Although she couldn't tell the difference, the two art students from the neighboring Class 22 could tell the difference between good and bad.

"This sounds like Schumann's 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Variations.' It's rare to hear something like this, and the performance is much better than the previous one."

"It seems like he hasn't played for a long time. Haven't you noticed that he's getting more and more skilled?"

"The most amazing thing is that they played it on that really low-quality electronic keyboard, and they still managed to play it like that."

"Come on, get out of class will be over in a minute or two, let's go see who's playing."

The other girl agreed, and the two girls quickly slipped out of the classroom hand in hand.

As the college entrance examination approached, the regular classes were quite restless. When they saw two girls sneaking out of the class and heard someone playing the piano next door, they also sneaked out in twos and threes to see what was going on.

When they left their classrooms and squeezed to the door of the music room, the familiar tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" had already ended.

The students, who had come with the intention of watching the excitement, were inevitably disappointed. Just as they were craning their necks to try and see who was inside through the glass door, someone lost their balance and, while falling, pushed the door open.

Now everyone can see it.

On a summer's day, the golden rays of the setting sun streamed through the window, illuminating the person sitting by the piano. Seeing the boy's smiling face bathed in sunlight, he looked like a boy straight out of a manga set against a sunset. It was the person I had met in those days before my eighteenth college entrance exams—someone I would never meet again, someone who had captivated me throughout the entire summer.

Just like standing by the window at dusk watching the shadows of trees, the imagery evokes Xin Qiji's line, "I see the green hills are so charming." But the inevitable regret of budding youth is that, like in reality, young people do not bloom for themselves.

He stared at the girl in front of him without turning his head, chuckling softly as he asked, "What would you like to hear next?"

The blushing girl deliberately ignored the boy's question, her deer-like eyes glancing in his direction from time to time, as if trying to remind him to be careful about something.

The boy in the manga is always immersed in his own world, never affected by the audience. He pondered for a moment, then replied, "Then let's play 'Anohana' again."

The summer before the college entrance exam, someone played "Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day" in the classroom.

We, as bystanders, used this to bury our entire three years of high school.

...

The setting sun doesn't belong to any one day, and youth doesn't live on in someone else's heart. A young person has their own life; after that summer, they will continue on their journey, leaving behind lasting memories for others.

On the same evening, sunlight shone on the lake, creating ripples of golden scales.

Meanwhile, by the lake, the boy was chatting with another girl about his troubles.

"Well, so what's the matter with calling me out?"

"Love counseling." As she spoke, Chen Bing tossed a pebble into the water at an angle. After three splashes, the pebble sank to the bottom.

Seeing this, Liu Xiaoxiao picked up a pebble from beside her feet and threw it at the water.

There were three splashes of water.

“Speaking of which…” Chen Bing turned her head and looked at Liu Xiaoxiao, who had her hair in a ponytail, and asked, “Why does it feel like I haven’t seen you in a long time?”

"Didn't I stay at your house for two days a month ago? Well, you're always thinking about your childhood sweetheart girlfriend, so you probably don't pay attention to your cousin or anything like that."

Chen Bing couldn't understand Liu Xiaoxiao's tone, but out of male instinct, he felt he should say something in his defense.

"No way, how could that be? Didn't I ask you to play basketball on the second afternoon of the May Day holiday? And I also asked you to go shopping during the holiday before Qingming Festival. And then there were the last ten days or so of winter vacation, didn't I take you to tutoring classes outside of school?"

Nodding slightly, Liu Xiaoxiao said nothing, generally acknowledging Chen Bing's explanations.

Putting relationship advice aside for now, to prove that she really cared about Liu Xiaoxiao, Chen Bing thought for a moment and then asked, "Speaking of which, it's been three weeks since the high school entrance exam ended, right? Have the results come out yet?"

Hearing this, Liu Xiaoxiao said irritably, "The admission notice has already been issued, haven't you seen the photo they took of you?"

Uh... did you take my picture?

Chen Bing first checked WeChat and, after confirming that there were no messages from Liu Xiaoxiao, he then explained, "No, I don't usually check QQ. If you need anything, just send me a message on WeChat."

With a slight shake of her head, Liu Xiaoxiao stubbornly rejected the suggestion. The reason, if anything, was probably because she wasn't pinned to the top of Chen Bing's microblog.

Although Penguin pinned her post to the top, it was something she requested when she was young. Now, many years later, she felt embarrassed to ask Chen Bing to pin her post as well.

After giving an awkward laugh, Chen Bing explained, "It's mainly because you're applying for the sports-specific entrance exam or going to a high school in the city. It's understandable that I don't know the schedule."

"Speaking of which, she truly lives up to the Liu family name; my sister is naturally beautiful. Even as an athlete, she's still so fair-skinned and gorgeous."

Is it possible that I'm learning air rifles and usually train in the gym?

Damn, what's going on? Mr. Chen, who used to be invincible in front of small businesses, is now struggling so much in front of his own sister. Is it because their personalities are incompatible?

Shutting her mouth, Chen Bing thought to herself that the more she tried to explain, the worse it got, so she decided to stop babbling. She silently thought to herself: An air rifle? That's good. Although learning it is expensive, Miss Liu's family is wealthy enough not to be short of money. Besides, she's very good at shooting in video games, and seems quite interested in this sport. All good, all good.

After a brief silence between them, Liu Xiaoxiao began to feel a little annoyed. She thought to herself that she shouldn't have talked back to her brother like that; now, he didn't even bother to express his concern for her.

To continue the conversation, Liu Xiaoxiao cleared her throat and then took the initiative to speak: "Speaking of which, didn't you say you wanted to ask me for relationship advice? Tell me specifically, what kind of conflict did you and Sister Yunmiao have?"

Stretching, Liu Xiaoxiao plopped down on the lawn. She and Chen Bing were in a wetland park near the county town. Although it was the height of summer in July, the weather was generally quite comfortable.

"Sigh~ This is a long story, but I'll try to keep it short." Chen Bing plopped down next to Liu Xiaoxiao and began to tell her about this rather troubling matter.

It turned out that on June 4th, the first-year high school students took six classmates who were going to participate in the city's preliminary math Olympiad on the school bus to the city to participate in the preliminary competition.

The preliminary results were announced two weeks ago.

As expected, Xiao Shang failed. Moreover, her score was 83, a full ten points short of the passing mark.