He had an unruly black wolf-tail hairstyle, with a few strands of hair stuck to his forehead by sweat, and his light blue eyes were a bit careless and lazy.
Zhang Xuanhua was walking out with a few boys, shoulder to shoulder, carrying a schoolbag on one shoulder. They were talking and laughing loudly, and occasionally raised their hands to smooth the ends of their hair that were messed up by the wind.
His eyes swept over Mu Xinrong without any special lingering, just like looking at any ordinary classmate.
A little further outside the school gate, on the roadside, there was an eye-catching motorcycle parked.
Zhao Pingchi was wearing a high-end imitation of designer clothes and had his hair combed sleekly. He was leaning against the car door, talking to the people in the car with an attentive look on his face.
The person sitting in the car was Xi Wanrong. She had on exquisite makeup and wore a new dress of the season. She was leaning lazily on the back of the chair, applying her lipstick in front of a small mirror.
Occasionally, he would respond perfunctorily to Zhao Pingchi, but his eyes would drift towards the school gate, as if looking for a more interesting target.
They talked about the latest luxury goods and parties, without a trace of memory of a cold boy or a silent figure in their words.
Time flows silently amid the noisy chirping of cicadas and the bustling voices of people, with a scorching heat.
Bai Zhiye's expectant eyes searched again and again among the surging crowd.
The face that she subconsciously expected to appear, which she herself perhaps had not yet clearly defined, never appeared.
Her delicate brows knitted imperceptibly, she glanced down at her watch, and finally sighed softly and almost inaudibly, as if blowing away a wisp of non-existent dust.
She turned to Ning Xiwan and Duan Shuce, her tone returning to her usual calm: "Sister Xiwan, Brother Shuce, he might not be able to come because of something urgent. I'm going to the library first."
"Oh, okay, go ahead, and be careful." Ning Xiwan nodded with a smile.
Bai Zhiye held the book, turned around, and his straight back quickly blended into the crowd of people leaving school.
Her steps were leisurely, and her slender figure flashed around the corner of the crowded street and then disappeared, as if she had never stopped to wait for anything.
"Let's go too." Ning Xiwan naturally took Duan Shuce's arm and pulled him towards the ice cream shop.
"Go get one for that greedy little cat Jinyue as well. She's sure to like the matcha flavor."
Her tone was light, trying to dispel the subtle sense of stagnation brought about by the moment of waiting.
Duan Shuce nodded silently, letting her pull him forward. His steps were steady, but his gaze, like an invisible probe, swept across the bustling school gate, across those faces brimming with youthful energy, familiar with each other, and laughing.
There is no night stream.
There is no Chao Youye either.
No one remembers them.
Forgetting is the price of restarting.
Strangers are the eternal ending.
The sun is still scorching and the cicadas are still chirping.
This summer, everything is as usual.
It was as if those two names, along with the final battle that tore through space, annihilated existence, and exchanged itself for the ordinariness of this moment, had never left the slightest trace in this bustling midsummer world.
Duan Shuce withdrew his gaze and pushed up his glasses. The lenses reflected a cold light in the sunlight, completely covering up the heavy, boundless emptiness and dead silence deep in his eyes.
Like a well-programmed precision machine, he followed Ning Xiwan's footsteps and blended into this ordinary yet bustling midsummer afternoon.
Deep in a quiet alley a few hundred meters away from the school gate.
The two figures stood there silently, like ink stains blending into the shadows.
Ye Qingliu was wearing a simple dark T-shirt and trousers. He was thin and his face was still pale from blood loss.
The wound on his forehead was hidden by his hair, and his gray-blue eyes looked calmly at the noisy torrent of youth outside the alley.
Ye Qingliu saw Ning Xiwan and Duan Shuce under the shade of the tree, saw Bai Zhiye's back as she left alone, saw Hua Jinyue's cheerful smile, saw Mu Xinrong pushing his bicycle and chatting with his classmates...
Every face is familiar, and every face is strange.
Their eyes swept across the alley without any pause, without any ripples, as if sweeping through the air.
Observer records indicate that the reset was successful.
The anchor point is stable, the variable "Bai Zhiye" exists in a stable form, and the threat is eliminated.
He slowly withdrew his gaze.
Chao Youye stood half a step behind him, her black clothes seeming to isolate her from the heat from the outside world, her figure as tall and straight as an eternal iceberg.
There was no expression on Chao Youye's face, and there was eternal silence in her bottomless black eyes.
He also saw everything outside the alley and saw Mu Xinrong's sunny smile.
In that smile, there was no dependence or trust in him, only pure and simple happiness that belonged to this age.
The rule incarnation confirmed that the world line entropy value is stable and the abnormal variable "Mu Xinrong" is in normal state.
There was no communication between the two.
Ye Qingliu took a last look at the noisy sunshine outside the alley.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, he turned and walked towards the deeper, quieter shadows of the alley.
There was a barely perceptible sluggishness in his steps, a sign of a serious injury that had not yet healed, but his back was straight and resolute.
Chao Youye's gaze lingered on Ye Qingliu's back for a fleeting moment before she silently turned and followed him. His footsteps were silent, as if he were walking in another dimension.
Two figures, one in front and one behind, walked silently in the narrow, quiet alley, isolated from the hustle and bustle of the summer outside.
The sunlight was cut by the high walls, casting only a short shadow under their feet, which was quickly swallowed up by the darkness ahead.
No goodbye.
No stopping.
No looking back.
The footsteps were amplified by the silence of the alley, and were quickly swallowed up by the deeper shadows.
They just walked, towards the eternal cold record of the observer, towards the eternal silence of the embodiment of rules.
Like two meteors passing through different orbits, after a brief intersection, collision and threat of annihilation, they each fall into the vast and eternally lonely universe.
Behind them, the noisy and ordinary midsummer world that they had forcibly pulled back on track did not leave any trace of their existence.
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