Rainy Day
After a morning of classes, they came to the dessert shop. Lin Luo quietly looked for Fu Xingchuan, but he was not there.
They sat down at the far left seat, waiting for the waiter to serve their food. A small TV was hanging on the off-white wall opposite them, broadcasting the news.
"According to our weather station's report, Typhoon Haitang made landfall on the coast of Huaicheng at 11:35 a.m. on March 17, with winds reaching force 12 or above. It is expected to enter our city on the evening of March 17."
"During the typhoon period, please take precautions against flooding, reduce travel and outdoor work, stay away from dilapidated buildings, power poles, billboards, trees, cranes, manhole covers, and river sections where floods may occur. Do not stay near bridges, culverts, tunnels, or underground garages."
In the video, a Huaicheng reporter, wearing a thin raincoat, was speechless in the raging storm. Outside, the sky was also getting gloomy, and a storm was about to come. Lin Luo couldn't help but shiver.
"It looks like it's going to rain and a typhoon is coming. We should have a holiday tonight!" Zhu Changyu said excitedly.
Xu Yangyang began to pray for rain, "Please hurry up! I don't want to go to evening self-study, I want to go home."
Lin Luo was absent-minded, holding a cup of hot milk tea in her hand, biting the straw but not taking a sip.
Qi Yao came back from outside, wearing a leather jacket and holding a helmet in his arms. Seeing Zhu Changyu, he stopped and asked, "Changyu, did Chuan tell you that we're canceling our performances this month?"
"He told me on QQ." Xu Yangyang accidentally got cream on her sleeve, and Zhu Changyu took out a piece of paper to help her wipe it off.
"Where has he been this time? I haven't seen him in the past few days." He asked casually, and Lin Luo pricked up his ears to listen.
Qi Yao saw his actions and curled his lips, "I don't know, probably trying to capture Ruan Ye."
Perhaps because there was a stranger around, Xu Yangyang awkwardly took her hand back and wiped it herself, her face flushed.
"Oh." Zhu Changyu saw her face, covered his mouth and asked with a smile: "Are you hot? Why is your face as red as a monkey's butt?"
Qi Yao looked over when he heard her words. Xu Yangyang felt even more embarrassed and kicked him under the table. The two elementary school students started fighting.
Lin Luo wanted to know more about Fu Xingchuan, but there was a waiter at the counter named Qi Yao, who answered and walked away.
Ruan Ye and Lin Qi silently took note of the performance, although they didn't know what the connection was between them.
It started raining as soon as they returned to the classroom. The bell rang and Cheng Kaizhong came in soaked. Many people couldn't hide their smiles. He glanced at the people under the podium and seemed angry.
"You still have the nerve to laugh! Our class's results in this monthly exam were very unsatisfactory. There were even students ranked over 800th in the grade. This is simply a disgrace to all the teachers in the class."
Lin Luo tried her best to block out his voice, took out the math test paper from the drawer and corrected it with a red pen.
"Regarding math, the lowest score was 47. I don't know how I got that. I think it didn't rain during the two days of the exam. How could my brain be flooded?"
"Don't laugh at individual students after class. Maybe one of them is really mentally retarded... Then you should have told me you were mentally retarded! We don't accept problem students like that at No. 1 Middle School."
The sound of the dripping rain could not cover up Cheng Kaizhong's humiliating voice. The whole class burst into laughter. Zhu Changyu fell asleep on the table. Xu Yangyang gritted her teeth and glared at Cheng Kaizhong several times.
Lin Luo lowered her head. The window was not closed and a few drops of rain came in, leaving a few water stains on the test paper, smearing the red ink. Her hands were shaking unconsciously.
The Dean of Studies passed by on patrol outside the door. Cheng Kaizhong cleared his throat and said in a low voice, "Whoever said that knows what's going on. Stand outside the door with your papers. We're about to start class."
Lin Luo stood outside the door for two consecutive math classes. The wind howled and the rain fell harder and harder. The window beside her was banging, and the door was slammed from the inside. She clenched her fists to hold back the tears.
During the ten-minute break in the middle of get out of class, the students came out to watch the rain and walked back and forth in front of her. Lin Luo lowered her head and let go of her hand, and saw a row of deep red nail marks on the palm of her hand.
"Are you okay? He must have seen that you didn't sign up for the class and is targeting you." Xu Yangyang came out to comfort her, pulling out a handful of candy from her pocket and stuffing it into her hand. The colorful packaging covered the red mark. "Your lips are so pale. Don't faint from hypoglycemia."
As Xu Yangyang was talking, two girls came over diagonally opposite them. They looked at Lin Luo with a mocking look in their eyes. Xu Yangyang's expression changed instantly, "What are you looking at?"
Lin Luo held her back, so she didn't rush to the two girls to continue questioning them. The girls quickly left, and Lin Luo followed that direction and met Tong Yun's gaze.
Xu Yangyang also saw it and waved at her while calling out, "Tong Yun."
