During the long break, Meng Xin came down from upstairs to find Lin Tao, and the two went to the school’s small convenience store.
“Did you know there’s a girl from a humanities class trying to transfer into your Class 18?” On the way back, Meng Xin brought up a piece of gossip she’d heard from her homeroom teacher, Old Yang. “But apparently your Old Yu doesn’t really want to take her. Problem is, the girl is supposedly related to the principal, so she’ll probably end up transferring in anyway.”
Lin Tao popped a piece of dried mango into her mouth and shook her head. “I didn’t know. Old Yu hasn’t mentioned anything in class.”
“It’ll probably happen within the next few days — can’t really avoid it now.” Meng Xin couldn’t quite understand it. “But if this girl wanted to be in a science class, why didn’t she just pick science when she first chose her track?”
“Who knows. Maybe she spent a few days in the humanities class and decided science was the better path after all.” Lin Tao stepped onto the stairs, her mind still on the wealthy-family gossip she’d overheard that morning. She was tempted to discuss it with Meng Xin, but since it was someone else’s private business, she held herself back after a moment’s struggle.
The two parted at the fourth-floor stairwell — Meng Xin went back to her classroom, Lin Tao headed further upstairs.
By the time she returned to her classroom, the bell was ringing. Lin Tao quickly finished the last piece of dried mango and shoved the still-unopened bag into her drawer. By the second bell, Jiang Yan and his three friends had come back from outside.
The moment he settled into his seat, Jiang Yan caught a familiar scent and frowned slightly. He asked Lin Tao, “Did you eat mango?”
Lin Tao had no idea how this person had a nose like a dog’s — she’d already put it away and he could still smell it. “Yeah, some dried mango. Why, do you want some?”
“I don’t want any!” For some reason, Jiang Yan’s voice shot up three levels instantly, and half the class turned to look.
“……”
You complete idiot.
Lin Tao wanted to snap back, but the teacher had already walked in with the textbook. She swallowed the retort and silently cursed him another seven or eight times in her head.
What’s wrong with you.
Don’t want it, fine, but why shout? What were people supposed to think — that she was bullying her seatmate?
Lin Tao got more and more irritated the more she thought about it. She was on the verge of losing control when a certain someone suddenly slid a folded piece of paper over to her.
Oh, so this guy did understand classroom etiquette — knew to pass a note rather than just talking openly like no one else existed.
Lin Tao took the note and scanned the jagged, half-sprawling characters written across it.
— “I’m allergic to mango.”
Lin Tao turned to look at him, right hand being inconvenient, she lowered her voice instead. “Is that real?”
Jiang Yan took the note back, scrawled a few more strokes, and slid it back. “Want me to eat one and show you what a live performance of dropping dead looks like?”
“……” Lin Tao nodded. “I believe you. I believe you.”
With the small misunderstanding cleared up, the frustration eased. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the Chinese teacher seemed to have clocked something over here. She quickly shoved the note between the pages of her book and picked up a pen with her left hand, pretending to take notes.
The whole sequence was smooth as water — clearly, passing notes was not a new activity for her.
As her seatmate, Jiang Yan had naturally caught her every move. Thinking back to how the two of them had ended up in the same examination room at the end of last semester — he figured this new seatmate’s grades were probably on par with his three little disaster-bringers.
Although, this particular person had the nerve to let someone copy off her during an exam. She had some guts.
A stubborn one.
Jiang Yan clicked his tongue and pulled his phone out from his desk to keep watching his drama.
Beside him, Lin Tao had no idea about any of his jumbled thoughts, and was in fact quietly resolving to avoid buying anything mango-flavored from now on.
In case a certain someone were to stage a live performance of dropping dead without warning one day.
Chinese class ended. The foggy rain outside cleared, and sunlight pushed through the clouds into the classroom. One of the boys sat up, arms stretched in a long yawn, the picture of a person just woken from a nap.
