Summer in Your Name - 14
Criminal Law
Before bed, Zhang Shu opened all the gifts.
Ones with names, he'd find a moment to return them discreetly. The anonymous ones just have to gather dust in a corner. From the giver's perspective, that was a little sad, but not exactly unfair. If you couldn't even sign your name to a gift, just wrote pages and pages of lovey-dovey nonsense, how's he supposed to guess who you are? He's not psychic.
But, as luck would have it, there was exactly one anonymous gift that let him play psychic. He could guess who sent it with his eyes closed.
Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China.
The table of contents had a star marked next to a highlighted section: [Crime of Producing, Copying, Publishing, Selling, or Disseminating Obscene Materials for Profit].
Next to it was a handwritten note: Even if you don't actually profit, the charges still apply. It's still a crime.
How thoughtful.
The handwriting wasn't hers, though. It was sloppy and flamboyant, like a man's writing.
Trying too hard to cover her tracks.
Zhang Shu couldn't even laugh. He'd really underestimated her. Always trembling and timid on the surface, but when it counted? The girl had guts.
If he was psychic, then she was a Bodhisattva, trying to save all sentient beings.
He accepted this gift. He wasn't going to return it. And he wasn't going to let it gather dust.
Zhang Shu tore open the packaging on the knee pads and cut off the tags. When school officially started, he'd wear them to PE class.
Scare her a little.
---
Sheng Xia was a pro at riding her scooter now. She always took the shortcut through Wenboyuan.
Six in the morning, the breeze was cool. Cicadas hummed softly. The world was just waking up.
She didn't expect to run into Zhang Shu. At this hour, the last-minute king shouldn't even be awake yet.
She saw him walk out of a residential compound without his bike and quietly passed by him.
"Sheng Xia!"
Sheng Xia hit the brakes and turned around.
"Give me a ride?" Zhang Shu patted Xiao Bai's seat, his tone perfectly casual.
"What…" Sheng Xia had her helmet on, the ear covers muffled the sound. She thought she'd misheard.
"I left my bike at school. Give me a ride."
Huh? How was she supposed to do that?
Xiao Bai was a two-seater scooter, but it was clearly a girl's ride. Small and compact. It wasn't impossible to take him, but the space… they'd definitely have to touch, right?
"I've never given anyone a ride…" She tried to refuse politely. "I'm afraid I'll be unstable."
Zhang Shu said, "Get off."
Sheng Xia: "Huh?"
Zhang Shu: "I'll drive."
Sheng Xia: …
No one could save someone with a chronic inability to say no. Silence was her only answer this morning.
Sheng Xia reluctantly got off. The moment Zhang Shu sat down, the shock absorbers bounced. She felt like Xiao Bai was bearing a weight it had never borne before.
Zhang Shu noticed too. "How much do you weigh?" When she got on and off, the scooter's height didn't change at all.
"Fourty-eight." she murmured.
"How tall?"
He was on the scooter now; she stood beside him, towering over him.
"One sixty-six…"
Zhang Shu didn't really have a frame of reference. What was someone one sixty-six tall supposed to weigh?
He just looked her up and down. "Eat more."
Sheng Xia: …
As he looked, he noticed her forearm, slightly red and raw. "Where's the writing on your arm? No morning and evening worship?"
Sheng Xia instinctively hid her arm behind her back.
God knows how long she'd spent trying to get it off last night.
Regular cleaning products were useless. She'd used Wang Lianhua's makeup remover to get part of it off, but there were still traces left. She'd had to scrub with a palm brush.
Her skin was fairer and more delicate than most. After all that rubbing, it looked like she'd shed a layer.
Thinking of this undeserved calamity, Sheng Xia felt a flicker of anger. "Who writes on someone's body like that? In ancient times, they called this tattoo punishment. It was a very severe penalty. A mark of shame. For criminals. I wrote your name wrong, but that's not a crime, and besides…"
Her voice trailed off, the indignation fading into something weaker, like she was angry but not quite daring to say it. "...you're not the emperor…"
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