sixteen

Is this our class?

Standing in front of his seat, Lu Yunian slowly uttered a question.

The classroom was nearly empty, with most people sitting in the front rows. A horror movie was playing on the multimedia screen, the curtains were drawn tightly shut, and none of the lights were on.

Yan Ting and Tang Xuanling were not in their seats.

Actually, everything was pretty normal—but secretly showing a movie during the sports meet was exactly what Class 3 was like.

But Ning Yi'en's desk, which was neatly arranged with only a few test papers stacked in the upper left corner before she left, has changed to its current state—

Although it wasn't exactly a mess, there were many more things that didn't seem to belong to him: a pink Polaroid camera, a lipstick, a cup of milk tea that was a third drunk and an unopened cup, and an elegant envelope.

So Lu Yunian ran off to check the classroom door, and Ning Yi'en, who reacted quickly, didn't stop him.

"It really is our class." When Lu Yunian ran back, Ning Yi'en was already sitting down and tidying up the things on the table that didn't belong to her.

“It has to be.” He picked up the notebook on the desk next to him, the three large characters “Lu Yunian” on the cover standing out prominently.

"I admit defeat." Lu Yunian sat down. "How come I didn't think of that?"

Ning Yi'en didn't speak, she just chuckled softly.

Are you trying to say I'm stupid?

I didn't say anything.

“But I bet that’s what you think.” Lu Yunian took a big gulp of water. “Don’t say that about me. If anyone’s wrong, it’s the person who put the wrong thing in the wrong place who misled me. He’s not smart either.”

"Hmm." Ning Yi'en moved the things that didn't belong to her to a corner.

“But there should be some information in this letter,” Lu Yunian picked it up. “It’s quite exquisite. I’m not snooping on your privacy, classmate, I just want to return it to you quickly. This doesn’t look cheap…”

Lu Yunian stopped rambling after turning the envelope over.

"What's wrong?" Ning Yi'en put down her phone and leaned closer. "Do you know who it was?"

Then both of them were stunned.

The words "for Ning Yien" in the lower right corner of the envelope seem to have a silencing effect.

After looking at each other for two minutes, Lu Yunian finally spoke.

"Your...girlfriend?"

"Who? What girlfriend?" Yan Ting pulled Tang Xuanling back to the classroom.

"No girlfriend." Ning Yi'en refreshed WeChat many times, but did not receive any new messages.

"Here, take this." Lu Yunian took the letter as if it were a hot potato and immediately pushed it back onto Ning Yi'en's desk.

"You can look at it, I don't mind." When Ning Yi'en opened it, there were eager eyes on both sides.

So now the four of them got together and started studying the love letter.

"This handwriting is so beautiful, no wonder President Zheng always keeps harping on my exam paper," Lu Yunian said upon first glance.

“Yes,” Tang Xuanling replied, “She gives off the impression of being a particularly beautiful and delicate girl… well, she could also be a boy.”

"No, although handwriting reflects one's personality, you're not allowed to feel it."

“Actually, I think I’m pretty good at judging people by their writing,” Xiao Tang said in a slightly softer voice. “I read a senior’s excellent essay on the senior’s bulletin board before, and I felt that he must be a handsome young man who is ‘standing tall and elegant, with a smile as bright as the moon.’”

“That’s still true, our senior Ning Yi’en is just that handsome.” Lu Yunian’s focus completely wandered off. “Then what do you think of me?”

"Do you know what a grassland is..." she said, but she hadn't yet come up with a good poetic description.

"Swift as a shooting star, isn't that right?" Lu Yunian's lips curled up with a hint of pride. "Then you are indeed exceptionally accurate."

"Actually, I wanted to say that your handwriting looks like cow dung that can be found everywhere on the grassland." Yan Ting joined the conversation. "It's one thing to write your own handwriting like this, but your overall Chinese language skills are just so-so." Yan Ting put down her phone and looked up.

The group burst into laughter.

