33 Chapter Thirty-Two
He was being led by her.
Yu Jinyang later reflected carefully and realized that he had been somewhat dependent on her since childhood, though he couldn't explain why.
It probably started when they encountered the homeless version of Zhu Xiaoliang in Mad Harbor, eating cake and goldfish at the same time. They were both quite frightened, and Li Yingqiao picked him up and ran without saying a word—that was the beginning.
Gao Dian said he was like a cat that had chosen its master, and that's how he accepted Li Yingqiao as his master.
At first, he didn't think much of it. Li Yingqiao was taller and more capable than him when she was young, and she could even catch human traffickers, which gave him a strong sense of security. With her around, things were indeed much easier. So, at the urging of Zheng Miaojia and Gao Dian, he solemnly wrote a nursery rhyme for her—"My Idol is Xiao Fang," praising the heroine Li Yingqiao.
Back then, he truly idolized her. However, as time passed, he gradually began to resist his inner dependence on her—he felt he had grown up, but Li Yingqiao still treated him like a kitten. This subtle emotion had lingered in his heart since junior high school, and it finally erupted like a torrent in his senior year of high school.
Their relationship was at its worst during their senior year of high school. Li Yingqiao became ruthless and neglectful of her family in order to focus on her studies, while Yu Jinyang felt that he had entered adolescence, but the person he was facing during adolescence was not his parents, but his "master" Li Yingqiao.
He inexplicably felt uncomfortable with everything about Li Yingqiao. Li Yingqiao, not wanting to be outdone, could clearly sense that Yu Jinyang had become inexplicably rebellious since their senior year of high school. His temper was unpredictable, and he often argued with her. So, she would often bury herself in correcting her homework while mocking him without looking up, "What are you doing, meow? Are you trying to rebel?"
The more this happened, the more Yu Jinyang felt like she was a pet; she would pet it when she was happy, and pet it hard when she was unhappy.
She never acted like that with anyone else, especially with Lu Yingchuan, the class monitor of Class 6. Li Yingqiao was very obsequious to him; whenever she saw him during recess, she would immediately smile with her tonsils sticking out.
Lu Yingchuan can play the piano, and at a cultural performance, he won the hearts of many young girls with his melodious and graceful rendition of "The Blue Danube".
Compared to Yu Jinyang, who became increasingly flamboyant and had striking eyebrows and eyes as he grew older, Lu Yingchuan was more like a gentle and refined older brother next door. He had a more gentle appearance, with relaxed eyebrows and eyes, and a gentle curve at the corner of his mouth. When playing a light and cheerful interlude, he would tilt his head slightly and give the girls in the audience a confident and easy smile.
The girl in the audience was Li Yingqiao. She was so happy that she kept pinching Yu Jinyang's thigh, and he couldn't close his mouth for several days. From then on, he kept talking about Lu Yingchuan. Yu Jinyang really didn't want to talk to her and even thought about breaking up with her, but Li Yingqiao didn't notice anything unusual. By the time she realized it, the two of them had hardly spoken to each other for almost half a semester.
Three months before the college entrance examination, Li Yingqiao unfortunately contracted conjunctivitis. Li Shuli refused to let her study so hard anymore, fearing that she would go blind.
Li Yingqiao couldn't think of any other way, so she had to swallow her pride and call Yu Jinyang again, asking him to read the book to her sentence by sentence. Of course, Yu Jinyang was unwilling, and Li Yingqiao didn't know what he was angry about, so she had to plead on the other end of the phone: "Please, meow, I absolutely cannot fail the college entrance examination."
And so, the soft-hearted Yu Jinyang kept cramming until the eve of the college entrance examination. Every night at nine o'clock sharp, the two of them would recite and check each other's work. At first, Yu Jinyang would read to her, and later she would read to Yu Jinyang. They both found that this random quiz method was more effective than studying on their own, so they tacitly maintained this habit until the end of the college entrance examination.
Yu Jinyang initially read aloud to her with a cold face, but later he would coldly ask her to read it to him. He always maintained a cold expression. Sometimes Li Yingqiao would tease him, telling him absurd and funny stories from their arts class. For example, there was a talented student in her class who was a huge fan of Li Qingzhao, saying that Li Qingzhao was a gambling queen who would gamble away fortunes whenever she couldn't write poetry. She said that her poem about "a person thinner than a yellow flower" was basically just her playing dice. Yu Jinyang couldn't help but laugh out loud, and the girl on the other end of the phone immediately teased him, "It's been so long since I've heard you laugh like that, young master—"
"..."
So he immediately coughed and turned his face cold again. Aside from that, the two of them focused on serious recitation checks over the phone, rarely engaging in idle chatter. Only once, halfway through a recitation, Yu Jinyang suddenly asked, with a cryptic tone, "Where's Lu Yingchuan from Class Six? Gone?"
