The music classroom was usually deserted when there were no classes, making it the only quiet place in their building.

Qing Ye leaned against a pillar, quietly waiting for Xing Wu in the sunlight. Soon she heard his footsteps coming from behind the pillar, moving toward the left side. As she leaned left to look, she suddenly felt a shadow press down on her right. When she turned back, Xing Wu had already bent down with one hand against the pillar, kissing her and gently biting her sweet lips, his voice low and magnetic: “Did you miss me?”

He trapped her between his arms, at such a close distance, in such a sensitive spot – was he pulling that wall-cornering move from TV dramas? While Qing Ye had seen it in dramas before, experiencing it herself wasn’t quite as romantic. She felt nervous, with a hint of excitement, worried that a teacher might suddenly walk by. Wouldn’t that be scandalous?

Xing Wu looked down at her somewhat flustered appearance, like a startled deer. Finding it amusing, he couldn’t help but pinch her cheek. Qing Ye noticed him getting bolder and raised her eyes: “You weren’t like this before.”

Xing Wu’s lips curled into a slight smile: “Before, I wasn’t your anything.”

Qing Ye turned her head, unable to suppress a smile. It seemed ever since they had entered “relationship mode” last night, someone had become increasingly uninhibited.

She gathered her thoughts and said to him: “I have something serious to tell you.”

“Do I look unserious?”

Heaven knows his eyes were brimming with laughter as he said this. Qing Ye could only ignore his expression and say: “Have you heard about the school canceling evening self-study?”

“Mm.”

Qing Ye hadn’t expected that while he wasn’t attending classes, he was quite well-informed. She continued: “I promised Shi Min I’d help tutor her after school, so I won’t be leaving with you today.”

Xing Wu raised his eyebrows slightly in disapproval: “How is it that becoming my girlfriend means spending less time with me?”

The class bell rang. Qing Ye looked at him with a smile, suddenly stood on tiptoe to kiss his chin, then ducked under his arm: “I’m heading back to class first. You should wait a while before coming back.”

“…” Xing Wu watched her hurried departure, touching his chin with a slight curve to his eyes.

At dismissal time, Shi Min packed up her things and waited to leave with Qing Ye, looking rather anxious. Qing Ye asked her what was wrong.

Shi Min worriedly asked: “Where are we going?”

“Let’s go to my place. It wouldn’t be convenient for me to go to yours.”

Shi Min glanced at Xing Wu and his group of friends standing in the corridor and quietly asked: “Everyone says you’re relatives of Xing Wu and live at his family’s barbershop. So when you say your place, does that mean we’re going to Xing Wu’s house?”

Qing Ye understood now – after all this time, Shi Min was afraid of Xing Wu. She wondered why, as she’d been here for two months and hadn’t seen Xing Wu speak to Shi Min even once. Why was she so afraid of him? Was he really that scary?

Qing Ye peeked outside the classroom, puzzled. He wasn’t scary at all; wasn’t he quite handsome?

But to ease Shi Min’s tension, she reassured her: “Yes, it’s his house, but don’t worry. I’m not close with him, we can just ignore him.”

Just as she finished speaking, Xing Wu shot her a glance, making Qing Ye immediately feel guilty, wondering if he had heard.

As Shi Min linked arms with Qing Ye and left the school gates, Xing Wu and his group came down the stairs, keeping their distance. The group of boys was rowdy. Since there was no evening self-study today, there were particularly many students around, everyone in a holiday mood, acting uninhibited. Even Pang Hu was happily clinging to Huang Mao, singing “Let’s Be Companions in the Mortal World.”

Qing Ye couldn’t understand – usually Pang Hu would stutter through one sentence in three parts, but why didn’t he stutter when singing? And he sang quite well, though the song choice was… questionable. She thought Pang Hu should study opera; if he sang in daily life instead of speaking, it would sound much better.

Perhaps because the group of boys was so noisy, Shi Min kept turning back to look at them, then whispered to Qing Ye: “I’ve noticed Xing Wu is quite nice to you.”

