Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 32: Chapter 10: Twist, Lick, Dunk

But he knew Du Kang’s personality best. If he really had the guts to pull something like that, he wouldn’t have been nursing a one-sided crush for so many years. So what happened on the way here that would make Lu Qinglian suddenly bring it up?

He glanced at Du Kang, then at Lu Qinglian, only to find her staring right at him.

To be honest, the atmosphere had grown a little stiff. Just then, Feng Ruoping came running over again, holding a large plastic bag.

"Here, here, have some cookies! You guys, stop fishing for a minute..."

Then, taking the opportunity, she pulled Zhang Shutong aside and whispered in his ear,

"I just found out those two didn’t come back together."

"What?"

"Du Kang never went with her. I was just asking about it. He said he caught up to Lu Qinglian, but she didn’t let him walk with her..."

"Then how did they end up...?"

"You boys are something else. He was originally going to walk back the way he came, but halfway here he realized that with one more person, there wouldn’t be a place to sit. So he ran back to the ’base’ to grab a stool. I swear... ugh."

Ruoping trailed off, clearly wanting to say more.

"Then they just happened to run into each other on his way back, making us think they’d returned together. Anyway, you should keep quiet later, too. Let’s just all stuff our faces with cookies..."

Feng Ruoping hadn’t heard his conversation with Lu Qinglian at all, but a girl’s intuition is always sharper. She just assumed Du Kang had pestered the poor girl and gotten on her nerves, which was why she’d rushed out to play mediator.

Zhang Shutong could understand that much. What he couldn’t understand was what Lu Qinglian was up to. ’I’ve been looking at this all wrong,’ he realized. ’So *this* was the "important matter" she wanted to talk about after school? Okay, I guess in a way, us being annoying *is* a pretty important matter.’

’So maybe we should all just eat cookies. Eating cookies doesn’t require any brainpower. They’re sweet and crunchy, and we can just shut our mouths and pretend nothing happened.’ Just as he reached for the bag, Qingyi held up a hand to stop him, pulling off his earmuffs.

"Hold on a second."

’Dude, where did you just pop out from?’

But Zhang Shutong and Feng Ruoping both thought he had some profound insight to share and were ready to listen intently. To their surprise, he pulled a packet of compressed biscuits from his pocket and said with a smile,

"When you’re fishing, you’ve got to eat these."

"Meng Qingyi, has your brain been compressed, too?" Feng Ruoping was utterly dumbfounded.

"What’s wrong?" Qingyi asked, confused. "You have to eat compressed biscuits when you’re fishing to get the right vibe. Who eats Oreos? Right, Shutong?"

’With you two standing on either side of me, *I’m* the one about to become an Oreo,’ Zhang Shutong thought. He turned to Lu Qinglian instead. "Which one do you want?"

"What’s an Oreo?" To his surprise, the girl thought for a moment before asking nonchalantly.

’Now I’m confused. Why are you playing the clueless airhead? What happened to that queenly aura from just a moment ago?’

But it turned out she had genuinely never seen an Oreo before. He watched as she thanked Feng Ruoping, tore open the package, and took out a chocolate sandwich cookie. She examined it for a moment before asking Zhang Shutong,

"How do you eat this?"

’How else would you eat it?’ But Zhang Shutong was more concerned about the matter she had brought up.

"When you said you had something important to discuss with me after school... was this it?"

"For now," she said, enunciating each word, "you can think of it that way."

’I don’t get what "for now" is supposed to mean. Is that a yes or a no?’

But now wasn’t the time to get hung up on that. His tone grew more serious, and it took him a moment before he finally said,

"...I’m sorry. I was being presumptuous. It won’t happen again."

He suddenly realized Lu Qinglian was far more complex than he’d imagined. His previous impression was of a girl like an ice sculpture who served as a Temple Priestess on the mountain. She was mysterious, yes, but that mystery meant his perception of her was always veiled in fog, making her seem like a statue hidden in the mist.

Then he’d thought that rather than being cold and aloof, she was actually a bit of an airhead. But now he saw she wasn’t clueless or foolish at all. She simply chose not to call him out on things, seeing right through his actions as if looking in a clear mirror.

Strangely, this didn’t make her feel more distant. Instead, it suddenly brought her closer, more human. Although she was still wearing that cyan robe, she no longer seemed like some celestial fairy floating down from the heavens.

"I’m not angry. Just a little troubled," Lu Qinglian said, her voice as crisp and cool as ever, her tone perfectly flat. "So, this O-something... how do you eat it?"

Zhang Shutong suddenly looked at her and laughed.

"How else? You twist it, lick it, and then dunk it, of course."