◎Flowers and Youth◎

Chun Zao struggled to hold back, managing not to look so shocked that she’d have to turn around for another glance.

Was this the privilege of being first in the grade?

She had never seen anyone speak to a teacher so matter-of-factly—it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say their roles were reversed.

Sure enough, the teacher instantly lost his temper—

“Go, go, go, go! Get out!”

The middle-aged man shooed him away like shooing ducks, no longer looking at Yuan Ye, grabbing his teacup from the desk to leave his seat.

Yuan Ye was forced to step back two paces to make way for him.

Unaware of the situation, Chun Zao straightened up and was about to leave when her shoulder blade was suddenly bumped.

Though the force wasn’t great, for her who hadn’t fully stabilized her center of gravity, it was enough to make her stumble slightly forward.

She steadied herself against the desk edge and looked back in surprise, meeting the boy who had simultaneously turned to check.

A momentary ripple flashed in his eyes, quickly settling.

“Sorry,” he said in a low voice.

Chun Zao hurriedly said, “It’s okay,” then immediately averted her gaze.

In her peripheral vision, a white shadow flashed as the boy had already quickly left the office with a resolute yet nonchalant bearing.

Goosebumps spread again on Chun Zao’s arms, which had just adapted to room temperature. She clutched her bare forearms and also walked out.

Just as she stepped through the doorframe, she saw Yuan Ye again. He hadn’t returned to his classroom but was standing by the door.

Just as she wondered why, he suddenly called out to her, expressing his apology more formally: “Sorry for bumping into you just now.”

So he had been waiting for her.

Chun Zao inexplicably became nervous, but it was a different kind of nervousness from this morning.

Then there had been a table as a barrier, so she didn’t need to directly face Yuan Ye’s somewhat imposing figure.

She also hadn’t eavesdropped on his conversation with the teacher, consuming some gossip she shouldn’t have touched.

Her uneasiness expanded infinitely, constantly squeezing her heart. Chun Zao feigned calm and stiffly repeated similar words: “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter at all.”

He asked again: “You came up to submit homework?”

“Yes,” Chun Zao nodded: “English homework.”

Probably deducing she was the English class representative, the boy said no more, only asking: “Going back to class?”

Chun Zao made a “huh?” sound, then realized he was asking if they should go downstairs together, and nodded in agreement.

Their sophomore year had sixteen classes total, with a 1:3 ratio of liberal arts to sciences. Classes 1, 2, and 3 were the elite classes, the rest were regular classes. Yuan Ye was in Class 1, Chun Zao in Class 3—their classrooms were quite close, so they could walk together.

This journey was very silent, as if copying and pasting the social torture from the morning breakfast table. Chun Zao’s hands hung at her sides, her fingers slightly clenched.

During this time, she did think about initiating conversation, opening her mouth to ask him:

“I think I heard you say you’re not participating in something—is it the math olympiad?”—to demonstrate she was just an innocent audience member who had mistakenly entered the scene, but she felt it was meddling. Their relationship wasn’t familiar enough for this, so she gave up.

Yizhong’s teaching building was nearly square when viewed from above, with access from all four sides. Bathrooms and hot water rooms were on both sides, while the classroom area had three staircases—left, middle, and right—for crowd distribution.

Chun Zao and Yuan Ye came down the middle staircase. Reaching the first floor, turning left was Class 3, with class numbers continuing forward in sequence. Yuan Ye’s class was at the very end.

Class 3 was the liberal arts experimental class, mostly girls.

So when Yuan Ye, who had some school-wide fame, appeared in the hallway, quite a few people in the class raised their heads like a flock of geese spotting fresh cabbage.

He followed Chun Zao and stopped at Class 3’s front door.

Released from prison, Chun Zao hurriedly said goodbye: “I’ll go in first.”

Thinking again, she quietly added: “Bye-bye.”

“Okay.” The boy smiled in response and lifted his foot to leave.

As soon as she entered, Chun Zao was grabbed by the neck and nearly stumbled. She turned to find the culprit: “What are you doing?”

Tong Yue’s arm was still draped over her shoulder: “The one who was just talking to you! Who? That was Yuan Ye, wasn’t it?”

“Seems like it.” Chun Zao pushed away her arm and walked to her seat.

“What do you mean ‘seems like it,'” Tong Yue followed closely, her voice deliberately loud enough to stir up trouble: “You two were walking together just now.”

The gossip crowd’s gazes all converged in this direction.

