Chapter Ninety: Master Simon of the West Gate

“It’s fine. Just help me get the leave arranged.” Dong Yanyan smiled gently.

“Fine? Ren Jixuan is practically livid right now! Sister Xiaowu, you’re awfully calm about this. Why don’t you hurry up and explain it to him?” Tian Tian said in irritation.

Dong Yanyan shot her a look of indifference. “Explain what to him? Do I have to report my every move to him first?”

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Leng Yue ran out to open it, and Ren Jixuan was standing there with a smile, asking in a polished announcer’s voice, “Is Dong Yanyan back?”

“Old Five, someone’s looking for you!” Leng Yue called back.

Ren Jixuan saw her too and immediately changed his expression. Pointing at her from the doorway, he shouted, “Dong Yanyan, come out here!”

Dong Yanyan hopped down from the bed, slipped on her sandals, and ran out. Leaning against the doorway, she looked at the furious man before her. Ren Tongxue looked exactly like a thug when he was angry, all swagger and rascality. He was better looking when he wasn’t mad.

Ren Jixuan frowned, his face drawn tight as he demanded, “Where did you go? I waited for you all afternoon, you know that?”

Dong Yanyan blinked innocently and asked back, “Did you tell me earlier that you were going to look for me this afternoon?”

“No.” Ren Jixuan was still annoyed. “But—”

“Did I tell you to wait for me?” Dong Yanyan went on.

“No. But—”

“Then what are you so angry about?” Dong Yanyan said with a smile.

Ren Jixuan gave a cold snort and pointed at the watch on his wrist. “Look what time it is now. I didn’t see a shadow of you all afternoon, and only now do you come back. What on earth were you doing?”

“I was going to tell you, but your attitude was so bad, so I decided not to!” Dong Yanyan smiled calmly and shut the door.

Ren Jixuan froze for a moment, then pounded on the door in fury. Inside, Dong Yanyan ignored him completely. She couldn’t indulge this habit of his; every time he got angry, he stopped making any sense at all.

Li Hui came back carrying a washbasin after freshening up. Seeing Ren Jixuan still outside, stubbornly pounding on the door, she said unhappily, “Isn’t she coming back in? I’ll go get her for you!”

She pushed the door open and went in, shouting at Dong Yanyan, “Didn’t you hear someone knocking? What are you putting on airs for? In the middle of the night, is it so nice to have people see this? You’ve turned a perfectly good dorm room into a circus!”

“I didn’t ask him to knock. What was I supposed to do?” Dong Yanyan said helplessly.

“Exactly. The lights aren’t even out yet, and him knocking didn’t stop you from sleeping,” Tian Tian said with a laugh.

Li Hui slammed the basin down with a bang, making Tian Tian jump.

Liu Ying, buried under her quilt, turned over impatiently and muttered, “Can you all stop arguing for a second?”

“He’s knocking and you don’t answer, and I’m supposed to care what I say?” Li Hui snapped.

Dong Yanyan looked at this and thought, What on earth is this? Why are they fighting too?

“All right, all right. I was wrong. Stop arguing.” She sighed, got up, put on her clothes and shoes, and went outside.

Seeing that Ren Jixuan was still standing at the door, she gave a strained smile. “I’m out already. Don’t stand in front of our dorm room door; it doesn’t look good if people see.” With that, she headed upstairs on her own.

Ren Jixuan had not expected to stir up a fight inside their dorm. Following her to the stairwell, he said with some embarrassment, “Are you mad? I was worried.”

“You’re already angry. If I were still cheerful, that wouldn’t be fair, would it?” Dong Yanyan shot him a look and said irritably, “Now you can be happy. I’m very angry. Extremely angry! If you have the nerve, go kick down the door to our classroom again!”

She waved a hand and turned to run back to her class’s classroom. Inside, pairs and trios of couples were bent over their work, and Dong Yanyan returned to her seat, picked up a book from the desk at random, and looked at it absentmindedly.

Ren Jixuan followed her in, went to her side, and coaxed her softly, “Don’t be angry, Yanyan. I was worried about you. I didn’t see you all afternoon—how could I not be anxious? It was my temper that was bad. I promise I’ll never kick your dorm door again. Look, even my hand is red from pounding it. Look!”

He held out his hand to her. Dong Yanyan, amused and reproachful, glared at him. He had calculated correctly: she had no resistance when it came to his hands.

“I didn’t tell you to pound it. Such a beautiful hand really isn’t suited to kicking in doors. Next time, just use your foot.”

“Next time you can kick me instead,” Ren Jixuan said with a roguish grin, taking her hand. “Not seeing you this whole afternoon, I felt like my soul had been taken. Yanyan, I don’t even know why I suddenly missed you so much. Every minute, every second, I was thinking of you. I was about to go crazy.”

“So the moment I came back, you went crazy? At least learn to speak properly,” Dong Yanyan said, pretending to be angry.

“I promise I’ll be proper next time. Whatever you want to hear, I’ll say it!” Ren Jixuan put an arm around her shoulder and said shamelessly, “Yanyan, if you were a season, I’d be spring; if you were the night, I’d gladly give up sleep; if you were—”

“If you’re Ximen Qing, then she’s Pan Jinlian! Move aside, you’re taking up my space.” Song Mingcheng tapped the desk and said with a faint smile to Ren Jixuan, “Please make way.”

Dong Yanyan nearly lost her breath: when had this guy even gotten here? And why was his tongue so sharp?

After two seconds of black lines crossing his face, Ren Jixuan smiled at Song Mingcheng as if nothing were wrong. “You’re not Wu Dalang, so it’s hardly your place to be jealous.”

