Be Passionately In Love

Chen Luzhou was utterly bewildered at that moment, pinned on the sofa and kissed into a daze, seemingly oblivious to the danger. Whether out of ignorance or disbelief, he asked, "What? What do you want to see?"

Xu Zhi was draped over him, her waistline curving in all the right places—a girl's most delicate yet perky figure, like a flower on the cusp of full bloom, perfectly plump. With both hands braced against the back of the sofa, she unabashedly glanced downward at his lower half.

Pressed beneath her like this, Chen Luzhou had never noticed the curves behind her before. He hadn’t expected her figure to be this good, but he was still left speechless: "..."

Is this something a high school girl should be looking at?

"Are you sure you're a female high school student?" Chen Luzhou nearly picked her up and tossed her out.

"Boring," Xu Zhi retorted, as if she’d found his weak spot.

As their heated breaths dispersed, both of them regained some clarity. Chen Luzhou pushed her away, refusing further kisses and even denying her a seat on his lap. Coldly, he scoffed, "Yeah, I’m boring. Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t show you. Have you lost your mind?"

The consequence of her provocation was Chen Luzhou refusing to see her for two days.

Xu Zhi texted him on WeChat, to which he replied promptly.

Xu Zhi: Meeting today?

Cr: No.

Xu Zhi: ...

Xu Zhi: One day of drama is enough. Two days, and I won’t have the patience to coax you. I’m tutoring someone tomorrow. Li Ke said it’s 200 an hour, four hours a day—even more profitable than you tutoring Chen Xingqi.

Cr: Middle schooler?

Xu Zhi: Yeah. Li Ke said if you’re willing to do it, he’d even pay us the agency fee out of his own pocket! Wow, Chen Luzhou, you’re so valuable.

Cr: Cut it out. Li Ke’s a schemer—you actually believe him? Here’s my second life advice for you: stay away from provincial top scorers, especially the business-savvy ones.

Xu Zhi replied with exaggerated deference and feigned compliance, as if he were right in front of her: "Yes, duly noted, oh wise provincial champion."

Cr: ...

Thanks to Chen Luzhou’s influence, Li Ke really didn’t charge her an agency fee, and Xu Zhi pocketed the full day’s wages. But just as Chen Luzhou had predicted, those 800 yuan weren’t easy to earn. Most tutors charged 150 an hour, but Xu Zhi’s extra 50 came with an additional task: solving the student’s dinner. His parents were too busy with work, often tied up with social engagements at night, and didn’t want to spend extra on a nanny. So they asked the tutor to handle his meals. Li Ke had readily agreed, promising to find them a satisfactory tutor.

As a result, even when Chen Luzhou wanted to see her during that period, Xu Zhi wasn’t always available. After finishing afternoon classes, she had to take the student out for dinner. The middle schooler was only a year or two older than Chen Xingqi but lacked his sunny, troublesome energy—likely weighed down by academic pressure. Tall and gaunt, he suffered from anorexia and would listlessly tell Xu Zhi at mealtime, "Teacher Xu, don’t worry about me. I can’t eat anyway. Just go home."

In the past, Xu Zhi might’ve just walked away without a second thought. But for some reason, ever since meeting Chen Luzhou—that upright and principled boy—she found her sympathy overflowing, compelling her to meddle in others’ affairs. Somewhere deep down, she wondered if he might prefer a kind, meddlesome girl?So, during those days, Xu Zhi often roamed the streets and alleys of the city with the boy suffering from anorexia, searching for all sorts of peculiar delicacies—most of which were recommended by Chen Luzhou. It was then that Xu Zhi realized Chen Luzhou had practically eaten his way through the entire city of Qingyi.

Every shop Chen Luzhou suggested was quite niche, yet the food turned out to be unexpectedly delicious. Xu Zhi walked ahead with her Bluetooth earphones in, while the boy stumbled along behind her, clearly not used to going out much. Even a random cat lounging on a wall at the alley entrance could startle him, his eyes darting around curiously. Xu Zhi glanced back at him, paused to wait, and said into the phone to Chen Luzhou, "Don’t tell me you’ve eaten at all of these places."

His voice on the other end carried its usual lazy tone. He had gone to some human sculpture exhibition with friends today and had invited Xu Zhi, but she couldn’t easily take time off, so she didn’t go. He replied, "Half of them I’ve tried, the other half are heartfelt recommendations from a few foodies."

"Like who? Zhu Yangqi?"

