Chapter 48 Spiked Shoes Her dead heart began to stir again. ...

The next day was Monday.

Before leaving the house, she passed by the kitchen and overheard someone saying that they saw Mr. Cheng leave early, which meant he was probably on a date.

Ye Yuying tried her best to block out these sounds, but she still remembered every key piece of information in them, and dragged her still injured body back to school.

The title of double champion has brought her some small changes. Walking down the corridor, she can feel many unfamiliar gazes filled with curiosity and admiration.

But all of this, like the fleeting glitz in a kaleidoscope, failed to truly reach her heart.

She should have been happy, but she looked rather listless, as if she were truly suffering from physical strain.

During the afternoon break, Ms. Yang came to the classroom door and beckoned her out.

"Good news, Yuying," Teacher Yang's face was usually very serious, but it was rare to see excitement on her face today.

"The coaches from the Municipal Sports Bureau contacted me early this morning. They are very satisfied with your performance in the qualifying rounds. They have officially recommended you to the provincial team's coaching staff and invited you to participate directly in the city's elite athlete training camp next month!"

This should have been news that made her ecstatic, the most powerful counterattack she had fought so hard for against Ge Jie and the others.

But to Ye Yuying at this moment, it only stirred up a tiny ripple.

She didn't have a strong concept of these opportunities; she just smiled slightly and said softly, "Thank you, teacher. I will do my best."

The opportunity that came was real, but so was the immense disappointment caused by another person.

The two forces collided, leaving only a numb calm.

Her dejected appearance naturally did not escape Ji Zi's notice.

During lunch break, Ji Zi had lunch with her and then took a walk on the playground. She asked worriedly, "Yu Ying, what's wrong with you? You won two championships and were selected by the city. This is such a great thing, why do you look so unhappy?"

Ye Yuying shook her head, glanced at the running track that smelled of plastic from the sun, and didn't know how to explain her complicated feelings to Ji Zi.

Seeing her dejected look, and recalling what happened with Lin Zhiyan before, Ji Zi tentatively and cautiously asked, "Are you troubled by love?"

Ye Yuying's body stiffened abruptly. This guess, in a way she had never anticipated, precisely struck at all the sadness and helplessness she felt at that moment.

She looked up at Ji Zi's concerned eyes, her throat feeling like it was stuffed with cotton, unable to speak. In the end, under Ji Zi's gaze, she could only nod half-heartedly, extremely slowly, almost resignedly.

She needs to find an outlet for her emotions, otherwise, if she keeps them bottled up for too long, her heart will probably get sick.

Ji Zi immediately confirmed her guess—Ye Yuying was still troubled by Lin Zhiyan. She sighed, patted Ye Yuying's shoulder, and didn't know how to comfort her.

This silence, born of a misunderstanding, lasted until school ended.

Ye Yuying, carrying her schoolbag, walked towards the school gate with a heavy heart. Just as she reached the tree-lined path beside the school gate, a clear voice called out to her.

"Ye Yuying".

She turned around and saw Lin Zhiyan. He seemed to have been waiting for her on purpose, with his usual carefree smile on his face.

It was as if, in an instant, the incident between them had vanished into thin air.

"Congratulations! I never expected someone as thin as you, who is often bullied, to have such explosive power."

Although he couldn't help but tease her before praising her, his appreciation for her was completely genuine.

However, this pure kindness, in the face of Ye Yuying's extremely suppressed emotions at this moment, made her feel ashamed of her distorted and awkward feelings.

Looking at the prodigy of Rongcheng No. 1 High School in everyone's eyes, she couldn't help but think of another, even more unattainable figure.

And... the Ling family's daughter, who was his equal in social standing and was studying in Singapore.

A sharp, inexplicable pain gripped her.

"Did you reject me?" she asked abruptly, her tone casual, seemingly unconcerned about the truth.

Lin Zhiyan was taken aback by her sudden question, then said in a deep voice, "Isn't it good for us to be like this? I'm not the kind of person who would lay my hands on a middle school student."

Ye Yuying instinctively wondered if someone else might be thinking the same thing.

"You should focus on your studies first; your academic performance is the most important thing."

"Academics?" Ye Yuying seemed to have heard an exceptionally harsh word. Her eyes reddened, and she stared straight at Lin Zhiyan, but her words seemed to be venting to another unseen, distant person, "So... it's actually because my grades aren't good enough? Because I couldn't get into the best high school in Rongcheng, so I'm not good enough for you, is that right?"