Then he took Dong Yanyan’s hand and said to her with a grin, “Yanyan, come to our classroom. Nobody’s there.”

“I’m not going.” Dong Yanyan started toward the door.

“You have to go.” Ren Jixuan followed her into the corridor, then without hesitation pushed her back into his classroom. Dong Yanyan saw at once that the room was indeed empty, and she felt a little awkward. “It’s just the two of us. That doesn’t seem very proper.”

“That’s exactly why I think we should find more chances to communicate and understand each other more deeply. It’ll be better for how we get along in the future. What do you think?” Ren Jixuan sat on a desk and spoke with feigned seriousness.

Dong Yanyan nodded, sat on the desk beside him, and said, “I think that makes sense. Then where should we begin?”

“I heard you like Jin Yong. Which character do you like best in his martial arts novels?” Ren Jixuan asked with a smile.

“Actually, I still prefer the male leads in Taiwanese romance novels: gentle but domineering, devoted to one person, adored by everyone, unbelievably smart, capable of anything, and above all, deeply faithful, liking only the heroine, treating only her well, and never changing his heart no matter how the seas may run dry and the rocks wear thin.” Dong Yanyan blinked her big eyes and smiled in dreamy delight.

“Then that sounds exactly like me!” Ren Jixuan said shamelessly with a laugh. “Yanyan, you’re really lucky.”

“I’m really chilled by you,” Dong Yanyan said, curling her lip in a shudder. She had seen arrogance before, but never anyone this self-important.

“You’re cold? Then I’ll hold you and you won’t be cold anymore!” Ren Jixuan reached out and grabbed at nothing, for Dong Yanyan had already sprung off the desk and run to the front of the classroom. Ren Jixuan chased after her without letting up. Before long, the desks and chairs inside the room had been shoved this way and that into a complete mess. Just as the two of them were in full pursuit and delight, the back door of the classroom was suddenly shoved open. Dong Yanyan’s heart lurched and she was so startled she didn’t know what to do. Ren Jixuan casually tossed the blackboard eraser in his hand toward the intruder; it clattered to the floor with a loud thud. Only then did Dong Yanyan look closely and realize the unexpected visitor was Song Mingcheng. He stood at the doorway with a stern face, still as a wood carving or stone statue.

“You’re already this old and still acting like a monkey? Keep it down!” Song Mingcheng threw out that cool, unsympathetic remark, then closed the door and left.

Dong Yanyan was left with a face full of black lines.

Ren Jixuan only smiled, unconcerned. “I’ve really never seen anyone this relentless before, following you around like a tail every day.”

“And who was the one relentlessly pestering me just now? How are you in any position to criticize anyone else? It was obviously us making too much noise and disturbing him.” Dong Yanyan set the desks and chairs near her feet upright again. Whoever’s things these were, ruining them like this was still rather rude.

“Then let’s keep our voices down,” Ren Jixuan said, taking her hand and making her sit. He smiled very gently. “Where were we just now?”

“We were talking about Jin Yong. Actually, I like Linghu Chong best; Guo Jing and Xiao Feng are too upright, Yang Guo is too extreme, Zhang Wuji is too indecisive, Wei Xiaobao is too flirtatious, Chen Jialuo is too muddle-headed, Ouyang Ke is passable, just too wicked, and Yang Kang is even worse. Duan Yu is not bad, but he’s the prince of Dali. If he became emperor, a harem would be inevitable—who would want to spend her life in the deep palace, parting the curtains to gaze at the moon and sighing alone? Linghu Chong is wonderful: handsome, devoted, not stuck in his own ways, willing to settle for second best, faithful to his little martial sister, and also kind to Ren Yingying.” Dong Yanyan spoke at length. She was a genuine Jin Yong fan, after all, and had spent years lurking on the sword-wielding boards, watching the Gu Long fans and Jin Yong fans tear into each other, the Guo Jing fans and Yang Guo fans tear into each other, and even the Guo Fu fans and Yang Guo fans tear into each other.

Ren Jixuan chuckled. “So you judge them as though you were choosing a boyfriend! I’ve noticed girls always like to imagine themselves as the heroine when they read.”

“Don’t boys do the same? You’d all love to master the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms, the Six Meridian Divine Sword, the Nine Yin Manual, and so on, and then have a whole crowd of beauties crying and shouting that they’ll marry no one but you,” Dong Yanyan said with a smile.

“I never thought that way. It’d be fine if you ran into the Little Dragon Girl, but if you ran into Li Mochou by mistake, wouldn’t your whole life be ruined?” Ren Jixuan said.

“That’s true. What is love in this world? It drives people to be worse off than dead.” Dong Yanyan felt it deeply.

“It’s supposed to make people willing to live and die for each other,” Ren Jixuan said, putting an arm around her shoulders with a smile. “Haven’t you heard? Nothing in life is more intense than love; if you are willing to die together in love, then that’s real feeling.”

Dong Yanyan nodded with a smile. “I know. In other words, if I die, don’t expect to live either. That’s what Romeo and Juliet, Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, and Gongsun Zhi and Qiu Qianchi all did.”

“Yanyan, you’re ruthless. Still, I’d be willing to bury you in my family’s ancestral grave.”

“I wouldn’t! Isn’t this kind of talk creepy so late at night?” Dong Yanyan shrank her shoulders and laughed in mock complaint. The words had hardly left her mouth when the lights in the classroom went out with a swoosh. She shrieked and was about to bolt for the door, but Ren Jixuan held her tightly in the darkness and laughed, “Why are you afraid when the lights go out? Afraid I’ll eat you?”