Chapter 4
I've finished my last English exam.
While the class was busy putting their seats back in their original positions and engrossed in discussing their grades, Guan Nan secretly slipped out of the classroom through the back door.
As soon as I went outside, I ran into Chen Aimei face to face.
Chen Aimei asked curiously, "Are you going to the office?"
“Yes,” Guan Nan nodded, hesitating slightly as she spoke about what she was about to do, “I’ll go…”
Chen Aimei had just come out of the office, and based on the limited knowledge she had of her from last year, she could roughly guess what she wanted to do when she went to see the teacher: "Apply to skip evening self-study?"
Guan Nan: "Mm."
"Then you should go quickly, I just saw that Banban is still grading papers in the office."
Guan Nan nodded and smiled at her: "Okay."
Chen Aimei was about to enter the classroom.
“Um,” Guan Nan thought for a moment, then called out to her, “Thank you, Chen Aimei.”
"You know my name?" Chen Aimei was surprised to hear Guan Nan call her name. She didn't expect that Guan Nan, who was always alone and buried in her studies, would remember her name.
Guan Nan blushed and pursed her lips, unable to suppress her shame.
Seeing this, Chen Aimei smiled, not expecting her to be so easily amused.
Walk along the corridor, past Class 2, which is squeezed between the staircases on both sides, and then past Class 3 at the very end. You can see that after a day of exams, each class is busy moving desks and chairs.
At the door, Guan Nan politely knocked and softly said, "Report."
All the teachers in the office looked at her.
"Come in." Banban straightened the test papers, folded them up, and glanced at Guan Nan with a smile: "What's up?"
Guan Nan: "Teacher, I request not to attend evening self-study."
"You're not going to attend evening self-study sessions again?"
Before Banban could continue speaking, a male voice came from behind, "Again?"
Guan Nan paused for a moment, then turned her head blankly.
In the brightly lit office, Jiang Li stood behind her. He was very tall, and although he wasn't crooked, he wasn't standing completely straight either; Guan Nan had to tilt her head back slightly to see his face clearly.
He was casual and carefree, with a nonchalant and lazy demeanor.
He raised his chin and smiled knowingly.
Banban asked him, "Jiang Li, what's wrong?"
"I'm just asking for leave," Jiang Li chuckled lightly and said slowly, "It's alright, teacher, you don't need to worry about me."
Upon hearing this, Banban truly stopped caring about him.
Turning back to Guan Nan, Banban frowned and said earnestly, "Now you're in the second year of high school, unlike the first year when there was nothing to do during evening self-study and you could just not come whenever you wanted. This semester, we need to speed up our lesson preparation, and in the third year, we'll be reviewing all the knowledge from the first to the third year."
In the office, the teachers also chimed in, urging Guan Nan to give up the idea of skipping evening self-study sessions.
Guan Nan was at a loss.
She looked up to the side and was caught off guard by those dark eyes, with upturned eyebrows and curved eyes.
This person was standing right next to her, and if she raised her elbow even slightly, she would get brushed against.
Guan Nan felt more restrained and stood even straighter.
She quietly regained her composure, lowered her gaze, and said softly, "I can learn at home too."
Halfway through her attempt to dissuade her, Banban realized there were still classmates in the office, and out of consideration for Guan Nan's feelings and pride, she abruptly stopped herself from speaking: "Can studying at home be the same as studying at school? Besides, given your family's situation, you—"
Banban glanced at Jiang Li, then pointed to the door, signaling Guan Nan to go out with him.
As a homeroom teacher in the first year of high school, he diligently visited every student's home, knowing each student's specific situation intimately and how to interact with them, carefully protecting their sensitive feelings. As for Guan Nan, she had been his primary focus since the beginning of high school.
Guan Nan is smart but shy, and coupled with her terrible family situation, Banban worries that she might one day take extreme measures.
"Is it your... aunt who told you not to go to evening self-study?" There weren't many people in the stairwell at the moment, and the motion sensor lights were off, so Banban couldn't see the expression on her face.
Guan Nan lowered her eyes, stood quietly against the wall, and did not speak.
"If you have any problems or difficulties with your studies, you can talk to the teacher at any time. After all, for students, studying is the most important thing right now. Your grades really can't be affected. What if it affects your college entrance exam and your future?" Class monitor, being a politics teacher, spoke with a good balance and without making anyone feel offended. "If you can't say it yourself, then the teacher will do some ideological work for you?"
None of her blood relatives had thought so much about her. A teacher, who could have simply ignored her, was worried about her grades and concerned about her future.
Guan Nan bit her lip and forced a smile, "No, teacher, it's just that I don't want to go. It has nothing to do with anyone else."
The last bus departs at 22:30.
The nights of late summer and early autumn were slightly chilly.
Jiang Li came out waving his leave slip, holding his phone in one hand as he made a call, saying, "I've been taking leave all morning."
He heard someone say something, and he gave a lazy "hmm." As he turned to walk towards the bus stop, he noticed someone sitting on a bench.
The lights on both sides of the platform were on, but the two green benches in the middle appeared dim and lackluster due to the refraction of light.
The person lowered their head, sat there as if apologizing to a child, and lightly wiped their eyes.
A strange loneliness.
His phone volume was a bit loud, and the woman's voice coming from it reached the man's ears.
