Chapter 57

The typhoon made landfall and passed through the area.

A special holiday for children in coastal cities: just two weeks into the official start of school, Jiang Jiawei and her classmates were given a three-day school closure notice.

As soon as the notification was issued, the typhoon changed course.

The three-day holiday has to be made up for over the weekend.

Who can understand the despair of attending classes for nine consecutive days?

Jiang Jiawei lay on the table, barely alive.

Mu Zhengxi on the other end of the phone was gloating.

It just so happens that Zeng Yuan has recently started to stay in Hanyang again, so he won't have a chance to go to Changqing for a while. Jiang Jiawei is just attending classes at school. It's a perfect and reasonable arrangement. Mu Zhengxi secretly admires the wise decision of the Education Bureau.

"It's okay, Jiang Jiawei. Studying is great, and it's so much fun."

Jiang Jiawei ignored his sarcastic remarks, which were meant to make a spectacle of the situation.

Are you outside?

I could vaguely hear the sound of vehicles passing by over the phone.

Mu Zhengxi said that during the campus arts festival, Xu Zizhao, under the pretext of signing up for a program, invited them to a karaoke bar to sing and scream. Adhering to the tradition that brothers should lose face together, he pulled in Mu Yashan and a classmate to form a band of five. Since he only knew how to play the piano, he naturally took on the role of keyboardist.

Jiang Jiawei said that their school also has a choir competition at the end of December, and the class is currently in the midst of a lively song selection process.

What they have in common is that neither of them has any artistic talent when it comes to music; their main focus is on participation.

After hanging up the phone, Mu Zhengxi went to the 24-hour convenience store next door and bought a bowl of oden. When he came out after eating, he saw a silver-gray Cadillac with license plate number 777 pass by and stop in front of the club.

The person who stepped out of the driver's seat was his older brother, Mu Zhengting. The woman in the passenger seat wearing a pale yellow strapless dress was clearly not the same person who had appeared in the tabloid photos a few days ago, but the intimate posture of them holding Mu Zhengting's arm and whispering to each other was very much like that of girlfriends.

There's an old Chinese saying that goes, "Like father, like son."

But no, this seems like I'm insulting myself too.

Mu Zhengxi immediately felt the private room was dirty, so he sent a message to Yan Yuheng and then rode his bicycle home.

After returning home and taking a shower, Mu Zhengxi was sitting on the bed carefully admiring the photos he had taken at Jiang Jiawei's hometown during the summer vacation when there was a knock on the door. Without looking up, he said, "Come in."

The door opened, and the person standing in the doorway remained silent for a while.

"Brother Lin—"

The moment Mu Zhengxi looked up, he swiftly pulled the blanket over the photo on the bed, causing a gust of wind to blow one of the photos to the floor, less than half a meter from Zeng Yuan's feet.

Mu Zhengxi staggered off the bed and picked it up.

Zeng Yuan's gaze fell on the photo he was holding in his hand, lingered for a few seconds on the bed covered with a quilt, and then she looked up inch by inch until her eyes met his.

Mu Zhengxi calmly stuffed the photo into his pocket, his gaze returning to its usual calm. He rubbed his neck with one hand and twisted it slightly, feigning a nonchalant impatience as if he had been interrupted. "What do you want?" he asked, pretending to be flustered after being caught watching inappropriate videos, before turning into a nonchalant attitude.

Zeng Yuan's brow twitched slightly as she looked at Mu Zhengxi, seemingly disapproving of his restless teenage behavior, but she didn't bother to say anything more. "Come to the study."

Mu Zhengxi said "Oh," closed the door, and waited warily for Zeng Yuan to walk ahead before following her.

Two weeks later, Mu Zhengxi, accompanied by Zeng Yuan, went to Hong Kong again to take the SAT exam. This time, they hosted dinner for Aunt Lily and the others at their home.

Zeng Yuan said, "Gracie is applying to the same university as you. You're the same age, so you'll have more to talk about. Get to know each other better and you can look out for each other there."

They spoke in a tone that suggested a close mother-son relationship, and it was unusually kind and gentle.

When did Zeng Yuan start caring about his friendships? My intuition tells me it's like a trap. Mu Zhengxi doesn't buy it. He snorts coldly, "You'd better worry about Mu Zhengting and tell him not to take care of too many people."

He hailed a taxi, opened the car door, and said, "I won't be going home for dinner tonight."

"Mu Zhengxi!"

The only response was the defiant sound of the car door closing.

Before she could stop the person, the urgent ringing of her phone forced her to divert her attention.

The theme of the choir competition at Jiang Jiawei School this December is "Walking with Chinese Youth". Each class prepares two songs, one of their own choice and the other a patriotic song selected from a limited range.

After their class voted, the songs they chose were "Jasmine Flower" and "Defend the Yellow River," both of which combined strength and gentleness.

When Chen Jingyu returned from her training camp, it coincided with the start of rehearsals for Jiang Jiawei and the others' choral competition. The homeroom teacher specially invited a friend who teaches piano from outside the school to provide guidance and rehearsals, and arranged for Chen Jingyu to play the piano.

The last class meeting on Tuesday was used for rehearsals, which became a welcome source of fun for everyone in the heavy workload of senior year.

