She was completely latched onto.
Although the commotion in the auditorium had finally come to an end with An Chen’s help, Ling Jing had been following Zhuang Chi from a short distance ever since they left. It was hard to tell if she was even trying to hide, but in any case, her presence was so strong that Zhuang Chi felt like she had needles on her back the entire way.
“…How long is she going to follow us?” Lu Man carefully glanced back and saw Ling Jing frantically hiding behind a nearby Roman column—an act that provided no concealment whatsoever. She couldn’t help but sigh. “Why don’t you just be like Gu Ximian and reject her outright?”
…That was indeed the original plan. Zhuang Chi rubbed her brow, troubled. But how should she put it? First, she felt that even if she said so, Ling Jing wouldn’t give up easily. And second…
Sigh. The thought that her words were now forcibly tied to the rest of that hawk’s life made her feel a bit strange.
Thinking about how she had been unwittingly saddled with some power and responsibility, Zhuang Chi finally stopped and said to Lu Man, “You head back to the dorm first. I’m going to…”
She pointed behind her and said silently, “…talk to her.”
Lu Man sucked in a breath, her expression shifting through several complex emotions before settling on genuine worry. “…How about I go with you? What if the talk goes badly and she bites you?”
It seemed Lu Man’s impression of Ling Jing was something akin to a stray cat with a bad temper. Zhuang Chi shook her head, half-amused and half-exasperated, and sighed, “I don’t think it’ll come to that… Anyway, I’ll go talk to her alone first.”
Lu Man departed, looking back every few steps. Zhuang Chi turned and walked toward Ling Jing, which clearly startled Ling Jing, who had thought she was perfectly hidden. After looking left and right to confirm that Zhuang Chi was really coming for her, she stealthily peeked her head out from behind the Roman column, putting on a very deliberate “what a coincidence” act, though her tone was a bit awkward. “Oh, what a coincidence. Are you here to give me a job?”
…There probably wasn’t a stranger opening line in the world. Zhuang Chi thought, glancing at the surrounding students who were frequently casting curious gazes their way. Her head started to ache again. She simply sighed and nodded. “…I suppose you could say that.”
Ling Jing’s eyes instantly lit up. Meeting her hopeful gaze, Zhuang Chi said calmly, “Do you know a place on campus with fewer people… a place where we won’t be gawked at by a crowd just for having a conversation like we are now?”
Long story short, Zhuang Chi was led to the edge of a large lake by Ling Jing.
“How about it!” Ling Jing puffed out her chest at Zhuang Chi as if seeking credit. “Hardly anyone comes here during the day, it perfectly meets your requirements! This was no challenge for me!”
“Yes, you’re amazing…” Zhuang Chi replied, somewhat at a loss for how to respond, as she looked around. The lakeside scenery was quite nice, but there wasn’t a single soul in sight, which made her a bit curious. “Why do so few people come here?”
“Because it’s far,” Ling Jing said succinctly. “But there will be people at night, like couples on dates and stuff.”
Zhuang Chi fell silent, recalling the nearly half-hour walk. She felt Ling Jing had a very good point.
In any case, the two found a bench by the lake and sat down. Ling Jing didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on her current role. She tried hard to appear calm, but she kept stealing glances at Zhuang Chi, her awkward nervousness easy to see. It made Zhuang Chi feel uncomfortable as well. After mulling it over for a while, she tentatively asked, “…Let me ask you something first. If, and I mean if, I also said that I don’t need a servant…”
Before she could finish, Ling Jing’s expression instantly fell. She looked like she was going through a great internal struggle before finally scrunching up her face, her voice trembling as she struggled to say, “Then, then I’ll… beg you…”
It looked like just saying that one sentence was killing her.
Just imagining Ling Jing begging her made Zhuang Chi shudder, feeling like it would create a painful memory for both of them. She sighed and decided to change the subject for now. “So, how does this ‘servant’ thing work? For example, what if I just say I don’t have anything for you to do, but I don’t fire you? Would that be okay?”