Chun Zao escaped to her seat, and Tong Yue plopped down on her deskmate’s empty chair, clearly determined to get to the bottom of this.

Chun Zao had no choice but to sigh: “Keep your voice down and I’ll tell you.”

Tong Yue manually zipped her mouth shut, speaking barely above a whisper: “Confess honestly—how did you meet him?”

Chun Zao organized the books on her desk: “The house I live in—the senior sister who lived there before moved out, right? Then…” She glanced over.

Tong Yue understood immediately: “The new resident is Yuan Ye?”

Chun Zao nodded, then nodded again.

Tong Yue instantly transformed into a whining creature: “Can I sleep over at your place tonight?”

Chun Zao: “…”

Tong Yue naturally didn’t get her wish. Setting aside whether her parents would mind her staying out all night, just getting past Chun Zao’s mother would be quite difficult. Her attitude toward this friend of Chun Zao’s had always been watchful and skeptical, even though the two girls had been playing together since elementary school.

She felt Tong Yue was too “disruptive” with only mediocre grades—hardly the first choice for friendship.

Chun Zao couldn’t agree with her utilitarian mindset, saying she was practical to the point of being boring.

That afternoon, when she returned home, Chun Zao didn’t see Yuan Ye again.

At dinner time, the boy also didn’t appear; his door was tightly closed.

Chun Chuzhen looked at the table of specialty dishes with sighs: “This kid is so elusive—I even saved him some food.”

Chun Zao glanced at the next room and returned to her room to cover her books.

Chun Zao’s method of covering books was primitive.

She selected some pure-colored paper in macaron color schemes, each color corresponding to one subject. Then she spread out the books for comparison, marked points and drew lines, outlined the range, cut with a craft knife, precisely covered the four corners, wrote the subject name and her name, and considered one book complete.

Chun Zao methodically tailored new clothes for her textbooks while Chun Chuzhen scrolled through TikTok in her bedroom, with magical background music occasionally reaching her ears along with the woman’s suppressed laughter.

After an unknown amount of time, the iron door made a sound. Chun Chuzhen went out to ask questions—nothing more than “where did you go” and “did you eat”—and the boy responded to each inquiry.

The sound of water came from the bathroom.

Chun Zao stopped the hand holding scissors.

In all her life, this seemed to be the first time she’d heard a non-relative male taking a shower at home.

It felt… somewhat strange.

She didn’t think deeply about it.

After pressing down the last book, Chun Zao lovingly and neatly packed them back into her bag. Before sleeping, she went to the bathroom. The cramped space retained hot steam mixed with some indistinct soap fragrance—a non-irritating sulfur scent. Chun Zao saw that beside her short, round Dove body wash was an additional large bottle of Fino. Both were covered with water droplets.

She pulled out two cotton tissues, wiped clean the bottles and jars on the shelf, then reused them efficiently to clean the mirror whose corners had become blurry until it was like new.

Ah, much better.

Chun Zao threw away the tissue ball, returned to her room, and pulled out her phone, preparing to listen to music.

Her phone couldn’t be called a phone.

It was just a brick and a personal music player.

To prevent her from being distracted by playthings, Chun Chuzhen didn’t even get her a SIM card. Her only recreational entertainment was listening to some pre-downloaded songs and single-player games like Tetris and Snake.

Chun Zao named this pre-sleep time “tenderness in the cracks.”

Just as she put on her music, her mother pushed open the door, routinely checking on her daughter, asking about tomorrow’s three meals, and urging her to rest early.

Chun Zao leaned against the headboard, unsurprised, pulling off one earphone and responding with “okay.”

“Listen to fewer songs—it hurts your ears.” She gave this reminder before closing the door.

The first week of school passed uneventfully, a routine of three points and one line without ups and downs.

The young new housemate didn’t communicate much with the mother and daughter. He left early and returned late. Apart from eating breakfast together on registration day, he handled all three meals himself afterward, nowhere to be seen. Chun Chuzhen had always favored children with good grades and actively invited him several times, but was politely declined by the boy. After being turned away too many times, the woman tactfully stopped bothering him. But Yuan Ye wasn’t antisocial either—quite the opposite, he was very popular. Whenever they encountered each other at school, he never lacked friends around him, both male and female students, sometimes several at once, like stars surrounding the moon, talking and laughing.

When he occasionally encountered Chun Zao, he wouldn’t pretend not to know her and would greet her. Not too close, not too distant—a comfortable nodding acquaintance.

At least, Chun Zao felt comfortable.

