Guess

In an office decorated with simple elegance.

Ning Qing sat in the boss's chair, leaning back but doing nothing. Her unfocused gaze drifted toward the upper corner, as if she were thinking. All the while, she absently squeezed a tiny cream-colored pig, making it squeak each time:

"Squee, squee..."

The long-haired White Cat beside her had been captivated by Squeaky Pig and kept trying to get closer to see what it was.

Bang!

The office door was shoved open.

A young girl in straight-leg pants and chunky sneakers walked in. She glanced at Ning Qing, then at Squeaky Pig in her hand:

"Qingqing, help me with a problem."

"?"

Ning Qing turned to stare at her, eyes narrowing.

"Squee, squee!"

The girl shrank back under her gaze:

"Big sister, help me with a problem."

"Get lost."

"..." The girl fell silent for a moment. "I'll tell brother-in-law!"

"Then go find him."

"You admit it?"

"You're asking for trouble."

"..." The girl didn't dare speak. Only after a while did she say, "Brother-in-law's busy."

"I'm working too."

"You just play at work."

"I'll help you when I get home."

"Oh."

The girl glanced again at Squeaky Pig, still squeaking in her sister's hand, and could no longer hold back her curiosity:

"What's that?"

Her sister ignored her completely.

"Meow!"

The White Cat stretched out a paw to swat at it, but Ning Qing raised her hand beyond its reach.

The girl looked thoughtful.

"I'm going back, then."

Her sister still ignored her.

Long since used to it, the girl turned and left.

Not long afterward, Ning Qing's phone buzzed—

Chen Shu: Got the day off /sigh

Ning Qing picked up her phone, glanced at it, and typed a reply.

Ning Qing: The results come out today

Chen Shu: They're not out yet

Ning Qing: Oh

Chen Shu: What are you doing

Ning Qing: Working

Chen Shu: Hello, Secretary Ning

Ning Qing: Want me to take the day off

Chen Shu: Slacking off on the job isn't good, is it

Ning Qing: Want me to

Chen Shu: Then take it

Ning Qing: Where to?

Chen Shu: No one's at your place, right?

Ning Qing: No.

Chen Shu: Let's go to your place and look at the flowers.

Ning Qing: Okay.

Ning Qing gathered her things, mostly by stuffing the white cat into a cat carrier. She slung it over one shoulder and headed straight out.

Just as she reached the door, a man who looked somewhat like Ning Qing came in, wearing the same poker face. He held a file, and the moment he saw that she was leaving, his brows drew together:

"Where are you going?"

"Taking the day off."

Ning Qing spoke as she kept walking.

President Ning's frown deepened. "There's even more to do today than yesterday. I still need you to..."

He turned as he spoke, following her with his gaze.

Ning Qing had shown no intention of stopping. Before he could finish, she stepped into the elevator, pressed a button, then turned to meet his eyes calmly.

"Ding."

The elevator doors closed.

Outside the office building, Ning Qing got on her Mini Motorcycle.

Her Mini Motorcycle had long since become too small for her. Like Chen Shu, she looked as though she were riding a dog. But the Mini Motorcycle was remarkably nimble on city streets, and its power was no worse than a full-sized bike's.

So when she reached the residential complex, Xiaoxiao, who had left before her, had only just arrived.

Ning Qing stopped her motorcycle at the entrance, one foot planted on the ground, and turned her head left. A young girl rode briskly up on a shared scooter and stopped at the designated parking spot.

Ning Qing got off her motorcycle.

The girl locked the scooter and turned around, only to find her sister standing beside her with a helmet in hand. She froze.

"Qingqing, you're back too?"

The girl tipped her head up slightly to look at her sister.

"Aren't you underage?"

"Not for much, much longer."

"How were you riding a motorcycle?"

"I got on it and rode it."

"I'm asking how you unlocked it."

"I scanned the code with my phone."

"..." Ning Qing stared at her for a moment. "How were you able to unlock it? I suggest you answer carefully."

