Chapter 116: Your heart is beating so fast!

"Not."

His thin lips twitched twice, and two words, as faint as a mosquito's buzz, slipped from Xu Yanfeng's mouth.

He denied it.

This was also within Xia Xi's expectations; if he had admitted it outright, he wouldn't be Xu Yanfeng.

Xu Yanfeng raised his arm, put the earphones back on, and cut off Xia Xi's chance to talk to him again.

Xia Xi wouldn't just let it go; she reached out and yanked off Xu Yanfeng's earphones: "Wait, I haven't finished speaking."

Xu Yanfeng's brow twitched; he wondered if he was too easygoing, letting Xia Xi think she could run wild here: "Xia Xi, I said it's not——"

The word "I" lingered between his lips and teeth, because Xia Xi had suddenly moved very close, so close her eyelashes seemed able to brush his face. Xu Yanfeng unconsciously held back the breath about to exhale from his nostrils, and the Adam's apple above his shirt collar twitched.

Xia Xi slightly lifted the corner of her mouth, still speaking in that low, airy tone: "If it's not, then it's not; I'm not forcing you to admit it. I'm rather suspicious—I won't take medicine of unknown origin. What if something's been added? If I were poisoned, what would I do? A lovely young girl dying would be such a pity."

Xu Yanfeng: "……"

He wanted to ask her if she had water in her brain, what nonsense she was imagining, but from another angle he felt a bit persuaded—girls out and about really should stay highly vigilant and refuse things of unknown origin.

Xia Xi feigned distress, wrinkling her brows: "If you're going to say it's not from you, then I won't eat it—I'll just have to toss it."

Xu Yanfeng pressed his lips together, looking as if he wanted to speak but held back.

Xia Xi suppressed her inner delight, put on a serious expression, and asked: "How is it? Do you have something to say to me?"

Xu Yanfeng spoke, but it wasn't the line she had expected, "Exactly, it's from me." His voice was sluggish and a bit low: "You……could you move a little farther away?"

Xia Xi: "……"

This infuriatingly stubborn guy! Xia Xi angrily snapped the earphones onto Xu Yanfeng's forehead, retreated to a safe distance, and while organizing the books and materials she'd brought, she muttered to herself.

Is Xu Yanfeng's mouth a clamshell? Why is it so hard to pry out a true word from him?

Disturbed by Xia Xi's interruption, Xu Yanfeng's thoughts wandered halfway; he took off the earphones askew on his forehead, put them in his storage bag, stared at the design drawing on the computer screen, and spent a few minutes calming himself.

He was designing a luxury villa for a plot of land the Xu Clan Group was about to develop.

Just as he thought he could return to his previous work state, his vision suddenly went dark and exclamations rang out all around.

The quiet atmosphere was broken; the study room gradually became noisy, the sound of chairs scraping accompanied by rising and falling inquiries.

"What's happening? Power outage?"

"What a joke—Nan Da hasn't had a power outage in how many years?"

"The sky's falling—I'm here to do makeup homework, ahhh!"

"My heavenly father, are you here to punish me for cramming at the last minute?"

"Damn, who stepped on my foot? It kills!"

In the pitch‑black darkness where you couldn't see your own hand, Xia Xi turned her head to look at her right side; of course she couldn't see Xu Yanfeng's face clearly, but in that instant a wicked idea popped into her head.

Xia Xi gave a nasty grin, then suddenly changed her expression, feigning terror as she covered her mouth and let out a "yah," scrambling into Xu Yanfeng's embrace in the chaos, clutching his arm tightly: "I'm so scared."

As she acted, she herself almost burst out laughing.

Such a scene really tests acting skills; fortunately, it was pitch dark, so Xu Yanfeng couldn't see her poor acting.

Xu Yanfeng frowned, reached out to push her; the first push didn't budge her—she clung to him like a half‑melted piece of rubber candy. He clenched his face, and a voice tinged with thin anger came from above her head: "Xia Xi, let go."

