Chapter 27: Rumors in the Rain

Jiangcheng Railway Station exit.

A fine drizzle drifted through the air, carrying a chill.

Qin Feng pulled his trench coat collar up higher. Two tall, sturdy young men followed behind him, his capable subordinates who always got things done efficiently.

“President Gu’s instructions, you remember them all clearly, right?” Qin Feng sneered as he stepped along the stairs.

One of them, a young man with a buzz cut, smiled ingratiatingly. “That girl is quite well-known at Jiangcheng University. As long as we spread some rumors at school, I guarantee her reputation will be ruined.”

An hour later, a person claiming to be a third-year management student infiltrated several freshman group chats at Jiangcheng University.

On the school forum and confession wall, several sock puppet accounts also appeared, stirring up trouble and posting spam.

“Did you see that gossip post on the forum? That Gu Mianmian in sophomore year, she used to run around in an orphanage.”

“I saw it. I heard she worked at a night market before, and she didn’t even dare make a sound when a bunch of old men groped her.”

“People from places like that pretending to be pure? Who knows if her background is clean or not.”

In less than half a day, rumors about Gu Mianmian began spreading in every corner of campus.

Meanwhile, in the school study room, Lin Ci was wearing headphones, struggling desperately with French listening comprehension.

The French dialogue in the headphones was rapid-fire, a long stream of gibberish. Lin Ci listened three whole times, and besides a single “Bonjour,” her mind was completely blank.

“Listen to this, is this even a language humans can speak?” Lin Ci yanked off the headphones in anger and threw them heavily onto the desk. She grabbed her hair in frustration. “I could do advanced math with my eyes closed back in the day, and it was never this frustrating.”

She leaned back in the chair, stared at the ceiling in despair, and sighed.

Gu Mianmian sat beside her, silently watching. She reached over, took the headphones, put them in her own ears, listened once, then gently took them off.

Gu Mianmian shifted her body closer to Lin Ci. The distance between them shortened, and as their clothes brushed, the milky scent on Lin Ci was released by her body heat. She leaned close to Lin Ci’s ear and repeated the sentence word for word.

“This sentence means: the weather is nice today, we’re going to the park.”

Instantly, a warm, moist breath hit Lin Ci’s ear directly. Lin Ci felt her ear burn, and an uncontrollable tingling sensation crawled down her neck. Soon the base of her ear turned bright red.

‘Damn it, not again!!! I’m a pure man, and I keep getting weak in the knees from a girl blowing hot air on me. What the hell is this????’

Lin Ci cursed inwardly, feeling that her straight-man dignity had been challenged. She abruptly turned her head to the other side, putting distance between them.

“Just talk in a normal voice, why are you getting so close again?” Lin Ci touched her burning ear, fiercely covering her panic.

‘A twenty-two-year-old man, constantly blushing because of a little girl. If this got out, how would I survive in the science and engineering world?’

Gu Mianmian blinked, looking innocent. “I was afraid that speaking too loudly in the study room would disturb others.” She explained pitifully.

Lin Ci looked at those eyes, and the complaints in her belly got stuck in her throat, unable to come out. She could only turn her face away awkwardly and continue staring at the textbook.

“Okay, okay, let’s listen to the next part.” Lin Ci muttered grumpily, put the headphones back on, but couldn’t focus on a single letter for a long time.

It wasn’t until three in the afternoon that the intense review made Lin Ci’s brain crash. Her eyelids grew heavy, and the letters battled before her eyes. Lin Ci yawned, folded her arms on the desk, and dropped her head, falling asleep right there.

Beside her, Gu Mianmian stopped writing and turned to look at Lin Ci’s profile. The sunlight outside the window was a bit dazzling.

Lin Ci was fast asleep, a few strands of hair on her forehead swaying gently with her breath.

Gu Mianmian stared at her, carefully opened her backpack, and took out a neatly folded jacket.

This jacket was the one Lin Ci had lent her on the rooftop. Gu Mianmian had secretly taken it home and washed it, but never returned it.

Besides the scent of laundry detergent, it was completely soaked with Lin Ci’s milky scent. Gu Mianmian unfolded the jacket and gently covered Lin Ci’s back with it.

She picked up her pen again to do problems, but every few minutes, she would turn her head to glance at Lin Ci’s face. Looking at that cool, stunningly beautiful face, satisfaction surfaced in Gu Mianmian’s eyes. ‘I like her so much. As long as she stays by my side, that’s enough.’

