CH 15

The boy who had been called upon to dribble the ball hesitated for a moment before happily starting, pointing his index and middle fingers at his forehead and swinging his arm in what he thought was a cool way towards Kong Nianxi.

Xi Ning stood next to Kong Nianxi, holding an umbrella, and immediately felt a drop in air pressure. The cheerleaders all turned to look at them, but no one stood up to “educate” Kong Nianxi for her behavior.

The other team was inspired by their beautiful player, and their morale soared, resulting in frequent goals. Kong Nianxi was happy and cheered them on.

At the end of the game, Xi Mu had a sad face and did not even come up to say goodbye. The boy who had just played came over to chat instead. “Hi, can I add you on WeChat?”

He exuded the confidence of a handsome guy.

Kong Nianxi replied coldly, “Sorry, you can’t.”

The bell signaling the end of class rang from the loudspeaker in the field, and students from all directions converged in a black mass towards the teaching building.

When Tu Xiaoyuan ran over from the other end of the field, she saw Xi Ning and Kong Nianxi standing side by side, sharing an umbrella.

In high school, students tended to have a sense of group consciousness. Once they became familiar with a group, they tended to move together, whether it was in class, during meals, or in sports. Conversely, participating in an event together also meant being accepted by the group.

Tu Xiaoyuan casually invited Kong Nianxi, never expecting her to agree so readily. So on the way back to the classroom, the four of them walked together.

With Tu Xiaoyuan, a chatterbox, around, Kong Nianxi, who was not good at socializing, became more comfortable. They went from being classmates who had never spoken to each other to adding each other as friends on social media and even discussing whether to grill fish together on the weekend.

Of course, Xi Ning was also “forced” to follow Kong Nianxi on Weibo, but she rarely went online and had only a dozen fans who never commented on her posts. Compared to Kong Nianxi’s ten thousand followers, she was practically a zombie account. Her plain profile picture and random English characters were quite noticeable in Kong Nianxi’s following list.

In the classroom, Tu Xiaoyuan stood next to her seat, holding a dirty package in one hand and pulling Xi Ning’s sleeve with the other. “I understand now, Ninging. Kong Nianxi is just an angel!”

Xi Ning was confused. “What?”

Tu Xiaoyuan continued, “I used to hear rumors that she was difficult to get close to, but after getting to know her, I realized that she’s the type of person who’s hard not to be friends with. No wonder you two hit it off so quickly~”

Xi Ning thought back to the times she had spent with Kong Nianxi that week. Her brow furrowed slightly as she pondered.

“Oh, I need to go to the bathroom. Can you help me open this?” Tu Xiaoyuan suddenly interrupted, handing the package to Xi Ning and rushing off to the restroom.

The gray plastic bag contained a colorful comic book. Xi Ning briefly scanned it and found that it was a full-color yuri manga.

She planned to leave it on the desk and leave, but something on the cover caught her eye. It depicted two women kissing in a rather explicit style.

Xi Ning hesitated for a moment before quickly flipping the book over on the desk. Looking around, she saw that no one had noticed what she was holding. She breathed a sigh of relief before examining the book once more, only to discover that the back cover also had illustrations, this time featuring three long-haired female characters intertwined.

She quickly stuffed the book into Tu Xiaoyuan’s desk and thought to herself that while there was nothing inherently wrong with yuri manga, this one was a bit too explicit for school.

Xi Ning crumpled the delivery bag in her hand and threw it into the garbage bin behind her. As she turned to walk towards her seat, she suddenly noticed an abnormal heartbeat in her chest and a slight fever in her ears.

She had watched kissing scenes between the male and female leads in BL comics without feeling the acceleration of her heart rate like she did just now.

As she sat down, she received a call from Tu Xiaoyuan but hesitated for two seconds before answering.

“Uh… Níng Níng, I forgot to bring tissue paper. Can you come and save me?”

“…”

She hung up the phone and took some conveniently packaged tissues out of her desk drawer before leaving the classroom.

As she walked, she thought about the comic and wondered why Tu Xiaoyuan suddenly developed a taste for this genre. She reached the front door of the school and was about to turn left when she looked up and saw Kong Nianxi walking in with a group of people, laughing and chatting.

As their gazes were about to meet, Xi Ning felt inexplicably nervous, although she did not know why. She quickly lowered her head, increased her pace, and walked past Kong Nianxi while hugging the wall.

