Chapter 8
This was the first time that Lin Qinhe agreed to Tao Xi’s request, and the first time he did not say “no” or “cannot”.
Tao Xi even had the illusion that he was hallucinating, but he immediately thought self-deprecatingly that this was just an ordinary request to Yang Duole, but he treated it like a treasure.
But he couldn't help but be happy.
He tried hard to suppress the smile on his face, but he couldn't hide the briskness of his steps.
He felt that he had snatched Lin Qinhe away from Yang Duole. Although it was only for a short time, it was enough to make him happy for a long time.
This was even happier than when he was in the third grade of elementary school and it rained heavily one day. He saw Guo Ping holding an umbrella to pick him up at the school gate after school.
However, he soon discovered that the route Lin Qinhe took was not the shortest way to the infirmary.
On the first day of school, Tao Xi remembered the map of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School clearly with his good memory. The infirmary was in the southwest corner of the school. The shortest way from the playground was through the "Baihui Garden". The road that Lin Qinhe took obviously required a big detour.
Could it be that this person has a poor sense of direction?
Tao Xi turned to look at Lin Qinhe and couldn't help but said, "This is a roundabout way."
But as soon as he said it, he regretted it so much that he wanted to bite his tongue to commit suicide.
Damn, too much joy turns to sorrow.
Just now he told Yang Duole that he didn't know where the infirmary was.
Lin Qinhe turned his head and glanced at him. His eyes seemed to indicate that he had expected him to reveal his true identity. He asked knowingly, "Do you know the shortest way?"
Tao Xi was stunned, and suddenly a little angry. She couldn't hold back her casual temper, and said, "Did you do that on purpose?"
After saying that, he realized his tone was not good, so he changed his tone and said in a low voice, "It's just intentional, as long as you are happy."
"No." Lin Qinhe's tone seemed a little speechless, and continued, "I don't like Baihui Garden."
Tao Xi was stunned for a moment and asked in confusion: "Why? Aren't there a lot of beautiful flowers there?"
Baihui Garden is as its name suggests, with various flowers and plants carefully planted in it, filling the garden with fragrance all year round. On the day Tao Xi arrived at Wenhua No. 1 Middle School, Zhou Qiang took him and Feng Yuan on a tour of the campus. At that time, he saw many pink and white roses blooming in Baihui Garden, and thought about sketching them when he had time during the holidays in the future.
Lin Qinhe frowned, as if he thought of something that made him uncomfortable.
Tao Xi's mind worked quickly this time, and he asked, "You don't like flowers?"
Lin Qinhe hummed, his brows slightly furrowed. It seemed that he not only disliked it, but was disgusted by it.
"Oh, so that's how it is." Tao Xi nodded.
But what he was thinking was, it was all over. He drew small peach blossoms in every letter he wrote to Lin Qinhe, and even sent her a gouache painting of peach blossoms and flowing water on the Qingshui River, and he titled the painting "Forest Flowers All Over the Stream" with great ingenuity.
What a fucking accurate hit.
Fortunately, he pretended to be a coquettish girl in the letter.
After arriving at the infirmary, the female school doctor, who was in her forties, seemed to know Lin Qinhe. She smiled and nodded at him, then looked at Tao Xi and asked curiously, "Are you classmates? I don't think I've seen you before."
Tao Xi sat on the chair and pushed aside her bangs with her hands, wondering if it would be a good thing to be recognized by the school doctor. But he said obediently: "I just turned around and it was his deskmate."
He pronounced the four words "his deskmate" lightly and quickly, as if it was some kind of honorable identity.
Unfortunately, the school doctor did not continue to ask questions. He took the medicine and cotton swabs to clean Tao Xi's wound, and asked Lin Qinhe: "Little Curly Hair has not been sick recently, right?"
It was obvious that the person being asked was Yang Duole. It seemed that Lin Qinhe often accompanied him to the infirmary.
Tao Xi's heart, which had been beating lightly, suddenly sank and she pursed her lips tightly.
Lin Qinhe stood aside and said, "I had a fever a few days ago and came to school today."
"Alas, this child is too weak. Tell him that autumn is coming soon, so he should use less air conditioning and not..."
