When the dinner party ended, it was already 10 pm by the time Lin Jianzhi walked from the hotel to the parking lot.
Lin Jianzhi felt dizzy and disoriented, as if she had no idea where she was.
A group of physics geniuses had left her completely confused!
In fact, Lin Jianzhi had even forgotten where Zhu Liheng had parked his car and walked right by without realizing it.
Seeing her wandering ahead in a daze, Zhu Liheng reached out and grabbed her by the collar to pull her back: "Where are you going?"
Lin Jianzhi had a blank expression on her face: "Huh? Ah?"
Zhu Liheng opened the car door and stuffed her inside.
He started driving to take them home.
On the way, Lin Jianzhi gradually regained her senses and suddenly felt incredulous.
She was told they were going to practice her spoken English, but she didn't even get a chance to say a single sentence in English!
Test her mental resilience?
She was baffled the entire dinner and didn't get a chance to speak up either.
But she did gain some insight after getting to know a group that were the future pillars of the physics community, listening to them discuss all kinds of groundbreaking concepts and theories that could change the world.
Thinking of this, Lin Jianzhi looked over at Zhu Liheng next to her.
His hands on the steering wheel looked so nice, and the exposed parts of his arms seemed very powerful.
He could probably lift her up easily right?
Zhu Liheng always seemed very calm, never impatient or revealing his emotions.
He was clearly straight too, enjoying basketball, detective stories, yet unlike many straight guys.
He wasn't arrogant at all, without any sense of masculine superiority.
Perhaps she had stared too directly, but Zhu Liheng glanced over.
His face in the passing streetlights had an illusory beauty, with that tear-marked face now only a few dozen centimeters from her own.
So close!
The closer it was, the more flawless he seemed.
Lin Jianzhi unconsciously glanced down at Zhu Liheng's lips.
The tempting breath she had felt earlier outside her home came rushing back, instantly reminding her of that scene.
Were those enticing breaths really from these lips?
And then, her face turned red!
She quickly turned her head away, not daring to look anymore.
Her heart started racing again.
Over the past few days, she had been spending so much intimate time with Zhu Liheng, going home together, eating meals together, even meeting his upperclassmen.
It felt like they were inseparable.
If this kept going on, Lin Jianzhi felt she would go crazy, that she wouldn't be able to control herself.
This feeling was almost like...
Boyfriend and girlfriend?
Lin Jianzhi was frightened by her own thoughts!
She hurriedly shook her head, trying to shake these ideas out.
How could they possibly be boyfriend and girlfriend...
Zhu Liheng looked at her puzzledly, seeing her face turn red one moment and then shake her head wildly the next.
Is she crazy?
By the time they got home, Lin Jianzhi had regained her composure. In the elevator, she bid Zhu Liheng goodbye.
But Zhu Liheng suddenly took out his phone and showed her a QR code.
Lin Jianzhi almost died from blood rushing to her brain!
Zhu Liheng: "Add me on WeChat so we can contact each other easily in the future."
Lin Jianzhi: "Ok, sure."
She scanned the code with trembling hands and added him as a friend.
On the 10th floor, Zhu Liheng exited the elevator and the doors closed behind him.
Lin Jianzhi felt her entire body go limp. After arriving on the 11th floor, she rushed home like crazy, bursting into her room!
Lin's parents hadn't gone to bed yet, and sounds of surprise came from behind her.
Lin's Mother: "You're home so early today?"
Lin's Father: "Did you learn well?"
Lin Jianzhi was in no state to answer. She closed her bedroom door with a bang and dove straight under her quilt.
She hugged her phone and started looking through Zhu Liheng's Moments.
But she was shocked to find that there was nothing at all there!
He hadn't posted anything!
Looking at her own in comparison, as soon as she opened her Moments feed, she had as many as three posts a day documenting everything from meals to shows she watched to getting sick, and at least ten posts on days she went out.
Suddenly, Lin Jianzhi felt very embarrassed. Seeing their stark contrast highlighted how much more immature she was.
She gloomily opened Weibo.
The earlier drama around the fish pond had quieted down, and she had returned to her invisible small fry status.
No one was liking or following her posts, no one cared what she was posting.
Her fingers tapped lightly on her phone screen as Lin Jianzhi typed out a line with a flushed, pounding heart:
【@ZhuJianZhiHeng: Your breath was so gentle.】
Downstairs.
Zhu Liheng looked at this Weibo post and frowned deeply in thought for a long time.
What the heck?
It seemed totally disjointed and nonsensical.
He wanted to ask her directly, but then figured he shouldn't scare the little girl with the exams coming up.
A dreamless night.
The next morning Lin Jianzhi rode the bus to school, in an incredibly cheerful mood, even humming a tune.
Previously she had never dared to admit that she knew Zhu Liheng, since they didn't even have each other's contact info and had no direct connection.
But now it was different. She really had his WeChat!
She would just have to think of a way to clear up the rumors about them at school, lest Zhu Liheng really got a girlfriend later and she became a total laughingstock.
Just the thought of Zhu Liheng getting a girlfriend in the future made Lin Jianzhi incredibly sad!
As a normal person, he would date, get married, have kids.
Walking into Senior Year 3 Class 2.
Almost the entire class welcomed Lin Jianzhi to her seat with open arms.
Led by class president Lang Shu, the usual crowd that loved gossiping surrounded her and launched into today's interrogation under 'enhanced interrogation techniques'.
Mu Yin: "Talk! How far have you and Zhu Liheng gotten?!"
Lang Shu: "The net of heaven has large meshes, yet nothing slips through! Confess at once!"
Quan Kaiji: "Class president, that's not how you use that idiom..."
Jiang Jingyi: "Who cares! Confess!"
Lin Jianzhi took a deep breath, then stood up and walked to the lectern.
Silence—
The entire class went silent, looking at her in shock and anticipation.
What was she about to say?
Is she finally going public?
The two spearheads, Mu Yin and Lang Shu, were so excited they almost screamed!
Recalling Zhu Liheng's advice that mental resilience was critical for passing her English speaking exam in the college entrance exam, Lin Jianzhi decided that speaking to the entire class would be the first step in changing herself!
So gazing at her classmates with determination, Lin Jianzhi spoke: "Zhu Liheng and I live upstairs and downstairs from each other. My parents asked him to tutor me in preparing for the college exams. We don't have the kind of relationship you all imagined, so please stop spreading rumors."
She enunciated clearly and her voice was steady. After finishing, she stepped down from the lectern, sat down and started working on test papers.
That's right!
No matter how much she liked Zhu Liheng, she shouldn't pin her fantasies to him through these stories.
Zhu Liheng had his own life and choices ahead. His world was so big and his social circle so impressive and mindset so broad that she couldn't even understand so much of it.
Since she didn't match up to him, secretly liking him was enough.
What was most important to her, Lin Jianzhi, right now were the college entrance exams, math, the English speaking test!
She needed a good score, and she needed a sense of her own existence in society.
She didn't want Zhu Liheng to think she was stupid!
Such an outstanding person was giving her one-on-one tutoring. If she still didn't test well, she would truly feel awful for wasting his time and energy.
The classroom was quiet, and quite a few students felt extremely disappointed.
The protagonist herself had clarified everything, so all their gossiping these past days had just been a waste. Class president Lang Shu in particular heaved a huge sigh: "Lin Jianzhi, you've let me down!"
