Chapter 30 The spring rain is continuous...

The spring rain fell incessantly, and soon it became heavy. The teacher waved his hand casually, dismissing everyone a few seconds before the bell rang.

A group of students braved a sudden downpour and ran back to the classroom. Some of them shouted, and the atmosphere became inexplicably lively, as if they were trying to leave a different mark on their daily school life.

A boy mocked a girl for being pretentious by draping her coat over her head to keep out the rain, to which she retorted, "If you get rained on every day, you'll go bald one day!"

"What?!" The boy touched his head in horror.

Rushing back to the classroom, some people began to analyze the impact of rain on hair loss. Fang Min was never a central figure in such discussions, so her voice was ignored and turned into white noise. She silently found the homework she had prepared for the self-study period.

Oh right, we have to sing first.

Fang Minzhou took out an A4 sheet of paper with the lyrics printed from the folder. At this moment, Wang Kan returned, soaked in the rain.

Wu Cheng asked, "Why did you get so soaked and walk back?"

Wang Kan responded softly, then unceremoniously pulled up her short-sleeved shirt to wipe her face, revealing her lower abdomen.

Fang Minzhou lowered her eyes.

After Wang Kan sat down, he immediately lay face down on the table, tucking his head into his arms. His hair was always very short, standing up like a hedgehog's quills, and he didn't raise his head until the school bell rang, let alone stand up when it was time to practice.

But hedgehogs are cute animals with soft bodies, unlike him, whose slightly damp school uniform clung to his back, making him stiff from head to toe.

Lin Ssu-nien called Wang Kan's name twice from the stage, but Wang Kan didn't respond, so Lin Ssu-nien walked over. The students in the front row all turned their heads at once, but their mouths didn't stop, and the chorus continued.

Thinking about the argument with Wang Kan in the equipment room just now, Fang Minzhou's heart clenched.

What do you mean by liking or disliking... Nonsense! She ran away, but she was a little worried that Wang Kan might actually get into a conflict with Lin Sinian because of his impulsiveness.

Lin Sinian asked Wang Kan if she was feeling unwell, but Wang Kan remained unresponsive.

The singing gradually faded until no one spoke, at which point Yin Mengran stopped the music.

Lin Sinian looked at Fang Minzhou with a questioning gaze, and Fang Minzhou felt a lump in her throat.

She didn't know.

“He’s not feeling well,” Zheng Yanhang interjected.

"...Do you need to go to the infirmary?" Lin Sinian asked.

"Um..." Zheng Yanhang touched his nose, "Let's not use it for now."

"Okay, but if he's still not feeling well, please accompany him to the infirmary."

"OK."

The rousing accompaniment music started up again, drowning out the sounds of wind and rain outside the classroom.

Fang Minzhou looked out the window.

The raindrops on the window were densely packed in a line, then suddenly plummeted, and new raindrops quickly climbed up with the help of the wind.

Wang Kan lay down for two whole self-study periods. Zheng Yanhang and Wu Cheng practically dragged him out of bed to go eat dinner, muttering, "Is he really sick?"

Fang Minzhou put down his pen after they left.

When the evening self-study bell rang, Wang Kan did not return to her seat.

This was the umpteenth time he had skipped class. It was raining outside, and Fang Minzhou had no idea where these people could possibly run off to.

When a patrolling teacher noticed and asked about it, Zheng Yanhang's lie to cover for his brother popped up automatically like a skill: "He went to the restroom."

Fang Minzhou thought Wang Kan wouldn't be back all night, but halfway through the second evening self-study session, he came in through the back door as if no one else was there, pulled out a chair and sat down, started doing his homework as usual, and as always, grabbed his bag and left the moment the evening self-study bell rang.

The drizzling rain continued unabated, leaving the floor soaked and the blackboard damp with a dark green tinge.

Fang Minzhou arrived by bicycle in the morning, but if it rained when school let out, she would leave her bike in the bike shed and take the bus home. Ouyang Qian didn't bring an umbrella, so Fang Minzhou walked her to the main gate of the school. Her mother picked her up in a red sedan, which reminded Fang Minzhou of the dusty van from last winter.

Traffic was terrible; the red brake lights made the city nightscape look purplish, and horns blared incessantly. Fang Minzhou hadn't taken her driving test yet and didn't know what the point of honking was. Carefully avoiding puddles on the sidewalk, she slowly circled around to the bus stop near the school's side gate.

