Chapter 10: My enemy touched my head

Tong An’yu finally managed to add him on WeChat, because of the cat.

His WeChat profile picture was a very ordinary web image, as common as a Windows startup wallpaper.

His Moments were set to be visible for the last six months, and in those six months, he hadn’t posted anything.

If it hadn’t matched his phone number, she would have thought it was a secondary account he had specifically created to add people he had to deal with reluctantly.

[You there? Let me see the cat.]

Tong An’yu thought she was very clever, because he would reply whenever she sent him this message.

A minute later.

[[Image]]

The WeChat notification chimed.
Tong An’yu couldn’t suppress the smile on her face and rolled around on the bed, hugging her phone.

In the past, when she went home for the weekend, she couldn’t “coincidentally” run into him at the library and could only eagerly await Monday.

Now it was great; she could “ding” her crush anytime at home.

The kitten was still recovering from its surgery.

Since pets weren’t allowed in the dormitory, it had to be temporarily left at the pet hospital.

Coincidentally, they could help with feeding and take care of the kitten during its most fragile and dangerous period.

The doctor told them that this was a Maine Coon and would grow very large in the future.

After wiping the stains from around its eyes, they found that the cat’s face was actually very well-proportioned, already showing a majestic air at a young age.

Every day, when Lin Huaixu entered and exited the school’s south gate, he would go see the cat, take a couple of pictures, and pay the fees.

Actually, when he wasn’t looking, Tong An’yu had left a deposit of ten thousand yuan at the pet hospital and had instructed the doctor not to tell Lin Huaixu.

The small daily care fees could be collected from him, but the large expenses like check-ups and treatments should be paid from the deposit.

She didn’t feel the slightest bit of pain spending this money.

She felt it was much more meaningful than those celebrity merchandises that cost hundreds of yuan.

Tong An’yu zoomed in on the photo.

The cat was lying in its cage, its leg bandaged, and a small water bowl placed next to its head.

Lin Huaixu was stroking its head with one hand while taking this picture.

Thanks to the development of smartphones, the photo resolution was very high.

When zoomed in, you could even see the lines on the back of his hand, chapped by the cold wind.

Lin Huaixu’s hands were lean, his fingers long and slender, with prominent knuckles, a type that was both powerful and elegant.

It was understandable when she thought about it.

Before Lin Huaixu’s family went bankrupt, he had to have at least two outstanding literary or athletic hobbies in order to apply to prestigious overseas universities.

For the arts, people usually learned piano.
At least, that was the case in her circle.

Those parents thought that piano was more noble.

Now he had really made this pair of piano-playing hands very rough.

If it were the idols she used to chase, she would definitely be a little disdainful, thinking that they didn’t pay attention to their appearance management.

But when it came to Lin Huaixu, she found it very pleasing to the eye.

She was just that double-standard.

Tong An’yu thought the mole on his ring finger was quite special, as if it had been marked.

She wondered what it felt like to have this hand stroking her head.

She envied the cat.

As Tong An’yu was tossing and turning on her large bed, appreciating the photo, there was a sudden knock on her room door.

Si Xu’s lazy voice sounded, “What are you hiding in there for?”

“Your brother is finally back, don’t you want to see this face?”

Tong An’yu was startled and flustered, rolling off the bed with a thud and hurriedly turning off her phone.

“…”

Outside the door, Si Xu narrowed his eyes, leaned against the doorframe, and asked with a half-smile, “What are you hiding?”

“Did you secretly buy luxury goods and are afraid of being scolded by Mom and Dad?”

“Or are you on some inappropriate website?”

“Or is there a fluctuation in your relationship status?”

Damn it!

Her brother not only looked like a fox, but his mind was also as cunning as a fox.

Fortunately, she had been practicing for seventeen years and had long learned how to deal with it.

Tong An’yu grabbed her hair, splashed some mineral water on her face, then wrapped a resistance band around her thigh, hobbled to the door, pulled it open, and asked inexplicably, “I’m working out.”

