Chapter 71 Absence Makes the Heart Blossom (Part 2) "Where are you, home..."

Isn't it said that absence makes the heart grow fonder? Where did this rumor come from? Jiang Yueming suddenly felt like she was about to die.

Summer vacation is coming to an end soon, and high school is just around the corner.

The distance between Shigao and Sangao is equivalent to the distance of three bridges. That's like one being in the east of the city and the other in the west.

Shigao High School wasn't exactly close to Sanxiang, but Li Leshan hadn't considered boarding there. Firstly, he still had to take care of his grandmother, and secondly, he wanted to see Jiang Yueming after school; boarding would mean he'd never see her again. So even when Wu Jinzhong tried to persuade him that Shigao High School had some of the best boarding conditions among all high schools in the city, Li Leshan remained unmoved.

Jiang Yueming hadn't even considered living on campus. At No. 3 High School, the dormitories were huge communal rooms for 24 people. Yes, you heard right, you read right—one room had 12 bunk beds, accommodating 24 people. If the principal took two steps, gold bars would practically fall out, let alone gold castles.

Jiang Yueming, a student who had failed to get into his desired high school, surprisingly became a top student at No. 3 High School. He scored 600 points on the high school entrance exam, a score that consistently ranks him among the top students at No. 3 High School. He even became a "good student" in the eyes of his teachers.

"My God..." This was the first time Jiang Yueming had received such treatment.

Our first-year high school homeroom teacher was also a kind old man surnamed Liu. He was a bit older than Wu Jinzhong and seemed to be nearing retirement.

Liu Xijun refused to let Jiang Yueming sit in the last row, no matter what, even though Jiang Yueming said that he had 5.2 vision in both eyes, exceptionally good hearing, and was tall. Furthermore, he told Liu Xijun righteously that his 600 points on the high school entrance exam was an extraordinary performance, and that his usual scores were only around 300 or 400.

He didn't want to be someone who inspired expectations in others; that would put too much pressure on him. Besides, he would have to walk his own path after high school, without Li Leshan by his side anymore.

Liu Xijun couldn't persuade him otherwise, so he let Jiang Yueming go.

It was the same familiar seat. The people around me were also extremely familiar.

"Jiang Yueming!"

Jiang Yueming looked in the direction of the sound and saw the four-eyed boy, his elementary school classmate whose glasses were so thick they could stop bullets.

"Cao Fan?!"

Shengping is really young, incredibly young. It turns out the story of the second maternal uncle running into his former second maternal aunt is true.

"Damn, how did you end up at No. 3 High School? Didn't you get into No. 1 High School?" Cao Fan was incoherent. Back then, the news that Jiang Yueming got into No. 1 High School was just as sensational as the national football team making it to the finals. He thought that Jiang Yueming would at least go to No. 1 or No. 2 High School, but he never expected to run into Jiang Yueming at No. 3 High School.

"My grades... weren't they supposed to be like this?" Jiang Yueming didn't tell him that he was only 20 points short of the admission score for Shishi High School.

"Your glasses prescription is getting stronger and stronger," Jiang Yueming said.

“Hey, everyone says I look like a top student, but I’m actually a terrible student,” Cao Fan said as he sat down next to Jiang Yueming, feeling a sense of belonging. “Can we enact a law that bad students aren’t allowed to wear glasses?”

"So, breaking the law means execution, right?" Jiang Yueming said.

Meeting Cao Fan again was a complete surprise. Nobody expected it, since we hadn't really run into each other for three whole years after graduating from elementary school.

“It’s been so many years since we last saw each other,” Cao Fan said with emotion. “I’ve basically lost touch with my elementary school classmates.”

Back when I was in elementary school, QQ wasn't popular yet, so much so that I didn't even have a QQ number, let alone any contact information like a phone number. As a result, I simply stopped contacting some people.

"Oh right, I remember when we were in elementary school, you and that mute guy were pretty good friends. Do you still keep in touch?" Cao Fan asked.

Jiang Yueming frowned almost imperceptibly; he was somewhat dissatisfied with the way Cao Fan addressed him. But then he thought about it again. Cao Fan wasn't familiar with Li Leshan, and he genuinely didn't know Li Leshan's name very well. It was normal that he had forgotten it over the years.

"Oh...we're still in contact," he mumbled, not really wanting to tell Cao Fan about it.

After high school, morning and evening self-study sessions became the norm. We entered the classroom at 6:20 in the morning, had morning reading at 30, and finished class at 9:00 in the evening. Actually, there wasn't much difference from high school, the only difference being that we had to get up at least half an hour earlier.

Fortunately, the two schools are on the same route, and although they are far apart, they are not geographically unrelated. This was also partly Jiang Yueming's personal consideration. When filling out her college applications, besides putting Shishi High School in the first batch, she also put Sangao High School in the second batch. This was to avoid being rejected and ending up in a place that was nowhere near Shishi High School. It was a precaution, and in a way, it was also a kind of foresight.

