The unexpected touch made Lin Tao instinctively lower her lashes. The curve of her curled lashes swept lightly against the young man’s fingers pressed at the corner of her eye.

Slightly uncomfortable, she pressed her lips together and replied softly, “……I’m not crying. That’s water that splashed on me.”

When it had first happened, Lin Tao had genuinely felt a kind of wordless grievance — the sense that he was being unreasonable, unkind. But the moment she caught sight of him bent carefully over her hand, that feeling dissolved in an instant.

Standing before her now was the young man she liked, close enough to touch. Where was there room for any sense of grievance?

Jiang Yan withdrew his hand. A slight dampness still clung to his fingertips; he rubbed them together slowly until every trace disappeared.

He looked up, his gaze meeting her clear, bright eyes. He looked back and forth for a moment, saw no sign that she had actually been crying, and let out a quiet breath of relief. He turned the tap back on, letting cool water run steadily over the burned skin of her hand.

The water was cold.

But Lin Tao’s heart was warm in a way she could not put into words. She stole glances at the young man’s profile. Their gazes collided without warning, and for a few seconds neither looked away. Then the young man looked first toward her hand, and the corners of his lips, which had been held in a flat line, gradually began to curve.

Lin Tao couldn’t hold hers back either. Her voice came out light. “Jiang.”

“Mm?” He didn’t look up. He turned off the water, and finding no paper towels nearby, simply rolled up the hem of his shirt and used it to gently dry her hand.

Lin Tao watched what he was doing, her ears going pink. She persisted in setting the record straight. “I really didn’t have an early romance.”

“……” Three seconds of silence. Jiang Yan let go of her hand and looked down at her. “I know.”

You know nothing.

Lin Tao kept that thought to herself and didn’t continue the subject. She raised her hand and touched the burned skin on the back of it — there was still a sharp, stinging sensation. Her brow furrowed slightly. “Going back to the classroom?”

“You go first, I still have something to do.” He said.

“What is it? You’ve already skipped two periods — if Old Yu finds out, he’ll want to chat with you again.”

He didn’t say. He reached up and tousled her hair, the warmth of his palm a clear and solid sensation. “I’ll be back before class ends. Besides, isn’t this next class physics?”

“Yes.” She looked at him, uncertain where he was going with this.

Jiang Yan gave a soft laugh. Looking at her, his smile was unmistakable. “Old Yang is definitely going to go over the exam paper. For me, with a perfect score in physics, it doesn’t really matter whether I listen or not — but you, on the other hand — shouldn’t you hurry back and pay attention?”

“……”

Unbelievable.

Lin Tao felt this person always had a hundred ways to infuriate her. She rolled her eyes right to his face and walked away in a temper.

As she passed him, Jiang Yan reached out and caught her wrist, pressing the thermos into her hand with a quiet laugh. “Your water bottle.”

Lin Tao looked down at the thermos in her hand.

When it had fallen earlier, the rim had knocked against the ground and chipped off a small flake of paint — it looked awful.

The longer she looked, the more it irritated her. She shoved it straight back into his hands and stalked off like an indignant little lion. “I don’t want it!”

She was gone before he could say anything.

Jiang Yan stood looking down at the thermos in his hand and laughed once, then took it and headed downstairs.

Back in the classroom, Old Yang was indeed going over the placement exam paper.

Old Yang was the homeroom teacher for Class 14 and had a reputation for strictness — but their class’s physics scores this time around had been decent overall, which put him in good spirits. When he saw Lin Tao arrive late, he didn’t make much of it. “Come in. Watch the time next time.”

Lin Tao murmured her acknowledgement and hurried back to her seat.

The exam papers had been handed out this period; Lin Tao opened hers and quickly scanned through, finding the same trouble spots she had always struggled with.

Especially the last big question — worth twelve points, and she had managed only a fraction of that.

When she finished with her own paper, she picked up Jiang Yan’s almost as a reflex and looked it over. Only one thought came to mind: this person was a genuine monster.

His reasoning was clean and clear, his approach efficient and elegant. Lin Tao had only to glance at his solution once before something she had been stuck on for ages suddenly made sense.

