Chapter 17
Jiang Wan was soaked when he returned to the studio.
Chen Meiyun came out of the bedroom, wiping her hair, and saw Jiang Wan coming back: "Where have you been? Why are you like this?"
"The upstairs guest forgot to take away the crispy pork he packed, so I just went upstairs to get it for him."
"You don't have an umbrella?"
Jiang Wan bent down and picked up an easel that had fallen to the ground and set it up: "Last week, when you left, didn't you take away my last umbrella?"
Chen Meiyun seemed to remember something when Jiang Wan mentioned it: "Have you noticed that it rains every time I come to your place?"
Jiang Wan mocked her: "I thought you came to me just to borrow my umbrella, so you checked the weather forecast and came to see me."
"You seem to be right." Chen Meiyun turned around and flicked on the studio light in the darkness. "Is it fixed?"
"It's sometimes good, sometimes bad." The circuits in this area are aging, and power outages occur frequently during peak hours. The circuits in the studio have burned out several times.
Chen Meiyun shook her phone and said, "I ordered a midnight snack."
Jiang Wan smiled: "Is there any wine?"
"What's the point of having a midnight snack without alcohol? Just treat it like a children's meal."
"That's great." Jiang Wan wiped the rain off his face, his pure face full of eagerness to try: "Let me take a shower first."
"Hey, isn't that Zhou So-and-so, the Zhou Baopi we just met?" The entire studio was made of floor-to-ceiling glass walls, allowing for a clear view of both indoor and outdoor areas.
"He lives here too?"
Chen Meiyu looked gloomy.
Jiang Wan shook his head: "I don't know, and you should stop giving people nicknames."
Chen Meiyun was curious: "Why? You're so protective of him? Just because he's Chen Wulin?"
Jiang Wan pinched her face and threatened with narrowed eyes: "If you mention Chen Wulin again, don't blame me for revealing that you had a crush on him in elementary school."
Chen Meiyun yelled, "If you dare to say that, I'll commit suicide!"
"Jump off the building immediately!"
"And he jumped from the first floor!"
The day Chen Wulin moved to the building next to Jiang Wan was a rainy night with lingering drizzle, just like tonight.
From the first day they moved in, they became the subject of discussion among their neighbors. It wasn't because they were an orphan with a few belongings, poor, and down and out. It was because Chen Wulin's mother, Chen Hong, had a quarrel with the corridor supervisor the night she moved in. Chen Wulin's two-bedroom apartment on the first floor had been unoccupied for a long time, and the entrance hallway was filled with all kinds of useless garbage.
Chen Hong and Chen Wulin spent nearly an hour just cleaning up the mess. Cardboard, plastic bottles, and all sorts of scrap metal were scattered all over the floor. The corridor team leader heard the commotion and rushed over. She was usually a bit of a tough girl, and upon seeing the mess, she launched into a barrage of sarcastic abuse.
Chen Hong, seemingly gentle and refined, engaged in a brawl with the corridor team leader, unabashedly. Their shouting echoed throughout the quiet neighborhood. That evening, Jiang Wan, beaten by Li Wan for failing a math test, was now standing on the windowsill as punishment. The noise of the quarrel had drawn the attention of the neighbors from the surrounding buildings, who, looking for something to do after dinner, were staring at the dark windowsills, each filled with a pair of gleaming eyes.
In addition, the young couple upstairs who were quarreling every day due to their relationship problems, the child who was beaten and crying while learning piano downstairs, etc., all temporarily joined in the brief peace.
Jiang Wan also occupied two of the eyes.
But she wasn't looking at the two female warriors at the center of the vortex, jumping up and down, pointing at each other. Jiang Wan's gaze fell on a boy about her age who had stood motionless by the iron security door in the hallway. His hands were snow-white, his face pale, his hair black, and his eyes even darker. He was a handsome, yet aloof boy.
But none of this matters.
What matters is that he is miserable.
Even worse than Jiang Wan who just got beaten today.
Jiang Wan and Chen Wulin were not familiar with each other until junior high school. It was Chen Meiyun that made them become familiar with each other.
Jiang Wan helped Chen Meiyu catch up with Chen Wulin.
To be precise, Jiang Wan was forced to help.
