Obsessed with a High-Ranking Esper (BL)-Chapter 205: Vacation plans

Jian Wei sat in his office, the soft hum of data streams and the rhythmic tapping of his fingers on the keypad filling the room. His eyes flicked between lines of code and surveillance feeds, his mind juggling three operations at once. The floating screen beside him pulsed with a new notification. It was an incoming message from Jian Ci.

He tapped it without looking, expecting him to complaininh and whining about something trivial.

Instead, two scan files opened in sequence: one of a bite mark on skin, the other of a fruit with a matching indentation. A biometric overlay flickered across both, running preliminary comparisons.

Jian Wei’s fingers didn’t pause. "What’s this for?" he asked, voice flat as he initiated a background script.

Jian Ci’s voice came through, slightly breathless. "Analyze it, please. Just tell me if it’s the same."

Jian Wei snorted. "Not accurate. A waste of my time."

"Come on, dage," Jian Ci wheedled. "I will make your favorite dish."

Jian Wei’s fingers froze mid-keystroke. He looked up at the screen, eyes narrowing. "Deal. Give it to Xiaobao."

"Thank youuuu," Jian Ci sang, voice full of exaggerated gratitude.

Jian Wei’s lips twitched, just barely, before he ended the call.

—

In another campus, Xiaobao sat in the middle of a lecture hall, chin propped on her hand as the professor droned on about neural connectors. Her communicator buzzed softly. She glanced down and saw the message was from Jian Ci.

Having read it, she rolled her eyes and typed back one word: No.

A second later, a crying dog sticker popped up. Its eyes were enormous and pitiful, practically begging for mercy.

She glanced up to make sure the professor wasn’t looking, then replied: That only works on Xi-ge, not me.

The typing bubble appeared, then paused. Then appeared again.

Three luxury boutique gift cards dropped into her inbox.

Xiaobao stared at them, then smiled despite herself. Give me an hour.

A thank-you sticker followed. This time it was a happy dog bouncing up and down with joy.

Xiaobao sighed. She still couldn’t understand what her brother saw in Jian Ci, besides his cooking. That was the only good quality he had.

"Miss Skylar, is my class boring you?"

Xiaobao’s head snapped up, eyes wide. Her heart dropped straight into her stomach.

Fuck, she swore under her breath, already vowing to make Jian Ci pay for this. ’He better hope I never get my hands on him,’ she thought.

Every head in the lecture hall turned toward her. The weight of a hundred stares pressed down on her like a collapsing ceiling. She forced a smile, the kind that barely masked her panic.

"I am paying attention, I swear," she said, voice chipper, too chipper.

The professor raised a brow. "Alright then. What was I talking about before I so rudely interrupted myself?"

Xiaobao’s stomach twisted. She hated this. She hated being looked at and hated being seen. But she wasn’t about to let them laugh at her.

She sat up straighter, cleared her throat, and launched into a flawless summary of the lecture—guide-espers’ neural lattice development, the synaptic load thresholds during dual-channel resonance, and the professor’s outdated model of psi-feedback inhibition. She even corrected a mislabelled neural pathway in his diagram, referencing the revised Esper Cortex Mapping from last semester’s symposium.

The room went silent and jaws dropped. Xiaobao smiled sweetly and sat back down, her cheeks burning but her pride intact.

The professor blinked, then nodded. "Alright then. Everyone should learn from Skylar and pay more attention."

As soon as he turned his back, Xiaobao’s smile vanished. She pulled out her communicator and typed furiously.

Xiaobao: You are dead, so fucking dead.

Jian Ci: "..."

***

The hallway buzzed with energy. Students rushed to their exam rooms, friends exchanged last-minute encouragements, and the air thick with nerves and caffeine. Amid the chaos, Yu Xi and Jian Ci walked side by side, their tall figures cutting through the crowd like a blade through silk.

Yu Xi’s hair was tied in a half-up, half-down style, the loose strands brushing against his shoulders with every step. His expression was unreadable, cool and composed, while Jian Ci walked beside him with his usual quiet confidence. Heads turned and whispers followed. They were very hard to ignore.

As they neared the exam room, the expected obstacle appeared.

Alarna stood just outside the door, her smile bright and practiced, a neatly packed food bag in her hands. The exam was long enough to allow snacks, and she had come prepared, no doubt hoping to score points as the doting girlfriend.

Yu Xi clocked her from a distance and sighed inwardly. He wasn’t in the mood for her theatrics today.

"I am going in," he said to Jian Ci, already veering off. "See you when it’s done."

"Wait—" Jian Ci started, but Yu Xi was already gone, slipping into the exam room without a backward glance.

Jian Ci sighed and turned toward Alarna. She beamed. "Ci-ge! Are you ready for the exam?"

"Yeah," he said, offering a polite smile. "I am actually kind of excited."

Alarna’s eyes sparkled. "That’s great! After the exams, we should go on a vacation together."

Jian Ci blinked. "I will ask Yu Xi first."

Her smile twitched. Just slightly. "No, I meant just you and me."

"Oh," Jian Ci said, not quite meeting her eyes.

Alarna stepped closer, her voice dropping to a more intimate pitch. "And we can finally have our first kiss. And maybe..." She reached out, pinching the sleeve of his uniform with a shy smile. "If you are nice to me, we can..."

Whatever she was about to suggest was cut off by a sudden blur of motion.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry!" Caelus barreled between them, nearly dropping the oversized lunch bag he was carrying. It was stuffed to the brim, snacks and containers threatening to spill out.

Jian Ci’s eyes narrowed as he watched him pass, his gaze sharp and unreadable.

Alarna’s expression twisted for a fraction of a second, pure venom flashing in her eyes, but she quickly smoothed it over, returning to her cheerful mask.

"Ahaha, what a clumsy guy," she said sweetly, though her grip on the food bag had tightened.

Jian Ci didn’t respond. His eyes lingered on Caelus’s retreating figure, something unreadable flickering behind them.