Chapter 4: The Bet

Zhou Zhuang held the paper and hesitated for a while, glancing at She Yujun, who was still quietly doing her homework. Logic told him not to keep having private contact with Su Shiyi, a girl full of wicked charm and temptation. But the doubt in his heart was like a mountain blocking the front door of his house. He was no Yu Gong; he had no patience to move it one stone at a time. He just wanted to blow the mountain apart with a bomb.

After leaving the classroom, Su Shiyi, as if she had expected him, was waiting in a dark corner. She led him up to the rooftop, the so-called gathering place for bad students. Cigarette butts scattered on the ground were the mark of rebellion. Zhou Zhuang had never thought that one day he would become one of them.

Only what other people smoked was cigarettes. What he was smoking was poison: this strange girl’s poison.

"Say it. What exactly do you want? Stop brushing me off with 'do me'..." Zhou Zhuang opened impatiently, only to fall silent at the end. She really had done it... though not in the literal sense.

"You really don’t believe me? I told you I’m a filthy girl." Su Shiyi walked to the railing and turned back to wink at him. Her skirt lifted in a cute little curve with the wind.

"I don’t believe you. Tell the truth!"

"My lower half was wet just now." She didn’t answer. Instead, she lifted her skirt a little to prove that she had not been lying.

"Why did you come after me? There are so many people who like you. If you wanted someone, you could just curl a finger and get one." Zhou Zhuang turned his face away, not daring to keep meeting her eyes. This temptress had moved away from the crowd and was gradually showing her true nature. She really was getting more and more wanton.

Inside, was it white...? Ahem...

"Because I really like boys like you." She let her skirt fall and her expression returned to normal, her tone carrying a trace of tenderness.

"Lustful and hypocritical, always acting like a model student. Strip away the mask of someone like you and watch you turn into an animal, and it’s incredibly satisfying." Her words shifted, and she looked him up and down with teasing eyes.

He froze. He didn’t think he was some saintly do-gooder, but being questioned about his character face-to-face by a beautiful woman made him want to argue back on instinct.

"Wearing a mask is normal. What makes a person human is the ability to suppress their beastly nature. The word animal isn’t in my dictionary. If someone can pretend to be a saint for their whole life, then they are a saint. I can’t pretend to be a saint, but I can pretend to be an ordinary person."

"You always like to bring up all those lofty arguments." A flash of sadness passed through her eyes, but it immediately returned to seductive charm.

"Let’s make a deal. If you break up with She Yujun, I’ll sleep with you and make you feel amazing, and I can even help you get together with Teacher Zhang."

She walked slowly toward him, every step carrying the scent of temptation and crime.

"The two of us are way more fun than your conservative little girlfriend. I can tell she’s still a virgin, right?"

That last line was whispered right next to his ear. Her red lips parted, her breath was warm and fragrant, and her tongue licked his earlobe.

"How do you know about Zhang..." Hearing Teacher Zhang mentioned, his composure broke at once. He didn’t resist as she pressed close to him. Maybe he was thinking of Zhang Min’s perfect figure, or maybe he was craving a threesome.

"Your good buddy just wasn’t tight-lipped enough." She was very pleased with his expression and casually sold Wang Liyang out.

Then, as if to fan the flames, she added before he could answer, "You already have a girlfriend, and you’re still thinking about other women, your own teacher at that, hmm?"

"I admit I’m lustful. I admit I’m hypocritical. But I have my bottom line. I’m not a beast. So, I refuse." Zhou Zhuang thought of his childhood sweetheart and girlfriend and felt his heart settle down again.

"You have a bottom line? Earlier tonight, when I touched you, you got hard right away. In the end you came so much I could barely keep it all in my mouth..." She chuckled softly beside his ear, lightly biting his earlobe as she continued attacking his defenses.

Zhou Zhuang didn’t dodge. The panic in him had already been replaced by resolve. Love comes first; lust comes second.

"My bottom line is my moral conduct as a person. My body is attracted to you. That’s just a normal physiological reaction for a man. But I know I’m someone devoted to love. In my heart, I only love Yujun. She is the future wife I’ve chosen. No matter how you tempt me, it’s useless."

Those words seemed to make her think of something, and the light in Su Shiyi’s eyes grew dim.

A lightbulb on the rooftop flickered on and off. She stared at it blankly, no longer saying the things she had used to belittle him before. The two of them fell silent for a moment.

The circuit in that bulb finally stabilized, and the harsh light pulled her out of her self-inflicted sadness. She took a deep breath and forced her confidence back into place.

"Hmph. Then let’s make a bet."

"Bet on what?"

Su Shiyi stepped away from him, and like a formal declaration of war, she forced out the words in her heart in one breath, with a trace of sorrow mixed in.

