Under the impetus of the PR team, Lu Shan’s interview quickly spread across the internet. Simultaneously, circulating online was a joint statement from a hundred students and several teachers at Mingli High School.
The statement mainly revolved around their belief in the authenticity of Lu Xingyan’s exam scores. Most of the signatories were graduates of the current high school senior class, and the statement even included several teachers. Everyone was willing to testify on his behalf, acknowledging the significant improvement in his grades over the past year and a half.
At the end of the joint statement was the ranking of the entire class from the second semester of their junior year to the final exam of their senior year. To prevent any accusations, the image was labeled with a note at the bottom left corner, stating that the release of the grades had been approved by all classmates.
In reality, after the release of the education bureau’s investigation report yesterday, the situation had already turned around online. However, a few conspiracy theorists were still stirring the pot, undermining official credibility.
With Lu Shan’s interview video circulating online today, along with this joint statement backed by the evidence of the grades, the online sentiment had significantly shifted. The situation had turned around and become settled.
During dinner, Lu Xingyan scrolled through his phone and came across this joint statement. He was puzzled, wondering who had organized it.
As he scrolled further and saw the signatures at the beginning of the joint statement, he paused, subconsciously looking up at Shen Xingruo. Shen Xingruo met his gaze calmly while picking at her food.
The meal proceeded as usual, just like every other afternoon during the holidays. However, Shen Xingruo insisted on leaving after the meal.
“Aunt Pei, my brother went to Mingli to meet with his teacher today. I need to pick him up and take him back to Huize,” she explained.
Initially, Aunt Pei wanted to invite her to stay for dinner, but considering the dynamics between their families, she couldn’t quite figure out Shen Xingruo’s attitude towards her brother. Unable to find a reason to keep her, she decided not to insist.
In reality, whether Shen Xingruo stayed or left didn’t matter to her. Before Lu Xingyan’s incident, she had promised to take Fang Jingran to visit schools, but with Lu Xingyan’s sudden trouble, she didn’t have the time. When she left Paris, she informed Shen Guangyao to arrange for Fang Jingran to visit the schools again. However, Shen Guangyao had likely been too busy these past few days and forgotten. The implication from Fang Jingran’s phone call was clear—he hadn’t received the message at all.
Although she had scolded Fang Jingran a moment ago, after hanging up the phone, Shen Xingruo still contacted some teachers she knew to assist, and then promptly sent Fang Jingran a message.
Fang Jingran felt at ease, claiming he had acquaintances among the senior competition students. In no time, he had arranged to have lunch with them and suggested meeting directly at the high-speed railway station in the afternoon. He didn’t want to go to the Lu’s house.
Shen Xingruo took her suitcase, bidding farewell repeatedly, ready to leave. Although Lu Xingyan had been mostly silent, he suddenly stood up. “I’ll take you to the school,” he said.
Before Shen Xingruo could respond, Pei Yue chimed in, “That’s a good idea. You haven’t been out much these past few days. It’s a good opportunity to get some fresh air.”
“Oh, didn’t you say your teachers and classmates arranged that joint statement for you? You could also go to the school and thank your teachers while you’re there!” she added.
Lu Xingyan nodded, glanced at Shen Xingruo, then approached and took the suitcase from her hands.
It was still Uncle Liu driving. They remained silent throughout the journey, just like they did on their first day going to Mingli together for school. Uncle Liu habitually stopped at the intersection without considering turning into the one-way street. Neither of them reminded him, and they got out of the car at the intersection, walking along Mingli’s fence.
The midsummer camphor trees were lush green, occasionally swayed by a gentle breeze, bringing not only heat but also the fragrance of flowers, grass, and trees.
Lu Xingyan and Shen Xingruo walked side by side, matching their pace but remaining silent. When they were dating a while back, they often took walks like this together, especially after dinner, just wandering around without doing much else, holding hands affectionately, and taking a stroll along the Falling Star Lake.
The silence and distance between them persisted until they reached the entrance of Mingli School.
