7. Enter the Unexpected Rival — Lin Yitan

By the time Gao Weizhao dropped her off at the school gate, it was already eight fifty.

"Wen Mingjuan." Just as she turned to head toward the school gate, Gao Weizhao suddenly called out to stop her.

"What is it?" Wen Mingjuan turned back, looking at Gao Weizhao helplessly.

"Remember one thing: no matter what the circumstances, you must never bring up the word 'kidnapping.'"

"Why?" Wen Mingjuan asked blankly.

"Because saying that word could get an entire basketful of people killed."

"Including the three of us?" Wen Mingjuan glanced at him, then at Tao Muwei.

"Yes!" Gao Weizhao nodded.

"Understood." Wen Mingjuan said.

She honestly had no real idea why uttering those two words would be a matter of life and death for a whole group of people, but Wen Mingjuan was certain of one thing: on this particular matter, she absolutely had to listen to Gao Weizhao.

Walking into the staff office, she arrived just as the first period bell rang. Her colleagues, seeing Wen Mingjuan, rushed over one after another with concern.

"Teacher Wen, what on earth happened to you? Did the acting head of the Parents' Association kidnap you?"

"Kidnap?" Wen Mingjuan's heart lurched. Gao Weizhao really was clairvoyant — he'd just warned her never to say that word, and already someone was bringing it up.

"That's not what happened." she said.

"Teacher Zhang said you didn't come home all night — doesn't that mean you spent the whole night 'together' with this Gao Weizhao person?" The one speaking was the school's resident gossip queen, a civics teacher named Lai Chunxiang.

"I have absolutely no interest in him..." Wen Mingjuan tried to correct her, but was cut off by Lin Yitan.

"Don't go stirring things up on the side — don't you all know what kind of person Mingjuan is?" Lin Yitan walked up beside Wen Mingjuan and asked her gently: "Did you run into some bad people?"

Wen Mingjuan wasn't at all pleased that Lin Yitan had stepped in to rescue her from this — his motivation was steeped in a thick layer of affection, and that was more than she could handle.

Lin Yitan wasn't bad-looking by any means, and his character wasn't exactly lacking either; his temper was almost unbelievably good. But Wen Mingjuan simply felt something was off about him. Every time he gently asked after her well-being with such warmth, it actually gave her goosebumps all over. Her colleagues always said she didn't know a good thing when she saw one — fussing and picking at a gentle, considerate man like that. Zhang Tingyu, especially, was the one who scolded her most fiercely about it.

"Gao Weizhao ran into some trouble trying to get Chen Hongjia from my class back safely. Yesterday, some underworld brothers came looking for him to talk it over, and since Tao Muwei and I happened to be there too, we all ended up as their guests." Wen Mingjuan deliberately avoided the word "kidnapping" entirely, and along with it, she also left out the whole dramatic scene at the Western restaurant last night and the trip to the police station.

"Are you alright, though? Were you hurt? Did they do anything to you?" Lin Yitan anxiously grabbed hold of Mingjuan, looking her over from every angle.

"With Gao Weizhao covering for me, they wouldn't dare try anything." Wen Mingjuan, feeling annoyed, blurted this out without thinking it through.

Huh? Since when had she become assimilated by Tao Muwei, actually showing this air of reverence for Gao Weizhao?

Wen Mingjuan caught herself noticing this odd shift in her own thinking.

"Hearing you say that, is this Gao Weizhao really mixed up in the underworld?" Lai Chunxiang leaned in, her face alight with gossip. "Which gang does he belong to?"

"I don't know." Wen Mingjuan answered flatly.

"No way. You spent the whole night with him and don't even know that?" Lai Chunxiang's tone was thick with suspicion.

"Don't talk nonsense — Tao Muwei and I couldn't get anywhere near the place where they were talking. This idea that I spent the night with Gao Weizhao is completely out of the question." Although Wen Mingjuan had taken it upon herself to rearrange parts of the story, on the whole it wasn't really a lie.

"Come here for a second." No sooner had she finished speaking than Lin Yitan pulled Wen Mingjuan aside, his manner rather suggestive.

"What is it now?" Wen Mingjuan disliked being dragged around and shook his hand off.

"Those bad people really didn't do anything to you, did they?" he asked.

"Are you out of your mind?" This time, Wen Mingjuan genuinely lost her temper. "Forget whether they did or didn't — even if they had, it wouldn't be any of your business." She stormed off in a huff, drawing the entire office's attention onto herself.

* * *

After getting off work and heading home, Wen Mingjuan first treated herself to a nice, fragrant shower, as a way of washing off the bad luck. Then she began ransacking every drawer and box in search of her ID card. Sadly, she practically turned the whole apartment upside down and still found no trace of it.

"It's probably not in here — could you have dropped it somewhere?" Zhang Tingyu helped search while muttering under her breath the whole time; out of the roughly forty minutes she spent looking, about thirty-nine and a half were spent complaining.

"If I knew where I dropped it, I wouldn't have lost it in the first place!" she retorted, her face crumpling into a pitiful expression.

And to think Zhang Tingyu had studied math — she couldn't even manage such simple logical reasoning.

