Paranormal

“What am I so frustrated about… the Professor should know exactly what’s on my mind, right?”

Yue Hua bumped the Professor’s shoulder with a casual, almost irreverent familiarity.

Isn’t that a bit too frivolous?

“Just kidding… Professor, you’re so stiff.”

Yue Hua laughed as she draped her arm around the Professor’s shoulders.

Isn’t that a bit too intimate?

“Why has the Professor gone silent again? What is the relationship between us—is such a simple question really worth hesitating over? Or could it be… the Professor is hiding some little secret?”

Yue Hua stared straight into the Professor’s face.

This isn’t right. What’s going on? What is Yue Hua doing?

To speak to the Professor in such a questioning tone—isn’t that disrespectful? Yue Hua was never like this before, was she?

Irritation. Suffocation.

Watching the overly close contact between Yue Hua and the Professor, my heart felt inexplicably blocked, heavy with a sharp, sour sense of grievance. Actually, by this point, even someone as dense as I am could realize it.

I had seemingly developed some “excessive” feelings for the Professor—feelings that had no business existing between a student and a teacher.

In truth, that wasn’t so strange. After all, the Professor was refined, handsome, interesting, and possessed a hidden, gentle side. Combined, these traits made him look like a standard leading man stepped straight out of a soap opera. It wasn’t hard to understand why I, having received his help, would be attracted to him.

But.

Why did Yue Hua like the Professor too?

If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t care. No matter who my rival was, I would gather the courage to compete. After all, the Professor was someone truly precious and special.

But of all people… my only rival was her. My best friend, Xiao Yue Hua.

And what was worse: watching their intimate movements, I actually felt jealousy. I, Ning Rou, was actually jealous of my best friend and felt miserable because of it!

I am so despicable.

At this moment, everything happening before my eyes felt like a satire. A comedy staged specifically to mock me. Just a year ago, when Yue Hua and I were still in high school, we both believed we would be best friends for life—that our bond would never sour.

Yet, after only one semester of university, the cracks had appeared.

My wrists were trembling uncontrollably. Even breathing had become a labored chore. I didn’t dare look up, terrified that if I saw one more second of their intimacy, the cold reality would only hurt more.

Actually, it was quite strange. In front of Yue Hua, the Professor seemed incredibly tense. He appeared to be afraid—or rather, completely suppressed by her.

Come to think of it, perhaps the Professor didn’t truly like Yue Hua? Perhaps he simply couldn’t refuse her? After all, the Professor was someone with a fragile heart, wasn’t he? Only when he was with me would he show that slight, relaxed, and bright smile.

Could it be that the person the Professor truly liked… was me?

No, I can’t think like that anymore.

I shook my head violently, refusing to follow that train of thought. Yue Hua was my friend. I had no right, no justification, to use my dark and lowly thoughts to secretly disparage the relationship between her and the Professor.

Hurriedly, I forced the last bite of tasteless pasta into my mouth.

“I—I’m leaving first!”

With my thoughts in a chaotic tangle, I stood up and fled the scene in a pathetic state. A “third wheel” like me staying there would only make everyone uncomfortable.

However, the moment I reached the college gates, a sudden wave of panic washed over me.

Leaving the Professor alone with Yue Hua in the restaurant was a decision I had made just ten minutes ago. But now, I regretted it intensely. Some instinct forced me to replay the Professor’s abnormal behavior when Yue Hua arrived.

That tense, distressed attitude; that fragile, broken expression. Those were definitively not expressions the Professor usually made.

“Professor…”

I subconsciously clutched my chest, where my heart was throbbing with pain following my thoughts. What if—just what if—the Professor had been trying to avoid Yue Hua all along? Could those abnormalities have been a distress signal?

If that were true, then my sudden departure—when I might have been the only person the Professor was relying on—wasn’t that the same as pushing him into a fire with my own hands?

The tangled knot in my mind suddenly snapped. A massive wave of terror swept over me. It was the fear of a dark, bleak future where I had utterly lost the Professor.

“Professor!!!”

Accompanied by a heavy sense of foreboding, the blood seemed to rush to Ning Rou’s brain. She ran back like a madwoman. It wasn’t until she reached the restaurant entrance and saw the empty table that she collapsed to the floor, weak and despondent.

“Miss, what’s wrong?” A waitress rushed over in alarm to help Ning Rou up. “Are you feeling unwell? Should I call an ambulance?”

“No… no…” Ning Rou panted heavily, pointing clumsily toward the table they had occupied. “The guests… at that table… where did they go?”

“That table?” The waitress seemed to recall something. “Oh, I know. That couple? They seemed to be having a big fight earlier, it made quite a scene. Later, the girl hugged the guy and cried for a while, and then they left together.”

She clicked her tongue, gossiping with a look of pity. “That guy was pretty handsome, probably a player. The girl might have been cheated on. Tsk tsk, how pitiful…”

“That’s not it…”

Ning Rou’s face turned pale as she pulled away from the waitress’s support.

“What did you say, guest?”

“I said the Professor isn’t that kind of person…”

She walked out of the restaurant listlessly, looking like a stray cat wandering in the rain. This was the first time in Ning Rou’s pampered, sheltered life that she had felt so viscerally what it meant to fail.