Shen Xingruo called Fang Jingran, who came out, and the three of them returned to the intersection and got into Uncle Liu’s car, who then drove them to the high-speed railway station.
At the station, Shen Xingruo and Fang Jingran got off, but Lu Xingyan stayed put. As the siblings walked into the station, he didn’t even lift his head.
It wasn’t that he was indifferent; he was just afraid that if he raised his head and saw Shen Xingruo, he would once again insist on keeping her.
He knew Shen Xingruo didn’t like him behaving like this, and he didn’t want to continue in this manner.
Uncle Liu reversed the car.
Lu Xingyan kept his gaze away from the window, head down, sliding his finger across his phone. He hadn’t checked any messages other than Shen Xingruo’s. At the top of the list was Li Chengfan’s chat box.
Li Chengfan seemed quite persistent; he hadn’t replied, yet Li Chengfan had sent dozens of messages intermittently.
He glanced through the earlier messages, only starting to pay attention to the latter part.
“Li Chengfan, did you and Shen Xingruo break up? She’s so heartless. We sent her so many messages, but she didn’t reply at all. It’s infuriating me.”
“Li Chengfan, where are you? Say something, Yaogang, don’t give up!”
“Li Chengfan!!!”
“Li Chengfan, I take back what I said about Shen Xingruo being heartless! Today, she came up with a joint letter and even came to my house to ask me to sign it! She went to Zhao Langming’s house too!”
“Li Chengfan, god… Do you know? Shen Xingruo went to every student in our class to sign that joint statement. She even went to Wang Sisi and the others, and they signed it! How much injustice must she have suffered to make them sign?!”
Wang Sisi was one of Li Ting’s chatty little sisters.
Lu Xingyan saw this and was suddenly stunned.
He exited Li Chengfan’s chat interface and opened He Siyue’s instead.
He Siyue had sent him about a dozen messages. The first few were words of comfort sent as soon as the incident happened, while the last three were sent two hours ago, with lengthy content.
He Siyue: Lu Xingyan, is there something wrong between you and Shen Xingruo? You might not know, but because of your situation, Shen Xingruo went to each of our classmates, persuading everyone to sign a joint letter. Initially, many classmates were unwilling to sign, firstly because of your usual attitude issue, you should be aware of that, and secondly, many people were afraid of getting into trouble by signing. But I don’t know how Shen Xingruo managed it, and all the classmates ended up signing.
He Siyue: Moreover, she had never accepted interviews from the provincial champion program before. This time, because she wanted to speak up for you, she accepted interviews from two stations again. But I heard from relatives at Xingcheng Station that the government issued a red-letter document these days, explicitly prohibiting official news media from using champions as gimmicks, so it may not be broadcast in the end.
He Siyue: I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but it seems a bit off. If there’s any problem, I hope you can resolve it properly. Shen Xingruo might not be good at expressing herself, but she’s good to you.
—She’s good to you.
Lu Xingyan stared at the last line for a long time.
Uncle Liu had already turned the front of the car around, ready to return. Suddenly, he shouted, “Wait.”
He didn’t explain much, just opened the car door and ran out.
He knew he couldn’t do much, but he just felt like he should do something.
Fortunately, Shen Xingruo and Fang Jingran weren’t moving quickly. When he ran to the entrance of the station, he saw the two of them still queuing to check their tickets.
“Shen Xingruo!”
Shen Xingruo paused slightly and turned to look back.
Then she pushed her luggage to Fang Jingran and let him go in first. Fang Jingran glanced at Lu Xingyan, hesitated for a moment, and nodded.
When Lu Xingyan caught up, he was a bit out of breath, his chest still heaving heavily.
Shen Xingruo handed him a piece of paper and asked, “What’s the matter?”
He kept staring at Shen Xingruo, not willing to blink.
He had a lot of things he wanted to say, but when it came to his lips, he swallowed them back, making concessions after concessions. Because he didn’t want to see that disappointed look on Shen Xingruo’s face again.