He chuckled. "In your eyes, Zhu Yangqi is my only friend, huh? Actually, Zhu Yangqi had a bit of anorexia when he was a kid too. His parents used to invite me over for meals all the time. I thought they were just being nice, but later I found out it was because I ate with such gusto—Zhu Yangqi would always end up fighting me for food."

"...So you two were already acting like dogs fighting over scraps since childhood?"

"More than that. We even marked our territory. Not like you girls," he teased, his tone playful yet meaningful. "If you want to claim something, all you have to do is act a little spoiled."

Xu Zhi watched as the kid caught up without getting lost, then turned and continued walking deeper into the alley, laughing along. "You’ve got the wrong idea about us girls."

"Oh? Then who was the one acting spoiled on my couch the other night?" Over the phone, his voice carried an extra layer of allure, more tantalizing than usual. There was something electrifying about it, especially coming from someone whose voice was usually so clean and crisp. A tingling sensation shot straight up her spine.

Her face burned instantly. Xu Zhi didn’t think she had been acting spoiled—she had just asked to borrow his computer and couch in a slightly softer tone. Chen Luzhou insisted she was being coy, and she had laughed at him then, teasing, "For such a big-shot campus heartthrob, you’re really easily impressed."

"How’s the exhibition?" Xu Zhi didn’t want to keep bantering. She and the middle schooler had just sat down at a table in the shop, but the call was still connected, so she steered the conversation back.

At that moment, Chen Luzhou was standing before a sculpture of an ancient Roman knight. The knight, with both hands severed, knelt before his beloved, no longer able to wield a spear or shield. Yet between his teeth, he clenched a fresh, dewy rose, a single droplet of water trembling precariously on the edge of a petal—on the verge of falling but not quite. He glanced at the inscription below:

"I am a knight with severed hands, but that doesn’t stop the rose from being fresh."

This sculpture was one of the most famous pieces in the entire exhibition. Every couple passing by couldn’t help but pause. Often, the girl would fall into silent contemplation for half a minute before decisively—and forcefully—punching her boyfriend in the chest.

"Look at him! I ask you to peel a peach for me, and you can’t even get the fuzz off!"

..."Not bad, I think you might like it," Chen Luzhou said at the time, looking at the nude male sculpture next to the knight statue.

After spending so much time together, the two had developed a strong rapport—though conversations had become trickier because each could read between the lines of the other's words. "Why do I feel like you're mocking me? Are there any provocative pieces in there?"

Chen Luzhou chuckled. "You're being too sensitive, Gatekeeper Philosopher."

Xu Zhi had recently been asking all sorts of random questions—like "Who am I?", "Where do I come from?", and "Where am I going?"—which Chen Luzhou had summed up as "gatekeeper philosophy," hence the teasing nickname. Her curiosity was unbearable, and she couldn't stand being left hanging. Her tone softened again as she pressed, "Come on, tell me what you saw."

Chen Luzhou thought for a moment before casually listing a few. "Nude man, knight, rose. Use your imagination."

As expected, Xu Zhi latched onto just one of them. "Nude man? Like, full-frontal?"

Chen Luzhou responded with eight words: "Every detail meticulously rendered, lifelike and vivid."

Xu Zhi whistled and renewed her earnest invitation: "Meeting up today?"

Chen Luzhou gave a lazy hum. "I'll tell you when we get home."

Absence makes the heart grow fonder—or perhaps it was because Chen Luzhou had kept her waiting for two days, but the moment they stepped inside, they were already kissing. Normally, their interactions were restrained, governed by propriety. Chen Luzhou tried his best not to touch her, though sometimes he couldn't resist Xu Zhi's persistence. Most of the time, they just lounged on the couch, watching movies and chatting. On more heated occasions, Xu Zhi would sit on his lap, but both exercised considerable self-control—kissing only when emotions overwhelmed them. Today, when she said she was coming over, Chen Luzhou had planned to help her revise her speech draft before agreeing. Xu Zhi was hopeless at writing formal speeches—hers had turned into a vague, rambling acceptance speech—so after she left that night, he had stayed up reworking it for her.

But the moment they entered, before Chen Luzhou could even take off his baseball cap, Xu Zhi suddenly wrapped her arms around his waist, pinned him against the door, and tilted her head up to kiss him fervently, slowly trailing from his chin to his lips. Chen Luzhou, like snow meeting a red-hot stove, knew exactly what she wanted. He pulled her into his embrace, his lean arms loosely yet deliberately encircling her slender waist. For once, he actively lowered his head to give her lips a lazy, teasing nip. "I'm going to take a shower—"

Xu Zhi refused to let go, showering him with kisses. The two of them ended up like little mice sneaking bites of cheese, pecking at each other's lips lightly and intermittently.

