After walking about half a circle, he came to a windy vent. The wind blew up the hem of his shirt, and Shengxia realized that he was wearing light-colored clothes tonight.

The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up, revealing his slender and strong arms.

A touch of light blue in the night, as clear as the dividing line of the runway.

It turns out he looks good in light colors too.

"Is it cold?" Zhang Shu asked.

Wearing spring school uniform in the middle of summer, with the zipper tightly closed, "It's not cold."

Zhang Shu: “Yeah.”

midsummer:……

There has never been such a back-and-forth, smooth conversation.

The wind blows through the night.

"You..." Zhang Shu's voice sounded, with a thoughtful tone, "Are you applying to the University of Pennsylvania?"

Shengxia was shocked and answered subconsciously: "How did you know?"

She paused and fell two steps behind him.

Zhang Shu also paused and turned around. The night was dark, but strangely, her face was still very clear.

Then he thought again, what's so strange about that? Even if she didn't stand in front of him, her every frown and smile would be clearly imprinted in his mind if he thought about her for a moment.

Zhang Shu laughed at himself and said, "How did I know that? I also want to ask, why didn't I learn that from you?"

Shengxia was stunned and murmured, "Because, because I don't want to go..."

She raised her eyes to look at him, but it was too dark and she couldn't see his expression. "So I want to wait until I'm sure I can stop going before I say anything."

"I'll talk about it later if I don't want to go? What's the point of talking about it later if I don't want to go? Is that what you mean? You don't know about this situation. Wouldn't it be more worrying if you heard it from others?"

His voice was restrained, but his words were aggressive, like an embroidery needle, piercing Shengxia's heart.

But she also had grievances.

She said, "You didn't go to the bookstore because you knew this? You didn't even ask me and didn't go. Do you know that I..."

She prepared carefully that day, thought about it carefully, and looked forward to it...

Her voice is like a hook, entangling and piercing.

He couldn't look directly into her eyes that were reflecting the lake water.

Zhang Shu looked away unnaturally and said in a low voice, "I'm going."

"Huh?" Shengxia couldn't believe it.

"I went," he repeated, sighing softly, as if he was helpless to refute or to relieve himself, "I know everything about you that day... I was the one who was facing you the whole time, watching you go to the bookstore, leave, come back, sit down and put on your hairpin, then order food, and read books for the whole afternoon... When you left, I left at the same time."

Shengxia's heart trembled slightly, "Why not meet?"

"Because I'm afraid."

"What?"

"I was drunk that day, and I was afraid that I couldn't control myself, that I would interrogate you, and that you would cry."

Even now, I am still afraid that she will cry.

So every sentence and every word should be carefully considered and thought twice before speaking.

But he was about to explode.

He wanted to pinch her shoulders and ask her: Why didn't you tell him! Why did you let him know the news from Lu Youze! Why did you make him so passive! Why did you allow him to start and then let him end up like this!

But it doesn't work.

It would scare her.

After Zhang Shu finished speaking, he turned around and walked ahead, as if he didn't want to look at her anymore.

Shengxia was stunned. He was gone? He saw all her emotions through a window and a road?

She didn't even know whether the pain in her heart was for herself or for him.

She trotted a few steps to catch up with him. "Did... Lu Youze tell you?"

This is the only possibility. The dinner he was talking about should be the dinner with the Lu family.

"Yeah." He answered briefly.

He walked slower, as if waiting for her. She slowed down a step and looked down at the hem of his clothes fluttering in the wind.

The night is too quiet.

There was no sound when my footsteps landed on the plastic track.

A gust of wind blew by, not cold but making people shiver suddenly.

"What about now? Are you sure?" He suddenly broke the silence and asked casually.

Shengxia's thoughts were in a mess, and she couldn't find the clue. She only listened to half of the sudden words and didn't hear them clearly. "What?"

He stopped again and turned around. Shengxia was not paying attention and almost bumped into his arms. She subconsciously stepped back a little and raised her head suddenly.

