Read Novel Full Chapter 79.2 – Plenty of Love Letters (II)
Chapter 79.2 – Plenty of Love Letters (II)
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Breathing hard, Xia Mian realized his grip was tight. Giving up struggling, she leaned against him and looked up with a smile. “Dr. Ning, don’t tell me you’ve never received a love letter.”
Ning Shaobai narrowed his eyes. “Yours?”
“Of course.” Xia Mian said, “Got them plenty.”
It looked like he was going to let her go, but then he drew her near and put his hand into her uniform pocket. Soon, another pink envelope emerged.
Ning Shaobai: “… ”
His smile turned dangerous, “Plenty, you say? How many?”
Xia Mian slipped her hand free, shrugging off her school jacket as she grinned. “A smart, beautiful angel like me is obviously very popular at school.” Her face was full of pride. “This year alone, I’ve gotten more than one hundred. Perhaps closer to two hundred.”
Ning Shaobai narrowed his eyes.
Xia Mian nudged him playfully. “Be honest—how many have you gotten? Don’t tell me they’re stacked into a mountain?”
“None,” he said firmly.
“I don’t believe you,” Xia Mian wrinkled her nose and, taking advantage of Ning Shaobai’s inattention, went on the attack. “Dr. Ning, lying isn’t good. Come on, how many did you get?”
Ning Shaobai lifted a leg to evade, then leaned in to grab her shoulder, “You know romantic debts have to be repaid sooner or later, right?”
Xia Mian leaned back to dodge. “Is it? But I’m just receiving love letters, I’m not deceiving anyone’s feelings.”
Ning Shaobai kept his hands moving. “I heard that, however many you receive now, you’ll have to pay back double in the future.”
Xia Mian quickly turned to the side. “You think I would be fooled? How come I’ve never heard of that?”
Ning Shaobai feinted, grabbed her shoulder, and threw her cleanly over his shoulder onto the mat. “Well, now you have.”
The moment she hit the mat, Xia Mian used the rebound, twisting her waist and snapping her legs around his neck to flip him onto the mat as well. “Where’s that rule from? You’re lying, aren’t you?” she said, breathing heavily.
“You don’t believe it?” Ning Shaobai replied, also a bit out of breath. He reached down to pick up the love letter that had fallen to the floor and handed it to her.
Xia Mian took it and stuffed it straight into her pants pocket.
Ning Shaobai narrowed his eyes again. “Not reading it?”
“Nope,” Xia Mian sprawled out and said lazily, “I’m not dating in high school.”
Ning Shaobai let out a long breath to steady himself. “Then why accept them?”
“At first they were just stuffed into my desk, then some were passed along by others,” Xia Mian said. “Since I don’t plan to open them, I wouldn’t know who to return them to anyway, so I just kept them all.”
She smiled as she said it. “After all, they’re precious tokens of someone else’s youth. No harm in keeping them.”
Suddenly, Ning Shaobai asked, “You’re in your twenties?”
“Of co—” Xia Mian almost blurted it out before sharply looking at him in annoyance. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do I look old to you?”
Ning Shaobai gave her a faintly amused glance. “It’s just the way you talk—like you’re not a high schooler in the prime of your youth. If I didn’t know better, I would believe you were in your twenties.”
So that’s what he means. Xia Mian secretly let out a sigh of relief and huffed, “That’s because I’m mature for my age. I am also an aunt, after all.”
“Besides, in a few months I’ll be eighteen—an adult!” She added pointedly, “On my eighteenth birthday, don’t you dare treat me perfunctorily anymore.”
Ning Shaobai said innocently, “When was I ever perfunctory to you?”
“Right, you didn’t—you provoked me on purpose!” Xia Mian said angrily, suddenly rolling over to prop herself up and glare at him. Ning Shaobai wasn’t expecting her to end up so close, and the heat of her body seemed to seep through layers of clothing to his skin…
He quickly shifted to the side, putting half a body’s distance between them.
Xia Mian froze at his reaction. “What, you’re disgusted by me?!”
Her eyes narrowed, and she lunged at him.
Ning Shaobai had nowhere to retreat, so he braced a hand against her shoulder, still slightly unsteady in breath. “Enough, you’re a girl. Please have some decency.”
The more startled he looked, the more Xia Mian wanted to tease him. She pried at his hand. “What’s ‘decency’? Is that even tasty?”
Her eyes swept over him, full of mischief, and suddenly she yanked down the zipper of his sports jacket. The close-fitting shirt beneath was soaked with sweat, faintly showing the smooth muscle lines of his.
Xia Mian let out a roguish whistle. “Great body.”
