Confession to You in Early Summer (GL) - Chapter 14
“You like reading comics? I’ve never heard you mention it before,” Jiang Youyi said, turning off her phone screen and eating the last piece of meat in one bite, asking with a muffled voice, “Besides Conan, do you read anything else?”
Yan Wei laughed. “Yeah, I read both novels and comics. If I have time, I’ll also watch anime series. I prefer suspense and detective genres, and horror is okay too.”
“Really?” Jiang Youyi’s jaw dropped in surprise, but she also became interested and asked in quick succession, “What novels have you read? Sherlock Holmes? The Da Vinci Code? Do you read Keigo Higashino? What about Cai Jun?”
“I’ve read all of those you mentioned,” Yan Wei replied calmly. “Besides those, I’ve read famous detective works from both domestic and international authors. However, my favorite writer is Agatha Christie. Her works are so brilliant.”
Actually, she hadn’t read these things during her student days. She hadn’t been exposed to them then, so she couldn’t really say whether she liked them or not. Even if she did like them, her parents wouldn’t have allowed her to read these “idle books.”
But Jiang Youyi liked them.
Yan Wei liked reading and was good at it, but because her parents controlled her strictly, she read very few novels and comics.
After graduating from high school and moving out of her house, Yan Wei would go to bookstores or the school library whenever she had free time. Starting with Keigo Higashino, whom Jiang Youyi mentioned in her diary, she made up for the youth she had missed, stubbornly turning Jiang Youyi’s hobbies into her own, including the habit of writing in a diary.
In Jiang Youyi’s impression, Yan Wei’s spare time was spent either doing practice problems or reading reference materials. She had never seen her buy extracurricular books, so she really hadn’t expected Yan Wei to like suspense and detective stories.
They had one more common topic they could talk about.
Jiang Youyi was very surprised and a little happy.
“Do you read short stories? Do you read magazines? Like these!” Jiang Youyi sat on the bed, leaning her upper body down, opened the suitcase under the bed, and found the few detective magazines she had just put away.
Seeing there was no space on the table, Jiang Youyi said, “Wait a moment,” and quickly packed up the empty lunch boxes and threw them into the trash can. While she was tidying up, Yan Wei took out a wet wipe from her bedside and cleaned the tabletop.
While wiping the table, Yan Wei replied to Jiang Youyi, “I rarely read magazines. Do you have any recommendations?”
When she read novels, magazines were no longer very popular. The internet was full of electronic platforms and virtual reading materials. The magazine series that Jiang Youyi liked had all been discontinued later.
Jiang Youyi quickly pulled out a few issues from the messy pile of books. “If you want my recommendation, it’s this one. They’re all short stories, with fewer serializations, but the quality of individual stories is high. There are a few columns I really like. Let me show you.”
There was a rustling sound of turning pages. Jiang Youyi skillfully flipped to one of the columns and handed it to Yan Wei. “See if you like it. If you do, take all these issues!”
“What do these marks next to the titles in the table of contents mean?” After reading one of the short stories, Yan Wei flipped back to the table of contents and noticed marks next to some of the story titles. These marks had different shapes, but it was clear they followed a certain pattern and weren’t just random drawings.
Jiang Youyi opened a new book, and without looking up, she said, “Oh, those are my marks, for reference. Some are ones I think have good writing, and others have pretty outstanding structure and logic.”
“What do you mark them for?” Yan Wei asked curiously. “For what reference? Are you going to write a novel?”
Jiang Youyi put down the book. “What? Can’t I?” Her eyebrows were raised, her tone was bad, and she looked a bit angry and awkward.
However, she had indirectly admitted Yan Wei’s guess.
“No, it’s not that you can’t. Writing novels is great,” Yan Wei, learning about Jiang Youyi’s hidden hobby for the first time, immediately became interested. “What kind of novels do you write? Suspense and detective? Can I take a look?”
“No!” Jiang Youyi skipped the first two questions and flatly refused Yan Wei.
