Chapter 4 Berlin is like the winter sun.
With a snap.
The fried chicken in Gao Hexin's hand fell onto the desk.
So what's the current situation?
They were gossiping and got to the part where they were complaining, and then the person in question happened to overhear them?
This is so embarrassing.
The surroundings fell silent without anyone noticing; the air seemed to be sucked away in an instant, and even the soft whirring of the fan sounded particularly abrupt.
As she was pondering how to help Ning Jiuyuan get through this, she saw that Qiao Bolin's expression was normal, as if she had just imagined that soft laugh.
He held a thin piece of paper in his well-defined hand, on which the printed names of the students in Class 8 of Grade 11 were faintly visible.
Only the last line, the girl's name, was handwritten, the handwriting was elegant and smooth, with a slight sharpness in the strokes, and the light from the incandescent bulb could even vaguely reveal the ink stains that were not yet dry.
It was probably because he personally added her name to the register, Qiao Bolin thought.
When a name is associated with a person, it happens naturally, even to oneself.
Li Mingyuan, who came in after him, didn't know what had happened before. He looked completely naive and innocent, holding the goddess's book, and leaned over to Qiao Bolin to glance at the roster.
"So, Old Qin asked you to take the roster to the office to add new students' names."
He suddenly realized.
Qi Ruiheng took leave due to a leg injury, so Lao Qin is treating Qiao Bolin as the squad leader for a day.
After Li Mingyuan finished speaking, there was no response, which was rare. Following the subtle gazes of the people around him, he turned to the window and was inexplicably stunned.
On the third-floor windowsill, a butterfly rested quietly, its wings slightly open. Sunlight pierced through its translucent wings, casting an irregular shadow between the light and shadow of the classroom.
The shadow fell precisely between Ning Jiu's bare shoulders and neck, the pale gray halo imprinted on her snow-white skin. With each breath, her collarbones dipped slightly, her neck slender, creating an extreme contrast of warm and cool tones at the boundary of light and contour—it was as if—
Spring light danced gracefully on her collarbone.
In Li Mingyuan's memory, the undisputed school beauty of Jianglan Experimental School was Song Yunhe from the liberal arts experimental class. Her first love face was simply a heartbreaker for straight men, and she even resembled the female lead in a very popular idol drama last year. She could always see countless suitors bringing her food and drinks.
But Ningjiu gives people a really...
It's the kind of feeling that's hard to describe.
For the first time, he regretted not having studied Chinese well with Lao Qin.
The butterfly fluttered its wings, and the hawk hovered from the girl's collarbone to the corner of her beautiful eye, paused for two seconds, and then quietly flew away.
Ning Jiu blinked involuntarily, as if the gloom that had been pressing down on her expression had finally dissipated, before raising her eyes again to meet Qiao Bolin's gaze directly.
For her, being caught talking badly by the person involved is nothing to be ashamed of.
But the key point is that the person involved remained calm.
There was no avoidance, no exposure; they simply faced it head-on with composure.
This unwittingly put her in a passive position.
Gao Hexin broke the silence at the right moment, introduced the new classmate, glanced at the attendance list in his hand, and asked casually, "Did you bring this to find someone?"
Qiao Bolin glanced at Ning Jiu and then looked away, his tone unchanged from when he was in the corridor.
"Teacher Qin said that the new meal cards will not be issued until the day after tomorrow. New students can pick up their summer and autumn school uniforms today. The location is on the east side of the first floor of the auditorium."
They simply skipped over what had just happened.
Upon hearing that it concerned her, Ning Jiu didn't say much and walked towards the back door of the classroom.
The desks in the classroom were arranged neatly, with only enough space between them for one person to pass sideways.
As she passed by Qiao Bolin, she slightly hunched her shoulders, trying to minimize the distance between them, but unexpectedly he suddenly turned around.
He was a head taller than her, his forearms taut and hot, brimming with pent-up energy.
Unlike the gentle impression he gives off.
The moment their bodies touched, they both paused in surprise, then quickly and tacitly moved away.
Ning Jiu looked up, and Qiao Bolin quickly understood the confusion in her eyes.
