Nothing in this world is more magical than this: Dai Duo, a person who seemingly disregards the entire world, speaks extremely impolitely and appears on the verge of deviating from normal human social behavior, unexpectedly turns out to be a man of his word.
Remember the scallion-flavored shaqima? Shan Shan admits she was once moved by the breakfast promise it brought, but after the New Year, she had long forgotten about it. The benefit of this was that when Dai Duo came to fulfill his promise, she was pleasantly surprised once again.
So, being forgetful isn’t always a bad thing. At the very least, it can indeed turn an uneventful life into one full of surprises.
Shan Shan returned to her classroom with soy milk and steamed buns. Sitting in her seat, her mind still echoed Dai Duo’s words, “Eat it while it’s hot, don’t let it get cold and upset your stomach after the morning self-study.” She hurried out of the classroom and wolfed down the buns.
When the bell for morning self-study rang, she was choking with her eyes almost popping out. She thumped her chest and returned to the classroom. Shao Xing looked at her and asked, “Why did you come to school so late today?”
Shan Shan paused before answering, “The roads were still icy, so the car drove slowly.”
“How come you splurged on a hot breakfast today?”
“Are you interrogating me?”
“I’m just curious,” Shao Xing said. “There’s an odd smell in the air.”
There was nothing odd. If anything, the air was filled with the scent of love – the unrequited kind of a young girl.
Dropping the excuse, “Because the school store just opened and had no discounted expired bread for me to buy,” Shan Shan sat down nonchalantly and took out her math textbook for the first class.
Shao Xing: “What are you nervous about?”
Shan Shan: “I’m not!”
Shao Xing: “Early reading is for English. Since when do you do early reading for math?”
Staring at the neatly placed math book on her desk, the girl fell into another terrible silence. Just then, her phone vibrated, displaying a message from a contact named “The One Who Only Barks.”
Shan Shan glanced at it, thinking how annoying WeChat message notifications were. The voice message prompt was red – the eye-catching words “Voice Message” – making one’s heart itch. It sat there with a strong presence, seemingly impossible to ignore.
Her lips curved involuntarily into a smile.
It was 7:45 AM.
As if to give her pride some justification, she wanted to do something else before listening to the voice message, so as not to appear too eager. She put down her phone, slowly took out her English book from the drawer, slowly turned to the page the English class monitor had instructed, and read along with about a paragraph of the text…
It felt like an eternity had passed.
She picked up her phone again.
It was 7:47 AM.
…Damn, only two minutes had passed.
The voice message sat there, unread, like a gift waiting to be opened, waiting to drive a curious human girl to her death.
After hesitating for two seconds, she finally clicked on the five-second-long voice message and held it to her ear…
At that moment, her deskmate leaned over, pressing close.
So they both heard the boy’s voice from the phone:
“Did you eat breakfast? Send a picture of the empty bag, I’m checking.”
Through the phone, his voice was slow and magnetic. He hadn’t even reached his voice-changing period yet, but it already sounded as if the sound waves had wavy lines, carrying an arrogant and matter-of-fact atmosphere.
The upward curve of her lips became more pronounced. Hiding behind the open English book, the girl exclaimed “Oh!” and typed on her phone:
[Accumulating Virtue: I ate!]
[The One Who Only Barks:? Photo.]
[Accumulating Virtue: I threw it in the trash after eating! Do you want to see the trash can?!]
[The One Who Only Barks: Yes.]
[Accumulating Virtue: …Class has started, bro! Where am I supposed to take a picture of the trash can for you? I said I ate, so I ate. Are you some kind of control freak?!]
[The One Who Only Barks: I’m the one who witnessed you sneaking cold dishes on New Year’s Eve because you couldn’t wait for the New Year’s Eve dinner, then had a stomachache until midnight and into the next year.]
[The One Who Only Barks: You should have looked in the mirror then to see how annoying you were, clutching your stomach one moment and your belly the next.]
[The One Who Only Barks: Your brother asked me to watch you, eat hot breakfast.]
[The One Who Only Barks: If you’re holding onto hot breakfast until after the first class, what relation does that have to “hot”?]
[Accumulating Virtue: Even my father can’t control me like this.]
[The One Who Only Barks: Then call me daddy, and I won’t control you.]
[Accumulating Virtue: ?]
[Accumulating Virtue: Alright, perfect logic, impressive.]
She tossed her phone into her desk drawer.
Shao Xing: “Who was that just now?”
Shan Shan lowered her head and turned a page in her English textbook: “Someone you don’t know.”
Shao Xing: “The voice sounds familiar?”
