The boy quickly ran away as the bell for class rang. The crowd around them finally dispersed.
He turned, his eyes dark as pitch.
Meng Ting asked him, “Class is starting. Don’t you need to go back for evening self-study?”
Jiang Ren drawled, “Our evening self-study? Playing cards, sleeping, and karaoke.”
She couldn’t help but laugh.
Meng Ting said softly, “I’m sorry for calling you out today. I have something on Friday, so I can’t tutor you tomorrow. Would it be convenient to have the session today?”
Jiang Ren replied, “It’s convenient.” Then he asked her, “What’s happening tomorrow night?”
Meng Ting didn’t want to tell him.
She had her reasons.
When she was thirteen or fourteen, wearing a small ballet dress, she was dazzlingly beautiful. A string of boys followed her, wanting to walk her home.
It was during puberty when others would walk home from school, chatting and laughing with their female friends.
Only she had several infatuated boys following behind her.
Originally, Meng Ting had friends, but later their mothers wouldn’t let them walk home with her.
Those uncles and aunts said, “With so many boys following her, how inappropriate! Don’t play with her anymore, understand?”
So even though Meng Ting was well-liked, the girls in her class wouldn’t walk home with her after school.
Meng Ting lost her temper once.
She was young then, didn’t know better, and threw small pebbles at them, telling them not to follow. Before they could say anything, she became more and more upset and started crying. As she cried and wiped her tears, the boys were dumbfounded, none daring to speak.
For young girls in puberty, having one or two admirers was something to boast about.
However, having a crowd was undoubtedly a disaster.
Zeng Yujie, both sympathetic and amused at the time, feared Meng Ting would be left with psychological trauma and quickly comforted her daughter, saying it was okay.
She even used a joking tone to console her.
Thinking about it now, it seemed like something that happened a long time ago.
How to put it?
On stage, she had a unique charm, stunningly beautiful. Not just the opposite sex, even Shu Lan, after seeing her dance, insisted on learning ballet.
Thinking about this, Meng Ting paused, finally realizing why Xu Jia looked familiar.
When she was in eighth grade, among the people who always followed her home, there was a chubby boy.
The chubby boy was short, mixed in at the back of the crowd. But his eyes stared blankly at Meng Ting.
After she cried that time, the boys all dispersed. Not long after, a few boys pretended to be going home the same way, secretly watching her.
Meng Ting’s attitude had become much more composed. After Zeng Yujie comforted her, she didn’t pay attention to them anymore.
The chubby boy disappeared around that time.
So, Xu Jia was from the same middle school as her!
Later, Meng Ting and her mother were in a car accident. To treat Meng Ting’s eyes, the family sold their house and rented one in the new district close to where the children attended high school. It was far from her high school, and as students grew up, they went their separate ways. Xu Jia had completely changed.
He had lost the excess weight, grown taller, and become quite handsome. That’s why Meng Ting hadn’t recognized him.
Thinking about it, Meng Ting knew she couldn’t let Jiang Ren go even more.
He already had feelings for her, and if he went, she’d be in trouble and would never be able to shake him off for the rest of her life.
Now Meng Ting had no prejudice against him, but lack of prejudice didn’t mean she wanted to date him. She didn’t want to date him at all!
No one could tolerate someone as emotionally unstable and domineering as him.
Moreover, Meng Ting had never thought about dating early. She hadn’t been to university, and it was a place she longed for. She only wanted to get into a good university, or like Lu Yue and others, have excellent grades and be recommended for admission. Her grades couldn’t slip.
Meng Ting couldn’t tell him, but she also wasn’t used to lying.
She looked at her toes and told him, “I need to go to the hospital for an eye check-up.”
Jiang Ren’s lips curved slightly, but the smile in his eyes faded. Lying to a ghost, going to the hospital for an eye check-up late at night! However, he didn’t say anything and lazily responded, “Mm, if we’re having the lesson today, then today it is.”
Meng Ting breathed a sigh of relief.
She said, “Can we go to the music room?”
Jiang Ren had no objections, of course.
Meng Ting opened the door.
Inside was a black piano, quiet and elegant. Further in were several desks. He casually turned on the air conditioner, and as the air inside was stuffy, Jiang Ren opened the window with a crack.
Meng Ting sat down with him at the desk, taking out the notes she had organized for several days.