Zhang Shu looked at her straight in the eyes. The distance was too close, looking down on her, and the pressure was overwhelming. "Now, are you sure, are you going or not?"

She doesn't know.

She doesn't know the answer to this question either.

She had agreed to do it in public but secretly, but now it seemed that she didn't have the capital. She knew that her foundation was not good, and no matter how hard she worked, there was a limit. It was already difficult to maintain the current results, and how many points could she get if she tried again?

Without the option of self-recruitment, she really had no confidence.

The future is no joke.

She understood that if she didn't get into Heqing University or Haiyan University, no other school would do.

Other first-class colleges in Heyan? In Wang Lianhua's opinion, it is better to stay in Nanjing University of Science and Technology, and in Sheng Mingfeng's opinion, it is better to go abroad.

Originally, Shengxia didn't want to go abroad, just because she didn't want to.

And now, she was not sure whether she was so persistent because of the man in front of her.

At that moment, when she was embarrassed, she finally confirmed that there was, and its weight might be far beyond what she thought.

The scene of that night when I watched the video flashed through my mind. They were holding hands and he asked if I wanted to go to the river banquet together.

That one sound had already drawn her heart to He Yan.

Because of him, he wants to stay in this land even more.

Because of him, I began to yearn for the city of Heyan.

But the reality is, she can't.

In silence, Zhang Shu already knew the answer.

In fact, he already knew the answer when he came out of the hotel.

Compared with the slim hope of the college entrance examination, who would choose to give up on the Ivy League school?

Under Shengxia's conditions, even if it is not the University of Pennsylvania, you can still apply to a university with a higher ranking than Heqinghaiyan.

This is certain.

Even if she wanted to give up, he would not allow her.

"I..." she hesitated.

"You don't have much time left. If you continue like this, you will end up with nothing." He interrupted her and said what she was reluctant to say.

A double entendre.

There is not much time left for her to work hard, and there is not much time left for her to say goodbye.

She replied hesitantly, "I know."

She knew everything, so when she found out today that it was hopeless to confess, at that moment, it seemed that what collapsed was not her hope, but her entire world.

The world she built in her mind was his.

Zhang Shu looked up at the sky, let out a sigh, and asked, "When did you start preparing?"

Shengxia considered and said, "My family suggested it, but I haven't started preparing yet."

“When was it proposed?”

"When the second monthly exam was over."

Zhang Shu was silent.

The second monthly exam was over, huh, early enough. The situation was even worse than he thought.

And what did he do during this period?

Fearing that she would be troubled by her poor grades, he took her to the riverside to relax, lectured her on a bunch of self-righteous grassroots principles, found her high school papers day and night, and seized any fragmented time to lecture her on the questions.

What are you doing?

Are you moved by yourself?

Lu Youze is right, she can have better choices, she deserves better choices, they are in two completely different worlds.

He thought that what she needed were essentially things that were necessary in his world, but that she didn't need at all.

Zhang Shu: "When did you start preparing?"

His tone was so cold.

They were only an arm's length away, yet it felt as if there were thousands of miles of fertile land between them.

In midsummer, my heart suddenly shrank.

Zhang Shu: "I checked and found that you need to take an exam to go to the United States. Isn't it time for you to take relevant courses?"

The class schedule sent by the teacher of the institution was still lying on the phone. Shengxia still lowered her head and answered in a low voice: "Yeah."

The wind wrapped around his laughter and it hit her chest directly.

Stifling pain.

He put his hands in his pockets and kicked the nonexistent gravel with his feet, as if he was thinking, forbearing, and considering. After a long time, he raised his head and asked, as if he could no longer hold back, "So what am I, Shengxia?"

What does it matter?

What kind of person is he who doesn't even have the right to know?

Is he a beggar, a lackey, or a lapdog?

Before she opened her mouth, he murmured to himself, "I was a little too sentimental when I asked. I was the one confessing, not you. You never said anything or promised anything. I have no right to ask now. Who am I? You said we were just classmates, right?"