Qing Ye laughed dryly: “Just normal.”

But Shi Min said seriously: “Really, I’ve never seen him smile at any girl at school before. If anyone tries to talk to him too much, he gets very impatient, so I never dare to speak to him.”

Qing Ye recalled when she first came to Xuan Dao, how Xing Wu would always look at her impatiently and say she was troublesome. Perhaps girls were just trouble in his eyes – so why was he now so willingly accepting this big trouble? Qing Ye’s eyes narrowed as she said to Shi Min: “Maybe he’s just infatuated with me.”

Though Qing Ye’s tone was casual, her words were true. Shi Min didn’t believe her and took it as a joke, as she liked Qing Ye’s unmasked confidence.

When they reached Xuan Dao, Qing Ye obviously couldn’t take her upstairs – if Shi Min saw her sharing a room with Xing Wu, the girl would probably short-circuit.

So she settled Shi Min under the shed in the backyard and ran upstairs to get their study materials.

Li Lan Fang, though unreliable most of the time, had one good point – she was hospitable. Seeing Qing Ye bring a classmate home, she actively invited her to stay for dinner.

Just as the two had settled down, Xing Wu returned. Pang Hu and Huang Mao followed him back. As soon as Huang Mao entered Xuan Dao, he noisily ran toward the backyard, saying he wanted to see Qing Ye, but Xing Wu grabbed his collar: “Just stay in the front, don’t disturb them.”

Huang Mao complained dejectedly: “What if I don’t talk, just watch from the back door?”

Xing Wu ignored him and brought the small heater to the shed, then connected an extension cord. The shed immediately became warmer. Qing Ye was explaining problems to Shi Min, looked up and smiled at him, and Xing Wu stared at her for a moment before leaving.

Pang Hu came over instead, standing silently behind Shi Min listening to Qing Ye’s explanations. At some point during the explanation, he suddenly blurted out: “Oh, so that’s how it works!”

Only then did Qing Ye look up and notice he was holding a notebook, already taking notes. She smiled and said: “Don’t just stand there, grab a stool!”

“Ok.” Pang Hu responded, pulling over a wooden stool to sit across from Qing Ye.

Qing Ye asked him: “Have you done your homework today?”

“Not yet, I brought Fang Lei’s homework to copy.”

“…” Qing Ye was utterly speechless. Fang Lei’s homework was copied from hers. She increasingly felt like a pyramid scheme leader – every day before school ended, her homework would be distributed, and almost the whole class would copy from her downstream contacts, leading to a suspiciously high homework accuracy rate in Class 2 recently.

Qing Ye teased: “As a class monitor, aren’t you ashamed to be copying homework all the time?”

Pang Hu scratched his head with an embarrassed grin.

“Why don’t you write it yourself? If you don’t understand, I can help explain.”

Pang Hu thought this was reasonable – studying homework together would be more motivating. Thus, Xing Wu’s family’s dining shed was suddenly filled with an atmosphere of diligent study.

Even Li Lan Fang tiptoed when passing by the kitchen, afraid of disturbing them.

Huang Mao and Xing Wu rode out to buy some braised dishes. After about an hour, Li Lan Fang told them to pack up their things and eat first.

They were all regular guests at Xing Wu’s home, except for Shi Min who was visiting for the first time, so she was very reserved, just picking at the white rice in her bowl without touching the dishes. Qing Ye moved the duck closer to her: “Don’t be shy.”

Shi Min looked up gratefully, but when her eyes met Xing Wu’s beside Qing Ye, she quickly lowered her head again. Qing Ye turned back to glare at Xing Wu inexplicably. Xing Wu shrugged innocently, indicating he hadn’t done anything.

Then they noticed Pang Hu’s predatory gaze fixed on the duck leg. Xing Wu calmly picked up the duck leg and placed it steadily in Qing Ye’s bowl. At this point, Pang Hu lost all hope.

As third-year students, their conversation inevitably turned to college applications. Pang Hu asked Shi Min what major she wanted to study. Shi Min said she wanted to study tourism management so she could travel to many places in the future.