Tong Yun was holding a stack of exercise books in his arms. He walked straight into Class 9 without responding to her. Lin Luo felt a little disappointed and lowered her eyes again.
"Being punished to stand?"
It was Tong Yun's voice.
Lin Luo raised her eyes and saw Tong Yun standing in front of her and asked, the homework book in her arms was missing.
"Yeah." Her nose felt sore and her eyes turned red.
"I've stood before, too. When I was in the first year of high school, I failed physics and was punished by standing for the entire morning!"
"Do you have any experience to share?" Xu Yangyang asked.
Tong Yun patted Lin Luo's straight back and said with a smile, "You don't have to be so honest! Be lazy when you need to be."
Lin Xi finally relaxed, but her legs had actually been sore for a long time.
With the two of them accompanying her, people passing by paid no attention to Lin Luo, thinking that it was just a few girls chatting at the door during break. She suddenly felt less embarrassed.
The last physical education class in the afternoon was changed to self-study. The classroom was quiet, or to be more precise, dead.
Lin Luo copied the wrong questions. Before the exam, Cheng Kaizhong explained the questions three times but she still got them wrong, so she was punished to copy them a hundred times.
After copying it for the 30th time, her hands were tired and she stopped writing. She stared at the answer on the paper using the method Cheng Kaizhong had explained in class. She felt it was very complicated and wondered if it could be simplified, but after ten minutes she couldn't think of any solution.
Just before get out of class was about to end, a teacher came to the back door and said, "Due to the typhoon, evening self-study is cancelled tonight. Everyone, please be careful on your way home."
The classroom was bustling with activity, and everyone started packing their bags. Zhu Changyu, who had slept all afternoon, woke up, stretched, and turned to ask Xu Yangyang, "Did you bring your umbrella?"
She shook the umbrella in her hand. "Of course, you didn't bring it?"
"I forgot."
"Then come with me! My mom is here to pick me up today. I'll give you the umbrella once I get in the car."
"OK."
"Ring, ring, ring~" It's time to go home from school. The front and back doors of the classroom are blocked and it's very crowded.
Xu Yangyang packed her schoolbag leisurely. Seeing that Lin Xiao hadn't moved, she asked her, "Xiao Xiao, did you bring an umbrella?"
"Well, I want to finish copying this question before I leave."
"Then we'll leave first. Don't stay too late and go home early."
"good."
Lin Xiao didn't continue copying the question, but instead found the test paper and corrected it. Although she already knew the answer, she still stumbled as she redid it.
After redoing all the wrong questions on the test paper, she was still stuck with the questions she had to copy as punishment, which gave her a headache.
She looked up and saw that the rain outside the window still showed no sign of stopping and the sky had already darkened.
Fearing that the bus would stop running, she hurriedly packed her schoolbag. When she stood up from her seat, she found that besides her, Ruan Ye was still in the classroom. He seemed to be troubled by a math problem.
"Ruan Ye, can I ask you a question?" This was the first time she spoke to him.
Ruan Ye refused without even looking at it, saying in a cold tone, "No."
"Okay." Lin Luo didn't force him.
Walking out of Shouxin Building in the heavy rain, Lin Luo felt inexplicably happy. She liked the sound of raindrops falling on the umbrella, and liked the raindrops falling like needles under the dim light of the street lamps.
The accumulated water on the ground submerged her shoes, and the wind mercilessly splashed water on her clothes and pants, but the smile on her face was particularly bright, as if her body and mind had been cleansed.
"Lin Luo." Zhu Changyu called her under the eaves of the security booth at the school gate.
Lin Luo saw a row of people standing around him to avoid the rain. There was an electric bike parked not far away. Xu Yangyang was sitting on the bike wearing a one-piece raincoat. The person riding the bike should be her mother.
As Lin Luo approached with an umbrella, she heard Xu Yangyang's mother say, "You should make friends with good students, and stop hanging out with the worst students all day."
"That Zhu Changyu? At the last parents' meeting, your homeroom teacher singled him out for sleeping in class all day. He's just uneducated and unlearned. Stay away from people like him and don't let them lead you astray."
"And your new deskmate, the transfer student Lin...Lin Qiao, I saw her grades. It's only a monthly exam, but if she did so poorly, I'd be pissed off if I were her parents. She's not the type to be friends with."
The two people who were named remained silent and looked at each other.
Xu Yangyang finally found the hole in the raincoat, poked her head out, and said sternly, "Mom, don't talk about my friend like that."
She then spoke to them without making any sound, but Lin Qi recognized her lips as saying, "Don't mind."
Zhu Changyu quietly walked to the side and pulled Xu Yangyang's raincoat in the rain, covering all her clothes.
Her mother turned the electric car key to start the car. "Am I wrong? You'd better listen to me. I've walked more roads than you've eaten salt. This is all for your own good. I won't harm you."
The rain was so heavy that their figures became increasingly blurred. The curve of Lin Luo's mouth became smaller and smaller, and soon disappeared. Her originally bright eyes became dull.