"It's very crowded today, and many of them are first-year high school students, so it's not easy for them to ask for directions."
Ning Jiu: "So?"
"So, Lao Qin asked me to go with you."
Jianglan Experimental School isn't very big, but there's still a distance between the auditorium and the teaching building area. Old Qin's advice wasn't unreasonable, and Ning Jiu had no reason to refuse.
She thought that Qiao Bolin would be like Gao Hexin, exchanging greetings or asking questions as a new classmate along the way.
But the result was that nothing came of it.
Aside from their self-introductions in the classroom, the atmosphere between the two was eerily quiet, with enough space between them for another person to squeeze in.
Ning Jiu didn't say anything, nor did Qiao Bolin.
On the way from the teaching building to the auditorium, Ning Jiu could feel the gazes around her sweeping over the people next to her, then withdrawing, then sweeping over again.
If each glance is a feather, then Joel Bolton's body would probably have accumulated into a small mountain of downy feathers.
She suddenly wondered if it was the right decision for Lao Qin to have Qiao Bolin come and help her get her school uniform.
After lunch, the new students lined up to go to the auditorium to pick up their school uniforms. Because it was their first time at the new school, many students in the line looked around curiously, and some who knew each other from junior high school even started to play around, laughing and pushing each other.
Although Ning Jiu was walking on the far side, she was still knocked off balance by a boy who pushed her.
The other person apologized with a grin, then quickly squeezed to the front of the line to continue joking and playing around.
Her skin is thinner than others, and it usually turns red for a long time if you pinch it even slightly. When she bumped her knee, a bright red mark appeared almost immediately on the protruding patella.
Ning Jiu endured the pain in her knee and listened to the boy in front of her making jokes. Just as she was about to give him the middle finger, she felt a gaze sweep over her.
Their eyes met, unable to look away.
Qiao Bolin gently brushed his hand over her half-raised fingers and paused.
One second, two seconds.
His lips curled up almost imperceptibly, like an unconscious, polite curve.
She narrowed her eyes, about to say something, when that annoying boy slowed down the group again and playfully bumped into her.
Ning Jiu remained unmoved this time, and even his expression did not change.
When the boy's foot was still three or four centimeters away from her, she dodged ahead of him, suddenly raising her leg—
Precise and decisive, it landed on the most prominent bone on the person's foot.
"Damn it, who stepped on me because they didn't have eyes?!"
The foot stomped down without any mercy, and the pain spread across the instep. The boy let out a strange cry and turned to look for the culprit, but the surging crowd made his vision waver and he could never find the target.
It took him a while to find the right direction, but he was clearly stunned when he saw Ning Jiu's eyes and eyebrows.
The girl stood straight, her features clean and bright, her expression quiet and almost docile, as if she had just looked up from her book.
He instinctively ruled out her possibility, and could only grumble and swear as he pushed his way forward, only to be dragged by his companions to catch up with the line ahead.
Ning Jiu was still waiting for that person to come and cause trouble, but after waiting for a long time, he still hadn't come, and he felt a shadow falling down.
She looked up and found that Qiao Bolin had somehow gotten to stand to her side.
The two maintained a distance that was neither too close nor too far, the perfect space acting as a barrier.
He seemed to block out the noise of the passing queues, significantly reducing the overall noise level.
Noticing that Ning Jiu was observing him, Qiao Bolin turned his head and looked at her with a questioning gaze.
Ning Jiu gave him a harmless smile.
"Would you believe me if I said I didn't do it on purpose?"
The words were ambiguous, and it was unclear whether they referred to the incident just now or something else.
But no matter what happened, it seemed that the word "unintentional" had nothing to do with it.
It sounds more like a provocation than an explanation.
She had expected Qiao Bolin to be sarcastic or at least expose her, but to her surprise, the boy nodded seriously, with an expression that said, "What else?"
"certainly."
His tone was even more sincere than hers.
......
We've met our match.
When they arrived at the entrance of the auditorium, Qiao Bolin stopped outside to wait for her. Ning Jiu entered the auditorium and walked in the east direction.
