Chapter Twenty-Three: Falling Into His Arms

Even though Wen Yichen acted as if it was perfectly natural, Jiang Muwen truly didn’t dare to just lie down on the bed as if she belonged there. Faced with Wen Yichen’s suggestion, Jiang Muwen gave no response. She didn’t obediently climb onto the bed, nor did she refuse—at this moment, she probably didn’t even have the courage left to voice her refusal.

The surroundings were quiet, and Jiang Muwen stood there, lost and at a loss, feeling the fierce pounding of her own heart. Sharing a bed with Wen Yichen—she doubted she’d be able to sleep at all.

After a while, Wen Yichen seemed to sense something. He slowly opened his eyes and looked, still drowsy, at the dazed Jiang Muwen who stood beside him. “Weren’t you going to take a nap? Why are you just standing there?”

Their eyes met, and Jiang Muwen, embarrassed, quickly looked away.

Her reaction made everything clear to Wen Yichen—the old saying about propriety between men and women.

The next second, he sat up on the bed, a trace of impatience in his gaze. As he walked toward the wardrobe, he spoke: “You sleep on the bed, I’ll sleep on the floor. Is that alright?”

His words made Jiang Muwen feel awkward in turn. Her ears flushed a faint red, as if she were a little disgruntled. “It’s fine… I can sleep on the floor too.”

Hearing this, Wen Yichen paused for a moment with the bedding in his hands. He leaned back slightly, turned his head, and stared straight at her.

His eyes were half-closed, the remnants of sleep still lingering in his gaze, and Jiang Muwen inexplicably sensed an air of menace, as if he might complain the next moment about how troublesome girls could be.

His deathly stare made Jiang Muwen timidly speak up, “I’ll sleep on the bed…”

After saying that, she forced a couple of awkward chuckles.

Only when Wen Yichen spread the bedding on the floor did Jiang Muwen obediently climb onto the bed. Before sleeping, she cautiously peeked over the edge, glancing at the boy lying on the floor.

Wen Yichen lay atop the bedding, hands folded leisurely behind his head, looking every bit the carefree youth, bathed in the gentle warmth of early autumn sunlight—a scene that filled one with a sense of contentment.

The bed was soft, and there was a faint fragrance—something like Wen Yichen’s own scent, mixed with the smell of sunshine. Breathing it in made Jiang Muwen feel at ease.

She didn’t know how much time passed before she, too, drifted into a deep sleep. She tossed and turned on Wen Yichen’s bed as if it were the big bed at her own home.

But, after all, this was not her own bed. In a half-dreaming daze, she turned over out of habit, and suddenly, her body slipped into empty space.

The sudden feeling of falling shocked Jiang Muwen awake. Before she could reach for anything to steady herself, her entire body landed with a thud.

Rather than saying she fell to the floor, it might be more accurate to say… she landed right on top of Wen Yichen.

“Ah—” Wen Yichen let out a low cry. Though Jiang Muwen wasn’t heavy, her sudden fall still had some impact.

Her landing was like a boulder dropping onto his chest, and the unexpected pain forced him to open his eyes in distress.

Jiang Muwen realized she’d landed on Wen Yichen. Instinctively, she tried to scramble off him, but as her hands hastily pressed against the bedding, Wen Yichen opened his sleepy eyes.

Those clear eyes still held a trace of drowsiness, and a hint of annoyance at being woken so abruptly. Yet, when his gaze fell upon the girl before him, all other emotions seemed to melt away, replaced only by surprise—and the faintest blush rising on his cheeks.

They stared at each other, frozen, as if neither could quite process what had happened.

“Jiang Muwen, are you trying to kill me?” Wen Yichen finally spoke, his hoarse voice laced with reproach and a touch of bewilderment.

Jiang Muwen—she probably had a hundred ways to wake him from sleep, whether by tempting him with delicious smells, pretending there was a mosquito on his face and slapping him, or, as now, dropping herself squarely on him. In any case, none of these were methods a normal person would use.

“N-no…” Jiang Muwen stammered, and the air settled into a mysterious silence. Before long, Wen Yichen mercilessly broke it: “Do you like this position so much?”

At his question, a suspicious flush crept up Jiang Muwen’s ears. “No…”

Seeing her like this, Wen Yichen suddenly turned his head away, deliberately averting his gaze. “Then why aren’t you getting up?”

The moment he turned his face, Jiang Muwen caught a glimpse of pink on his cheeks. Was he… embarrassed?

…

The seven-day National Day holiday passed quickly, and Jiang Muwen, with some reluctance, returned to school.

Fortunately, there was a boy she liked in her class, which lent a bit of anticipation to her daily life—each day, she could study together with the boy she liked, who happened to sit right behind her.

But after a few days of classes, Jiang Muwen sensed something odd about the atmosphere in her class—her classmates always seemed to be whispering about something, and whenever they did, they would occasionally glance in her direction.

Finally, one day, Jiang Muwen couldn’t hold back and knocked on Wen Yichen’s desk.

The sound of her pen tapping on the desk reached Wen Yichen’s ears. He instinctively looked up at her, waiting for her to speak.

“Wen Yichen… do you know what everyone’s been gossiping about lately?” Jiang Muwen asked in a low voice, her eyes full of curiosity.

He had thought she would ask something academic, but it turned out to be this. Wen Yichen didn’t reply immediately; he lowered his gaze back to his workbook, his pen moving busily across the page. “No idea.”

“Aren’t you even curious?”

At that, Wen Yichen’s hand paused for a moment, his pen hovering over the page for a few seconds before he resumed writing. “No, I’m not.”

Not curious?!

To Jiang Muwen, this answer was simply inhuman.

Just as she was about to say something more, Wen Yichen spoke again. “It’s better not to be too nosy about these things—curiosity killed the cat.”

Of course, it wasn’t as if they didn’t know. The protagonists of the recent gossip were the two of them.

The rumors Wen Yichen referred to had started with Zhou Yao—genius Wen Yichen in love with the fool Jiang Muwen, as if the best cabbage in the field had been snatched away by a pig.