"Your mom said you can treat her for just one morning."
“Hmm,” Jiang Li said, stopping at the platform with one hand in his pocket, still with that casual demeanor, “I only treated you for the morning.”
On the phone, the girl worriedly reminded him, "She's getting married tomorrow, so don't cause any trouble."
"I know. You can hang up now."
Jiang Li hung up the phone, but when she turned around, her gaze met the one looking at her. She smiled wryly.
Whether intentional or unintentional, eavesdropping is unethical, especially when caught in the act. It's always embarrassing to overhear someone's private affairs, particularly such private topics.
The mindset, which had remained unchanged, suddenly turned into one of insecurity after a period of adjustment.
Guan Nan looked at him and hesitated before saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to listen."
Jiang Li stared at her, as if pondering the truth of her words. After a few seconds, just as Guan Nan was about to collapse, he lazily raised an eyebrow and then unhurriedly put his phone into his pocket.
Guan Nan thought the matter was over.
After a while, I suddenly heard him say lazily, "We're even."
After saying that, he sat down on the stool next to him, an arm's length apart.
Guan Nan lowered her head, somewhat stunned.
When she belatedly realized what was happening and turned around, perhaps out of boredom while waiting for the bus, Jiang Li pulled out a coin from somewhere and started playing with it in his hand.
He's not as good at playing with books as he is at playing with coins.
Snot started running down her nose again. Guan Nan didn't bother watching his amazing technique anymore and quickly grabbed a tissue. Whether there was someone else around, or because the other person was Jiang Li, Guan Nan didn't know. In any case, she felt extremely uncomfortable blowing her nose and was extra careful about her image.
A bus was speeding by in the distance, and Jiang Li turned his head to remind her, "The bus is here."
"Oh," Guan Nan said without even looking at the bus number, standing up and walking towards the stopped bus, her voice still nasal, "Thank you."
Jiang Li chuckled softly, "You should thank me."
They boarded the train one after the other; there weren't many people in the carriage.
The two sat in the back row by the window, separated by a wide distance, like the Chu-Han border.
The streetlights were very long, and the light slanted into the window made the two figures overlap, then slowly fall and merge, gradually stretching longer and longer until they disappeared into the darkness.
The light was very dim, and in the dim light, I couldn't see her face at all.
It was at this moment, in the light, that Jiang Li could see her still reddened eyes.
A nasal voice, a sob, and reddened eyes.
Is this... after you just finished crying?
Jiang Li was stunned for a moment, thinking that he had made her cry with his words, and didn't know what to do. He remained silent for a while before realizing that Guan Nan had been crying before he came out.
this······
He had never encountered this situation before and didn't know what to do.
The next second, Jiang Li sat down next to her and patted her on the shoulder.
Guan Nan turned around blankly: "Huh?"
He sat behind her, the flickering light highlighting the deep contours of his features, making them appear somewhat indistinct.
Then they heard Jiang Li point ahead and say, "You got on the wrong bus."
"·····"
In an instant, she realized what was happening and hurriedly grabbed her schoolbag, ready to get off the bus.
The moment Guan Nan stood up, she noticed that the back of her school uniform was being tugged. Turning around, she saw a mischievous glint in his eyes. He slightly raised his brow and said leisurely, "Just kidding. You didn't go to the wrong school."
Although slow to react, Guan Nan had some doubts about what he said this time.
Jiang Li pointed out the window, indicating that she should look for herself.
She didn't pay attention to the bus number before getting on the bus. After getting on, she found a window seat and started to clear her mind. She didn't deliberately look at the familiar streets and stops the bus passed.
In addition, Jiang Li's earlier statement, "We're even," made Guan Nan even more convinced that he might have deliberately reminded her that she had gotten on the wrong bus.
Guan Nan hesitated for a moment, looked out the car window, and only breathed a slight sigh of relief after confirming that she hadn't gotten on the wrong car.
But then I thought about it again.
If she didn't get on the wrong bus, then wouldn't it be Jiang Li who got on the wrong bus?
It was so late, and there probably weren't any more buses running. Guan Nan couldn't help but wrinkle her nose at the thought.
She got home late and no one answered the door, so Jiang Li...
The bus stopped in Tangzi Lane.
The two weren't too far apart; he followed her slowly, just a few steps away.
Guan Nan vaguely heard his phone vibrate, and amidst the soft rustling of the phone against the fabric, he seemed to have cut off an incoming call.
Walking uphill for about two-thirds of the way, Guan Nan turned around.
Jiang Li stood in front of her, his hands in his pockets, his posture casual and relaxed.
Perhaps it was the darkness that blurred his features, but when Guan Nan looked up, one could clearly see his sharp neckline, his almost perfect, deep profile, and the slightly protruding Adam's apple that appeared during his youth.
The night seemed to have no end.
She saw it all too openly.
Guan Nan had glanced at him briefly on the podium, and although she never showed it on her face, she had once looked down on him.
But now, when this person is actually standing in front of her, she finds that she is not as averse to being his classmate as she had imagined, nor does she dislike him as much as she had thought.
There was even a strange sense of unease in my heart.
Guan Nan's eyelashes trembled slightly as she mustered her courage and called out his name:
"Jiang Li".
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