Forty minutes later, a phone alarm woke Lin Ci. She groggily raised her head and rubbed her dry eyes. “What time is it?” Lin Ci’s voice was slightly hoarse, with a lazy nasal tone.

Just as she sat up, she felt a piece of clothing slide off her back. She reached out and caught it, finding it was a sports jacket that looked familiar. “Isn’t this the one I draped over you before?” Lin Ci muttered, looking at Gu Mianmian in confusion.

Gu Mianmian kept her head down, writing. “The air conditioning in the study room is cold, I was afraid you’d catch a chill, senior.”

“Don’t worry about me next time, my skin is thick and I won’t freeze.” Lin Ci crumpled the jacket into a ball, tossed it onto the desk, stood up, and stretched without a care.

Because she had slept face-down for too long, the loose collar was pulled askew to one side of her shoulder as she got up. Her cool, fair collarbone was exposed to the air, and along the drooping edge of the collar, a hint of snowy white could be vaguely glimpsed.

A boy sitting at the table diagonally opposite happened to look over, and his eyes went straight. He didn’t even notice his pen drop onto the desk.

Gu Mianmian noticed the gaze immediately. Her fingers gripping the pen tightened abruptly, and she raised her head to glare at the boy. The boy trembled under her gaze, hurriedly lowered his head, and pretended to read while breaking out in a cold sweat.

Only then did Gu Mianmian withdraw her gaze. She stood up, reached over, and pulled Lin Ci’s collar, covering that patch of snowy white again. “Senior, your clothes are crooked.” Her cool fingertips brushed against Lin Ci’s warm neck.

Lin Ci shrank her neck from the tickle and cooperatively fixed her clothes, confused. “Oh, thanks.” She yawned, her mind full of straight-man thoughts, completely unaware of the earlier exposure.

In the evening, the two packed up and walked out of the teaching building. Passing by the convenience store in the living area, Lin Ci stopped.

“Wait here for me a moment.” Lin Ci strode into the store and came out holding something. She stuffed strawberry milk and a small bread into Gu Mianmian’s arms. “Here, for your hard work tutoring me tonight.”

Lin Ci put her hands in her pockets, her tone brooking no refusal. “No refusing. I never take advantage of people for free.” Gu Mianmian held the warm milk, stunned for a moment, then lowered her head and obediently walked behind Lin Ci.

The streetlights stretched their shadows long. Gu Mianmian looked at the overlapping shadows on the ground, and the corners of her mouth curved up uncontrollably. This feeling of being cared for was really nice.

Back in the dorm, Lin Ci grabbed a change of clothes and rushed into the bathroom. Ten minutes later, she emerged with steam clinging to her. Because she had been out in class all day, forced by Gu Mianmian to wear a fitted undergarment, her chest felt tight and suffocated.

Now back in the dorm with no outsiders, Lin Ci’s very bones resisted that thing, so she simply took it off and didn’t wear it. She only put on a white tank top and a pair of sports shorts, her long hair casually draped over her shoulders.

Lin Ci plopped down on the top bunk, sprawled out carelessly, and continued flipping through the French vocabulary book. “This conjugation is wrong, damn it, it’s that one.” She muttered irritably and turned over on the bed.

Because she was lying on her side, the thin white tank top slid up along her waistline. A large stretch of her slender waist was exposed, her skin glowing softly under the light. Even worse, because there was nothing underneath the fabric, the tight tank top strained against her chest, outlining full curves.

Sitting on the lower bunk, Gu Mianmian slowly raised her gaze from above the textbook, her eyes landing on that exposed strip of waist and the rise and fall of Lin Ci’s chest. Gu Mianmian’s breathing became very soft, her eardrums filled with the sound of her own heartbeat. The pen in her hand stopped on the paper, black ink spreading into a dark blot, nearly tearing the page.

‘Senior.’ She murmured in her heart. ‘I really want to hide you away, senior, so that this sight of you can only ever be seen by me.’

At noon the next day, in the school’s second cafeteria, Lin Ci went to the restroom and told Gu Mianmian to line up for food first.

Gu Mianmian stood in the middle of the line holding her lunchbox, her mind still savoring the milky scent from Lin Ci the night before.

Behind her, two unfamiliar girls were whispering deliberately. “Look ahead, that’s her, right? Gu Mianmian from 302, she acts all high and mighty.” “Yeah, the forum exposed everything. I heard that when she was in the orphanage, she was always entangled with outside thugs.”

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