Chapter 56: Jealousy

As soon as Wen Xiao spoke, the cabbage dog on the ground stopped moving entirely, though it still maintained the posture of holding Wen Xiao tightly in its arms.

"No." Huo Zhanyan's voice came from beneath the cabbage dog costume, sounding muffled because it traveled through layers of plush fabric.

Shortly after, the cabbage dog lifted its headpiece off, revealing a shock of striking red hair, and asked Wen Xiao, "How did you know it was me?"

As he spoke, Huo Zhanyan looked rather proud, his eyebrows and eyes full of unbridled spirit. Capitalizing on his larger frame within the suit, he pulled Wen Xiao even tighter into his embrace.

"Aside from you, no one else would be this bored," Wen Xiao said sincerely. Though, to be honest, he hadn't been a hundred percent sure it was Huo Zhanyan; who could have predicted that Huo Zhanyan would be so impatient, instantly giving himself away the moment he was tested, completely incapable of putting up any resistance or making excuses.

Wen Xiao stood up from the ground, brushed the stray grass off his clothes, and cast a condescending look down at Huo Zhanyan. "Why on earth are you dressed like this?"

Huo Zhanyan was still holding the cabbage dog's headpiece in his hand, but upon seeing some classmates walking toward them from a distance, he hastily put the headpiece back on.

"I wanted to apologize to you," Huo Zhanyan's voice resumed its muffled tone.

Wen Xiao raised an eyebrow, stood right in front of Huo Zhanyan, and smiled. "You're apologizing to me? Do you even know what you did wrong?"

Huo Zhanyan stood up as well. The mascot costume was already bulky to begin with, and with Huo Zhanyan wearing it, he looked even taller and larger, forcing him to lower his head slightly in front of Wen Xiao, which made him appear rather aggrieved.

"I don't know," the other replied honestly.

Wen Xiao was almost angry enough to laugh. He couldn't help but pat the cabbage dog's shoulder and say, "You don't even know what you did wrong, yet you're apologizing to me?"

"I don't know what I did wrong, but you were angry..." Huo Zhanyan paused here.

"And?" Wen Xiao looked at Huo Zhanyan, still in the mood to tease him slightly. "Not going to finish? If you don't say it, then I'm leaving."

The moment Wen Xiao made a motion to walk away, he was reeled back in by the cabbage dog and pulled straight back into its embrace.

Huo Zhanyan sighed with a sense of resignation, then said, "You were angry, which means I must have done something wrong. Even though I don't know what I got wrong, I came to ask you, to apologize to you, and then you can tell me, teach me, alright? Xiaoxiao."

Ever since they were little, he had made Xiaoxiao angry countless times. Most of the time, he didn't understand why the other person was upset, nor did he feel that anything he did was problematic.

However, he had gradually grasped a certain rule: if Xiaoxiao was angry, it meant there were areas where he hadn't done well enough.

He would change. He wouldn't let the other person lose patience with him. He had the confidence to make himself better, no less capable than Song Jingbai and the others.

Besides, he wasn't inferior to those bastards like Song Jingbai in the first place.

Wen Xiao didn't say anything for a moment, and finally whispered, "I haven't been mad at you for a while."

"Really?" Huo Zhanyan couldn't help leaning in closer. Even though the cabbage dog's tail was very short, Wen Xiao felt as though that little tail was wagging right up in the air.

"Fake," Wen Xiao said. "Tell me, why did you let other people bully Ye Heng?"

"I didn't." Huo Zhanyan irritably scratched his head. He had wanted to run his fingers through his hair, but realizing he was still trapped in the mascot suit, he had to give up. "If there's someone I find annoying, I'll go make trouble for them myself. I don't need anyone else to do my dirty work."

"Then why did you admit to it?" Wen Xiao glared at him.

"At the time, I just didn't like seeing you standing in front of that Ye Heng and protecting him." You've never treated me like that, and that scholarship student had only been enrolled for a single day, yet look at how many times you'd already helped him.

The rest of Huo Zhanyan's words remained unsaid; he just felt a sour, deeply unpleasant churning in his chest.

Wen Xiao finally understood the situation now. Huo Zhanyan could simply admit to something he hadn't done just out of momentary annoyance. "Huo Zhanyan, are you out of your mind?"

As for the possibility that Huo Zhanyan was shirking responsibility—doing something bad and then claiming innocence—that was a thought Wen Xiao had never even entertained.

After all, Huo Zhanyan had been fearless since childhood. Compared to people who eagerly distanced themselves and tried to look completely spotless the moment trouble arose, Huo Zhanyan was clearly the type to take full responsibility and then give you a look that said, "Yes, I did it, what are you going to do about it?"

It was enough to make one's teeth itch with frustration.

"If you say I am, then I am."

Huo Zhanyan walked alongside Wen Xiao, occasionally staring intently at him, occasionally glancing guiltily elsewhere, thinking to himself: *Well, what can I do when I'm the one who likes you?*

"Next time it isn't you, don't just take the blame." Wen Xiao couldn't help pressing his hand to his forehead as he walked toward the edge of the lawn. Suddenly remembering something, he turned his head to stare at Huo Zhanyan's mascot suit. "Where did you even get this?"

"I took it," Huo Zhanyan said.

Wen Xiao's gaze grew even more suspicious. "You're sure you just *took* it?"

...

"The... the cabbage dog is back." A bespectacled boy pointed at the cabbage dog by the entrance and couldn't help crying out.

