The dorm door closed.
The light, quick footsteps in the corridor vanished before long.
Lin Ci stood barefoot on the floor and looked down at the loose pajamas on his body.
The collar had been tugged a little wider, showing a large stretch of snow-white, fine skin.
This body’s lines were really too good.
The collarbone was clear.
The waist cinched in very slim.
Lin Ci scratched his head looking at it, lifted a hand to pull the collar up a bit, and felt another wave of stifled irritation in his chest.
Twenty-two years as a grown man, when had he ever needed to guard against something flashing.
He sighed, walked to the desk, pulled out the chair and sat, then casually picked up his phone and started scrolling.
Time passed minute by minute.
Outside the window the sky went fully black.
Streetlights lit up one after another.
At exactly 7:00 PM, the phone on the desk vibrated.
Lin Ci swiped the screen.
A location screenshot from Gu Mianmian popped up on WeChat.
The pin was on the night-market street at Jiangcheng University’s south gate.
The shop name was “Old Zhao’s Skewers.”
Lin Ci enlarged the map and carefully looked at the street view of that road.
The place was a whole row of dirty, messy stall restaurants.
The sheds were thrown up in a mess.
More than half the streetlights were broken.
The pavement was pitted and full of oil stains and beer-bottle caps.
Lin Ci typed a reply: [Got it. Stay safe. Don’t talk to drunks.]
The other side instantly sent back one word: [Mm!!!]
Three full exclamation marks at the end.
Lin Ci stared at those three exclamation marks for a long time.
Usually when he talked to this girl in the dorm, she could not squeeze out a single fart for half a day.
How come sending a WeChat suddenly made her this energetic?
Lin Ci shook his head, tossed the phone aside, and went back to grinding at his major-course homework.
Deep in the night-market street, oil smoke rose.
The storefront of “Old Zhao’s Skewers” was not big.
More than ten greasy folding tables were set out to the roadside.
Gu Mianmian had a deep-red apron tied on and was walking between tables with a big iron tray.
She kept her head down.
Heavy bangs covered her eyes.
Her steps were very light.
Boss Zhao Dayong was a middle-aged man in his fifties with a fairly honest temperament.
He stood behind the charcoal rack, flipping meat skewers while teaching Gu Mianmian how to settle bills for customers.
“Little Gu, pick up the pace a bit. This table’s already rushed twice.”
Gu Mianmian nodded and reached for the empty beer bottles on the table.
A figure suddenly swayed over beside the charcoal rack.
That was Zhao Dayong’s son, Zhao Peng, twenty-six, idle all day.
Zhao Peng had a cigarette in his mouth.
A pair of shifty eyes looked Gu Mianmian up and down.
This little girl dressed shabbily, and the loose hoodie hid her figure, but her neck was very white.
That stretch of wrist showing outside was thin and small.
It looked easy to handle.
“Dad, you rest. I’ll teach the new employee how to carry trays.”
Zhao Peng spat the cigarette butt on the ground and walked straight behind Gu Mianmian.
Gu Mianmian had just lifted the tray when Zhao Peng’s hand reached toward her waist.
In the second before he was about to touch her, Gu Mianmian’s eyes turned abruptly cold.
Her body tipped slightly aside and made him grab nothing but air.
The wide, greasy palm only brushed the cold edge of the iron tray.
“What’s the little sister hiding for? Carrying trays takes skill. You gotta use the waist. Bro will teach you.”
Zhao Peng sidled close with a grinning face, cheap nasty cigarette smell spraying from his mouth.
Gu Mianmian’s spine went taut.
She stood in place and did not move.
She kept her eyes lowered.
The black eyes hidden under the heavy bangs surged with icy malice.
If it weren’t for earning money to hide Senior away, the tray in her hand would already have smashed onto this rotten man’s head.
She did not shout.
She only lifted her eyelids and coldly stared at Zhao Peng once.
