Chapter 33 Summer Heat: "Pears"

Summer 2013 passed quickly, and students in grades 11 and 12 at Suzhou No.1 High School started school ahead of schedule.

Shen Qingli's grades are currently in the middle to upper range of the class, so she was assigned to Class 2 of the humanities stream. Coincidentally, she and Luo Yiqiu are in the same class, and Chen Wei is still their homeroom teacher. Chen Chaoxi, on the other hand, was assigned to Class 3 and was not with them.

That summer, the previous graduating class of Suzhou No. 1 High School had successfully completed the college entrance examination and graduated. As expected, this year's top scorer in the city still came from No. 1 High School. In the silent competition between Suzhou No. 1 High School and Suzhou Foreign Language Experimental School, No. 1 High School won by a narrow margin.

That year, Chen Chaoxi stopped going to the senior high school section so often, because even if she went there again, the people there would have changed, and the person she was looking for had already left.

From what others told her, she learned that Lin Xiaqing had chosen science and was in Science Class 1. Since the science and arts classes were not on the same floor, Shen Qingli no longer had to see him on her way to the teacher's office to ask questions after each class.

Just as Lin Xiaqing had initially hoped, they would never cross paths again.

In every corner of Suzhou No. 1 High School, they will never meet again. Everything is just like when they first started junior high school.

After all that effort, their relationship was back to square one.

-

The academic pressure increased dramatically in the second year of high school, and Shen Qingyun and Zhao Yixiao hurriedly entered their third year. Many things from the past could only be temporarily put aside for them. No one had time to look back on the past. Perhaps being busy was the best way to heal all sadness.

A month after starting classes in the Arts Class 2, just as Zhao Yixiao had predicted, Chen Wei had Luo Yiqiu distribute a list of ideal universities to the class, asking them to fill it out and hand it to him.

During the break, Shen Qingli stared blankly at the large black characters on the table, briefly pulled back to her past memories. After a moment of distraction, she picked up a pen and neatly wrote a few words on the paper with a black pen.

University I want to attend: Tainan University.

After finishing writing, she put down her pen, but suddenly Luo Yiqiu's voice came from beside her: "Qingli, have you decided which university you want to apply to?"

Upon hearing this, she almost instinctively raised her hand to cover what she had written, turned her head and awkwardly lied to her, "I...I haven't yet. What about you? Have you thought it through?"

Fortunately, Luo Yiqiu didn't notice her unease. She nodded and said to herself, "I want to go to Jiang City University."

"Jiang City? That's very far from Suzhou City."

"Yeah, I just want to go out and see other places, but a lot of people in my class want to stay in Suzhou for university, probably because it's close to home." Luo Yiqiu shrugged nonchalantly and asked her, "Qingli, what about you? Do you also want to stay in Suzhou for university?"

“Me? Probably not.” She smiled and shook her head, saying truthfully, “I think the same as you, I also want to go to university in another city.”

She didn't know why Luo Yiqiu didn't want to stay in Suzhou, but for Shen Qingli, it seemed that getting into a good school was the only way to temporarily escape from her parents and get away from them.

Moreover, she had already decided on the university she wanted to attend last summer.

Although she had lost contact with Lin Xiaqing, she had to admit that he was right back then. Setting goals for herself in advance and studying hard gave her more motivation, and her current grades were getting her closer and closer to Nanshi University.

She never imagined that one day she would actually be able to attend a school that she once thought was beyond her reach.

-

Luo Yiqiu listened to her words thoughtfully and said, "Have you decided what major you want to study? I feel that choosing a major is just as important as choosing a school. If you accidentally choose the wrong major, that would be terrible."

"Class monitor Luo, do you really need to worry about choosing a major? With your dad, a professional in this field, what's there to worry about?" Shen Qingli's deskmate couldn't help but tease her after hearing her words.

“That’s right, Yiqiu, you’re the one I don’t have to worry about the most.”

"Of course! But you guys said that if I'm unsure which school to go to, could I ask Teacher Chen for advice?"

The students around her, who were also struggling with filling out their target schools, gathered around when they heard Luo Yiqiu's words, and started discussing it all at once.

Most of the students who gathered around were her classmates from the first year of high school. They all had a good relationship with Luo Yiqiu. In contrast, Shen Qingli was surrounded by people and didn't have a chance to speak.

However, she wasn't angry, because she wasn't sure if she could tell anyone about the major she wanted to study. In those days, even if she said it, people would probably think she was joking, and few would seriously believe it.

After all, at the time, the major she liked was considered a joke by many people. Studying film was a very unconventional major compared to other popular majors that most people would apply for, and it was also difficult to see any job prospects.

"I don't know what the dorm conditions are like at these universities. I heard from an older student I know that the university he got into had a really bad environment and was in a very remote location."

"No way, can it be worse than No. 1 High School?"

"Stop talking nonsense. Our No. 1 High School is a key high school. My classmates who went to regular high schools said that even the toilet doors were broken. You should be grateful!"

"Yes, I saw a lot of students complaining about it on the Suzhou Foreign Language School's forum before."

The conflicting opinions from everyone sounded incredibly chaotic, and Luo Yiqiu's attention quickly drifted away as she listened, momentarily forgetting the question she had originally intended to ask: "Does Suzhou Foreign Language School even have a forum?"

"It's always been like that. Our No.1 High School has it too. When we first entered the school, a lot of people were gossiping about the previous students on the school's online forum."