It was exactly seven o'clock when Jiang Wan came out of the shower. The TV in the bedroom was on, and the familiar prelude to the news broadcast slowly sounded.
Chen Meiyun handed a can of beer to Jiang Wan and urged, "Drink it quickly. It's the first sip after taking a shower. It's more joyful than dating a hundred handsome men!"
Jiang Wan sighed as she drank, "It would be more fun to date a hundred handsome men." She sat down on the bed, one leg crossed on the bed, the other dangling, and pointed at a certain part of the TV screen: "This one, do you remember? You told me before that he was your uncle."
The scene changed.
"And this." Jiang Wan was addicted to finding differences: "You said he was your uncle's friend, and you and his son were childhood sweethearts."
"Why did I really believe you before, Chen Meiyun?" Jiang Wan turned her head and asked her. Jiang Wan had been so frustrated by Li Wan's beatings that she'd been constantly thinking about finding someone to punish him. Going to her grandmother and the public school was the most basic solution. Jiang Wan even went to the school where Li Wan was teaching at the time and complained to the principal. As a result, Li Wan was put in solitary confinement for two days.
Chen Meiyu smiled happily when she recalled the past: "You were so innocent when you were a child. And why didn't you think of going to the police at that time?" Isn't it said that if you have any difficulties, you should go to the police.
Why hadn't Jiang Wan thought of this? "We can't call the police. If they really arrest her, it will affect three generations of our family. Didn't you promise me that I would be assigned to the Education Bureau? Didn't you ask your uncle and aunt to protect me and ensure that I would rise to prominence, so that my mother wouldn't dare to say a word in front of me?"
This was something Chen Meiyun could say. However, she had a habit of talking nonsense as a child, and she couldn't remember what she had said.
but.
Chen Meiyun, with a facial mask on her face, sat up from the bed, crawled to the end of the bed using her hands and feet, and showed her her phone to Jiang Wan: "I was just chatting with my sister from Silin, and her friend told me something about your upstairs neighbor."
Jiang Wan took a sip of the beer in her hand, staring intently at the news on the news broadcast. She picked up the towel hanging around her neck and wiped the water dripping from her wet hair. She asked absentmindedly: "What's the matter?"
"My classmate said he was always among the top three in his grade at Silin."
"I've never failed an exam."
"But that's not the coolest thing."
"My friend told me something."
When Lu Jiyu was in the third grade, the head teacher of his class could not continue the class due to illness, so the school had to find another teacher to take over the class.
This homeroom teacher had been with Lu Jiyu and the others for almost three years and had a very good reputation and was very popular. When he announced the news to the class, the whole class nearly burst into tears.
But I can’t bear to leave.
Separation is still inevitable.
At the time, everyone was thinking about how to leave a lasting impression on their homeroom teacher. Some suggested giving gifts, others holding a farewell party. In the end, Lu Jiyu came up with a brilliant idea.
"It's really amazing." Chen Meiyu was very moved and surprised after hearing it from her friend.
The week before my homeroom teacher left office, Silin celebrated its Cultural Week. The school organized a youth film screening for the entire ninth grade class in the small auditorium. While the film was niche and the actors weren't exactly famous, it was surprisingly engaging. It captured the struggles and pain of parting, the reluctance to give up, and all the ups and downs of youth in a moving and resonant way.
But that’s not the point.
"The coolest part is at the end of the movie." Chen Meiyu grabbed a chicken leg from the takeaway box and started chewing on it.
The film ended, and the cast slowly appeared. The students were about to leave. The ending song abruptly stopped mid-song. The main actors from the previous film reappeared on the screen.
They stood in the classroom of Class One, Grade Nine, with smiles on their faces, and walked one by one from outside the screen to under the camera.
"Hello, Teacher Li Lang."
"Teacher Li Lang, you have worked hard."
"Teacher Li Lang, we will always love you!"
…
As the cast and crew appeared one by one, more familiar faces flooded the screen. A closer look revealed they were all familiar faces from Class 91. Gradually, everyone's emotions rose, and a group of young people embraced each other, their youthful faces filled with reluctance to leave and anticipation for the future. The passion of youth, the unbridled tears, cannot be quenched, cannot be frozen. They cannot be crushed, nor driven away. We will always fall into the abyss, but even if our once passionate hearts turn to ashes, even with a glance, we can always find the burning youthful heart amidst the monotony of the ashes.