“What’s up, big bro?”

Si Xu looked her over, his eyes losing their suspicion.

He patted her on the forehead, “Nothing, keep practicing.”

“Come downstairs for dinner later.”

Tong An’yu watched her brother go downstairs and said in her heart, ‘Xiao Si, you’re not good enough.’

On Sunday, Tong An’yu used the same trick again.

[You there? Let me see the cat.]

Five minutes later.

[[Image]]

It was a picture of Lin Huaixu holding the kitten while it was getting a shot.

He was holding it with both hands, and you could still see the clothes he was wearing in the photo.

It wasn’t a sweater anymore, but a smoke-gray pure cotton T-shirt, with a strong Uniqlo vibe.

Uniqlo was also very good.

He looked very handsome wearing it.

Tong An’yu gave a fair evaluation.

[What’s the cat’s name?]

[No name.]

[Why didn’t you give the kitten a name?]

This time, Tong An’yu waited a little longer.
She guessed that Lin Huaixu was busy with something else.

[I’ll release it back into the wild when winter is over.]

[It doesn’t need a name.]

Tong An’yu stared at this line of words, first surprised, then a feeling of sadness slowly welled up.

It was as if the connection she had just established was about to be broken, and the current happiness was just a countdown.

Once it was released, she wouldn’t be able to send him “let me see the cat” anymore, and he wouldn’t reply.

[Why?]
[No time to raise it.]

Tong An’yu’s spirits lifted a little again.

That’s right.

Given Lin Huaixu’s current life situation, he couldn’t afford to be responsible for another life.

[Don’t release it.]
[Xiao Tong will raise it.]

Again, a long time without a reply.

Tong An’yu waited anxiously, inexplicably feeling like she was in a divorce between parents, discussing the custody of their child.

The father didn’t want it, the mother pitied the child, and decided to let the child live a life of luxury as a cat from then on.

[What’s its name?] Lin Huaixu suddenly replied.

[Huh?]
[Aren’t you going to raise it?]

He agreed just like that?
The topic progressed too quickly.
Tong An’yu had many little thoughts.
Since she and Lin Huaixu had found it together under the wheel of a Mini Cooper, she wanted him to think of this day whenever he called the cat.

[How about Cooper?]
[Mmm.]

[Then since the cat is mine, Xiao Tong will pay you back for the treatment fees.]
And then buy a thicker piece of clothing, there are still two months of winter left.

[Didn’t you deposit ten thousand?]
[?]

[Don’t pretend.]
[……]

How did he know?!

Tong An’yu sat up with a carp-like jump, her sleepiness completely gone.

She suddenly realized that Lin Huaixu was quite difficult to fool, at least more difficult than her brother.

In the pet hospital, Lin Huaixu massaged the back of the kitten’s neck where it had been given a shot, then switched chat windows and sent a voice message to another person, “No need to look for someone to adopt it.”

Yuan Qing: “Didn’t you say you couldn’t afford to raise it?”

“This cat is a purebred, it’s easy to find a home for it.”

“My old classmates might be interested.”
“Their conditions are also better.”

Lin Huaixu replied, “It has the best conditions.”

Yuan Qing laughed in disbelief, “Who?”

“Could their conditions be better than the people in our old circle?”

After Colin Interactive Entertainment went bankrupt, the company’s shareholders also suffered.

Among them, founder Lin De’s three sworn brothers suffered the most.

Because they trusted Lin De too much, they lost almost everything.

Yuan Qing was the daughter of one of those sworn brothers.

Although her family had fallen on hard times and she gradually couldn’t hang out with her old circle anymore, she could still maintain a polite facade.

Coincidentally, a friend of hers had posted on her Moments that she wanted to get a cat.

“Yes,” Lin Huaixu replied briefly and put his phone away.

So he didn’t notice Yuan Qing’s follow-up message: “Kong Jiashu, Feng Junda and I are coming to your school to see you next week.”