Li Yingqiao then said, "Okay, I'll tell you secretly. But you're not allowed to tell anyone else."
Yu Jinyang frowned subconsciously. To be honest, he wasn't very interested. He vaguely sensed his own confused feelings, but he couldn't be sure. The only thing he was sure of was that Li Yingqiao only considered him a friend because she had said that he was short and had the build of a surfboard.
In his memory, Li Yingqiao's ideal type of man was the beach-going, muscular hunk with biceps so big they looked like they were stuffed with two coconuts, tanned and shiny, and who would occasionally show off his eight-pack abs. That was her type. Lu Yingchuan was just something new to look at; he was definitely not her type. He knew he wasn't either.
For him, this is a crucial stage of his senior year, with intense review and the big battle just around the corner. He has very limited energy, so it's best not to delve too deeply into the relationship between the boy and girl, especially since it's someone else's business. He didn't want to hear about it, so he just coldly replied on the other end of the phone: "Just be careful yourself, you don't need to tell me."
Li Yingqiao took it to heart and said, "Alright, then I won't say anything more."
After that, they never mentioned him again. After the college entrance examination, they went to study in different parts of the country. During the National Day holiday of their freshman year, he had an accident and was forced to stay in Shanghai. The trip they had planned to take together could not be fulfilled. Often, people's enthusiasm can be easily dampened by such a sudden accident. After that, neither of them mentioned the trip again.
During the winter break of his freshman year, Gao Dian went back to Guangdong to visit his parents, and Zheng Miaojia also stayed in the provincial capital and did not come back. Only Li Yingqiao stayed in Fengtan to celebrate the New Year. Yu Jinyang was also packed up by his parents and taken to the beach in Hainan where they fell in love to accompany his father to reminisce about their youth and celebrate their fourteenth wedding anniversary, becoming an enormous third wheel.
By the time he returned to Fengtan, Li Yingqiao had already bought a ticket to return to Beijing.
At that moment, he suddenly understood the saying that friendship is only temporary. Given Li Yingqiao's past behavior, when she was studying at Liang Mei's house, she would practically report to him even to go to the bathroom. Sometimes, they were so close they wanted to be inseparable. But after only one semester apart, she returned to Beijing without telling him. It was at that moment that he truly understood that in her heart, he had always been just an ordinary friend, even though they had once kissed at the ski resort in Fengtan Mountain.
At that time, they had just received their admission notices and were eagerly waiting for the start of university after packing their luggage. One day, Yu Renjie came back and said that the ski resort on Fengtan Mountain was going to be demolished and rebuilt as an urban landmark. He asked them if they wanted to go skiing before the redevelopment, otherwise it would probably be almost completely demolished when they came back in their freshman year.
The ski resort was indoors, with steel industrial-grade refrigeration pipes suspended from the dome, running all the way down. As soon as they entered, it felt like stepping into a giant cold storage facility. The enormous indoor ski resort housed fewer than ten people, including staff—no wonder it was being dismantled. However, the quiet interior made the "swish, swish" sound of the skis scraping the snow sound like white noise from surround sound in the empty ski slopes.
As a southerner, seeing such a long, white, snow-covered slope would send my adrenaline soaring. Li Yingqiao is a typical southern girl. That day, she was especially excited. After he bought the tickets and rented the clothes, ski equipment, and helmet, she couldn't wait to drag him to eat snow.
But none of them knew how, so they hired several instructors to learn one-on-one. Yu Jinyang didn't know either, and was listening attentively as the instructor explained the precautions for beginners, including protective postures when falling, and not to use his wrists to brace himself, etc. In just that short time, someone had already flown past him on the beginner's slope, "Whoosh! Meow!"
"..."
"Wow! Meow! Look at me." It floated past him again, its voice quite smug.
"..."
She just kept flying back and forth. Even the instructor was speechless. Although her movements were flawlessly executed, she was still the fastest learner and the least afraid of falling at the ski resort. Later, it turned out that after learning she was coming to ski, she spent the whole night at home watching instructional videos. She learned everything from choosing ski equipment and skis to understanding snowplow braking, and with the instructor's concise guidance, she quickly learned the falling leaf drift.
Meanwhile, Gao Dian was still howling and threatening the coach on the beginner's slide, "Don't push me! I'll die. My parents haven't bought me insurance yet."
Li Yingqiao had fallen countless times. Once, after a particularly hard fall, she simply lay on the ground and crawled like a slug to the edge of the magic carpet area. In no time, she was back up and continuing to skate. Through all this falling and scrambling, she became quite the expert skater. She even took off the little turtle-shaped skates Yu Jinyang had bought for the girls. She started skating towards the beginner magic carpet area with her hands behind her back. Suddenly, she braked, kicking up a cloud of snow, and eagerly began giving them pointers: "Coach, you need to let him skate on his own. When will he ever learn if he's so careful? Your time is very precious; it costs three hundred an hour!" Then, she tossed him the little turtle-shaped skates, adding, "Young Master, if you're so afraid of falling, tie them on yourself."
