Chapter 39 I Remembered You Is this a cake a girl gave you?
As Ye Yuying walked towards the podium to receive the award that day, it felt like she was walking on clouds. There was constant applause and shouts all around her, and her homeroom teacher was standing in the audience waving vigorously, but she only felt that everything was light and airy, like a dream that was added on the spot.
Her feet felt like they were walking on cotton, unreal, even a little dizzy. When she stood on the stage, she was still panting with her head down, sweat dripping from her hair, her clothes sticking to her body, and waves of heat rising from her, as if she had just escaped from a closed sauna.
Fearing it was just my imagination, I looked back at the big screen, where my ranking and score were clearly displayed in red on a black background.
[Ye Yuying, first place in women's 400m / 63.04 seconds]
She stared blankly at the screen, as if trying to find some flaw in the numbers. Fearing it was an illusion, she glanced at the staff by the podium to confirm they were indeed waving at her.
Just as he was hesitating, a girl passing by suddenly urged him impatiently, "If you want to receive your award, hurry up and go up. Don't block the way, okay?"
She glanced at the other person out of the corner of her eye, her eyes blank. She didn't understand where the other person's hostility came from, but a few years later, one afternoon in a high school classroom, she suddenly realized.
It turns out I had unintentionally taken something away.
Normally, Ye Yuying would likely have argued with the other person for a while, but today she was still stuck in a state of confusion. Her mind was still stuck on the track she had just run a few hundred meters on, her heart hadn't cooled down from her chest, and her body was sore.
This was also the first time her name appeared on the big screen, and she achieved a ranking she had never encountered before.
At this moment, her thoughts weren't about herself, but rather about—
Is this what it feels like to be the center of attention? Has Cheng Mingdu been experiencing this feeling since he was a child? The envy and jealousy in the crowd are like waves of wheat growing in autumn.
Those emotions and gazes rise and fall in the wind, you can't see who is who, but in this field it seems that you are the only one who is visible, and everyone else has become ears of wheat.
Under such intense scrutiny, she felt somewhat afraid.
The moment she stepped onto the podium, applause erupted again. She blinked, finally realizing that it was a gaze upon her.
Dense and impenetrable, like a net woven from countless gazes, it completely enveloped her.
Suddenly it dawned on me—had he been used to standing in this light since he was a child? The gazing eyes, the sighs of discussion, the envious applause from the audience were perhaps as natural to him as the sunlight shining on him.
But she's different.
This feeling of being the center of attention is not joyful, but rather strange.
She was like a weed mixed into a pea pod, but luckily, she wasn't thrown away before being put into the pot. She accidentally blended into the taste of the peas, worried that she would ruin the dish.
She was uneasy. This one time she looked up might be overshadowed by countless more times she looked down in the future. She knew she was never a lucky one.
If you happen to get lucky once in a while, you'll definitely make up for it with double the bad luck.
She stood ramrod straight, her back slightly stiff, and her palms were ice-cold when she received the medal.
She told herself: Don't dwell too much on this moment, but also, don't forget this moment.
Little did she know that her talent was revealing its clear outline for the first time in the sunlight.
Just as I stepped off the podium, a figure walked out from the crowd.
"Ye Yuying!" Teacher Yang called out from the sidelines, as serious and stern as ever, with the competence that a veteran athlete can never erase.
She paused for a moment, then looked up. Sweat slowly slid down her temples, clinging to her skin like insects crawling, a little itchy, but she dared not scratch. Her eyelashes were wet with sweat, like two gently trembling wings. When she closed her eyes, the sweat stung them so much that she couldn't open them.
Through the stinging sweat, she saw Teacher Yang waving at her.
"Come here for a moment."
She dragged her still-weak legs over, wiping her face as she went, trying her best not to look like she'd been pulled out of sweat.
"Have you ever practiced track and field before?" Teacher Yang asked directly.
"...No." She didn't know what the question implied, but she told the truth.
