Stargazing

Xu Yangyang was taking pictures of Zhu Sui'an and Ruan Ye, with Lin Luo and Zhu Changyu standing nearby. He asked, "What are you thinking about?"

"I don't think I'm a brave person. It's really hard to become brave!" Lin Luo's eyes were empty.

"Me too." Zhu Changyu tilted his head to look at her, "I suddenly hope time will go faster."

"Can you be brave soon?" Lin Luo didn't know if they were talking about the same thing or just talking at cross purposes.

“Maybe!”

I can’t, Lin Luo said in her heart.

"Xiaoxiao, let's take a group photo!" Tong Yun ran over and said to her.

"good."

Fu Xingchuan took many photos for them, and then they asked other classmates to take a group photo of the seven of them.

Lin Luo placed the photo on the table and looked at it whenever she felt tired.

The graduation photos were not sent out until more than ten days later.

"Zhu Changyu, why are you putting your hand on my shoulder?" Xu Yangyang looked at the photo of Zhu Changyu making a "yeah" gesture on her shoulder and poked the back of the person in front of her with a pen.

Zhu Changyu sat up with difficulty, his eyes half-closed. "Is class about to start?"

"Not yet?" Xu Yangyang frowned and looked at his bloodshot eyes. "Do you want to go to the hospital? You seem to be losing all your energy."

"Don't worry! You won't die." Zhu Changyu took out a bag of Chinese medicine from the drawer, "I have a life-extending soup."

"Go out and drink, and don't spit on me."

"I'm not drinking now." Zhu Changyu put it back in the drawer and picked up the graduation photo. "Little bunny, how cute! And I wasn't placed on your shoulder, I was placed between you and Lin Qiao, okay?"

Zhu Changyu glanced at Lin Luo.

She stared at the photo and looked at Fu Xingchuan.

He wasn't looking at the camera, but with his eyes downcast, he was probably looking at Zhu Changyu's hand, not at her! Lin Luo knocked his head to keep himself awake.

The joint entrance exam results had just come out, and Tian Yajun had asked for leave today, so Lin Luo went to the printing room for her to get the class's transcripts. Before leaving, she also handed over a transcript from the sprint class in front of Director Wang, saying that it would motivate herself to study hard, but in fact, she just wanted to see Tong Yun's results.

Because Lin Luo didn't find her name in the lobby of Shouxin Building, she fell off the honor roll.

During this period, Tong Yun often wore makeup to school and often talked and played with some gangsters. I heard that her roommates had moved out and she now lived alone. Director Wang had talked to her many times, but she did not change.

Lin Qi also tried various ways to ask her tactfully if something had happened to her or what was wrong, but she always smiled and avoided the topic.

In this joint examination of eleven schools, Lin Xi ranked ninth in the class, with a score of 125 in mathematics and 89th in the grade. Tong Yun's ranking was not even higher than hers. Not only did he fall out of the top fifty, he was almost out of the top hundred.

"Lin Luo, are you listening to me?" Teacher Wu was explaining a problem to Lin Luo, but she was clearly distracted. He tapped the table with his hand and said, "If you have something on your mind, tell me. Maybe I can help."

Lin told Teacher Wu everything, but didn't say who it was, only that it was a friend. "Teacher Wu, have you ever encountered this kind of situation before?"

"I've seen this a lot." Teacher Wu took a sip of tea and said with great experience, "I was thinking of telling you about this first. You might run into this problem in the rest of your time."

"In the last month or two, especially as you get closer to the college entrance exam, it's normal for your grades to drop due to the stress and anxiety you experience. This can manifest in frequent mistakes during exams and during practice, and even in poor performance in subjects you're strong in."

"The key is to stay calm, relax appropriately, maintain your sense of the questions, avoid getting lost and overwhelmed, and don't dwell on a single failure..."

"Okay." After hearing what Teacher Wu said, Lin Luo ran to the Liberal Arts Building to relay these words to Tong Yun.

At the back door of the sprint class, Lin Luo leaned inside. Fu Xingchuan was sitting next to Tong Yun. They were chatting, and Lin Luo did not step in.

She walked back to Shouxin Building and ran into Zhu Sui'an and Ruan Ye on the middle boulevard. She was about to say hello but heard their conversation first.

"Why do we want to break up?" Ruan Ye clenched his fists.

"I've told you many times that I don't like you anymore. Don't you understand?" Zhu Sui'an looked impatient.

Ruan Ye tried his best to lower his voice, and seemed to suppress his anger, "Yes, I don't understand."