“…No,” Ling Jing shook her head, dejected. She said in a forlorn tone, “Every day, I have to write a report for my mom about what I did to help you two. It only counts as a valid day if she reads it and says it’s okay. If I don’t do anything for a day, she’ll definitely never let me pass…”
…It sounded like a way to educate an elementary school student. With her preferred option rejected, Zhuang Chi closed her eyes in frustration and asked again, “…So now that Gu Ximian has explicitly refused, will it still count if it’s just me? Or will the punishment be carried out halfway, like your hawk has to go to the zoo on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays or something…”
If that were the case, Zhuang Chi felt it would be acceptable, basically the same frequency as a diligent person going to the gym. But Ling Jing still looked downcast, thinking it over with a pained expression for a long while. “…I haven’t asked about that yet, but I’d rather Xiao Ying not go to the zoo—”
She suddenly stopped, froze for a second, then whipped her head toward Zhuang Chi. She shot closer to the startled girl, her cat-like eyes widening. “Are you saying you’ll help me? You’ll keep me? You won’t fire me?”
Unable to handle it, Zhuang Chi leaned back and said vaguely, “…But I don’t really have anything I want you to do.”
“Oh, oh!” Seemingly not having heard the last half of her sentence, Ling Jing’s eyes were already shining. This was probably the first time Zhuang Chi had seen her so happy. But after a moment of joy, she seemed to remember her image, cleared her throat, and, while suppressing the urge to smile, said to her, “You have good taste!”
Honestly, if Ling Jing had said something like that in a real job interview, she probably would have been fired shortly after being hired.
Fortunately, Zhuang Chi was a rather good-tempered boss. Still, she thought she should make things clear with Ling Jing first, so she spoke up quietly, “…Let me say this upfront. I do think you and your hawk did something wrong and should be punished. I just don’t like… suddenly being passively involved in the principal’s disciplinary measures like this.”
“…Mm…” Ling Jing’s fire was instantly extinguished. She lowered her head, her voice dropping an octave. “A-anyway, about injuring you at the school gate… I-I’m sorry…”
Ling Jing was clearly the type who hadn’t apologized much in her life; the three words came out haltingly. Zhuang Chi thought to herself, so she knows she was wrong, that’s good.
After yesterday’s incident, Zhuang Chi had thought it over carefully and managed to recall a relevant plot point—Ling Jing wanted to take off Gu Ximian’s choker to identify her by the scent of her pheromones. Behind it all was a vague backstory about “being saved by her in her youth but never seeing her face, only being left with a deep impression of her pheromones,” but she couldn’t remember the details, so it was probably an unimportant background setting.
And as the first of the female lead’s pursuers to appear in the book, Ling Jing wasn’t a complete villain. Zhuang Chi remembered her character arc was a common one that started low and ended high—she had no idea when this “hot-tempered, impulsive rich kid” trope became so popular that she had to follow the trend back then. Sigh.
In any case, although not crafted with the same care as Gu Ximian, Ling Jing was still a character she had once worked hard to create. So, as someone who knew Ling Jing’s nature wasn’t hopelessly bad… Zhuang Chi still held some goodwill and wanted to get along with her—or at least not make an enemy of her.
Temporarily breaking from her thoughts, Zhuang Chi looked at Ling Jing. Perhaps because of their new “master-servant” relationship, Ling Jing seemed a bit more docile now, which made her feel that this was a good time for a conversation. She thought for a moment and decided to reason with Ling Jing in a heartfelt manner. “First of all, no matter what your reason is, you shouldn’t forcibly smell someone’s pheromones without their consent.”
Ling Jing mumbled a couple of “mm”s and lowered her head.
“Secondly,” Zhuang Chi’s gaze shifted to the leather gloves Ling Jing was still wearing, and she couldn’t help but say, “…bringing a hawk to school is too… too weird.”
“Weird? Weird?” Ling Jing’s head shot up, her face filled with incredulous shock. “Huh? Isn’t it cool? You don’t think it’s cool?”
