Chapter 26: Blank Pages and Beets

Lin Ci stared at the dense letters on the page until her vision blurred.

She raised a hand and rubbed her temples hard.

Every word in this French intensive reading textbook felt like it was mocking her.

Deep down, she was still a science guy, born and raised on calculus and linear algebra.

Now she had to face verb conjugations she couldn’t even begin to understand.

She kept flipping. Half a semester’s worth of notes, and only the first three pages had a few crooked letters scrawled on them.

The rest were completely blank.

The more she flipped, the more hopeless she felt. When she reached the last page, she nearly lost it.

‘Beets!!!!’

‘What the hell kind of beets were these?!’

Someone had drawn a few turtles on the last page.

And they were ugly as sin!

What kind of messed-up reality was this?

Had the “her” in these notes come to study, or just to sleepwalk through half a semester?

Lin Ci leaned against the headboard and slammed the book onto the blanket, cursing under her breath.

“Damn it, if I don’t fail this exam, I’ll take the counselor’s surname.”

Her voice carried a little too clearly in the quiet dorm.

From the upper bunk, Gu Mianmian’s bed immediately rustled.

Then a fuzzy head peeked over the edge.

Gu Mianmian gripped the railing with both hands and stared at her, puzzled.

“Senior, what’s wrong?”

Lin Ci jumped at the sudden voice and quickly shoved the textbook under her pillow.

“Nothing. I had a nightmare. A teacher was chasing me.”

She coughed and tugged at her blanket, feeling guilty.

Gu Mianmian blinked, her gaze lingering on Lin Ci’s flustered face for a few seconds.

“Senior, if you’re scared… do you want me to come over? I’m very quiet.”

She said softly, her cheeks slightly pink.

Lin Ci nearly choked on her own spit at that bold offer.

“No, no. My yang energy is strong. I’ll be fine after some sleep. Go back to bed. We have class tomorrow.”

She waved her hand rudely and turned away in a hurry.

Gu Mianmian watched in the dark for a while. Only when Lin Ci’s breathing evened out did she slowly retreat.

Early the next morning, Lin Ci showed up at the study room with two dark circles under her eyes.

She grabbed a corner seat and spread out the French textbook.

The study room was chilly, so she pulled up her hood.

She stared hard at the first chapter’s conjugation table, trying to burn the letters into her memory.

Twenty minutes passed.

She still hadn’t memorized the third-person singular conjugation of the first word.

“What’s the pattern here? Damn it, who invented this?”

Lin Ci scratched her hair in frustration, feeling like her twenty-odd years of intelligence had been deeply insulted.

In defeat, she dug out her advanced mathematics elective materials from her bag.

Just looking at the familiar formulas and symbols cleared her head a little.

But it also made her more depressed.

Her head was full of science. She could solve complex equations with her eyes closed, yet here she was, stuck battling a pile of illogical letters.

She slumped onto the desk and gently banged her forehead against it.

“I got a perfect score in advanced math, and now French is going to kill me. If this gets out, how will I ever live it down?”

She let out a heavy sigh, her face full of despair.

‘Her future.’

‘Pitch black.’

By noon, people in the study room had gone off to lunch one after another.

Lin Ci was still pretending to be dead on the desk when her stomach let out an embarrassingly loud growl.

She was about to pull out her phone to order takeout when someone tapped her shoulder.

Gu Mianmian had somehow tracked her down, carrying a plastic bag.

“Senior, time to eat.”

“Mm, Mianmian, how did you find me?”

Lin Ci was puzzled.

Gu Mianmian didn’t explain. She just lowered her head and pulled Lin Ci up, who looked completely lost.

They went to the lounge at the end of the hall. Gu Mianmian set a steaming box of braised pork ribs and rice in front of Lin Ci.

Lin Ci looked up at the smell, her eyes lighting up.

Then she looked at Gu Mianmian, who only had a box of plain white rice and a small dish of yellowing greens.

“You’re eating that?”

Lin Ci frowned, displeased.

Gu Mianmian sat beside her and split her chopsticks apart.

“My appetite’s been bad lately. Something light is fine.”

“Heh.”

Lin Ci snorted, clearly not buying it.

Without a word, she snatched the chopsticks from Gu Mianmian’s hand, took most of the ribs from her own bowl, and shoved them into the white rice.

“Senior, I… I really can’t finish all this.”

Gu Mianmian panicked and reached out to stop her.

Lin Ci glared and pressed the ribs down into the rice.

“You’ll eat it even if you can’t finish. You’re already skinny as a rib, and you still compete with ribs for space.”

“Looking at your tiny frame annoys me. Eat the meat.”

She ordered fiercely, then shoved the chopsticks back into Gu Mianmian’s hand.

Gu Mianmian looked at the pile of ribs in her bowl, her eyes stinging.