Yan Wei let out a wail and collapsed bonelessly on the small table board, looking pitifully at Jiang Youyi. “Why?”
Jiang Youyi kept a straight face. “There’s no why, no means no!” She covered Yan Wei’s face with the magazine in her hand, using it to hide her own blushing ear tips.
Yan Wei pulled the book off her face, her eyes wide and fluttering as she stared at Jiang Youyi, her plea and curiosity softly hidden in her eyes.
Under the heat of Yan Wei’s overly intense gaze, the blush quickly spread from Jiang Youyi’s ears to her cheeks.
“No means no, don’t be like this,” Jiang Youyi’s tone softened, but her face remained long. She frowned, turned her head away, and pretended to flip through the magazine twice.
Yan Wei’s eyebrows curved into a smile, deliberately teasing her. “What do you mean by ‘don’t be like this’?”
“…” Jiang Youyi buried her face in the book pages.
Yan Wei ultimately didn’t get to see the novel Jiang Youyi was writing. On this point, Jiang Youyi’s attitude was particularly firm. Yan Wei couldn’t persuade her, so she had to surrender. “Okay, okay, but I want to know, has anyone read your novel? Besides yourself.”
“No,” Jiang Youyi replied.
Yan Wei became happy again. “Then am I the first person to know you write novels?”
Jiang Youyi was speechless. Was there anything to be happy about this?
She rolled her eyes dramatically and held the magazine up higher, covering her completely red face.
“Yes.”
Yan Wei got excited and grabbed Jiang Youyi’s sleeve. “Then promise me, if you ever publish it, I want to be the first reader!”
Jiang Youyi was silent for a few seconds.
Seeing her expression change, Yan Wei’s heart suddenly sank, thinking Jiang Youyi would refuse her, but after a while, she heard Jiang Youyi reply, “Okay.”
Yan Wei didn’t know which word in her previous sentence had hit a nerve, but Jiang Youyi’s mood seemed to suddenly become very bad.
Her efforts to get closer by bringing food had completely failed, and Yan Wei was filled with regret.
She dejectedly got up from the table board and said helplessly, “I’m going back. Can I borrow these magazines?”
“Mm,” Jiang Youyi replied with her head down, her gaze fixed on some point between the lines, not turning the page for a long time.
Yan Wei returned to her dorm, climbed onto her bed, propped herself up against the wall with pillows behind her back, opened the magazines she had borrowed from Jiang Youyi, and read the stories with complicated feelings, sinking into them before long.
About half an hour later, the other roommates returned. Before they even entered, Yan Wei heard Zhou Xiaoxiao’s voice, “Hey? Who put milk tea here?”
A few seconds later, Zhou Xiaoxiao pushed open the dorm door, waving a plastic bag in her hand and calling out to Yan Wei, “Someone sent milk tea, there’s a folded note, and your name is written on the back!”
“Is it a love letter that some boy asked a girl to bring in?” a roommate teased from the side.
Zhou Xiaoxiao passionately complained, “There isn’t even an envelope! If it’s really a confession letter, it’s too straight male! How can someone with this level pursue our class beauty?”
The dorm room erupted in laughter.
Yan Wei put down the magazine in her hand and waved at Zhou Xiaoxiao. “Let me see the note.”
Zhou Xiaoxiao handed over the milk tea bag as well. Yan Wei pulled out the note Zhou Xiaoxiao mentioned from the side, unfolded it, and the very familiar messy handwriting came into view.
Tit for tat.
“Pfft.” Yan Wei laughed out loud. This lesbian girl was clearly also very straight male in some ways.
Zhou Xiaoxiao and the two roommates, who had been secretly observing, all heard Yan Wei’s laughter. The dorm room fell into an eerie silence for two seconds.
Zhou Xiaoxiao’s pupils dilated in shock, and she let out an earth-shattering howl. “Holy crap! There’s something going on! Quickly confess who exactly sent the milk tea!”