Chapter 57: White Dove

Chapter 57: Chapter 57: White Dove

Lin Zhengran knocked her on the head. Xiao Heqing let out an "Ah!" and clutched her head with both hands.

"Do you think I’m an idiot?" Lin Zhengran said. "For the past half-month, you’ve been acting like you’re half-asleep. Plus, every time you talk to me, you’re all sneaky. It’s obvious you’re deliberately hiding something from me."

"No..." she said, looking extremely guilty. But suddenly remembering her promise to Lin Zhengran that she would never lie to him again, she hastily changed her tune. "Well, not exactly no... yes, oh wait, no! Yes... boohoo."

Watching her split personality act, Lin Zhengran scooped out a bit of ointment and tried to spread it evenly over her ankle with his hand.

The touch of his warm palm and the ice-cold ointment made Xiao Heqing instantly let out a tiny whimper. Embarrassed, she immediately clamped both hands tightly over her mouth, her little face flushed red as she tried to stop herself from making another sound.

"Does it hurt?" Lin Zhengran asked curiously.

She shook her head vigorously like a rattle-drum and mumbled, "It doesn’t hurt. With the medicine on, it doesn’t hurt at all."

"But I haven’t rubbed it in yet," Lin Zhengran pointed out.

Xiao Heqing’s heart raced, her mind spinning rapidly as she struggled for an excuse. "Then... then maybe it stops hurting the moment you touch me. The moment you care about me, it stops hurting."

Lin Zhengran was speechless.

As he finished applying the ointment to her injury, Xiao Heqing bit her lip behind her covering hands, her face flushed such a deep crimson it looked as if she might melt. She thought, "His hands are so big... and he looks so gentle."

After applying the medicine, Lin Zhengran wrapped the bandage around her ankle a few times. "Rest well for the next two days. Once it completely stops hurting in a few days, you can take it off yourself."

"Okay." Xiao Heqing slowly pulled her foot back and slipped it back into her shoe.

Just as Lin Zhengran was about to bring up the previous topic again, Xiao Heqing finally chose to escape, covering her ears with both hands.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she pleaded, "I promised I wouldn’t lie to you, but I really can’t tell you about this right now! Can you just ask me again in a few days? I swear I’ll tell you then. I’m begging you."

After waiting a long while without hearing his response, she peeked at him and whispered, "As long as you don’t ask, I’ll do anything for you... Okay?"

Lin Zhengran didn’t really care about the matter anyway, so he didn’t press her. He simply pried her hands away from her ears. "Go change your clothes. We’re leaving."

"Ah? Oh."

She quickly put on her shoes properly and got up to head to the locker room. However, just as she reached the doorway, she turned back, gripping the doorframe and poking her little head out. With a face full of disappointment, she asked softly, "Where are we going? You’re not just going home, are you? It’s so early..."

"You’ll see once you change," Lin Zhengran replied casually. "I’m taking you somewhere."

Xiao Heqing nodded rapidly like a pecking chick. As long as he wasn’t going home, she didn’t care where he took her.

A short while later, Xiao Heqing emerged wearing a sweater and a jacket. Normally, she wore her school uniform, but whenever she hung out with Lin Zhengran alone, she would change into a cute pink coat and a pair of slimming sheer-illusion tights.

The two left the taekwondo studio and walked down a path Xiao Heqing had never taken before. Lin Zhengran asked if her foot hurt.

Xiao Heqing swung her arms back and forth. "It doesn’t hurt. It’s really not that serious."

"There’s a town tournament early next year. I just asked the coach, and he said you’ve already signed up?"

"Yeah, didn’t you say I should just sign up directly if there’s a town tournament? I always listen to you! Plus, the coach said I’ve been training really well, so I put my name down. Oh, right! I saw that first place gets a lot of prize money—several thousand yuan."

She said happily, "When I win the prize, I plan to give half to my mom, keep a hundred yuan to buy snacks to share with Wenwen, and use the rest to buy you something." Curious, she asked, "Is there anything you want? I should be able to afford almost anything by then."