She lowered her head and poked at the rice with her chopsticks, but the corner of her mouth curled up against her will.

“Thank you, Senior.”

Her voice was a little sticky, and she obediently picked up a rib and put it in her mouth.

Lin Ci watched her start eating the meat, gave a satisfied hum, and began demolishing her own meal.

After eating her fill, Lin Ci leaned back in her chair to digest.

Gu Mianmian cleaned up the empty boxes, her gaze falling on Lin Ci’s blank notebook.

She flipped through it, then looked at the textbook.

“Senior, do you have a French intensive reading exam next week?”

Lin Ci stiffened, embarrassed.

“Ah, yeah, right. That class is a pain. You know how it is.”

Gu Mianmian was silent for a moment, then closed the notebook.

“Senior, how about I tutor you?”

Lin Ci looked at her doubtfully.

“What? You’re going to tutor me?”

Then she remembered: Gu Mianmian might not talk much, but she was a monster when it came to studying.

She was always in the top ten of the grade on finals, and her French scores were astonishing.

Lin Ci hesitated.

She was a grown man, and now she needed a little girl to tutor her. That was a blow to her pride.

But then she thought: if she failed this exam, she’d become famous in the foreign languages department.

She struggled for a few seconds, then bowed to reality.

“Then… thank you.”

She turned her face away awkwardly, making excuses.

“I’ve just been a little blocked up lately. Deep down, I’m still a top student, you know?”

Gu Mianmian looked at her slightly red ears and nodded.

“I know. Senior is very smart. You just haven’t adjusted yet.”

She agreed obediently, not calling out Lin Ci’s pitiful pride.

Then she pulled a handwritten notebook from her bag and handed it to Lin Ci.

Lin Ci took it and was surprised.

The handwriting was neat and clear. Grammar points and conjugation rules were marked in different colors.

“You organized all this yourself?”

“Mm. I hope it helps, Senior.”

Gu Mianmian answered softly, her eyes bright as she looked at her.

That night back in the dorm, Lin Ci pulled two chairs side by side.

“Come on. Starting tonight, we have to conquer chapter one.”

Lin Ci patted the desk with great ambition.

Gu Mianmian sat beside her, spread out the notebook, and began explaining word by word.

“This verb’s first-person conjugation has a special ending.”

As she spoke, Gu Mianmian unconsciously leaned toward Lin Ci.

She extended a finger and pointed at an example sentence in the textbook.

As she drew closer, a faint cool scent mixed with shampoo drifted straight into Lin Ci’s nose.

The pen in Lin Ci’s hand twitched.

She turned her head and found Gu Mianmian’s face only a dozen centimeters away.

Her skin, rarely touched by sunlight, looked clean and translucent under the lamp. She could even see the fine hairs on her face.

Their clothes brushed together. Lin Ci’s comforting milky scent mingled with Gu Mianmian’s.

Lin Ci’s heartbeat inexplicably skipped a beat, and her breathing grew uneven.

She shifted her chair aside uncomfortably, putting distance between them.

“You’re too close. You’re squishing me. I can’t see the words.”

She muttered irritably, hiding her flustered feelings.

Gu Mianmian stopped explaining. Something dark flickered in her eyes, but she pulled back timidly.

“Sorry, Senior.”

Her voice was low, and she obediently withdrew her hand.

Seeing her like that, Lin Ci felt a little guilty, but she just kept her head down and continued reading.

She didn’t notice that while she was busy doing problems, Gu Mianmian quietly moved her chair half an inch back toward her.

Only when their arms were once again faintly touching through their clothes did Gu Mianmian stop, satisfied.

Late that night, Lin Ci lay on the top bunk, tossing and turning, unable to sleep.

Her mind bounced between complex French conjugations and the warm sound of Gu Mianmian’s breathing when she’d leaned close.

“Damn it, is there any way to survive this?”

She pulled the blanket over her head and closed her eyes in despair.

At the same time, a thousand miles away in the capital.

In a towering skyscraper, the lights were still on in the top-floor office.

Gu Tiancheng stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, holding a glass of red wine as he took a phone call.

 Boss Gu, that girl has been performing remarkably at Jiangcheng University lately. She’s built up a bit of a reputation on campus.

Too much fame isn’t good. It’ll make the old man notice her too early.

Arrange a few people to infiltrate their school forum and spread some scandals about her.

The old man cares most about family face. If the so-called true daughter he brings back is a disgraced piece of trash, he’ll naturally be disgusted.

Understood, Boss Gu. I’ll get on it.

The call ended. Gu Tiancheng looked out at the traffic below, his face cruel.

“A wild girl who’s been wandering outside for over a decade thinks she can come back and split the inheritance?”

He downed the rest of his wine in one gulp.

“Dream on.”

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