“Oh, I don’t think I’ve paid much attention to that. But… since our high school has its own online forum, then universities must have theirs too.” Luo Yiqiu nodded and thought for a moment, then joked, “I’ll go back and look it up. Maybe I can find out what the universities I want to go to are like through this.”

"What do you mean, 'know'? Just some different kind of college gossip?"

"Hahaha, but seriously, what if we actually find out what we want to know?"

"Then I'll go back and take a look, and while I'm at it, I'll see what's on the No. 1 Middle School's online forum."

Listening to Luo Yiqiu's words, some people joked, while others agreed. But their conversation quickly veered off course, turning to other things, such as the scores of the previous year's graduates and which universities they applied to. Suzhou No. 1 High School had long ago compiled a list of the previous year's outstanding graduates, posting their names, scores, and the universities they applied to on the exam bulletin board, which many people discussed after seeing it.

Shen Qingli took their words to heart. She knew very little about Nanshi University, and apart from searching for information on the website, she had almost no other way to learn more.

If I can actually learn some important things about Nanshi University from the forum, it might be helpful.

-

So when she got home, she opened the Baidu Tieba app and was about to register an ID when she suddenly remembered that she had registered an account at Xia Lin's house before.

I entered my username and password from memory and logged in quickly, as expected.

Shen Qingli stared blankly at her ID: Pear.

This account was registered by Xia Qing when she was at Xia Lin's house.

Before this, she knew about Tieba because she saw Shen Qingyun using it when she occasionally came back during holidays.

Unbeknownst to their parents, the two sisters shared a strikingly similar hobby: reading romance novels.

It was through Shen Qingyun that she learned that she could read many different novels on Tieba. For a while, during the Chinese New Year, the two of them would carefully get together, tacitly understanding each other, and secretly stare at that small mobile phone screen, reading and discussing novels.

At that age, when they were just starting junior high school, these were things that their parents couldn't know about and wouldn't allow, so for those few years, they were a secret between the two sisters.

But later, Shen Qingyun returned to her rural home less and less often, and as they grew up, they no longer needed to be as close as before.

Every time her sister came back, she seemed to be a different person. Faced with her sister's changes, Shen Qingli felt that she couldn't get used to it at all. She couldn't keep up with Shen Qingyun's maturity and understanding, so she gradually became embarrassed to stay with her, let alone talk about the novel.

However, she herself did not have a mobile phone, and there were no jobs with internet access at her grandparents' house, so this hobby had to be put on hold for the time being.

Later, when he was tutoring Xia Qing at Xia Lin's house, after getting to know her better, he asked her if she had any other hobbies besides watching movies.

Out of trust in him and to be completely open with her knowledge, Shen Qingli told him everything without reservation.

I still remember the look of shock on his face when he first learned about my hobby. He exclaimed, "You actually have this kind of hobby?"

"What? Can't people have extracurricular hobbies? People can't just study all the time." She retorted somewhat embarrassedly, but also felt a little regretful when she thought about it: "But even if I liked it before, it's no use now. I haven't read it for years. Back then, my sister and I were reading a serialized novel, and now I've almost forgotten the plot."

Seeing her regretful tone, Xia Qing didn't say anything at the time.

But the next day, after their tutoring session, he pulled her to an old computer in his house and asked her, quite inexplicably, "Can you still remember the name of that novel you used to like reading?"

Shen Qingli didn't understand what he meant at the time, and just nodded blankly.

Then I watched as he turned on the computer in front of him and specially downloaded a Baidu Tieba software. After everything was downloaded, he helped her register an account, but he hesitated when the mouse hovered over the username.

He turned to her and asked, "What ID name do you want to give yourself?"

"Huh?" His question was so sudden that Shen Qingli's mind went blank for a moment. She shook her head in confusion and said, "If you ask me to think of one now, I can't think of one in a short time. Or... can you help me think of one?"

"Me?" Upon hearing this, he pointed to himself, looked at her in front of him and nodded. After she gave him an expectant look, Xia Qing thought for a while before saying, "Then how about Pear? I see that you really like to eat pears, and it also has a character in your name."

After he finished speaking, he carefully observed her expression, afraid that she might be dissatisfied.

"OK."

But Shen Qingli agreed almost without hesitation, as she was very satisfied with the ID the other party had suggested for her.

So much so that she got used to it for many years, and her classmates and colleagues would often ask her if she couldn't think of a name and just picked one randomly when they saw her using the same ID across all platforms.

She couldn't say that this ID wasn't chosen randomly; it had a very special meaning, both for Shen Qingli when she was young and for her now.

However, for her as an adult, the meaning of this ID changed; it became a troubling lie in her heart. She simply convinced herself that she didn't change her ID because she was used to it and too lazy to change it, and that it had nothing to do with the person who gave her that ID.

Seeing that she had no objections, Xia Qing breathed a sigh of relief, then quickly helped her register an account and said to her, "After you finish your tutoring, you can use this computer to watch whatever you want. Don't worry about my mom, I'll find a reason, but I promise I won't push you away."

After saying that, Shen Qingli saw a smile on his lips, a reassuring smile. Then he pointed to the account and reminded her, "Don't forget the password and username, so you don't forget them when you have a phone and have to find them all over again."

Listening to his words, she looked at the Baidu Tieba page on her computer, then looked at him, and a strange emotion welled up in her heart.

She never expected that he would remember something she had casually mentioned and even come up with a solution for her.

Thinking of this, a secret joy welled up in her heart. Her eyes crinkled into a smile as she whispered her thanks to him, "Thank you, Xia Qing."

-----------------------

The author's note: "Pears."