Chapter 54
The next morning, the alarm clock rang loudly.
I combed my hair as usual, put on my oversized school uniform, checked my appearance in the mirror by the door, grabbed my keys, and peered inside while holding the door open.
The morning sunlight spilled across the bedroom floor.
Outside the sunlight, there was a vast expanse of azure sky.
Wu Qizhao was waiting for me downstairs as usual, with a fried dough stick in his mouth and a mini textbook in his hand, speaking in a muffled voice, I don't know which article he was reciting.
I approached him from behind and patted his left shoulder.
Then I dodged to the right.
I've seen Li Guangheng and his friends play this game before. The other person would be fooled once. They would subconsciously turn in the direction of the pat on the shoulder, only to find no one there, but then someone would suddenly appear from the other side and startle them.
I waited to see Wu Qi's reaction, but he pinpointed my location and pressed his hand down on me.
"Don't you know it's so cold in the morning that your breath fogs up?" he said in an extremely flat tone.
In other words, the aura rises even before the person arrives.
I was a little indignant: "You cheated."
Wu Qi said, "The one who cheats is spring; whose house is so lucky that spring still has its breath steaming in the early morning?"
In the instant our eyes met as usual, we both noticed the dark circles under each other's eyes.
The same night was spent by different people.
The reason for staying up late is obvious; we both know it better than anyone else, and even our movements of turning our heads away to avoid it are perfectly synchronized.
The embarrassment came unexpectedly.
It seems like all my indifference now is just an act, and this feeling is really... quite subtle.
"Um... well." Not wanting the awkward atmosphere to continue, I abruptly changed the subject, dragging in a scapegoat: "Were you kept up half the night by Zhou Huai?"
"..."
I fucking regretted it as soon as I said it.
I tossed and turned all night and couldn't sleep.
Does this sound like normal speech? Doesn't it have a vaguely ambiguous feel to it?
Sang Yue, do you even have a brain?
But it turns out there was someone else who was completely brainless.
Wu Qi: "Ah. Right."
...
You big-headed devil.
I stared at Wu Qi and blurted out, "Are you sick in the head?"
Wu Qi didn't follow my train of thought and left me with a face full of question marks.
Before he could retort, a voice suddenly came from behind.
"Who was kept awake half the night by all that tossing and turning?"
I:"……"
Wu Qi: "..."
I was startled, and when I turned around and saw Li Guangheng's face, I was terrified. Wu Qi wasn't much better off; even the fearless God of Wealth trembled in fright.
Li Guangheng's home is on this street. He usually walks home from school on weekdays, and occasionally we run into each other on his way to school during the day.
His appearance was not surprising; what was surprising was that this person was acting suspiciously, eavesdropping on who knows how much.
His gossip-loving spirit ignited, and he asked, "Any juicy gossip?"
Wu Qi took a deep breath and said slowly, "Yes, come closer and I'll tell you."
Li Guangheng eagerly stuck his head over, only to be slapped in the face.
Wu Qi slammed the book in his hand down on it. "Do I look like a melon?"
"Ouch."
Li Guangheng was hit in the face by the mini textbook and staggered back two steps.
I was chuckling quietly inside my collar when someone grabbed my right hand.
"It's so lively!"
I turned my head away, and the unique fragrance emanating from Meng Xiaoqiong wafted up with the mist as she spoke. Her braids peeked out from under her school uniform, making her look lively and playful.
She was panting as she said, "I saw you making a scene from far away, so I ran all the way here."
“You’ve come at the right time,” Li Guangheng said. “These two were whispering to each other behind our backs.”
After saying that, she glared at Wu Qi defiantly and leaned closer to Meng Xiaoqiong. Like a bullied child calling their parent over to complain about a bad kid, she said, "It's him."
Unfortunately, we weren't bad kids, and Meng Xiaoqiong wasn't a biased parent, so she couldn't be bothered with him and replied, "My dear, how many secrets have they been whispering behind your back? You're really nosy."
"Damn it!" Li Guangheng immediately exploded, "Meng Xiaoqiong, you big opportunist!"
“Oops—” Meng Xiaoqiong stuck out her tongue at him.
The two of them were like dogs on a leash, hurling insults at each other across the line between me and Wu Qi, until they reached the school gate.
The security guard looked over in the direction of the sound, his face showing surprise. Perhaps it was because the students who came to school all looked ashen-faced, and then suddenly a few cries of "Is he dead?" came from the other side, as if someone had gone crazy from studying and wanted to kill someone.
We finally calmed down a bit and suppressed our restless interest from the morning.
I walked quietly on the asphalt road a few meters from the door, in this world where no season is spared.
New branches and tender leaves sprouted from the locust tree at the school gate, quietly reaching into the campus with the sound of the wind, and then quietly retreating again. He seemed to know that he never truly belonged to the campus.
Meng Xiaoqiong walked quickly toward the school gate, slowly leaving me with only her back view.
A sense of unease welled up inside me, accompanied by palpitations and panic.
I called out, "Xiao Qiong."
She turned around and walked backwards, her smile as bright as the rising sun.
