章 48: Chapter 48
Eva stood in front of the bathroom mirror, touching up her makeup, while Zhen Ai watched her intently. To Zhen Ai, Eva's makeup bag was like a treasure chest, revealing a colorful array of items one by one.
Eva glanced at Zhen Ai through the mirror, smiling. "Ai, I've seen you so many times, but you never wear makeup?"
Zhen Ai shook her head. "No."
Eva smiled even more. "You're still young, Ai. You don't need makeup."
Eva was Yan Su's university classmate. She was already a genius, yet still four or five years older than Yan Su, and naturally, older than Zhen Ai as well.
Zhen Ai observed the bright, lively expression on Eva's face and curiously asked, "Eva, are you very happy?"
Eva, applying lip gloss, smiled even wider. "Of course."
Then, with a sudden glint in her eyes, she added, "Hmph, S.A. might be a weirdo, but he was right about one thing. I brought you here because I want to hear your opinion." Her voice was excited. "What do you think of Danny?"
"I think he's great," Zhen Ai nodded, feeling a little shy. "I don't know the specifics, just a feeling."
"That's enough," Eva smiled sweetly and suddenly leaned in to hug Zhen Ai. "Thank you, Ai!"
Zhen Ai was startled, but felt a warmth spread through her.
Actually, she should have been the one thanking Eva. Helping a friend evaluate a man was something she had never done before. But Eva trusted her and gave her the opportunity, so she was the one who felt the happiest.
Since they were friends, Zhen Ai decided to ask a bit more, "It seems like you're very serious about Danny. Are you two going to..."
"I'm going to be with him as a couple," Eva interrupted, her happiness evident.
Zhen Ai silently closed her mouth, puzzled. She had thought they were going to get married.
Eva looked at herself in the mirror. "This time, I want to have a stable relationship with Danny. My previous ones were just physical—partners, not boyfriends." A typical American mindset.
Zhen Ai was taken aback. *Physical partner → boyfriend → fiancé → husband—so many steps! Wouldn't it be more convenient to just go through it all with one person?*
But she only thought this and said nothing.
She knew well that everyone had their own way of living and loving. There was no right or wrong, and no one way was better than another.
Her attention was soon caught by the bright lip gloss in Eva's hand. Noticing Zhen Ai's gaze, Eva smiled and handed the lip gloss to her. "Give it a try."
Zhen Ai shook her head and seriously replied, "I'm afraid I won't be able to resist licking my lips and swallowing it."
Eva burst out laughing and pushed the lip gloss into her hand. "Just try it. I bet it'll look great!"
Zhen Ai looked at the jelly-like color, intrigued. After hesitating for a moment, she picked it up and began to carefully apply it to her lips in front of the mirror.
As she watched, Eva suddenly asked, "Ai, what's going on between you and S.A.?"
Zhen Ai's hand jerked, and the pink lip gloss streaked across her pale cheek, creating a comically wide, smiling line.
"What?" She stared at Eva in shock.
Seeing her panicked expression, Eva laughed even harder and handed her a tissue. "You two are so close. Are you pretending not to know?"
Zhen Ai's face quickly flushed as she blinked, stunned.
Eva wiped her hands with a tissue. "We've known each other since university. I was 16, and he was 12. It's been 11 years now," she said with a bit of nostalgia.
"I didn't even realize it had been so long. We've lived through one Bush, an Obama… and then another Obama. The world has changed, and he's grown from a little weirdo into... a big weirdo."
Zhen Ai couldn't help but laugh, Eva's expressive face and exaggerated tone making it even funnier. "Really. In all these years as classmates, we've never had even one instance of physical contact," Eva added, raising her eyebrows dramatically.
Zhen Ai, who was still wiping her face, almost dropped the tissue in surprise.
"Not even with other male classmates. He doesn't touch anyone. Except for Owen, he has very few friends..." Eva suddenly paused, as if remembering something. Her smile faded a bit. "Oh, I almost forgot Alex. He was a genius too."
Alex?
Zhen Ai had never heard Yan Su mention him.
Eva continued, "I think they were PhD classmates."
Zhen Ai suddenly remembered that Yan Su had mentioned him once—it was the guy who tricked him with a bomb wire.
"He barely spoke to any of his classmates. I consider myself 'lucky,'" Eva rolled her eyes. "His exact words were, 'Diaz, despite your IQ only being 143, I don't despise you. Don't you feel honored?'"
Zhen Ai chuckled softly. That definitely sounded like something Yan Su would say.
She suddenly felt a burst of joy. If only she had a whole day to listen to Eva talk about Yan Su's school days—she really wanted to know what he had been like back then.
But Eva changed the subject. "Ai, think about it. He's taking you everywhere. Is that normal?" She smiled slyly. "Even though he treats you like a normal person, considering that he's never normal, you must realize how special you are to him, right?"
Zhen Ai's face flushed again, her heart racing. She quickly pretended to wash off the lip gloss, using the water as an excuse to avoid answering.
