Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Schoolroom Observations (Eight)

It was already very late, and the sky had turned dark. This wasn’t a suitable time for meeting. However, Song Qi persistently waved that newspaper downstairs and finally pointed toward the cellar, which allowed Yu Manyi to understand his signal.

She couldn’t figure out why Song Qi was so insistent tonight, nor did she have any clue about what he had been doing since he went out that afternoon. But when she closed her window, he was already walking toward the cellar. If Yu Manyi didn’t go, he would probably just wait there indefinitely. This man really did things entirely by his own whims, forcing others to listen even when they didn’t want to. Yu Manyi had no choice but to once again sneak off reluctantly toward the cellar.

As she walked, the more she thought about it, the more she felt she had been lured in by Song Qi. He seemed to know exactly how to stir someone’s curiosity, and Yu Manyi couldn’t help but fall for it every time. No matter how she looked at it, it had always been Song Qi who took the initiative—like the first time he dragged her off the field ridge. Yet somehow things always developed in a way that made it look like she was the one chasing after him. And on top of that, she had just seen him in a dream. When someone goes to meet the person from their dream, they’re bound to feel unsettled.

So when Yu Manyi arrived at the cellar, her pride had already fermented into a suffocating rage.

They hadn’t seen each other for a few days, and this man had been busy like a male bird building a nest. He had set up the cellar even more thoroughly now: table, chairs, candlesticks—everything was there, as if he sometimes came down to work. Yu Manyi, in a bad mood, jumped down the ladder and saw that Song Qi didn’t even look up. He was fully absorbed in writing at the table, with that newspaper he’d just been waving lying beside his hand.

Who was going to speak up for her? He made it look like she had come running to him.

Yu Manyi crossed her arms and didn’t move any closer, stubbornly waiting for him to look up first. Song Qi only looked up after finishing the two lines he was writing. As their eyes met, Yu Manyi immediately demanded, “Why did you call me here?”

Girls at seventeen or eighteen really grow fast. She seemed taller again. Last year, when she stood in the cellar, she was still small. This year, her head nearly touched the low ceiling that Song Qi himself had to slightly stoop under. She stood there with her arms crossed, full of that awkward pride unique to a girl who had just woken up to youth.

However, as mentioned before, Song Qi had no sisters at home and very limited understanding of girls at this age. He had naturally asked Yu Manyi to come because he had good news, but her seemingly unwarranted questioning caught him off guard and stirred a bit of that young master’s temper he’d long kept buried.

“If you speak more nicely, then I’ll tell you,” he said, casually twisting open the cap of the fountain pen he had just closed, then lowered his head and continued writing.

The last time he used that slightly drawn-out tone was when he’d joked about her turning into a spirit from over-mending her clothes. Maybe this was just his true nature—he’d simply undergone enough moral training in his upbringing to develop a bit of extra patience. And Song Qi’s patience was the kind that responded to softness but not to force. When Yu Manyi cried, he could endure endlessly; but if she stood firm, his patience thinned quickly.

Unfortunately, Yu Manyi hadn’t yet figured out the tricks that would later tame this side of Song Qi. People are naturally combative; sharp meets sharp. She argued back and forth with him for a while, but gained no advantage. Finally, in a fit of irritation, she said, “Forget it if you won’t tell me,” turned around, gripped the wooden ladder with both hands, and prepared to return to her room and resume her interrupted sleep—though whether she could actually fall asleep again was another matter.

Just as she pushed against the cellar door to open it, she suddenly heard a soft pop as the light was extinguished, followed by hurried footsteps. Yu Manyi froze. She quickly realized that the footsteps were not only coming from Song Qi behind her—someone was also approaching from outside the cellar.She was still on the ladder, unable to climb down in time, when her waist suddenly felt light—Song Qi had lifted her off with one arm, carried her into his arms, and hid with her in the corner behind the ladder.

The next moment, the old wooden door above creaked loudly with the sound of age and disrepair, and a faint sliver of moonlight seeped into the cellar. Only now did Yu Manyi realize how cleverly Song Qi had arranged the placement of the table and chairs—when there was no light, one would have to physically lean into the cellar to see them; without doing so, the entire area remained a blind spot. She held her breath and silently prayed that the patrolling doorman wouldn’t actually come down. If they were discovered, it wouldn’t just be the furniture that gave them away.

Fortunately, the wooden door only opened a crack before closing again moments later, accompanied by a drowsy mumble: “Tomorrow, I’ll get a stray cat to catch the rats.”

A very familiar plot. It wasn’t until the footsteps faded away that the two “rats” hiding in the corner finally let out sighs of relief. Yu Manyi almost began to wonder how this doorman had managed to freeload at the Yu family for over twenty years—he hadn’t seen her the first time she flew a kite; when she tried to bring Song Qi back, he’d been tricked into the outhouse all night; when the two of them first made a ruckus in the cellar, he passed by and still didn’t hear; not to mention when Song Qi climbed over the wall using the fake mountain and got away without him knowing. And now he opened the cellar door and mistook them for rats...

Behind her, Song Qi let out a laugh through his nose, the sound brushing right past her ear, making half of her body go numb. He stood behind her, one arm wrapping around her waist to the front, almost completely enclosing her in his embrace. Only then did Yu Manyi realize her hand was gripping his forearm tightly, their body heat exchanging through their clothes. She shut her eyes in the darkness, letting the world before her become pitch-black. After Song Qi finished laughing, his voice came from the shadows:

“You Yu family people are all very dedicated to your jobs.”

