0018 Silent Words (4)
Du Fenfang met Shen Yan during her senior year of high school.
With the college entrance exam approaching, her grades were terrible. If she didn't work harder, she might not even be able to get into a university in D province.
Du's parents hired a college student from D University to tutor her at home; it was Shen Yan.
Du Fenfang's rebellious and aversion to school vanished the moment she saw Shen Yan.
Despite being illiterate and oblivious, the phrase "A gentleman as beautiful as jade, unparalleled in the world" couldn't help but pop into her mind.
Shen Yan is gentle and refined, polite in his speech and behavior, and a student at a prestigious university, so Du's parents are very satisfied with him. Although Du Fenfang doesn't have a knack for studying, she gradually falls for Shen Yan's gentle explanations and begins to bury herself in her studies.
A fluttering heart like a deer's, a budding romance—these were all first-time experiences for Du Fenfang.
But things just happen to be so coincidental.
As she was about to share her improved report card with Shen Yan, she saw him smiling as he touched the head of the girl beside him. The expression in his eyes was something she would never see during tutoring—an extraordinary gentleness and patience, not a polite formality.
The girl next to him was his classmate and close friend, He Lingling.
She felt she had never felt this way before, as if a heavy stone was pressing on her heart, and a sense of powerlessness and loss overwhelmed her.
Yes, Lingling is beautiful and has a good personality, so countless boys confess their feelings to her.
She had never envied her for this before, because her world was free of such complicated things. But at this moment, she felt a strange emotion welling up inside her—jealousy. Yes, she couldn't help but be jealous that Lingling could be so close to Shen Yan, while she, soaked to the bone, could only silently watch and envy from the sidelines.
In the late-night dramas my mom loves to watch, there are always plots that she can't understand. The female supporting character does all sorts of bad things to compete with the female lead for the male lead, hurting the female lead in the process. She couldn't understand it before, but now she feels like the female supporting character, with her own sour and dark thoughts.
However, she would never hurt the lovely Lingling. Such a gentle and handsome boy should be with the beautiful and lovely Lingling, not her, who is like a tomboy, without a pretty face or a charming figure.
When Shen Yan came to tutor her again that weekend, he noticed that the girl beside him wasn't as lively as before; instead, she seemed somewhat reserved. But he didn't say anything. His job was to do his tutoring job well, and the student's emotions were a private matter; he shouldn't interfere too much.
So when he finished tutoring and left, he didn't see Du Fenfang's distress at not showing any concern for his affected emotions.
She was just beginning to experience love at that time, and she quickly realized that the prerequisite for all beautiful love is that two people love each other. And unrequited love is the hardest to bear for one person.
She tried her best to put him out of her mind, but then she saw Lingling and Chen Yixu together intimately.
What does this mean?
She had witnessed Shen Yan's feelings for Ling Ling firsthand. Could it be that Ling Ling had someone else in her heart and didn't love Shen Yan? For a moment, she couldn't express her complex emotions. On one hand, she hoped Ling Ling didn't love Shen Yan, so that even she, in her humble state, would have a small chance; on the other hand, she feared Ling Ling didn't love Shen Yan, and that if Shen Yan was heartbroken, she would be sad too. So this is what love is like—bitter and painful!
It wasn't until that weekend that she finally learned the truth.
Her father told her that Ms. Shen, the tutor, couldn't tutor her on time because of a cold, and that she had to study on her own. But how could she sit still when her sweetheart was sick? She rode her bicycle straight to the men's dormitory at D University, and after some twists and turns, she found out the location of the chemistry department's men's dormitory. Because of her short hair, she managed to sneak in.
Many of the third-year students were away on internships and no longer lived on campus, so there weren't many people in the building. She quickly found Shen Yan, who had a high fever in her dorm room.
She touched his forehead; it was almost burning hot! Yet his hands and feet were ice-cold. She quickly got him some medicine and boiled some water.
As she placed the fever-reducing patch on Shen Yan's forehead, a large hand suddenly grabbed her.
Fenfang was suddenly startled, her heart pounding like thunder.