Perhaps because this was the last choir performance of their high school careers, everyone was exceptionally enthusiastic and participated in designing their program, including their costumes and hairstyles.

Today they borrowed a music classroom, and after class they immediately turned it into a massive sing-along of popular songs.

Finally, after everyone else had left the classroom, only two people remained.

Chen Jingyu struck a pose and tugged at her sleeve. "What would you like to hear? Let this pianist play a piece for you."

The sound could be heard echoing in the empty music classroom.

Jiang Jiawei smiled, sat down next to her with her back to her, and tilted her head to think seriously.

The notes sounded as the piano keys were pressed.

You said that letting go of love gradually will allow you to go further...

How did you know that was what I wanted to say?!

Jiang Jiawei turned to look at Chen Jingyu in surprise. The other woman raised an eyebrow at her, and the two sang together in perfect harmony, "The most beautiful thing is not the rainy day, but the eaves where we once sheltered from the rain."

Jiang Jiawei sang only this one line before resting her head on Chen Jingyu's shoulder and quietly listening to the interplay of her voice and the piano. She looked out the bright window, raised her hand, and sunlight danced through her fingers, making her skin translucent and revealing her fingerprints clearly.

It's October, and there's still no sign of Changqing's autumn.

The weather remains as stifling as an unsolvable math problem, making it hard to breathe.

"It's so hard, Chen Jingyu, getting into university is so difficult..."

The person who was leaning her head close to hers reached out and touched her cheek and hair without saying a word.

The other side of youth is often less intense. Silently, we shuttle between the campus and home, carrying an invisible weight, using the thickness of our practice problems to measure how far we can reach in the future a year from now.

"Junghee, Junghee."

Feeling two light pats on his shoulder, Mu Zhengxi slowly opened his eyes. The irritating light made him instinctively close his eyes again. He raised his hand to shield his eyes, his palms sweating. The temperature of Jiang Wenqing's hand, which was covered by his hand, also rose.

My neck ached from lying down for so long, and I felt a little dazed when I stood up.

Minxia, ​​who had brought things from home, checked Jiang Wenqing's IV drip and pressed the call button.

Mu Zhengxi went into the bathroom and washed his face, feeling much more awake.

The nurse came in to change the IV fluid.

Mu Zhengxi took a bottle of mineral water, unscrewed it, and drank most of it.

Minxia handed him the peeled apple she had prepared, half-coaxing and half-pleading with him, "Are you tired? Why don't you go home to sleep tonight? I can watch over things here."

It has a crisp texture and just the right amount of sweetness.

Mu Zhengxi hummed in agreement and noticed that the red lilies in the vase on the coffee table in the ward were curling and withered.

Around 7 p.m., Zeng Yuan entered her home and saw Mu Zhengxi coming downstairs. As they passed each other, she caught a whiff of his post-shower fragrance.

Where to?

"Hospital."

Zeng Yuan had barely finished saying "you" when she had already left and disappeared.

The boy on the bicycle, dressed in a black tracksuit, blended into the night. He was moving so fast that only a fleeting red flash could be seen on the handlebars, which looked like a bouquet of flowers.

When Minxia came back from buying a new towel downstairs, she saw Mu Zhengxi sleeping with his long legs draped over the armrest of a 1.2-meter-long sofa. She shook her head helplessly, took a small blanket from the side and covered him with it, then dimmed the lights in the ward a few degrees.

I glanced at the newly replaced red velvet roses in the vase on the coffee table.

A square piece of paper can be folded into a paper crane or a heart, but recently it's popular to fold it into the cardinal directions. The paper is mostly covered with punishment instructions, which are used to play games when you're bored during breaks.

As usual, only Jiang Jiawei remained in the study room. She muttered to herself, her fingers moving back and forth as she played with origami.

It's strange that Jiang Jiayi hasn't arrived yet at this time. Jiang Jiawei took a deep breath and exhaled, put the origami in her hand back into her pencil case, and as she turned to pack her things, she caught a glimpse of a figure outside the glass window.

A smile appeared on her face after a moment of stillness.

Eleven-year-old Mu Zhengxi felt that the end of the world should be Lake Baikal in winter, where the gentle and vast azure lake surface freezes the noise of the whole world, leaving only blood circulating in the body in accordance with ancient melodies.

Seventeen-year-old Mu Zhengxi thought, or perhaps it was the evergreen autumn, right now, in Jiang Jiawei's clear and distant eyes. In fact, when they first met, her heartbeat had sensed it even before he did.

Jiang Jiawei stood up.

The hug that came first dispelled the words. The arm that had been frozen at my side took a while to reconnect with my nervous system. My sweaty palms were carefully placed on the broad but seemingly fragile shoulders, stroking the inch by inch of the bent spine.

"How are you?"

Mu Zhengxi, who had been burying his head on her shoulder, said in a muffled voice, "Not good."

"Would it be better if I bought you chestnuts to eat?"

Upon hearing this, Mu Zhengxi turned his head and chuckled softly. His school uniform jacket had a warm, fresh scent from being baked in the sun. "Maybe."

Jiang Jiawei, I miss you so much, really, so much.

But saying such things now would seem a bit despicable, just like this hug that took advantage of the so-called good friend status.