There were many people, with umbrellas of all colors standing at different heights, like mushrooms suddenly sprouting up on a rainy day.

Rainy days have a hallucinogenic magic. Fang Minzhou is more prone to motion sickness when taking the bus in this kind of weather because the air is stuffy and humid and not circulating. All kinds of smells are mixed together, and every time the bus stops and the doors open and close, it feels like it is releasing toxic gas.

So Fang Minzhou wasn't in a hurry. There were many buses, and she wanted to wait for one that was less crowded.

It was a bit cold on the rainy night, so she waited in a nearby convenience store for a while. When she was the only student left in the store, she saw that the new No. 126 bus had arrived. Fang Minzhou opened her umbrella and walked back into the rain.

The No. 126 bus stopped for five seconds, and no one got on or off. The doors were then quickly closed and the bus drove away.

At the bus stop, Fang Minzhou, who hadn't boarded the bus, walked towards the side gate of the school.

The rain had lessened a bit, but it was still drizzling. She felt short of breath and her chest felt tight, as if she had swallowed a bellyful of wet cotton balls. She accidentally stepped on a loose paving stone and got splashed with water.

Fang Minzhou stopped, the sewage seeping into her canvas shoes little by little. She took a deep breath in despair.

Most of the day students had already left; there wasn't a soul on the road going against the flow, and the school's side gate was already closed. Seeing a student, the security guard opened the gate. "Did you leave something behind?"

Fang Minzhou gave a vague reply.

She walked towards the bicycle shed.

She felt she was overthinking things, but she couldn't rest easy until T came back to check.

If... if Wang Kan wasn't waiting for her, she'd just consider it a huge embarrassment. Anyway, no one would know, and it wouldn't matter.

The raindrops fell muffledly on the plastic umbrella fabric and clattered loudly on the iron carport, a sound that could be heard ten meters away, almost drowning out all other noises.

Fang Minzhou saw the boy squatting under the bicycle shed.

The melting lamplight spilled golden raindrops across the ground. Wang Kan was bent over, her back arching in a similar way to the afternoon, her head buried between her drooping arms.

The raindrops that couldn't be blocked by the umbrella drifted onto Fang Minzhou's face, feeling icy cold.

She didn't know how long she had been standing there, perhaps not long, when a streetlight flickered as if a power outage had occurred, waking her up. She walked over.

The water was thicker than the soles of her canvas shoes, but since her shoes were already wet, Fang Minzhou didn't worry about it anymore. She walked step by step, not too fast, not too slow, her footsteps barely audible in the rain.

She walked up to Wang Kan and stopped. He moved slightly, but his posture remained unchanged.

The shadows of people and bicycles overlapped, stretching into the endless depths of the night.

Fang Minzhou's right hand, which was holding the umbrella handle, became icy cold, and water droplets fell from the tip of the umbrella, dripping onto Wang Kan's arm.

Fang Minzhou inexplicably thought of metaphors about water and rain, such as tears falling like rain and flooding Jinshan Temple. If emotions need to be quantified, mountains are too heavy, wind is elusive, and colorless yet tangible water is most suitable, dense as cow hair and sharp as silver needles, falling densely into the heart.

The water drips silently, yet ripples spread in layers.

After a long while, Fang Minzhou heard Wang Kan's voice, which seemed to come from the bottom of the water, bubbling up: "I'm sick. Because I'm sick, even though I'm angry with you, I still foolishly want to take you home every day, wanting to wait for you to take the initiative to say a word to me. I don't want to argue with you at all... Fang Minzhou, do you even know that I like you?"

Fang Minzhou gripped the umbrella handle tightly.

On a snowy day at the end of last year, he asked her if she understood, and she answered that she did. But now, she dares not answer that she knows.

His confession was so heavy that she had nowhere to hide, even under an umbrella.

In Fang Minzhou's mind, "selfishness" is an absolutely derogatory term. Although she knows that she is not a straightforward person, she never thinks that she is immoral. But at this moment, she belatedly realizes that in the tug-of-war with Wang Kan, she is an egoist.

Who doesn't enjoy being liked? Especially when the person isn't even a bad one.

He was good-looking, smart, funny and cute when he wasn't being annoying... In short, he had many flaws but also many virtues. Being liked by such a boy satisfied her suppressed and self-deprecating vanity, but she was unwilling to bear the consequences of her pleasure.

