Chapter 245 - 112: A Sudden Turn for the Worse (Part 1)

Chapter 245: Chapter 112: A Sudden Turn for the Worse (Part 1)

"Qiumian, which song do you want to sing? I’ll queue it up for you?"

A girl named Xu Zhiruo turned her head.

If Zhang Shutong were here, he would recognize her as the short-haired girl who was always by Gu Qiuyan’s side, the one he jokingly called the "Little Secretary."

The lights in the media room flashed as the other two girls clapped along, cheering. Feeling a little smug, Xu Zhiruo struck a pose with the microphone. But as fate would have it, a sharp whine suddenly screeched from the speakers. She quickly corrected her hold on the mic and stuck out her tongue.

"You guys go ahead and sing." Xu Zhiruo casually passed the microphone to one of the girls and turned to the sofa. A girl with medium-length hair and an oval-shaped face was sitting there. She was wearing a red and black plaid sweater, aiming for a bright and charming style, but her mood was anything but bright. In fact, her expression was listless, and she only offered a perfunctory clap when the songs changed—the perfect picture of a pampered young lady.

"What’s wrong? In a bad mood?" Xu Zhiruo scooted closer to Gu Qiuyan and gave her arm a playful, wheedling shake.

A new rock song had been queued up, and its powerful drumbeat seemed to swallow their voices.

"If I were in a bad mood, I wouldn’t have invited you all over." Gu Qiuyan let her friend hold her arm, gently pushing her forehead with a finger. "Stop worrying so much. Don’t mind me; you should focus on yourself."

In reality, they were best friends and incredibly close in private. The superior-subordinate dynamic they displayed in public was mostly an act for outsiders. Of course, whenever Gu Qiuyan was in a truly foul mood, Xu Zhiruo was more than willing to humor her and play the part of the attentive "Little Secretary," running errands and reading her expressions. If Zhang Shutong saw this, his jaw would drop all over again, but then again, female friendships were just that complicated and ever-changing.

"Who dared to make our dear Qiumian angry? Tell me, and I’ll go tell your father," she said, sounding just like a loyal henchman.

"No one. Just stop asking so many questions," Gu Qiuyan said, exasperated.

"No way. We have a deal, remember? You’re going to be the boss, and I’m going to be your secretary. It’s my job to look out for you," she joked. "Besides, you’ve been glued to your phone. Are you texting some guy? Who is it? Who managed to get our dear Qiumian’s contact info?"

"Just a classmate." Gu Qiuyan didn’t even look up. "You’re such a gossip. We’re talking about something else, something important. Did you see the bodyguards upstairs? Something’s been going on with my family these past few days."

Xu Zhiruo was skeptical, but Gu Qiuyan simply handed her the phone, not trying to hide a thing. Zhiruo quickly scanned a few lines of their chat history and was sorely disappointed.

Forget about anything flirty; they hadn’t even made small talk. Refusing to believe it, she scrolled all the way to the top of the chat history. It was all dry, matter-of-fact conversation.

An ID named "NewPeach_OldTalisman" asked:

"How are things?"

Another ID, "Autumn_Drizzle," replied:

"Don’t worry."

Or Autumn_Drizzle would take the initiative and say, "I’m fine," and NewPeach_OldTalisman would reply, "Stay safe."

’What a total block of wood,’ Xu Zhiruo thought. ’Seriously, dude? Is that any way to talk to a girl?’

’She says she’s fine, and you just take her at her word?’

’If she were really okay, she wouldn’t have just sent back a simple "I’m fine"!’

She picked up a glass of fruit tea from the coffee table and took a sip. The coffee table was made of expensive, top-quality mahogany, but Xu Zhiruo figured this guy was in a league of his own.

"A guy from our school?" Xu Zhiruo asked again.

"Mhm."

"What grade is he in?"

"A classmate."

"I’ve never heard you mention any guy friends before," Xu Zhiruo murmured. "To think you’ve been keeping secrets from me for four years... my heart is shattered."

"Then let it be shattered," Gu Qiuyan said, rolling her eyes. "You’re only in ninth grade. What, you think I’ve been hiding things from you since elementary school?"

"So when did you two meet?" she asked, grinning.

"Wednesday." ℯℯ𝑙.

"Which Wednesday?"

"This past Wednesday, of course," Gu Qiuyan said casually.

Xu Zhiruo counted on her fingers in astonishment. "It’s only been four days?"

’Now I see I’ve underestimated him,’ she thought. ’If they’d known each other for four years and still texted like this, he’d definitely be a block of wood.’

’But they’ve only known each other for four days, and every other sentence is about a heavy topic like "your safety." Dude, what kind of knight in shining armor are you? Where did you crawl out from?’

"It just hit me! It’s not your deskmate, is it? I’ve talked to him before. And I heard he was the one who helped you with that building block thing on Thursday, right?"

Gu Qiuyan hummed in agreement.

"When someone’s overly attentive for no reason, they’re up to no good! You have to be careful!"

"Be careful of what?" Gu Qiuyan asked, puzzled.

"He’s cute, I’ll give you that, but you’ve only known him for four days. The point is, don’t just believe everything he says. Could he be exaggerating the danger to scare you? Possible. Could he be trying to get your attention? Possible. Could he be playing hot and cold? Possible! But you know... the other day during morning reading, I saw you two and I already thought something was up."

"What was ’up’ about us?"

"How should I put it... It was like... you’ve known each other forever? You acted like you’d known him for ages, and he acted like he’d known you for ages, too. Anyway, if you hadn’t told me, I never would’ve guessed you only met four days ago."

Gu Qiuyan didn’t answer that. Instead, she asked:

"Enough about me. What about you? That guy who likes you... did you say yes to him?"

"You mean that guy from the class next door? Ugh, he’s so annoying." Xu Zhiruo flopped back onto the sofa. "I’ve already told him I’m not interested, but he just keeps pestering me. He gets my deskmate to give me cards, he tries to buy me breakfast... Argh, I’ve told him ’no’ a million times, but he just won’t give up. Hey, Big Sis, how about you lend me a couple of your guys to scare him off? I can’t handle this on my own anymore."

"’Big Sis’? That sounds so tacky."