"Then I'll be frank. We're not from the same world. I agreed to date you on a whim just to kill time and have fun. Now I have someone else I like, so of course I have to dump you first. Do you understand?"

"You're lying."

"I didn't, I really mean it." Zhu Sui'an looked at him seriously, "Ruan Ye, let's stop here! I'm tired of it and don't have the patience to play with you anymore."

Zhu Sui'an was about to leave, but Ruan Ye grabbed her wrist and said humbly, "If you leave now, I won't stand here waiting for you. Don't regret it."

"I never regret what I did." Zhu Sui'an shook off his hand.

"Eavesdropping?" Lin Luo felt guilty and was startled. She turned around and saw Fu Xingchuan standing behind her.

"I'm just passing through."

Fu Xingchuan glanced at her and asked, "Then why are you feeling guilty?"

"No." Lin Luo lowered his head.

"Fu Xingchuan, let's go!" Zhu Sui'an walked over to them, and Fu Xingchuan asked her, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I feel very good." She pulled the corners of her mouth stiffly, and Lin Luo guessed that she was not telling the truth just now.

Before they left, Zhu Sui'an specifically said to her, "Lin Qiao, goodbye!"

"Oh, see you tomorrow." At that time she thought it was just an ordinary goodbye, but she didn't expect Zhu Sui'an to drop out of school the next day.

Fu Xingchuan said that Zhu Sui'an went abroad to study. Her family arranged it for her and they didn't say goodbye specifically because they were afraid that they would be reluctant to let her go.

Zhu Changyu and Xu Yangyang accepted this statement. Zhu Sui'an's life trajectory was indeed very different from theirs from the beginning, and they were not too surprised.

What shocked them even more was that Ruan Ye and Zhu Sui'an broke up. Overnight, it seemed as if the temperature in the classroom dropped sharply.

I was originally planning to talk to Zhu Sui'an in the group, but when I thought of this, they all sent private messages to Zhu Sui'an, asking her to take care of herself while she was abroad and that they would miss her.

However, due to the time difference, they could not contact each other in time, and coupled with the heavy workload of their studies, their conversations became less and less.

Ruan Ye was in a very bad state. He was no longer ranked second in exams and often deliberately left the answer sheet blank.

Because Ruan Ye and Tong Yun, two good students, have a tendency to indulge in self-degradation, Director Wang is very worried and feels that he has aged a lot during this period.

Aunt Li was very worried about Ruan Ye, saying that he didn't eat well, and asked Lin Luo to pay more attention to him.

Lin Luo wanted to care about him but was powerless as she was busy with her own affairs.

Teacher Wu guessed right. With more than 30 days left before the college entrance examination, she also fell into anxiety and was on the verge of collapse.

I had done this question many times before, but I subconsciously filled in the wrong answer. I saw the pitfalls in the question and reminded myself to be careful, but I still jumped into it.

Her ranking kept declining, but Cheng Kaizhong still had to find fault with her, often talking to her and saying sarcastic things.

"Tong Yun skipped class again. I just went to the sprint class to look for her, but she wasn't there." Xu Yangyang returned to her seat with a book in her arms. Lin Luo had just returned from Cheng Kaizhong with a sad face.

"I see Director Wang has lost a lot of hair. How come the little hair that Second Brother has is so stubborn and sticks to his scalp?" Xu Yangyang put her arm around Lin Luo's shoulders. "How about we secretly shave his head after the college entrance exams?"

Lin Luo knew that she wanted to make her happy, but she was so tired that she couldn't even smile.

The bell rang for evening study. She looked around the classroom. Zhu Changyu was working on his exercises, his head in his hands, his pen dropping repeatedly. Tian Yajun was sitting at the podium, keeping discipline. Ruan Ye wasn't there.

They were now sitting in the front row of the third largest group. Lin Luo's seat was by the window, so it wasn't convenient for her to go out. But she still bothered Xu Yangyang, "Yangyang, I need to go out."

"Where are you going, my second brother is looking for you again"

Lin Luo didn't answer, but just shook her head. Xu Yangyang didn't ask any more questions and let her go.

Tian Yajun thought she was going to find Cheng Kaizhong, so she didn't say anything. She walked out of the front of the classroom openly, passed by Cheng Kaizhong's office openly, and went downstairs.

Instead of leaving the school, she went to the playground. She originally wanted to relieve stress by running.

But late at night, there was no one on the playground, only a few incandescent lights were shining lonely.

Lin Luo walked to the center of the playground and sat on the lawn.

