Chapter 510 - 524: We Are With You

"Dare not smoke." Those three words vividly expressed several meanings.

He *could*, he might even be in love, but he didn’t dare.

An Guoming understood and chuckled. He stopped beating around the bush and asked, "So, kid, when exactly are you planning to confess?"

"Huh?"

Startled by An Guoming’s sudden question, Jiang Xia, with the guilty air of a thief, pulled An Guoming back into his house.

Once they were seated in the somewhat chilly room, Jiang Xia asked, "Second Brother An, what do you mean?"

An Guoming snuffed out the cigarette in his hand and blew out a smoke ring, his gaze on Jiang Xia hazy through the smoke.

"If you don’t get what I mean, kid, then there’s nothing more to say. I’m going home to sleep."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—don’t go, Second Brother An! Sit down, sit down."

An Guoming gave Jiang Xia a wry smile. "So now I’m ’Second Brother An’ again, eh, you kid," he teased.

Jiang Xia dropped the act and decided to just come clean.

"Second Brother An, don’t you think my feelings are super obvious? So how can she not get it?"

Jiang Xia’s words struck a chord with An Guoming. ’He felt his own intentions were just as obvious, so why was Yin Xuemei so completely indifferent? Does she really just see me as a business partner?’

"Second Brother An?"

Jiang Xia’s voice snapped An Guoming back to reality.

"I don’t know either. I can’t help you with this. The fact that I’m not trying to stop you is the kindest I can be."

Previously, An Guoming would have been the first to guard against this sort of thing. But An Ning’s injury had made him realize something: she desperately needed someone by her side.

Jiang Xia gave a sheepish laugh and asked tentatively, "Say, if I confess... what do you think the odds are that I’ll get beaten up?"

"Hard to say. Let’s call it fifty-fifty."

"So I have a fifty percent chance of success?"

Jiang Xia asked, utterly lacking in confidence. An Guoming rolled his eyes at him. "In your dreams, kid. My fifty-fifty means there’s a fifty percent chance she’ll beat you up, and a fifty percent chance she’ll beat you to death."

Jiang Xia didn’t argue with An Guoming’s assessment. Instead, he nodded with conviction. "You’re right."

Seeing the somewhat disheartened Jiang Xia, An Guoming spoke again. "What, scared of a beating? You’re just going to give up?"

Jiang Xia shook his head—so vigorously it looked like he was trying to scramble his own brains.

"No, it’s not that. I’m not afraid of getting beaten up. I’m afraid An Ning will start avoiding me."

An Guoming, a bachelor who also had someone in his sights, suddenly felt a sense of camaraderie with Jiang Xia. He was afraid of the same thing.

"Second Brother An, what do you think I should do?"

The moment of camaraderie vanished. An Guoming stood up abruptly.

"You’re pushing your luck, kid! Chasing my sister and expecting me to give you pointers? Dream on!"

And with that, An Guoming left.

Jiang Xia grinned as he saw An Guoming out. Just before closing the door, he said, "Second Brother An, An Ning has internal injuries."

"I know. I’ll be mindful of it."

"Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on her at school, too."

The two of them nodded in tacit understanding, then vanished into the night.

The next morning, An Ning had barely stepped out the door when Jiang Xia snatched her schoolbag off her back.

She turned her head to look at her bag and asked, "What are you doing?"

"For balance," he said. "The bike feels a little lopsided otherwise."

The ridiculously creative excuse made An Ning’s teeth ache.

"Come on, want a ride?"

Jiang Xia gestured with his eyes toward the back of his bicycle. An Ning thought for a moment, then got on.

"Go slowly. You can’t afford it if I get hurt."

"Don’t worry. Would my entire net worth be enough? If that’s not enough, I’ll throw myself in as compensation too."

It was a probing question that made Jiang Xia’s heart race, but unfortunately, An Ning, sitting behind him, was completely oblivious. She just thought they were bickering as usual.

"What, you want to be my servant for life? Hmm, I’ll consider it."

A bittersweet expression on his face, Jiang Xia continued pedaling forward.

When they reached Beijing University, An Ning didn’t even get off the bike; Jiang Xia rode her right onto campus. As for any potential gossip, the thought never even crossed An Ning’s mind.

At this point, Jiang Xia’s feelings grew even more complicated. ’She really doesn’t see me as a stranger at all!’

For a moment, he even wondered, ’Does An Ning even see me as a man?’

Harboring these complex feelings, Jiang Xia saw An Ning to her classroom before turning to leave for his own class.

After the morning’s classes, the fact that Jiang Xia had given An Ning a ride to school didn’t cause any ripples. An Ning’s shaved head, on the other hand, caused a tidal wave.

The rumor started from who-knows-where, but by the time An Ning heard it, she was supposedly on her deathbed.

An Ning, who was eating in the cafeteria, froze with a mouthful of food she could neither swallow nor spit out. ’How on earth did I end up on my deathbed?’

Yin Xuemei and Luo Li, who were eating with her, couldn’t stop staring at her shaved head. It did look a bit convincing, they had to admit.

"Whatever," she said. "Once people see I’m still alive and kicking after a while, the rumor will die on its own."

An Ning, impressively unbothered, went back to eating.

After lunch, An Ning had one more smaller class to attend.

When she walked into the classroom, she was struck dumb.

"You guys... What is... this—?"

"An Ning, we’re with you."

"That’s right, we’re with you."

"No matter how hard it gets, we’ll face it with you."

"Yeah, we’re with you."

All the boys in the class were shouting their support. An Ning was genuinely touched, but also thought, ’Couldn’t you guys have at least asked me first before doing... this?!’

She walked up to the lecturer’s podium and looked down at the sea of shiny, bald heads below, her feelings a complicated mess.

She felt that if she didn’t actually have a terminal illness, she would be letting everyone down.

"Um, everyone, I’m very touched by your actions, but... I need to solemnly declare that I am not sick, I am not critically ill, and I certainly do not have a terminal disease. I just got a haircut."

"’Really, look!’ she said. ’My hair roots are dark and glossy. Perfectly healthy.’"

An Ning stretched the skin on her scalp for the students below to see.

The class monitor, one of the many bald boys, stood up again and addressed the scalp-stretching An Ning.

"Um, An Ning, you’ve misunderstood."

"Huh?"

An Ning’s head snapped up.

"We shaved our heads in solidarity with you, not because of that rumor. We don’t know why you had to shave your head, but we figured it wasn’t by choice, so we wanted to show our support."

"Ohh—"

Awkward yet touched, An Ning walked down from the podium and patted the class monitor’s shoulder.

"Thanks, everyone."

"Rest assured, I’ll be sure to write plenty of extra practice problems for all of you."

An Ning returned to her seat, took out a notebook, and immediately started writing.

It didn’t matter if she was embarrassed; she could always write more problems.

Seeing An Ning scribbling furiously in her notebook sent a chill down the spines of the entire class.

’Hmm? Or was that just the draft on their bald heads?’

When the professor for the next class came in, he had to double- and triple-check that he hadn’t walked into the wrong room.

One professor, who wasn’t great with names to begin with, had always relied on hairstyles to tell students apart. Now, with the entire class sporting the same look, he was utterly face-blind.

Three days into the new semester, a group of Beijing University students took a qualifying exam for a math competition.

The exam lasted half a day, and the list of students who would be participating in the competition was released the very next day.

An Ning was, naturally, at the top of the list. Jiang Xia’s name was on it as well, along with two other students—both of them bald-headed members of the math department. There was, however, one other name that took An Ning by surprise.