Redemption from the Abyss: The School Beauty Insists on Pulling Me Out of the Mire

The three walked out of the store, and tears from the spiciness still clung to Lu Yi's eyelashes.

"What's wrong, Master Lu? Did you cry from being moved by the braised chicken?"

"You don't understand." Lu Yi sniffed. "This is the soul experiencing the baptism of human life, a dual resonance between the taste buds and the spiritual world."

Su Qinghe walked to Xie Wang's left, listening to the two bickering, and couldn't suppress the corners of his mouth.

When we reached the fork in the road in the old town, Road 1 suddenly stopped.

He pulled a camera out of his trench coat pocket, turned around, and aimed it at the backs of Xie Wang and Su Qinghe who were walking ahead.

"Click."

The shutter sound wasn't loud, but Su Qinghe, with his sharp ears, turned to look at him: "Lu, what are you photographing?"

Lu Yi put the camera back in his pocket, his tone unusually less sinister: "Two souls who have nothing better to do, wandering around the human world."

Su Qinghe chuckled but didn't reply.

Xie Wang glanced back at him, surprisingly refraining from scolding him.

After taking the photos, Lu Yi turned around, sat down in the chopped chili fish head, and left.

The streets have quieted down.

Su Qinghe walked to Xie Wang's left, still holding the sets of intensive review materials she had chosen herself.

Xie Wang reached out and grabbed the bag: "Give it to me."

"No need, it's not heavy." Su Qinghe pulled it closer to himself.

Xie Wang didn't stand on ceremony with her and directly pulled her and the bag together, along with her wrist, towards himself.

Su Qinghe stumbled and bumped into his arms.

The paper bag got stuck between the two people and made a "crack" sound when it was squeezed.

Xie Wang did not let go.

He remained in that position, looking down at her.

"Professor Su," Xie Wang said with a laugh, "you're so good at physics, don't you know that the closer two objects are, the stronger the gravitational pull?"

Su Qinghe raised his hand and shoved the exam paper bag onto his face.

"Stop being so frivolous, let's go, it's cold."

She broke free from his embrace, her ears turning red as she took a few quick steps. Xie Wang followed, took the paper bag from her, and swung it around in his hand.

I walked past a flower shop that was closed.

The roller shutter was pulled down, but a warm yellow light was still on in the shop window, illuminating several bunches of dried flowers wrapped in kraft paper.

Baby's breath, eucalyptus leaves, and two light pink dried roses, their colors faded but looking very gentle under the light.

Su Qinghe slowed his pace.

She glanced at it a couple more times, then turned back and continued walking.

Xie Wang didn't say anything. But he remembered that scene.

Once inside the elevator to the Cloud Top Piano Room, Xie Wang leaned against the corner wall and glanced at Su Qinghe.

Her nose was red from the cold.

Xie Wang reached out and gently rubbed the tip of her nose with the pad of his thumb.

Su Qinghe tilted his head to dodge, but couldn't avoid it.

"what?"

"Red," Xie Wang withdrew his hand, his tone serious. "Like a strawberry."

Su Qinghe glared at him and said, "Try saying that again."

Xie Wang immediately shut up.

The elevator reached the sixteenth floor and made a "ding" sound.

The two people came out and stood in the corridor between 1601 and 1602.

Su Qinghe pulled Xie Wang's test paper out of the paper bag and handed it to him: "Finish at least one set of English reading comprehension questions tonight. I'll be checking them tomorrow. If you don't finish—"

"What if you don't finish?" Xie Wang took the test paper and tilted his head to look at her.

"Don't eat breakfast if you don't finish your work."

"Yes, yes, I will obey."

Xie Wang took the exam paper, tucked it under his arm, leaned against the door frame of 1602, and watched Su Qinghe take out his keys.

Su Qinghe's keys were hanging on the zipper of the side pocket of her backpack. When she bent down to zip it up, her wisps of hair fell down, covering half of her face, and her earlobes glowed a thin pink under the white light of the corridor.

She unlocked the door and pushed it halfway open when she found Xie Wang still standing there watching her.

Su Qinghe turned around and glared at him: "What are you looking at?"

Xie Wang fiddled with the edge of the scroll in his hand: "Look at the way you opened the door."

Xie Wang leaned against the door frame for two more seconds before turning around, swiping his card to open his own door.

Xie Wang entered the room and immediately got down to business—squatting in front of the cat bowl to add cat food to the food ball.

The rice ball popped out from under the sofa as soon as it heard the sound, its calico head buried in the bowl, and it ate with a "crunch crunch" sound.

Xie Wang squatted on the ground, propping his chin up with one hand as he watched it eat.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

Lu Wen's WeChat.

"Wangzi, the company has just signed three new security testing contracts for small businesses. Zhou Zixu is handling them. Could you come over this weekend to go over the technical solutions? Two of the clients have rather old system architectures, and we're worried that Zixu might have trouble dealing with them."

Xie Wang typed "Okay" with one hand.

Lu Wen replied instantly with a thumbs-up emoji.

Xie Wang stood up and spread the test papers he had bought from the bookstore on the long table in the living room.

English reading comprehension—I dared not disobey Teacher Su's orders.

He sat down, turned on the lamp, and opened the first page.

I read three lines.

What came to mind wasn't the reading comprehension passage, but the image of Su Qinghe slowing down by half a step in front of that flower shop window.

She was looking at dried flowers.

Baby's breath and light pink roses.

Xie Wang put down his pen, took out his phone, opened the food delivery app, and searched for "dried flower bouquets delivered within the city".

I searched for ages.

too ugly.

Either the packaging was colorful and plasticky, or the bouquets were pitifully small and cost eighty-eight yuan; none of them caught Su Qinghe's eye.

He closed the food delivery app and opened the chat window with Lu Wen.

"Are there any reliable flower shops in the old town? Not too expensive, but not too cheap either. You know what kind of aesthetic Ms. Su has, right?"

Lu Wen's reply came faster than ever before.

"???"

"So, Xie Wang, you've finally met your match???"

"Wait until I ask Lin Lu."

Xie Wang placed his phone screen-down on the table, took a deep breath, and forced himself to focus back on the English test paper.

I worked for twenty minutes, finishing two of the four reading passages. Just as I was about to start the third, my phone vibrated again.

He assumed that Lu Wen had sent him the flower shop's information.

Click to take a look—

It's not Lu Wen.

Unknown number, text message.

Xie Wang opened the SMS interface.

The content was short, politely worded, and carefully selected, like a meticulously crafted business invitation.

"Hello, Xie. I've heard so much about you. If you're free during winter break, I'd like to invite you for a casual meal so we can chat about things among young people. —Gu Nan"

After finishing its cat food, Fantuan jumped onto the table, its fluffy tail brushing against Xie Wang's wrist.

He stared at the two characters "Gu Nan" on the screen, his thumb hovering in mid-air.

The desk lamp made a "humming" sound, the light flickered slightly, and then returned to normal.

Xie Wang put down his phone, his eyes still fixed on the text message.

The rice ball squatted down next to his arm, tilting its head to look at him.