Chapter 16
Liang Yue, dragging his tired body, and Yu Wei, arm in arm, sat down in their respective stands.
"It's so hot," Yu Wei said, covering her forehead with her hands. "Let's go to the convenience store and buy some ice cream later."
“Okay,” Liang Yue was thinking the same thing. “I don’t even want to eat lunch.”
"Me too."
"I really want to eat grilled sausage and snail rice noodles."
"Me too, and I also have iced watermelon."
The two dreamed about it and agreed to go out for a meal together on the weekend.
When will the 800-meter race be held?
"Let's do it this afternoon. Anyway, I won't even make it to the semifinals," Liang Yue said honestly. "It would be good enough if I didn't give up halfway through the competition. It would be a bit embarrassing to give up halfway through."
"Hey!" Chen Zhuo called out to them from the bottom of the stairs, "Come down, I'll treat you to popsicles."
"Tch, who asked you to treat them?" Yu Wei and he hadn't made up yet.
"Let's go," Shen Zhuo said nonchalantly. "What's the point of staying up there in this heat?"
"Yueyue and I have to write cheerleading speeches. Each cheerleading speech will earn us 2 points for our participation grade."
"Hey," Chen Zhuo strode over, glancing at the blank manuscript in Yu Wei's hand, "Come on, come on, I'll write five copies for each of you later."
"..." Yu Wei put on airs for a while, but couldn't resist the temptation and had to reluctantly agree.
Ji Shuyi and Kang Yuyi chatted idly, while out of the corner of their eye they saw Shen Zhuo and Liang Yue leave arm in arm, the three of them laughing and talking.
"What's wrong?" Kang Yu looked over when he saw him interrupt the conversation, but there was nothing there. The students on the playground were as small as clusters of insects, either in groups or separately, walking together in twos and threes.
"It's nothing," Ji Shuyi shook his head slightly.
"Oh, right, remember to participate in the math league this weekend," Kang Yu reminded him, as he sometimes couldn't contact Ji Shuyi on weekends and didn't know what he was doing.
"Um."
-
Ji Shuyi signed up for the 400-meter men's relay race.
The preliminary round took place around noon.
He arrived at the starting line early to prepare, and needed to put on a red vest; he was number one.
At noon, when the sun was blazing, sweat poured down from the sunspots, and the heat created waves of heat on the ground.
The surrounding scenery suddenly became blurry.
Ji Shuyi experienced a rare, mild, and brief episode of tinnitus.
He stared at the flag in the referee's hand, and the moment the referee put it down, he sprinted forward with all his might.
One hundred meters, only one hundred meters.
He consoled himself.
It's a very short distance.
...
"Ji Shuyi!"
Kang Yu's expression suddenly changed. He watched as Ji Shuyi passed the baton to the next student and then slowly fell down.
Like a flimsy piece of paper.
...
"He probably didn't eat breakfast this morning. He doesn't usually pay attention to his diet. Due to his constitution, he has some heatstroke and mild hypoglycemia. Let him rest for a while. If he still feels unwell after waking up, we'll ask him to take him to a proper hospital for a checkup," the school doctor instructed. Then he hurriedly went to take care of another student who had just been brought in and had also fainted because of the heat. He muttered to himself, "It's so hot. They didn't say they would let the students go back to the classroom to rest."
Previously, some students had asked if they could go back to the classroom to rest because it was too hot, but the school disagreed and mocked them by saying, "They don't study properly when they're studying, and they don't play properly when they're playing."
The students complained bitterly, but had no choice but to follow the instructions.
Ji Shuyi did not eat breakfast this morning.
He only remembered he had changed into a different pair of school pants when he left home. He had almost all his money in another pair of pants, and only had a few dollars on him.
He wouldn't dare spend even a few dollars.
Just tough it out like this.
I've been feeling unwell for a while, but I haven't said anything.
When Ji Shuyi woke up, there was no one beside him.
The school doctor said, "Your friend went to participate in a competition and will be here in a bit."