Jiang Yueming looked around and glanced at her classmates. Apart from Cao Fan, there were a few who looked somewhat familiar. They clearly recognized Jiang Yueming first and greeted her cheerfully.

That evening after self-study, Jiang Yueming sprinted towards Shigao High School on his bicycle, deftly weaving through the crowd without stopping.

Li Leshan bought a second-hand bicycle. His neighbor's older brother no longer needed it when he went to college, so the bicycle was "adopted" to Li Leshan at a very reasonable price.

Jiang Yueming rushed out of the school gate and found a spot to edit a text message.

Jiang Yueming: Don't leave after school.

As a result, before the rest of the message was sent, the send button was accidentally pressed and sent.

The second half of the sentence is, "Wait for me for twenty minutes, then I'll come find you."

The message was replied to quickly, presumably because Li Leshan had just left the school.

Li Leshan: Do you want to fight me?

He then sent another message: Can you call me?

Jiang Yueming's hand trembled, and he immediately found the call log and dialed the number.

"Lele!" Jiang Yueming knew he was listening. With his cycling skills, he could easily sprint downhill without gripping the handlebars. "Are you listening? Hey, I've missed you so much since I last saw you."

He hadn't expected to think this way. But today in class, he kept inexplicably wanting to find Li Leshan's shadow, and walking around school, seeing even a slightly similar figure from behind stirred up a strange feeling within him. Anyone who didn't know better would think they'd been separated for a year or two. Was this some kind of paradise, where a single day felt like a year?

"Do you know who I ran into?" Jiang Yueming continued excitedly, "Cao Fan! Do you remember him? He was my deskmate in elementary school. I never expected such a coincidence..."

They crossed three bridges. Jiang Yueming's heart pounded faster and faster; he felt no fatigue, only excitement. It truly felt like they hadn't seen each other for years. If he was this excited now, how much more excited would he be when they met again, especially since they might not even be in the same city for university?

Shigao High School is located in the center of the county, a place where land is extremely valuable. The school is not very big. I heard that because the land is too expensive, the area it occupies is forced to be so small. It is surrounded by shops, and the annual rent is this much, which is ridiculously expensive.

Li Leshan texted that he was standing in front of the wedding shop next to the Shigao High School staff quarters. Waiting for someone at the school or in the staff quarters was too blatant, especially with so many teachers coming and going. Although it was only the first day of school, Li Leshan was already a well-known figure. He was academically gifted, tall, and handsome; every teacher in the entire grade knew him.

Jiang Yueming finally arrived at Shiping Experimental High School. Looking at the brightly engraved "Shengping Experimental High School" on the stone above, she felt a strange unease. Perhaps it was some complex emotion stemming from not getting into the school.

It's possible for love to turn into hate.

"Le..." As soon as Jiang Yueming saw Li Leshan, he wanted to drop his bicycle and call out, but when he looked at the students around him and then at himself, he felt quite out of place. The school uniforms were issued on the day of registration. Shigao High School had blue uniforms, while No. 3 High School had red ones. He was mixed in with a bunch of blue uniforms, which naturally attracted a lot of attention.

Jiang Yueming immediately lowered her voice, quickly took off her school uniform jacket, and then slowly moved in front of Li Leshan. "There are still so many students. I thought most of them had left by now."

"Sorry, I've been waiting for twenty minutes," Jiang Yueming said softly. He rushed outside as soon as get out of class ended because the distance was too far. For a part of the journey, Jiang Yueming even considered abandoning his bike and running away, thinking that running might be faster than riding.

Li Leshan shook his head. "No."

Because there were so many people, no one paid any attention to them. The two of them stayed by the wall, and Jiang Yueming asked softly, "You miss me too, don't you?"

He really wanted to say that he was thinking about it every minute, and he would get anxious if he couldn't see it for even a minute. But wouldn't saying that make it seem like he hadn't done anything all day but was just thinking?

"Yes." Li Leshan gestured, then asked with some confusion, "What did you say to Han Jiang? He insisted on taking me home just now."

"Huh?" Jiang Yueming was a little confused, you could say she was completely confused. After a moment of realization, she exclaimed "Ah!" again.

"What does he want to do? Do you need him to deliver it?" Jiang Yueming said, completely unaware that Han Jiang's actions were indirectly orchestrated by her.

Li Leshan was still puzzled. Thinking of Han Jiang's resolute expression, he found it somewhat amusing. In the end, Han Jiang refused, as expected.

Jiang Yueming belatedly realized that this was Han Jiang's method of taking care of her. My God, what was wrong with that guy's thought process? It's ridiculously stupid. Even if he took Li Leshan home, who took Xu Qing home? What was Han Jiang doing at Shigao High School then?

