Princess Dress and Iron Shirt (2)
It's Friday again, but it seems that the bloody storm has never stopped since early morning.
Shao Yifu arrived at the door almost immediately before the half-minute mark of morning reading, then wolfed down his breakfast in the five minutes between the end of the reading and the start of class. The only difference was that this day, Shao Yifu had a pineapple bun. His usual breakfast was primarily a Chinese breakfast: various pancakes and buns from the back door, accompanied by a tea egg, a grilled sausage, or a skewer of meatballs.
Zhao Shihua hadn't thought much of it at first; after all, everyone changes their tastes occasionally. But just as her eyes were sweeping over him, Shao Yifu asked her nonchalantly, "Would you like some pineapple buns? Did you really like them when you were in elementary school?" This was a bit of a cover-up.
Zhao Shihua had no idea what he was up to. After pretending to politely decline, she turned around and secretly changed Shao Yifu's name in her phone address book to "Pineapple Cake".
At noon, she decided to continue her half-hour study session in the classroom, just as she had done the previous few days. After a few days of persistence, she found that she could finish a lot of homework during lunch, which freed up more time for previewing and reviewing during evening study sessions. Her efficiency improved significantly, and she decided to continue this schedule.
She'd barely made up her mind when she saw Zhuo Siqi, the first practitioner of this learning method, pack up and leave, presumably to the radio station. Zhao Shihua couldn't help but waver again. Perhaps it was the sudden onset of pre-weekend lethargy or the loneliness of being left alone to do her homework, but she suddenly asked, "Can I go to the radio station with you?"
"It should be fine," Zhuo Siqi paused, "but you can only take a look, because I may not have time to introduce it to you."
"It doesn't matter! One look is enough."
However, once she entered the broadcasting room, she realized that just one look was definitely not enough.
The radio station and the school's TV station share the same studio, and the various professional equipment piled inside are comparable to those of a real TV station: five or six screens are placed side by side on one of the long tables, and the scene is exactly the same as what you see in the background of the "News Broadcast"; the buttons on the control console are like scattered colorful beans, which makes people dizzy and afraid that they will accidentally press the wrong button and cause a disaster, such as cutting the live broadcast of the principal's speech to the interview footage of the cafeteria kitchen.
There was also a proper studio, and surprisingly, they were using professional cameras, slinging them over their shoulders like professionals. Zhao Shihua had assumed the weekly campus news program was produced by students filming with their phones or cameras, but it seemed he'd seen too little. Today was truly an eye-opener.
She was full of praise in her heart, and even regretted not applying to join when school started. Even getting a position as a lighting technician would be good. After all, if you round it up, she could be considered someone who had been on TV.
A familiar opening song blared from the hallway speakers, and Zhao Shihua tiptoed over, peering through the glass door into the station's cubicle. Zhuo Siqi calmly adjusted the equipment, then flipped the microphone and said a few words of greeting. Zhao Shihua could hear his voice from outside, feeling a sense of wonder.
The wonderful feeling came not only from the fact that she and Zhuo Siqi were only separated by a door, but the sounds inside were coming from outside the room, which was farther away; Zhao Shihua also found that the other person's voice had become very different. Unlike the usual dull voice, it sounded clear and melodious. No wonder she was not sure at first which day of the week her deskmate was on duty.
During the two or three minutes of opening music, Zhuo Siqi turned around and waved, signaling Zhao Shihua to come in. She obediently sat down on a chair in the corner, trying not to make any noise, and stared blankly at him as he opened a document on his laptop and read aloud a summary of the day's news.
Zhuo Siqi had tied her hair up in a casual bun, looking neat and tidy; and with a different voice, she looked completely different. Zhao Shihua couldn't tell which of her deskmates was more genuine: the usually studious, oblivious to worldly affairs, or the girl in front of him who made him want to describe her with the words "sunny day".
About five minutes later, the music switched back to transitional music. Zhao Shihua gestured to herself, opening and closing her mouth, asking if she could speak. Zhuo Siqi confirmed the red indicator light on the microphone and nodded. Still hesitant to speak, she whispered, "Is the radio station fun? Why did you join?"
"Not bad," Zhuo Siqi said after thinking for a while while browsing what looked like listener messages on the screen. "Maybe it's because I spent some time at the radio station in elementary school..."
"Have you wanted to be a broadcaster since you were a kid?"
"Actually, the adults forced me to go. I wasn't very happy at first. But it's quite a sense of accomplishment to think that a primary school student can learn to use such a complicated machine and have his own voice heard by the whole school."
Although Zhuo Siqi's voice instantly reverted to its deeper depth, her expression brightened, perhaps recalling happy memories. Zhao Shihua rarely saw her talk about her childhood, and trying to imagine her now-cold-hearted deskmate once beaming with pride, she rested her chin on her hands and asked curiously, "What about junior high? Did you also work at the radio station there?"
"Junior high school? I stopped attending in junior high school. Back then, my family..." She paused before continuing, "lived quite far away, so forget it."
"Ah? That's a pity..." Zhao Shihua couldn't help feeling depressed after just hearing the beginning when the story of the radio station came to an end.