"What's wrong?" she said.
The school bell rang out abruptly, making me tremble.
Time seemed to slow down; though it was only a few meters away, I felt like I could never catch up.
As dawn broke and the campus was covered in lush green grass, Meng Xiaoqiong's every smile and frown resembled a slowly fading old photograph.
I forgot to breathe and suddenly shouted again, "Pigtails!"
Wait for me.
I can't keep up.
Please take my hand and let's walk together.
We've held hands so many times, how come you forgot today?
Every word Meng Xiaoqiong uttered was drowned out by the noise of the ringing bell; I could only vaguely discern what she was saying by reading her lip movements.
She said, "We'll talk about it later."
Li Guangheng ran over from beside him, put his arm around Wu Qi's shoulder, and patted him on the shoulder, "Yeah—"
The boy's voice, carried on the wind, drifted further and further away.
"Let's go inside and talk about it. We're not just here for one day."
Despair completely choked me, and reason seemed to be slowly drained away until I couldn't even utter the plea that was about to come out.
Wu Qi and I were like we were half-sleep paralyzed by a ghost, unable to move at all. We could only watch the instruments around us and struggle inside this incredibly heavy body.
All partings are premeditated.
But this long-planned farewell came very quietly.
They arrived quietly, in the blink of an eye.
They had only stepped one foot into the campus when, after a moment of blankness, they suddenly turned around to look back.
They thought there was nothing there.
Then he strode towards the teaching building, running towards that light that we couldn't touch, couldn't see, that stretched infinitely far—
My final plea turned into two tears at the corners of my eyes, which slid straight down the moment I closed them.
Wu Qi turned around and hugged me, letting me sob continuously amidst the comings and goings of the crowd.
The clock hands moved rapidly back to the past, returning to that day's choir competition.
The whole class practiced day after day for some unfounded glory, until their bodies developed muscle memory and they could recite lyrics off the top of their heads.
Our homeroom teacher has joked with us countless times that if we put the effort we put into memorizing song lyrics into studying classical Chinese poetry, the entire class's Chinese language skills would improve dramatically.
Every time we heard this, we'd look at each other and chuckle awkwardly, as if we'd heard it so many times before, then sing our song even louder:
Many years ago
You have a pair of clear eyes
Running like a bolt of lightning in spring.
I want to see all the world
Go to the farthest place
It feels like I have wings and can fly over mountains and oceans.
-
Everything had come to a close. I thought my existence and Wu Qi's were just a memory, but then I realized that somewhere we couldn't see—
Tian Qingqing arrived at the classroom early, skillfully took out the physics homework left over from yesterday from her bag, uncapped her pen, and symbolically read the questions again.
Okay. I'm absolutely certain I won't do it at all.
She would never do that, even if you killed her.
Just then, someone came to the table behind her, and Tian Qingqing naturally turned around, placing one hand on the table behind her, almost reaching into the person's backpack.
"Lend me your physics exam paper, quick, quick, quick!"
Meng Xiaoqiong didn't think much of it and replied, "Damn, I didn't write it either!"
"I'm not borrowing it from you." Tian Qingqing clicked her tongue, about to call out another name—
Another one... what was his/her name again?
Tian Qingqing froze on the spot, a sharp pain shooting through her head.
Her habit told her that there was someone... who was very good at physics... or who was good at all subjects, so that she didn't have to finish all her homework every day. She could just stretch out her hand and a perfect score paper would be handed to her.
Who is it?
Does such a person really exist?
Seeing that she stopped halfway through her sentence and was awkwardly occupying the table with one hand, Meng Xiaoqiong patted her arm and said, "If I don't borrow it, who will? Look, is there anyone behind me?"
As if possessed, Tian Qingqing asked again, "Was no one here before?"
Meng Xiaoqiong found it strange and said, "There has never been anything like that. Don't make up these unfounded rumors."
The words grew weaker and weaker as he spoke, until he realized he had lost all confidence when he finished. He glanced urgently to the side, then looked back absently before finally confirming his answer, saying, "It hasn't happened at all."
This ghostly conversation finally stopped the moment the homeroom teacher entered the classroom.
Tian Qingqing awkwardly withdrew her hand.
She lowered her head and looked down from her fingertips to her wrist, where a section of hair tie was tied precisely.
I remember when I was little, she also liked to wrap her hair ties around her wrists like this. At that time, I was very young and thought that besides its natural function, the hair tie could also be used as a small bracelet.
She only changed her habit after the hair ties she later chose were too thin and left bloody marks on her fair wrists.
What now?
Another one suddenly appeared?
Before she could figure it out, her deskmate nudged her with his hand, implying that she would really get scolded if she didn't do her physics homework. Only then did she lower her hand, shake off the mess in her mind, and refocus her attention on the test paper.
If all else fails, write down a "solution" and a formula or something.
The morning passed, and the entire classroom was strangely silent.
It's a bit like the first day of school after a holiday; everyone seems a little unfamiliar upon first meeting.
The only constant is the daily routine of a few boys grabbing basketballs and running downhill during lunch break.
