Chapter 10: Surprise

Ding-ding-ding-ding...

Groggily opening his eyes, Zhou Zhuang was certain that wasn’t the sound of his alarm clock. It was...

Someone knocking on the door!

He scrambled into his clothes, and when the knocking sounded for a third time, he finally opened it.

"What is wrong with you? You’re already going to be late and you still haven’t gotten up!" She Yujun stood there with a half-raised little fist, puffing out her cheeks and glaring unhappily at Zhou Zhuang’s clothes.

"Last night... I was a little drunk. I got into bed and passed out, and forgot to set the alarm." He scratched the back of his head. The real reason was too hard to say out loud, so he could only lie to his girlfriend again.

"Then hurry up and get ready. Let’s go, school, hurry!" She didn’t notice his awkwardness. The pressure of being late left her no time to think, and she urged him to get moving.

"Put your clothes on again. They’re on backward!"

As Zhou Zhuang turned around, she called out from behind him. Only then did he realize how ridiculous he looked. He darted into the bathroom, stripped off his shirt, and put it back on correctly.

Today was definitely his most efficient departure ever. By the time he was done getting ready, slung his backpack on, went downstairs, and got on the bike to leave, less than three minutes had passed. The result of that wash-up, though, was hard to put into words.

The hair on his forehead stuck straight up, making him look exactly like a rooster with its feathers bristling as it crowed.

"After I got drunk yesterday, what exactly happened? I woke up today and heard my mom and dad say it was you who brought me back." Once Zhou Zhuang had worked up the strength to set off, She Yujun wrapped her arms around his waist from the back seat and asked.

"Nothing much... Su Shiyi and I packed things up and took you onto the bus. We came all the way back."

That wasn’t a lie, exactly. He just left out the details. A classic case of glossing over the important parts.

"I didn’t say anything weird, did I?" She Yujun’s little heart fluttered with worry. She seemed to remember having said something lovey-dovey to Zhou Zhuang before blacking out yesterday. If she had accidentally blurted out the details of her sexy dream, she wouldn’t have the face to see anyone again. Her hand gripping Zhou Zhuang’s shirt hem tightened even more.

"Nope. You were really quiet when you were drunk. You were even like... a cute little sleeping rabbit." She hadn’t said anything she shouldn’t have, but he had done things he shouldn’t have. Guilty as he was, Zhou Zhuang could only toss out a playful line to distract her and keep her from dwelling on it.

Pleased by her boyfriend’s praise, she pressed her face against his back with a delighted smile. After a while, she finally spoke again, bringing up another unhappy matter.

"Zhou Zhuang, over the National Day holiday I have to go into the city with my parents. I won’t be able to stay with you." She rubbed her pretty face against his back with a spoiled little expression, savoring every second of warmth before the two of them had to part.

"Huh? Why? For that long?" This would be the longest separation they had ever had. In the past, even when something came up, they were usually back in two or three days at most. He was stunned.

"I don’t know. My dad told me today. He didn’t say why, just told me I had to go with them." She slapped her forehead. The hangover still hadn’t fully gone away, and the firm tone her father had used left her unable to refuse, which only made her head ache worse.

She really didn’t want to be apart from her boyfriend for so long.

Thinking of the strange questions She Guowei had asked the night before, Zhou Zhuang felt a faint unease.

So older people really do like being mysterious and talking in riddles? What’s the fun in making people guess?

He grumbled to himself.

But he couldn’t very well ask to his face. Whether it was an elder or his future father-in-law, he still had to show respect.

"It’ll be fine. Your dad isn’t going to hurt you. Just go with them. We can keep in touch by phone." He comforted his girlfriend softly.

They didn’t have phones, but they could borrow his parents’ and call the landline at her home.

Still, just thinking that every time they wanted to soothe their longing with a long phone call, they’d have to greet the adults first made him feel awkward.

They really did need a phone...

"Mm, I’ll listen to you. I guess that’s the only way." She held him and thought for a long time before finally agreeing, though her grip only tightened around him. "I don’t want to leave you."

"But I’m always in your heart." He smiled as he said a line so cheesy it made her melt. Then a figure suddenly drifted into his mind at the worst possible time, and he frowned slightly before awkwardly finishing the next line.

"And you’re in mine too."

By the time the bell rang, the two of them finally made it to class as the last arrivals. Su Shiyi was already sitting in her seat.

Zhou Zhuang didn’t dare look at her. Last night’s passion was still vivid in his mind, and to him now she looked no different from being completely naked.

"Why are you avoiding me?" Noticing that her deskmate had kept his head turned to the side ever since sitting down, she lightly poked him with a ballpoint pen and asked in a low voice.

"You know why." He didn’t change his posture, only dragged his chair a little farther away.

She tossed the pen to his feet. As if to pick it up, she let her hand brush lightly between his legs, and her two fingers mischievously tapped his balls twice. Bending over, she murmured a warning beneath him.

"Don’t you dare hide from me!"