As Wen Xiao walked in, he recognized that this was the same boy he had briefly met during club recruitment, and the boy seemed to recognize him too.

"Sorry, my friend took your props. I hope it didn't cause any trouble for you." With that, Wen Xiao gave Huo Zhanyan a swat. When the latter removed his headpiece, revealing a head of defiant red hair, it immediately startled the student who had just spoken.

"Huo... Huo Zhanyan!" He pointed at Huo Zhanyan, unable to suppress an exclamation.

Probably no one in the entire school didn't know Huo Zhanyan. He only knew that the other boy came from an immensely powerful background, and offending him definitely meant no good outcome.

Huo Zhanyan stripped off the mascot costume right then and there, shoved it into the student's hands, and said in a stiff tone, "Sorry."

"No, no, not at all..." The student shook his head frantically; in the face of an apology from Huo Zhanyan, how could he possibly dare to utter a single word of dissent?

Besides, the way Huo Zhanyan looked at him made him feel as if he might be chewed up and swallowed alive in the next second. It was quite terrifying.

It wasn't until Huo Zhanyan withdrew his gaze and looked at the student standing next to him that the boy felt a slight release of tension, though lingering fear remained.

"What's going on here?" Another young man dressed in a black uniform walked over, offered Wen Xiao a smile, and then naturally extended a hand. "Classmate Wen Xiao, fancy meeting you again."

Wen Xiao realized this was the senior he had met a few times before, who was one grade ahead of them.

Whether it was his age or a certain special aura about him, the senior always gave off an impression of extreme composure—a composure tinged with a slight sense of unorthodox rebellion.

It immediately reminded him of someone: Song Jingbai.

Just as Wen Xiao momentarily drifted off in thought, Huo Zhanyan stepped directly past him and grabbed the other person's hand.

"We're all classmates, yet you only greet Wen Xiao and leave me hanging?" Huo Zhanyan sneered, exerting force in his grip, his eyes filled with winter-like chill as he looked at the other man, resembling a fierce beast guarding its territory.

"My apologies, Classmate Huo Zhanyan. Since you never greet anyone, I assumed you didn't like to." Ji Ling retracted his hand, and even without looking, anyone could tell his palm was likely red.

"Well, I like it now. Is that not allowed?" Huo Zhanyan let out a cold hum, his expression a tight, humorless smile.

"Of course it's allowed. However, classmate, taking our club's props without permission—to put it nicely, that's borrowing; to put it bluntly, that's... stealing."

Just as Huo Zhanyan looked ready to flare up, Ji Ling added, "Though Classmate Huo certainly must have done it unintentionally, so how could I possibly pursue the matter?"

Seeing that Wen Xiao was right beside him, Huo Zhanyan reined himself in considerably and didn't blow up on the spot, though he still felt a headache coming on from all this verbal sparring.

He hated how these people never spoke plainly and beat around the bush until his entire body felt uncomfortable.

"If you want to pursue it, go right ahead." Huo Zhanyan shot him a provocative look, then directly grabbed Wen Xiao and led him away.

Yet right before walking out the door, his gaze was inexplicably drawn to a pair of fluffy white cat ears resting on a nearby shelf, as if his instincts already knew precisely where those things were meant to be worn.

He couldn't help picturing what Wen Xiao would look like wearing them, and the heat inside him flared right back up, sending his imagination running wild with distracting thoughts.

Wen Xiao told Huo Zhanyan to stop for a moment and glanced at him. "If nothing's going on, I'm going to go study."

"I'm coming too." The moment Wen Xiao started walking, Huo Zhanyan immediately trailed after him.

"What are you coming for?" Wen Xiao couldn't help casting a sideways glance at him.

"To study, too." Huo Zhanyan walked side by side with him, his face lit up with an arrogant, spirited smile. "Not allowed?"

Wen Xiao felt that the idea of Huo Zhanyan going to study was utterly unreliable.

"I promise I won't talk, I'll be completely quiet." Huo Zhanyan raised his hand in a vow.

Wen Xiao still harbored some doubts about Huo Zhanyan, but the way the guy was eagerly trying to crowd into his personal space made him look very much like a little bear from a cartoon.

In the stereotypical impressions of young children, bears are viewed as clumsy and dull-witted; yet in reality, a bear possesses a sense of smell seven times sharper than a hound, and despite its massive size, it can open jars with its bare hands, operate doorkrifts, and even use touchscreen interfaces.

Regardless of what kind of person Huo Zhanyan was—whether a harmless cartoon bear or a dangerous beast in real life—it didn't change his own evaluation of him.

Clumsy and harmless, cold-blooded and dangerous—those were merely labels pinned onto Huo Zhanyan's exterior.

"Then you promise you'll actually study and not talk."

"I promise," Huo Zhanyan said immediately.

Wen Xiao raised a finger to point at him and let out a laugh. "Didn't you just promise you wouldn't talk?"

Huo Zhanyan instantly clamped his mouth shut, and the two of them walked side by side beneath the parasol trees.

The trees were tall and lush, blocking almost every trace of the afternoon sun. A crisp breeze swept across the treetops and brushed over the pathway, carrying the residual heat of late summer mixed with the refreshing coolness of early autumn.

Wen Xiao suddenly realized that, without noticing it, they had already spent ten autumns together, and the eleventh was right around the corner.

Abruptly, his hand was caught in a grip. Wen Xiao glanced at Huo Zhanyan, frowning in confusion, unsure why the other boy was suddenly pulling this stunt.

"What are you doing?" Wen Xiao asked.