The hand she had on his forearm suddenly clenched harder—her nails dug into his skin. Though the force wasn’t much, it was enough to make Song Qi suck in a sharp breath. The one who had been tense switched from her to him. It was like he finally came to his senses and retracted the arm wrapped around her waist. Yu Manyi escaped from the space his body had curved around her, and as she turned, she widened the distance between them. In the darkness, they could only sense each other by warmth. She remained silent for a while, then finally asked:

“What exactly did you want to say to me?”

Only after she spoke did she realize Song Qi was no longer beside her. He wasn’t a rat—he was a silent cat, a stealthy bird. His voice rang out from the other side of the cellar, accompanied by the pop of a candle being lit. In the slowly rising light, Yu Manyi saw Song Qi’s shadow cast against the wall, and in the shadow, he was holding an unfolded newspaper. Only now did she realize—ever since he called her from beneath the window, he had been carrying that same newspaper.

“Second Miss Yu.”

When she was angry, he no longer called her Yu Manyi. He called her "Second Miss Yu." This nickname had started today, with a hint of teasing and provocation. Yu Manyi didn’t want to bicker with him anymore. She just walked over and leaned toward the candlelight to get a clearer look at the newspaper in his hands. As soon as she saw it clearly, her expression changed.

With a flick, the newspaper gave a rustle, and he flipped to another page. The corners of Yu Manyi’s mouth and eyebrows lifted with joy. She reached out to snatch the paper, but he raised it high, keeping it out of her reach. His other hand circled behind her neck and held it gently.

“You were so fierce just now,” Song Qi said. “I made a round trip to town just to buy the newspaper, didn’t get back to the Yu house until dark, and this is the attitude I get.”

“I wasn’t fierce to you.” Yu Manyi, caught by the back of her neck, wanted to struggle but didn’t dare make too much noise, so she had no choice but to let him hold her. After tussling with him for a while and still failing to snatch the paper, she let out a long sigh, then simply raised her hand and asked, “There was also a crabapple tree—did you print that too?”"This page," Song Qi said, giving the newspaper a shake. He flipped open two more pages, and sure enough, it was the crabapple tree Yu Manyi had mentioned. This was the first time Song Qi’s newspaper featured a proper, well-done illustration, and also the first time Yu Manyi had seen her drawing printed in ink on newsprint, instead of being just a casual sketch on a scrap of paper. She leaned closer to the page under the candlelight, examining the layout from top to bottom, and suddenly no longer felt in a rush to snatch the newspaper away. Instead, her gaze shifted to Song Qi—under the faint firelight, her face lit up with delight and a sense of accomplishment at the corners of her eyes and brows.

Song Qi was momentarily dazed, his hand gently loosening its grip on the back of Yu Manyi’s neck, allowing her to spring forward and finally seize the newspaper. She flipped through it back and forth three times, lifting it up to look, then laying it flat on the table. Her fingertips brushed the surface of the paper—the ink was firmly printed, and her illustration was as crisp and vivid as Qi Song’s serialized novel.

“It really is my illustration!” Yu Manyi exclaimed. “Something I drew got printed in the newspaper!”

She lifted the page, slightly larger than a regular sheet of drawing paper, and it covered half her body. At last, she wasn’t just someone who had collected a paycheck for nothing—she had earned it with real work. Yu Manyi felt as if she had taken one step—albeit a small one—closer to what Fang Qian had called “a way to settle one’s life and stand on one’s own.” Holding the paper up, she changed angles to admire it from every direction until Song Qi finally took it away from in front of her face, half amused and half exasperated.

“How long are you going to stare at it in the cellar? I bought the paper for you. You can take it back to your room to read.”

He folded the newspaper in half twice and handed it back to her, then snuffed out the candle on the table, replacing the light with the oil lamp in his hand. Yu Manyi followed behind him. She watched as he opened the cellar door just a crack, glanced around carefully to ensure no one was nearby, then climbed out and reached back to pull Yu Manyi out after him. At that moment, Yu Manyi thought that the two of them really did resemble a pair of cooperative groundhogs, checking to make sure the coast was clear before emerging from their burrow.

Thanks to the dutiful (and conveniently incompetent) Yu family doorman, they were completely safe. The quiet courtyard held only the sound of their footsteps and the rustling of the newspaper brushing against their clothes. After walking a few more steps behind Song Qi, Yu Manyi suddenly reached out and tugged on the hem of his coat.

The oil lamp wobbled slightly as Song Qi stopped in his tracks and turned around. Yu Manyi was now completely different from the girl who had climbed down into the cellar earlier. She was standing very close to him, her eyes bright and clear, as if there was no longer any barrier between them.

The moonlight and the oil lamp both cast their glow—Yu Manyi, in this gentle light, looked clean, gentle, and beautiful. She rose slightly on tiptoe and lowered her voice to ask Song Qi:

“Will you go with me to the ancestral hall?”

“What?” Song Qi’s wrist dropped slightly, the oil lamp in his hand swaying a little. Yu Manyi was genuinely happy tonight. In all the time he had known her, this was the first time he’d seen her like this.

“I want to burn the newspaper for my parents. It’s too conspicuous during the day,” Yu Manyi said, gently touching the newspaper she had tucked inside the front of her clothes. After a moment of thought, she continued to speak to Song Qi, “And you—I want them to see you too. Every wish I’ve made to them has come true. If I ask them to recognize you, then maybe they’ll protect you as they protect me.”