Zhou Zhuang felt as though lightning had struck him. Thinking that this vixen was about to pull some shocking stunt again, his body stiffened.

"What the hell do you want?" he asked with a frown. Those cryptic words from the end of last night had kept him from understanding anything all night long, and the doubt in his chest finally erupted, drawing a round of attention from the students around them.

"I need you to help me look at this problem. I can’t do it." Smiling brightly, she handed him a workbook.

With all those eyes pressing down on him, he had no reason to refuse. But he was certain that was only an excuse, so he swept his gaze over her, trying to see what she really meant.

Black clothes are slimming, huh... How come they’re not as big as they were after she took them off last night...

He didn’t figure out her intentions, but he did imagine the full, firm pair of breasts hidden under her clothes, and the enticing pink tips perched on top.

Thinking of her naked body from yesterday, the second brother between his legs began to stir. He snatched up the problem book to cover his embarrassment.

Su Shiyi, who had been watching him the whole time, noticed the change. She blinked, moved her chair closer, and used her pen to point him to a problem.

Maybe it was perfume, or maybe she had washed her hair that morning, but the lovely scent coming off her kept drilling into Zhou Zhuang’s nose, sending all his blood rushing downward. A young body recovered fast; the cock that had only just been released last night was already hard and aching again.

His lower body was fully engorged with blood, his brain starved of oxygen, and his IQ had already vanished to who-knows-where. A problem he could normally solve in minutes took him three times as long.

Su Shiyi beside him wasn’t in any hurry. She watched him work with great interest.

Except her eyes weren’t on the notebook at all. They stayed fixed on the bulge in his pants. With both hands propping up her pretty face, her index finger tapped lightly against her cheek, thoughtful.

"Here, do you want me to explain it to you?" He handed her the book with one hand while the other discreetly adjusted the cock under his pants.

"No need. I’ll look at it first."

"Then can you explain it to me? You know what it is."

"Depends on my mood." She took the workbook, shot him a glare, and said nothing else.

Women and small men are hard to deal with!

Feeling like he’d been toyed with, his temper flared, but there was nothing he could do. In public, he couldn’t exactly bind her up and beat a confession out of her.

The only comfort was that his second brother had finally gone soft. Otherwise, sitting there with it hard while trying to study would have been pretty miserable...

Su Shiyi, the source of all the mystery, had no intention of clearing anything up for him at all. As soon as class was over, she ran off to giggle and fool around with She Yujun. After the weekend’s events, the two of them seemed even closer.

Already on the pirate ship, Zhou Zhuang had no power to interfere in their relationship, so he could only let it run its course.

"Zhou the Great Love Saint, I’ve got good news for you!" Wang Liyang, his troublemaking buddy whom he hadn’t chatted with in a while, came trotting up to Zhou Zhuang and dragged him out to the little balcony outside the classroom, shaking his shoulders with wild excitement.

"What the hell are you so hyped up about? Did you finally lose your virginity?" Zhou Zhuang was almost shaken apart by him and shot back a sarcastic comment.

This guy was the kind with plenty of lust and no courage. Back in first year of high school he’d been shouting about saving every thirsty woman in the world, and in the end all he saved was his own left and right hands. Truly a case of self-soothing.

"How did you know?!" Wang Liyang looked stunned.

"Don’t tell me you went after some rich girl and got a red envelope for it?" Zhou Zhuang was even more shocked. A joke he’d once seen flashed through his mind, and that seemed like the only possible explanation.

"Pah, do I look that tasteless? Never mind, I was lying just now."

"Oh."

"But it’s basically the same thing."

"Oh?"

"I’ve got a girlfriend now!"

"Oh!"

Zhou Zhuang couldn’t help his mouth from dropping open. This theory expert and practice idiot had actually found spring for real!

Then a possibility suddenly occurred to him. It couldn’t be Su Shiyi, could it? She had said before that she was going to seduce Wang Liyang.

The rounded shape of his mouth twisted into a bitter smile, and a wave of discomfort rose in his chest, as if a huge stone had blocked his breathing.

"Who is it..."

"Heh heh, my new deskmate, Fang Yan. I got her in just one week. Pretty impressive, right?" Though he didn’t get the jaw-dropping reaction he’d expected from his bro, Wang Liyang was too caught up in his excitement to care. He grinned stupidly and answered the question.

Huh?

This time Zhou Zhuang was genuinely stunned speechless.

In his memory, Fang Yan was the textbook good girl, the kind who would blush when speaking to boys and had basically never interacted much with the opposite sex.

She wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful, but she was delicate and pleasant to look at, with the air of a quiet, well-brought-up neighbor’s little sister.

He was certain Wang Liyang had never had much contact with her before.

That guy was all talk. He loved teasing girls, had a filthy mouth, and could fire off dirty jokes without missing a beat, but if he really tried to pursue someone, his face would heat up and his heart would race.

By his own account, he was the kind who drifted through a field of flowers without touching a single leaf. In truth, he was just a coward.