"I used brother-in-law's ID." The girl finally answered honestly.

"He gave it to you?"

"Mm."

"What about facial recognition?"

"I made something with Illusion Magic."

"Do you know Illusion Magic is a First-Class Regulated Spell? Items like that are illegal too."

"I know."

"Then do you know what would happen if the police caught you when you so obviously look underage?"

"I'm almost grown up..." the girl said weakly.

"What would happen if the police caught you?"

"The police would catch me."

"..."

The girl lowered her head, not daring to meet her sister's eyes.

She had answered so earnestly, yet somehow her sister had gotten angry. She felt a little uneasy but didn't know what to say, so she kept her head bowed. While she was at it, she wondered whether to have hot-and-sour potatoes or sweet-and-sour potatoes for lunch.

Once again, he came to Qingqing's courtyard. It was as quiet as ever.

Chen Shu couldn't remember how long it had been since he last saw Ning Qing's parents. He used to see them often when they were neighbors as children. No matter how busy they were, they still had to come home after work. As he recalled, both had peculiar tempers, were hard to get along with, and were thoroughly unfit as parents.

Really, there were few parents less fit than they were.

They were the sort whose coming home at all was already something.

Fortunately, he had shaped Qingqing's upbringing since childhood, so she hadn't absorbed her parents' bad habits from everything she saw and heard. Not that his efforts had been all that successful either.

Originally, Chen Shu had wanted to raise the little girl into someone gentle and capable.

She really had been quite well-behaved as a child...

Now? Ha.

"Sigh..."

Chen Shu let some of his exhaustion show in front of his childhood friend. Getting tangled up in something this big had genuinely worn him down. He lay sprawled on the sofa and stole a glance at Ning Qing:

"Isn't Xiaoxiao off today? Where is she?"

"Upstairs doing homework." Ning Qing turned to look at him. "Did you give her your ID to use?"

"Huh? I don't know anything about that."

"?"

"Well, I thought she wanted it to play games."

"Didn't you say you didn't know?"

"Well! My memory's bad!"

"..." Ning Qing paused. "Don't give it to her again."

"Xiaoxiao's very well-behaved."

"In front of you."

"All right, all right. I got it."

Ning Qing looked at him and finally sighed. Then she asked, "Did the excavation go smoothly?"

"I only went along to see what was happening."

"And?"

"Pretty well, I guess. Some strange things happened, but overall it went smoothly," Chen Shu said. "Every Cube is about the same. They'd already opened several before this one."

"What happened?"

"Well..."

So Chen Shu gave her a rough account of what had happened with the Cube there, leaving out its connection to him. Then, still lying there, he said to Qingqing, "Do you think I might've gotten tangled up in something huge?"

Ning Qing glanced at him sidelong:

"Maybe."

"Qingqing, I'm under a lot of pressure."

"Maybe."

"Lend me your legs so I can relax a bit."

As he spoke, Chen Shu crawled toward Ning Qing, intending to use her long legs as a pillow and rest his chin on them.

A palm pressed against his face and stopped him. Chen Shu felt the softness and warmth of her palm, then saw her turn to look behind them.

Chen Shu lifted his head and looked back too.

A young girl in loungewear was coming down the stairs with a cup in her hand. She headed straight for the water dispenser without looking to either side.

Ning Qing kept her hand against his face and pushed him back where he had been.

The girl reached the water dispenser.

"Glug, glug..."

Chen Shu sighed and said to Qingqing, "You're so heartless. You don't even know how to comfort me."

Ning Qing turned her head. "The results are out."

"Really?"

"Check."

As they spoke, both glanced to the side.

The girl stared intently at the water dispenser as it filled her cup, silent and looking neither left nor right. At times like this, she generally couldn't hear anything her sister and brother-in-law said, nor could she see anything they did.

She filled her cup to the brim.

Holding it in both hands, she made her way upstairs.

