Chapter 397 - 204: Nothing Happened (Part 2)
Chapter 397: Chapter 204: Nothing Happened (Part 2)
"..."
Shen Yuan cautiously shuffled forward, clutching the pillow that had come flying at him. Like a scolded puppy, he sidled up to the edge of the bed.
Then, in an incredibly timid fashion, he sat down, daring only to perch on the very edge of the bed.
Shen Yuan lowered his head, his fingers unconsciously picking at the pillow’s edge. It sat upright on his lap, hiding half his torso.
He lifted his eyes, stealing a furtive glance at Li Zhi on the sofa.
After a few seconds of suffocating silence, the rise and fall of Li Zhi’s chest finally evened out.
The embarrassed fury, which had erupted under her mother’s questioning gaze, began to subside after she’d thoroughly pelted the "culprit," deflating like a punctured balloon.
Seeing Shen Yuan cowering at the edge of the bed like a big, startled dog, Li Zhi pressed her lips together. The corners of her mouth, tight just a moment ago, gave an almost imperceptible twitch.
She cleared her throat. Though her voice was still a bit stiff, it was clearly not as full of burning rage as before. "Hey..."
Shen Yuan jolted and immediately sat bolt upright, the words "I know I was wrong" practically written across his face.
"...You dumbass... Did... did it hurt?"
Li Zhi’s tone was as wooden as if she were reciting lines, and her gaze couldn’t help but drift away, as if she had just casually asked an unimportant question.
But the slight blush on the tips of her ears betrayed her lingering awkwardness and a very faint trace of... concern.
The moment he heard her, Shen Yuan began shaking his head frantically, so fast he almost flung the pillow from his lap.
"No, no! It didn’t hurt at all! Really! This pillow is so soft, it was like a tickle! Li Bao, your strength... your aim... Heh, they’re great, just great!"
He blurted it all out in one breath, looking as though he wanted to shake his head even more emphatically. His expression was both sincere and cowardly, not daring to admit to the slightest discomfort. All he wanted was to move past this, terrified that Li Zhi might be reminded of what happened and let fly again.
Li Zhi watched Shen Yuan’s exaggeratedly cowardly display, shaking his head so hard it was almost a blur, and her puffed-up cheeks suddenly deflated.
Her tightly pressed lips involuntarily relaxed, and a faint smile spread from the corners of her mouth like ripples from a stone tossed into a lake.
At first, the smile was a bit awkward, as if she were trying hard to suppress it. But seeing Shen Yuan’s furtive expression, she ultimately couldn’t hold it back.
"PFFT—"
A short, crisp laugh escaped from Li Zhi’s throat without warning.
Shen Yuan, who was in the middle of energetically shaking his head and playing the coward, froze the instant he heard her laugh.
He raised his eyes and saw that although the girl’s face—puffed with anger just moments ago—was still flushed, the corners of her eyes and brows were brimming with an unstoppable smile.
Her clear, bright eyes curved into crescents, filled with a brilliant light that was even more vivid than the lights of West Lake outside the window.
Li Zhi was smiling, and her smile was so... natural and beautiful.
Shen Yuan instantly registered the shift in the tide. With a mental CLICK, the alarm bells in his head mostly fell silent.
A huge sense of having survived a disaster, mixed with the relief of ’I finally calmed her down,’ spread across his face in a tentative, silly grin.
At first, the smile was reserved. The corners of his mouth lifted cautiously, his shining eyes fixed on Li Zhi, terrified that this smile might anger her again.
But he saw that Li Zhi wasn’t getting angry. In fact, her eyes held even more mirth because of his silly grin.
As if discovering something fun, Shen Yuan immediately grew a bit bolder.
The curve of his grin widened, and he let out a goofy chuckle, subconsciously scratching his slightly messy hair at the back of his head.
The tense, suffocating atmosphere in the room was completely punctured by their two short laughs, instantly becoming lively and relaxed.
The low hum of the air conditioner became clear again. The test papers and pens spread out on the desk lay quietly under the light, and outside the window, the city lights flowed by in silence.
Li Zhi looked at Shen Yuan’s silly, wide-mouthed grin and seemed to suddenly realize she had broken character. Her face grew hot, and the bit of shame and anger that hadn’t quite dissipated came rushing back.
Her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened as she demanded, "Dumbass! What are you laughing at?!"
"Erk!" The wide grin on Shen Yuan’s face froze instantly, as if an invisible hand had grabbed him by the throat.
He instinctively sucked in a sharp breath. His upturned lips, like a kite with a snapped string, plummeted. The change in his expression was astonishingly fast.
The atmosphere in the room tensed up a bit again, but it was completely different from the heart-pounding tension from before. This time, it carried the unique, youthful awkwardness of childhood friends.
Li Zhi watched his silly, instantly silenced expression, as if someone had just hit his pause button. Deep in her eyes, the "fierce glare" she was trying to maintain began to waver.
A hint of a smile she couldn’t suppress finally snuck back onto the corners of the beautiful girl’s slightly flushed eyes.
Just then, a clear and rather abrupt GURGLE came from the direction of Li Zhi’s stomach.
Li Zhi’s body instantly went rigid. Her eyes, which still held a hint of sly amusement, suddenly flew even wider.
"..."
The girl pressed her lips together tightly, trying to swallow the embarrassing sound back down.
Shen Yuan froze, too. He had just recovered from the tense "do not laugh" command, only to be dazed by this sudden "request for food."
He looked at Li Zhi, who seemed to wish she could bury her head in the sofa like an ostrich, and held it in for less than two seconds—
"Pff— *cough, cough*..." He quickly covered his mouth, turning the almost uncontrollable laugh into a proper cough, but his shoulders were shaking suspiciously.