He turned to look at her. At 1.6 meters tall, Xiao Heqing didn’t seem to have grown since last year. "You’re quite confident. You managed to get injured during practice today, yet you’re already thinking about how to spend the championship prize money."

Xiao Heqing flapped her hands rhythmically against her sides like a cute little duck. "I can definitely win! After we separated before, I didn’t practice much, but since you’ve been teaching me this past year, haven’t I caught right back up? With you around, I can do anything."

"So why did you slack off back then? What were you doing the whole time?"

Looking ahead, she seemed to recall those four years they were apart and answered subconsciously, "I was missing you. I kept wondering when I could call you, wondering what you were doing every day."

Realizing what she had just blurted out, she covered her mouth and shook her head shyly. "You didn’t hear that, did you?"

Lin Zhengran speechlessly averted his gaze.

The two arrived beneath a high bridge, where a small river flowed. Since the Lunar New Year was approaching, the trees here were completely bare, with only slender, sprawling branches swaying occasionally in the wind.

Xiao Heqing wondered why Lin Zhengran brought her here. "What’s in this place?"

"A while ago, I passed by here a few times while running errands. I noticed that around eleven in the morning, a bunch of little guys come over to drink water by the river. They look a lot like you. Since you don’t have training today, I brought you here to see them."

Xiao Heqing didn’t quite get it. She blinked her silly, vacant eyes and scratched her head. "What guys look like me?"

Calculating the time, Lin Zhengran figured they should be arriving soon. Sure enough, a moment later, he heard a familiar cooing from the sky. He turned toward the distant horizon. "Right on time."

Xiao Heqing also vaguely heard a series of COO-COO sounds and the flapping of wings. She turned her head to look.

Suddenly, her eyes widened. Under the sunlight, dozens of white doves flew over in neat formation from an unknown location. Occasionally, pristine white feathers drifted down from the sky, looking just like angel wings.

Xiao Heqing stared blankly as the dozens of doves glided overhead and landed by the river. They flapped their wings and drank the water, cooing non-stop.

"Doves! So many! So many doves!"

"There seem to be even more today than usual," Lin Zhengran noted, equally surprised.

Xiao Heqing cautiously walked toward them, but the doves seemed a bit scared and quickly scrambled away. Having no choice but to give up on touching them, Xiao Heqing suddenly had an idea. She placed both hands over her rear, splaying her fingers out, and bent forward, hopping along the riverbank.

She imitated the doves, even letting out a few coos from her mouth. To her surprise, a few of the doves saw her actions and actually started mimicking her, flapping their wings and hopping as they walked.

This amused Xiao Heqing so much that she giggled. "So cute."

Lin Zhengran laughed helplessly. He had told her that this silly girl was just like these doves.

Suddenly, Xiao Heqing stood up straight. Blushing, she looked at Lin Zhengran. "Um... Next Saturday night, right here. Could you come over for a bit? I have something I want to give you."

Lin Zhengran wondered what it could be.

Behind Xiao Heqing, the white doves flapped their wings and took flight at that exact moment. She clasped her hands over her chest, her eyes sparkling. "A gift. A really important one. And there are some things I want to say to you."

After today, Xiao Heqing would burn the midnight oil, focusing on knitting the scarf every night, determined to smoothly confess her feelings to him in a week.

Meanwhile, on that very same day, the twin-tailed Jiang Xueli was chatting in her bedroom that evening with a girl she had recently met from the Child Star Studio. She was utterly shocked when the other girl suddenly announced her plans. "You’re going to confess your feelings?! R-really?"

Over the phone, the other girl sounded incredibly shy but spoke quite loudly.

"Yeah! I have to confess. Didn’t I tell you I have an older brother figure? He has a super cute childhood friend who takes the initiative to call him every day, and he occasionally spends time with her—they’ll hang out for an entire day!

"Recently, I’ve noticed things are getting weird between them. Especially that childhood friend—she’s clearly planning some big move lately. W-what else can I do but confess? You know, with personalities like ours, if we don’t take the initiative, we have no future!"

Jiang Xueli’s new friend was a little girl with twin tails whose hair glinted somewhat golden in the sunlight. Just like her, she was a total tsundere.