Her emotions surged suddenly; her voice wasn't loud, but every word was heart-wrenching, filled with desperate questioning.

She was asking Lin Zhiyan, but she couldn't tell who she was actually asking.

She fought hard to win the game, and more and more people emphasized her talent. While others were painting a bright future for her as an athlete, she found that she didn't even have the right to fight for a ticket to enter their world.

Although they lived under the same roof, there was an insurmountable chasm between them, standing in front of her, making all her efforts seem so pale and powerless.

Lin Zhiyan was completely stumped by the question.

He looked into her red eyes, which seemed ready to burst into tears at any moment, and was at a loss for what to do.

"Hey, you don't need to react so strongly, do you? I came here specifically to congratulate you." His voice carried a hint of confusion.

After Ye Yuying calmed down, she slowly regained her senses.

Yes, he was congratulating himself. He came with good intentions, but he himself, like a madman, poured out all his dark, damp, and restless emotions on him.

The person in front of me seems quite innocent.

"...I'm sorry." Ye Yuying's lips moved for a long time, but in the end she could only squeeze out these three words.

Her voice was soft, like a sigh, filled with a weary sense of defeat. She could no longer look directly into Lin Zhiyan's eyes, which were filled with confusion and inquiry. She lowered her head in embarrassment and turned away abruptly.

"I...I have something to do, I'll go first."

She practically fled in panic.

"Ye Yuying!" Lin Zhiyan called out from behind her.

Ye Yuying subconsciously stopped in her tracks and looked back.

Lin Zhiyan stood there, his brows furrowed, and said in a low voice, "I can't see through you at all, but you've really confused people's minds..."

He seemed to be talking to himself, and it was unclear whether Ye Yuying heard him.

Finally, he chuckled softly, concluding that all little girls this age are rather awkward.

Ye Yuying ran a long way until she was surrounded by familiar streets and noisy voices, at which point she slowed down.

Back at the Cheng family home, she went straight upstairs, threw herself heavily onto the bed, and buried her face in the soft pillow.

She didn't step out of her room again until evening. The two championship certificates that represented her glory yesterday lay quietly on the desk, untouched by anyone.

She tried hard to restrain herself from being curious about what Cheng Mingdu was doing at that moment, forbade herself from looking in the direction of his residence and garage, and forbade herself from imagining whether he was on a date with someone and had forgotten himself.

Stop thinking about it!

She casually picked up a workbook and began to channel her grief and anger into writing furiously, filling her mind with these thoughts so she wouldn't think about anything else.

She placed "Forrest Gump" in a corner and played it; it didn't need to be connected to a monitor, she could just listen to the dialogue.

She'd heard it so many times, yet she still only vaguely understood it. She was good at math, but her English was terrible.

This severe imbalance in her academic performance discouraged her homeroom teacher, who initially had high hopes for her, and ultimately felt that a career in sports was more suitable for her.

She worked until late at night, and it had been a long time since she had thought about him wholeheartedly.

Extreme physical exhaustion intertwined with a profound inner emptiness, ultimately culminating in a sharp sense of hunger.

Ye Yuying lay on the bed for half an hour, then quietly climbed off the bed, opened the door, and walked downstairs to the lounge like a ghost.

The whole house was quiet; the staff had all gone home at this time, so she didn't need to worry about how to address the adults.

In the spacious lounge, the only sound was the faint hum of the refrigerator running.

The reason she likes to be out at this time is that, apart from Cheng Mingdu's schedule being on American time, she is almost never going to meet anyone.

But he definitely won't show up today—because he's probably on a date with "that person" in some brightly lit place she can't even imagine.

This thought caused another pang of pain in her heart.

She took the half-cup of milk left over from the morning from the refrigerator, and found a pack of soda crackers that was about to expire in the cupboard. Silently, she sat at the bar in the dining room and mechanically stuffed them into her mouth, one bite at a time. The crackers were dry and hard, and they stung her throat a little, but she seemed not to feel it. She just wanted to use this method to fill the huge, inexplicable void in her heart.

Just then, the study door, not far away, was pushed open with a very soft "click".

Ye Yuying froze instantly, like a startled fawn, staring in astonishment at the source of the sound.

Cheng Mingdu walked over from the direction of the study. He had changed out of the suit that made her feel distant and was only wearing a comfortable dark-colored loungewear. He also had a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on his nose and was holding a book in his hand. He exuded a gentle, scholarly air.

The first time she saw him wearing glasses, she could feel his chill even more clearly through the gleaming lenses, but his refined expression was almost like the evening breeze licking her wrist.

