After Becoming the Love-Brained Female Lead’s Best Friend - Chapter 37

That night, Fang Shu kept doing questions until midnight before finally dragging her body, so tired it had gone numb, back to her own room.

Before that, Ye Wanyin had probably ignored her for an hour. Only after seeing that Fang Shu had truly started doing questions seriously and was no longer messing around did she slightly relax and lean back against the sofa.

From the corner of her eye, Fang Shu did not see Ye Wanyin rummage through her schoolbag, nor did she see her take out a pen. Fang Shu only felt uneasy in her heart, so her speed in doing questions became even faster.

It had to be said, when a block of wood really caught fire, its deterrent power was quite strong.

All night, aside from the swish, swish, swish of Fang Shu’s pen, the living room was as quiet as if there were no human life in it at all.

Fang Shu also knew she had overdone it. Other people progressed step by step, while she was a raging storm galloping forward. In the future, she still had to take it one step at a time, firmly stepping on solid ground before taking the next step.

After doing questions all night, by the time Fang Shu returned to her room, her whole body was already exhausted and limp. She hurriedly showered, then climbed straight into bed with her hair still slightly damp.

…

“Baby, Mommy’s back!”

In a spacious, bright room, the wind outside blew the curtains inside until they billowed. The transparent gauze curtain below floated uncertainly over the floor like a hazy mist.

Fang Shu was holding a novel and sitting on the carpet beside the bed. Hearing the voice, she had just raised her head when she saw a beautiful, glamorous woman push open the door with absolutely no restraint, rushing over like the wind to hug her daughter.

Fang Shu let the other woman nuzzle her neck. Only after the other woman had nuzzled comfortably and let out a long sigh did Fang Shu lower her voice and speak. “Weren’t you and Dad supposed to keep playing for another week?”

Mother Fang sat beside Fang Shu. While pinching Fang Shu’s cheeks, which had not fully lost their baby fat yet, she said, “Isn’t it all your dad’s fault? Something came up at the company again. It wasn’t fun playing outside alone, so I came back first.”

Fang Shu gave an “oh” and was just about to continue reading the novel in her hands when her mother lowered her head, glanced at the book, and casually said, “You haven’t finished this one yet?”

Fang Shu gave a hum. “This one’s pretty good. I think their relationship is very sweet.”

“Wait for me.”

Mother Fang suddenly stood up and rushed downstairs like a gust of wind again. One minute later, hurried, heavy footsteps on the stairs returned with her mother as she entered the room.

Mother Fang sat beside Fang Shu again and handed her the novel she had just brought up. She said to her, “One of my sisters recommended this to me. It’s a super sweet novel. All the comments say that after reading it, you’ll want to fall in love.”

Fang Shu took the novel with some hesitation. The cover was quite warm-looking: large patches of girlish pink peach blossoms, with the title and author written simply beside them. The synopsis was a concise few lines.

It looked like the kind of artistic little sweet romance.

But after her mother had forcefully called angst novels sweet three times, Fang Shu’s trust in her had already dropped to zero.

Fang Shu looked at her mother with little belief. “Really?”

Mother Fang nodded vigorously. “Of course it’s true! We mother and daughter have exactly the same tastes in novels. How could Mommy lie to you? I’ve read this novel too. It’ll definitely be so sweet you’ll choke!”

Fang Shu looked at her mother’s exaggerated expression, wanting to speak but stopping, stopping then wanting to speak again. In the end, she still took the novel. “Fine. I’ll believe you this once.”

Mother Fang immediately laughed until she shook like flowers in the wind.

Just as the mother and daughter were sharing novels, Father Fang finally finished work and came home. Seeing the older one teaching the younger one about romance novels and dating, he nearly went over to twist Mother Fang’s ear. “Can’t you behave yourself a little? Our daughter is still young. Why are you teaching her bad things all day?”

Mother Fang refused to accept this. “How is any of it bad? I’m clearly teaching our daughter to experience the love of the human world~”

Father Fang wore an expression as if he could not bear to look. “What if our daughter grows up and gets deceived by someone?!”

Mother Fang looked completely unconcerned. “What’s there to be afraid of? Don’t we still have ourselves watching over her? When our daughter gets a boyfriend in the future, we’ll just have her bring him home so we can check him for her.”