"It's raining so hard. I'm waiting for my dad to pick me up. Why don't you say anyone is coming to pick me up?" Zhu Changyu returned to the eaves and wiped the rain off his coat with his hands.
Lin Qi blinked and said softly, "No, I'll take the bus."
Zhu Changyu and Lin Luo were not as familiar with each other as he was with Xu Yangyang, so he didn't know what to say for a moment.
"See you tomorrow."
Lin Luo said "hmm" and left with an umbrella.
A strong wind blew up on the way to the bus stop. She held the umbrella tightly with both hands and fought against the wind, but in the end the umbrella was overturned and the frame was broken, leaving it completely useless.
Fortunately, the bus came and she got on. There was no seat on the bus, so she stood holding the railing. There was a damp smell in the car. She looked at the broken umbrella in her hand and sighed deeply.
After getting off the bus, Lin Luo ran home with her schoolbag on her head. Although her body was wet, she still chose to take the long road where she met Fu Xingchuan yesterday.
A person came towards her at the corner. Lin Luo stopped, lifted the wet hair that was blocking her eyes, and saw the person clearly.
It was not Fu Xingchuan, but Tang Heng, who was holding an umbrella in his hand and another in his hand.
"Uncle Tang, are you here to pick me up?" Lin Luo asked in a hoarse voice.
Tang Heng opened the umbrella in his hand and handed it to her without answering directly, "Go home!"
Lin Luo walked slowly behind him. The umbrella in her hand was very big, blocking her view and making her unable to see the raindrops, but rain was falling from the umbrella, like drops of water falling from her eyes.
The spring of seventeen was not as perfect as they had imagined, and for the first time, the teenagers began to fear time.
This fear is hidden in the black ink that spreads on the answer sheet where the pen stops in the quiet examination room, in the white hair that quietly grows on the heads of parents, and in all the unknowns and confusion.
They each have their own worries, and are occasionally cowardly and hesitant, but they are always filled with passion. No one forgets that they are the protagonists in this drama of youth. Despite fear, they move forward with determination, believing that after the rain, there will be a rainbow, and warmly welcoming the cicada-singing midsummer.
After the storm, only green leaves remained on the osmanthus tree in front of the old villa, with no more osmanthus flowers to decorate it. The small flowers fell to the ground and were trampled over by passers-by.
Fu Xingchuan disappeared, and Lin Luo didn't see him for a whole month.
The second grade of No. 1 Middle School had its midterm exams. Lin Luo was assigned to Class 1 of Grade 2, which was on the top floor. Before the Chinese exam, Lin Luo was standing in the corridor on the fifth floor to review. She glanced down inadvertently and saw a figure from behind that looked very much like Fu Xingchuan.
She knew it wasn't him, but she couldn't bear to blink and kept following him with her eyes until he disappeared.
"Everyone, put your review materials outside. We're about to start handing out the exams."
The invigilator's voice was heard, and Lin Luo came to her senses. She put her notebook back into her bag, entered the examination room, found a seat and sat down.
"This exam is over. Everyone, please stop writing. Students in the first row should collect their test papers in order from smallest to largest test number."
After finishing the last English exam, Lin Luo followed the dense crowd down from the fifth floor. The people around her were discussing the answers.
"What did you fill in the last blank of your 7-choice-5 selection?"
"It's over. I feel like my Chinese composition went off topic."
"Luckily the math was easy this time, otherwise I would be in trouble."
…
Back in the classroom, Xu Yangyang was sweeping the floor. Seeing Lin Xiao with her head down and looking dejected, she asked her with a smile: "Xiao Xiao, my mother won't be at home tomorrow. Can you come to my house and play?"
"Ahem, ahem, I won't go." Zhu Changyu was wiping the blackboard. Chalk dust covered his face, and he fanned it in front of his face with his hands.
"Who asked you that?" Xu Yangyang pointed at him with her broomstick sideways, kindly reminding him, "Be careful when you go to the internet cafe. Director Wang's been cracking down on it lately, so don't get punished."
"Don't worry, I'm more informed than you. I know everything about Lao Wang... Besides, I'm going to perform tomorrow." Zhu Changyu said proudly.
"You have to be more careful when you go to a bar."
"I told you it's not a bar, it's a live house."
Xu Yangyang ordered, "What house? They're all pretty much the same. The sanitation inspector is coming soon. Empty the water out of the bucket first."
Zhu Changyu wanted to explain the difference between a bar and a live house to her again, but time didn't allow it, so he gave up and said, "Okay."
He put down the eraser and walked out of the classroom. Xu Yangyang then remembered Lin Luo. She turned around and saw that Lin Luo was a completely different person, with stars in her eyes.
Xu Yangyang asked her again: "Will you come to my house tomorrow?"
"Go." She agreed with a smile. Xu Yangyang was confused. Is she so happy?
Of course, Lin Luo was not happy simply because he went to her house.
There is an even more important reason.
He is back.
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