That look carried undisguised rejection and disgust, enough to make a person go cold all over.
Zhao Peng’s back crawled under the stare.
He instinctively retreated half a step.
The hand he had stretched out froze in midair.
“Move.”
Gu Mianmian’s voice was very low, yet cold enough to drop slag.
She gripped the edge of the iron tray, knuckles turning pale, and walked straight past Zhao Peng toward another table.
Zhao Peng came back to himself, looked at her thin back, and cursed under his breath.
The next three days passed very plainly.
Gu Mianmian left at 5:30 every evening and returned to the dorm on the dot at 12:00 at night.
Every time she pushed the door open, she would take out her phone and send Lin Ci a line: “I’m here.”
Lin Ci actually had not fallen asleep at all.
Every time he watched Gu Mianmian slip into the room with light hands and feet, then go to the balcony to wash up.
On the morning of the fourth day.
Lin Ci got up to pour water.
A very sharp smell drifted through the air.
It was barbecue smell mixed with charcoal smoke and cumin chili oil.
This smell lingered in the dorm.
Even after Gu Mianmian showered, it would not come off her long hair.
Gu Mianmian was standing by the bed changing her outer layer.
When she pulled off the old hoodie, the sleeve of the cotton undershirt inside slid up a large stretch.
Lin Ci was holding a water cup.
His gaze happened to sweep across her arm.
On the inner side of Gu Mianmian’s pale, thin forearm were four or five dull-red pinch marks.
The flesh around them was mottled blue-purple.
Lin Ci stopped walking, stepped forward, and grabbed her wrist in one motion.
“Gu Mianmian, what’s with the injuries on your hand?”
Gu Mianmian jumped and hurriedly yanked the sleeve down.
“It… it’s nothing.”
Lin Ci did not let go.
His palm locked steadily on her wrist, the strength large.
He pushed her cuff back up again.
Not only the inner forearm.
Even the exact center of the palm had a deep crescent-shaped wound.
The wound had formed a dark scab.
It had clearly been dug out over and over with fingernails.
Lin Ci’s eyes turned cold.
His tone was harsh.
“This is nothing? Who bullied you? People at the grill shop?”
Gu Mianmian shook her head in a hurry, head down, not daring to look at Lin Ci’s eyes.
“It isn’t anyone else. I… did it myself by accident.”
Lin Ci laughed out of anger.
“You think I’m an idiot? What kind of bump leaves a row of nail marks?”
Gu Mianmian pressed her lips together.
The rims of her eyes gradually turned red.
She wrenched free of Lin Ci’s hand and yanked the long sleeve all the way down, covering everything tight.
“Senior, it’s really nothing. Don’t ask anymore.”
Lin Ci looked at this dead-end refusal of hers, and the straight-guy temper came up again.
“Fine. You’ve got guts. I won’t ask.”
Lin Ci set the water cup on the desk and turned back to sit at his own desk.
This little girl’s personality was too twisted.
Asking would not get anything out of her anyway.
Lin Ci leaned back in the chair and irritably scrolled his phone.
He opened Moments and had just refreshed when he saw Chen Jia from the finance department post a new update.
The picture was a selfie in a large lecture hall.
Chen Jia made a gesture in front of the camera that he thought was handsome.
And in the background slanted behind him, the shot of Lin Ci sitting in profile was captured perfectly clear.
Sunlight happened to fall on that cold, pale side face.
Black hair spilled down.
The beauty had an aggressive edge.
Chen Jia’s caption read: [Today’s elective was extra good-looking. Even saw a real high-mountain flower.]
Lin Ci’s eyelid twitched.
A wave of nausea rose in his chest.
He casually slid down.
Yesterday at noon Chen Jia had also posted a cafeteria photo.
The text said: [Ran into the ice-mountain beauty. Even drinking plain water she has this much presence.]
This bastard was clearly building a deep-lover persona on Moments, using him as a bragging chip on the side.