The dull pain was piercing, and the real pain swept through the midsummer.

"It's not like that..." She seemed to be muttering to herself.

Zhang Shu: "Even if we were just classmates, if you knew it would end in vain, why couldn't you just reject me directly?"

Shengxia retorted: "I was working hard, I was trying, I was fighting, I thought I could, but I failed."

A direct refusal? Who could do that that night?

She couldn't even resist the evening breeze that night.

"It's my fault. I was too careless. I'm sorry..." Her voice was already filled with tears without her realizing it.

Zhang Shu was already furious when he heard the word "I'm sorry", but when he heard her crying, he panicked instantly. He quickly held her face and found that it was already covered with tears.

He was suddenly at a loss and used both hands to wipe her tears.

While wiping, he couldn't help but coax her: "It's not your fault, don't cry, it's me, it's all my fault, don't cry, don't cry..."

The more he coaxed her, the more she couldn't hold back her tears, and she couldn't control herself like a flood that burst through a dam.

"I really didn't, I didn't..." Shengxia sobbed, her voice breaking, "I really tried hard, I, I also stayed up late every night, stayed up late, wrote a lot, a lot of manuscripts, but..."

She cried, her voice broken and incoherent, "But, but I failed, and I am also very sad. How could you say, say, say such harsh words... Do you think I am not sad, huh..."

Zhang Shu's heart seemed to be strangled by a thin rope, and he couldn't breathe. "I said the wrong thing. Don't cry, don't cry. I don't want to hurt you. If you cry again, I'll die..."

His heart ached so much that he felt like he was suffocating.

It was no use wiping with hands, and the little face was almost turning red from being rubbed in his hands.

He said to himself, "Fuck your restraint" and pulled her into his arms. He held her shoulders firmly with one hand and gently rubbed the back of her head with the other hand. "It's all my fault. Don't cry, don't cry..."

Repeat in vain.

The sudden closeness made the young body tremble slightly, and an unfamiliar sense of satisfaction swept over him.

The person in my arms was as soft as a foam doll, and his shoulders were shaking slightly from crying.

His chest was soaked, as if there was a hole in it.

The slightest warmth burned his entire heart, leaving it in a mess.

Shengxia was almost suffocating. She didn't know when her surging emotions collapsed. Perhaps they had begun to accumulate and gradually increase from the moment she heard that her confession was hopeless.

By the time we realize it, it's already too late to hold on.

And at this moment, feeling herself being held in his arms, she didn't know what to do and could only let the tears flow.

His embrace smells like the sun and is as hot as fire.

His hands are broad, warm and gentle.

What should I do, dark clouds and wind, tell me, how can I say goodbye to him like this?

A sound of "bang".

The lights are bright and everything is clear.

The high pole lights on all sides lit up at the same time, making the sports field as bright as day.

The phone is ringing.

Shouts came from the distant teaching area, mixed with various emotions, some excited, some regretful, and some wanting to join in the fun.

They care about when the lights will come on; they don't care whether the night is beautiful or the breeze is cool.

Only those who were cuddling together on the playground knew all this.

Shengxia slowly pushed Zhang Shu away and stepped out of his arms.

Suddenly seeing his face clearly, she was a little stunned.

Zhang Shu looked at those watery eyes and couldn't move.

They looked at each other in silence. Zhang Shu was stunned for a moment before letting go of her hand. The soft touch disappeared and his Adam's apple rolled unnaturally.

"It's time to go back." She stopped crying and whispered.

Zhang Shu remembered the purpose of tonight's "chat", calmed down, and called her: "Shengxia."

She looked up.

"You have to prepare well. Penn is great. Don't waste your time."

She said nothing, knowing he hadn't finished.

Zhang Shu's mouth curled up a little, and he smiled reluctantly, as if he had made up his mind. His eyes dimmed and he said solemnly, "I should say sorry. I shouldn't have provoked you at this time. You should have stopped the damage in time. Let's... just stop here."

He seemed to be choked up, and after a pause, he said, "I wish you a bright future."