Chapter 547: Shen Yuan’s Official Announcement Copy 3
He leaned in, bringing his head closer. The distance between them instantly shrank until they could hear each other breathe, and he could even see the fine hairs on her small earlobe.
“Is this close enough?”
His low voice held a teasing smile, and his warm breath brushed against her temple.
As he spoke, Shen Yuan even blew a deliberate puff of air.
“You—!”
Li Zhi’s cheeks instantly flushed crimson.
Almost instinctively, the hand that had been adjusting the phone’s angle shot out like a bolt of lightning!
“Hiss—Ow, ow, ow!!”
Shen Yuan felt the soft flesh of his cheek get precisely pinched by two slender yet surprisingly strong fingers, which mercilessly twisted it a sharp quarter turn!
The force wasn’t great, but the sensation and the slight, punishing pain were exceptionally clear.
“Shut up! Don’t move! I’m taking the picture!”
Li Zhi commanded fiercely, her other hand holding the phone steady, a finger hovering over the shutter button.
The young beauty’s face was so red it looked like it could bleed, but her eyes were blazing as if they could shoot fire. They held a mix of shame, anger, and a triumphant look that said, ‘See if I don’t teach you a lesson.’
With his face being twisted, one side of Shen Yuan’s handsome face was slightly distorted. He was forced into a pained grimace for the camera, all while managing to mumble a protest.
“Buh! Are you weally gonna take a pictur o’ me like this?”
“Of course! It’d be such a shame not to capture and treasure such a vivid and interesting expression!” Li Zhi practically spat out the word “treasure,” pressing down hard with the pad of her finger!
“CLICK!”
The crisp sound of the phone’s shutter echoed, perfectly freezing the moment—
The girl, her cheeks flushed scarlet, pinching the cheek of the boy beside her while putting on a fierce act.
The tall, handsome boy was cooperatively bent over to match her height. His mouth was stretched into a grimace from the pinch, his expression comical yet filled with unconcealed indulgence and amusement, the starlight in his eyes practically spilling out of the lens.
In the background were the slightly messy desks of the classroom and the faint winter light filtering through the window.
After taking the picture, as if just then realizing how intimate the pose was, Li Zhi quickly took a small step aside as if she’d been burned.
She hurriedly looked down at the photo preview, wanting to delete the picture immediately.
However, the moment her gaze fell upon the screen, Li Zhi froze.
In the photo, her eyes were bright and her cheeks were rosy. Her pouty, triumphant look was vivid and adorable.
Even though Shen Yuan’s handsome face was being pinched into a strange expression, the amusement and indulgence flowing from his eyes were so vivid and clear that they were even more genuine and moving than his deliberately posed smiles.
The entire image was filled with the intimacy of playful squabbling and a vibrant, youthful energy.
Her finger hovered over the delete button for a few seconds.
Finally, Li Zhi’s fingertip slid past it and tapped open the photo album.
“Hmph! You got lucky… This one… this one’s barely acceptable, I guess.”
She muttered under her breath, the tips of her ears still bright red.
Shen Yuan rubbed the faint red mark on his cheek where he’d been pinched. Watching Li Zhi’s profile as she studied the photo, he broke into a wide, silent smile.
A cold draft slipped in through a crack in the window, and Li Zhi subconsciously shrank closer to Shen Yuan.
Nearby, Ah Jie and Yang Ze exchanged a look of utter despair.
Great. It was bad enough they were a couple, but now they had to watch them cook up their lovey-dovey crap right in front of them. They were even getting a forced lesson in photo composition.
Ah Jie let out a wail and buried his head in his arms. “Oh, good heavens! Just let the world end! Right now!”
As the saying goes, “There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people’s eyes.”
While Ah Jie and Yang Ze were cringing hard, in He Zhiyu’s eyes, this was top-tier, all-natural sweetness!
Li Zhi was looking at the photo on the screen, about to put her phone away, when Shen Yuan grabbed her hand.
“Wait, Li Bao. I think that last pose could be… optimized a little?”
Shen Yuan said this with sparkling eyes, his smugness and satisfaction practically overflowing.
“You see, pinching the cheek is very dynamic, but it’s not… hmm, not intimate enough?”
Before Li Zhi could retort, Shen Yuan had already taken out his own phone, smoothly opened the camera app, and switched to the front-facing camera.
“Come on, come on.”
Shen Yuan wrapped an arm around Li Zhi, easily pulling her back to his side. They were instantly even closer, shoulder to shoulder, head to head.
He raised his phone high with his other hand, and the screen immediately framed their two young, blushing faces.
The faint light from the phone screen reflected in Li Zhi’s eyes. She subconsciously followed the light, and her gaze met Shen Yuan’s smiling eyes in the camera lens.
“CLICK!”
The shutter clicked again, softly.
“This one’s great!”
Shen Yuan almost instantly tapped the preview. His tone was full of amazement and pride, completely different from when he was admiring the first picture, where he simply thought Li Zhi looked beautiful.
“Li Bao, look, look! The angle’s not bad, right? And the lighting is perfect. It’s so natural!”
He shoved the screen in front of Li Zhi’s face as if showing off a trophy.
Encircled by his arm, Li Zhi had been about to call him an idiot, but when her eyes fell on the brand-new photo, the word got stuck in her throat.
In the photo, the background was a somewhat messy corner of the classroom, but it didn’t detract from the main subjects in the slightest.
She was leaning into the crook of his arm, her gaze following the direction of his frozen eyes on the screen, carrying a hint of surprise at being caught on camera and a shyness she hadn’t had time to hide.
The light shone down from an angle above, tracing the edges of their youthful profiles with a soft glow.
Though it was just a quick, impromptu snapshot, it had perfectly captured the unique, clingy intimacy and unspoken understanding between a brand-new couple.
Li Zhi’s heart inexplicably skipped a beat, and that familiar heat rushed to her cheeks again.
“…It’s okay, I guess.”