She felt herself starting to get a fever. But what came out of that person's mouth was "Lingling".
Her heart quickly cooled, followed by a dense, aching pain. She couldn't bear to pull her hand away. Let her have an unrealistic dream, a dream where she is the needed heroine.
Shen Yan was indeed delirious with fever, mistaking Du Fenfang, whose hand he was holding, for Lingling. He weakly spoke to her, "Lingling, don't leave me... Why did you go with Chen Yixu..."
Du Fenfang felt her hands and feet were ice cold. She secretly made up her mind that she would let Lingling know Shen Yan's feelings and not let Lingling hurt Shen Yan's heart.
She had told Chen Yixu long ago that he was not a good person.
So this gave Lingling another reason to break up with him.
Du Fenfang has always been a carefree and impulsive person who acts without thinking. So after making this decision, she quickly went to find He Lingling.
Lingling was at home, scratching her head and struggling with the math practice problems Chen Yixu had given her.
Now in her senior year of high school, although her math score had already surpassed 110 points under Chen Yixu's grueling tutoring and was heading towards 130, Chen Yixu still wasn't willing to let her off the hook. He said that senior year math was a comprehensive test covering all three years of high school, and the exams in the first and second years could only be considered specialized training, while the senior year exams were hellishly difficult.
Even though He Lingling repeatedly explained to him that she was just an ordinary person without any lofty ideals, he never gave her a single day off, but he also never complained about tutoring her on a single point of knowledge over and over again. Just as Chen Yixu said, although she had managed to build a solid foundation, she still failed to score 100 points on her first senior year exam, so she had no choice but to continue to endure Chen Yixu's torment.
She had initially aspired to get into a decent undergraduate program in D province, but later, feeling she had a chance to push herself further, she decided to aim for D University, where her brother Shen Yan was studying. Now, under Chen Yixu's guidance, she had a very good chance, and if her grades remained stable, she would definitely be able to get into D University. Lingling thought this was already far beyond her expectations, since she didn't have any grand ambitions. Her parents, knowing she could score over 600 points, thought she was going to bring honor to the family, which made He Lingling a little smug. After learning that she wanted to be a teacher, Chen Yixu asked her why she didn't go to B City Normal University, which was the best normal university in the country.
This left her momentarily confused.
Thinking back, it seems that all along, her progress has been driven by Chen Yixu's support. Just as she used to think that getting into D University was something she wouldn't even dare to dream of, something only someone as hardworking as her brother Ayan could achieve. She and her brother Ayan were both born in H County, D Province, a place with poor educational resources; very few people like her brother Ayan could get into D University. In such a place, it's easy to feel inferior. In fact, if it weren't for her brother Ayan's strong suggestion that her parents send He Lingling to the provincial capital for high school, He Lingling might have stayed in H County and wouldn't have even gotten into a university.
When Lingling was in junior high school, her brother Ayan would study until late at night every day, so He Lingling always felt that she needed to work very, very hard to stand out from the crowd, and that she, who couldn't endure hardship, should just live an ordinary and unremarkable life.
But Chen Yixu gave her a completely different feeling. She felt that Chen Yixu was never like Brother Ayan, who was always studying and reviewing. She rarely even saw Chen Yixu studying, but he could always accurately and efficiently find his or her weak points and then overcome them one by one in an orderly manner.
Lingling often felt that Chen Yixu was from a different world than them. He seemed to possess a unique kind of pride. He never thought distant mountains were too high; he simply wanted to go somewhere, find the highest mountain, and then climb it with his climbing gear. He didn't simply admire it blindly, letting it become an unattainable dream in his subconscious.
So all along, Lingling seemed to be subtly influenced and guided by him. Chen Yixu was like someone who never told her "you have to move forward," but instead silently exerted his strength behind the scenes, pushing her towards a better place.
She was just too young then to realize it.
When she realized it, she didn't have time to be surprised; instead, she believed she was capable of climbing the mountain.
At that moment, she was simply surprised that Fenfang, whose home was in J City, would appear in H County, right in front of her house.
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