The school doctor was about to continue giving instructions when he heard the child he was applying medicine to scream in exaggeration, "Doctor, please be gentle, it hurts."
She was stunned. She had treated this kind of minor wound many times, and no boy had ever yelled like that. Besides, her hands were always gentle, so she said, "Bear with it, it will be fine soon. Boys, don't be so delicate. Your curly-haired classmate is so strong even though he is in poor health."
“…”
Shit, Tao Xi was pissed off.
When I looked at Lin Qinhe, he still had that expressionless face, but no matter how I looked at him, I felt that he was making fun of me.
After coming out of the infirmary, Tao Xi followed Lin Qinhe and continued to take a detour to the cafeteria. After a long silence on the way, he suddenly said, "When I was a child, I often played in the mountains. You may not know that there are so many snakes and insects in the mountains. There is a kind of small snake that is not poisonous, but it looks weird and scary. It is easy to get bitten when you go to the mountains in summer."
Lin Qinhe did not respond, obviously having no interest in this topic.
Tao Xi continued to demonstrate without giving up, "When I was in fifth grade, I went up the mountain to cut grass for pigs and was bitten by that kind of snake. I simply treated the wound and calmly cut the grass for the pigs before going to the old Chinese doctor in the village to get some herbal medicine to apply."
After that, he was afraid that Lin Qinhe didn't know what pig grass was, so he explained, "Pig grass is grass for pigs. The pigs in our place don't eat feed."
He didn't think there was anything shameful about rural life; he was just eager to prove one thing.
"So?" Lin Qinhe said in a flat tone.
Tao Xi choked up and said anxiously, "So I'm not afraid of pain, and I'm not squeamish!"
For him, being called spoiled is much more serious than being called poor. It is a personal attack!
He carefully suppressed his bad temper and put away the thorns on his body, just to make Lin Qinhe think that he was also a good person and well-educated. Now he was told by a school doctor that he was more pampered than Yang Duole. This was intolerable!
Lin Qinhe suddenly stopped, looked down at him, and asked in a cold voice: "Aren't you afraid of pain? That's why you deliberately bump into the ball even though you could have avoided it?"
Tao Xi froze in place for an instant, and the blood in his body seemed to disappear suddenly, and then suddenly rushed to his brain a few seconds later. Lin Qinhe looked at him with calm eyes, but he felt as if he was cut open and everything was exposed, without the slightest room for excuses.
Obviously, he was the best at making up stories and making excuses, but it seemed that he couldn't do it in front of Lin Qinhe.
He clenched his fingers tightly, his throat was dry, and he stammered, "...I, I just want to find a chance to talk to you, to become... to become friends with you."
He uttered the word "friend" with difficulty, but in his heart he felt that the word seemed not enough.
He wanted to hear Lin Qinhe say other words to him besides "no", and wanted to be as familiar with Lin Qinhe as he was with Yang Duole.
What else... He hasn't thought of it yet.
"If you really want to be my friend, you should be in the top 50 in the midterm exam and stay in Class 1." Lin Qinhe looked at him with an indifferent tone, "It's not easy for you to come to Wenhua No. 1 Middle School. Don't waste your time doing meaningless things."
"If you have anything to say in the future, just tell me directly. I will listen. Don't use such boring methods, and don't take advantage of Yang Duole." After saying this, Lin Qinhe turned and left.
Tao Xi stood there for a long time before he found air and began to breathe rapidly.
He put out his hand to cover the gauze on his forehead. Although he was not afraid of pain, the wound suddenly became painful. The pain became more and more severe, and it hurt so much that his heart seemed to be squeezed hard by a hand. His vision also began to blur.
He suddenly remembered that when he was ten years old, seven-year-old Tao Le was playing with the water pipe at his grandmother's house and forgot to turn off the faucet, causing the water from the pipe to flow into the cellar filled with sweet potatoes.
When Guo Ping found out, she grabbed a bamboo stick and chased him to beat him without saying a word. He cried and said that it was not him but Tao Le who did it, and begged his grandmother who knew the truth to testify.
But grandma just hugged Tao Le in silence and never defended him from beginning to end. Tao Le did not dare to admit it because he was afraid.