Father Fang nearly failed to inhale a breath of oxygen. However, looking at the mother and daughter, one big and one small, chatting happily, he ultimately swallowed his anger back down. “You two really are…”

Mother Fang stood up and pounced over to hook her arm around Father Fang’s shoulders. “Aiya, if our daughter likes reading them, just let her read. Shushu isn’t a little child. She knows how to keep things measured.”

Fang Shu looked at the two people standing at the doorway. Clearly, they were standing in the shadows, yet Fang Shu felt as if a beam of light had somehow appeared in the room, pulling their faces into its glow. From being able to see their features clearly to gradually seeing their features blur.

…

“Fang Shu—”

“Fang Shu—”

Fang Shu felt someone pushing her, forcing her to roll along with the other person’s movements. After a while, Fang Shu felt both her legs hanging in midair. The feeling of having nowhere to place her feet made her panic a little and want to pull her legs back.

But before she could pull them back much, Fang Shu felt someone grab her legs. At the same time, following a pulling force, Fang Shu felt her waist and abdomen were about to hang in the air too. Fang Shu, who was trying to continue lying back down and sleeping, struggled with all her might.

Fang Shu’s legs were now completely suspended in midair, barely supported only by the bit of strength in her waist and abdomen still connected to the edge of the bed. Fang Shu did not want to fall along with the other person’s force, so she tried to rely only on the strength of her waist and abdomen to shrink back.

Ye Wanyin, standing beside the bed, was a little dumbfounded.

Today was a school day. Generally speaking, Fang Shu was not too hard to wake up. But who knew what had happened today? Not only could Fang Shu not be woken up, she was even trying to go back to sleep.

Ye Wanyin thought in disbelief: could Fang Shu be tired because she had done questions too late last night?

Thinking of this, Ye Wanyin felt a moment of regret. However, seeing that time was about to be wasted away by Fang Shu, Ye Wanyin still made up her mind and used force to directly drag Fang Shu completely off the bed.

There was a soft carpet beside Fang Shu’s bed, so falling down did not hurt. It was just—

Fang Shu was still recalling last night’s dream. Although the her in the dream did not remember it, the current her remembered clearly. The novel her mother had shown her back then was a youth novel full of emotional pain. At the time, she had still held a tiny bit of hope in her mother, and she had been tortured by the angst until she cried for three days and three nights.

It was so painful that whenever she thought about it, she would uncontrollably start crying.

Back then, her mother had laughed at her for ages.

Fang Shu wanted to go back to sleep and return to the dream so she could violently beat up her mother.

Unfortunately, before she could climb back onto the bed, Ye Wanyin half-forced her to stand up.

Standing made people more awake. Fang Shu immediately felt her sleepiness disperse quite a bit, but Fang Shu, who wanted to return to the dream, did not really want this wakefulness. She only wanted to hurry back before her sleepiness vanished so she could beat someone up.

One person pulled, the other climbed. In the end, Ye Wanyin gave Fang Shu a flick on the forehead and, beside her ear, called out in a controlled volume, “We still have class today!”

Then she patted Fang Shu’s cheek a few times.

Fang Shu’s cheeks were a little soft. Ye Wanyin could not resist patting a few more times. When she withdrew her hand, she even gently pinched her once.

Fang Shu: “…”

Fang Shu finally woke up.

Yawning, she opened her eyes. Seeing Ye Wanyin standing in front of her, she walked around her and entered the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, the two of them went out together.

Before first period, Ye Wanyin finished looking over the questions Fang Shu had done last night. Her accuracy rate was roughly at passing level. The general direction was basically correct. The only flaw was that as Fang Shu slowly gained mastery over the question types, Ye Wanyin discovered that Fang Shu had also slowly begun developing a habit of carelessness.

Forget missing some detailed conditions. Sometimes, Fang Shu could even get the simplest calculations wrong.

Ye Wanyin looked at the terrifying multiplication and division from the nine-times table written in the notebook and felt her heart choke. She asked Fang Shu, “What’s seven times four?”

Fang Shu answered instinctively, “Twenty-four!”

Her answer was extremely loud and confident.

Ye Wanyin looked at her, not quite knowing what to say.

Fang Shu also gradually sensed something was wrong. Then she reversed seven-four…

Fang Shu: “…”

Ye Wanyin sighed. “In the future, try to be a little more careful when doing questions.”

After all, it was not that she truly could not recite the multiplication table. For problems caused by carelessness, aside from making her check again after finishing the questions, there was no other method.