Li Guangheng and Xu Feng started tackling the ball on the stairs, running and joking around. They even greeted some familiar classmates from the next class they met.
The group ran downstairs together and naturally ended up occupying the same basketball court.
The game remained intense, but Xu Feng passed the ball to empty spaces several times, causing it to go out of bounds.
Li Guangheng was furious and gave him a good scolding, saying that his imagination had become so rich that he could even create people on his own.
The next second, Li Guangheng also passed the ball into the open space.
Xu Feng: "..."
Li Guangheng: "...No."
Xu Feng: "See, I told you so. I only remembered that there would be someone standing here."
Li Guangheng: "If I hadn't just thrown the ball, I really wouldn't believe it."
Xu Feng: "And now?"
Li Guangheng: "Now I'm starting to believe it."
The students in the next class found it funny. Where did they come from? They were clearly daydreaming. If you're distracted, you're bound to lose.
While bouncing the ball, the student exaggeratedly said, "If you have vision problems, take the afternoon off to get treatment. You're in your senior year of high school, don't be so reckless."
"Damn it." Li Guangheng brandished his fist to intimidate, "Believe me or not, I'll beat you up like before."
"No, no, no, I'm scared."
The man chuckled and dodged.
The group rallied and started playing basketball again. But as they played, someone from the next class suddenly asked while dribbling the ball, "How...did we have that conflict before?"
Li Guangheng was on defense when he heard this and was taken aback.
Why were we beaten up again?
It seems that he got so angry over something trivial that he was furious and started to vent his anger on the spot.
But Li Guangheng knew himself very well; he wouldn't usually resort to such violence over "minor matters."
Just as he was thinking this, the other player took the opportunity to dribble the ball away from under him.
Li Guangheng couldn't care less about anything else.
It's no big deal, he just wants to give that guy a good beating right now.
"You still have the nerve to ask?!" Li Guangheng shouted, "With you always resorting to such underhanded tactics, who wouldn't want to beat you up?"
"Hahahahaha." A triumphant laugh came from the other side.
"But what exactly is the reason?"
"Trying the same old trick again? Ask me again and I'll beat you up right now."
"I won't do it again, I won't do it again, hahahaha."
...
The sound carried further and further away by the wind, until it echoed back into the long corridor of the teaching building.
Sunlight cast the shadows of the leaves onto the tiles, and the doors of each classroom were wide open, leaving behind a rather messy classroom.
The table hadn't been tidied up yet; the test papers from the last class were still on it.
Meng Xiaoqiong was kept after school because she hadn't done her physics homework, and she was also a step behind others when it came to lunch.
But she wasn't in a hurry, and strolled leisurely down the corridor toward the kitchen.
A familiar figure suddenly appeared from the middle.
The other student also seemed to have been kept after class, but because he was too eager to learn, he didn't even eat after class and just wanted to ask the teacher questions, thus keeping the teacher "staying after class".
The two met in the corridor and greeted each other naturally.
Yu Yuan was still clutching the exercise book in his hand; it was tattered and torn, probably having been flipped through many times.
Meng Xiaoqiong couldn't help but tease him: "You even bring your own tablecloth to the cafeteria?"
Yu Yuan: "..."
"What do you know?" Yu Yuan explained, "I watched this while eating; it's very good for watching while eating."
Meng Xiaoqiong couldn't understand, and only said, "I've been looking at the questions all day and I can't eat anything."
Yu Yuan explained, "Of course, this isn't a good habit of mine. If I eat quickly, I'll be more efficient sitting down to read it when I get back."
Meng Xiaoqiong didn't want to hear it at all: "Who asked?"
Yu Yuan: "..."
It seemed that Meng Xiaoqiong was getting a little embarrassed because everyone was saying the same thing to her. So, she said in a symbolic way, "You've always been number one in the grade, so there's no need to be so nervous."
Unexpectedly, Yu Yuan seemed surprised and asked in return, "Really?"
Meng Xiaoqiong thought to herself, "He's getting a good deal and acting all smug."
Yu Yuan didn't notice her reaction, and then seemed to understand: "It seems so."
Meng Xiaoqiong could no longer bear it. She thought to herself that even her sharp tongue was no match for Yu Yuan's incredible insensitivity.
She was furious and wanted to yell at him, but Yu Yuan's thoughts had already wandered off to other topics.
Before Meng Xiaoqiong could utter a curse, Yu Yuan called out to her, "Xiaoqiong."
That cry nearly blew Meng Xiaoqiong's soul out of her.
Putting aside the fact that this person suddenly called her so affectionately, it seems like someone else called her "Xiao Qiong" not long ago.
They called out with fervor, sadness, and reluctance.
Meng Xiaoqiong frowned, but unexpectedly Yu Yuan spoke first: "You know, we're not in the same class, and we don't have much contact."
The light in the corridor was too dim, blocking the light from their eyes.
A heart-wrenching pain, seemingly from nowhere, swept through their entire bodies. They hadn't done anything wrong, yet they always felt they had lost something incredibly important.
Yu Yuan asked her, "Xiao Qiong, how did we meet?"
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