Guo Ping still beat him severely. He had long forgotten the pain of the cane hitting his body, but the feeling of being wronged to the point of heartache was still fresh in his memory.
Just like now.
He felt extremely aggrieved. The words "Don't take advantage of Yang Duole" made him so painful that he had difficulty breathing.
Lin Qinhe did not wrongly accuse him, he did take advantage of Yang Duole.
Lin Qinhe knew that it was not easy for him to come to Wenhua No. 1 Middle School, and told him not to waste time doing meaningless things.
But Lin Qinhe would never know that he was the reason why he came here with so much hardship.
He would not even know that he should have been Yang Duole.
He should have had Lin Qinhe.
From that day on, Tao Xi no longer dared to talk to Lin Qinhe, nor did she secretly glance at him during class. After class, she would concentrate on doing her homework. During physical education class, she would sit on a bench like sisters to read and study. No matter how Bi Chengfei urged her, she would not play basketball. After evening self-study, she would run back to the dormitory with her books and materials as quickly as possible, as if there was a dog chasing her.
Then he discovered that Lin Qinhe had not changed at all. From the beginning to the end, he had been jumping around like a flea. Now that he stopped jumping, Lin Qinhe felt at peace instead.
After a few days, Bi Chengfei also discovered something was wrong.
"Brother Xi, why do I feel like your relationship with the academic god has become estranged?" Bi Chengfei said as he picked the garlic out of the plate with chopsticks.
Tao Xi had finished lunch long ago and was reading a math supplementary material. After hearing this, he was silent for a while and said, "I have never been close to him."
Bi Chengfei said "oh", but he always felt that there was some resentment in Tao Xi's words. He had thought that after playing basketball last time, the relationship between Tao Xi and Lin Qinhe would be better.
These days, he felt the low pressure between the two deskmates sitting in the front, so he said, "Alas, I am too embarrassed to turn around and talk to you now, and my deskmate doesn't like to talk to me, which makes me feel suffocated."
Tao Xi turned the page and said calmly, "Have you forgotten what you exchanged for Lin Qinhe to play ball with you last time?"
Bi Chengfei was stunned, he really forgot.
He sighed quietly, "I am the little mermaid in Andersen's fairy tale. I asked the sea witch to exchange my beautiful voice for a pair of legs that can walk."
As soon as he finished speaking, he saw the sea witch and Yang Duole on the opposite side walking towards the cafeteria door after dinner. He felt guilty and waved and said with a smile: "Good for the academic god, and good for Yang Duole!"
Yang Duole smiled and replied, "Hello, Feifei!" Then he recognized Tao Xi who was sitting opposite Bi Chengfei, and after a pause he also smiled and greeted her, "Hello, Tao Xi!"
Tao Xi sat stiffly, only nodded, his eyes fixed on the pages of the book in his hand, until the two people completely walked away, then his body relaxed.
Bi Chengfei had just finished his meal, and the two of them threw away their plates and walked out. The summer heat of early September had not yet dissipated, but there was already a faint scent of osmanthus in the air.
The road from the cafeteria to the teaching building is called "Sakura and Osmanthus Road". The name is simple and straightforward because there are cherry trees planted on one side and osmanthus trees planted on the other side. It can be seen that the school loves to plant flowers and plants.
Tao Xi thought that Lin Qinhe and Wenhua No. 1 Middle School were really incompatible.
Sure enough, he saw Lin Qinhe and Yang Duole turning a corner and walking onto a small road in front of him.
"Do you know why Lin Qinhe doesn't like flowers?" Tao Xi suddenly asked.
Bi Chengfei was stunned for a moment, and then he said, "The God of Study seems to be severely allergic to pollen. In junior high school, our class organized a spring outing to a botanical garden, but the God of Study asked for leave and didn't go."
It seems that Lin Qinhe didn't fool him before.
"How do you know this?" Bi Chengfei would never miss any opportunity to gossip.
"Because I've stepped on a landmine before." Tao Xi said.
I stepped on it accidentally many times.
Bi Chengfei wanted to get to the bottom of the matter, but was fooled by Tao Xi's few words.
The author has something to say:
The consequence of frantically posting the saved drafts may be a long break, but it is really fun to post them, it feels like pouring water
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