"You, you ignore him. Are you trying to steal my job?" Jiang Yueming hurriedly said, "If he comes back tomorrow, give me a call."

Jiang Yueming cherished this journey home especially. He had been saving up all day to tell Li Leshan that he knew he couldn't visit Li Leshan every night; if he rode for twenty minutes, Li Leshan would have to wait for twenty minutes, which wasn't worth it.

If you save up for a whole day now, it might be three days or a week in the future... Jiang Yueming felt a bittersweet feeling in her heart at this separation.

Sometimes he would even forget to speak, just staring intently at Li Leshan, watching the halo and shadow cast on his face by the streetlights, wanting to keep watching like that, even if the car was about to crash into a tree the next second.

/

Don't let the fact that No. 3 High School is an ordinary high school fool you. They still have to do placement tests at the beginning of the semester, and it's said that they use the same test paper as Shishi High School. Sure enough, this was immediately refuted by the students of No. 3 High School. The two schools have different admission scores by two or three hundred points. What's going on here?

If the test papers are actually handed out, would they dare to write them? If they are actually handed in, would the teacher dare to grade them?

During the summer vacation, he and Li Leshan previewed the first-year high school curriculum. Wu Jinzhong described the group of students in the Shigao Gaobei class as a bunch of monsters and demons; not to mention Li Leshan, even Su Bingtian would be half a step slower at the start if he went in.

Wait a minute, Su Bingtian is a runner, right? Can we generalize about these two?

Anyway, while Li Leshan was preparing for class, Jiang Yueming had nothing else to do, so she watched along with him. They dawdled and slowly, putting in a lot of effort, and somehow managed to learn quite a bit. However, they didn't memorize any of the classical poems or prose. Even if they had, after so many days, they should have forgotten them long ago.

The Chinese language exam had twelve blanks for reciting classical poems, each worth 0.5 points, for a total of six points. Jiang Yueming was like a fool; he couldn't fill in one of the six blanks, making him perfectly suited to the label of illiterate. However, his mind had been "poisoned" by Yin Guiying since childhood, so he had to force himself to write even if he didn't know the poems. In the end, he wrote down whatever came to mind, regardless of whether it was Li Bai, Du Fu, or Bai Juyi, or whatever he knew.

The actual college entrance exam used the same set of papers, and when the results came out, Li Leshan's ranking was still firmly at the top, even though he hadn't attended any tutoring classes and even though he had prepared on his own. He gave Jiang Yueming a set of answer key and explanations, which the school had printed out, and he had filled in some of the omitted steps with his own hand.

Jiang Yueming held the test paper in her hand in astonishment, looking at the score over and over again. "Is it even possible for a human to score like this?"

He now sees Li Leshan every three days, and they can spend the whole weekend together. The distance between the schools is still too far. Even if Jiang Yueming wanted to rush over by bike, it would take too much time. He doesn't care if his own time is wasted, but he can't afford to waste Li Leshan's time.

After entering high school, the academic pressure was immense, and Li Leshan was still in that elite class at Tsinghua and Peking University, so he had no time to waste.

"I'm really looking forward to the National Day holiday." Jiang Yueming chuckled to himself, "The National Day holiday is seven days long, so we can spend some quality time together."

Meeting once every three days, and then only for an hour or two each time, what can that possibly do? Jiang Yueming was at his wit's end. He couldn't exactly sneak off to Li Leshan's doorstep at 11 p.m. to meet him, could he? He wasn't sleeping, but Li Leshan was already asleep.

Although they could both leave from Sanxiang in the morning, that wouldn't work. Shigao is much farther than Sangao, and Li Leshan would have to leave very early. Jiang Yueming thought that if she got up half an hour earlier, she could meet him downstairs, but Li Leshan disagreed, resolutely disagreed. Remembering her promise to Li Leshan, "I'll do whatever you tell me to do, and I won't even think about what you don't want me to do," she had to abandon that idea.

Li Leshan nodded, took Jiang Yueming's hand, and gently squeezed his palm.

Perhaps because he had been holding back his words for too long, Jiang Yueming suddenly opened up. After all, he used to be able to talk to Han Jiang, but now Han Jiang wasn't by his side anymore.

From that arrogant, cocky student council member in their grade, to the self-criticism he wrote shortly after the start of the semester, to the old-fashioned food in the school cafeteria—he wanted to tell Li Leshan everything.

Jiang Yueming continued speaking, when he suddenly noticed that Li Leshan was staring at him quietly, his hand still holding his. He suddenly realized that he had been talking for too long and had lost track of time. He had never had so much to say before, and he didn't know why he had so much to say now.

"I'm done talking." Jiang Yueming touched his nose, feeling quite embarrassed. He thought to himself, "You also think I've said too much, right?"

“But I still want to hear more,” Li Leshan said in sign language.

