Chapter 164: My Future Is Not a Dream ②
She was so beautiful it made his heart tremble, leaving him stunned. Her sudden kiss also froze him, his heart pounding so loudly it vibrated in his eardrums; he didn’t know if it was his heartbeat or hers.
Nie Qiu didn’t understand why she acted that way. She hadn’t dated in middle school; she only started dating after graduating from university. However, she had never been shy about dating; everything happened naturally. It was less about dating and more about the habit of someone being good to her, like family. It was like Yang Zihao; although she was the one taking care of Yang Zihao, when she felt lonely, there was someone there to accompany her. That was family. Logically, she shouldn’t be shy anymore because she hadn’t been shy before her rebirth. Yet, at this very moment, she was shy.
Such shyness, such shyness, just as described in books, the palpitation of a first love, her heart beating like it was about to leap out of her throat.
Their lips touched, and neither of them made any other move. Li Kai could feel the softness of Nie Qiu’s lips, like the jelly he loved most as a child. He had an urge to take this jelly into his mouth and taste if it was as sweet as the jelly he ate when he was little, but he didn’t dare to move. He was afraid of being too forward, afraid of scaring her.
Nie Qiu opened her eyes and looked at Li Kai. After glaring at Li Kai, she bit Li Kai’s lower lip, lightly nipping it. Before Li Kai could feel the pain, she sucked on it for a moment, then started to pull away.
Li Kai hastily reached out, wrapped his arms around Nie Qiu’s waist, and brought his mouth close to Nie Qiu’s. However, Li Kai lacked experience, approaching too eagerly and with too much force. Their teeth clashed, making a sound like small stones hitting each other. Both felt pain, covered their mouths, and lowered their heads.
Nie Qiu’s lip was abraded and bled a little. Li Kai’s skin might have been thicker, so he only felt pain without bleeding. Li Kai looked at Nie Qiu, feeling extremely embarrassed. Nie Qiu covered her mouth and looked at Li Kai.
The two, covering their mouths, looked at each other. With just one glance, they couldn’t help but laugh at the comical mishap.
Nie Qiu took out a tissue from her schoolbag, wiped the blood from her mouth, and with a somewhat embarrassed look at Li Kai, turned and walked towards the teaching building with her schoolbag. Li Kai touched his mouth, smiled, and chased after her, grabbing Nie Qiu’s arm. “Nie Qiu… does this mean we’re dating?”
Nie Qiu glared at Li Kai. “No!” She arrived at school right on time every day. In two more minutes, she would definitely be late! She quickened her pace, ignoring Li Kai, who stood frozen, and ran into the teaching building.
No!
Those two words left Li Kai stunned on the spot, as if struck by lightning, perfectly cooked inside and out. They… they kissed… they kissed and it wasn’t dating?
“Heh heh, I saw you guys kissing!” Zhang Haiyang walked out from the side, a mischievous grin on his face, patting Li Kai’s shoulder, full of envy.
Everyone in their class arrived at school at six o’clock, while students from other classes returned for morning self-study at past 7:20. So, while others saw Nie Qiu and Li Kai kissing not far from the school gate, Zhang Haiyang was different. After a round of antics with Huang Yan, he saw Nie Qiu tiptoeing to kiss Li Kai. Honestly, he was filled with envy, jealousy, and hatred. He wanted to jump out and interrupt them at that moment, but as Li Kai’s good brother, no matter how uncomfortable he felt, he couldn’t interrupt someone’s happiness at that time, could he?
“Alright! I’m much worse off than you. At least you got to kiss!” Seeing that Li Kai hadn’t answered him and was frowning with a cold expression, he had also heard what Nie Qiu said earlier. But compared to himself, Zhang Haiyang felt Li Kai was much luckier. “Hey, A Kai, tell me, what am I worse than that Peng Yu Yang for? I’m one centimeter taller than that Peng Yu Yang, and I’m also better looking than that Peng Yu Yang. Although my grades aren’t as good as his! But at least my family owns a small supermarket! I’ll be a boss in the future too!”
Li Kai felt a pang of unease. Naturally, he had some opinions about Zhang Haiyang, who looked troubled but not overly worried. He reached out, grabbed Zhang Haiyang’s hair, and pulled him along. “Hurry up! If we’re late, we’ll have to copy again! My hands were broken from copying for you yesterday!” Actually, his hand hurt from writing in the workbook. He… had never written so seriously before, and certainly not for so long. Yet, every word written in that workbook was like a love letter he wrote, full of his heartfelt wishes.
“Hey, hey, hey… Ouch, ouch, ouch! A Kai, let go!” How could he be so unlucky? Huang Yan had just pulled his hair, and now Li Kai was pulling it again. If this continued, he’d go bald!
Li Kai let go as requested. Zhang Haiyang, caught off guard, stumbled a couple of steps. He spat, and then chased after him. “A Kai, don’t be ungrateful! I didn’t even get to touch Huang Yan’s hand before being rejected, but you at least got to kiss her lips…”
“No one would think you’re mute if you didn’t speak!” Li Kai went upstairs and headed for the classroom.
