Chapter 60

◎My First Meeting with Shi Ziqian◎

There were only a few people left in the classroom. Zhan Xinyue composed herself for a moment, then suddenly remembered something, stood up abruptly, and began rummaging through the unorganized stack of books.

The books on the table were in disarray, and she couldn't find anything she remembered.

She turned and walked towards the back of the classroom, pulling open the back bookshelf. Her shelf was a bit low, requiring her to bend over to reach something, so she simply sat down on the floor and peered inside, searching again. A few minutes later, she had pulled out and looked at all the books and notebooks, but still couldn't find it.

"New Moon, aren't you leaving yet? I'm turning off the lights!" Dai Yun was wiping the blackboard on the podium and was preparing to leave after she finished. She thought she was the last one to leave, but she didn't expect to find that there was still someone at the back of the classroom before she went out.

Zhan Xinyue, who was frowning in thought, sighed upon hearing this, and stood up while holding onto the cabinet: "I'm leaving too."

As soon as she got home, Pang Yun was cooking porridge and told her that dinner would be served in a while. Zhan Xinyue acknowledged and then rushed into the bedroom. She looked at everything on the desk and pulled out each drawer one by one. Only when she pulled them all the way to the bottom did she realize that the bottom drawer was locked.

She had no recollection of this, and naturally couldn't remember where she had put the key. She fiddled with it for a while, but the drawer was perfectly sturdy; there was no sign that it could be forcibly opened.

Zhan Wei, carrying a glass of water, passed by and saw her squatting on the ground struggling with a drawer. He asked in confusion, "What are you doing? Did you lose your keys?"

"More or less," Zhan Xinyue said vaguely. "I don't know where they went."

"Isn't it in the pen holder? If not, check the bookshelf. Sometimes you might use it and leave it on the shelf. Or check the top drawer."

Zhan Xinyue quickly peeked into the pen holder and sure enough, there was a key inside.

"You're here?" Zhan Wei saw her expression and knew she had found it. He picked up the water and walked away. "I knew it. It's usually in one of those few places. How could I not find it?"

Zhan Xinyue was speechless, wondering what she was thinking before. Was there any need to lock this drawer?

She inserted the key and easily pulled open the drawer. Inside were some miscellaneous items, with a thick hardcover notebook on top—exactly what she was looking for.

Zhan Xinyue is a very sentimental person. In her school days, everyone often passed notes during class, and the content of those notes was all over the place. She couldn't bear to throw those notes away, so she carefully sorted them out, flattened them, and pasted them into her diary to keep them safe.

She picked up the diary from her memories. The notebook was bulging, and even without opening it, she knew it was filled with countless little notes, just as she remembered. She had accidentally lost this notebook after her college entrance exams in her previous life, and she had held a grudge about it for a long time.

Holding the diary, she hesitated for a long time, her fingers tracing its surface, before finally making up her mind and slowly opening it.

Human memory is the most unreliable thing. The best way to preserve a memory is through repeated recollection or by leaving a tangible imprint. For example, she remembers many details about her acquaintance with Xu Shen very clearly because she has repeatedly recalled them in her mind. As for those unimportant memories, or those she deliberately doesn't want to recall, they are forever sealed away in her mind.

Flipping through the notebook, I found fragmented diary entries at the beginning, interspersed with various collected notes, many of which were exchanged with Xie Wanzhi. The content was whimsical and varied. Most of them began with a similar question, "What's for lunch?", before branching out randomly...

Zhan Xinyue glanced at it hastily, unwilling to continue reading, and quickly flipped through the page.

She finally found what she was looking for at the back of the notebook.

She used a large portion of the notebook specifically to record certain special information.

All content related to Shi Ziqian.

She found almost everything about him here: short diary entries she had jotted down, notes they had passed to each other, secrets pasted on them, and even colorful candy wrappers with cryptic meanings. At first glance, there were even more notes than she had exchanged with Xie Wanzhi.

Zhan Xinyue rubbed her temples, picked up her notebook, sat down in the chair, and read through the pages. With her still-childish handwriting from back then, those memories that had long been buried deep in her mind resurfaced before her eyes.

It turns out that when she was just beginning to experience romantic feelings, she actually had a crush on Shi Ziqian.

...

That summer was unbearably hot and humid, and Zhan Xinyue had just entered high school. The news reported that the recent average temperature had broken historical records.

Compared to the scorching heat, what's even more unforgettable during the back-to-school season is a name.

The lively atmosphere of the class assignment announcements, the cafeteria, and the new classroom she stepped into for the first time kept reaching her ears.

"Have you heard? Shi Ziqian is in our year too!"

"Shi Ziqian? The school board member's son?"

"Yeah, he was famous in junior high school. He's super handsome. I just saw him, and he's even more handsome than the rumors say."

"Really, I met him when the news was being reported, he was absolutely stunning."

"He's so tall, I think he's at least 185 cm, and I heard he gets excellent grades too."

...

Zhan Xinyue didn't attend middle school here, and this was the first time she had ever discovered that someone's name was being talked about so much in a school. Even though it was only the beginning of the semester, it seemed like everyone in the grade knew this person.

Perhaps influenced by others, Shi Ziqian became the first name she remembered after entering high school, rather than her new classmates.

Although she had never met him, amidst the endless discussions, his name gradually became a strange, indistinct symbol in her mind.

Even long after the start of the school year, the discussions about him showed no signs of abating, and the name Shi Ziqian still frequently reached her ears. For example, every time the grade rankings were posted after exams, she would hear people praising him, "Tsk, Shi Ziqian is first in the grade again, no suspense at all." She would then look up and, sure enough, see those three words at the very top of the list.