"You complete five demands of mine. Whether you agree to them is up to you, but once you agree, you have to finish them. If after completing all five demands you still haven’t fallen in love with me, then you win."

"If you win, I’ll stay far, far away from you. We’ll never see each other again."

"I want to see just how high your so-called morals, your so-called bottom line, and your so-called devotion can really be!"

Every sentence carried emotions that were slipping further and further out of control, completely at odds with the seductive aura she had shown before. Zhou Zhuang was a little surprised by the change in her.

"And if I lose?"

"If you lose, then you yourself are the best prize."

She didn’t go on. In his heart, he understood that if he really did fall in love with her, then all the things he had claimed about himself would become a joke. He would certainly struggle inside the cage he had built for himself and endure the torment of his own soul.

And he would also lose the person he loved most, and who loved him most.

Was that what she meant, tearing off his mask and gaining a sense of accomplishment? Was there really such a person, someone who built their happiness on another person’s pain?

"I refuse. Feelings aren’t a bet, and I don’t need to gamble with you." Whether he admitted it or not, he was somewhat afraid of the consequences of losing.

"Heh. You’re scared. Fine, then I’ll go look for Li Yang. I can tell he really likes me." Su Shiyi gave him a contemptuous glance, as if she could read minds and had seen through him.

"A man like you, who prides himself on having morals and a bottom line, wouldn’t stand by and watch your friend get eaten alive, would you?"

What kind of threat was that? It wasn’t clever at all. Wang Liyang would probably be very happy to accept the temptation, and if he died, he’d die blissfully.

Still, Zhou Zhuang felt a wave of discomfort, an instinctive possessiveness toward a woman he had been intimate with.

Throwing himself to the tiger, cutting flesh to feed the eagle, the self-sacrificial emotion of who would go to hell if not me, proving one’s nobility through self-denial. For someone like Zhou Zhuang, that really did have a certain appeal.

The only question was whether the place he was heading for was hell or heaven.

"You win. I’ll agree to your bet. But..." Zhou Zhuang lowered his head and thought for a while before making up his mind. He dragged out the final word on purpose, letting her guess a little too, as a small bit of revenge.

Under her puzzled and slightly anxious gaze, he finally got the last few words out.

"Only until the gaokao ends."

"Afraid I’ll cling to you for the rest of your life?" Su Shiyi smiled faintly, not caring about his deliberate suspense.

Zhou Zhuang gave no reply. He glanced at his watch; it was time for the next evening study hall. "Let’s go back. We’ve already talked for a long time."

"Mm. Don’t forget, you promised me."

She brushed the hair near her ear, looking unusually serious about the result they had reached tonight.

"I haven’t broken a promise I’ve made yet." He walked down from the rooftop and looked back to give her a definite answer.

"Then what about today, when you said you’d only talk to me about studying?" She remembered what he had said earlier today. He clearly hadn’t kept that promise. Her tone carried a teasing note.

"That was you seducing me!" Hearing her mock him, Zhou Zhuang nearly slipped and fell down the stairs. Furious, he ground out the reply through clenched teeth.

The way he panicked like that was really... kind of cute.

Su Shiyi thought blankly to herself.

He took advantage of the moment when she was distracted and slipped out of sight, but she didn’t mind. She looked tenderly toward the direction he had disappeared, tightening her small fist against her heaving chest.

"You won’t escape me in this lifetime."

After Su Shiyi got Zhou Zhuang’s promise, she behaved normally again and didn’t do anything shocking after that, which made him quietly breathe a sigh of relief.

He finished his homework in silence, and just then it was time to get out of school.

Zhou Zhuang hurried off toward the bike shed. Besides the instinctive fear he felt toward this new deskmate, he also wanted to know what exactly that unreadable woman had said to his girlfriend.

"Sorry, I was held up for a while." He waited a long time, far longer than normal. Just when Zhou Zhuang was about to go to the classroom to see what She Yujun was doing, she finally arrived late.

"What happened? Did something come up?"

She Yujun looked a little embarrassed as she glanced at Zhou Zhuang, tugging at the hem of her clothes, not knowing how to explain.

His suspicion only grew stronger. He patted the back of her head gently and said as softly as he could, "Is there something else you’re hiding from me?"

She had never lied to Zhou Zhuang since she was little, but what had just happened was a little awkward, so she had no choice but to tell him the important part.

"Shiyi just pulled me aside and said that you were being especially attentive to her. She said that when you saw her feeling cold during evening study hall, you lent her your coat to wear, and she thought you were interested in her."

"When did I ever curry favor with her? She..." Zhou Zhuang was about to say she was talking nonsense when he suddenly realized this was Su Shiyi reminding him that during the heated moment earlier today, he had draped his clothes over her. Her scent might have gotten on them, and if his girlfriend smelled it, it would be hard to explain.