Eva added, "And don't forget, at Wharton High the other night, I saw him holding your hand."
Zhen Ai froze. *That night? He wasn't holding my hand, he was grabbing my chest!* She turned her head away and muttered softly, "That's because I almost fell."
Eva, hearing her explanation, recalled another incident and her face darkened. "Last year, I slipped too. And what did he do? He stood on the stairs and his first reaction wasn't to help, but to pull out his phone and call 911."
Zhen Ai couldn't hold back her laughter any longer.
Eva shrugged it off. "It was only ten steps, and I didn't even get a scratch. But that weirdo—I'll hate him for life!"
Zhen Ai laughed again.
As they were about to leave, Zhen Ai suddenly remembered something. "Eva, could I borrow your phone to go online? I left mine behind."
Eva handed her the phone.
Zhen Ai had been thinking about what Harvey said. Her emergency phone couldn't access the internet, and she didn't want to borrow Yan Su's phone for fear of arousing suspicion. Now, with Eva's phone, she quickly searched various campus forums for the keywords *thousand miles* and *my medicine*.
She soon found posts on several forums with the title "Tips to Impress Your Girl," which listed many romantic phrases. Among them were several lines Zhen Ai recognized—phrases that, to her, were nothing short of threats.
The post had first appeared five years ago, on the forum of the high school where Zhen Ai had once studied in secret. Since then, it had spread far and wide.
As she read through the content, which had been shared thousands of times, she couldn't tell if she felt hopeless or relieved. *He really put so much effort into scaring me.*
But then she wondered: *Could these recent events have all been coincidences?*
Yet, Jason's black-and-white wire remained unexplained.
Zhen Ai wasn't exactly anxious, but the situation wasn't entirely clear to her. If it wasn't just a coincidence that he found her, why hadn't he come directly to kill her, as he had done before?
Unable to figure it out, she quietly handed the phone back to Eva and left the restroom with her.
Inside the restroom, silence reigned for a moment before the sound of footsteps echoed. Someone approached the mirror and stood still. Dark eyes gleamed with a mysterious depth. A long, slender hand reached into the trash bin by the sink and retrieved a tissue with a faint pink lipstick stain still clinging to it.
He held it up to his lips, inhaling deeply, as though savoring the sweetest air, his mouth curving into an indulgent, crazed smile.
After a moment, his other hand fished out a lipstick from his pocket, and he slowly scrawled a message across the mirror:
"For you, a thousand miles!"
#
When Zhen Ai returned to her seat, Yan Su seemed quite satisfied with his completed task. He shifted his gaze, blinking rapidly as his eyes started to feel sore from staring too long. He rubbed them gently.
Zhen Ai noticed and asked, surprised, "Are your eyes hurting?"
"No," Yan Su raised his eyes, only to meet Zhen Ai's flushed face, rosy with embarrassment. He stared at her curiously for a moment before asking, "Why does your face look like ketchup?"
Zhen Ai: ...
Could he drop the 'ketchup' part?
She didn't respond, feeling awkward, but Eva, on the other hand, looked rather smug, her lips curving into a small, satisfied smile.
Yan Su furrowed his brows, pondering for a while, then asked in a low voice, "Did Diaz hit you?"
Zhen Ai: ...
#
After dinner, they said goodbye to Eva and Danny Lin, and Zhen Ai suddenly remembered she had agreed to meet Owen outside the lab at 10 PM. It was already 9:30.
Her phone had died, but she still didn't want to borrow Yan Su's phone, so she hurried to a nearby phone booth to call Owen. When the line connected, she whispered, "Owen, you don't have to pick me up."
"Are you in New York?" he asked, looking at the caller ID.
"Yeah, I handed the rest of the research program over to Ryan." Zhen Ai's voice lacked confidence. She had never ditched work like this before, running off without completing her tasks, and she felt a bit guilty.
Owen detected her unease and softened his tone to reassure her. "It's okay, Ai. You can do whatever you want."
Zhen Ai blushed, lowering her voice further to explain, "I'm not running off. It's just..." As she lied, her mind raced, "I came here because... I have to attend a hearing tomorrow about... you know, that time I crashed into the police car."
Owen chuckled. "If you don't want to attend the hearing, I can help you take care of it."
"No need," she said, turning her back to the figure waiting outside the phone booth. As she glanced down, she noticed how the streetlight cast a long shadow of Yan Su's tall, slim frame, his shoulder resting right by her feet.
A strange warmth swelled in her heart. "No need. I don't want anything special done. Just like an ordinary person, you know? Besides... Yan Su, he's with me."
Saying those last few words made her ears burn.
Owen, however, focused on the phrase "ordinary person." It tugged at his heartstrings, filling him with unexpected emotion. Yes, if Zhen Ai could just be a normal girl—carefree, going to school, working, laughing loudly and without restraint—how wonderful that would be.
Perhaps, she longed for that too.
Owen didn't press her further. Wanting to encourage her but unsure how, he clumsily repeated, "Yeah, Ai, you can do whatever you want."
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