Qing Ye looked at her – what an innocent thought. She even doubted if Shi Min knew what the core courses of tourism management were. Not everyone ends up as a tour guide. However, Qing Ye felt that although Shi Min’s circumstances were different from hers, they shared one goal: they both wanted to leave this place, unwilling to be bound by fate. The difference was that Qing Ye knew her path forward, while Shi Min was still essentially groping in the dark. That’s why Qing Ye was willing to help her.

Then Shi Min asked Pang Hu: “Monitor, what major do you plan to study?”

Pang Hu took a big bite of rice and thought: “I, I don’t know yet. It’s still questionable if I can get into a vocational college. If I can get into any school, I’ll just choose something randomly.”

He looked at Qing Ye: “Qing Ye, wh-what do you think would suit me?”

Without hesitation, Qing Ye blurted out: “Musical theater.”

“…” Everyone around stared at her bewildered. She had just said it offhandedly, because she felt singing could cure Pang Hu’s stutter.

Huang Mao almost spat out his rice: “What does that major do?”

“Have you seen musicals like ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ or ‘Les Misérables’? It’s studying music theory, singing, performance techniques, and such.”

Huang Mao laughed: “My life is miserable enough, why would I watch ‘Les Misérables’?”

But Pang Hu seriously asked: “Qing Ye, wh-where can you study in-this major?”

Qing Ye thought for a moment: “As far as I know, the Central Academy of Drama has it, Beijing Dance Academy too, then Communication University of China, Shanghai Theatre Academy – these art-focused schools should have it.”

Huang Mao immediately laughed, patting Pang Hu’s big belly: “Come on, him at the Central Academy of Arts? He might try applying as a doorman. If he performs on stage, wouldn’t the audience demand refunds?”

Everyone burst out laughing, even Shi Min covered her mouth and giggled while looking down. Pang Hu himself laughed foolishly, but Qing Ye said matter-of-factly: “Have you ever seen a play succeed solely on handsome actors and beautiful actresses? Every successful play has various types of key characters. Try naming any play – would it be good if you removed all the brilliant supporting roles?”

Unable to argue with Qing Ye, Huang Mao nodded: “That’s true, flowers need green leaves to complement them. Brother, I see you as a voluminous green leaf.” Pang Hu just laughed along.

Qing Ye looked at Huang Mao again and asked: “What about you? What will you do after graduation?”

Huang Mao said: “Get a driver’s license.”

“…” What a grand ambition.

Huang Mao continued: “I won’t get into university anyway. My dad’s been driving trucks his whole life, I plan to follow in his footsteps, get my license, and drive trucks with him.”

Qing Ye suddenly turned to Xing Wu: “You should get one too.”

Xing Wu said flatly: “No.”

Qing Ye pouted, and Xing Wu immediately smiled: “What do I need that for? I’m not going to drive trucks.”

“What if someone gives you a car in the future, can you drive it?”

Xing Wu said playfully: “Who the hell would give me a car? Are they crazy?”

Huang Mao interjected: “Wu Ge, don’t say that. Maybe when our Qing Ye makes it big, she’ll come back and give you a Mercedes.”

Qing Ye smiled at him, but Xing Wu threw his chopsticks at Huang Mao: “Get lost, my teeth are good, I don’t need to leech off others.”

Huang Mao found something odd about these words – how is a sister giving her brother a car considered leeching? His mind couldn’t quite figure it out.

Under the table, Qing Ye tugged at Xing Wu’s clothes and said: “Get one, okay?”

Xing Wu glanced at her sideways: “Why are you so insistent about me getting a driver’s license?”

“I don’t know, I just think you’d look cool driving.”

When your girlfriend says something like that, what can you do? Get it, of course.

Xing Wu stayed silent, taking hold of Qing Ye’s hand that was tugging at his clothes under the table. Though everyone at the table was eating and chatting, no one could see their little gestures under the table, but these secretive actions made them both share knowing smiles.