"What about school? Did you check there?"

"I checked." Wen Mingjuan said irritably.

"Never mind, then! It's not like this is the first thing you've lost — you should be used to it by now." Zhang Tingyu shot Wen Mingjuan a look of utter despair.

"How can you say that?" Wen Mingjuan felt a bit deflated inside.

"It's fine, really! Tomorrow just go publish a notice invalidating the old ID and then apply for a replacement — it's really not that big a deal." At this point, Zhang Tingyu, strangely enough, started comforting Wen Mingjuan instead.

"It's such a hassle!" Wen Mingjuan grumbled.

Why had Zhang Tingyu had such a change of heart today? Not continuing to nag was one thing, but actually offering comfort?

All at once, Wen Mingjuan noticed something a bit off about Zhang Tingyu's expression.

"What are you trying to say?" Wen Mingjuan knew Zhang Tingyu's shifty look far too well.

"Be honest — did that pervert surnamed Gao really not do anything to you?"

"You could say that." Wen Mingjuan thought it over calmly and answered her very solemnly.

"What do you mean, 'you could say that'?" Zhang Tingyu was clearly quite unsatisfied with this answer.

"You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask? Are you disappointed he didn't do anything shameful to me?"

"Oh, come on, I'm not that heartless. Really." Provoked by Wen Mingjuan's jab, Zhang Tingyu conceded defeat, giving her an embarrassed shove.

Ah, honestly — if Wen Mingjuan hadn't gotten a good look that night and confirmed the man behind her really was Gao Weizhao, she wouldn't have believed in a million years that he was the pervert.

Suddenly, both their stomachs let out a loud growl at the same time.

"I'm starving." Wen Mingjuan looked at Zhang Tingyu with an innocent expression, only to have Zhang Tingyu glare right back at her instead.

"And whose fault is that, searching for your ID this whole time, is why we haven't eaten yet." Zhang Tingyu seemed to be working up the urge to start "reciting scripture" all over again.

"Go buy some boxed lunches, quick." To head off further nagging, Wen Mingjuan blurted out this suggestion without a second thought.

"Hey! Don't act all innocent after taking advantage of me." Zhang Tingyu's face was turning nearly liver-colored. "It's bad enough you're not treating me, but you actually want me to go buy them?"

"Relax, I was only joking." Wen Mingjuan's ability to flip her attitude on a dime was truly astonishing; she said, smiling ingratiatingly: "Let's go! My treat."

The moment they went downstairs, Wen Mingjuan spotted a familiar figure approaching from a distance.

Oh! It was Lin Yitan, of all people?

Every single time she saw him, Wen Mingjuan felt a sense of impending doom.

This time was no exception.

"Let's take a detour." Seeing him gradually drawing closer, Wen Mingjuan grabbed Zhang Tingyu's hand and pleaded with her.

"You're being ridiculous!" Zhang Tingyu asked, rather annoyed: "Don't you see Teacher Lin coming?"

"It's precisely because I see him that I want to take a detour." Wen Mingjuan said, sounding thoroughly aggrieved.

"He's so good to you, and you really don't know how to appreciate it." Zhang Tingyu was forever stubbornly trying to "pair up" Wen Mingjuan and Lin Yitan.

"I just don't like him — what is there to appreciate?" Wen Mingjuan felt even more wronged.

"What's wrong with him? Look at how you treated him in the office today — that must have really embarrassed him." Zhang Tingyu seemed to be championing Lin Yitan's cause.

"How do you even know about that? You weren't in the office during that period — who's the loudmouth who reported it to you?"

"If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it in the first place." Zhang Tingyu remained cryptic about it.

"Hey! Hello, you two! Where are you off to?" Lin Yitan had already walked right up to them, and now Wen Mingjuan had lost any chance of taking a detour.

"We're going to get dinner." Zhang Tingyu answered him warmly.

"Why haven't you eaten yet this late?" Lin Yitan checked his watch, looking at them with puzzlement. "It's already seven thirty."

"Why are you here?" Wen Mingjuan, feeling impatient, cut straight to the point.

"I came to chat with you two."

"Chat?" Wen Mingjuan shook her head, exasperated. "I'm starving to death and you want to chat?"

"Mingjuan, don't always take that tone with Teacher Lin. He means well." Zhang Tingyu started smoothing things over again.

"It's a fact that I'm starving — what's wrong with my tone about that? And besides, doesn't he have his English cram school class to teach? Why is he here?" she asked.

"I specifically canceled tonight's class because I wanted to come check on you. I was worried that after running into those underworld people, you might be scared inside but wouldn't want to say so in front of your colleagues, so..."

"Didn't I already tell you I'm fine?" Wen Mingjuan shot him a cold look and cut him off immediately.

"But..." Lin Yitan still wanted to say more.

"Please, just let us go eat!" Wen Mingjuan practically shouted.

Lin Yitan seemed genuinely startled, standing there speechless for a long moment.

"Or, why don't you come eat with us?" Under the pressure of Zhang Tingyu's withering glare, Wen Mingjuan had no choice but to significantly lower her stance.

