139: Chapter 139 When the Plums Ripen: Childhood Sweetheart Male Lead 17

The night had deepened.

The road outside the North Gate of Jinling University appeared exceptionally quiet late at night.

Fortunately, while it was quiet, there were still dim, yellowish streetlights.

Nan Li walked while keeping her head down, looking at her phone screen.

"I've come out of the North Gate. Are you over at the East Gate? Should I wait for you to come pick me up?"

The message had been sent for nearly five minutes, but the dialogue box remained empty, without a single word of response.

Had Meng Zhu not seen the message yet?

Nan Li tapped on his profile picture again and made a WeChat call, but only the "beep... beep..." of a busy tone came through the receiver.

Nan Li knitted her brows slightly and put her phone away.

She prepared to walk to the East Gate.

The night breeze blew by with a chill, stirring her hair, but it did not dispel the inexplicable restlessness in her heart.

Passing a streetlight, her shadow was dragged long in front of her, only to disappear as she walked into the next patch of darkness.

Amidst this alternation of light and shadow, Nan Li's ears keenly caught a discordant sound.

It was footsteps.

Unhurried, keeping a distance from her, like a shadow that couldn't be shaken off.

After her own footsteps fell, a response with the same rhythm would always sound.

Nan Li's heart skipped a beat.

She subconsciously slowed her pace.

Not daring to turn back, she could only steal a quick glance behind her using the rearview mirror of a parked vehicle.

A tall, male shadow, wearing a baseball cap, his entire face hidden in the darkness, making it impossible to see clearly.

Nan Li's heart missed a beat.

Never in her life had she encountered such a thing.

The thriller scenes from movies she watched in daily life now flashed through her mind like slow-motion footage.

Fine, cold sweat began to break out on Nan Li's palms, and her fingertips turned icy. She forced herself to calm down.

Clutching her bag to her chest as a weapon, she began to quicken her pace.

Her shoes hit the asphalt, making "tap, tap, tap" sounds that were hurried and seemed exceptionally abrupt in the deathly silent night.

She fumbled for her phone again, her fingertips trembling from nervousness, and it took several tries to unlock the screen.

She didn't even dare to look at the contacts list; relying solely on muscle memory, she dialed the number she knew by heart.

Unfortunately, what came through the receiver was a cold, mechanical female voice.

"Hello, the number you have dialed is powered off..."

A basin of ice water poured over her from head to toe, extinguishing the fluke of hope in Nan Li's heart.

Meng Zhu's phone was actually turned off!

Her usual cleverness vanished without a trace at this moment.

Her mind went blank, and fear grew wildly.

She dared not hesitate any longer and took off running!

Her bag bounced at her side, the wind whistled in her ears, and her heart beat like a drum in her chest, as if it were about to jump out of her throat the next second.

She could even clearly hear the dull footsteps behind her turn into hurried running sounds, closing in on her bit by bit.

Glancing back in her haste, she was almost scared into screaming.

That shadow was indeed chasing her.

Look back again!

Can't stop!

Run fast!

The sound of rapid breathing was louder than the footsteps.

But she had no time to think, nor dared to think; relying only on instinct, she ran forward desperately.

After turning several corners, the person behind was still biting hard on her heels.

Just as she was running blindly and rushed past the next corner,

"Bang!"

She caught off guard and collided with a hard "wall."

The immense impact made her vision go black, and she was about to fall.

But at this moment, that wall reached out a hand and grabbed her arm.

"Nan... Nan Li junior?"

Zhou Yanqing's breathing was also a bit rapid, but his tone was inevitably surprised.

Nan Li looked up in a daze.

"Sen... Senior?"

Just after calling his name, Nan Li turned back abruptly, and the shadow behind her had already disappeared.

She stared fixedly at the empty street behind her, as if to repeatedly confirm.

The next moment, Nan Li's tense nerves finally relaxed with a "pop."

"Junior, are you okay?"

Seeing Nan Li's pale face and uncontrollably trembling body, Zhou Yanqing hurriedly reached out to support her arm.

"There is a bench over there; let me help you over to sit for a while."

Nan Li's legs were as soft as noodles at this moment, so she naturally agreed to sit on the bench.

"It's okay, it's okay, that person has been scared away."

While gently comforting her, Zhou Yanqing quickly unslung his backpack, fished out an unopened bottle of mineral water, loosened the cap, and handed it over.

"Here, drink some water to calm your nerves."

Nan Li stared down in a daze, woodenly reaching out both hands to take the water bottle.

"Tha... Thank you, Senior."

Her voice was as faint as a mosquito, carrying an irrepressible tremor.

Even after drinking the water, her fingertips holding the bottle were still shaking uncontrollably.

The chill seeping from her bones made her whole body numb, and waves of lingering fear surged into her heart.

"Relax, Nan Li, you are safe now. Just don't walk alone at night in the future."

Zhou Yanqing looked at her in this state, his eyes full of heartache.

Hearing this gentle comfort, Nan Li's hollow eyes gradually regained some focus, and her rapid breathing eased slightly.

"Really... thank you so much, Senior. If I hadn't bumped into you just now, I really wouldn't have known what to do..."

Nan Li thanked him politely again, her heart full of the relief of surviving a disaster.

Seeing that she had recovered, Zhou Yanqing, in order to liven up the atmosphere, smiled warmly and half-jokingly.

"Well, Nan Li junior, look, aren't we 'meeting next time' now?"

Nan Li was stunned for a moment, not reacting immediately.

"What?"

"Just now backstage, didn't we say we would definitely add contact information next time?"

Zhou Yanqing pointed to the phone she was clutching tightly in her hand.

Nan Li suddenly realized, a trace of apology flashing across her pale face.

"Sorry, Senior. I was just so scared, I forgot for a moment."

He had just saved her, so she really couldn't decline.

Nan Li took a deep breath, forced down the trembling in her fingertips, lit up her phone screen, and prepared to open WeChat to scan the QR code.

However, the moment the screen lit up, the glaring red missed calls and undelivered message notifications instantly occupied her vision.

They were all calls she had made to Meng Zhu while in extreme fear just now.

At this moment, the grievances and lingering fear that had just been soothed by Zhou Yanqing seemed to find a vent, surging up again.

But at this moment, footsteps broke the silence.

Nan Li subconsciously raised her head and, without any warning, saw a familiar figure.