Chapter 4

After the incident that morning, by the time Xie Xishu walked into the classroom, he had not only missed the morning study session but was also nearly at the end of the first period.

As soon as he entered, Xie Xishu saw Qi Wu sitting in his usual spot.

The bustling crowd of lackeys who were always around him at the school gate had, for some unknown reason, been dismissed this time. The entire back row was occupied by Qi Wu alone, sitting in silence.

Yet, without his sycophantic followers, the fierce and dangerous aura radiating from the boy became even more pronounced.

He knew that the safest course of action would be to pretend nothing had happened and return to his seat with an air of oblivious calm, but Xie Xishu could not help his gaze from drifting toward Qi Wu.

Just like before, Qi Wu was staring straight at him.

The only difference was that this time, as their eyes met, Qi Wu did not look away—on the contrary, his gaze was more direct and ravenous than ever before. For a split second, Xie Xishu felt as though he might be swallowed whole by those dark, frenzied eyes.

Xie Xishu’s breath hitched, as if an invisible hand had clamped around his throat.

Qi Wu seemed entirely unaware of how ghastly Xie Xishu’s complexion had become.

After a brief, stagnant silence, he tilted his head and pulled at the corner of his mouth, as if attempting a smile directed at Xie Xishu. However, he clearly wasn’t someone accustomed to smiling; the way his mouth curled looked more like the intimidation of a large beast before devouring its prey.

Xie Xishu found it increasingly difficult to breathe.

With his heart racing wildly from sheer terror, he quickly averted his eyes, lowered his head, and walked briskly to his seat. He pulled his chair out with unusual force, the legs screeching harshly against the classroom floor.

Cheng An had been engrossed in a mobile game, but upon hearing the commotion, he looked up and gave Xie Xishu a once-over.

"Damn, Top Scholar, you’re really having a rough time. I heard you got caught by that crazy woman this morning?" the boy asked with a smirk, raising an eyebrow.

"Mm."

"They say that Li woman even tried to stop Qi Wu?"

"Mm."

"Unbelievable, just unbelievable. Wasn't that woman perfectly normal before? Why did she suddenly go off the rails? Could she really have had a mental breakdown from too much pressure? I heard she was so sick she couldn't even stand up a few days ago, yet she was still watching the morning study session in class. It was only because the principal, that old man, was afraid she’d drop dead on the podium and cause a lawsuit that he told her to just check attendance. And she’s actually doing it? She’s lost her mind..."

Listening to the chatter, Xie Xishu mechanically pulled his exercise books and reference materials from his bag, responding to Cheng An with a cold detachment.

Cheng An knew that this was simply Xie Xishu’s temperament and didn't seem to mind. Seeing that Xie Xishu was about to immerse himself in those cryptic problem sets again, Cheng An shrugged and turned his attention back to his phone.

Having been seatmates for so long, Cheng An had figured out the temperament of the person beside him. It was why everyone called Xie Xishu "Top Scholar"—once he dove into the ocean of study, he wouldn't be distracted by anyone; his focus was terrifying.

Of course, if Xie Xishu hadn't developed this ability to turn a deaf ear to everything outside his window, he wouldn't have survived in a hellhole like Nanming No. 3 Middle School until now.

However, even though it was now official class time, the classroom was still what one might call "noisy."

A group of students lolled about in various postures in their messily arranged seats; some played on phones, others played games, and in the back rows, a few were giggling while playing cards. The scene was a complete disaster. Yet, the teacher for this period remained indifferent, clearly long since accustomed to this dire academic environment. He sat on the podium, clutching his thermos, eyes drooping as he stared at his lesson plan, chanting the lecture in a low, droning voice.

Xie Xishu never paid much mind to what the teacher was saying. When the teacher was "chanting" above, he usually studied on his own, using papers and exercises borrowed from former classmates. He had been doing this for three years.

Today, however, he found his routine, once so habitual, to be impossibly difficult.

"Haa..."

Xie Xishu bit his lip, his already pale face looking even more bloodless.

He stared at the paper in front of him, his gaze unfocused.

More than ten minutes had passed, and he had filled in less than a third of the answers. He hadn't managed to process a single word of the notes he had worked so hard to borrow. Xie Xishu was deeply dissatisfied with his state, but he was helpless to change it.

The fever was one thing, but the farce at the school gate that morning was another.

But the primary reason he couldn't concentrate was that all his senses were involuntarily focused on the back of his neck.

The goosebumps that had broken out the moment he stepped into the classroom had never subsided; the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Even though there was nothing there, Xie Xishu still felt as if something were brushing against him, ever so slightly, from behind.

And Xie Xishu knew... at this very moment, Qi Wu was definitely staring at him.