“These are what you need to remember from middle school. The focus is on math and physics, plus basic chemistry because they’ll be used in high school too. Take a look.” She marked with her black pen, “Master these and we’ll start from the beginning.”
Her eyelashes were very curled, with tiny stars in her eyes.
Jiang Ren gave a low “Mm.”
Meng Ting said, “I’m not professional, and I don’t explain very well. I don’t have much time to tutor you. If you don’t like listening to the school teachers, you can hire a private tutor to help with the basics.”
He agreed.
Meng Ting felt he was very cooperative today.
She was naturally attentive and found it peculiar. Finally, she spared some attention and noticed Jiang Ren would occasionally look at the piano in front. His eyes were cold, yet with a hint of gloomy light.
The window was open, and the warm May breeze blew in. In the sunset, the piano had a kind of gorgeous tenderness.
He wasn’t happy. The once irritable youth now had an air of introversion about him.
Meng Ting had heard that children who were disliked and didn’t fit in when they were young had no childhood.
Did he want to hear piano music?
She didn’t say much. After finishing the lesson, Meng Ting assigned homework and then gave him all the books she had found for him to study conveniently.
Then Meng Ting walked to the piano, sat down, and opened the lid.
She remembered the night that bothered Jiang Ren the most was Christmas Eve when she wore a blue winter dress to play the piano.
When her fingers touched the keys, Jiang Ren’s pupils contracted violently.
He clenched his fists tightly, his whole body tense, resisting the urge to pull her up.
His childhood memory was of being beaten, scolded, and locked in a room by his mother. Then his mother’s piano room would play music over and over again.
That woman didn’t like Mr. Jiang.
Those piano pieces were plaintive and grotesque, like a hand gripping his heart tightly, making him hate it intensely.
He liked Meng Ting but feared she might be that kind of person too.
Elegant and beautiful, yet most heartless.
In the gentle sunset, a faint golden light fell on Meng Ting’s black hair.
The moment the piano sound rang out.
He raised his eyes in a daze.
Her fingertips leaped lightly, playing the nursery rhyme “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
The simplest melody, twinkling bright.
It was a song to comfort children. A song that women would never deign to play.
Cheerful and lively.
Meng Ting finished playing and carefully closed the piano lid. Then she smiled at him, her eyes curving, “Alright, let’s go.”
His body was stiff and tense.
Meng Ting might never know how much he wanted to embrace her at that moment.
After she closed the windows, shutting out the sunlight from the room.
Jiang Ren finally said “Okay” with a low chuckle.
He thought, even if she was naive and didn’t understand what she had done, he knew he was done for.
He would have to be devoted for life.
He used to hate piano music so much, but now he was madly infatuated with this girl.
Jiang Ren had casually placed the remote control on the wooden speaker box by the window earlier. It was stacked up high, and Meng Ting stood on tiptoe to reach for the air conditioner remote in the music room. Jiang Ren came up behind her, reaching over her head to take the remote.
He assumed a posture of embracing her from behind.
Yet he didn’t touch her at all.
Jiang Ren just wanted, so desperately wanted to possess her. If God told him the previous second that this girl loved him and he could have her, the next second he would be willing to die.
When Meng Ting turned around, he nonchalantly turned off the air conditioner and said to her, “Okay, let’s go.”
His expression was indifferent, so from beginning to end, Meng Ting hadn’t noticed anything amiss.
On Friday night, Meng Ting went to the Arts Hall.
The preliminary selection had begun.
As the competition times were staggered, the Arts Hall wasn’t overcrowded. Staff were maintaining order.
The stage was carpeted.
The white lights were dazzling.
After two lifetimes, five years apart, Meng Ting once again stood here.
Contestants first had to collect a number tag, then wait backstage to change clothes when their number was called.
Meng Ting’s number was 89, no wonder it was a night competition. With two days of competition time, a city’s preliminary selection should have close to two hundred people.
Many people were touching up their makeup on site.
Meng Ting hadn’t put on makeup; she had no money left for cosmetics after buying the dance costume. However, she knew how to use other resources as substitutes.
Her eyes were already delicate and beautiful. Meng Ting tied her long hair up in a white flower bud hair tie.
Her neck was slender and beautiful, undoubtedly a favorite of the creator.
Meng Ting didn’t rush to change clothes; her number was towards the end.
She lowered her eyes to look at her watch; it was now 10:10 PM. At this time, number 78 should be performing.