The time when I first entered high school was probably the happiest time of my entire three years of high school.
Their eyes were filled with a desire to explore new things and a beautiful vision of the future, a sense of novelty that had not yet been drowned out by piles of questions and dense review materials.
Ning Jiu recalled that when she was in Lingcheng, Yuan Shu had not yet gone to teach psychology at Humboldt University, and the bar in Lingcheng was still open. She seemed to have had a similar period of time.
The school uniform collection lane was divided into two rows. Ning Jiu calculated the distance between the two rows and stood on the right side. She waited for more than twenty minutes and then got her school uniform for both spring and autumn.
Summer school uniforms are the most common blue and white stripes. Autumn school uniforms are divided into two sets. One set is a light gray sports jacket with the Jianglan Experimental School logo. The other set is more formal, a European-style skirt, but it is probably only worn a few times during the three years of high school.
"Oh, you're a second-year high school student." The teacher distributing the school uniforms looked at Ning Jiu in surprise, consulted with the teacher next to her, and then handed Ning Jiu three sets of school uniforms. "There are three other second-year high school students who ordered new school uniforms. They live on the same floor as you. Take them with you."
After collecting her school uniform, Ning Jiu carried four bags out the door, but did not see Qiao Bolin.
She sneered inwardly, thinking it was pointless, and was about to return the way she came when a lazy chuckle suddenly came from behind her.
When do you think she'll see you?
"When you're not blocking my way."
Ning Jiu turned her head and saw a wild-looking boy lazily draping his arm over Qiao Bolin's, but the latter moved his hand away without hesitation.
Qiao Bolin: "Go ahead and visit as you please. This isn't Beijing, I don't have time to entertain you."
Another boy chuckled: "Putting everything else aside, there are so many people at your school. I just went for a walk around the auditorium, and I felt like I was going to be squeezed flat."
The two were tall and slender, with striking faces, attracting a lot of attention as they walked back and forth.
Just then, another class finished receiving their school uniforms and poured out from the other end of the corridor, making a ruckus. Footsteps, shouts, and the smell of sweat all rushed towards her. Ning Jiu subconsciously stepped aside, quickly circled around to a corner, and stood against the wall, waiting for the crowd to pass.
Qiao Bolin's voice leaked in through the gaps in the voices, but was drowned out before it could be pieced together.
After the noise subsided, Ning Jiu saw him walk through the crowd and take the three extra school uniforms from her hands.
Qiao Bolin glanced at the names registered on the plastic bag: "Why did you take so many?"
"The teacher said that three other students in the second year of high school also ordered new school uniforms and asked me to help deliver them."
"I'll deliver it."
The tone was very natural, without ambiguity or politeness, only a sense of entitlement.
"I know all three of them, I can just hand them over on my way."
"......"
At first I thought he was faking it, but it turns out he really didn't care what she said.
It's true that you can tell at a glance that someone comes from a wealthy family.
Ning Jiu's little habit started acting up again, and she mentally defined Qiao Bolin—
Solid yet humble, a prodigy nurtured in a happy family environment.
A person with good manners will not hold a grudge if someone speaks ill of them, nor will they embarrass the other person.
I am used to extending kindness when appropriate, but I will also clearly refuse if someone confuses kindness with other feelings.
What does it resemble...?
She looked up; the midsummer sun was blazing and intense, and the air felt as if it were encased in a heated glass dome.
The sunlight from above was unobstructed, pressing down directly, making even breathing feel scalding.
He is somewhat like it, yet in some ways completely opposite.
Such a bright and dazzling person, yet when their gaze falls upon everyone, they cannot feel any warmth.
George Berlin, like the winter sun.
A note from the author:
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Xiao Qiao, please remember your polite demeanor now. I won't say who will become clingy, jealous, and like a puppy once you get to know them better. [heart emoji]
xxy is still a greenhorn, haha [doge emoji]. Welcome everyone to click on the column and savor the delicious completed "Florence Symphony"~
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P.S.: Minors are not allowed in the bar, but this bar is actually owned by Xiao Jiu's father, so it's just a place to reminisce about the past.
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