"Yan Ting, you can shut up now. Xiao Tang, don't learn bad things from Yan Ting."

Ning Yi'en roughly read through the contents of the letter, took out a pencil, and wrote the three large, elegant characters "Not Approved" on the blank space.

"It's not a good way to reject someone."

"It's just a joke, no big deal." Ning Yi'en did a little more doodling, drawing a few funny faces.

"How did you figure that out?" Lu Yunian's attention was drawn back. "So you won't agree, right?"

“I won’t agree,” Ning Yi’en said, then casually pointed to a passage.

“You said here, ‘The love letter from that day has been written.’ Could it be a sincere confession, with this signature— ‘Love needs no name.’ And this long medley of songs with no clear meaning. Who confesses like this?”

"Looking at it now, it really is true. It's probably a dare after losing a game." Lu Yunian breathed a sigh of relief. "Speaking of which, when I was in my first and second years of high school, people would always leave love letters and chocolates on my desk, but I never opened them. I put them all in the lost and found at the stairwell, and then no one wrote to me anymore."

But Lu Yunian didn't care. Although he was a bit of a slacker, he wasn't interested in dating. "Before, someone anonymously complained on our school's bot that I was too straight and didn't understand romance, saying that someone like me would never be able to date in my life."

"His face looks like Aquaman's, but his brain seems to suggest he'll never have a girlfriend in his life," Yan Ting said from the side.

"Thank you. My hearing isn't very good, so I can only hear the word 'but.' I'll take that as a compliment."

"Looks like it's not just his brain that's bad..."

"Excuse me," the back door was pushed open, the creaking sound particularly noticeable in the classroom where only the movie was playing, thus attracting the attention of most people, "look for Ning Yi'en from your class."

The person who came was a boy. Because the classroom was too dark, I couldn't see his face clearly, but he was definitely not wearing a school uniform, and his demeanor didn't seem like that of a student.

Ning Yi'en put the letter back in the envelope, then took it and her phone and walked out.

Within a minute of him leaving, Lu Yunian looked back about ten times, but unfortunately, the back door was closed and the curtains were tightly shut, making it impossible to see outside from any angle.

I flipped through the book on the table over and over but couldn't concentrate on a single word. I opened each app on my phone, swiped down symbolically, and then closed it—why do I feel inexplicably irritable? It's so annoying.

Finally, I opened a learning software.

"So studious, huh? You even used your phone to do exercises during the sports meet. I never would have guessed, Lu Yunian." Yan Ting had just tried watching a movie on the multimedia screen for a while, but found it unbearable and turned her gaze back to the screen.

But before he could finish speaking, Lu Yunian unhesitatingly swiped to the bottom and opened 2048.

“Don’t you think 2048 is fun?” he shrugged. “The main thing is that there’s no teenage mode.”

"Okay, after seeing you, you're still the Lu Yunian I know."

“Listen,” Lu Yunian was quickly outmaneuvered in this round, “would you like to go sunbathe in the corridor?”

"Do you even want to listen to what you're saying?" Yan Ting was speechless. "Why are you out here in the middle of the afternoon with nothing better to do..."

But then he paused, saying, "Actually, I think the scenery outside right now... is pretty good. Should we go or not?"

"Really? I was just saying it offhand." With that, she got up and walked out.

"Want to come along?" Yan Ting asked Tang Xuanling.

"Sure, but why?"

"Being with good students increases our persuasiveness when we go out to see the sights."

“Look,” the two walked out the back door and casually leaned against the outer wall of the classroom.

Ning Yi'en waved the letter in front of Qiao Song, then patted it on his chest. "Here you go."

"What is this?" He took it and glanced at it. "It's not mine."

"You didn't write this?"

"Are you kidding me?" Qiao Song stuffed the paper bag and the letter back into Ning Yi'en's hands. "Durian mille-feuille."

“If it wasn’t written down…” Ning Yi’en looked at the envelope again and again. “That shouldn’t be the case.”