*Click.*

His hands were sweating profusely, and without realizing it, he had applied too much pressure; his gel pen slipped through his fingers and rolled across the desk, clattering onto the floor.

The faint, crisp sound of the plastic pen didn't cause a stir in the noisy environment, but it made Xie Xishu jump as if he were a startled rabbit.

After several seconds, he bit his lip and bent down to pick up the pen.

But when he retrieved it, he couldn't help himself; he cast a quick, seemingly casual glance toward the back of the classroom.

Unsurprisingly, he locked eyes with Qi Wu.

Qi Wu had naturally narrow, elongated eyes. His irises were extremely pale, but his pupils were black and tiny—a pair of eyes that reminded one of a reptile. Even without knowing who Qi Wu was, one could sense the deep-seated malice and ferocity in his bones.

Yet, those eyes were currently fixed intently on Xie Xishu—as if he wanted to carve a piece of flesh off him with his gaze alone.

Xie Xishu instinctively shivered, his fingertips trembling, and he almost dropped the pen again.

He quickly sat back in his seat, his body curling forward involuntarily, as if hoping to make himself smaller and less exposed to Qi Wu’s line of sight.

Of course, Xie Xishu knew this was self-deception, as the gaze from behind remained intense.

So intense that it made him feel as if he were sitting on pins and needles.

Xie Xishu couldn't fathom what he had done to make Qi Wu stare at him like this, nor could he figure out why Qi Wu had spoken to him that way this morning.

He kept his eyes lowered, staring at the course notes that had become intimately familiar but refused to enter his brain, his mind in a state of utter chaos.

The back of his hand, where Qi Wu had accidentally touched him that morning, felt as if it were burning with an allergic reaction.

*So strange, so strange, so strange, so disgusting...*

"Top Scholar? You okay? You look terrible."

Just then, Xie Xishu heard Cheng An’s hesitant inquiry.

Cheng An had been utterly absorbed in his game, but he had happened to glance at Xie Xishu and was startled by the deathly pallor of the usually reticent top student.

Xie Xishu blinked, and after a half-beat delay, he responded dully.

"...I'm fine."

*

He stared at his paper, regretting a thousand times why he had come to school today.

He longed for the end of class.

Because when class ended, he could bolt out of the classroom and briefly escape that gloomy, piercing gaze of Qi Wu’s.

He simply couldn't stand the man’s attention any longer.

Under the pressure, without even realizing it, Xie Xishu picked up a childhood habit: he began to chew on his fingers.

It wasn't until he felt a sharp, stinging pain that he realized he had gnawed his index finger's nail down to the quick—a thin bead of crimson was seeping from the nail bed.

He was bleeding.

Xie Xishu snapped back to reality at the sight of blood, frowning as he pulled out a tissue and dabbed it away.

*BANG!*

The very next second, he heard a thunderous crash from the back of the classroom.

Without warning, Qi Wu had flipped his desk.

Everyone in the room was shocked by the sudden outburst, and in that moment of stunned silence, Qi Wu bolted out of the classroom like a whirlwind, leaving behind a scene of utter wreckage.

Ten seconds passed before the classroom, frozen in terror, finally returned to life.

"Damn, who ticked off Qi Wu?"

"Someone's in for it now, huh? Never seen Brother Qi act like this before."

"God, he scared the hell out of me. Did you see his face? Is he going to go kill someone?"

"Who knows what happened?"

...

Almost everyone began to discuss Qi Wu’s outburst with great excitement.

Even Xie Xishu completely abandoned his textbook, his face deathly pale as he stared blankly in the direction Qi Wu had left.

The students' murmurs blurred into a buzzing in his head; he felt dizzy, and his body couldn't stop trembling.

He couldn't shake the feeling that just as Qi Wu left, he had turned back and cast one final, lingering look at him.

*

"Hey, Top Scholar, you..."

A moment later, Xie Xishu felt a poke on his arm.

He turned his head to see Cheng An looking at him with a grave expression.

"You really didn't provoke him, did you?"

The last time Cheng An had asked this, he had at least been joking.

But this time, his expression was unprecedentedly serious.

Clearly, that look Qi Wu gave Xie Xishu before leaving was not the latter's imagination—as his seatmate, Cheng An had been caught in the crossfire of that glare and was still thoroughly creeped out.

"I... I didn't."

Xie Xishu’s lips were bitten so hard they were nearly bleeding. After a pause of at least ten seconds, he asked Cheng An a strange, seemingly unrelated question.

"Cheng An, do you think I have a scent?"

Cheng An stared at Xie Xishu, visibly stunned.

"A scent? What kind of scent?" He looked at Xie Xishu, bewildered. "...I don't smell anything."

But a few seconds later, Cheng An added, "Though you know I've had this cold for over half a month, I can't smell a thing. Wait, what does this have to do with Qi Wu..."