She didn't want to be called in by the teacher, criticized or scolded by her parents, or gossiped about by her classmates. She also didn't want to expend energy trying to meet his needs. Wang Kan felt she was bullying him… and maybe she really was. Taking advantage of his feelings for her—wasn't that a form of bullying?

But she really didn't do it on purpose.

She thought she was upholding her bottom line, but as the saying goes, "He who walks by the river will eventually get his shoes wet," and now her shoes are wet.

After a long pause, she was able to speak. She asked Wang Kan, "How are you going to get back?"

Wang Kan did not answer.

"How are you going to get back?" Fang Minzhou asked calmly again.

"You haven't answered my question yet."

The rain was pattering softly.

After a long silence, Fang Minzhou finally spoke: "...Wang Kan, what do you like about me?"

Wang Kan raised his head.

The light and shadow played across his face, as if he were wearing a mask of shimmering light. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were fixed on her. Then, a flash of anger crossed his face, and he turned his head away to look at the ground: "Mind your own business."

Fang Minzhou: "..."

Her legs were a little stiff from standing, so she moved slightly.

"I don't dislike you," Fang Minzhou wanted to say, but her voice betrayed her answer to something else: "I don't like Lin Sinian."

Wang Kan looked up at her again.

"...I forgot to congratulate you on making it to the finals of your singing competition, but I didn't promise you I would definitely watch your performance anyway, so you don't need to be angry about it," Fang Minzhou said.

Wang Kan sneered: "You always have a point."

"...Why are you still angry?"

"And you?" Wang Kan retorted sharply. "I said I could teach you to sing, why are you angry?"

Fang Minzhou paused for a moment, then said, "There's nothing I can't say, I'm not a good singer."

“I guessed it,” Wang Kan replied without hesitation.

Fang Minzhou felt a tightness in her chest again.

Seeing that she was upset again, Wang Kan could no longer bear it and stood up.

Now it was his turn to look down at Fang Minzhou. He raised the umbrella, water flowing down his hand and onto his arm. "That's why I said I could teach you. Are you ashamed? I just don't understand why you're ashamed. I thought..." I thought our relationship had taken a step closer. "Then why didn't you want me to teach you to sing? Why did you listen when Lin Sinian taught you how to receive serves? You even..."

I even gave him a high five to celebrate defeating him, but he was about to be thrown away after just accidentally touching me?

Fang Minzhou had initially felt sorry for Wang Kan, but his sudden, self-righteous accusations reignited her anger. Fang Minzhou's face turned cold, and he returned those three words to Wang Kan: "Mind your own business."

Wang Kan gritted her teeth, but feeling uncomfortable under Fang Minzhou's glare, she looked away and down at the ground. The puddles on the ground resembled a shimmering underground river, and Fang Minzhou's white canvas shoes looked like stones in the water.

Her shoes were wet, and not only her shoes, but the cuffs of her school uniform trousers also seemed to be wet.

Wang Kan was startled, only then realizing that Fang Minzhou had come back to find him despite the rain.

"Wait..." he hurriedly stopped the person who was about to leave.

"Yes, I just feel ashamed to have you teach me to sing." Fang Minzhou, having nothing to lose, decided to settle everything tonight and then go her separate ways, leaving Wang Kan to her own devices. "It's not because I look down on you, I've never looked down on you, I just..."

She hesitated, and Wang Kan looked at her, then continued, "Don't you want me to know you can't sing?"

Fang Minzhou opened her mouth subconsciously, but could not deny it.

Wang Kan felt a pang of sadness, like the damp corner of a book. He grinned and said, "Fang Minzhou, it seems you like me a little more than I thought."

The girl he called out widened her eyes.

The next second, Wang Kan's vision went black as the rain lashed at her face, blinding her. She quickly wiped her face, but Fang Minzhou had already stormed off.

"Hey!" He quickly chased after her. "Okay, okay, I know. I said the wrong thing again. You don't like me at all. I'm the one who likes you. If you don't want to know, then I won't know anything. But I wanted to say... I didn't mean to laugh at you. I just... wanted to have more to talk about with you..."

Fang Minzhou remained silent. Wang Kan tentatively added an apology: "I'm sorry?"

Fang Minzhou: "..."

God knows how long this rain will stop.

He walked beside her closely, carrying his schoolbag on his head, looking comical. Fang Minzhou hesitated for several steps before finally raising her umbrella.

Wang Kan was taken aback for a moment, then immediately crawled under the umbrella and took it from him, saying, "Let me do it, let me do it."