Ms. Yang nodded. For the first time, a flicker of joy, like a flame, shone in her usually serious eyes: "To achieve this result without any training, do you know how many seconds you ran just now?"
She shook her head.
But what I was thinking was that it was quite gentle for a tough PE teacher like Mr. Yang to occasionally show such a smiling look.
"63.04, 400 meters, top five in the history of the girls' junior high school sports meet." Teacher Yang paused, lowered her voice, and asked, "Are you sure you've never run this before?"
"I used to... run away quite a lot." She smiled, half-jokingly.
Ms. Yang seemed to have a guess in mind, but felt it was somewhat unreasonable. "What occasion would a junior high school student need to run away from?"
Ye Yuying didn't say much, but swallowed and said in a low voice, "Some people will try to bully others."
Ms. Yang paused for a moment. Her eyes were kind, but her personality meant she couldn't offer any comforting words. Instead, she nodded earnestly: "That's training too. People can only truly demonstrate their abilities when they're pushed to their limits."
The homeroom teacher also came over, her expression no longer as cold as usual: "Ye Yuying, would you like to consider joining our school's track and field training team?"
"Special training team?"
"Extracurricular training, school team preparation. If you can maintain this performance, you'll have a chance to participate in the city competition next semester. It will be useful for future college admissions and guaranteed admission."
These words exploded in her mind.
She was originally just a runner who was forcibly pushed onto the track, but it was as if she had broken through a wall and unintentionally entered another world, where she gained a possibility she had never imagined.
"I'll think about it." She had no idea about these things, and after saying that, she turned to leave, her eyes somewhat evasive.
"Think about it quickly," Teacher Yang added. "If you want to go down this path, make plans early. It's your own business."
Ye Yuying paused in her steps.
"Not everyone has the opportunity to rewrite their own life with their own two legs."
After the homeroom teacher had walked away, Ms. Yang's voice slowly drifted over, "If you're really smart, you'll know when to seize the opportunity when fate throws a die, which might take you to the highest point in your life. That's all I have to say."
Ye Yuying listened attentively, not even bothering to wipe the sweat from her eyes, and just nodded quickly, but at that time she did not actually fully understand the sentence.
After leaving, she walked towards the sink.
As the water splashed on her face, she saw her reflection in the water once again.
Just a few minutes ago, I was being ostracized by the whole class, my test paper was trampled on, and I was washing my hands at the sink. Now, it's like... suddenly being shone with light.
She didn't know if track and field would be her future, but she knew one thing:
Perhaps no other choice could be worse than this moment.
She suddenly remembered a few weeks ago on her way home from school, someone had blocked her at the alley entrance. She had run away in her old sneakers, her fingers gripping the straps of her backpack, her heart pounding in her ears. She never imagined then that these insignificant instincts could become evidence of some kind of talent.
—She did indeed escape into another world.
She took a deep breath, water droplets sliding down her chin. She didn't wipe them away, and walked back to the classroom with her back to the mirror. The glue on the soles of her shoes and the water stains in the corridor made a sticky "squeak, squeak" sound.
*
Ye Yuying was given special permission to return to the classroom to rest in preparation for the afternoon's long-distance race.
As soon as I sat down and was about to take out my water bottle to get some water, I noticed a sticky note on my desk.
The handwriting was neat and tidy, yet carried a sense of urgency.
How long do you think you can be so smug about winning a lousy game?
She couldn't recognize whose handwriting it was at a glance. It certainly couldn't have been written by Ge Jie herself. Her specialty was manipulating people, so the person who wrote it was probably under duress.
She examined the note, seemingly able to imagine how easily the other party had become enraged.
After looking at it for a while, she gently tore the sticky note in half and tucked it into her math textbook. The action was not angry, but rather almost gentle.
She seemed to find some enjoyment in this struggle: the higher she climbed, the angrier and more jealous the other party became, and she was happy to see that happen.
Ideally, people would be so angry they couldn't eat or sleep, and they'd be completely exhausted from anger, then everyone would be free.
