Chapter 51
The summer after the college entrance examination is like an infinitely stretched, gray-toned painting. The initial elation and relief, like a pebble thrown into a lake, create brief ripples before being quickly replaced by a deeper, more viscous emptiness and anxiety. Although the mountain called "college entrance examination" has been climbed, the road ahead is not smooth sailing, but a fork in the road shrouded in thick fog, leading to an unknown destiny.
Xu Nianlei locked herself in her room, like a small animal that had just emerged from a long hibernation, both yearning for and fearing the sunlight outside. The mountain of review materials on her desk had been put away, replaced by a disoriented silence. She tried to do what her classmates did—sleep day and night, watch dramas, and go shopping—attempting to clear away the fatigue accumulated over the past twelve years all at once, but she found that the tension etched into her bones was no longer easy to let go of.
Her body was finally at ease, but her thoughts, like a wild horse, raced uncontrollably towards that uncertain date—the day the results would be released. Various possible scores, rankings, and admission cutoffs spun through her mind like a revolving lantern, sometimes propelling her to the clouds of hope, sometimes dragging her back to the depths of anxiety. She even began to repeatedly recall every detail of the exam: were the steps for that challenging math problem complete? Was that English word spelled correctly? This futile hindsight only intensified her inner turmoil.
Wang Xiuqin's behavior was the only bright spot during this waiting period, carrying a hint of unfamiliarity. She seemed to have truly heeded the anonymous books and the vague "organizational concern." She no longer constantly asked her daughter "How did you do on the exam?" or "What university can you get into?", using an invisible pressure to control her. She simply expressed her clumsy concern through silent actions.
Every morning, she would quietly place a cup of warm milk at Xu Nianlei's door. For lunch and dinner, there would always be one or two dishes that Xu Nianlei preferred. Although the taste was still home-style, the previous sense of "you must finish it" was gone. She would even sit in the living room on her afternoons off, in the bright sunlight streaming through the window, reading books about "parent-child relationships" and "letting go of anxiety," her brow sometimes furrowed, sometimes relaxed, as if engaged in a difficult and slow internal struggle.
One night, Xu Nianlei got up to get a drink of water and saw the light still on in her mother's room. She heard very low, suppressed sobs coming from under the door. She stood outside, her feet rooted to the spot. At that moment, she felt neither pleasure nor much sympathy, but only a complex mix of sorrow and a hint of relief. She realized that the mountain that had weighed on her for so many years was also weighing heavily on her mother's back. Only, one chose to endure it in silence, while the other chose to resist sharply.
She silently retreated to her room, without disturbing anyone. Some wounds need to be licked alone. Some changes need time to prove themselves.
The atmosphere at home thus possessed a strange tranquility. Like the devastation after a storm, though broken, at least the storm had temporarily subsided. Xu Nianlei cherished this hard-won peace, even though she knew that beneath this calm, anxieties about the future still simmered.
She took out the blue notebook Lu Baiyan had given her again. No longer to glean problem-solving strategies, but like flipping through a diary recording her inner journey. On the title page, the seven characters, "The road ahead is long, yet bright," gleamed with a calm light under the lamp. She turned the pages one by one; inside were her notes on difficult learning points, Lu Baiyan's concise annotations, words of encouragement she had written when she was down, and… those hidden and hastily scribbled thoughts about him.
"I saw him playing basketball today; his sweat was glistening in the sunlight."
"The way he frowns slightly when he explains a problem is very attractive."
"I heard he wants to go to University A... that's really far."
As her fingertips traced the words, her cheeks flushed slightly, yet a warm current seemed to flow into her heart. That taciturn boy, like a silent lighthouse, cast a steadfast and warm beam of light during her confused and bewildered adolescence. He not only taught her how to solve problems, but also how to face adversity and how to recognize her own value.
She opened the almost dormant class group chat, which was already flooded with messages of estimated scores, anxiety, and anticipation for university life. She silently watched as her former classmates unleashed their post-exam exuberance and unease in the virtual world. Her gaze would involuntarily search for that grayed-out, never-lit profile picture—Lu Baiyan.
He vanished without a trace, as if he had evaporated into thin air. She opened their private chat window a few times, but the blank chat box was like a snowfield untouched by anyone. The cursor blinked, and she typed "Are you there?", then quickly deleted it; she wrote "Thank you for your help all this time," but felt it was too formal; she considered asking "How did your exam go?", but felt it was too abrupt.
There always seemed to be an invisible membrane between them. He would appear precisely at every moment she needed help, giving her what she needed most, and then quietly withdraw, maintaining a perfect distance, never overstepping boundaries, and never making her feel the pressure of being given charity. This respect made her grateful, but also gave her an indescribable...loss.
She closed the chat window and sighed softly. Perhaps, to him, she was just one of the objects onto which his role as class monitor and sense of responsibility were projected. Those unspoken moments, those silent acts of protection, might simply stem from the kindness and principles inherent in his nature.
Time seemed to grow thick and slow in the waiting. By day, the sun scorched the earth, and cicadas chirped incessantly; by night, the cool moonlight streamed through the window, and all was silent. Xu Nianlei felt the ebb and flow of her emotions in this alternation of extreme activity and stillness. She began to pack her belongings, packing away textbooks and exam papers she no longer needed, as if bidding a final farewell to a heavy and complex past.
While tidying the bottom shelf of the bookcase, she touched the item Zhang Dashan had sent, wrapped in old cloth. Her father's thin diary and several worn-out skill books lay there quietly, like a piece of history sealed away, too painful to recall. She didn't open them, but simply ran her fingers gently along the rough cloth.
The hatred seemed to have faded, replaced by a colder indifference. That man, whatever his vague, incomplete moments of depravity, had been completely erased by his later actions. She didn't need his repentance, nor did she need to comfort herself by imagining he "was once kind." She only needed to remember how she had struggled step by step to climb out of that mire.
The person who helped her climb out was a boy named Lu Baiyan.
The days of waiting continued, like a marathon with no end in sight. But Xu Nianlei knew that no matter what the finish line looked like, she was no longer the Xu Nianlei who huddled in a corner, passively accepting her fate.
She picked up her pen and solemnly wrote on the last page of the blue notebook:
"Wait. But no longer fear."
Outside the window, the warm summer night breeze blew in, turning the pages of her book. The road ahead was still long, but in her heart, a faint yet steadfast lamp had been lit.
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