"I can't believe someone like Ning Yi'en would be so nervous about receiving a love letter." Qiao Song laughed as she watched him from the side. "But it really wasn't me."

"Ning Yi'en!" A figure rushed out from the stairwell, panting heavily.

Just then, the three people in the classroom came out of the back door.

The man was running quite fast and almost bumped into Yan Ting, who was walking absentmindedly.

"Sorry, sorry, classmate," she said hurriedly.

"What?" Hearing her voice, Ning Yi'en suddenly felt relieved about the letter. He folded it up again and put it back.

"Did I leave my Polaroid camera with you?"

"I have one on my desk, isn't it yours?" He then held up the letter in his hand. "This is yours too, isn't it? Here you go."

"How about that? I even remembered to make up for your regrets after coming back. I'm such a good person, right, Brother Yi'en?"

After saying the last few words, I couldn't help but laugh.

“Give me a tip,” Ning Yi’en frowned, “Turn right at the bus stop after you leave the school gate, take bus A2 to the last stop, and someone will probably come to pick you up when you get off.”

"Ning Yi'en, get out of here." She pretended to hit her, and Ning Yi'en cooperated by taking a step to the left. "I also have the URL for that anonymous question box. You wait and I'll find it for you."

"Why is it A2?" Tang Xuanling, who was standing to the side and didn't understand their question, turned to ask Yan Ting.

"Because the final stop is the Third Hospital, which is commonly known as a mental hospital."

“However,” Yu Cong asked him while flipping through his phone, “Ning Yi’en, did you really not receive a single love letter during your three years of high school?”

"Hmm. I'm not interested in these things."

"That's true. It's not nice to say it like that, but I doubt many people would want to mess with you."

"Why, senior?" Yan asked, not understanding.

"You guys in your grade don't even know? Ning Yi'en, your story only survived until we were forgotten." Yu Cong shook his head and joked.

"It was probably during the military training period when we first enrolled that a girl gave Ning Yi'en a love letter, but she rejected him."

That person got very angry. Since she was in the art class and probably usually didn't know much about it, she attributed her failure to a female friend we both had who was very close to Ning Yi'en.

One day, when my friend was in the bathroom, someone poured a bottle of mineral water over her head. At that time, the door to the military training base was only half open, and the top was not covered, so it was easy to do such a thing.

They got caught and still claimed they thought no one was inside, which is why they collapsed. Their attitude is infuriating.

Later, Ning Yi'en found out and confronted the girl, demanding she apologize to our friends. It seems she went with Qiao Song, and they acted like they were going to fight. She pointed to the boy standing next to Ning Yi'en.

“Hey, now that you mention it, you two sound a lot like petty thugs,” Yu Cong said, turning to Ning Yi’en.

"Hmm." Ning Yi'en, whether she heard what she said or not, echoed, "You can get back to the main topic now."

"Later, that girl also brought two of her friends who were athletes, but our classmate Ning Yi'en wasn't afraid at all. After the argument failed, she opened a bottle of water and splashed it on the girl's friend, saying, 'Since you won't apologize, then let's get revenge!'"

I still think you're very handsome, Ning Yi'en.

"And the result?" asked Lu Yunian.

"The result was that Ning Yi'en got into a fight with them, and a teacher arrived in time to give them a reprimand and education—a very common and boring story."

However, none of this would affect his ability to receive love letters. After all, with his face like that, he could attract countless men and women who wanted to kiss him. A fight between them wouldn't be a big deal.

The main problem is that this story was gradually simplified and distorted through word of mouth, from "He was unhappy because he sent Ning Yi'en a love letter, so he beat up the friend of the person who sent the letter," to "Sending Ning Yi'en a love letter would get you beaten up." Presumably, because of this, no one dared to send love letters anymore. Isn't that absurd?

Yu Cong finally found the website address. "So, was my explanation correct?" she asked Ning Yi'en.

“It’s a little short,” Ning Yi’en said.

"What? So complete and concise? That shouldn't be the case."

"Yeah, but I won the fight."