After a long while, he finally spoke up, saying, “I changed my college preference back to Xing University, you know.”
Shen Xingruo nodded.
If he hadn’t chosen Xing University in the end, this whole thing wouldn’t have escalated so much.
Lu Xingyan licked his slightly chapped lower lip. “Shen Xingruo, could you please hold off on dating anyone else for now? I’ve thought about it, and I plan to join some kind of summer camp or something to broaden my horizons. Then in my freshman year, I’ll study hard.”
His voice carried a hint of carefulness that even he didn’t realize.
“I haven’t been idle these days either. I’ve looked up a lot of information. I plan to switch to studying finance management in my sophomore year. Plus, Xing University has long-term exchange programs with your university. We can exchange for a year, and I can apply for both sophomore and junior years. It’s just that the exchange program is very competitive. I’ll try my best. If I can’t get it in my sophomore year, I’ll get it in my junior year.”
After speaking, he looked at Shen Xingruo expectantly.
Shen Xingruo looked back at him.
After staring at each other for a while, she asked, “Is that all?”
Lu Xingyan nodded.
Shen Xingruo said, “Then I promise you.”
Lu Xingyan nodded instinctively again.
Wait, why did she agree so quickly?
Fang Jingran had already finished checking their tickets and had been waiting at the railings for a long time. Unable to bear it, he shouted, “Sis! Xingruo!”
Lu Xingyan snapped out of it and glanced towards Fang Jingran’s direction before saying to Shen Xingruo, “Well… you should go, be careful on the way.” Unable to help himself, he added, “Once you arrive, give me a call or send me a message on WeChat.”
Shen Xingruo nodded. “Then I’ll go.”
Lu Xingyan rubbed the back of his head, putting on an indifferent facade, and just grunted in response.
Shen Xingruo stood there for a moment, not hearing him speak again, then turned and walked away.
Lu Xingyan watched as Shen Xingruo checked her ticket and entered the station, then watched as she and Fang Jingran went through security and disappeared into the distance.
He kept reminding himself not to act impulsively, that things were already good enough as they were. Shen Xingruo didn’t like it when he did childish things, and he shouldn’t selfishly hold her back.
Before the issue of the college entrance exam scores came up, he had never really felt like they had broken up. He always felt like the breakup was just a temporary joke, that once he changed his preference back, Shen Xingruo would come back to him.
But unfortunately, over these past few days, he couldn’t ignore his past foolishness and immaturity. Even though he had come to understand many things and had made many resolutions, for some reason, when it came time to make a promise to Shen Xingruo and let her go, his heart still felt heavy.
It was like what they say in TV dramas, feeling so upset that you can barely breathe.
It was ridiculous to think about it—a grown man acting like this, it was embarrassing beyond words.
It wasn’t until he couldn’t see Shen Xingruo’s figure anymore that he slowly retreated, then plopped down ungracefully outside the ticket checkpoint, hanging his head for a long, long time.
He wanted to smoke a cigarette, but he realized he hadn’t bought any in a long time.
Uncle Liu called several times to urge him, and Lu Xingyan checked the time. Shen Xingruo’s train seemed to have departed.
He planned to get up.
Just then, a pair of white sneakers unexpectedly caught his eye. They were very delicate in style. And very familiar.
Upwards, there were bare and straight white calves, and further up—
Shen Xingruo reached out to him.
The daylight was glaring, and Lu Xingyan felt as if his heart had stopped for three seconds.
Perhaps because he hadn’t reacted for so long, Shen Xingruo simply squatted down. Squatted right in front of him, lowered her eyes, took out a tissue, and awkwardly wiped his sweat.
Behind him was a window, sunlight pouring in from outside, casting a grid of light and shadow on the ground. Against the light, he didn’t look closely, but he always felt like Shen Xingruo’s eyes seemed a little red, though he wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination.
“Your… your train has already left, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Lu Xingyan’s throat tightened. “Then you…”
“I don’t want to wait for you for another year to start dating again.”