Shan Shan: “Someone you don’t know.”
Shao Xing: “Fine.”
Shao Xing: “I’ll just give you a word of advice.”
Shao Xing: “When a woman receives a message from a man and her lips curl up before even hearing what he’s saying, she’s not far from doom.”
Shan Shan: “Oh.”
Shao Xing: “Hm?”
Shan Shan: “Begging for doom.”
Shao Xing: “…”
Good habits are valuable when maintained.
Dai Duo seemed to be someone who could easily persevere with good habits.
In the following month, as the ice on the roads melted, the frost-covered trees along the streets thawed, and tender green shoots emerged from the flowerbeds…
Spring arrived.
The day they took off their down jackets worn over their school uniforms was a day worth remembering: Shan Shan had eaten at all the breakfast stalls around the school, including the famous authentic hot dry noodles two streets away.
Dai Duo had done it.
He did buy breakfast for Shan Shan every day, though judging by his demeanor, it was probably Shan Chong’s idea—
There were two reasons for this conclusion:
First, Shan Shan did have some self-awareness.
Second, although nothing was said on the surface, when a brother discovers that while he’s working his butt off to make money, his sister is living a life of ease like a lowly servant, he probably wouldn’t be too happy about it.
Every day, Dai Duo handed over the breakfast to Shan Shan at the school gate.
With people coming and going around them, such a big campus heartthrob giving breakfast to a girl sitting in a wheelchair (so conspicuous) was noticed by everyone…
In a campus romance novel, rumors of a secret affair might have already spread, creating a beautiful foundation for the male and female leads to take their first step.
However, in reality, nothing happened.
The plot development seemed to be going off track.
Although it’s not like Shan Shan wanted to hear gossip about herself, she was a bit surprised about this—just a little bit.
Sitting next to the sticky rice stall, she lowered her head and carefully picked at her fingers, her schoolbag resting on her knees.
Around her, chattering and laughing students passed by in an endless stream. Some who weren’t afraid of the cold had already changed into their school uniform skirts. Between the fluttering skirts and over-the-knee socks, there was a glimpse of flesh-colored skin, which she heard was called the “absolute territory,” the thing old pervert boys liked the most.
—It was also something Shan Shan could never have.
Looking back at the stall, surrounded by a group of invincible young high school girls, a boy wearing the spring school uniform with his backpack slung over one shoulder stood quietly like a chicken, waiting for the aunty selling sticky rice to notice him, take pity on him, pay attention to him…
This idiot.
Didn’t he know that in front of a busy breakfast stall with surging crowds, the stall owner Aunty, deafened by the noise, could only hear the loudest person? So you must go up and immediately start shouting “Aunty, I’ve been waiting for a long time! Aunty, I want sticky rice without sausage but with more bean paste” to have any chance of buying breakfast quickly—
Shan Shan was grumbling inwardly.
At this moment, suddenly someone pushed her wheelchair from behind.
The wheelchair made a harsh “creak” sound, and the girl sitting on it, still wearing a scarf, lurched forward—
Her hands reflexively grabbed the wheelchair armrests, preventing her from falling, but her schoolbag rolled off her knees.
She watched helplessly as the person behind her spilled their soy milk on her schoolbag…
The dark schoolbag was stained navy blue by the broth.
Ah, at times like this, she slightly regretted that the soy milk in Northeast China was salty and oily.
Gripping the wheelchair tightly with both hands, staring blankly at her soiled schoolbag, Shan Shan was just thinking “Luckily this uniform bag is waterproof, otherwise the homework would be ruined” when she saw a boy wearing the spring uniform of the second year, with white Nike sneakers, step forward from behind her and pick up her school bag.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Classmate! I didn’t mean to!”
The boy had a crew cut, was tall and thin, and was holding her schoolbag as if it were a toy, patting off the dust…
Amidst the “pat pat” of dust flying and frantic apologies, he looked up and met the eyes of the girl sitting in the wheelchair—
How to put it, it was also a coincidence. In the morning, the newly born clean sun just happened to shine on her face, which was so fair it was almost transparent.
Her cheeks were tinged with a faint blush, her long eyelashes fluttered, appearing deep brown in the sunlight…
Her hair was tied in two simple braids falling on her shoulders, fluffy and fuzzy, with a small bear hairpin clipping her bangs.
Her lips were slightly parted in surprise, revealing a small white canine tooth.
The motion of patting the schoolbag suddenly stiffened. Amidst the pushing and jostling of his companions behind him, his heartbeat skipped a beat, and then he shamefully blushed.