Fang Minzhou's umbrella wasn't very big, and the two of them deliberately kept a distance from each other, so they fell into silence for a moment.

Fang Minzhou noticed that Wang Kan tilted the umbrella towards her, leaving most of his body soaked in the rain. She endured it for a while and ultimately didn't say anything more.

It's better than him not having an umbrella at all.

When she reached the school gate, she told Wang Kan to wait a moment and ran into the reception room to make a phone call.

He stood outside the window of the gatehouse and vaguely heard her call out "Mom," saying that she had left something at school and would be home late.

Wang Kan thought the fallen object referred to him, but after a while she realized that she had lied.

"I brought my phone. You can borrow it if you need to make a call," Wang Kan said to Fang Minzhou after they left the school gate.

Fang Minzhou only glanced at him, and Wang Kan's confidence returned. "Look at you again. Can't you just say what you mean? What's the point of looking at me like that? I'm not a mind reader..."

Fang Minzhou interrupted, "Making calls with your phone will leave a call log."

Wang Kan finally calmed down and said "Oh".

Fang Minzhou was completely at a loss for what attitude to adopt; she couldn't laugh or get angry. Wang Kan could be quite understanding at times, but when she got stuck on a rut, she would stubbornly keep banging her head against the wall. How could there be such a person?

"...It's going to rain tomorrow too, remember to bring an umbrella," she reminded him.

"Oh? I brought it."

Fang Minzhou: "...Then you're not going to hold on?"

Wang Kan regretted her quick tongue and gave an awkward smile, "I was too lazy to argue."

Fang Minzhou rolled her eyes speechlessly, and Wang Kan found another excuse: "Fang, if you act like this, you'll be using the silent treatment in your future relationships."

Fang Minzhou was stunned. There were too many points to refute, and finally she managed to stammer out, "...I would never do that."

"Is it that you don't know how to be in a relationship, how to use the silent treatment, or how to use the silent treatment while in a relationship?"

That sounds nice, but where have you actually done it?

Wang Kan seemed to have guessed her thoughts: "If you think I'm being disobedient now, that's for sure. That's the treatment a girlfriend gets."

...They've fallen for it again.

"Why don't you book your service first? First come, first served. I'll start working as soon as the college entrance exam is over."

"Take the umbrella out!" Fang Minzhou couldn't take it anymore.

"It's okay, the station is just ahead anyway." Wang Kan said nonchalantly. Fang Minzhou wondered why he had inexplicably fallen into a romantic fantasy. He continued, "I won't bother you anymore, really. I'll focus on my studies from now on, but you..." His voice trailed off, hesitant, "You have to promise me something..."

"...What is it?"

"...Do I really have to say that?"

Back at the bus stop, Fang Minzhou folded her umbrella. Most of the surrounding shops were about to close, except for the convenience store, which still smelled of oden and grilled sausages.

"Are you hungry?" she asked Wang Kan.

Wang Kan shook her head. "Are you hungry?"

"I'm not hungry, I was just asking." Fang Minzhou paused after saying that, "Are you going to your relative's house today?"

Wang Kan couldn't figure out what Fang Minzhou meant, so she didn't dare to answer. Seeing this, Fang Minzhou said, "My dad is picking me up at the station. You don't need to... take me back."

"...Oh, okay."

"So do you have a relative living near my house?" Fang Minzhou took the opportunity to ask for clarification.

“Yes, Xu Ran’s mom, my cousin, has an apartment near your neighborhood,” Wang Kan said. She doesn’t live there often, but she’s not lying. After emphasizing that it was true, she realized that Fang Min had taken the conversation too far and quickly brought it back, as if afraid that Fang Min would renege on her promise. “You haven’t promised me anything yet.”

Fang Minzhou gently shook her umbrella, took a deep breath, composed herself, looked at Wang Kan, and said seriously, "I can't promise you anything."

The smile on Wang Kan's lips vanished. He stared at Fang Minzhou for a moment, then forced a smile, trying to appear indifferent but failing. Suppressing his inner turmoil, he asked, "...What do you mean?"

"Do you remember what happened a year ago today?" They didn't know each other back then. "Although you say you... but after a while, your thoughts may change, and so may mine."

"Oh, I see." Wang Kan scratched his hair and took out his phone. "What's the date today? Let me see... April 3rd, 10:23 PM. Let me write it down. See, now I remember."

Fang Minzhou: "..."

Is that okay?

A problem can have multiple approaches, but there is only one answer. However, when a problem is no longer a problem, there is no standard answer.

