Mingxi: “…”

Mingxi tried her best not to squint her eyes in confusion. She unpacked the package and handed it to Fu Yangxi. “What’s wrong with you today?! Just try one, there are both lemon and strawberry flavors available. When you’re sick you need to replenish your energy!”

Fu Yangxi glanced at her with eyes full of sorrow. “Do you really care if I still have energy or not?”

He pressed his lips tightly and leaned his whole body on the cold wall.

As soon as Mingxi leaned forward and he retreated, the whole scene turned into a scene of Mingxi oppressing him, forcing him to put his hand on the edge of his chair, trapping him in the corner, and his look as if he would rather die than obey.

The whole class couldn’t help but look over out of curiosity.

“…”

Mingxi’s cheeks were hot. She hurriedly withdrew her hands and set her back straight.

“Are you still ill?” Mingxi had no choice but to put the sweet into her own mouth. She muttered and asked, “If you’re still not feeling well, why not ask for another day off? Did you bring a thermometer? Have you taken your temperature?”

She felt that his fever had gone away. She could feel it while she was sitting next to him for three periods in the morning. She no longer felt the scorching heat coming from his body as compared to when she was at his house the day before yesterday.

Boys at this age are physically strong so they would recover quickly.

But why is it that even though the fever is gone, he still looks so tired?

Thinking of this, Mingxi stretched out her hand subconsciously to check the body temperature on Fu Yangxi’s forehead.

However, Fu Yangxi avoided her again.

He even stood up abruptly.

With a crash, the chair fell on the floor.

Fu Yangxi turned around and walked out of the classroom. He looked cold and tired. “I have recovered from my illness, so you don’t have to worry about me anymore.”

Mingxi looked up at him. She turned her neck like a sunflower would to the sun and asked inexplicably, “Then why are you unhappy?”

Mingxi grabbed his shirt in confusion.

Fu Yangxi turned away. “I’m not unhappy.”

Did she want me to say, “Because I thought you liked me; because I have always been playing into this one-sided love. Now that my dreams are broken, my self-esteem is also smashed to the ground. I feel like a humiliated clown.”? Did she want me to say such embarrassing words?

It was too mortifying. He didn’t know how to face it.

“Bullshit,” Mingxi said. “Xi ge, I can still read your mood. Did something happen to you at home?”

“…Nothing happened.”

Fu Yangxi fell silent before pushing Zhao Mingxi’s hand away. “Remember that it is improper for a man and woman to touch each other so casually.”

Mingxi: “…”

Mingxi watched as Fu Yangxi left the classroom. She felt really puzzled.

…

At first, she thought that Fu Yangxi was just unable to lift up his spirits because of his illness, but now it seems that something bad must have happened to him, maybe something troublesome.

Maybe something happened at home? But she didn’t know anything about his home…

At the beginning, Mingxi’s mind was only filled with her terminal illness, so she didn’t want to ask so much.

Later, she became friends with Fu Yangxi, Ke Chengwen and the others. She didn’t know if he would be provoked if she used her humble status as a follower to inquire about his privacy. Thus, she suppressed her curiosity and refrained from questioning him.

And now— Mingxi panicked. She didn’t care anymore. She turned her head and asked Ke Chengwen about this.

“Xi ge is acting weird these days. Did something happen?”

Ke Chengwen was shocked when he saw Zhao Mingxi. He immediately used a book to block his face. However, Mingxi quickly took the book away. “Don’t avoid my question.”

“You’re probably thinking too much about it,” Ke Chengwen murmured. “Xi ge is the same as usual.”

He reached out a hand to grab the book.

“What do you mean ‘same as usual’?” Mingxi grabbed his book and rebutted. “He used to practically write the words ‘cocky’ and ‘narcissistic’ on his face, but why is it that ever since he got sick, he looks as if someone had beat him up?”

“He was scolded by his grandfather, that’s why he’s in a bad mood. He’ll be fine in another two days.”

Ke Chengwen thought, wouldn’t telling you be equivalent to embarassing Xi ge?

