Novel Turned Yuri – Chapter 13
by Little PandaNothing Was More Important Than Making Lin Qing Happy
Having decided to study hard for the two weeks before the exam to escape remedial classes, Qiao Yu announced it to Cong Ye and the others at lunch on Monday.
“Before the monthly exam, I’ll be eating with Lin Qing from now on. I’m going to have her tutor me properly.”
Cong Ye’s hand holding the spoon gave a violent jerk, and with a plop it dropped into his soup bowl.
Qiao Yu, sitting beside him, swiftly moved her own bowl out of the way and snapped, “That’s disgusting, Cong Ye! You can’t even hold a spoon steady!”
She got no response. Qiao Yu looked over in confusion and found him gaping, his face full of disbelief—the expression of someone who’d just spotted Godzilla.
“Qiao Yu… have you been possessed by something?”
…In a sense, she had.
Stung by the truth in his feeble voice, Qiao Yu’s eyes quaked as she blustered, “Wh-what do you mean!”
“The Qiao Yu I know would never say something like ‘tutoring’ on her own… You used to get a splitting headache the moment you heard the word ‘study’—you were this close to rolling on the ground!”
What kind of image was that! Did her original self have some bodhisattva’s golden headband on or something!
Qiao Yu listened in bewilderment, figured Cong Ye had to be exaggerating, and looked across the table at the other two for confirmation.
Mi Yi was holding a pepper shaker, studying it with rapt attention, radiating the aura of someone examining the most fascinating object in the world—nobody should dare disturb her. Lu Yao caught her questioning gaze, thought about it carefully, and added, “One time she really did roll.”
Qiao Yu: …
Better left unsaid. Feeling like her original self had been an absolute moron, Qiao Yu swallowed her grievance and turned silently to Lin Qing, who stood beside her looking bewildered. She put on a deeply sincere, heartbroken expression.
“That was me being… young and frivolous.”
Having to take the blame for something that had nothing to do with her, Qiao Yu seethed with indignation. She thumped her chest and promised Lin Qing, “I’ll never be like that again!”
Her head ached.
Qiao Yu sat in the self-study room, rubbing her temples with a twisted expression.
A note slid over silently from her left. Qiao Yu pretended not to see it, but a sharp knee jab from the person beside her made her turn—Cong Ye was glaring at her, eyes wide and face fierce. Qiao Yu took the note with extreme reluctance and looked down.
【Don’t roll on the ground here.】
Roll my ass!
Qiao Yu crumpled the note in her fist, anger shooting straight to the top of her head.
She was just thinking of what to write back at him when the person on her right suddenly leaned closer, and she could faintly catch a clean, elegant fragrance.
“Is there a problem you can’t solve?”
Mindful of not disturbing the other students in the self-study room, Lin Qing kept her voice very low and leaned in close. Her exquisite profile was right before Qiao Yu’s eyes—close enough that she could’ve tried counting her eyelashes.
Lin Qing’s eyelashes were so long—
She zoned out for less than a second before Cong Ye slapped her left shoulder and leaned in too, saying in a low voice, “If you can’t figure something out, ask me first. Stop bothering Lin Qing all the time.”
…Qiao Yu woodenly shifted her stool toward Lin Qing, weeping two lines of tears in her heart.
—To understand how things had come to this, we have to rewind to after lunch.
She’d talked herself dry at the cafeteria but still hadn’t fully convinced Cong Ye. She and Lin Qing headed back to the classroom to grab their books, planning to study in the self-study room during the lunch break—but Cong Ye trailed right behind them the whole way.
Just as he was about to follow them into the self-study room, Qiao Yu couldn’t take it anymore. She stopped and turned to snap at him. “What are you doing! Do you have to watch me study to believe me!”
For once, Cong Ye didn’t fire back. He just gave her a long, complicated look, told Lin Qing he needed to say a few words to her and she should go in first, then pulled Qiao Yu aside.
Qiao Yu was baffled by this string of odd behavior. She noticed Lin Qing standing a short distance away, waiting with no particular expression—clearly having no intention of going in first as Cong Ye had said.
This made Qiao Yu nervous. Even though she had a clear conscience and had already declared she would treat Cong Ye as her son—could this rebellious son stop doing things so ambiguous they would give people the wrong idea? Dad was going to have to make time to teach him a lesson!
The rebellious son Cong Ye completely failed to sense her frustration at his incorrigibility. He put on a serious face and leaned in, whispering in a breathy voice as if sharing a secret.
“Qiao Yu, tell me the truth.”
Oh, my old friend, the truth is I really want to kick your ass with my boot right now.
“Are you trying to bully Lin Qing?”
Qiao Yu: …
All her anger instantly morphed into a bellyful of confused question marks. Qiao Yu looked at Cong Ye—deadly serious and tense—as if he were some legendary wildman from the Shennongjia forests, seriously wondering how much water must be sloshing around in that head of his.
“…Are you sick in the head, Cong Ye?”
She delivered the insult with absolute sincerity, eyes flashing with concern.
