Hu Yuying felt a little embarrassed by what was said.
"Long Aotian, you're so mean, always teasing me!" She turned back into the house and closed the door behind her.
The key was that Hu Yuying had a face that looked easy to bully, so people couldn't help but want to tease her.
"Such a little girl, so easily flustered."
Leaning back against the door, she quietly listened to Long Aotian's voice.
A faint smile lingered at the corners of her lips.
In the silence of the night, the sound of her heartbeat seemed amplified countless times.
She quietly opened the door, but there was no one outside.
Walking out to the alley, she only saw Long Aotian's retreating figure.
Looking at Long Aotian's back, Hu Yuying couldn't help but twist her hands together: "Bye, Long Aotian. I... I had such a good time today."
As soon as the words left her mouth, she saw Long Aotian start to turn around. Quick as a flash, Hu Yuying hid under the eaves, her delicate face already tinged with a faint blush.
After waiting for a moment, she peeked out, only to see that Long Aotian's figure had already disappeared into the alley.
Only when she could no longer see him did Hu Yuying lock the door and return to her room.
Looking at the little white rabbit plushie on her bedside and the pink water cup on the stool,
Hu Yuying skipped over and threw herself onto the bed.
Wrapped in her blanket, she rolled around on the bed, then stopped in front of the rabbit plushie, poking it with a finger and giggling to herself.
If you asked her why she was so happy,
she would seriously shake her head and reply: "I don't know, but I just feel happy in my heart."
Happiness doesn't need a reason.
Just like sadness, it will eventually pass.
As soon as Long Aotian reached his apartment, the button phone in his pocket buzzed with a notification.
Hu Yuying: [Long Aotian, are you home yet?]
"Just got back," Long Aotian replied, amused that the girl had even calculated the time it took for him to get home.
"I had a great time today too," he added after a moment's thought.
Earlier, he had heard Hu Yuying's voice, but when he turned around, the little girl was already gone.
Hu Yuying: [Grinning face]
Long Aotian quickly sent back a sticker of a pot lid hitting someone's head.
Then he put away his phone and walked into the bathroom.
Meanwhile,
Hu Yuying lay on her bed, typing and deleting messages on her phone, suddenly unsure of what to send.
Even though there were so many things in her heart, she found it hard to express them in words.
It seemed she still wasn't very good at chatting with people.
Looking back, every time she was with Long Aotian, it was always him who casually brought up a topic and kept the conversation going.
"Ah, after all this time by Long Aotian's side, I haven't improved at all."
If Long Aotian heard this, he would probably tap her head again.
On this point, Long Aotian was the most qualified to speak. Hu Yuying's changes over this period had been quite remarkable.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say they were unexpected.
From a shy, gloomy girl,
to now... well, maybe not exactly cheerful, but at least she smiled more and had gained a lot of confidence. These were all visible changes.
It was just that Hu Yuying herself hadn't realized it yet.
Suddenly, Hu Yuying's eyes lit up.
She quickly typed on her phone and sent the message without hesitation.
After sending it, she sat cross-legged on the bed, waiting obediently for Long Aotian's reply.
Twenty minutes later,
her phone vibrated, and Hu Yuying hurriedly picked it up to check.
Seeing Long Aotian's reply, she happily flopped back onto the bed.
"Then I'll make you egg drop soup tomorrow?"
"We ate a lot of salty stuff today, so something light in the morning would be good."
Yes, the only topic Hu Yuying could think of was discussing what delicious food she would make for Long Aotian the next day.
Long Aotian wasn't picky; he happily ate whatever she made.
As they say in her rural hometown, he was easy to feed.
The easy-to-feed Long Aotian had already dried his hair and was lying in bed.
Looking at the chat interface with Hu Yuying, he was about to exit and play a round of Snake before going to sleep.
But before he could close the app,
a friend request notification popped up.
Since it was a button phone, all he could see was a username: [Sweet and Sour Li Ji] requesting to add him.
He casually accepted.
Sweet and Sour Li Ji: "Guess who I am?"
Long Aotian: "You're Li Qingxue?"
Sweet and Sour Li Ji: "You guessed it! Here's a reward for you."
With that, a file was sent through the QQ chat interface.
Opening it, Long Aotian found it was full of physics study notes.
Li Qingxue leaned back against her headboard, watching the file transfer complete, and proudly lifted her chin.
"Since you cheered me up earlier, consider this my way of repaying you."
That morning, seeing Long Aotian's headache over physics had made her want to laugh.
So, this guy actually had something he struggled with too. Since she had some free time and could review physics at the same time, she decided to compile some notes for him.
Even though she knew Hu Yuying was also helping him study, everyone had their own learning style and problem-solving approach. Maybe her notes could help too.
Then, out of habit, she clicked into Long Aotian's QQ space.
Apart from a few game screenshots, the rest were all essays about fitness.
Boring. She quickly exited.
Just as she closed it, she received a message from Gao Quan.
She casually opened it, but after just one glance, she almost threw her phone away.
"What the hell? Sending these pictures at night?" Li Qingxue closed her eyes and immediately deleted all of Gao Quan's messages.
She had only glanced at the pictures, but she recognized the person in them—Ye Liangchen.
It was a photo of Ye Liangchen, his mouth full of blood, drinking.
At night, it was really terrifying...
As for the caption, she hadn't even bothered to read it.
Frustrated, she vented to Long Aotian.
"Is he an idiot? Does he even have a brain?" Based on Li Qingxue's rant, Long Aotian remembered that he had also seen Ye Liangchen earlier that day.
The guy had smirked, confidently flipped his hair, said some awkward nonsense, and then managed to hit himself hard enough to bleed. All of it gave off a really cringy vibe.
What's more, he had noticed the look of disgust in Hu Yuying's eyes when she saw Ye Liangchen.
Instinctively, he didn't like the guy either.
Sweet and Sour Li Ji: "He wasn't like this before. I can't believe how much he's changed. It's unbelievable."
Once the floodgates of emotion opened, the conversation didn't stop.
Li Qingxue knew that talking about someone behind their back wasn't a good thing.
But she just couldn't help it.
She wasn't the type to keep things bottled up, and she couldn't understand how Ye Liangchen had turned out this way.
Looking at the constant stream of messages on his phone, Long Aotian could almost picture Li Qingxue's pouty face...