Zheng Miaojia gave her little turtle to Gao Dian, and Li Yingqiao, along with Fang Yue, had already started racing on the magic carpet. One of the boys was still howling and screaming, while the other was still arguing with the instructor about various details. Li Yingqiao couldn't stand it, of course. The instructor's fee was too expensive, three hundred yuan an hour. The five of them would have spent a thousand five hundred yuan just on instructor fees, and the key was that they were only learning the basics, and the teaching was very perfunctory. Li Yingqiao felt bad about the money, so she shamelessly stretched out her hand to Yu Jinyang, "Come on, meow, I'll guide you. You'll get used to it after falling a few times."
...
"Smack!"
"Bang--"
"Bang—smack—"
When Yu Jinyang pulled his head out of the snow track for the eighth time, he no longer cared that his goggles were covered with snow particles that could block his vision, and he was too lazy to brush them off with his hands. He simply couldn't stand it anymore and used his helmeted head to bang against the person rolling in the snow with him: "Li Yingqiao, what are you doing? Are you trying to plant radishes in me? It hurts so much."
Li Yingqiao got up from him, giggling excitedly, and said, "Your center of gravity is unstable, okay? Aren't you practicing Breaking? Don't floor moves all require core strength? How can you do Breaking with such a weak core?"
Yu Jinyang was too lazy to argue with her; in her eyes, he was bad in every way. So, without a word, he struggled to his feet, pulled her up as well, and decided to go back to the coach. But the coach said he was about to finish his shift and would have to pay an extra hundred yuan for overtime. He didn't care, but Li Yingqiao refused, saying the coach was trying to rip him off. So, she patted her chest and vowed, "I promise I won't let you fail this time. If you can learn my 'Falling Leaf' technique, today's lesson will be a success, okay? I won't cheat you; you can have three or five hundred yuan, you'll see."
She herself had only just learned how to perform the "falling leaf" move, so it was unlikely she could teach him. Yu Jinyang had little hope, but this time she taught him with extra effort, demonstrating the movements carefully while explaining the key points to him word for word: "Open your feet parallel, keep your knees and ankles bent... Yes, your weight should be evenly distributed on both feet, and there should be no backward pull... When you need to move the board sideways, increase the pressure on the balls of your feet to guide the board down, and conversely, increase the pressure on your heels."
After a few rounds at the top of the beginner's track, seeing that he had grasped the basic movements, Li Yingqiao even copied and pasted the coach's tone from before: "Yes, not bad, you got it, didn't you? How about that? Not difficult, right?"
It's not difficult at all. The difficult part is when it's time to pay after skiing. She said she could give him three or five hundred, but Yu Jinyang couldn't think of a way to pay. She would definitely think three hundred was too little, and he felt cheated if he paid five hundred. He felt like he had been ripped off. Five hundred for a "bare" move? Even his Breaking master wouldn't have dared to charge such an exorbitant price when he taught him head spins.
It was already dark outside. He and Li Yingqiao stayed at the ski resort the longest. After the instructor left, Gao Dian and the others, having fallen several times, decided to go for a hike on Fengtan Mountain. Only the two of them and a few scattered customers remained in the ski resort. However, the resort was covered in snow, and the ceiling lights were bright, reflecting each other on the white surface, making it seem like it was still daytime.
When the two of them finished changing their clothes and came out, they were standing on the steps of the side gate of the ski resort waiting for Gao Dian and the others to come down the mountain. Yu Jinyang was surprised to find that time had passed so quickly. The teaching time had indeed far exceeded the standard for instructors' lessons.
He suddenly felt he should give her the five hundred, but before he could speak, Li Yingqiao leaned against the railing of the steps leading down the mountain, her elbow casually hanging there, her fingers wandering aimlessly along the railing like a little person. Halfway there, her expression seemed to be weighing something, and she suddenly looked up at him with a smile and said, "I don't need the money, meow, grant me a small request."
The night pressed heavily over the entire mountain, and the wind on Fengtan Mountain was strong, howling and swaying the swaying shadows of the trees, creating a chaotic scene. Even the moon hadn't risen tonight; only a small, tangerine-colored streetlamp stood alone at the entrance of the ski resort, casting the silhouettes of the two figures tenderly against the dappled shadows of the trees.
Without warning, Yu Jinyang soon lost sight of even that glimmer of light, and all he could see was a pure, solidified, and warm blackness.
He let the tangerine-colored halo blur his vision, his face was cupped in her hands, and he was led step by step into that restrained yet thrilling blackness.
[Author's Note]
See you Wednesday. I'll make up for the double update this week.
Two hundred red envelopes.
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