“You’re saying I want to bully Lin—honestly, it’d be more believable to say I’m planning to declare an independent nation inside our high school and have received the support of every other country in the world.”
Cong Ye remained unmoved by her sincerity, eyeing her with half-doubt. “Then why did you ask her to teach you?”
“You have to understand—putting a lot of effort into teaching someone and having them learn nothing is really demoralizing.”
“I think you’ve had a few easy days and now you’re back to your old tricks, just waiting to make things hard for Lin Qing, aren’t you?”
…Qiao Yu understood now—he was insulting her in a roundabout way.
The veins on her forehead were about to pop. She gritted her teeth and explained, “…It was Lin Qing who offered to teach me—”
“—Are you two almost done?”
Lin Qing’s voice came from behind. She walked over with an apologetic look. “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt, but the lunch break isn’t long, so…”
Qiao Yu saw her like a savior and lunged forward, grabbing her hand with the righteous outrage of the wrongly accused.
“Teacher Lin! You’re the one who said you’d teach me, right!”
Lin Qing nodded naturally. “That’s right.” She looked at Cong Ye with a questioning gaze. “Is something wrong?”
Cong Ye, for some reason, began to stammer. He didn’t breathe a word about his suspicions—probably figuring it wasn’t a good idea to tell the supposed victim. He just nodded awkwardly and headed into the self-study room first.
…What was he even trying to do!
Qiao Yu’s head throbbed with anger. Beside her, Lin Qing glanced at her but said nothing, silently taking Qiao Yu’s hand and following him in.
Once inside, Cong Ye had already lugged three desks together in the back row, standing beside them like he was presenting a treasure, gesturing for them to sit.
“I thought about it—I haven’t reviewed for the monthly exam either. Can I study with you two?”
He’d even dropped his usual lofty attitude, smiling harmlessly and looking at Qiao Yu with friendly eyes.
“By the way, Qiao Yu, what score are you aiming for on the monthly exam?”
…His eyes screamed, “If she says something outrageous, it proves she’s trying to bully someone.” Qiao Yu’s vision went dark with rage at his absurd level of paranoia, and she wanted to slam a textbook in his face.
“…Just passing all subjects. Eleventh from the bottom.”
Surely he couldn’t argue with such a pitifully low goal.
Qiao Yu glared at Cong Ye and saw him produce an exaggeratedly helpful, top-student smile.
“A small target like that doesn’t need to bother Lin Qing. Why don’t I help you instead!”
Cong Ye had an answer for everything and refused to let Lin Qing teach her. Watertight, damn it.
Time returned to the present. Qiao Yu sat between the two of them, wishing she could crack open her chest to prove her innocence.
It seemed that Lin Qing’s gesture of giving up her seat last time had improved Cong Ye’s impression of her significantly—now he was even preemptively running interference for her.
This was supposed to be a good thing. A good thing…
Qiao Yu clutched her head, barely holding back a groan of agony.
What was going through Cong Ye’s head! He’d turned his suspicions on her!
How was she supposed to prove she didn’t want to bully Lin Qing! In the eyes of the paranoid Cong Ye, everything she did made her look like the Big Bad Wolf1!
Actually, Qiao Yu had considered asking Lin Qing to help explain things, but—
She sneaked a glance to the right. Lin Qing was working on a math problem, her features composed, a pleasure to look at.
It seemed no different from usual, but Qiao Yu could sense it—an extra layer of distance surrounding her.
And no wonder. Just two days ago she had said she treated Cong Ye as a son, and then the very next day she was whispering and scheming with him (from a bystander’s perspective) without explaining anything. It was perfectly normal for Lin Qing not to want to engage.
This was the moment to proactively explain things to Lin Qing.
…If the System hadn’t piped up first, she would have done exactly that.
‘Host, host.’
Just as Qiao Yu stood in front of the three desks, hesitating over whether to tell Lin Qing directly, the System—rarely—spoke up of its own accord.
‘I just thought of something.’
‘Doesn’t this situation seem like something that would happen in the book?’
It spoke haltingly, unclearly. It took Qiao Yu a moment to grasp what it meant.
In other words, from Cong Ye’s perspective right now, he (believed he) had noticed someone trying to bully Lin Qing, but Lin Qing hadn’t noticed—so Cong Ye was silently sticking close to protect her, keeping her from harm.
…What a smoothly progressing romantic event. All that was missing was for Cong Ye to catch her red-handed bullying Lin Qing, and then Lin Qing would be touched and blush.
Sensing her complicated feelings, the System scrambled to reassure her. ‘Th-this script’s treatment of your character is just too bad, and the behavior has no logical reason. I think maybe I’m just overthinking it.’
Qiao Yu said nothing. She sat down silently in the middle of the three seats and began agonizing over the problem, and still hadn’t reached a conclusion by now.
The System was right. If she actually did something like that, it would be completely illogical—her characterization before and after wouldn’t match at all.
But, but—if it were the original Qiao Yu here?