Jiang Yan had gone out again. Lin Tao sat alone at her desk. Xu Huanhuan, sitting in front of her, turned around to chat. “When does your cast come off?”
“About a month, depending on what the doctor says.”
“Ah……that’s still a while.”
The two chatted idly. When Jiang Yan came back from outside, Lin Tao stood to let him pass. Xu Huanhuan seemed practically startled — she turned her head back around without a word.
Jiang Yan looked a little puzzled. “Am I really that scary?”
“Aren’t you though?” Lin Tao sat back down. “I feel like having you as a seatmate has effectively cut off every social connection I had in this class.”
“Who says.” Jiang Yan reached back and knocked on Hu Hanghang and Song Yuan’s desks. “Come on, let me introduce you to a new friend.”
The two lifted their heads in perfect unison. “Sure, and this friend’s name is ‘Just Kidding You’ and ‘You Just Kidding,’ is that it?”
They were referring to last semester’s exam period. Outside the examination hall, Jiang Yan had made a show of introducing them to a new friend, gesturing grandly at a patch of empty air beside him and saying the friend’s name was “Wan Ni Dou.”
They’d thought they’d seen a ghost. They’d run faster than rabbits. It was only later, when they’d calmed down and thought it through, that they realized.
Wan Ni Dou — as in: just messing with you.
Go to hell.
From that day on, they’d never trusted a word Jiang Yan said about introducing new people.
Jiang Yan still remembered the incident and couldn’t help but laugh when it came up.
The breeze was gentle. In the clear sunlight, the boy’s soft black hair glowed warmly, and the smile at the corners of his mouth was clean and bright — everything a young man should be.
He slouched against the wall like he had no bones, a light in his eyes. “This time I’m serious. Let me properly introduce you — my seatmate, Lin Tao.”
“Genuinely excellent. Even while stuck in difficult circumstances herself, she doesn’t forget to extend a hand to those in even greater need.”
What Jiang Yan was referring to was her letting someone copy off her exam. But Lin Tao hadn’t connected the dots to that at all. She heard his description and her mind filled with question marks.
Difficult circumstances?
Was the great man warning her that her current situation was dangerous?
Was she in some kind of crisis?
Would she even make it to graduation??
The two of them were clearly on entirely different frequencies, and yet somehow still managing to hold a conversation.
Hu Hanghang and Song Yuan gave Lin Tao full face: one took each of her hands, and with great gravity shook them. “Lin classmate — thank you for your sacrifice in putting up with a certain someone.”
Lin Tao: “Not a sacrifice at all. After all, showing care for the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled is one of our cherished national traditions.”
“Spoken well.”
“Truly well said.”
After they were done, Hu Hanghang asked, “So which category does our Yan-bro fall into — elderly, weak, sick, or disabled?”
Lin Tao answered without blinking: “Disabled, obviously.”
Jiang Yan himself asked: “Why?”
Lin Tao paused, then explained: “Isn’t brain damage a disability?”
Jiang Yan: “……”
Song Yuan: “……”
Hu Hanghang: “……”
She’s a menace.
Not only three steps beyond stubborn — she had the horizontal reach to match.
Under Jiang Yan’s chaotic orchestration, Lin Tao successfully infiltrated the squad of four.
At dinner that evening, Hu Hanghang grinned at her. “Lin Tao — silent as a delicate little beauty, opens her mouth like the mob boss of the underworld.”
Then he added: “And I mean boss boss.”
Lin Tao: “……”
Jiang Yan, sitting beside her, said with absolutely no shame: “See, I told you — I helped get your social life back on its feet.”
“Oh, thank you ever so much.” Lin Tao picked up her chopsticks with her left hand, still a little clumsy.
Jiang Yan saw her struggling, and without a word moved every dish on the table and placed some of each in front of her. Everyone at the table looked up at him.
Jiang Yan paused with his chopsticks. “What? Is something wrong with me showing care for my seatmate?”
Xu Yichuan smiled pleasantly. “Nothing wrong at all. Caring for your seatmate — completely fine.”