Xu Zhi was exhausted today. Dealing with kids was no easy task—suddenly, she realized just how impressive Chen Luzhou was. Her student was relatively well-behaved, but teaching was still draining. After hours of explaining, her mouth was dry, yet the middle-schooler still looked utterly lost. The worst part was when those innocent eyes stared at her, filling Xu Zhi's mind with the crushing thought, "Alright, I'm not cut out to be a tutor." She imagined how much worse it would be teaching someone like Chen Xingqi—she’d probably start questioning her life choices. Yet Chen Luzhou handled it all with such ease.

It was in that moment she suddenly understood: if she really ended up as a corporate drone someday, doing work a hundred times more exhausting than this, how would she cope without Chen Luzhou—this effortlessly handsome guy who was not only pleasing to the eye but also incredibly capable?Unable to resist, she nuzzled deeper into his warm, broad embrace, her body going slack as she murmured weakly, "I'm exhausted. Let me hold you a little longer."

Chen Luzhou stopped moving, leaning against the door like a human tree trunk. He lowered his head to press a kiss to her hair and asked in an uncharacteristically gentle yet tense voice, "Did that middle schooler bully you?"

Xu Zhi lifted her disheveled head from his chest to look at him. When she'd first come in, her listless demeanor had bothered Chen Luzhou so much that he'd walked over and roughly ruffled her hair, saying, "It's only been two days at work—why do you look like you've been there two years?"

Gazing into his clear, dark eyes—so bright and full of vigor—Xu Zhi couldn't help but sigh. Those eyes were truly inspiring, impossible to deceive, their sharp intelligence written plainly in their depths. She sighed and admitted bluntly, painfully honest, "I'm just a bit slow. Four hours and I could only get through half a test paper. If it were our teacher, the triangle ruler would've smashed through the podium by now—" Her fingers brushed a brown stain on his collar. "What's this?"

With only the small entryway light on, Chen Luzhou glanced down. "Coffee, probably. I bought a cup on the way here. The lid wasn't on right—took one sip and spilled it all over myself. Otherwise, I'd think my chin had sprung a leak."

Xu Zhi laughed. "Your chin doesn't leak. You just keep your mouth shut too tight."

Chen Luzhou looked down at her with a smirk. "You'd know."

"Because I've kissed it."

"Who sticks their tongue out drinking coffee?" He burst out laughing.

"Me," Xu Zhi declared shamelessly. "Your Xu Zhi-jie has always stuck her tongue out to sip coffee bit by bit. Got a problem with that?"

Outside, the city lights brightened, casting a faint glow into the room—though it only reached the living room, leaving the entryway dim. Yet the intimate, heart-pounding look they exchanged was unmistakable. The fire between them showed no signs of dying; once kindled, it seemed destined to burn until the end.

Chen Luzhou, still leaning against the door, had one hand coolly tucked in his pocket while the other rested with restrained tension at her waist. Unable to resist, he gave her a playful pinch and said deliberately, "The pigs your Chen Luzhou-gege raises are the ones who stick their tongues out drinking coffee."

Xu Zhi suddenly caught on, looping her arms around his neck. "...Chen Luzhou, you're the pig."

Not one to back down, she decided actions spoke louder. Without another word, she lunged forward to kiss him fiercely. The touch of their lips was awkward and unfamiliar, still tentative—like a reckless young beast breaking free from its cage, all force and no finesse. Only then did Chen Luzhou pull his other hand from his pocket to wrap around her fully, deepening the kiss with a natural, seamless intensity.The room fell into instant silence. That night, the moon hung in the sky like an unripe fruit—round yet firm, much like a young man's most distant dream, unreachable and impossible to shake off. The two had originally been playfully bickering at the door, teasing each other with kisses that gradually grew more heated. Their breaths tangled into chaos, hearts pounding so fiercely it was dizzying, their eyes clouded with hazy reflections of each other that they could no longer make out clearly. In each other's gaze, they searched for themselves, the air devoid of any other sound. When Chen Luzhou's tongue slipped in, Xu Zhi trembled faintly, her scalp tingling with tension—

"Chen Luzhou, so you do know how to kiss."

"Is there anything Chen Luzhou can't do?" The young man laughed.

Xu Zhi: "You won't show me that, though. How am I supposed to have any standards when looking for a boyfriend in the future?"

Chen Luzhou: "..."

Author's note: 200 red envelopes.

(A purely sweet chapter. College is coming soon, really no need to worry ahhhhhh!)