“You can show us around, and we’ll talk then.”

The cat stretched out its four limbs and pounced on Lin Huaixu’s pure cotton T-shirt, its small claws pulling out two threads.

Lin Huaixu lifted it down and met its round eyes, calling it for the first time, “Cooper.”

Once it had a name, it had a connection, and then it would be hard to forget.

He wasn’t interested in the little bear T-shirt’s family background, but he knew she would take good care of the cat.

The kitten was dazed and clueless, hugging its own tail.

Monday night in the library, the little bear T-shirt arrived as promised, wrapped up like a cotton ball.

She took off her beige down jacket with yellow spots, hung it on the chair, then stuck a straw into her milk tea cup with one hand and opened her laptop with the other.

The tables in the library were very large, more than enough for four people.

Lin Huaixu’s seat was by the window, and the little bear T-shirt sat diagonally across from him, a perfect angle for peeking.

As usual, she didn’t disturb him.

As soon as she opened her computer and took out her textbook, she began to battle with her class assignments.

After an hour of arduous struggle, Lin Huaixu saw her suddenly straighten up and stare blankly at her computer.

After a while, her brows furrowed deeply, and then she slapped her laptop from both sides with a “thump, thump.”

Lin Huaixu: “…”

Then she stood up, took a deep breath of the library’s stale air, snapped her laptop shut, opened it, shut it again, and opened it again.

Finally, she realized that the situation was beyond human control.

She slumped back into her seat with a “thud,” her expression numb, collapsing into a pile of mud.

The assignment submission page was shaking like a leaf, but the mouse was motionless.

At the critical step of confirming the submission, the computer froze, and Tong An’yu had written the assignment directly in the online course program without a backup.

She shouldn’t have.

She shouldn’t have trusted the school’s system so much.

Tong An’yu raised her hands high and then suddenly brought them down, playing a rendition of “Two Tigers” on the keyboard without any regard for others.

Lin Huaixu: “…”

He finally couldn’t take it anymore.

He slammed his textbook face down on the table, pushed his chair back, stood up, and walked over to Tong An’yu’s side expressionlessly.

He lifted her computer with one hand and took control of it.

He propped himself up on the table with one hand, forced a restart, then entered safe mode and began to deal with the third-party drivers and software.

It was rare for him to take the initiative to get so close.

He was bent over, his smoke-gray T-shirt touching the edge of the table, and his hand was propped up right in front of Tong An’yu’s face.

That clear, spring-like scent drifted over again.

How strange, was it laundry detergent?
How could a smoker have such a pleasant smell?

The anxiety on Tong An’yu’s face disappeared.

Her gaze started from the back of his hand, traveled all the way up, and finally landed on his thin, red lips.

“Lin Huaixu, did I disturb you?”

What do you think?

Lin Huaixu didn’t speak, trying to use the developer tools to retrieve her assignment content.

“How did you know my computer was stuck?”

“Did you guess?”

“Or were you peeking at me just now?” Tong An’yu craned her neck, her eyes wide, carefully studying Lin Huaixu’s expression.
This person was too taciturn, and she really wanted to decipher his emotions.

She wanted to tease him a little, but was also worried that he would get angry.
Actually, she knew, how could he possibly be peeking at her.

His sleeve was being rubbed back and forth by the little bear T-shirt, and he almost closed the wrong extension.

Lin Huaixu took a deep breath, pressed his free hand against the back of her full head, looked down at her, and commanded, “Shut up, don’t move, you hear me?”

Tong An’yu really did stay still.

His hand wasn’t pressing down hard, but it had a strong sense of control.
His five long fingers covered a large area, and his palm was hot.

The sound of typing on the keyboard continued to ring in her ears, and the assignment slowly recovered in the extension program.

He could operate it very well with just one hand.

He just hadn’t let go of her.

She didn’t have to envy the cat anymore 🙂