For example, sometimes when she and her friends were walking through the campus, she would suddenly hear girls excitedly discussing: "That person looks like Shi Ziqian! The tall one up ahead!" She looked in the direction they were pointing and only saw a similar blue-white school uniform.

Her curiosity grew stronger, but more than half a semester passed and Zhan Xinyue still hadn't seen his true face.

He never appeared at the opening ceremony, the weekly flag-raising ceremony, or the student council election speeches. This legendary figure seemed to have truly become a legend, omnipresent yet never actually appearing before her, existing only in everyone's word of mouth.

Until that morning.

That day, Zhan Xinyue forgot to bring a textbook. Her father took some time to deliver it to the school gate, and Zhan Xinyue pulled her deskmate along to go and get it during the break.

Before she even got close, she saw a tall boy in the guardhouse, holding a piece of clothing and sitting against the wall. He seemed to be feeling unwell, as his upper body was slightly hunched and his head was down, making it impossible to see his face.

She glanced curiously at his dark hair, unsure if he was a student at the school, since there shouldn't be any students sitting in the guardhouse at this hour.

Without thinking much about it, she told her companion, "Wait for me," and walked straight into the house.

Whether sensing someone approaching or not, the boy inside the guardhouse suddenly looked up the moment she stepped in. Caught off guard, her eyes met his for a fleeting moment.

A fleeting glimpse.

She couldn't recall ever seeing anyone with such dark eyes before. The boy's gaze was deep and his demeanor extremely aloof. The morning sun was already quite strong, but he sat there so calmly, making the air around him seem cooler than anywhere else.

She was still young at the time and couldn't describe how she felt when she saw him. She only knew that she had never seen someone with such outstanding temperament and appearance before, and she quickly looked away in a panic.

The image in my mind still retains his eyes, which are black and bright, with a refreshing coolness.

"What are you doing here?" The security guard's gruff voice rang out untimely.

It took Zhan Xinyue a while to find her voice before she whispered, "Get the book."

"Oh, a book? Someone just brought one over. Go find it on the shelf yourself." The security guard stood with his hands behind his back, showing no intention of helping.

Zhan Xinyue cautiously stepped into the security room, not daring to look at him again, her eyes fixed on the cluttered shelf. The shelf was at the far end of the room, so she would have to pass right in front of him.

The two were only half a step apart, and she could clearly feel his gaze fall on her for a moment without any emotion. For a moment, she felt awkward no matter how she moved her limbs, and even her walking posture became stiff.

She finally reached the shelf, which was piled high with all sorts of odds and ends. Some were brought by parents and were waiting for their children to pick them up, while others were lost and found items. The items were piled up haphazardly and without any order.

Zhan Xinyue bent down and slowly looked through each square, finally finding the textbook with her name on a sticky note. She paused for a few seconds, then turned around.

The boy over there remained in the same position, his back to them, slightly hunched over, his head bowed, sitting quietly.

She finally dared to look him up and down. His shoulders were broad beneath his black short-sleeved shirt, still retaining the leanness unique to a young man. His slightly hunched back made the shape of his spine clearly visible beneath his clothes. A section of the clothes he was holding hung down, revealing a blue stripe—the same school uniform she was wearing.

In that brief pause, her companion was already calling her from the doorway: "Xinyue, are you done yet?"

She quickly said, "Okay."

She glanced at his retreating figure and, trying to cover up her misunderstanding, added, "The things in here are so messy, it took me ages to find them."

The security guard heard this and shouted, "The things inside are arranged in a specific pattern. Of course you're slow if you haven't found the pattern! If I were looking, I could find it in seconds!"

Zhan Xinyue really wanted to say, "But I haven't seen you help me at all," but what she said was, "Okay, then I'll ask you for advice next time."

The security guard nodded approvingly: "No problem, just call me next time!"

As Zhan Xinyue walked outside, she glanced at him again. He never looked up again.

The moment she stepped out of the guardhouse, the sunlight outside suddenly became dazzling, and she instinctively reached out to shield her eyes.

"Let's go," her companion said, but her gaze kept drifting past her and landing somewhere behind her.

“Let’s go,” she said.

The two walked in silence for a long time, hesitating to speak, before finally exchanging a knowing glance. Sometimes, the visual impact is so strong that words seem inadequate.

Suddenly, his companion uttered a phrase: "chilling to the bone."

Having just graduated from junior high, Zhan Xinyue immediately understood. There was a line in the junior high textbook, "Record of the Little Stone Pool," that she hadn't thought much of when she learned it, but now it seemed inexplicably fitting here. His temperament was too cold, a coldness that seemed to be ingrained in his bones.

Throughout the entire encounter, the two never discussed who the boy was, but they both tacitly knew that he was Shi Ziqian.

With such looks and temperament, only Shi Ziqian could be like this.

In truth, Zhan Xinyue hadn't really seen Shi Ziqian's features clearly that day. She had never encountered someone so stunning that she dared not look directly at him. But for a long time afterward, she often recalled his appearance. He just sat there, without any movement, his expression even blurry, yet that was enough to amaze her.

And she was quite certain that she and he had made eye contact at that moment.

This was her first encounter with Shi Ziqian. There was no communication, no dialogue, nothing at all. It was just a fleeting glance, yet it left a deep impression on her heart.

The story should have ended there. That day at the guardhouse was probably the closest the two of them would ever come to each other. After stepping out of the guardhouse, he would once again be a distant name existing only in people's words, and there would be no further interaction between them. She would not even know why he was there that day.

But the unpredictability of life lies in the fact that it is always full of surprises.