◎Hair Tie◎

In the following days, Yuan Ye never missed another morning exercise session. Every time she turned her head and saw him, Chun Zao felt a warm, comforting sensation in her heart.

He seemed to have become even more handsome and easier to spot than before. Boys their age liked running and jumping outdoors, knowing nothing about maintenance or sun protection, their necks perpetually dark as if they’d never been properly washed. But Yuan Ye was different. Even across crowds like towering mountains, he remained clean as sun-lit golden peaks or snow-covered spruces.

Yuan Ye also had a bit of the casual attitude common among boys during exercises—not rigid and precise, occasionally talking to people beside him, mostly smiling with his eyes slightly squinting in the sunlight, forming an echo with the corners of his mouth.

Even across such a great distance, it was contagious to her.

Chun Zao could only try hard to keep her lips flat, making herself appear unmoved.

But… would Yuan Ye also notice her during exercises?

After all, they knew each other, and the classes were so close together.

What would her silhouette look like from his perspective?

After washing up on Friday night, while blow-drying her hair in front of the mirror, Chun Zao was suddenly curious. She went back to her room, secretly pocketed the small round mirror from her pencil case, and brought it to the bathroom. She tied up her hair as usual and found a tricky angle in the mirror to observe the back of her head.

…It was so utterly ordinary.

The most common hairstyle, with some scattered loose strands, the black hair tie completely unremarkable, almost blending completely with her hair.

Chun Zao tried both low and high ponytails, finally setting down the mirror helplessly. What was the difference?

Back in her bedroom, she opened a drawer and took out the transparent box containing hair ties, rummaging through it. Almost everything was black, gray, or brown elastic bands or transparent telephone cord ties. The most special ones were just solid gray-blue or gray-pink.

Chun Zao leaned back against her chair.

Even her scalp was starting to itch with frustration.

She scratched at it, though she had just washed it, fluffy, soft, and fragrant.

Chun Zao designated Friday as her indulgence day, extending her internet time to twice the usual. Near 11:30, she tidied her desk, crawled under the covers, set the timer for forty minutes, then opened QQ.

Yuan Ye’s account always showed mobile online status, visible as soon as she logged in.

At this hour, he didn’t seem to be back yet, while her surroundings were as quiet as living beside an empty valley.

Chun Zao suddenly felt somewhat listless.

She couldn’t focus on music and wasn’t sleepy either. After aimlessly scrolling Weibo for about ten minutes, she decided to end her electronic addiction time early. Just as she was about to exit QQ, a message suddenly flashed in her friends list—from Yuan Ye, showing [Image].

Chun Zao’s heart trembled as she clicked in.

The boy had sent a phone photo that, without enlarging, she could tell was the National Day bulletin board she had been struggling with these past two days—

A corner of it.

Besides a small portion of framework and drawings in frame, most of what was displayed was her lettering.

She used two fingers to enlarge the writing. Fortunately, those neat small characters were quite pleasing to the eye, thanks to being supervised by Chun Chuzhen to practice calligraphy for half an hour daily since age six.

Why did Yuan Ye photograph this?

Did he know she had written it? Though the windows of Class One faced directly onto the corridor with the public bulletin board, and she had been taking every spare moment these past two days to stand on a stool there, racing against time to fill in the lettering. It would be hard not to notice, just like how he had come over to help clean the blackboard before.

Chun Zao replied in confusion: What’s wrong?

The same picture was sent again, but this time with a red circle drawn on it.

The circle highlighted one character.

Yuan Ye: There’s a wrong character.

Chun Zao looked closely and was momentarily speechless.

Indeed, there was a wrong character. In “da you bi yi” (greatly beneficial), the “bi” character’s clothing radical had been mistakenly written as the ritual radical, missing a dot.

It must have been due to rushing to finish the work plus Tong the landlord’s intermittent shouting beside her that caused this elementary mistake.

Now it had been discovered and pointed out.

It was hard not to feel embarrassed.

Chun Zao forced herself to stay calm, displaying a righteous attitude of correcting errors:

-Right, I see it.

-Thanks for pointing it out.

-I’ll fix it when I go back on Monday.

But the boy sent the image into the chat box for a third public execution.

-No need, I added it.

-Just used chalk.

-Should be fine, right?

Chun Zao was slightly stunned and opened the photo.

Though it looked roughly the same as a thumbnail, when enlarged, it was not the same image—different lighting and slightly different angle. The wrong character she had written in white gouache had been artificially repaired with white chalk. Due to the material color difference, the other person had darkened that missing “dot” several times to make the entire character look more harmonious.

Chun Zao asked strangely: When did you fix it?

Yuan Ye: Just now.

Chun Zao was surprised: …You’re still at school?

Yuan Ye’s tone was casual: Yeah, no one around at this hour.

Chun Zao was speechless again.

As a stable top-five performer in the liberal arts class, becoming the king of typos should have been a face-losing embarrassment, but when she came to her senses, the corners of her mouth were full of an inexplicable smile.

So there were people who would actively look at these emotionless, all-technique mainstream literature pieces on bulletin boards, even playing “spot the difference” games.

Chun Zao couldn’t evaluate Yuan Ye’s behavior. She only knew she had been biting her lower lip hard for a long time to block the gushing laughter.

She continued typing: I thought you had gone home or to an internet cafe for an all-nighter.

Yuan Ye replied: Can’t there be other options?

Chun Zao: What?

Yuan Ye: For example

Yuan Ye: I’m on my way back.