Fang Shu clearly also knew this, so she closed her mouth and said nothing.

The morning classes were Chinese and math.

Looking at Fang Shu, who had stood up again, Ye Wanyin only felt that she had endured for a long time before her mouth stopped twitching. Thinking of Fang Shu’s good performance last night, Ye Wanyin passed Fang Shu a note.

Can you memorize a little during tomorrow’s Chinese morning reading?

Fang Shu looked at the note Ye Wanyin handed over and stared at the handwriting on it, seemingly conflicted for a long time. Just as Ye Wanyin was about to give up, Fang Shu finally did not crumple the note into a ball and throw it aside. Instead, she wrote a line below it.

I can—but I want to recharge.

Ye Wanyin looked at the reply, and the corner of her mouth could not help curling up lightly. This time, Fang Shu had used “I want” instead of “I need.” She had probably been frightened by Ye Wanyin last night.

Ye Wanyin also admitted she had been a little strict last night. But at the time, she really had been a little angry. She did not have much time left, and Fang Shu had kept pushing for more and more, while her efficiency was visibly decreasing every minute. At that rate, forget getting into university—another year of studying would be useless.

Ye Wanyin quickly wrote a line below the note and handed it to Fang Shu.

Sure. But at the very least, you have to show me the cost-performance value.

Fang Shu exhaled deeply and replied with “Fine.”

At noon, Ye Wanyin held Fang Shu’s wrist, charging Fang Shu while working through questions herself.

Fang Shu was looking at a question that was a bit difficult for her. Her brain was about to explode, but she still could not figure out the next step. Then she looked toward her own wrist. On her wrist was Ye Wanyin’s left hand. At first, the other girl’s hand had been a little cool, and Fang Shu’s wrist had also been a little cool.

After their wrist and hand had been touching for a long time, their temperature slowly began to rise.

Fang Shu felt that Ye Wanyin’s palm seemed to have started sweating.

The weather had already begun entering summer. The noon temperature was like someone was setting fire to the school outside, so hot it made one’s whole body tighten.

The classroom did have air conditioning, but who knew who had adjusted it? The temperature was not low. It was the kind where you felt cool when you sat still, but the moment you moved, despair set in.

Ye Wanyin and Fang Shu did not move, but their touching generated heat.

Even so, Fang Shu had no intention of asking Ye Wanyin to let go. In truth, at first, she had wanted Ye Wanyin to hold her hand, but the problem was that since they were deskmates, if Ye Wanyin wanted to hold her hand, it could only be left hand holding right hand.

Fang Shu hated that she was not left-handed and could not do questions with her left hand.

In the end, she could only settle for second best and hold her wrist.

This time, the two of them reached a unified agreement about charging: however long they held on was how long the battery would last.

And so the two of them held on all the way until evening self-study ended.

When it came time to pack their schoolbags, their hands naturally let go.

Fang Shu put on her schoolbag and waited for Ye Wanyin.

Seeing Ye Wanyin put on her schoolbag, Fang Shu began walking out. But before she had gone far, she was stopped by a force pulling her back.

Under Fang Shu’s widened eyes, Ye Wanyin took the initiative to hold Fang Shu’s hand.

Fang Shu believed that her liking for Ye Wanyin had not yet reached the point of heaven collapsing, earth cracking, seas drying, and stones rotting. But at that moment, her heart really did beat very fiercely, as if someone had struck it a few times with a hammer, making it clang loudly.

And so Fang Shu froze.

Ye Wanyin did not notice anything strange about her. She simply held her hand and walked outside while muttering to herself, “By the time we get home, your battery should be full, right?”

Fang Shu, who had already sunk into romance novels and was beginning to consider whether she should throw herself into the flames, disregard everything, and devote herself completely for the other girl: “…”

Her heart suddenly died.

Hammered to death.

Fang Shu expressionlessly followed Ye Wanyin outside. When they arrived home, Ye Wanyin asked Fang Shu, “How is it? Fully charged, right?”

Fang Shu said lukewarmly, “Oh. Fully charged.”

Ye Wanyin paused at her words and looked at Fang Shu with some uncertainty. Why did it feel as if Fang Shu was being sarcastic?

Had she heard wrong?

Since it was something uncertain, Ye Wanyin only thought about it for a while before throwing it to the back of her mind.