"But... I've already eaten." Lin Yitan mumbled.

Idiot!

Wen Mingjuan cursed him silently in her heart.

No wonder you can't get yourself a girlfriend.

Perhaps Wen Mingjuan had recently been dogged by some kind of jinxed star, one that seemed particularly determined to sabotage her dinners. Last night's meal with Gao Weizhao had been fraught with peril from start to finish; she'd hoped tonight would let her feast to her heart's content to make up for it, but unluckily, an unexpected wild card had crashed the party yet again.

In the end, she did eat dinner — but it left her with a bit of indigestion. The reason was that this idiot, despite clearly having already eaten, went ahead and ordered a chicken thigh rice plate anyway, and ate it all the way through even as his face turned a strange color partway through.

Chasing after a girlfriend to this degree seemed like a rather exhausting effort.

In fact, it wasn't just him who found it painful — watching him, Wen Mingjuan and Zhang Tingyu both felt quite uncomfortable too.

"Are you okay?" Zhang Tingyu was the textbook "mother figure" type — besides her love of nagging, she also had a real knack for looking after others.

"Why force yourself to eat so much when nothing's the matter? Nobody's making you." Wen Mingjuan said to Lin Yitan.

"Watch your tone." Zhang Tingyu turned to scold Wen Mingjuan. "Could you be a little gentler with Teacher Lin?"

"But I'm just not a gentle person by nature."

Wen Mingjuan genuinely felt wronged inside — if Lin Yitan thought she wasn't gentle enough, he was free to stop pursuing her. Why was everyone now demanding she be gentler toward him instead?

Sometimes Wen Mingjuan found Zhang Tingyu quite strange — Tingyu should understand her personality perfectly well, and yet whenever it came to matters involving her and Lin Yitan, Zhang Tingyu always turned utterly unreasonable.

After Lin Yitan left, Wen Mingjuan sat on her bed for a long while, turning over in her mind just what kind of problem existed among the three of them — her, Zhang Tingyu, and Lin Yitan. She'd spent an entire muddled year being pursued by Lin Yitan, her mind fixed solely on how to dodge this relationship, never once giving much thought to how Zhang Tingyu might feel about all of it.

True, love didn't require taking other people's feelings as one's own — but over this past year, had she perhaps been too careless in overlooking the role Zhang Tingyu played in all this?

A cool breeze drifted in through the window, ruffling Wen Mingjuan's hair. Autumn had arrived; the mornings and evenings carried a slight chill now. She got up and closed the window slightly.

"Could Zhang Tingyu actually like Lin Yitan?" A bold hypothesis suddenly flashed through Wen Mingjuan's mind like an electric current.

Though the idea seemed a little far-fetched, Wen Mingjuan was a woman of action — no matter what, she had to verify this hypothesis. So she walked over to Zhang Tingyu's bedroom door and knocked lightly a few times.

"Tingyu, can I come in?" she asked.

"Sure!" Zhang Tingyu answered readily.

Wen Mingjuan turned the doorknob, opened the door, and saw Zhang Tingyu sitting on her bed.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked Zhang Tingyu.

"Nothing." Zhang Tingyu answered offhandedly, but her tone carried a note of loneliness.

"You..." She looked at Zhang Tingyu.

"Hey! That expression of yours is weird. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Wen Mingjuan hadn't expected to be found out so quickly, and suddenly felt embarrassed.

"I wanted to ask you — what's your impression of Lin Yitan?" She still didn't dare get straight to the point; after all, Zhang Tingyu was a girl too, and deserved some room for reticence.

"What do you mean, 'what's my impression'?" Zhang Tingyu asked, her face full of confusion. "Shouldn't your own impression of him be what matters here? What's it got to do with me?" she said, lowering her head as she spoke.

That kind of reaction and expression made it fairly easy to see through her.

Classic case of protesting too much.

"You know perfectly well I don't like him." Wen Mingjuan lowered her head too, mirroring her.

"But he likes you!"

"I don't care about that." Wen Mingjuan took Zhang Tingyu's hand, trying her best to summon what little gentleness she possessed. "What I want to ask you is — do you actually like him or not?"

"What on earth are you talking about?" Suddenly, Zhang Tingyu looked up and glared at Wen Mingjuan. "You're being so strange tonight! Saying all these bizarre things to me."

"I..." Wen Mingjuan cleared her throat. She decided to go all in. "If you really do like him, we can figure something out together."

In an instant, Zhang Tingyu's eyes went wide as saucers, so wide she forgot to blink.

"I... I... don't." she stammered.

"Would you stop being so stubborn about it?" Wen Mingjuan felt a flare of irritation; her already-thin patience was facing a serious test. "You can be dishonest with me, but can you really deceive yourself?"

"I... even if I do like him, what good does it do? He doesn't like me at all." Zhang Tingyu said, sounding wronged.

So this woman had finally spoken the truth.

Wen Mingjuan took a deep breath.

Her guess had really been spot on — she secretly admired herself to no end for it.

"Then let's figure out a way to make him fall for you!" Wen Mingjuan said with a smile, patting Zhang Tingyu on the shoulder.