Was it always you cleaning up my mess?]
"Does it hurt?"
The girl nodded shyly.
"Then I'll be gentler."
As he spoke, Lu Yuanqiu cupped her pale, slender ankle in both hands and slowly rotated it, checking the condition of the bones.
A moment later, his expression relaxed a little. "Nothing serious. It's just a sprain, and there isn't much swelling. A little safflower oil should do it."
He stood up and rummaged through the drawers behind him. Sure enough, he found half a bottle of safflower oil.
Students spraining their ankles was a common occurrence at school. The school doctor probably just applied some of this stuff whenever it happened.
Lu Yuanqiu sat back down on the little stool and placed Bai Qingxia's right foot on his knee, ready to apply the oil. But she pulled her foot back the next instant, looking uncomfortable. "I'll do it myself."
"How dare you!"
Lu Yuanqiu looked up and barked at the girl sitting on the bed.
Bai Qingxia's right leg stiffened, and Lu Yuanqiu took the opportunity to pull her foot back.
Then he scolded her, "What's there to be embarrassed about in a situation like this? Honestly, you girls and your fussing."
Lu Yuanqiu firmly placed her right foot back on his knee, still muttering, "It's not like I'm going to do anything to your foot."
But only a few seconds later, Bai Qingxia asked coolly, "You're only putting oil on my ankle. Why did you take my whole sock off?"
Lu Yuanqiu looked up. "Did I?"
Bai Qingxia bit her lip and demanded, "What's in your right hand?"
Lu Yuanqiu looked down and discovered that his right hand was holding the white sock he had just removed. In his left was a dainty, snow-white foot, suspended in midair.
Her sole is so pink.
Before he could get more than a few looks, Bai Qingxia pulled her foot back in embarrassed indignation and snatched her white sock away, glaring at him.
She made sure to shoot Lu Yuanqiu another glare in the process, her disgusted gaze making him feel as though she were sizing up some creepy foot fetishist.
After turning away to apply the oil herself, Bai Qingxia put on her sock and shoe, shouldered her backpack, and left the School Infirmary.
Lu Yuanqiu followed her, trying to explain. "No, listen. Sometimes my hands don't really do what I tell them to..."
Bai Qingxia ignored him and walked ahead with her head down.
After they left, the door to the small room inside the School Infirmary opened, and the two men hiding there emerged.
Behind the young school doctor in his white coat stood a middle-aged man. His name was Ge Hao, and he was the head of the senior year.
The senior students affectionately called him Ge Ritian behind his back.
The school doctor said, rather speechlessly, "Mr. Ge, I was only checking your hemorrhoids. You could've just pulled your pants up when the students came in. Why did you have to drag me into hiding?"
Looking grim, Ge Hao patted his shoulder. "Wu, two men in a little room in broad daylight, with me pulling up my pants-what do you think the students would make of us?"
The school doctor's expression froze.
School had already let out. Bai Qingxia said she wanted to go back to the classroom to study, so Lu Yuanqiu let her head toward the classroom building while he went to the bike shed to get his bike and go home.
But by the time he wheeled his bicycle to the school gate, he couldn't help thinking about Bai Qingxia's sprained ankle again.
I don't even know where she lives, or how far away it is. Is she going to limp all the way home like that?
Lu Yuanqiu sighed, patted the bike seat, and reluctantly turned back toward the classroom building.
I'll take her home today.
When he reached the window of Senior Class 28's classroom, Lu Yuanqiu gradually slowed to a stop.
Inside the otherwise empty classroom, Bai Qingxia wasn't studying.
She was limping around on the teaching platform with a board eraser in her hand, struggling to stand on tiptoe and erase the writing on the blackboard.
The third afternoon period had been history, and their history teacher was a man nearly six foot three who liked writing high up on the board, so Bai Qingxia was having a hard time erasing it.
She strained to raise the eraser, stretching her right arm so high that her uniform sleeve slipped down, revealing her pale, slender forearm.
Even then, she couldn't reach the wild scrawl at the very top of the board.
Lu Yuanqiu silently shifted his gaze to the duty roster in the corner of the blackboard. It read:
[Blackboard, teacher's desk: Lu Yuanqiu]
On the platform, Bai Qingxia let her arm drop in defeat. She simply couldn't reach.
She paused to catch her breath, then took a deep breath and, with a little grunt, hopped on one foot, thrusting her arm straight up to reach the top of the blackboard!
But just as the eraser was about to touch the writing, a large hand appeared in Bai Qingxia's field of vision and took the eraser from her.
Bai Qingxia turned her head as her heel came back down. Her injured ankle made her tip sideways, and Lu Yuanqiu hurriedly caught her arm and pulled her upright again.
Their eyes met.
As though she had been caught doing something wrong, Bai Qingxia quickly stepped back and asked uneasily, "Didn't you... didn't you go home?"
Lu Yuanqiu watched her without answering right away, tossing the eraser in his hand a few times before raising it and easily reaching the writing at the very top.
He wiped the board clean, then tossed the eraser onto the teacher's desk.
"No wonder I never used to erase the board, but the teachers never gave me trouble the next day. Tell me, have you been wiping my ass for me every time?"
At that, Lu Yuanqiu pressed a hand to his forehead and corrected himself. "Uh, I mean wiping the blackboard for me. Not my ass."
Bai Qingxia turned her face aside, avoiding his eyes. "No."
After saying that, her gaze darted around with something very much like a guilty conscience.
She glanced up at Lu Yuanqiu again and said, "If there's nothing else, I'm going back to studying."
She turned to step down from the platform, but Lu Yuanqiu quickly caught her arm. "Enough studying for today. Your foot's hurt. I'll take you home first, and you can study there."
"I don't need you to take me," Bai Qingxia refused at once.
Lu Yuanqiu frowned. "Then where do you live? Is it far?"
"Not far."
Lu Yuanqiu gave her a doubtful look.
Perhaps Bai Qingxia simply didn't want a stranger going to her home. She did have a lot of pride, after all.
So Lu Yuanqiu didn't force her.
He merely resorted to being shameless. "Fine, I don't have to take you. But you can only study until six thirty. Once it's six thirty, you have to go home. I'll stay right here and keep an eye on you."
Bai Qingxia turned to look at him, biting her red lip with a resentful gaze. "...Then I won't study. I'll go home now."
Lu Yuanqiu smiled and nodded. "There we go. That's more like it."
Once she had packed her bag, Lu Yuanqiu headed for the classroom door. Just then, he heard something from the teaching platform and looked back.
He found Bai Qingxia carefully cleaning the chalk dust off the teacher's desk.
And his cleaning duties did, in fact, include both the blackboard and the teacher's desk.
This girl. And she said she wasn't doing my cleaning duty for me...
She's doing the whole thing.
Only after she finished cleaning the desk did she shoulder her backpack and come over. With her head lowered and an awkward expression, she hurried past Lu Yuanqiu.
Lu Yuanqiu chuckled and followed her.
The words "ice-cold, stubborn tsundere" suddenly had a very concrete embodiment.
Lu Yuanqiu wheeled his bicycle alongside the girl to the school gate, where they were about to go their separate ways.
Still, Lu Yuanqiu patted the rear seat of his bicycle. "Why don't I take you after all? It's no trouble."
Clutching her sleeves, Bai Qingxia looked at him awkwardly. "No, thank you. If my dad sees a boy he doesn't know getting close to me..."