That temptress, she thought of that too? She really was... professional.

It was just that turning the tables like this was infuriating. He was the one being wronged!

"You, don’t act too enthusiastic. She just got dumped recently, so she’s probably very sensitive. If I hadn’t just explained that I was your girlfriend, she wouldn’t have been able to feel at ease at all."

She Yujun thought of all the things Su Shiyi had just said to belittle her boyfriend: lustful, sleazy, the kind of degenerate who drools while looking at her. If she didn’t know her boyfriend, she might really have believed it and simply assumed it was paranoia on Su Shiyi’s part.

Still, that also eased the faint jealousy in her heart. Given how disgusted she sounded, Shiyi probably only asked to sit next to her boyfriend in order to improve her grades.

Hearing all that, Zhou Zhuang pursed his lips and complained inwardly for a while. She already knew you were my girlfriend... this little fox really was good at acting.

Wait. She got dumped?

"What did she tell you today?"

"She said that... her relationship with her boyfriend was discovered by the school teachers, and her uncle wanted her to transfer schools. She was supposed to go to City No. 2 High School, but she didn’t like it. Her family has a house in the county, so she transferred to our school."

"Her uncle? What about her parents?" Zhou Zhuang was puzzled. Why would an uncle step in and make decisions for his niece?

"Her parents died in a car accident three years ago." She Yujun’s voice carried a hint of sadness. This kind girl shared other people’s misfortune as if it were her own.

"Her uncle is her only living relative and guardian now, but she said she doesn’t like him."

"Huh? Why?" Zhou Zhuang frowned, a little surprised that such a confident-looking girl had suffered something so tragic.

"She didn’t say why. Maybe it’s because her uncle broke her and her boyfriend up."

Suddenly remembering something, she hugged Zhou Zhuang and buried her face in his chest, whispering to herself.

"You can’t leave me in the future."

"Silly girl, we’re different. Our parents have already approved us. No one can break us apart." Zhou Zhuang stroked her hair and comforted her softly.

But in his heart, the face of that girl surfaced again, that intense but determined look on the rooftop. He shook his head slightly and drove the uneasy feeling away.

Yujun was his one true love. The matchmaker had tied their red thread the moment they were born. No one could cut their bond. No one.

After seeing She Yujun home, Zhou Zhuang opened his computer and found a friend request on QQ. Under the avatar of a man and a woman embracing in the sunset, the note read three words: Su Shiyi.

After hesitating for a moment, he still chose to add her as a friend.

"Don’t forget today’s bet." Less than half a minute after adding him, her message came through. Clearly, she had been waiting the whole time.

"You seem really concerned about this?" This was the second time she had brought it up today. It was impossible not to remember.

"Of course. My competitive spirit is very strong. Besides, you have a history of breaking promises, so I have to keep reminding you."

You don’t hit a man in the face. You don’t expose someone’s embarrassing past. You don’t stab at the heart! That was way too disrespectful.

"Can we not talk about this anymore? I’ll definitely remember." Luckily, he was separated from her by a screen and a network cable, or else the awkward look on his face would have been exposed.

"Fine. Remember to wash your pants tonight."

After receiving that utterly baffling message, her avatar turned gray. Zhou Zhuang froze. He had just started typing a question about her past when, helplessly, he moved his finger to the delete key.

Forget it. He’d ask her in person tomorrow. What the hell did she mean by washing his pants?

He parted his clothes and suddenly saw two bright red streaks at the waistband of his pants. He first thought he had somehow gotten his period too. When he leaned in closer, he saw that it was a blurred shape like a pair of lips.

Was that her lipstick print? When had she gotten it on there? He really had been played...

Zhou Zhuang let out a helpless bitter smile. This glaring, eye-searing mark was her way of reminding him that everything that night had not been a dream. There was no way to pretend nothing had happened.

He had not entirely believed the story She Yujun had just described. Based on that temptress’s bold and reckless behavior, if she got caught dating, how could she possibly be transferred so easily?

And now that she had just been dumped, she came to seduce him. What was that supposed to mean?

A rebound? Healing a broken heart?

Still, no wonder she was so good at it. She’d had a boyfriend before.

Zhou Zhuang looked down on Su Shiyi’s so-called ex-boyfriend a little. That guy didn’t look like much of a decent person. He had practically trained her into a succubus, yet Zhou Zhuang himself couldn’t bear to treat his own precious girlfriend like that.

And yet tonight, this succubus had sent him straight to heaven...

Zhou Zhuang’s old face flushed red. He slapped himself on the head and threw that lustful thought out of his mind. But the sleepiness he was expecting rolled around and around, and not a trace of it would come down on him.