She handed the next section of knowledge points, which she had prepared long ago, to Fang Shu and even rather thoughtfully said to her, “You don’t need to study too late. Go back to sleep by eleven at the latest.”

Fang Shu still gave a lukewarm “oh.”

Ye Wanyin unconsciously frowned. That feeling that Fang Shu was being sarcastic surged up again.

But seeing that Fang Shu had already started seriously reading through the knowledge points, Ye Wanyin could only suppress that thought again.

She must have heard wrong.

That night, aside from her brain feeling a little tired, Fang Shu felt that she was in pretty good spirits overall. She even read a few chapters of a novel before bed before finally falling asleep.

Before falling asleep, Fang Shu kept recalling last night’s dream in her mind. She absolutely had to return and beat her mother up.

Unfortunately, probably because her sleep quality was too good, Fang Shu did not dream at all the entire night. When she woke the next day, she was even a little dazed.

On Ye Wanyin’s side, however, she once again had a dream after a long time.

In the dream, it was still the not-too-big, not-too-small house from her memories. Her younger brother sat at the table doing homework, while Ye Wanyin held a stack of test papers and looked over the questions.

Suddenly, the sound of a car horn came from outside.

Her parents were back.

Ye Wanyin sat on the chair without moving. She was frowning at the final question on the paper. That question was a little interesting, so Ye Wanyin could not help looking at it a few more times. The pen in her hand also kept writing and drawing on the paper.

Her younger brother, however, had only heard the slightest sound before putting down his pen impatiently and standing up. Ye Wanyin knew he was going to greet their parents, so she did not stop him.

Ye Tao ran all the way to the road, then chased after his parents’ car back. Seeing the people in the car get out, Ye Tao immediately looked eagerly at his mother’s hands. Seeing that her hands were empty, he could not help looking into the car while searching and asking his mother, “Mom, didn’t you bring me any snacks?”

Mother Ye knocked him once. “How do you only know how to eat? Have you finished your homework?”

Ye Tao held his head and said unhappily, “I’m doing it! There are only a few questions left! If you don’t believe me, ask Sis!”

Mother Ye did not go ask Ye Wanyin. From outside the door, she saw Ye Wanyin in the living room, focused on staring at the test paper in her hands. Then she gave Ye Tao another flick on the forehead. “Why don’t you learn properly from your sister? Look at your sister. Her grades are so good, but she still does questions every day. With grades as bad as yours, how do you still have the nerve to play every day?”

Ye Tao refused to accept it. “I study properly too, okay?!”

Mother Ye did not argue with him anymore. She took a large bag from the trunk and handed it to Ye Tao. “Here, snacks I bought for you. Don’t eat them all by yourself. Let your sister eat some too.”

Ye Tao stuck his tongue out. “Sis doesn’t like snacks.”

But he still picked up the snack bag and went to split them with Ye Wanyin.

When Ye Wanyin returned to her senses, she saw that her table was filled with snacks. Because there was only one bag, all the snacks were piled on the tabletop, looking like a small mountain. Ye Wanyin glanced at Ye Tao, who was still continuing to “divide the loot,” and said to him, “I don’t need them. You can eat them all.”

Ye Tao did not listen. He continued piling the already-divided snacks into the pile in front of Ye Wanyin and said to her, “No. We agreed it’s half each. I can’t steal yours.”

“Ye Tao! Come help!”

Ye Tao had just finished dividing the snacks when he heard their mother calling him from the kitchen. Ye Tao hurriedly put down the snacks and quickly ran toward the kitchen. “What is it—”

The dream ended there. When Ye Wanyin opened her eyes, she felt a needle-like pain at her temple. She rested for a while before it passed.

After waking up, Ye Wanyin went to knock on Fang Shu’s door. Fang Shu slept quite well this time. After Ye Wanyin called her only twice, she sat up straight and climbed out of bed.

For the next few days, Fang Shu behaved rather obediently and did not push for more again. Even on weekends, her requests remained within what Ye Wanyin could bear.

Seeing that Fang Shu’s efficiency in doing questions had not dropped much, Ye Wanyin basically agreed to them all.

Their school’s final exam was relatively early, beginning in late June, so the number of questions Ye Wanyin assigned Fang Shu also increased day by day.

That day, Ye Wanyin and Fang Shu walked together on the way back to the classroom. In order to improve Fang Shu’s English grades, Ye Wanyin had already begun consciously cultivating Fang Shu’s habit of memorizing vocabulary while walking.