"Wang Kan, I really don't plan to date in high school." That's all Fang Minzhou could say. "I don't think I can balance these two things, and even if I did... I don't think it would turn out well."

Wang Kan said "Oh" again and put her phone away.

Fang Minzhou had already made his point very clearly and reasonably. Early relationships rarely end well, and he couldn't afford to make things worse for himself.

I was quite excited walking along the way, but now that I've calmed down, I feel a bit cold.

Wang Kan's gaze had nowhere to fall, just like his current mood. He didn't want to face it, he wanted to run away, but his feet seemed to be rooted to the ground and stuck in the mud. He realized more clearly that he was trapped in a vortex swamp called Fang Minzhou, and the person trying to pull him out was also Fang Minzhou.

He looked at the ripples on the neon-lit ground. "Can I ask you another question?"

Fang Minzhou tacitly agreed.

Which university are you planning to apply to?

He didn't realize that this was a very sensitive question for a top student who was always anxious about his grades. Fang Minzhou didn't answer, so he pressed on, "Jiangda?"

Fang Minzhou felt a bit resentful of Wang Kan's intentional or unintentional offense at this moment.

Her grades, unsurprisingly, would be good enough for most universities, but she wanted to go to better ones, like Jiangnan University or universities in the capital, which she wasn't qualified for. Those schools require ranking in at least the top 20 of your grade to have a chance, and she only barely made it in this year's entrance exam.

Those legendary stories of high school seniors achieving a dramatic turnaround and the teachers' motivational quotes like "After the first and second rounds of review, you'll find the college entrance exam is very simple" were like carrots dangling in front of a donkey pulling a millstone, dangling in her face and in everyone else's.

Fang Minzhou never told anyone about her goals. She didn't deliberately create the illusion that she achieved good results effortlessly, but she wasn't so powerful that she wasn't afraid of being ridiculed for overestimating herself. So she just swallowed her ambitions like food and chewed on them every day.

"Sure, there's still over a year left," Wang Kan's voice came from beside me. "But do you think I can get into Jiangda University if I start working hard now?"

Fang Minzhou: "..."

What she disliked about Wang Kan was nothing more than his frivolous attitude, treating what others cherished like a game, but what she envied was his relaxed confidence. He climbed mountains and swam in the sea.

"You're not saying anything again? You're not laughing at me in your heart, are you? Okay, Jiangda is a bit difficult, but there are so many schools in the provincial capital, I can surely get into other ones."

"...Let me give you a piece of advice."

"What?" Fang Minzhou finally spoke, and Wang Kan was quite expectant.

"Those who strive to be upstream will be in the middle; those who strive to be in the middle will be downstream; and those who strive to be downstream will not even be considered mainstream."

Wang Kan: "...Are you going to write an essay for me here?"

Fang Minzhou: "..."

"Okay, I understand, but your expectations are even higher than my mom's."

He started spouting nonsense again. Fang Minzhou gave him a warning look. The light from the billboard fell on Wang Kan's eyes, and he dropped his playful expression. "I'll be serious, but you have to... give me some time."

Fang Minzhou pursed her lips, "You're at school..."

"What?"

Fang Minzhou tried her best to shake off her embarrassment, "Just like you said before, it's a feint, so don't do anything weird at school..."

Wang Kan had completely forgotten when he had mentioned feinting to the east while attacking in the west. After remembering, he stared at Fang Minzhou for a while and chuckled, "So you're not only asking me to keep my distance from you at school, but also asking me to put on an act with you?"

That's basically the gist of it.

Wang Kan grew bolder again, "Does that mean the less familiar we are with each other at school, the more familiar we'll be with each other outside of school?"

"no!"

Seeing the bus approaching behind Wang Kan out of the corner of her eye, Fang Minzhou finally breathed a sigh of relief and lowered her voice, "...My bus has arrived, you should go home early too."

Wang Kan seemed to want to say something, but Fang Minzhou gave him time, and he didn't say anything.

The No. 126 bus stopped, and Fang Minzhou turned around, boarded, swiped her card, and sat down by the window in the empty carriage. The raindrops slowly trickling down the glass left the same mark on her heart.

She opened the window, and the cool, fine raindrops brushed against her face. Wang Kan, probably not expecting this, looked delighted. After the bus started moving, she couldn't help but run a couple of steps, her voice carried into the bus by the wind, "See you tomorrow! See you in Jiangcheng!"