Zhang Haiyang chattered behind Li Kai. If only it were him and Huang Yan kissing at the school gate just now. It seemed Nie Qiu was the one who initiated it earlier. If Huang Yan could proactively kiss him, then he… Just thinking about it made Zhang Haiyang involuntarily lick his lips.
Zhang Haiyang wasn’t associated with the word ‘lewd’, but this seemed to be a privilege of boys.
When Li Kai and Zhang Haiyang walked into the classroom, Nie Qiu was already standing on the lectern, explaining methods for memorizing English words. Li Kai and Zhang Haiyang, acting on their own initiative, copied what Nie Qiu had written on the blackboard ten times in a corner of the blackboard, then returned to their seats.
Li Kai noticed Nie Qiu would sometimes let out a small ‘hiss’ while lecturing, which made him feel that the earlier blow wasn’t so bad. They weren’t dating now, but he would make sure they would be in the future!
Time passed at a steady pace. The rehearsal was progressing well, and with everyone’s joint effort, there was progress on the issue of changing positions. Since they planned to only perform the first half of the song and have the entire class sing the latter half, the physical education representative would gather everyone after school to practice synchronized short runs.
However, since their practice wasn’t extensive, they only needed to practice running a few times after school each day.
“Bao Cui, imagine this book is a Tang Dynasty fan. It should cover half your face. Your eyes… your eyes should be deeper, subtly revealing a hint of shyness. If you don’t know how to express shyness, just look into the distance, don’t let your gaze have a focal point. Empty your gaze.” Nie Qiu handed the book in her hand to Zhao Bao Cui. Zhao Bao Cui did as Nie Qiu said, looking into the distance, emptying her gaze, making her vision unfocused.
“Alright, that’s good.” Huang Yan looked at Peng Yu Yang’s mobile phone; it was almost out of battery. She stood up, clapped her hands. “Okay, okay, let’s dance one more time today. After we finish, we’ll dismiss.”
As soon as Huang Yan said this, everyone who came for rehearsal cheered. When they first started rehearsing, they all felt a sense of novelty and were very eager to rehearse. But as time went on, doing the same few movements every day, the novelty wore off. Practicing the movements daily became a routine.
Since they were dancing to music, they didn’t need to sing like that group. Therefore, while everyone’s period costumes could be danced to together, during the gaps, they needed to fill them with other movements, which represented their Chinese style of that era.
Everyone’s clothes were different: seven types of period costumes from the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing, Qin, and Han dynasties, each with its own style. The boys also wore period costumes corresponding to the girls they were paired with. Peng Yu Yang was paired with Nie Qiu, so as soon as they finished dancing, Peng Yu Yang handed Nie Qiu a bottle from the beverages he brought.
“Peng Yu Yang, thank you.” Nie Qiu took a sip of the still-chilled beverage and looked up at Peng Yu Yang to thank him. Although it wasn’t advisable to drink water after exercise, she couldn’t bear to refuse Peng Yu Yang’s good intentions.
Huang Yan hopped over with a smile, extending her hand. “Peng Yu Yang, what about mine?”
Just as Peng Yu Yang was about to get a drink for Huang Yan, he saw Zhang Haiyang rushing over with a beverage. “I have one, I have one.” Zhang Haiyang held a bottle that had clearly been opened and drunk from, and was about to hand it to Huang Yan.
These days, everyone could see that Zhang Haiyang liked to tease Huang Yan. Every time, Huang Yan would stomp her feet in anger at Zhang Haiyang, and this time was no exception. Huang Yan looked disgusted and took two steps back. “Who wants to drink your saliva! Get it away!”
“Don’t be like that! I just opened it, I absolutely haven’t drunk from it!” Zhang Haiyang was almost raising his hand to swear. He took two steps closer to Huang Yan with the drink in his hand. Huang Yan almost jumped up in fright. “Get it away! Get it away, get it away!”
She had hit him before, but found that she always ended up at a disadvantage. Zhang Haiyang was a boy, after all, with more tricks up his sleeve than girls and stronger than girls. After being teased for a while, Huang Yan had become a little afraid of Zhang Haiyang. “Get it away, I told you to get it away, didn’t you hear me?”
Peng Yu Yang opened the drink in his hand and, along with Nie Qiu, smiled as they watched Huang Yan and Zhang Haiyang.
Li Kai held a bottle of the same beverage as Nie Qiu. This drink was specifically bought for Nie Qiu, but now Nie Qiu already had a drink from someone else. The other drink in Li Kai’s hand, which had already been opened, was twisted, and more than half of the beverage had spilled out. Wei An Hui walked over, blushing, and handed Li Kai several tissues.
Since they were partners, Li Kai didn’t refuse. He took the tissues Wei An Hui handed him, said ‘thank you’, and then lowered his head to wipe the water on his hands, his gaze still fixed on Nie Qiu, who was chatting and laughing with Peng Yu Yang.