Shan Shan heard the people behind her call him “Deng Qiao,” probably that pronunciation.
The boy with the strange name handed her the schoolbag, then stammered that since the bag was dirty, could he add her on WeChat? He could send her a link to buy a new one as compensation.
The snickering and teasing from the boys behind him grew louder.
The face of the boy in front of her, red enough to drip blood, showed that this was all purely coincidental and without malice.
So the fingers tightly gripping the wheelchair armrests relaxed, and her highly alert and tense back also relaxed. Shan Shan blinked and reflexively held out her phone.
As the other person lowered his head to scan the QR code to add her on WeChat, she thought for a moment, about to say that this bag had been pre-ordered for half a year before shipping, and he couldn’t buy it even if he compensated with money, so why not just scan a payment code to compensate and be done with it—
She thought about it but didn’t have time to say it out loud.
At this moment, a figure came to her side, casting a shadow over her.
A slender large hand grabbed her wheelchair and turned it around. Her gaze immediately shifted from the unfamiliar second-year boy in front of her, and she was enveloped by a familiar presence.
She looked up, and what met her eyes was the delicate chin of the person leaning on her wheelchair with one hand. He lowered his eyes and asked in a flat voice, “What’s going on?”
Warm sticky rice fell into her arms.
The teasing voices around gradually disappeared.
Dai Duo glanced at the silent girl, muttered “Gone mute” and straightened up. He turned to look at his classmate behind him, giving him a rather unrestrained, uninhibited once-over from head to toe.
After a pause, he asked, “Is this how you ask for a girl’s WeChat? Classmate, did you learn human social etiquette in Frog Claw Country?”
…Obviously, there’s no such place as Frog Claw Country in the world.
And it’s equally surprising that Dai Duo even knows about something called “human social etiquette.”
Although clearly, he doesn’t possess it.
And he thinks others shouldn’t possess it either.
…
Private high schools have another advantage: compared to academic performance, the school also pays attention to student’s physical health and their all-around development in morality, intelligence, physical education, aesthetics, and labor.
In the afternoon, both second and first-year students had PE class.
The second-year students were more casual. Those who didn’t want to attend signed their names on the “menstrual period” sheet and sat in the classroom to slack off. Dai Duo was one of the shameless boys who signed his name on that paper.
At this moment, he was standing in the corridor, one hand supporting his chin as he looked down—
Cheers occasionally erupted from the playground, creating a lively atmosphere.
From afar, he could see someone sitting in a wheelchair in the middle of one side of the volleyball court, who despite limited mobility, had joined this practice match…
When the ball came towards her, she clasped her hands together and bumped the ball. With a “bong,” the ball flew high into the air. She raised her chin, her hair tied in small braids a bit messy, appearing fuzzy in the sunlight.
The volleyball reached her teammate’s hands, was set, then spiked—
Score!
Another round of cheers!
The girls laughed and hugged in a group, not forgetting the one sitting in the wheelchair. They laughed and high-fived her, and she raised both hands like a beckoning cat to celebrate with them…
The dimples on her face and the canine tooth under her lips were tinged with warmth in the sun.
“—Ah, that’s Shan Shan from the first year!”
When the voice of a male classmate beside him came, Dai Duo switched hands to support his chin, slightly squinted his eyes, and lazily “hmm” in response.
“How did she come out?” The boy’s voice was a bit noisy. “Last semester we also had PE class together, I remember never seeing her on the playground. I think someone curiously asked before and was told she didn’t like to go downstairs! How strange, why did she suddenly change this semester?”
Because she’s preparing to wear prosthetics.
Besides going to the hospital every week for rehabilitation and check-ups, the doctor said to get more sunlight and move around more.
How could she not listen?
Dai Duo snorted a laugh but didn’t respond.
“She’s quite pretty, what a pity, with her legs like that…”
“Oh,” Dai Duo’s expression didn’t change a bit, “What’s the difference?”
He didn’t feel there was any difference.
Then, someone elbowed him in the waist.
“You know what! I heard that Deng Qiao from the soccer team wants to pursue her. He just decided this morning, and it’s already common knowledge—Yeah! That guy! Deng Qiao! The one who received as many Valentine’s Day gifts as you! Don’t you think he’s gone mad?”
Dai Duo’s face slid onto his elbow, and he slowly “Ah” again.
“Come to think of it, this girl has come to our class to find you before. Do you know her?”
“Mm.”
“Are you two—”
“We’re not.”
“Then Deng Qiao…”
“He dares?” The boy raised his eyelids slightly and said flatly, “Let him try?”