Ning Shaobai’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly before he suddenly struck her face. Xia Mian flipped backward, and the two were fighting again.
After a moment, Xia Mian suddenly cried out, “Ah! Ow, ow, ow!”
Ning Shaobai instantly released the ankle he was holding. “What’s wrong?”
Clutching his arm, Xia Mian wailed, “My leg, it’s cramping! Hurry, hurry!”
“Serves you right! That’s what you get for not warming up.” Ning Shaobai said this, but he quickly crouched down, taking her foot in his hand to stretch the muscle.
Xia Mian hummed, “So you’re not grossed out by my sweat anymore?” She wiggled her toes and asked cheekily, “Do my feet stink?”
Ning Shaobai rolled his eyes and pressed harder with his hand. Xia Mian immediately screamed, “Ahhh! Mercy, big brother, mercy! I won’t dare again!”
As soon as Ning Shaobai let go, Xia Mian lunged at him, but he seemed to have expected it. He rolled aside, swept his leg out, and she missed entirely.
Before she could try again, he pressed a hand to her head to keep her from getting closer, threatening, “Do you still want your birthday present or not?”
Xia Mian instantly became obedient. “Then you can’t make me mad this year.”
Ning Shaobai refused to admit it. “When did I make you mad?”
Xia Mian huffed, “On my seventeenth birthday, you gave me a pair of beautiful earrings. If that’s not making me mad, what is?”
Just mentioning it made her furious. “My ears aren’t pierced! They were so pretty, but I couldn’t wear them!”
Ning Shaobai asked back, “So you liked them?”
“Of course I liked them! If I didn’t, why would I be mad? It’s like putting a braised pork knuckle in front of a starving person and telling them they can’t eat it. Totally cruel.”
“You could pierce your ears.”
“See now? You were trying to get me angry!” She had considered it, but in this era, there were no piercing guns. The only way was the old-fashioned method—pressing the earlobe thin with a grain of rice, then using an embroidery needle to pierce through, and inserting a tea stem…
Just thinking about it was scary. Still, for the sake of beauty, she had been ready to risk it—otherwise, she wouldn’t be able to wear earrings for the next decade or more.
But the moment Xia Wenyue started the process, she gave up. It hurt too much…
Ning Shaobai had even been watching from the side at the time, clearly enjoying the spectacle. Then, for her seventeenth birthday, he went and gave her a beautiful pair of earrings.
What an awful guy!
Meeting her resentful glare, the Awful Guy suddenly smiled. “Want me to pierce them for you?”
“Really?” Xia Mian’s eyes lit up. “It doesn’t hurt when you do it?”
“You’re a doctor, can you use anesthetics?”
Ning Shaobai tapped her head. “Stop daydreaming. Anesthetic is prescription-only. Using it outside the practice is illegal.”
Xia Mian sighed. “Then how would you do it?”
Ning Shaobai said casually, “If you don’t trust me, then forget it.”
“No, no.” Xia Mian grabbed his hand. “Help me do it, Dr. Ning! Are you sure it won’t hurt?”
Meeting her bright eyes, Ning Shaobai said mildly, “It shouldn’t.”
For the Big Boss to say ‘shouldn’t,’ he must have meant ‘definitely,’ so Xia Mian was delighted. “When will we do it?”
Ning Shaobai said, “Consider it my gift for your eighteenth birthday.”
Xia Mian’s eyes widened. “For such an important birthday, you’re giving me just an ear piercing? And you say you’re not being perfunctory!”
Ning Shaobai thought for a moment. “A bit lacking indeed.”
Before Xia Mian could feel happy, he added, “Then I’ll throw in some high-quality study guides. Perfect for an exam taker.”
Xia Mian lunged at him and gave a bite. “You’re too much!”
Ning Shaobai clamped a hand over her mouth, but the heat of her breath against his palm unsettled him. “When you turn nineteen, I promise I’ll give you something you’ll truly be satisfied with.”
Xia Mian knocked his hand away angrily. “You plan to give me such a random present for my eighteenth birthday, and you still expect me to look forward to nineteen?”
Ning Shaobai instinctively rubbed his palm, chuckling softly. “To me, nineteen is more important.”
Eighteen still meant no dating—naturally, it couldn’t compare to nineteen.
Xia Mian was puzzled. “What kind of standard is that? I’ve never heard it before.”
“Well, now you have,” Ning Shaobai said. “So, at eighteen, just focus on your studies.”
Author’s Note:
Xia Mian: “I’m not dating in high school.”
Ning Shaobai: “Oh, then there’s no eighteenth birthday gift.”
Author: “What on earth would he give her for her nineteenth birthday? Such a headache…”