She remembered the System saying this world had been built with the original author’s help, and that all foreshadowing and subsequent developments would unfold naturally.
Did that mean if she hadn’t transmigrated into Qiao Yu, the original Qiao Yu would actually have bullied Lin Qing? But then everything she had done to help Lin Qing wouldn’t have happened, so Lin Qing would never have offered to tutor her, and the three of them would never have ended up here.
Qiao Yu realized she had fallen into a chain of paradoxes that left her feeling powerless.
She sensed that this world was slowly changing in response to her actions. Qiao Yu wasn’t sure if that was a good thing—this was an unfinished book. Who knew how far the butterfly effect would ripple? Would it affect foreshadowing? Would it affect the plot? Would it affect Lin Qing?
…Could she really get close to Lin Qing?
Qiao Yu was no longer the character in the book. Here, her characterization was the only one entirely determined by herself, and that might have a bigger impact than she had imagined.
And right now was a crucial moment for establishing that characterization.
Maybe this was just her and the System overthinking things, or maybe it was a predetermined plot development unfolding on schedule. She had no way to confirm either way.
…If it was the latter, maybe following the author’s plot progression would be the right call…?
She hesitated and looked at Lin Qing again—only to meet her eyes. Lin Qing had been watching her for who knows how long.
Lin Qing was quiet as water, her dark jade-like eyes clear and cool, impossible to read.
Just being looked at like this, Qiao Yu’s heart inexplicably twisted into a knot.
It hurt. Qiao Yu thought silently, and an idea surfaced unbidden in her mind.
Lin Qing was unhappy.
Qiao Yu felt something inside her snap. She shot to her feet, the screech of the chair against the floor startling the others in the self-study room, who all turned to look. Blood rushed to her head. She grabbed Lin Qing’s wrist and started pulling her out the door, completely ignoring Cong Ye’s startled call behind them.
She felt no resistance at all. Lin Qing meekly let herself be held, following step by step as Qiao Yu led her to a quiet stairwell corner, where they stopped. Her delicate face showed not the slightest surprise, as if she had been waiting for Qiao Yu to speak.
“Cong Ye just told me he thinks I asked you to tutor me so I could bully you.”
Once she had started, the rest came easier. Qiao Yu’s mood calmed down beyond belief. She looked straight into those eyes, clear as the surface of Lake Baikal, and explained everything to her bit by bit.
“…So that’s the situation. He stayed because he’s still suspicious of me.”
Qiao Yu laid out the whole story and watched the girl before her blink in confusion, knowing it was Cong Ye’s bizarre thought process that made it hard for her to understand too. She couldn’t help but laugh.
That cold distance, as if separated by a sheet of ice, had vanished completely. She could feel the real Lin Qing again.
To hell with the original plot. Qiao Yu thought.
Even if this really was a predetermined plot development unfolding as scheduled, nothing was more important than making Lin Qing happy.
The author has something to say:
Let me do a bit of character analysis here.
Qiao Yu is someone who just charges ahead. But in this situation she felt she should be more cautious, so she thought about it and struggled with it—but in the end she’ll most likely follow her heart and charge ahead anyway.
If I had to use an analogy, she’s the type who tries to untangle a ball of yarn but only makes it worse, and then just grabs a pair of scissors and cuts right through it.
She’s very simple: if she thinks Lin Qing is good, she treats her well. If she thinks Cong Ye is doing something stupid, she fights with him. Asking her to go against her own heart is just too much. So in this chapter she agonized symbolically for a bit, and then very freely chose to favor Lin Qing.
I figure this kind of internal struggle will be hard to come by in the future. After all, Qiao Yu is someone who, once she makes up her mind, never looks back. She’ll always be this free.
As for Lin Qing, the reason she’s so sweet and soft right now is entirely because Qiao Yu has been nothing but kind to her without asking for anything in return. Lin Qing is the type who manages interpersonal distance very well. She’s unfamiliar with someone as bold as Qiao Yu, and subconsciously wants to get closer but isn’t sure if she should—so she offers little tentative acts of goodwill. That’s roughly the stage she’s at now. I’d like to call it the sprout of love (certain).
At this point, if Qiao Yu had been enjoying Lin Qing’s goodwill while blatantly scheming with Cong Ye and keeping her in the dark, Lin Qing would have pulled the distance back without hesitation. Good thing Qiao Yu isn’t too stupid.
Of course, all of this is built on the premise that Lin Qing doesn’t know that what Qiao Yu actually wants is for her to date Cong Ye. I’m really looking forward to writing the day that all comes to light.
That’s roughly where the two of them stand. If you feel this doesn’t match their characterization in the story, then it just means my writing isn’t good enough, sorry (.
This story has gotten much better feedback than I ever imagined. Thank you, truly, to every reader who’s stuck around. Whether I get signed or not, I will definitely finish writing this. I’ll do my best to make their story even more interesting and compelling. Thank you all for your support! Mwah! bows
Already a devoted wife. What we need is a ring and kiss!
Cute girls= Qiao Yu’s weakness