By calculation, her scheduled performance time was 10:00 PM.
However, preliminaries often had many unexpected situations. For example, some registered contestants wouldn’t show up for the competition and would be considered to have forfeited.
After number 78 finished performing, of numbers 79 to 84, only number 82 showed up. So in an instant, there were only a few people ahead of her.
The host said, “Numbers 85 to 90, please get ready.”
Meng Ting had no choice but to go to the changing room to change.
She lowered her eyes, first putting on her stockings, then tying the straps. She stood up to change into the white dance dress.
Finally, she put on her ballet shoes.
Meng Ting lightly rose onto her toes, gently raising her arms, the dazzling lights dancing on her cherry-pink fingertips.
She lowered her arms and looked at the watch she had taken off.
It was 9:30 PM.
However, she hadn’t seen Zhao Nuancheng.
Zhao Nuancheng had earlier patted her chest, saying, “Ting Ting, don’t worry, I’ll come! I’ll bring my dad’s phone to take photos for you. Oh, can we take photos?”
Meng Ting had nodded.
Zhao Nuancheng was overjoyed.
But at 9:30 PM, Meng Ting didn’t see her in the hall.
Did Zhao Nuancheng have something unexpected come up and couldn’t make it? Meng Ting was a bit worried about her. She lifted the curtain and looked around, indeed not seeing her friend.
However, she saw an unexpected person.
Xu Jia had come.
His mother was an art teacher, so it wasn’t strange that he knew this information. But remembering her childhood memories of the chubby boy who always followed her home, Meng Ting felt a bit uncomfortable. He was clever this time, not saying he would come, just quietly arriving in advance.
Xu Jia’s eyes were brimming with excitement.
If Meng Ting playing the piano was beautiful and elegant, then when she danced, she was simply a bewitching enchantress.
From his insecure, clumsy, and chubby adolescence, when he followed his mother to help out and saw her dance, he was completely stunned. By the time he had watched her finish a dance in a daze, his heart was no longer his own.
Later, she cried, telling them not to follow her home after school.
Xu Jia, already self-conscious about being fat and short, didn’t dare to go anymore.
When she was fourteen, she lost her sight in a car accident, and not long after, she was recommended for admission to No. 7 High School. The whole family moved away.
Everyone said the angel had broken her wings and would never be able to dance again in this life.
He didn’t know why, but that day he sat alone on the roof and wailed for a long time.
Until later, when by chance, he met her again.
The angel girl with broken wings had quietly grown up. She was more beautiful than any word he could imagine. Her eyes were healed, but now she was quiet, beautiful, and gentle, as if the dazzling, vibrant little girl who had cried and thrown pebbles at them, forbidding them to follow, had disappeared.
Xu Jia had waited for a long time.
After so many years, she finally stood on the stage again.
Did Zhao Nuancheng come? No.
Zhao Nuancheng was stopped on the way.
When she happily pretended to have a stomachache and left the school gates, several mountain bikes surrounded her.
A youth took off his helmet, revealing slightly messy black hair, and smiled roguishly, “Classmate, where are you going? Let me give you a ride.”
Zhao Nuancheng was frightened and turned to run.
He Junming rode over, grinning mischievously, “Hey hey hey, we’re not letting you pass~”
Zhao Nuancheng said, “Are you crazy?!”
He Junming glared, “Say that again, you bitch!”
Zhao Nuancheng was about to cry, “Uncle! Gate uncle!”
The security guard poked his head out.
Seeing these vocational high school bullies, he quickly pulled his head back in.
Zhao Nuancheng: “…”
Jiang Ren impatiently tapped his foot on the ground. He had misjudged one thing: Meng Ting hadn’t come for evening self-study at all. He had been waiting to follow her, but she had taken leave for the entire evening session.
Fortunately, while lying in wait, they caught Zhao Nuancheng.
Zhao Nuancheng would have to do.
She must know where Meng Ting went so late at night.
Jiang Ren said impatiently, “Why are you running? I ask, you answer.”
Zhao Nuancheng felt so wronged. She had finally managed to put on a great act, her face flushed red with effort, to trick the teacher and run out, only to be blocked by so many ruffians as soon as she left.
She was terrified and quickly nodded.
Jiang Ren hung his helmet on the bike and asked, “Where did Meng Ting go?”