Hu Hanghang chimed right in. “Absolutely, caring for your seatmate, showing warmth and humanity — what’s wrong with that?” He immediately served Song Yuan several large helpings as well. “Good seatmate. Eat more.”
Song Yuan played along without missing a beat. “Thank you. My dear seatmate.”
Lin Tao: “……”
Now she finally understood how these four had ever ended up becoming friends.
Truly, no drama is wasted on anyone in this group.
After dinner, the sun had sunk below the horizon. The whole campus was wrapped in nightfall. The five of them walked back talking and laughing, and Lin Tao looked at the four of them — and for the first time, felt something like genuine anticipation for the next two years of high school.
They weren’t back in the classroom long before the bell rang.
After thirty-five minutes of English listening exercises, Old Yu came into the classroom with a girl in tow, a schoolbag on her back.
Lin Tao thought of what Meng Xin had mentioned that morning about the transfer student and figured this must be her — though she hadn’t expected the transfer student to be someone she actually knew.
Old Yu stood at the podium with the newcomer. “This is a new student who has transferred to our class from Humanities Class 3 in Senior Year 2. Please give her a warm welcome.”
The class’s attention latched onto the words Humanities Class 3.
“No way, she’s transferring from humanities to science?”
“Respect.”
In the scattered sound of applause, the girl spoke. “Hello everyone. My name is Tao Jia. I was originally in Year 1, Class 16, then moved to Humanities Class 3, and now I’m transferring to Class 18. I hope we’ll all get along well.”
Tao Jia.
The girl who’d sat behind Lin Tao in the final exam last semester. They’d originally planned to have a meal together after exams, but Tao Jia hadn’t shown up for her English paper, so it had never happened.
Who would have thought that, after all the winding paths in between, the two of them would end up in the same class again.
Lin Tao couldn’t help marveling once more at the strange workings of fate.
Class 18’s original headcount filled every seat perfectly — even the prime seats on either side of the teacher’s podium were occupied. There was no spare space to put the new arrival.
After asking for Tao Jia’s preference, Old Yu had Hu Hanghang move two desks and chairs to the very last row of the first group.
“For now, sit there. We’ll rearrange everything after next month’s monthly exam.”
Old Yu went over a few reminders about class rules and then left. A few girls in the class who had been Tao Jia’s former classmates from Class 6 called out to her, and the classroom erupted in a brief flurry of noise.
Then it went quiet again.
Dean of Discipline Li Kun’s dark expression appeared, pressed against the glass of the back door.
“……”
One self-study period passed quickly.
Tao Jia exchanged a few words with her former classmates, then came over and sat in Xu Huanhuan’s seat. “Hey, Lin Tao — we meet again.”
Lin Tao looked up and chatted with her for a bit. Tao Jia still remembered the dinner she’d promised. “I’ll take you out to eat one of these days — for real!”
Before Lin Tao could even respond, she heard Tao Jia say to Jiang Yan, “And you too — my lifesaver. You have to come.”
Lifesaver?
Author’s Note: —Tao-sis: sure, you’re having an affair (THE GRAND FINALE!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I finished a sad ending storyline, waaaah—
Pre-sale novel! “All Things Sweet, None Like You” — check the column to add to your bookshelf!
After her fifty-second failed confession:
Meng Zhiyu declared, in front of a crowd of friends: “If I ever go and bother Liang Yu again, then I — no wait — then Liang Yu is a dog. A lonely-until-the-end-of-time dog.”
Who knew the declaration would travel far and wide.
That very night, Meng Zhiyu found herself cornered at the school gate by that very dog named Liang Yu.
After a long, tense silence between them:
Liang Yu bowed his head low, and softly made one sound: “Woof.”
Meng Zhiyu: “……”
「All things are sweet, but you surpass them all」
◎ Proud clingy sweetheart × sweet-talking little fairy
◎ Girl-chases-boy / endlessly satisfying sass / then fire-and-brimstone make-up arc