Her words can't be trusted at all—not even the punctuation is genuine.

She is a downright liar; with just a slight touch of her lips, falsehoods spill out.

What stuck in his memory was the last time at the breakfast shop, when she couldn't stomach the mung‑bean soup, vomited a bit, nearby customers glanced over, and she naturally claimed it was morning sickness. He warned her not to spout nonsense, but she got addicted to acting, saying things like she'd raise the child herself and he wouldn't have to take responsibility…… He couldn't forget the look of the neighboring table's customers—one‑third contempt, one‑third disdain, the rest sympathy for Xia Xi.

"I won't let go. I'm really scared of the dark." Xia Xi snickered while pinching her voice to sound pitiful: "Senior, don't you feel how badly I'm shaking?"

"Xia Xi……"

Xu Yanfeng hadn't finished speaking when a monitor carrying a flashlight interrupted him; the monitor announced to everyone: "Fellow students, the circuit has failed; we're arranging for electricians to repair it, and it should be fine in about ten minutes. Please stay where you are and don't run around, to avoid stampede accidents."

The students replied in unison, "Got it," and some who had been about to leave sat back down upon hearing that.

The monitor's act of holding a flashlight inspired Xu Yanfeng; he lifted the arm not embraced by Xia Xi, felt around on the desk a few times, grabbed his phone, operated it with one hand, and turned on the illumination function. The bright white light aimed at Xia Xi's face instantly exposed her smug smile, leaving no trace of fear.

Xia Xi was startled by the sudden bright light and instinctively closed her eyes, like a burglar caught red‑handed by the homeowner.

"Now that there's light, can you let me go?" Xu Yanfeng said with a cold face, slightly shifting the beam away so it didn't shine in her eyes.

Xia Xi awkwardly tugged at her lip, slowly withdrawing from his embrace; for a moment she froze, then her body leaned back in. Seeing this, Xu Yanfeng's temples throbbed: "Xia Xi……"

His words were interrupted again; Xia Xi looked up at him, face full of surprise, and whispered: "Shh, what sound is that you're hearing?"

Xu Yanfeng, taken in by her act, frowned tightly and asked: "What what sound."

Besides the sound of everyone talking, he heard nothing else. Because the power outage prevented homework, the students gathered in twos and threes to chat, utterly forgetting that this was a library study room where noise was forbidden and silence required.

Xia Xi chuckled lightly, tightened her fingers, grasped the soft fabric of his shirt, and her voice, mingling with the noise, reached his ears clearly: "You didn't hear it? Thump‑thump, like a heartbeat."

Xu Yanfeng: "……"

He silently cursed himself as "stupid"; he shouldn't have believed a word of Xia Xi's, and the moment he opened his mouth to reply, he fell into the trap she'd set.

This person has more tricks than one can count.

However, Xia Xi's words weren't finished; she lifted her head, looking up at him from below, an angle that made her look like a docile cat—but Xu Yanfeng knew she was never docile.

She said: "Is it my heartbeat? No. It seems to be coming from your chest cavity, Xu Yanfeng."

The more she said that, the faster Xu Yanfeng's heart beat.

His self‑control was strong; he could restrain many things—whether outside temptations or desires arising from within—but no matter how capable he was, he couldn't control the frequency of his heartbeat to keep it from racing.

Sweat trickled down his forehead; Xu Yanfeng grew a bit annoyed, but before he could react, Xia Xi's next sentence shattered the wall he'd built to resist her intrusion.

"Xu Yanfeng, your heart is beating so fast—is it because of me?"

Xu Yanfeng, anxious, told her to shut up.

Since the mouth is on Xia Xi's body, how could he stop her from speaking? She fired off sentence after sentence without fear of death, giving no chance to catch a breath.

"It surely can't be because we're both afraid of the dark, can it?"

"Xu Yanfeng, do you perhaps like me a little?"

Even a little bit counts.

Why won't you just admit it?

You're doing it on purpose, aren't you? Enjoy the process of me chasing you?

You're really hateful, you.