"It's not a pity. There was nothing we could do back then. Let's not talk about this for now. Shihua, look—" Zhuo Siqi seemed to want to change the subject. He suddenly raised his voice and called her name, then marked a message from the one he had just browsed. "Here's one for you."
"Ah? Written for me? Why is there a message written to me? I'm not from the radio station." Zhao Shihua was confused and hurriedly leaned over to take a closer look.
“…It’s a song request program.”
The noontime broadcast lasted about an hour, with a different theme each day. The opening news briefing and song requests interspersed between the various programs were a regular feature. Most of the time, friends would request songs for each other, but during holidays, students would also request songs for their teachers, and occasionally, you could hear subtle confessions of affection. Of course, there were also deliberate pranks. For example, someone once requested an athlete's march for the entire school, startling everyone into thinking they were going to the playground while they were eating.
And the message in front of her was: "Student Pineapple Bun wants to write a song called "Hero Song" for the hero Zhao from Class 1 (2) of Senior High School. I wish her good health, a good appetite, and that she can become a strongman as soon as possible and continue to be invincible in the world." Zhao Shihua could guess with her toes who wrote it. Even the face of the other person who was secretly laughing appeared clearly in front of her.
What a "pineapple bun" classmate! Fortunately, he has some self-awareness and does not call himself "Uncle Shao". It would be terrible if someone saw through him at a glance and started to have wild imaginations.
Zhao Shihua was incredibly thankful she'd followed her instincts and followed Zhuo Siqi to the radio station. Otherwise, she couldn't imagine what would have happened if her message had been widely publicized. Of course, it was also possible that nothing would have happened. Thinking of Zhou Xin's joke, Zhu Miaoyan's suspicion, and Pei Nachuan's look... she couldn't take the risk. It had taken so long for the classmates to stop paying attention to the gossip about the two of them, and she couldn't let another tragedy happen again.
She didn't care that she had no right to trample on others' right to free expression. She grabbed Zhuo Siqi's right hand as he moved the mouse and asked, "Can you not read this out loud?"
"Do you know who ordered it for you?"
"It's Shao Yifu, that psychopath!"
"If there are too many songs ordered, some will be screened out," Zhuo Siqi said with some embarrassment, "but if the number is not enough..."
"Then I can write a replacement, right?" Zhao Shihua had never been so quick-witted as she was today. "I haven't even requested any songs yet! For you, Jiamei, and Xiaoling, I can write three."
Fortunately, there were far more song requests that day than usual, so there was no need for Zhuo Siqi to use his personal authority to handle them. Perhaps because it was approaching the weekend, everyone had more free time.
The weekend's relaxed atmosphere intensified in the afternoon. Although the school offered classes on Saturday, they were electives, and everyone mentally considered Friday the end of the week's work. Consequently, the final afternoon study session was generally disengaged, unless an exam was approaching, in which case the latter half would often devolve into a live class chatroom.
After all, midterm exams had only been over for a fortnight, and Zhao Shihua, unlike her deskmate, wasn't as diligent. She dug out the magazine she'd bought the previous weekend and continued reading. She was fascinated by the serialized story, as it happened to describe a crucial turning point where the hero's background was discovered by others. She couldn't help but apply it to herself, feeling a thrilling sensation along the way.
It wasn't until someone accidentally bumped into her chair that she noticed a small crowd had gathered around Shao Yifu's seat. They were probably watching something interesting, and they occasionally let out bursts of laughter. But the class was still going on, and everyone kept their voices down. Zhao Shihua listened carefully, only then catching the few words that slipped out.
"Is it really you? I can't tell at all!"
"Wow, you used to weigh a ton, didn't you? The fat on your face squeezed your eyes so much that you couldn't even see them."
“This one looks pretty good!”
"Guess who this is?"
"Which one are you talking about? This one? Hahaha, isn't this the Red Boy from Journey to the West?"
"Wait...you said it was her?"
Zhao Shihua had a bad feeling. Perhaps one could actually feel the gazes from behind, like needles piercing one's body. The expression "like a thorn in one's back" probably captured this feeling. She turned stiffly, her gaze radiating out like a laser. Every student caught in her path shut up. Zhou Xin, standing in the middle, wisely stepped aside. It was as if a curtain had been drawn back, revealing the central figure.
Shao Yifu was scrolling through the phone he had just received permission from his teacher when he suddenly noticed the silence around him. He raised his head and met her eyes. He leaned forward, turned the phone over towards her, grinned, and said, "Look, this is you! Do you remember?"
On the screen was a copied photo, showing several children aged seven or eight standing side by side. Perhaps because the photo itself was too old or the brightness was not high enough when it was copied, Zhao Shihua looked at it for several seconds before recognizing the people in the photo.
The first thing that caught my eye was the chubby little boy on the far left, taking up the largest portion of the photo. He was undoubtedly Guan Yifu back then. But in stark contrast to now, he was a very shy little boy back then, seemingly hesitant to look directly into the camera, his neck slightly hunched back, if that multi-layered chin could be called a neck.