Tired of sitting, she lay down and became one with the earth.

I wish it would rain now. Lin Qi closed her eyes, and soon she felt something falling on her face.

It's raining?

She opened her eyes again. It wasn't raining. It was just an illusion.

She noticed someone walking towards her out of the corner of her eye. She couldn't see his face clearly because of the backlight, but judging by his figure, it should be Fu Xingchuan. Lin Luo rubbed her eyes and she had hallucinations again. Was it Cheng Kaizhong who came to arrest her?

"Skipping class?" Fu Xingchuan walked closer and looked down at Lin Luo.

It wasn't an illusion. Lin Xiao put his hands down, sat up straight, and asked, "Why are you here?"

"I saw you walk into the playground, so I followed you." Fu Xingchuan asked, "Can I sit down?"

"Yeah." Lin Luo's eyes fell on the notebook in his hand. She had seen it on Tong Yun's desk before. It seemed that he was here to find Tong Yun.

"Is Sui'an okay?" Lin Luo remembered Ruan Ye's condition and asked him.

Fu Xingchuan said calmly: "She's fine, but is this the time for you to worry about others?"

"It doesn't seem so." Lin Luo sighed.

Fu Xingchuan looked around and saw that there was no one else on the playground. He said to her, "Just treat me like air. Cry if you want to!"

"Although it's very painful, I can't cry." She remembered the words Fu Xingchuan once said to her, "Maybe this is not worth my tears!"

Lin Luo had no reason to want to talk to Fu Xingchuan. "Everyone's talking about the future. Xu Yangyang said she's going on a graduation trip after the college entrance exam, and Zhu Changyu said he wants to stay home and have a good sleep for a few days. They're looking forward to the future, but I don't like this."

"I don't think about the future. No one can predict what will happen tomorrow." Zhu Sui'an's separation from them, Tong Yun's changes, Lin Dayong's departure, none of them were predictable to her before they happened.

But she did this not because she was frank, but because she was uneasy.

"Lin Qiao, from the time we met until now, I've watched you grow and change. Your handwriting has improved, running has become easier, and your grades have improved bit by bit. I see all my efforts."

"Don't be afraid. There's nothing wrong with focusing on the present. But I hope you won't just stop here, but go further and further." Fu Xingchuan looked at her sincerely and added, "As your friend... I feel extremely relieved."

Fu Xingchuan looked away and raised his head to the sky. Lin Luo followed his gaze and said, "Thank you. You comforted me. It's great to have a friend like you."

In the sky, only a few stars are embedded in the inky night sky, and there is silence for a while.

Lin Luo relaxed and said to her friend, "Every time I look at the stars, I feel like they are so far away from me. I feel so insignificant in the vast universe."

Astronomer Carl Sagan said in his book Cosmos: The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, and the carbon in the food we eat are all made up of the scattered atoms of the Big Bang. Therefore, each of us is a star. When we look up, the stars always seem far away, but in fact, the atoms formed in the Big Bang are the same atoms that form our bodies. Therefore, the stars are not far away; we are the stars themselves.

"You are not insignificant. You occupy a very important place in some people's hearts. To them, you may be half the world."

Lin Luo almost forgot that her friend was a top student with a score of 135 in Chinese. "Fu Xingchuan."

You are also important in my heart.

"Um"

"If... I mean, if my score is not high enough to get into Jingda and I can't go to Jinghe with you, I won't cry then. I will apply to a suitable university for myself. My choice is to better serve myself. I hope you won't regret me then."

Before he could speak, she continued, "But don't worry, I will still work hard in the remaining time."

"Okay, classmate Lin Luo, keep going!" He curled up the corners of his mouth into a smile.

Lin Xiao nodded, "Yeah."

The bell rang, and Lin stood up, "I want to go home."

"Let's go!" Fu Xingchuan also stood up and walked in front of her.

His shadow is superior, thin and tall, and seems to have a youthful feel.

Lin Luo quickly closed the distance between them, and their shadows were touching, looking very intimate.

As if noticing Lin Qi's actions, Fu Xingchuan tilted his head and asked, "What's wrong?"

Lin Luo tried her best to control her heartbeat. She stepped back, her shadows parting. She clenched her fists and said, "I've noticed you're quite good at comforting people. Tong Yun hasn't been feeling well lately. Could you talk to her more?"

Lin Luo gritted her teeth, her heart pounding, afraid that he would say: We are boyfriend and girlfriend, and this is what I should do.

But in the end he just responded calmly, "Yeah."