Chen Shu checked his results. Sure enough, they were out.

He felt nothing at all.

Instead of showing Ning Qing right away, Chen Shu laid his phone face down on the sofa and said, "Guess how many points I scored."

"No."

"You have to guess."

"How could I?"

"Aren't you good at guessing? You can guess anything." Chen Shu thought for a moment. "The weather, which side a coin will land on, what relationship two strangers have, how much a scratch card will pay out... You never got any of those wrong before. And you know roughly what I score. It's always within the same range, without much variation. It should be easy to guess."

"Not interested."

"You are!"

"Boring."

"It's not boring!"

"..."

Ning Qing fell silent for a moment, as if thinking. She glanced at the eager look on Chen Shu's face and finally relented. "And what if you guess right?"

"I get to kiss you?"

"No."

"Then you decide!"

"When you're done with your work and have some free time, bring me lunch every day for a month."

"And if you don't guess right?"

"You decide."

"You kiss me. You're getting a bargain."

"..."

Ning Qing glanced sideways at Chen Shu again and saw the gleam in his eyes. She didn't refuse, and she was more direct than he had expected:

"Between 1250 and 1290."

"Even our homeroom teacher could guess that."

"Between 1260 and 1280."

"That's the last time you get to narrow it down. I can confirm it's in that range."

"I'm not narrowing it down. I'm sure."

"All right, all right. Hurry up and guess."

"You sound like you can't wait to bring me lunch."

"Does it always take you this long to cast a spell?"

"1270."

Ning Qing didn't argue with him any further. Her voice was clear and firm. If Chen Shu had looked more closely, he might even have spotted a hint of a smile deep in her eyes.

But Chen Shu was too busy being surprised. His eyes visibly widened.

"I guessed right."

"How did you guess so accurately?"

"I'm good at guessing."

"What path are you cultivating, exactly? I suggest you quit your secretary job and set up under an overpass. You'd make more money."

"You know what flavors I like. Try not to repeat anything."

"Haha..."

Chen Shu threw back his head and laughed twice. "Too bad you were off by one point. But if you want to eat my cooking, sweet-talk me a little and I'll still bring you lunch."

"?"

Ning Qing turned to stare at him.

Chen Shu looked immensely pleased with himself. "I got 1271."

"Show me."

"Here."

Chen Shu handed her his phone.

Literature: 136/150

Mathematics: 149/150

Spiritual Principles: 150/150

Runes: 150/150

Spiritual Power Aptitude: 150/150

Physics: 125/150

Biology: 72/100

History: 100/100

Geography: 98/100

Physical Fitness: 50/50

Ethics: 42/50

Art: 49/50

Total: 1271/1350

No one had ever earned a perfect score on the Yi Nation's national exam. Even so, Chen Shu's total was not especially high among the students Yujing University had admitted over the years. Plenty had scored over 1300. But if Chen Shu applied to the Spell Principles program, he had perfect marks in all three subjects used for the second round of screening.

Getting perfect marks in Spiritual Principles, Runes, and Aptitude was extremely difficult.

Under the two-stage screening system, the total score mattered less.

Ning Qing returned the phone to Chen Shu. Her face was expressionless, but she turned to look upstairs again.

Chen Shu turned too.

The young girl came down again, carrying her cup.

Chen Shu couldn't hold back anymore. Scratching his head, he asked, "Didn't you just get a cup of water? Why are you coming down again?"

The young girl walked silently toward the water dispenser.

She couldn't hear him.

She filled her cup.

Then she carried it upstairs.

Chen Shu rolled over onto his back on the sofa. Looking at Ning Qing, he pointed at his cheek. "Qingqing, from what I know of you, you'd never go back on a bet."

Ning Qing sat sideways and pressed her lips together.

One hand covered Chen Shu's eyes.

She leaned down, perfectly calm.

Her lips touched his and parted at once, the gentlest thing in the world.

Everyone, please send me more votes!