She was extremely unaccustomed to it.

He seemed somewhat surprised to see Ye Yuying at this time, and paused slightly in his steps.

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" he asked, his voice unusually clear in the quiet night.

Ye Yuying's heart skipped a beat. She hadn't expected him to be home, much less come out of the study. She lowered her head somewhat awkwardly and mumbled, "...I was hungry, so I came down to find something to eat."

Cheng Mingdu hummed in agreement, placed the book on the bar, turned and walked to the storage cabinet next to him, and said in a low voice, "You usually expend a lot of energy during training, so this kind of schedule may not be good for your health."

Ye Yuying seemed a little overreacted to his potential concern and quickly said, "I'm used to it, it's nothing."

A moment later, she returned with an exquisitely packaged dark blue gift box and gently placed it in front of Ye Yuying.

Ye Yuying was stunned and looked up at him in confusion.

The questions in her heart were too deep, like countless insects crawling on her stomach, making her feel unbearably itchy and uncomfortable if she didn't ask them.

So, disregarding everything else, she asked bluntly, "Why didn't you go on a date tonight?"

"With whom?" Cheng Mingdu seemed even more bewildered than she was.

Ye Yuying tried to keep her expression as normal as possible: "Did you go out today?"

"It's out."

This answer caused Ye Yuying's mood to plummet. Halfway down, Cheng Mingdu added, "I'll go buy you a gift."

Cheng Mingdu pushed up his glasses, and his gaze behind the lenses appeared much gentler than usual under the warm lighting of the restaurant.

His chin is usually taut, with a serious, angular look, but today there was even a very faint, almost imperceptible smile on his lips.

“Congratulations,” his voice was calm and clear, each word striking Ye Yuying’s eardrums precisely, “you won two championships.”

"..."

Ye Yuying froze completely, like a statue instantly frozen in place, staring blankly at Cheng Mingdu, then at the dark blue gift box in front of her.

How...how could he know?

Countless chaotic question marks echoed in her mind, shattering her previous unwavering belief in sorrow and despair.

Cheng Mingdu looked at her blank and bewildered expression, like that of a frightened little animal.

He added, "Your homeroom teacher asked me to come to the school. I met with your PE teacher this morning to discuss your training arrangements, and she told me about it in passing."

Ye Yuying thought to herself, "The homeroom teacher has finally found a parent she can contact. She'll probably complain at any time. Luckily, Cheng Mingdu still needs to go back to school."

But... that's not the point.

The key point is that every word he said stirred up her already dead heart again.

Ye Yuying felt like her brain was a tangled ball of yarn, completely unable to make sense of it.

Her heart, which had already cooled down, was now enveloped by a sudden, scalding ball of volcanic lava, leaving her feeling disoriented and her limbs numb.

She opened her mouth, wanting to ask something—about the dinner party she thought was a blind date, about the girl studying in Singapore—but all her questions stuck in her throat, turning into indistinct syllables.

Ultimately, she had no right to stand up for herself; all she could do was try to keep these shameful secrets.

Cheng Mingdu gestured slightly with his chin toward the gift box, his tone flat: "Open it and take a look."

Ye Yuying's fingers trembled slightly, and it took her several seconds to untie the beautifully tied ribbon on the box.

The box was opened, and inside lay a brand-new pair of professional track and field spikes with sleek lines and sharp metal studs.

They are spiked shoes.

These were the spikes she had longed for, but which Teacher Yang refused, citing the need to build a foundation. They were the spikes that made her feel unprofessional and inferior when she saw other competitors wearing them on the field.

Ye Yuying's breath hitched, and she almost instinctively looked up at Cheng Mingdu, her eyes filled with emotion.

Cheng Mingdu seemed to have anticipated her shocked expression. He raised his hand, took off his somewhat refined gold-rimmed glasses, and casually placed them on the bar, revealing his always deep and calm eyes.

Without the lenses obstructing his view, his gaze became even more direct, making it even harder for her to look him in the eye.

"Your teacher said you can't wear spiked shoes yet, but it's always good to have a pair on hand."

Before she could fully express her gratitude, Cheng Mingdu straightened up, regaining his faint sense of aloofness, picked up his book, turned and walked back to his study, leaving her with only his slender and firm back.

Ye Yuying sat stiffly at the bar, clutching the gift box containing the spiked shoes tightly in her arms, examining it closely under the light for a long time.

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Author's Note: 50 red envelopes