This time, we respect our teachers and the years we have fought side by side.
Life is not in the distant future. Every moment is a trace of our life and love.
Those faces with tears in their smiles rushed into the camera frame, offering their most sincere love in this early ending.
"Li Lang, awesome!"
"Li Lang! I love you!"
"Boss Lang, you are so powerful! Boss Lang, stand up!"
"Lang Lang, you have to be fine even without us. But you can't go and learn piano secretly without our knowledge!"
"Brother Lang! Eighteen years later, you're a brave man again—Fuck, squad leader, why did you hit me on the head?"
The monitor covered the boy who was about to speak with one hand: "If you can't fucking speak, then don't say anything!"
"No - Brother Lang, that's not what I meant! Brother Lang, I love you -." He kept loving her until he was dragged out of the picture, and the student audience sitting below burst into laughter.
Compared to the boys' outgoing nature, the girls were generally more reserved. When the camera panned over, each one of them had red eyes, tears streaming before they could even speak. The boys, who had been generally cheerful, were also overcome by the atmosphere, their tears welling up.
At this moment, a boy in the corner of the camera, the squad leader who had just pulled the others in, stiffened his neck and shouted, "Why are you crying, man?"
"Yes! Don't cry! Let's sing together!" A girl wearing glasses in the front row suggested.
The squad leader started a tune.
Everyone sang Wakin Chau's "True Hero" together.
"What about him?" Jiang Wan shook the half-empty beer can in his hand, and watched the live video sent by her friend on the phone handed to him by Chen Meiyu.
"Lu Jiyu?"
"My friend said he was behind the camera. The one with the video camera."
"It's a shame that such a handsome face doesn't even get a chance to be on camera."
Jiang Wan was also a little surprised.
He had a great sense of the camera, and his camera movements and his ability to capture light and the emotions of the characters all seemed to be of a certain level of skill. She had originally thought he was a photographer they had hired.
"There's actually another part after that." Chen Meiyu rewinded the video's progress bar. "All the students in Class 91 came on stage and sang 'True Heroes' along with the one in the video. It ended up being a full chorus. My friend was so excited that he didn't even have time to record that part. At the end, when Lu Jiyu, their homeroom teacher, came on stage, he was speechless and choked up."
Chen Meiyu shook her head and sighed, her eyes almost sparkling with stars: "I really didn't realize that this handsome guy is so good at romance. It's a pity that he's not my type."
Jiang Wan nodded: "If it were me who was considering this matter, I would suggest donating some money to the class teacher. Romance is good, but romance is not enough to satisfy one's hunger."
"Since we can't be romantic, let's be practical."
Chen Meiyun was speechless for a moment. She immediately picked up her phone and said, "No, I have to tell my friend about your unrealistic thinking."
Jiang Wan shrugged, raised his head and drank the last sip of beer: "You can chat slowly, I'm going to blow dry my hair first."
That night.
Lu Jiyu, who was organizing knowledge points for someone, received a WeChat message from a junior high school classmate who was on the other side of the ocean.
[Jessica: lulu Long time no see. ]
[Gazer: no Chinese no speaking]
[Jessica: Your patriotism didn't affect you at all. You won so many awards in English competitions back then.]
[Gazer: What's up?]
[Jessica: I can't help but tell you a funny story. When your middle school teacher, Li Lang, left, you spent quite a while thinking about how to send him off. In the end, it was you, Master Lu, who came up with the amazingly romantic idea.]
Lu Jiyu knew that she hadn't gotten to the point yet, so he simply replied "Yeah."
[Jessica: I told my friend about this today. Do you know what my friend’s friend said?]
[Jessica: Isn't Li Lang not teaching your class because he's sick? That girl said she'd just donate the money, saying that romance is useless because it won't keep you full, hahaha. I don't know why, but I just feel like this girl is perfect for you and could definitely cure you. How about I ask my friend to introduce you two?]
[Gazer: ...If you're really bored, how about I connect you with Li Mu to chat with you?]
[Jessica: Okay, let’s delete each other.]
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