A very small MP3 player sat in her pocket, earphones hanging from her ears. Sometimes, the earphones played vocabulary words, and sometimes they played English broadcasts.

Ye Wanyin walked beside Fang Shu, their hands tightly held together. To prevent Fang Shu from bumping into people because she was fully focused on memorizing words, Ye Wanyin acted as her eyes.

Under normal circumstances, Fang Shu’s peripheral vision was already enough for her to avoid pedestrians. Only occasionally, when she got stuck while memorizing, would she fail to notice someone in her peripheral vision and nearly crash headfirst into them. At times like this, Ye Wanyin would pull her back in time.

When they were almost at the teaching building, a person suddenly appeared in front of them. The person looked rather unfamiliar. Ye Wanyin watched as he stopped in front of them and seemed to struggle for a moment before finally standing in front of Fang Shu. “Senior, do you have time?”

Fang Shu frowned. She was thinking through the multiple meanings of a word and did not hear the boy’s question. She did not even notice that Ye Wanyin had already stopped and continued walking forward, only to be held back by the hand Ye Wanyin was holding.

Only then did she come back to herself somewhat blankly. Seeing the boy who had appeared in front of her at some unknown time, she asked coolly, “Something wrong?”

The boy asked with some excitement, “Senior, I wanted to ask if you have a boyfriend right now?”

Fang Shu crossed her arms… or rather, failed to. Her other hand was being held by Ye Wanyin, so she settled for crossing one arm over her chest and said to the boy in front of her, “No. Not dating. I need to study.”

The boy did not even have time to be happy about Fang Shu’s first sentence before he heard what came after. For a moment, he looked at Fang Shu, wanting to speak but stopping.

Fang Shu’s reputation as the sea queen had long since become famous throughout West High. In this school, as long as someone was not especially incompatible with Fang Shu’s taste and did not annoy her, most of them had once had a relationship with Fang Shu that was not meant to lead to any future.

These past two months, the boy had observed for a long time and had not seen anyone new appear around Fang Shu. So he had gathered his courage and come forward to confess.

And what did he hear?

Even more terrifying than Fang Shu not dating was that Fang Shu had actually started studying!

After all, although Fang Shu not dating was rare, it was not completely unprecedented. There had been a period before when Fang Shu had dated several boyfriends in a row, then seemed to grow tired of dating. After that, for a very long time—meaning one month—she did not date anyone again.

But her studying was a situation that had never happened before. The whole school knew Fang Shu’s academic level, so very few people were willing to use their limited time to teach Fang Shu. With that time, it was better to watch a few more movies with her.

At least when they looked back on it later, they could say it was a wonderful youth.

Fang Shu heard the earphones begin skipping over this word and prompting her to memorize the next word. She said to the boy, “If there’s nothing else, I’m leaving first.”

As she spoke, she pulled Ye Wanyin along and walked around him up the stairs under the boy’s shocked gaze, so shocked he did not know what to say.

Walking on the stairs, Ye Wanyin thought of the boy from just now, then thought of the relationship between the two of them. Looking at Fang Shu’s side profile, she suddenly asked, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Mm?” Fang Shu’s ears were filled with constant prompts, and she had not heard clearly what Ye Wanyin said.

Ye Wanyin pointed at Fang Shu’s earphones. Fang Shu pressed pause on the MP3, then took off the earphones. Only then did Ye Wanyin say, “I asked if I could ask you a question.”

“Ask.”

“When you dated before, did you never like any of them even once?”

Fang Shu looked at Ye Wanyin, not quite understanding, but still answered, “No.”

Now it was Ye Wanyin’s turn not to understand. “Why?”

Fang Shu stepped up two stairs at once. After a figure behind them went around them and ran upstairs, she continued, “At first, I didn’t feel anything. Later, after getting along for a while, I realized I still didn’t like them.”

Ye Wanyin: “???”

Ye Wanyin looked at Fang Shu in confusion. “Then why did you date them?”

Fang Shu did not continue walking. If they went up another half-flight of stairs, they would reach the entrance of their class. She stopped at the corner of the stairs and said to Ye Wanyin, “Because love at first sight is rare, so I wanted to try and see if anyone could make me fall in love over time.”

Ye Wanyin had not expected this to be the reason.

As expected of a pirated book. It really went wherever the angst was. The real Fang Shu had actually only done it for a very simple reason.