…The younger Zhuang Chi probably thought so too. With a heavy heart, Zhuang Chi decided to give her character a belated education. “…Things that cause trouble for others aren’t cool at all. Even if it’s been tamed, a hawk is still a bird of prey. If you just let it fly around everywhere, what if it hurts someone someday—”
“N-no way, Xiao Ying wouldn’t do something like that…” Ling Jing interrupted before she could finish. She seemed eager to prove her hawk was a good hawk, but facing Zhuang Chi, whom it had indeed injured, she lacked some confidence. So she just lowered her gaze and said softly, “It usually just stays in the nearby trees… It doesn’t really move unless I call it, and it basically only likes to eat. It’s not interested in humans…”
Doesn’t that just mean it’s lazy and gluttonous? Listening to this, Zhuang Chi suddenly felt an untimely curiosity and asked, “Does it fly over every time you whistle?”
“Yeah!” At this topic, Ling Jing seemed to come alive again. She even raised a hand proudly and said, “Want me to call it over for you to see?”
Her movements were so fast that before Zhuang Chi could even respond, she heard a whistle. Then, she really did see a grayish-white bird silhouette fly over from a distance, landing on Ling Jing’s arm amidst the flapping of wings, arrogantly puffing out its plump chest.
“…” She hadn’t had the luxury to observe it during their first meeting, but seeing a hawk appear so casually before her now was still quite shocking. As Zhuang Chi thought that she might never have seen such a scene in her life if she hadn’t transmigrated into this novel, she frowned strangely. She tried to hold it in, but couldn’t, and said in a low voice, “…So fat.”
“…”
She had expected a fierce protest from Ling Jing, but the other girl unexpectedly fell silent. After a long moment, she turned her head away, lacking confidence. “…Is, is it?”
It was really fat. Zhuang Chi never knew a hawk could get this fat. Although its grayish-white feathers looked glossy and quite nice, its overly plump figure made its first impression more like a stout old mother hen than a hawk.
“I did think about controlling its diet before, but…” As if a sore spot had been poked, Ling Jing’s shoulders slumped. She lamented as if talking to herself, “But whenever it eats less, it just keeps squawking, making me feel like I’m abusing an animal… In the end, not only did I fail to control its diet, but I also ended up adding a large piece of pork belly to its every meal. Over time, it became like this…”
She looked like she was struggling to support the hawk with one hand. The overly portly Xiao Ying was oblivious, tilting its head and staring at Zhuang Chi. Zhuang Chi didn’t know what emotion was contained in its round eyes, but out of a sense of self-preservation, she quietly scooted back. Ling Jing, however, seemed completely unguarded around the hawk. Once she started feeling down, there was no end to it. She stroked the hawk pitifully while sighing dramatically. “But there’s nothing to be done, right? You get hungry staying outside all day, and you only eat what I give you. Our good Xiao Ying deserves to eat well—huh? What’s that white ring around your beak?”
Ling Jing frowned, suddenly noticing a white ring around the hawk’s beak. She reached out to touch its mouth, then rubbed her fingertips together. “…It’s sticky.”
Watching from the side, just as Zhuang Chi was faintly realizing what it was, Ling Jing’s face suddenly changed drastically. She exclaimed in alarm, “Don’t tell me you’re sick! Why are you foaming at the mouth?! Don’t worry, we’ll go to the hospital right now—”
“Ah! It’s that bird!”
Just as she shot to her feet, a shout came from not far away. The two humans and one bird turned their heads in unison to see a couple. The girl was pointing at them, holding an ice cream cone with only the cone left, and said indignantly, “That’s the bird that stole my ice cream!”
““…””
Zhuang Chi and Ling Jing fell into a collective silence. Zhuang Chi looked at Ling Jing, who was frozen stiff beside her, and said quietly, “…Didn’t you just say it only eats what you give it?”
“…”
Ling Jing’s jaw twitched. She closed her eyes, then opened them, took a deep breath, and strode toward the couple.
“You there, give me your student card! Why are you running? Didn’t it eat your ice cream? Hey—”
The scene instantly descended into chaos. Outside the fray, Zhuang Chi felt her temples start to throb with pain. She let out a deep, a truly deep, sigh.
