Chapter 20: The Approaching Blaze

An unprecedented, bone-deep fear gripped her heart like an icy hand. She suddenly lifted her head, staring out the window in disbelief. The sky had darkened without her noticing. Vast swaths of black clouds surged from the horizon, like an impending, inescapable storm.

In her mind, the dream of the library engulfed in roaring flames overlapped with reality at an unprecedented clarity, colliding fiercely.

She could almost "smell" the scent of burning paper, "hear" the crackling, teeth-grinding sound of flames licking the bookshelves.

“What’s wrong with you?”

Across from her came Jiang Yi’s cold voice, tinged with impatience.

He had clearly noticed her unusual behavior.

Xuyuan snapped back to reality, meeting his probing, unfathomable black eyes. Her lips trembled uncontrollably, her face as pale as paper, unable to utter a single coherent word.

“I…”

What could she say?

Tell him she dreamed the library would catch fire? That the flames would start from his notebook and then consume everything?

No, that wouldn’t do.

He would only see her as a madwoman desperate for attention. The fragile, barely-standing “new deal” they had painstakingly established would crumble instantly.

But if she did nothing...

Maintenance was scheduled for next Monday, and the fire could ignite on any night before then!

No, she couldn’t wait any longer!

“Jiang Yi!” Xuyuan suddenly stood up from her chair, so hastily that she knocked over a glass of water on the table.

Water spilled everywhere.

It also drenched the untouched sandwich beside him.

Jiang Yi’s brows furrowed fiercely, forming a deep crease. He looked at her distraught, ghostly expression with growing annoyance, which then gradually turned into a colder, more disdainful emotion.

“What game are you playing now?”

“We have to leave here immediately!” Xuyuan disregarded everything else, rushing toward him and reaching out to close his laptop. “Now! Right now!”

“Are you crazy?” Jiang Yi grabbed her hand with such force it felt like he might crush her wrist. All patience in his dark eyes finally snapped. “Xuyuan, I warn you, don’t push me beyond my limits.”

“I’m not!” Xuyuan’s tears threatened to fall as panic blanketed her mind. Instinctively, she scrambled to fabricate a ridiculous excuse even she found absurd. “It’s... it’s the ‘Windrise’ competition! I just got an email—they’ve suddenly organized an online technical Q&A session, only half an hour long! The location is... the Network Center! We won’t make it if we don’t leave now!”

As she spoke, she nervously studied his expression, her heart pounding as if it would leap from her throat.

Jiang Yi stared at her intently, as if looking at a clown.

“Email?” Suddenly, he smiled—a cold, cruel smile. “Show me.”

Xuyuan’s heart sank to the depths of despair.

She had no such email!

“I... I was in such a rush, I deleted it!” she forced herself to lie again.

“Is that so?” Jiang Yi slowly released her hand and leaned back in his chair. His all-seeing eyes seemed to pierce through every lie. “Xuyuan, do you think everyone around you is as foolish as you?”

“I’m not lying to you!”

“Enough.” Jiang Yi interrupted her, putting his headphones back on, isolating himself entirely in that cold world. “My time is precious. I have no interest in playing these tedious emotional games with you.”

With his action, he sentenced all her efforts to death.

Despair, like icy seawater, instantly suffocated Xuyuan’s breath.

She watched his cold, impenetrable profile and his hands flying over the keyboard. The image of the library being devoured by flames clashed violently with the calm, focused face before her.

No...

It couldn’t end like this...

She couldn’t just watch him walk toward that foretold, all-consuming inferno!

In a flash of courage she didn’t know where she found, Xuyuan took a step forward and did something even she thought was reckless.

She snatched the thick notebook filled with codes from the table, clutching it tightly to her chest, and then turned and ran toward the door!

It was his life’s work!

The very beginning of everything that had been swallowed by fire in his dreams!

The whole world seemed to pause at that moment.

The coldness on Jiang Yi’s face cracked instantly. He ripped off his headphones and stared in disbelief at the figure fleeing with his treasured notebook like a madwoman. For the first time, those usually calm eyes showed real, shattering shock and raging fury.

“Xuyuan! Stop right there!”

He roared, grabbed his laptop bag, and without hesitation, gave chase!

...

Xuyuan had never run this fast before.

The wind howled in her ears.

Her heart pounded wildly in her chest.

She saw nothing, heard nothing, only one thought filled her mind—

Run!

Take him far away from that damned hell about to ignite!

She dashed down the laboratory building’s steps and burst into the sky already thick with dark clouds. Cold raindrops started pelting down in a staccato rhythm.

“Give me back my things!”

Behind her came Jiang Yi’s hoarse shout, laced with uncontrollable rage.

Xuyuan dared not look back. She held the now warm notebook tightly to her chest and sprinted toward the school gate with all her strength.

Just as she was about to pass through the gate, a huge iron-like hand gripped her arm from behind!

The tremendous force threw her off balance, staggering as if she would fall forward.

“Bang!”

A heavy thud.

The pain Xuyuan expected never came.

She was caught in a roughly forceful yet protectively firm embrace—a cold yet unyieldingly strong hold.

Jiang Yi, meanwhile, slammed his back hard against a sturdy plane tree by the roadside.

Xuyuan’s mind went blank.

She could clearly hear his suppressed groan from the impact.

She could smell the familiar, crisp scent mixed with rain on him.

He held her tightly, her cheek pressed against his cold chest rising and falling from running.

“What exactly... do you want?” His voice sounded above her head, hoarse and angry, yet betrayed a tremor of vulnerability even he hadn’t noticed.

Xuyuan slowly lifted her head through the misty rain, meeting his bloodshot eyes filled with humiliation and confusion.

She opened her mouth to speak, but an unexpected figure suddenly appeared before them, holding a black umbrella.

It was Wen Ran.

Still wearing his clean white shirt, he looked at the tangled, disheveled scene with a crack of shock appearing in his usually gentle, jade-like eyes for the first time.

His gaze moved slowly from Xuyuan’s tear-streaked face to Jiang Yi’s hand gripping her arm so tightly the knuckles were white.

Then, he tilted the umbrella in her direction.

“Jiang Yi,” his voice remained gentle but carried an unmistakable, masculine protective undertone, “I think she might need a little space.”