Besides, you were the one who said that you didn’t like Brother Xi on the phone. Won’t you feel embarrassed and awkward after knowing Xi ge’s thoughts? Won’t you run away and reject him?

Ke Chengwen felt that once he said it, not only would Zhao Mingxi and Fu Yangxi never get to be a couple, they might not even be friends.

This kind of ‘I like the enemy, but the enemy doesn’t like me. But for a long time, I mistakenly thought that the enemy liked me, and finally found out that the enemy already had someone else they liked’— This sort of mess. Ke Chengwen’s straight-oriented brain was buzzing when he thought of all this.

He felt that if he got caught in the middle, he would become the bad guy.

So Ke Chengwen casually said, “He is that type of person. He isn’t targeting you. Didn’t you see that he has been indifferent to us all day today? Just let him figure it out himself.”

After two days of thinking, maybe the ‘feeling of being betrayed’ would disappear, and everyone can continue being friends, as if nothing had happened.

Although Ke Chengwen said that Fu Yangxi’s dampened mood was due to his grandfather.

Mingxi still felt like something was wrong.

…

She didn’t want Fu Yangxi to be unhappy.

She couldn’t bear to see Fu Yangxi depressed, but she didn’t know how to make him feel better.

At noon, Mingxi deliberately pulled He Yang along with her to go outside the school. She bought a small pot of cactus and placed it on Fu Yangxi’s table. She hoped that he would feel better when he saw some green plants.

Fu Yangxi didn’t throw it away, but he didn’t take another glance at it nor did he explode in anger like he would before and blame her for messing up his table.

The red bird in Fu Yangxi’s heart seemed to be dead. It lay on the ground softly with two rows of tears. It could no longer show off.

As for Mingxi, she felt at a loss.

Because she was concerned about what happened to Fu Yangxi, Mingxi couldn’t help but focus on him all day and turn her head to look at him from time to time during class.

As she watched, Mingxi stopped brushing the tip of her pen on the notebook. The accumulation of ink became a dot as she fell in a daze.

…Because she suddenly discovered that the person next to her was really good-looking.

Impeccable facial features, exquisite handsomeness, and when there’s no expression on his face, there was an unapproachable feeling.

It made people feel a kind of, just a kind of— inexplicable, unclear, as if one’s heart was crawling with ants, sour and vague feeling.

Mingxi’s gaze subconsciously fell on his tightly pressed thin lips and suddenly felt an itch on her body. However, she couldn’t reach out to scratch it.

Because no matter where she scratched, it was like she was scratching on a barrier.

Mingxi touched her chest unconsciously. Only then did she realize that her heart was the one that felt itchy.

…

Fu Yangxi was leaning his head on his hand, his eyelids not lifting at the slightest. He was trying his best to act indifferent, pretending not to notice Mingxi’s gaze falling upon his face. He was also pretending that the roots of his ears were not crazily hot at all.

He knew it. He doesn’t look bad, right? Why has Little Mask never stared at him before?

Now that Zhao Mingxi was finally staring at him like this, Fu Yangxi really wanted to Photoshop his profile a little so that he could become more handsome.

Nonetheless, he also knew that he was good-looking enough, so he boldly turned the pages of the book casually, pretending to be nonchalant about this.

After a while, he caught a glimpse of Zhao Mingxi’s gaze, and Fu Yangxi’s mood after a few days of cloudiness finally improved albeit by just a little.

He changed his posture so that his left hand was propped below his head while his right hand was holding his mobile phone underneath the table. He quickly went on Baidu and searched ‘Which angle of a high school boy’s face with a height of 1.88 meters is the most attractive to girls’…

While Zhao Mingxi was staring at Fu Yangxi’s Adam’s apple and swallowing unconsciously, Mr. Lu who was on the podium couldn’t stand it anymore and yelled, “Mingxi! What are you looking at? Is the face of your deskmate blooming?”

Mingxi was taken aback. She quickly sat up straight and placed both her hands on the table.

The corner of Fu Yangxi’s mouth twitched, and the little bird that was on the verge of death finally jerked its leg.