Her initial thought of taking a break vanished. Instead, she opened her textbook and reviewed the math problems she had worked on the day before, as if nothing had happened. As her fingertips traced the edges of her notes, she even felt a strange sense of satisfaction.
*
The afternoon long-distance running events proceeded as scheduled, including the women's 800-meter race.
This was a project she was assigned to early on, and there were no unexpected changes or pressure to be replaced.
When she walked out of the warm-up area, her gaze was calm, and she no longer subconsciously looked at how the audience was looking at her, as she had before.
Teacher Yang stood by the track, his eyes sweeping over her, and nodded: "Don't rush, treat the first 200 as a warm-up run, remember your rhythm."
"I understand." She nodded, her voice not loud, but each word steady.
The starting gun fired.
She neither false-started nor fell behind. She knew that during long-distance running training, if she focused on her performance at the beginning, her heart would race, which would consume extra energy and prevent her from performing well.
For the first two laps, she maintained second place. She didn't rush to speed up; her steps were steady, her breathing like long, soft threads, neither chaotic nor flustered, gliding along like a shadow alongside the girl in front of her.
As the bell rang for the final lap, the girl in front turned around and saw that Ye Yuying's eyes were calm to the point of being indifferent, like a still surface of water.
However, the reflections in Ye Yuying's eyes were not those specific people, but the track and the finish line.
With 150 meters to go, she began to accelerate. At that moment, her figure seemed to be lifted up by some invisible force, her lower legs pushing off the ground with a crisp rhythm, each landing precise and firm, propelling her whole body to unleash an inertial impact.
She exceeded the limit.
She didn't even care whether she was in first place or not; all she knew was that her body was burning with energy, and she wanted to cross the finish line in one go.
She discovered that if she viewed running itself as a way to get away from toxic people, she was willing to run like crazy; the physical exhaustion and pain were better than living in constant fear.
Ahead lies the finish line, behind lies all the suspicion, contempt, and sarcasm.
But it doesn't matter anymore.
In the end, she came in first in the long-distance race, but her result was not as amazing as in the sprint. Her opponents were all forced to participate, just like her.
*
That evening, Ye Yuying did not encounter Cheng Mingdu at the house; he probably went out on some business. Even the tennis court was empty.
Holding the two award certificates from the school sports meet in her arms, Ye Yuying stared blankly at the empty stadium for a long time before turning around and putting them into her schoolbag.
At that moment, she regained some clarity.
She's not Cheng Mingdu's biological sister, so why would she think he would be pleased or happy about her progress and achievements?
Ultimately, it's because she's still immature, hasn't received any honors since childhood, and lacks composure.
In the middle of the night, facing the blank paper in front of her, her thoughts raced, and she wrote an unusually long amount of paper that day.
I guess I just need an outlet to get my thoughts out. Happy and sad emotions are like delicious and unpalatable food; once they're swallowed, they can't be vomited up and can only wait to be digested by stomach acid.
However, my digestive capacity is limited, so I have to transfer some of it onto paper so that I won't suffer too much from digestion.
I won two prizes today, one for the 400-meter dash and one for the 800-meter dash. The paper was as thin as a discount coupon given away at the supermarket, but I cherished it like a child sticking a certificate on the door. Prizes are meant to be shown to others, but I didn't know who to show them to.
Since you're not here, I can only write it down, write it to the paper, write it to the ink, write it to myself this night.
I ran really fast today, so fast that I couldn't believe it myself.
The wind was against me, the sunlight was scorching, and the shouts around me were chaotic, but I just rushed out without thinking. No one taught me when to exert force, and no one told me how to conserve energy. I just ran on instinct, like those afternoons in the past when I had to run away.
But this time it's different.
I'm not running to escape for my life, I'm sprinting, running to break free from those labels, mocking, and skeptical gazes.
I don't know if I'm talented or not. Teacher Yang says I am, but I don't believe it.
All I know is that I don't want to be trampled on forever. Even winning just once in a school sports meet would be my way of protesting my entire adolescence.