"Okay, I understand."
He lay in bed, which was narrow, and the pillow smelled of disinfectant and alcohol.
The curtains were short, made of cheap white gauze, and somewhat dirty, as if they hadn't been washed for months. A gentle breeze stirred the curtains, and the shadows of the trees outside fell onto the windowsill.
The sound of athletes' marches could be heard from the distant playground.
Ji Shuyi suddenly thought of Liang Yue's bedroom.
Every time he went to tutor her, he would deliberately avoid looking at her bed and her open wardrobe.
Ji Shuyi remembered that her curtains were light pink, embroidered with small flowers, and there was always a fragrance in the room. Liang Yue said it was perfume that her mother brought back for her from the coast, and she liked to use it in the summer.
On her desk were various plastic dolls and pendant dolls that were a dozen centimeters long, all carefully preserved in transparent acrylic boxes.
Liang Yue once mentioned that those were all her favorite anime and manga characters, along with some standees and badges stored in a storage box.
He once thought that there was no one more interesting than Liang Yue.
All sorts of strange and unusual ideas always pop into her mind.
"I can't think about her anymore," Ji Shuyi said, stopping his increasingly wandering thoughts.
"Ji Shuyi".
Liang Yue peeked out from the doorway, nodding and looking around, "Ji Shuyi, are you there?"
Ji Shuyi paused for a few seconds, then cleared his throat. "I'm here."
"Oh," Liang Yue followed the direction of his voice and came over, holding a beige thermos cup with two circles of flower-patterned stickers on it.
Are you feeling better?
Ji Shuyi stared straight at her, nodding as if he had lost his soul.
“I heard from Xiaoyu, my friend Yuwei, that you have heatstroke.”
She moved closer quietly, pulled up a chair, and sat down on the edge of the bed. "This contains freshly squeezed watermelon juice," she said, placing the cup on the iron table by the bedside. "This thermos isn't new, but it's clean. I haven't drunk from it; it's all clean."
After emphasizing this, Liang Yue explained, "I called my grandma early this morning, and if it's convenient, she can bring me a glass of iced juice."
"I don't need it, you drink it."
"Oh, don't be embarrassed. My grandma treats you like her own grandson. If she knew I didn't take care of you at school, she would scold me."
Ji Shuyi stared at the delicate thermos, thinking about how to take it back more conveniently.
“Oh, right,” Liang Yue took out a bar of Dove dark chocolate the size of a palm from his pocket, “I bought this from the convenience store. I heard that eating chocolate can help with low blood sugar. You should try it.”
After saying that, she stood up. "Yu Wei and Shen Zhuo are still waiting for me on the playground, so I'll be leaving now."
From the time Liang Yue entered until she was about to leave, it was probably less than five minutes.
Ji Shuyi opened his mouth, but then closed it again when he realized he wanted her to stay. "Don't leave the door open for me this week. I'm going to participate in the math league."
“Okay,” Liang Yue’s tone became even more cheerful at the thought of not having to take tutoring, and he sincerely said, “I wish you good grades.”
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
When Kang Yu came in after the match, Ji Shuyi was awake and sitting on a chair next to him with a thermos cup beside him, which clearly did not belong to him.
"Another fan sent you something?" he joked.
"No, it's a friend."
“Oh,” Kang Yu repeated casually, “female friend?”
"Um."
Kang Yu gave an ambiguous "Oh—"
"No, it's a friend I'm not very close to, but who's very kind."
-
Ji Shuyi took the thermos back with him. When packing his schoolbag at school, he was afraid that some hard pen tip or book corner in the bag might scratch the thermos, so he kept it in his hand and took it back with him.
When I got home, I placed it directly in front of my desk.
After taking a shower, Ji Shuyi sat down at his desk while drying his hair, his gaze repeatedly falling on the thermos.
He took the towel, draped it behind his neck, and hesitantly reached out to grasp the cup.
It's very cold.
With a soft 'snap', the cup lid popped open.