No matter how you looked at it, these two did not seem like a couple that could settle things in just one week, yet they had gotten together that fast?

Still, as long as it wasn’t her, that was fine...

Tch. What are you to her, anyway? What gives you the right to care?

Just as the stone in his chest fell away and he relaxed, he immediately felt a stab of self-reproach, cursed himself inwardly, and cut off that flirtatious train of thought before turning his full attention back to his buddy’s story.

"Then the title of Great Love Saint has to be handed over to you, Wang the Great Love Saint. Come on, tell me how it happened."

"It all starts with when we changed seats last week."

"Su Shiyi added me as a friend, and then..."

Ding-ding-ding...

The class bell rang, cutting off Wang Liyang’s story. He tossed out a casual, "To be continued, if you want the rest tune in next time," and slipped away on his own.

Zhou Zhuang was dying of curiosity. That name that made his mood so complicated had come up again.

What did she do this time...

Back at his seat, the girl beside him glanced at him once and said nothing. He held back his curiosity and forced himself to sit through class patiently, though his eyes kept drifting to her side profile every now and then, trying to spot something.

She sat there quietly, eyes forward, looking every inch the attentive student, and, as expected, he couldn’t see a thing.

After forty minutes, the two of them stood up almost at the same time.

She went to find her best friend. He went to find his buddy.

When Zhou Zhuang reached Wang Liyang’s seat, Wang Liyang was whispering some joke to the girl beside him, making Fang Yan cover her mouth and giggle, her eyes narrowing into crescent moons.

Then, under the girl’s astonished gaze, Zhou Zhuang hauled him out of his seat, and the two of them disappeared through the balcony door together.

"I say, are you really this desperate? Can’t you wait until lunch to tell me?" Wang Liyang complained about Zhou Zhuang’s sudden meddling with their budding romance, and punched him on the shoulder in annoyance.

"What, I’m just a heavy-curiosity kind of guy. Hurry up and spill it, then what happened?"

"Oh, that doesn’t sound like you. Fine, I’ll keep going. Where was I just now?"

"Su Shiyi added you."

"Right. Then she told me Fang Yan was interested in me, and even told me all her hobbies, like playing badminton, watching movies, and reading comics, and told me to go after her boldly."

"And she said that... and you just believed her?"

"Why wouldn’t I? She said she’d be my strategist. Even if I couldn’t win her over, talking with her more wouldn’t hurt me. She’s my dream goddess!"

"Ahem, enough about her. Then what?" Zhou Zhuang coughed, signaling him to get back to the point.

"Mm... then Su Shiyi told me to shamelessly tell jokes to Fang Yan, so I went and found a joke book and told her one after another. She actually liked it a lot, laughed at everything I said, and I figured this really had a chance. I asked her out over the weekend, she didn’t refuse, and after I talked it over with my strategist, I confessed and got her."

"And it was just... that easy?" Wang Liyang was a little handsome, but not to the point where a girl would hand herself over in less than a week. The whole story was simply unbelievable.

"Heh, that’s exactly how easy it was. But yesterday I talked with Fang Yan and found out that Su Shiyi had already told her I liked her too. Of course Fang Yan didn’t believe it, so Su Shiyi said she should switch seats to prove it, and that’s how it ended up like this."

"Cough, cough, cough... She really knows how to play." This time Zhou Zhuang was genuinely choked. He truly admired that trick of extreme tug-of-war, trying to take both ends at once. Was that vixen the reincarnation of Cupid and a matchmaker reborn, able to play with red strings like this?

"Yeah, she’s basically my Aphrodite! Wait, hold on. Why do you keep bringing Su Shiyi up in every sentence today?"

"Huh? What? No I don’t. You’re the one who brought her up first, aren’t you?!" Struck where it hurt, Zhou Zhuang raised his voice a little to cover up his guilt.

"You’ve been way too proactive today... Old Zhou, don’t tell me you’re trying to keep two boats afloat?"

"Bullshit, do I look like that kind of guy? And you, calling her your goddess all the time. You planning on it too?"

"Tch. A goddess is for admiring. I’m a man who stays true from beginning to end. I only learned yesterday that Fang Yan grew up without a father and was raised by her mom alone. She’s lacking love, and I don’t want to let her down."

A trace of tenderness and resolve appeared on Wang Liyang, who was usually all swagger and nonsense. Zhou Zhuang felt like he barely knew him anymore.

"You’re serious?"

"Duh. Do I usually say things like this? But you..."

Wang Liyang drew out the last word, pouted, and never finished the rest, leaving Zhou Zhuang puzzled.

"What?"

"Forget it. Handle it yourself. I’m heading back."

At the balcony door, Wang Liyang looked back and, stroking his chin, tossed one more line at Zhou Zhuang, who was still standing there lost in thought.

"You weren’t this eager when you used to talk, were you?"

The nine o’clock sun in September shone on Zhou Zhuang, but all he felt was cold, as if he’d fallen into an ice cave.