Chun Zao stared at these two sentences for several seconds, instinctively pulling the blanket corner to cover her entire face. Her hands were completely insufficient—given her current level of joy, even covering her face with both hands, those blooming smiles would grow out through her fingers with nowhere to hide.

What should she reply?

—Be safe? —Take it slow on the road? Help, she had no idea.

Chun Zao admitted defeat and chose to selectively ignore it.

Ten minutes later, there was movement outside her room—the boy turning on lights, changing shoes, putting away shoes, opening his bedroom door… All these small sounds were particularly clear in the deep night. Chun Zao listened intently, feeling like a permanently resident flickering star had taken up residence inside her. She turned over and sent the message she had been holding back until now:

-Thank you.

-For taking the trouble to fix my typo.

Yuan Ye: Who told me to see it?

He also gave advance notice:

-I’m going to shower.

-Won’t be able to reply promptly for a while.

Despite being happy enough to want to kick walls or pound the bed, Chun Zao still played it cool in the chat with an “oh,” saying: Go ahead, I should sleep.

Yuan Ye: Okay, good night.

After saying good night, it was almost midnight. Chun Zao’s thoughts had passed bedtime, but her spirit was so excited it felt like playing on a trampoline, knowing no fatigue. Sleep-inducing music had no effect, so she used the faint sounds from outside as background music until Yuan Ye returned to the adjacent bedroom and the entire house became completely silent. Only then did she contentedly close her eyes.

—

Before Sunday evening’s self-study, Chun Zao left home early and went to the stationery store.

After dawdling half-heartedly at the stationery shelves for a long time, Chun Zao selected three gel pens she didn’t need—red, blue, and black.

She held them like a banner sufficient for deception, then moved to the hair accessories section.

Walking out of the stationery store, Tong Yue was outside the convenience store next door, slurping a Northeast popsicle.

She was somewhat surprised, pulling the popsicle from her mouth: “Eh? How come you’re here so early today?”

Chun Zao shook her bag, the three pens clinking against each other inside: “Buying some pens in advance.”

Tong Yue made an “oh” sound: “Wait for me to finish eating, then we’ll go together.”

Chun Zao agreed while pushing the newly bought fabric hair tie deeper into her pants pocket.

The hair tie was cream-colored with various colorful oil painting-style hand-drawn patterns, with an especially comfortable texture.

To prevent her mother from asking questions, Chun Zao only tied it onto her already-secured ponytail after going downstairs Monday morning.

She had been worried Tong Yue would make a big fuss about it, but the other girl didn’t notice at all.

Probably because the hair accessories she usually used were more flashy, so this kind could only be considered conservative in her eyes, not worth mentioning.

The first person to notice was Lu Xinyue.

When she returned from the restroom, she gave her an extra glance on the way back to her seat and exclaimed: “Chun Zao, your new hair tie is so pretty.”

Chun Zao uncomfortably smoothed her ponytail, her face slightly red: “Really? I bought it yesterday when browsing the stationery store.”

“Yes!” Lu Xinyue leaned in for a closer look: “I’ve never seen you use this kind of scrunchie before… Your hair is thick, it looks super good tied up.”

She turned into a little train: “Woo woo, I regret cutting my hair short again.”

Chun Zao comforted her: “It’s okay, the stationery store has hair clips in the same pattern series. I’ll bring them for you tomorrow—we must get our Yueyue sorted too.”

Lu Xinyue almost wanted to hug her: “Zaozao, you’re so good—”

The girl in the front seat heard and curiously turned around: “What does it look like? Let me see too.”

Chun Zao happily turned her head to show it off. Several nearby girls gathered around, showering her with praise that made Chun Zao float with joy.

—

Class 2-1’s Monday morning exercises came after math class. When the bell rang, the teacher asked the class representative to go upstairs to help grade homework, then looked toward the back of group three, finding Yuan Ye’s seat, wanting to catch another math ace as unpaid help.

But the young man had predicted this in advance. Before the teacher could speak, like an agile white dragon, he swiftly slipped out the back door to join the class formation, giving him no chance to be caught.

Stopping at the playground, everyone naturally spread out into position.

Standing next to Yuan Ye was his deskmate, Tu Wenwei.

With the flag ceremony not yet started, the two boys were bored and started chatting about esports competitions.

They went back and forth, discussing and analyzing their favored teams.

“But you can’t argue with their mid-laner, right? That explosive output with Orianna in the summer split…” Tu Wenwei talked on and on, but noticed Yuan Ye was no longer arguing midway through as before, with well-reasoned points that instantly made him speechless.

He turned his head to look at him.

The boy was indeed distracted, staring motionlessly in a certain direction with distant eyes.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” Tu Wenwei was displeased.

His good deskmate ignored him, his attention having completely withdrawn from their “debate of two children.”

Tu Wenwei leaned his upper body over, curious about what he was looking at.

Yuan Ye noticed his movement and turned back, eyebrows slightly raised: “Why did you stop talking?”

Tu Wenwei: “Were you listening?”

Yuan Ye: “I was listening.”

Tu Wenwei: “Repeat it back to me.”

Yuan Ye returned the summary unchanged: “Mid-laner, summer split, Orianna. I just couldn’t be bothered to respond to you.”

“…” Tu Wenwei was completely convinced and added a couple of curses.

“But what were you looking at?” He followed his previous line of sight.

Yuan Ye stepped forward half a step, subtly blocking his view, then smiled slightly: “A colorful little bird.”