Lu Ruoxi Side Story - Thorned Rose - Frozen

Ye Ruoxi didn’t say another word.

She simply walked past Zhang Cuilan and headed straight for the school gate.

"You—"

Zhang Cuilan pointed at her retreating figure, too furious to speak.

But in the end, she didn’t dare make a scene on school grounds.

She was afraid that if things escalated to Principal Zhen, she’d lose the job she’d worked so hard to get.

All she could do was seethe silently, cursing in her heart.

Ungrateful wretch!

A heartless, ungrateful wretch!

Just wait!

There’ll come a day when you beg me!

Ye Ruoxi walked home under the night sky.

The cold wind brushed against her face, clearing some of the chaos in her mind.

She knew she had refused today.

But what about tomorrow?

Or the day after?

As long as Zhang Cuilan remained in the cafeteria, this would keep happening.

She was like a stubborn stain, clinging to Ye Ruoxi’s life.

Impossible to peel off, impossible to shake free.

It made her sick. It suffocated her.

Escape.

The thought surged in her mind again, sharper and more urgent than ever.

She had to move faster, work harder.

She couldn’t afford to stop, not even for a moment.

...

Over the weekend, Su Yang went to the city’s Xinhua Bookstore.

It was the first time he’d taken the bus alone to somewhere so far.

He’d saved two days’ worth of meal money to buy the ticket.

Inside the bookstore, he searched for a long time.

Finally, in a corner of the university textbooks section, he found it.

A thick, foreign-language edition of Principles of Mathematical Analysis.

This was the book he’d heard Ye Ruoxi and the math teacher mention several times during their discussions.

He knew it would be useful to her.

Without hesitation, he clutched the book tightly to his chest.

He paid with the pocket money he’d saved for months.

It wiped out all his savings.

But to him, it was worth every penny.

On Monday morning, Ye Ruoxi arrived at the classroom.

She pulled out her chair, about to sit down, when her gaze caught on a blue cover inside her desk.

She froze.

Reaching in, she hesitantly pulled out the book.

Principles of Mathematical Analysis.

Brand new, its pages still carrying the faint scent of ink.

Her heart skipped. Almost instinctively, she turned to look at the familiar seat behind her.

Su Yang was slumped over his desk, his back to her—pretending, as always, to be asleep.

But his ears, flushed crimson, betrayed him.

It was Su Yang.

It could only be Su Yang.

He had gone all the way to the city… for her.

Ye Ruoxi gripped the book, her fingers turning white from the pressure.

A storm of emotions churned in her chest—shock, gratitude.

The boy’s persistence, his sincerity, burned so fiercely, so warmly.

But then came something else: a flustered panic.

And a surge of self-loathing that made her sick.

Ye Ruoxi, don’t waver.

She told herself.

This is just his misplaced, cheap kindness.

You can’t afford it.

You can’t accept it.

It’ll only become another chain on your path to escape.

She stood, holding the book.

She wanted to walk over and return it to him.

Just like she had with the jacket, with the umbrella.

She should hurl it back at him, cold and final.

Tell him: Stay away from me.

But her feet felt nailed to the floor. She couldn’t move.

Her eyes fell again on the book’s cover.

Those elegant lines of text, brimming with logic and order.

To her, they were an irresistible lure.

A key to another world.

A world without Zhang Cuilan, without greasy dishes, without poverty or humiliation.

A world pure and perfect, built on formulas and truth.

She couldn’t refuse it.

And—though she didn’t even realize it—she couldn’t refuse the warmth Su Yang had pressed into those pages.

A part of her craved it.

A part of her clung to it.

Reason and emotion waged war inside her.

The bell rang.

Like a temple bell shattering a dream, it snapped her back to reality.

Ye Ruoxi quickly shoved the book into the deepest pocket of her bag.

Then she sat down, pulled out her textbook, and flipped it open—all in one swift motion.

But her heart was pounding.

Even her pale cheeks felt strangely warm.

For the rest of the day, she didn’t glance back at Su Yang once.

But she knew he was there.

Like a silent, unignorable lamp.

Lighting up the small patch of darkness behind her.

And the book in her bag burned like a brand.

Searing her heart from afar.

For the first time, she faced a problem no formula could solve.

After school, she returned home.

Finished all her chores.

Then, under the dim glow of a lamp, she hesitated for a long moment before finally taking out the book.

Her fingertips traced the smooth cover lightly.

Then she turned to the first page.

To others, those symbols and theories might as well be hieroglyphs.

But to her, they were poetry.

And she lost herself in them.

For now, she forgot everything.

Outside the window, the moonlight flowed like water.

Inside, the lamplight was faint.

A girl and a book that didn’t belong to her.

Together, they formed a static painting with no one to admire it.

The small sweetness and warmth that boy had given her were the only solace in her cold, desolate life.

She knew it was like drinking poison to quench thirst.

But she couldn’t help wanting to get closer.

Even if it was just a small sip.

The next day.

When Su Yang walked into the classroom as usual,

he noticed Ye Ruoxi’s seat was empty.

Her bag wasn’t there.

She hadn’t come.

First period was math.

The math teacher entered the classroom, frowned at the empty seat, and asked,

“Where’s Ye Ruoxi? Is she sick?”

No one in the class could answer.

Su Yang’s heart instantly tightened.

She was never late, let alone absent without reason.

Something must have happened.

All day, Su Yang was restless.

Staring at that empty seat, countless terrible possibilities flashed through his mind.

Was it because of the book he had given Ye Ruoxi?

Had Zhang Cuilan hit her again?

Or was she sick?

Several times, he wanted to rush out of the classroom, run home, and check on her next door.

But he knew he couldn’t.

He had no right to.

And doing so would only make things worse.

Su Yang waited anxiously until the afternoon. The last class was P.E.

He asked the teacher for leave, and the P.E. teacher didn’t question it.

Su Yang ran back to the classroom, grabbed his bag, and dashed out.

When he got home, he glanced at the gate across the way.

It was tightly shut.

After entering his own house, he didn’t go inside.

Instead, he hid behind the door, peering secretly at the gate of Ye Ruoxi’s home.

He waited for a long time.

Long enough for Lin Dongmei to return from work.

Lin Dongmei didn’t realize her son had come home early from school.

She only found it odd that he was lingering in the yard instead of doing his homework.

Su Yang made up an excuse to brush it off.

Lin Dongmei, busy cooking, didn’t dwell on his unusual behavior.

More time passed. The kitchen was already filled with the aroma of dinner, but there was still no movement from the house across the way.

Just as Su Yang was about to give up—

With a creak, the gate opposite swung open.