To be honest, I wanted to tell you this. Even if you don't care much. Even if you just smile slightly and say, "Not bad."
I'd be willing to run up to you like a little kid who's received a red flower, head tilted back, forcing a calm expression, yet hoping you'd say something.
But I can't say it. Nor do I dare to say it.
Because I'm afraid that once you know I care about you, you'll never look at me again.
Sometimes, I really feel like a child with a strange illness, afraid to speak, afraid to get close, afraid to make a fuss, and can only wrap my thoughts up layer by layer, hide them in an envelope, and then stuff them into the corner of the drawer.
I know this kind of liking is wrong. And there's no way out for it.
But I still can't help but tell you: I ran really fast today. When the wind whistled past me, I almost thought I could fly.
This may not seem like much, but for me, it represents a step from being unseen to standing in front of others for the first time.
You may never know, but I'm willing to remember this time.
A victory that belongs only to me.
Maybe one day I really won't need to take you as my role model anymore, and I can still do well on my own.
Although it's too early to talk about these things, my new dream is that one day I won't think of you when I wake up in the middle of the night, or that my heart will still beat steadily when I think of you. That way, I can live a good life...
I don't know if I said that against my will.
But today.
I hate to admit it, but I still thought of you today.
--leaf】
After writing all this, Ye Yuying folded the letter and hid it in the inner pocket of her schoolbag, placing it together with the previous letter. She added a number to the letter, as if subconsciously she already knew she wouldn't just write two letters.
After doing all this, the evening was cool, and her hunger finally arrived, so she went downstairs as usual.
As I walked downstairs and onto the corridor, I caught a glimpse of car lights flashing past the entrance to the underground parking garage in the distance.
Around this time, Cheng Mingdu should be back.
But the desire to share was not rekindled. Her initial enthusiasm waned, and she gave up after the second attempt, without needing to wait for the third.
However, she ate the rice ball too slowly, sat at the bar by the floor-to-ceiling window, turned on a small night light, and stared at the direction of the underground parking lot, secretly hoping that he would come back to get a bottle of water or put the cake his friend gave him into the refrigerator.
She wanted him to appear, yet she was also afraid that he would actually appear.
When she thought of cake, what came to mind for the first time?
If it's a party that's all boys, do you often receive cakes...?
On second thought, he was so much older than me, and still an adult, so it seemed... everything was quite normal.
Lost in thought, the rice ball in her hand seemed to carry a sense of loss, making it tasteless.
While lost in her emotions, she briefly drifted off and looked up to see Cheng Mingdu's figure.
He was dressed in the chill of midnight, still wearing his formal attire, and indeed carrying a cake in his hand.
"Aren't you going to sleep yet?" This is a polite, everyday concern, but it doesn't even carry any real meaning.
However, she insisted on taking those words as a sign of care, otherwise, apart from her grandmother and aunt, no one else in her life truly cared for her.
She whispered, "Brother..."
It seemed that from this moment on, she could force herself to believe that she had gained a relative, and like an exorcism, she could drive away the delusions in her heart.
Brother, I've thought of you. Your image has appeared in my mind countless times today.
Cheng Mingdu nodded slightly, seemingly not finding anything wrong with the form of address.
Ye Yuying swallowed the taste in her mouth and said slowly, "I'm a little hungry."
Cheng Mingdu seemed used to Ye Yuying appearing here in the middle of the night, showing no surprise. Instead of putting the cake in the refrigerator, he went straight to the bar and placed the cake in front of her.
"Can you still eat?" His voice was low and soft, and under the cover of night, it carried an almost illusory tenderness that made her heart flutter.
She instinctively wanted to shake her head, because she had never learned to accept the kindness of others since childhood.
But she forced herself to nod and watched as Cheng Mingdu unwrapped the cake in front of her.
Her doubts deepened as she looked at the beautiful hands in front of her, unpacking the package, and the perfectly defined knuckles adorned with fair skin.
I couldn't help but ask casually, "Brother, did a girl give you this cake?"
-----------------------
Author's note: 50 red envelopes!
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