Lin Ci rubbed his brow and silently cursed how unlucky it was.
He had originally planned to just block and delete Chen Jia, but on second thought, blocking would instead make him look guilty.
Forget it. Just a dog barking at random. Not worth dealing with.
Lin Ci locked the screen and did not take the matter to heart at all.
What he did not know was that Gu Mianmian had already seen those two Moments posts crystal clear.
Ever since moving into Room 302, Gu Mianmian had quietly gone through the class group.
Anyone who had spoken to Lin Ci or had any interaction with him was all on her watch list.
12:00 late at night.
The dorm corridor was completely quiet.
The lights of the whole building were out.
Gu Mianmian pushed the dorm door open with light hands and feet.
Lin Ci was already lying on the bed asleep, breathing even and steady.
Gu Mianmian took off the shoes that carried oil-smoke smell and walked barefoot back to her own bedside.
She did not turn on the light.
She only sat on the edge of the metal bunk and slowly took out her old phone.
The screen’s faint glow lit her pale, bloodless face.
Gu Mianmian opened Chen Jia’s Moments.
On the screen Chen Jia smiled greasy and brilliant.
Lin Ci in the background was quiet and cold.
Gu Mianmian stared at that group shot, her finger sliding back and forth on the screen.
She looked at the jawline Lin Ci showed in the photo, then looked at those frivolous words Chen Jia had written.
The room was very quiet.
Gu Mianmian pressed the phone screen off and tossed it onto the bedding.
In the dark, her breathing slowly sank.
She slid her right hand under the quilt.
Her nails sank into the old wound in her palm.
The wound was torn open again, bringing a dull pain.
Gu Mianmian did not even move her brow.
This bit of pain could not press down the irritation and darkness rolling in her chest.
That was her Senior.
Senior bought her chicken legs.
Senior blow-dried her hair.
Senior had a scent that made her feel safe.
What right did those eyesore pieces of trash have to casually take Senior’s photos?
What right did that man covered in grease have to crowd in front of her too?
Gu Mianmian lifted her head.
Those obsidian-like eyes held no light at all in the dark.
She turned her gaze toward the opposite bunk.
Lin Ci was lying on his side.
The thin quilt had slipped to his waist, showing a stretch of snow-white, slender nape.
The dorm was filled with that faint milky fragrance that made a person want to sink into it.
Gu Mianmian sat in the dark just like that, motionless, watching Lin Ci’s sleeping face.
Five minutes.
Ten minutes.
A full fifteen minutes passed, and she kept staring at Lin Ci the whole time.
Night wind slipped through a gap in the window and made the curtain sway lightly.
Gu Mianmian finally lay down slowly and pulled the quilt over herself.
She curled into a tiny ball under the covers.
The pain in her palm made her feel unusually clear-headed.
The evening of the fourth day.
Heavy dark clouds piled on the horizon.
The air was stuffy and damp.
It looked like a heavy rain was coming.
At 5:30, Gu Mianmian put on the deep-red apron on time, slung on her bag, and went out.
Lin Ci sat at the desk, looking at the empty dorm, spinning a gel pen in his hand.
Those pinch marks on Gu Mianmian’s arm kept surfacing in his mind.
And that oil-smoke smell that would not wash off the girl.
Security on back-street stall streets was rotten to begin with.
With Gu Mianmian’s weak temperament she would absolutely be eaten down to the bones.
“Seriously. I must have owed you in my last life.”
Lin Ci tossed the pen onto the desk and stood up.
He pulled open the wardrobe, dug out a large black hoodie, and pulled it on.
He tugged the hood up, covering most of that coldly beautiful face, leaving only a delicate little chin showing.
Lin Ci stuffed his phone into his pocket, pulled open the dorm door, and strode into the dusk of the stairwell.
He was going to see for himself just what kind of dragon pool and tiger den that broken grill shop really was.
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