Kong Nianxi felt a familiar figure flash past her and caught a whiff of the fragrance of Xí Níng’s shampoo. She turned around and glanced down the hallway, seeing Xí Níng’s back not far away. She could not help but smile.

Why was she so nervous again?

…

Tu Xiaoyuan explained that she bought the yuri comic book because the content was good and popular in several other countries. She couldn’t resist buying the physical copy but was afraid of her mother finding out, so she had it delivered to the school.

“It’s really good. Níng Níng, do you want to read it? I’ll lend it to you first.”

During the dinner break, Tu Xiaoyuan came to Xí Níng’s desk and casually placed the comic on her desk.

In fact, she had an ulterior motive. The comic only had an English translation, and Xí Níng’s English grades were in the double digits, so it would be difficult for her to read. If Xí Níng liked it, maybe she could help with the translation.

Xí Níng was reading her book and turned her head to see the colorful cover of the comic book on her desk, causing her scalp to tingle. She quickly grabbed a test paper and covered it up. “Tu… Xiaoyuan, what are you doing?”

Her tone went from high to low, and she lowered her voice, glancing around nervously. “I don’t want to read it. Take it away.”

“Hahaha…” Tu Xiaoyuan didn’t expect this kind of reaction and found it amusing. “I’m starting to realize that you’re a closet freak, Níng Níng?”

“???” Xí Níng sat up straight and tried to defend her innocence. “Stop it, I just saw this type of thing for the first time…”

“Homophobia is deep in the closet.”

Xí Níng was taken aback and raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I write your speech on sexual minority rights last time? You’re calling me homophobic?”

Tu Xiaoyuan waved her hand. “Oh, it’s just a general term. I mean, the more nervous you are, the more you actually want it. Ah, Níng Níng, you know so much~”

“…” Xí Níng sat back in her chair and tried to save face. “Stop it. I’ll reluctantly take a look since you’re promoting it so hard.”

She didn’t expect her probing to backfire and become a challenge. Tu Xiaoyuan’s eyes flickered as she said, “It’s really good! I guarantee you’ll enjoy it! But… this is the English version. If you like it, why not translate it for me?”

…Tu Xiaoyuan’s hard sell was for this purpose.

Xí Níng laughed and leaned back in her chair, tapping her fingers on the desk. “Two weeks of errands.”

Tu Xiaoyuan frowned, but finally agreed through gritted teeth for the sake of a better reading experience.

“Xí Níng, go to my office and get next month’s physics exam paper.” The physics teacher stood at the classroom door and waved to her.

Xí Níng quickly responded, got up, and left the classroom.

As soon as the rankings were posted, the classmates crowded around them as soon as the teacher left.

The fastest runner among them was Tu Xiaoyuan. Although her grades were only average and she didn’t particularly enjoy studying, she paid particular attention to her ranking.

“Hey, Kong Nianxi and I are still right next to each other in the rankings, still below Ningning,” Tu Xiaoyuan muttered to herself as she stared at the top two spots.

The curly-haired boy next to her couldn’t help but tease her, “What nonsense are you talking about? Our sister Xi is not always at the bottom.”

Tu Xiaoyuan glanced at the boy and retorted, “You curly-haired brat, stop making trouble. I was talking about the rankings.”

“I was talking about the rankings too. Next time, Sister Xi will be on top,” the curly-haired boy laughed.

Although Tu Xiaoyuan had gotten to know Kong Nianxi fairly well that day, her heart remained firmly on the side of Xi Ning. “That’s not necessarily true,” she said.

The curly-haired boy chuckled and raised his voice teasingly as he saw Kong Nianxi walking past from the back row. “Sister Xi, Xiaoyuan just said that you’ll always be below Xi Ning.”

Laughter erupted around them. Tu Xiaoyuan caught sight of Kong Nianxi turning towards them, and her face immediately flushed. She glared at the curly-haired boy and ground her teeth, “Curly-haired brat, I was talking about the rankings! You–“

Suddenly, she felt a weight on her shoulder and smelled a pleasant, alluring fragrance. She didn’t dare to speak.

Kong Nianxi lightly leaned her arm on Tu Xiaoyuan’s shoulder, leaned in to look at the ranking list, and smiled, “It’s okay. I’m quite happy to be below her.”