It wasn’t about social anxiety—she maintained just the right kind of classmate friendship with most students. With her seat as the center and the class as the diameter, her comfort zone only extended that far. Not resisting interpersonal relationships didn’t mean not resisting excessive interpersonal relationships. Whether in terms of grades or appearance, her new roommate would undoubtedly be categorized under “excessive.”

Excessive meant trouble.

Tong Yue was a big trouble.

Although Chun Zao repeatedly emphasized she wasn’t familiar with Yuan Ye, her good friend Tong Yue still wouldn’t give up. Finding a weekend when Warden Chun wasn’t around, she came visiting with her school bag, sneaking around under the pretense of “doing homework,” but actually to get close contact with Yuan Ye.

She had been like this since childhood—her infatuation far exceeded her dedication to studying.

She was also a bit afraid of Chun Chuzhen, for the reason: “I feel like your mom doesn’t really like me.”

Chun Zao laughed it off on the surface: “How could that be—” But internally, this girl’s sixth sense is accurate.

At one o’clock Saturday afternoon, Chun Zao punctually went downstairs to meet Tong Yue.

Hearing that Yuan Ye wasn’t there, the girl instantly deflated. On her way over, she had specifically bought three cups of bubble tea, with one for him.

“It’s okay, I can wait. I can afford to wait.” On the path to meeting handsome guys, Tong Yue was indomitable.

She even encouraged Chun Zao to move her homework to the living room to write, waiting like a hunter by a tree stump, so they could notice Yuan Ye the moment he returned.

Chun Zao had always been helpless against her, simultaneously admiring and complying.

Tong Yue occupied the best viewing position, facing the door, writing intermittently and resting frequently, absentmindedly poking at the paper.

While Chun Zao had strong concentration, her pen never stopped. Near six o’clock, she finished the last big math problem, capped her pen, and looked up at Tong Yue, only to find her fast asleep, sprawled on the table.

What had friendship gotten her?

Chun Zao stretched. To serve Miss Tong, she had even given up her precious afternoon nap.

She stacked the test papers in front of her and disposed of Tong Yue’s empty paper cup and plastic-wrapped straw in the kitchen trash. It was already evening, with orange juice-like slanted sunlight splashing through the window curtains. She took a book from her room to read, and soon she too drowsily dropped her head.

A ringtone awakened both girls simultaneously.

Tong Yue lit up her phone: “Damn, my mom’s calling,” then was startled again: “Damn, how is it already nine o’clock?”

After speaking, she looked toward Yuan Ye’s door, seeing it still maintained its original state. She was speechless for several seconds: “Has he not come back yet, or has he already gone in?”

Chun Zao turned to look at the shoe rack and judged: “Probably hasn’t come back yet.”

“Ah—” Tong Yue wailed: “Where the hell did Yuan Ye go! You’re not lying to me, are you! Is there a living person next to you?”

Chun Zao was helpless.

Tong Yue’s mother urged her to come home. The girl, unsuccessful in her mission, was completely despairing. She dragged her school bag downstairs, not forgetting to take Chun Zao’s completed homework with her.

Even her back getting into the taxi looked dejected.

Chun Zao felt both sorry for her and wanted to laugh.

Watching the yellow taxi merge into traffic, Chun Zao headed home. She kicked at pebbles, strolling.

She very much enjoyed weekend evenings in the narrow alley. There were almost no people on the road, and she, too, was forgotten by the world, casual and free. She was neither student nor daughter, accompanied only by wind and trees, stars and moon, and none of them had weight.

Suddenly, there was a crisp bell ringing behind her.

Chun Zao habitually moved aside as a lean, all-black mountain bike sped past on her left.

Wind rushed past her ears, and even her stray hair was slightly lifted.

As they crossed paths, the person on the bike seemed to glance back at her.

But Chun Zao didn’t see the other person.

The mountain bike rode straight ahead—

Chun Zao slowed her pace, feeling that the cyclist looked like Yuan Ye.

Because of his characteristically perfect back of the head and tall, lean figure.

The boy’s T-shirt was puffed up by the wind. The brick road was bumpy, his black hair bounced and leaped, with the streetlight seeming to dance on it.

Seeing the distance gradually widening, Chun Zao gave up trying to identify him.

Just as she was about to look away, the bike suddenly braked.

The boy put one foot on the ground to steady the bike, then turned back, confirming Chun Zao’s guess.

The place where he stopped happened to have a cascade of flowers.

The blossoms flowed down from the low wall, full and drooping, glowing white and luminous.