Volume 2 Chapter 41

Volume 2 + Chapter 41: Sunday Secret Meeting

Under the blazing sun, a blonde girl stood at the entrance of an upscale apartment building. In his hand, he carried a carefully wrapped small gift box.

She had just stretched out a finger to press the doorbell, but when it was about to touch the button, she suddenly withdrew it again, clearly hesitating.

“How am I supposed to talk to that girl Bai Yuxuan when I see him later?” Ouyang Qianxue muttered to himself as he paced back and forth in front of the door.

“Right, I came to see him today for perfectly legitimate reasons. First, to thank him for saving me that day. Second, to check on his injuries. After all, both of his hands are fractured.”

With that thought, Ouyang Qianxue finally pressed the doorbell of Bai Yuxuan’s apartment.

“Who is it?” Bai Yuxuan’s voice came from the electronic lock by the door.

“It’s Ouyang Qianxue. I wanted to thank you for helping me a few days ago. I also heard you were injured, so I came to see how you’re doing.”

“Oh.” Bai Yuxuan responded briefly through the electronic lock, and then the connection cut off.

Ouyang Qianxue waited for Bai Yuxuan to open the door. One minute passed. Then five minutes passed. There was still no movement from inside. Finally, unable to hold back, Ouyang Qianxue shouted toward the door.

“Bai Yuxuan! Why aren’t you opening the door yet?” Yet there was still no response from inside.

“Could it be that the soundproofing in this high-end apartment complex is just too good? Well then, how about this?” Ouyang Qianxue began pressing the doorbell repeatedly.

“I refuse to believe you can endure this! Even if the soundproofing is excellent, the doorbell rings inside the apartment. I don’t believe you won’t get annoyed if I keep pressing it like this!” However, even after pressing the doorbell for dozens of minutes, there was still no reaction from inside the apartment.

“Huff… huff… What’s going on? Why does that girl Bai Yuxuan have such ridiculous endurance?” Ouyang Qianxue said while panting for breath.

“Hmph. Such a naive fellow.” Inside the apartment, Bai Yuxuan snorted coldly.

In truth, shortly after Ouyang Qianxue began pressing the doorbell, Bai Yuxuan had already cut off the power to the electronic doorbell. Since the bell’s sound could only be heard inside the apartment, Ouyang Qianxue had no idea that all his efforts had been completely in vain.

“Damn it… Why is that girl still ignoring me?” Ouyang Qianxue outside the door was starting to grow irritated.

Today was Sunday. It had been two days since the kidnapping incident, and there was only one day left before school resumed. If he couldn’t manage to speak properly with Bai Yuxuan today, the next opportunity would not come until the following weekend. At school, he simply didn’t dare approach Bai Yuxuan, those classmates had eyes for gossip sharper than radar. Forget talking, even if he merely glanced at Bai Yuxuan one extra time, rumors would start spreading among them.

And Wang Qian was in the class next door. It would be far too easy for gossip to reach her. With the end of the term approaching, the time he could spend around Bai Yuxuan this semester was already running out. If no progress was made today, then when the next semester began, the relationship between the two of them would become even harder to repair.

Thus, Ouyang Qianxue simply sat down right at the entrance of Bai Yuxuan’s apartment.

“I refuse to believe that girl won’t come out!”

Meanwhile, after finishing a book about economics, Bai Yuxuan stood up and stretched lazily.

The dazzling sunlight shining through the window made her instinctively raise a hand to shield her eyes.

“Looks like I didn’t notice because my room has air conditioning. I heard today’s temperature reached forty degrees. That girl probably couldn’t stand it and must have left long ago.”

Bai Yuxuan said this with a somewhat smug tone. As expected, Ouyang Qianxue had never once managed to outmaneuver her. But… Why? Why did the thought of her leaving bring a faint, inexplicable sense of disappointment to her heart?

With a resigned sigh, Bai Yuxuan finally leaned toward the door and glanced outside through the peephole.

She froze.

Ouyang Qianxue was still sitting outside the door. His cheeks were puffed up like an angry hamster, and beads of sweat continuously formed on his forehead.

“Why is that idiot so stubborn?!” Bai Yuxuan said, both annoyed and concerned. She was just about to open the door, but her hand suddenly stopped halfway in the air.

“Ah… that girl has nothing to do with me anymore, right? Why should I bother with her affairs? Keeping her distance from me was exactly what she wanted, wasn’t it?” With that thought, Bai Yuxuan turned away and returned to her study to continue reading.

However, Bai Yuxuan soon discovered that her mood had become terribly restless. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t focus on the book. Whenever she read for a moment, her mind would wander, and Ouyang Qianxue’s figure would fill her thoughts.

Finally, she threw the book aside altogether and opened a music app to listen to some instrumental music. After skipping several recommended tracks, she eventually found a piano cover of “The Street Where the Wind Lives” that gradually eased the tension in her tightly furrowed brows.

Unlike the original version, which features a duet between the erhu and piano, this cover was a solo piano performance. Though the melody was simple, the tone was gentle and beautiful, and the emotions were delicate. It carried a sense of quiet loneliness that perfectly matched Bai Yuxuan’s current mood. Curious, she tapped on the song details to take a closer look.

The description read: “I’m a student from Sakura Academy. This song was performed by our school’s campus beauty. When I heard her play it, I was so moved that tears fell from my eyes.”

The moment Bai Yuxuan saw this comment, she hurled her phone onto the floor.

“Why?! Why can’t you disappear from my heart, you idiot?!” Bai Yuxuan shouted.

After her emotions gradually settled down, she glanced at the clock on the wall. It was already four in the afternoon. Three full hours had passed since Ouyang Qianxue had arrived.

Bai Yuxuan hurried toward the door, but before she reached it, she suddenly stopped.

“That girl must have already left by now, right?” She turned as if to return inside, but suddenly a bad feeling rose in her chest.

(Although that girl Ouyang Qianxue usually appears quite clever, sometimes she can be incredibly stubborn about certain things. What if she…) Thinking about that, and recalling today’s scorching temperature, Bai Yuxuan began to panic. She rushed to the door and looked outside.

Ouyang Qianxue had collapsed right in front of her doorway.

“You idiot!” Bai Yuxuan immediately opened the door and hurried to support him, lifting him up and draping his arm over her shoulder. His face was drenched in sweat, and his complexion was pale. Seeing this made Bai Yuxuan extremely anxious. Because both of her hands were fractured, she could only support him awkwardly with his arm over her shoulder as she helped him inside her apartment.

“I can’t believe you actually waited outside until you got a heatstroke! What on earth were you thinking?!”

After laying Ouyang Qianxue on the bed and turning on the air conditioner, she immediately prepared to call for emergency help. Only then did she realize that her phone had already been broken when she smashed it earlier. Just as she opened her laptop, intending to contact Xiao Liu through online voice chat, she suddenly noticed something in the mirror in front of her.

Behind her, the supposedly unconscious Ouyang Qianxue had secretly opened one eye.

Bai Yuxuan immediately slammed the laptop shut in irritation and stormed over to him. At that moment, Ouyang Qianxue had already shut his eyes tightly again, his expression twisted in pain, as if that brief moment of opening his eye had been nothing but an illusion.

“Stop pretending! I know you’re perfectly fine!”

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