Ji Shuyi swallowed a few times, feeling his inner calves begin to spasm, and his back, which had just been washed, began to sweat.
After hesitating for a long time, he brought his nose close to the glass and smelled it. There was no smell. Then—his lips touched the rim of the glass, and the watermelon juice in the glass flowed down with his movement and into his mouth.
After regaining his senses, Ji Shuyi quickly put down the thermos, as if he were hiding some shameful secret.
But his throat greedily swallowed again and again.
It's very sweet.
Intimate images flashed through his mind, and he imagined Liang Yue's soft lips touching the rim of the cup.
The transparent glass window formed a natural mirror in the night, and he looked at himself in the 'mirror,' certain that his face must be flushed red at this moment.
Like a glass of sweet and cool watermelon juice.
-
Liang Yue really didn't know what had gotten into Ji Shuyi lately.
Initially, he only asked her to understand the basic questions, without even looking at the difficult ones. But now he not only wants her to achieve a 90% accuracy rate on the basic questions, but also requires her to go through some steps for the difficult ones.
"It's so difficult."
Frustrated, Liang Yue threw the book aside. It was covered in scribbles and marks from a black ballpoint pen.
The entire paper was so dirty it was unbearable to look at.
Ji Shuyi picked up the notebook she had thrown aside and patiently searched for the answers to each question.
"I don't want to study anymore."
"no."
"Oh, I'm not going to learn it."
"no."
Ji Shuyi had nothing else to say, it all boiled down to two words: "No."
"Can I rest for a while?"
"You just rested for ten minutes."
"...Can I go to the restroom?"
"Yes, but you can't take your phone into the toilet."
"..." Liang Yue was so angry that he choked for a long time, "Then I hate you."
"no."
"..."
"Let's look at this problem," Ji Shuyi said casually, opening his notebook and placing it towards Liang Yue. "The first question is to prove that two planes are perpendicular..."
Liang Yue deliberately went against him, covering his ears and refusing to listen.
As Ji Shuyi spoke, he took her hand down.
Liang Yue glared at him and listened reluctantly.
The agonizing two hours finally passed.
Ji Shuyi breathed a sigh of relief. "Did you understand?"
Liang Yue collapsed weakly onto the bed. "I understand."
Ji Shuyi explained things in such detail that he seemed to want to break down all the knowledge points and feed them to her. Liang Yue closed her eyes, as if she was digesting the formulas and knowledge that had been forcibly stuffed into her brain.
"It's getting colder lately, remember to wear long sleeves under your school uniform tomorrow," Ji Shuyi reminded her before she left, "and drink less ice water."
"I know," Liang Yue replied obediently, but she didn't take it seriously. She was in excellent physical condition and could not be knocked down by a small glass of ice water.
However, there are always unexpected events.
-
Achoo!
Yu Wei tore off a few sheets of toilet paper and handed them to Liang Yue with concern, "What's wrong, Yueyue? Have you caught a cold?"
"No, I don't think so," Liang Yue carefully examined his body and found nothing unusual, except for a slightly itchy nose. "Aside from a slightly stuffy nose, I don't feel uncomfortable at all."
"Then you have a cold."
"But I didn't do anything, how could I have caught a cold? Which bastard infected me?"
"It's also possible that you were using your phone too much."
"...roll."
Liang Yue was afraid of dying, so after class he went to the school doctor and got some cold medicine. He drank one packet and felt listless all afternoon.
It was drizzling when evening self-study ended.
Shen Zhuo offered to take them both home, but Liang Yue's house wasn't on the same route as Shen Zhuo's, and it was in the opposite direction. The road was likely to be congested when it rained, so she felt bad about troubling Shen Zhuo's parents and lied, saying that her grandmother would come to pick her up.
She waited in the classroom, but instead of Yu Xiao, she saw Ji Shuyi.
This was the first time he had come to the classroom to find him.
"What's wrong?" Liang Yue asked familiarly. "Aren't you leaving yet?"
"Together."
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