"Sigh..." Jiang Yueming subconsciously groaned, then ruffled Li Leshan's hair. "How were you doing at Shishi High School?"

He talked so much about himself without asking Li Leshan. Although Han Jiang said he would take care of things, Jiang Yueming later reflected on it and felt that it was already quite remarkable that Han Jiang was even looking after him.

Li Leshan nodded. "It's even better with you here."

Jiang Yueming laughed, her eyes crinkling, "Aren't I here now?"

He often felt that something was missing; without Li Leshan by his side, it was as if something was missing. But Li Leshan couldn't go to the Third High School just because he was there, and he didn't get into the Experimental High School either. Fortunately, he still had home, and the distance between home and home was still close.

And since they are both thinking of each other, the distance between them is not far.

"Let's have dinner at home tonight," Li Leshan said. "Grandma also wants to see you more often."

“Okay,” Jiang Yueming agreed, since he had nothing to do on the weekend anyway. “I’ll call my aunt.”

But Li Leshan clearly had more to say. Seeing his hesitant expression, raising and lowering his hand repeatedly, Jiang Yueming suddenly smiled and teased, "If you want me to sleep here tonight, just say so."

“I didn’t.” Li Leshan signed.

"Then I'll go home and sleep?" Jiang Yueming said deliberately.

“…No.” Li Leshan finally responded with sign language after a long silence, clearly having struggled with the decision for quite some time.

Jiang Yueming clearly understood his hypocritical attitude, so she stopped teasing him. She was worried that if she continued, Li Leshan would really not let him stay and would tell him to pack up and go home and never come back.

"I'd like to stay, okay?" Jiang Yueming relented, hugging Li Leshan from behind. He genuinely wanted to stay; he couldn't wait to spend more time with Li Leshan. "Lele, you're so generous, please take me in..."

The wooden plank bed was still cramped, but the feeling was strangely familiar. After sixteen, besides the hazy period of adolescence, a period of rapid growth also began. Jiang Yueming and Li Leshan had successfully crossed the 1.8-meter mark and would probably grow even taller. Even Han Jiang had grown quite a bit in the last two years; it seemed that drinking milk, playing ball, and praying all those years ago had some effect. Although Han Jiang was still incredibly envious of them.

"Lele, when you're a little older, I'll get you a bigger bed, okay?" Jiang Yueming said softly. He knew that sleeping in such a small place must be uncomfortable, even though he had gotten used to it.

He and Li Leshan were lying face to face, so close that he could even feel Li Leshan's breath.

Li Leshan gently shook his head.

“Yeah, I don’t go home much anymore once I start college,” Jiang Yueming muttered. “I probably won’t come back after I start working.”

There's no need to change it.

"You've changed to a bigger bed, are you still sleeping with me?" Li Leshan asked, looking at him.

Jiang Yueming was taken aback, then laughed at his words. She never thought he would think about such a question. "I don't have a problem sleeping in a different bed. Besides, who else would I sleep with if not you?"

“I’ll sleep with you…” Jiang Yueming continued, he had never thought about sleeping with anyone else.

If he doesn't sleep with Li Leshan, is he supposed to sleep with Han Jiang? If he sleeps with Han Jiang, either Han Jiang will kick him off the bed, or he will kick Han Jiang off the bed. In any case, the two of them can't lie peacefully in the same bed; it will only result in mutual harm. Just thinking about it doesn't feel right; nothing about it feels right.

After receiving a positive answer, Li Leshan closed his eyes briefly. He thought he wouldn't go too far. His grandmother and Jiang Yueming were here; the most important people to him were here. How could he go any further? He could never leave without any ties.

“Do you remember me saying that this is not my home?” Li Leshan gestured, but it was a little unclear in the dim light.

In the night, Jiang Yueming's eyelashes trembled slightly, and his heart pounded faster. Of course he remembered; how could he forget? He even remembered silently praying that he wouldn't go too far, otherwise he wouldn't know where to look for him.

"You now..." Jiang Yueming began softly, carefully choosing her words, "Don't you still feel that this isn't home?"

He felt just as uneasy as he had then.

Li Leshan gently pressed his forehead against Jiang Yueming's forehead, and then pulled away after feeling the warmth between their foreheads.

"I don't know where home is." Li Leshan looked at him with sincere eyes. He really didn't know. He only knew that some places couldn't be considered home. He didn't understand the idea of ​​a home being a haven because he had never experienced it. He felt that Jiang Yueming and his grandmother were his haven.

"Home is wherever you and Grandma are."

In the darkness, Li Leshan's expression was not clearly visible.

Jiang Yueming gently placed his hand on Li Leshan's cheek, feeling Li Leshan rub against his palm. "Lele, I will always be by your side and will never leave you."

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The author's note: It reminds me of a song lyric: You finally said it, you also have deep feelings for me.