In the center are five glamorously dressed girls, likely performing some kind of folk dance. Their bright red and green costumes might seem tacky now, but back then, the pursuit was vibrant fluorescent colors. And no matter how ugly the clothes were, they couldn't overshadow the charisma of Wang Zitong, the centerpiece. Her large, watery eyes stood out clearly in the blurry photo.
On the far right of the photo stood a thin girl, whose figure appeared to be only half as wide as Shao Yifu's. Zhao Shihua knew it was herself, so she said it was a girl. Otherwise, it would be difficult to judge based on appearance alone.
She had a red dot on her forehead, and two finger-sized pigtails spiky on top of her head, resembling the horns of an animal. A bright red martial arts costume hung loosely from her body. While the others stood casually, she stood solemnly, her feet apart, striking a martial arts stance, her fists clenched in front of her with exceptional force. Her eyes glared fiercely, as if the person taking the photo held a deep vendetta against her. She stood utterly out of tune with the festive atmosphere.
It wasn't because she was nervous, but to avoid accidentally closing her eyes when the flash went off, looking like a sleepy child. So, every time she counted down to three, two, one for a photo, she would stare hard, making her eyes appear "bright and sharp." As a result, in group photos of her childhood, she often had a contradictory expression on her face. Although she smiled, her eyes were murderous, which made her look even more creepy.
Zhao Shihua had no recollection of this photo; it looked like it had been taken during Children's Day, in second grade. Furthermore, the photo was in Shao Yifu's possession, so it was likely that an adult in his family had spotted her passing by and conveniently invited her into the photo.
"I just happened to find it last weekend when I was cleaning up my house. Isn't that amazing?"
Zhao Shihua didn't know what was so "powerful" about this. He only knew that for him, it was like being hit hard by a mace, which had already caused personal injury.
"Zhao Shihua, you and Shao Yifu are quite similar," Zhou Xin, one of the audience members, commented. However, Zhao Shihua couldn't figure out what the two had in common. "You two were completely different as children and grown up. I can't tell."
"You did a somersault in these shoes and threw them away?" When did Li Xuping's memory become so bad?
"Yes, yes, yes! It should be this year!" Shao Yifu's eyes lit up as if he had found some treasure, and he asked eagerly for confirmation.
Several people chattered back and forth, urging Shao Yifu to retell his embarrassing story from the past. They were truly eager to watch the fun and stir things up. Zhao Shihua wanted to step down from the center of the stage; she had never relished being the center of conversation. As a child, she had naively dreamed of becoming a hero, the center of attention. But as an adult, she no longer wanted to be the center of attention. She wanted only to hide her identity, dig a hole, and spend the winter there, especially now.
There were so many interesting things going on around her, why did they only focus on her little tricks? When she wanted to be the protagonist, there were no audiences. When she wanted to retreat to the background, she was pushed into the spotlight by everyone. If only there was a way out! Even if it was like last time when Zhu Miaoyan and Zhou Xin misunderstood the meaning and accidentally saved her.
But she didn't expect that the person who came would be Pei Nachuan.
He came out of the office and was on his way back to his seat through the back door when he saw the commotion surrounding Shao Yifu. He came over to try to enforce discipline. When Shao Yifu saw him approaching, he raised his phone like a scoundrel and said, "Look, Nana!"
In a flash, Zhao Shihua didn't know what had happened to him, but he instantly jumped up from his chair and stretched out his hand to grab Shao Yifu's phone. Shao Yifu's regular exercise training seemed to have paid off, and he quickly stepped back and raised his phone high.
In full view of the crowd, the two men fought over a toy like children. One asked, "What are you doing?!" The other ignored him and just said, "Give it to me!"
"What do you want my phone for? Oh! You want to delete it?" Finding that he had guessed the other person's thoughts, Shao Yifu stood on tiptoe and raised it a little higher.
Zhao Shihua couldn't reach him no matter what she did. She didn't care about the subtle distance between them and jumped up in anger. Shao Yifu saw that she almost succeeded, so he threw her out: "Hey, Lao Li! Follow--"
The dark-colored mobile phone drew a black line as if in slow motion, spinning like a hidden weapon released by a killer, and was finally caught steadily by a pair of hands.
Seeing such a dramatic scene, what Zhao Shihua was thinking at the time was that if the physics class had taught about horizontal projectile motion earlier, she might have been able to estimate that the phone did not fly into the hands of Li Xuping who was one meter away as expected, but fell into the hands of Pei Nachuan who happened to be walking nearby.
"Nice catch!" Shao Yifu gave Pei Nachuan a thumbs up.
"You guys stop making so much noise." Pei Nachuan said to them, then turned around and handed her the phone.
“…It’s not mine.”
Zhao Shihua stared at her phone intently. At first, she thought the screen had gone off, but the next moment, her relief was like a tumbling trough. During the argument, perhaps because Shao Yifu had clicked a few times too many times, the photo on her phone had somehow been magnified: taking up most of the screen, was her own face, her brow furious, her blush painted like a monkey's butt.
—It’s so ugly. Terribly ugly.
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