Signal

“Professor!”

Ning Rou appeared out of nowhere. Her movements as she rushed toward Jiang Li were so frantic they bordered on a stumble.

“St-Student Ning Rou?!”

Jiang Li instinctively recoiled, his gaze darting around the room with visible unease.

“Why are you here… if Yuehua sees you…”

“Yuehua will be angry, right?”

The girl seemed crushed by his reflexive attempt to distance himself. Her entire spirit withered in an instant. She looked at him with a gaze full of desolation, the rims of her eyes flushing red.

“Does the Professor love her that much now? Do you despise Ning Rou that much?”

“I’m just afraid the two of you will fight again…” Jiang Li shifted his gaze away, unable to bear the sight of her.

“The Professor is lying again.” Ning Rou gripped the hem of her shirt, her large eyes reflecting the shimmering light of unshed tears. “Doesn’t the Professor only have eyes for her now? Inside the academy, outside the academy—even when we’re tutoring, Xiao Yuehua has to interfere!”

Ning Rou made no effort to hide her grievance, letting her emotions pour out like a dam breaking. “But why? If the Professor truly loves Yuehua this much, then what right did you have to get close to me in the first place?”

The girl’s words might have been unintentional, but they sent a violent shiver through Jiang Li’s heart.

Yes, I approached her with a purpose. Her current pain is all my doing. I am the sinner.

Whether it was toward Xiao Yuehua, Ning Rou, or even his sister in the main world, his heart was burdened with nothing but guilt.

“The cookies, the desserts, the tutoring…”

“If you despise me this much, you shouldn’t have given me those things from the start! What exactly does the Professor want from me?”

The girl’s tears fell to the floor one by one, heavy as lead. Each drop echoed in Jiang Li’s ears like a deafening roar. Unlike with Yuehua earlier, Jiang Li had no standing to comfort the girl before him.

All he could do, amidst the torment of his conscience, was scan his surroundings. He was paralyzed by the fear that Xiao Yuehua would suddenly appear, terrified that these two former friends would clash again because of him. He truly, truly did not want to see these two girls fighting over him anymore. Such a senseless struggle only ensured all three of them would suffer together.

However, in Ning Rou’s eyes, his behavior took on a different meaning—she felt the Professor didn’t even want to spare her a single glance.

Her hand tightened on her shirt until it trembled, before she hurriedly released it and hid it behind her back, as if afraid of being noticed. It was clear that Jiang Li’s attitude had triggered her; she had never appeared so sensitive.

Anxiety and inferiority, emotions she had never experienced in her life, seized her mind in an instant. Horrific images flashed before her eyes: the Professor kicking her aside to laugh and talk with Xiao Yuehua.

Her face turned deathly pale. No longer caring about the eyes of onlookers or her own ridiculous pride, she threw herself into Jiang Li’s arms in a fit of terror.

“Does the Professor hate Ning Rou? Is it because I didn’t do something well? Did I really do something wrong?”

“Professor, it won’t happen. Truly. Ning Rou won’t do anything bad. I’ll study hard, I’ll keep my distance, I’ll watch you and Yuehua be happy from afar—Professor, please don’t be like this, okay? Just look at me one more time, please?”

In an instant, Jiang Li’s chest was soaked with Ning Rou’s tears.

Palpitations. Panic.

Physical contact with a woman other than Xiao Yuehua triggered a violent reaction in him. The blood in his entire body seemed to ignite. His veins felt like earthworms on a rainy day, possessing a mind of their own as they twisted grotesquely beneath his skin. A sharp ringing occupied his ears, and his pupils dilated and shook frantically as his senses spiraled out of control.

Within the girl’s longing embrace, the tortured Jiang Li instinctively wanted to push her away and curl into a ball on the floor. However, his remaining shred of sanity held him back from such a scandalous display.

The world before him had warped into bizarre, indistinguishable blotches of color, but Jiang Li used the contact of Ning Rou’s embrace to confirm her position. He forced his violently trembling hands upward, using every ounce of his strength to give her a few light, comforting pats on her back.

He wanted to say something soothing. But his shivering lips and tongue couldn’t form a single coherent word.

Fortunately, Ning Rou seemed to understand something from this gesture—this “embrace” that could hardly be called an embrace. When she looked up again, she took the initiative to release him, stepping back two paces to put distance between them.

The ringing in his ears faded, and his vision gradually returned through flashes of black and white. In the transition from blurriness to clarity, Ning Rou’s figure seemed to grow taller, more mature, carrying a sense of resolve she had never possessed before.

Through the lingering noise in his ears, her voice carried a coldness that didn’t belong to her.

“Professor, I understand what you mean. I will definitely help you, just as you helped me without hesitation.”

In his blurred and chaotic perception, Ning Rou turned and walked away, her figure receding into the distance. She left Jiang Li standing there, trembling in a daze.

“Professor!!!”

Of course, a short while later, Xiao Yuehua rushed out from the kitchen in a panic, fussing over Jiang Li as he suffered another inexplicable stress response—but that was another matter entirely.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Young lady, how did the talk with your ex-boyfriend go?”

At the side entrance of the dessert parlor, the manager from before cast a curious look at Ning Rou.

“I stole a glance while I was covering for you in the kitchen. Why were you crying and hugging him when that man didn’t even move? If you ask me, the guy is handsome, sure, but he’s the type to cheat. A beautiful girl like you, why hang yourself on one tree? You should just…”

“Thank you, Ma’am.” Ning Rou interrupted her with a gentle, distant smile. “But the Professor isn’t a cheating scumbag.”

She stood in the shadows, her eyes fixed on the interior of the shop. Under the warm light, she watched Xiao Yuehua pull the shivering Jiang Li into her arms, whispering intimately to him.

That unattainable proximity caused Ning Rou’s fingers to tighten around her phone. When she finally looked away, her smile carried a hint of strain.

“He’s just too kind, too gentle. He was deceived. He was harmed.”

“The Professor is a good man.”

“You poor child, don’t let yourself be fooled.”

At the shop owner’s worried look, Ning Rou simply shook her head. “I will save him.”

“Forget it, I don’t understand you young people and your ‘feelings.’ I’m getting old…”

“Thank you again for cooperating with me.”

“It’s nothing, just a small thing…” The manager sighed, turned with a wave of her hand, and walked back inside.

Ning Rou watched her silhouette disappear. Then, through the glass, she turned her gaze back to Jiang Li. She stared intently at the hem of his coat.

There, an inconspicuous tracker was continuously broadcasting a signal.