“……”

In that moment, Lin Tao felt with painful clarity the immeasurable gap between herself and Jiang Yan.

Old Yang’s teaching style was nothing like Old Yu’s. He liked to go straight to the point, often covering a problem in just a few minutes, then giving students a little time to sort out their own thinking. He didn’t spell things out in detail — his philosophy was that a student could only truly make a concept their own by understanding it thoroughly for themselves.

This approach clicked quickly for some students, but left a fair number perpetually at a loss.

Lin Tao was more often in that latter group. She needed someone to point out the problem with complete clarity before she could fully understand it. Compared to Old Yang’s swift, no-nonsense style, she actually preferred Old Yu’s patient, step-by-step method.

The physics period was half over.

Half the exam paper had been covered.

Old Yang paused to give everyone a moment to review the earlier questions, and mentioned in passing: “The teacher who wrote this physics paper used to write competition problems, so the difficulty might be a bit higher than usual. Still, everyone performed well — better than I expected.”

A few scattered laughs rose from the class.

Lin Tao sat hunched over her desk, pen in hand, copying down answers.

From the doorway came a knock. “Reporting in.”

Everyone looked up.

Old Yang saw who was standing in the doorway, and his smile was immediate.

Jiang Yan. First in the year. Six subjects, and apart from Chinese and English, he had taken the top individual score in every one. Since the results had come out, Old Yu had not stopped singing the boy’s praises to whoever would listen.

As Old Yu’s closest friend among the faculty, Old Yang had heard more than enough of it. And now, seeing that this student was also the only one in his own class to score perfectly in physics, Old Yang felt a warm flush of satisfaction. He waved a hand generously. “Come in, come in.”

Jiang Yan gave a slight nod and returned to his seat quickly, reaching down to shove something from a plastic bag into his desk drawer as he sat.

When Lin Tao turned to look, all she caught was the tail end of a white translucent plastic bag. She didn’t think much of it, and turned back to prop her chin in her hand and continue copying notes.

At this age, moods arrived and left quickly. Lin Tao had long since tossed aside the earlier unpleasantness at the hot water station, and now pointed to the last question on his exam paper. “How did you get this step? I worked at it for a long time and couldn’t figure out the conversion.”

Jiang Yan raised an eyebrow, and for once didn’t give her his usual sarcastic remark. He picked up a scratch paper from the desk and quickly wrote out a few formulas, sliding it in front of her. His voice was crisp and clear. “This type of problem is always the same thing in different clothes. I just simplified some of the steps — at the end of the day, it’s still the same few formulas.”

Lin Tao took it and studied it for a moment. She plugged in the formulas he’d written and worked through the problem quickly, letting out a delighted little sound.

Jiang Yan glanced at her and smiled, then looked away.

The physics period ended, and Lin Tao was just about to slump over her desk for a rest when Jiang Yan suddenly reached over and caught her wrist.

“……What are you doing? We’re still in the classroom.” Lin Tao startled and looked around at the nearby students, feeling a sudden, irrational guilt, as though she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t.

Jiang Yan looked at her with amusement, let go of her wrist, and pulled out the plastic bag from his drawer. Inside were a tube of burn ointment and a pack of cotton swabs.

“What did you think I was going to do?” He opened the burn ointment and smiled at her, the expression carrying a meaning she couldn’t quite name.

“……” Lin Tao looked away hurriedly, the tips of her ears going red again.

Jiang Yan said nothing. He took a cotton swab, dipped it in the ointment, and holding her hand gently, applied it to the burned area on the back.

In truth, it wasn’t a serious injury at all. The ointment going on produced nothing more than a faint sharp smell — no particular sensation otherwise.

Outside the window, dusk was gathering. A broad golden glow swept over the campus; the corridor outside was full of students joking and running around. The young man sat with his head lowered, the fading evening light painting a beautiful picture behind him — layers of cloud stacking against scattered, shifting light and shadow, drawing a scene that was vivid and striking.

Soft black hair, close enough to see clearly. A few strands at the top refused to lie flat, catching the light as they moved. Lin Tao wanted to look away, but it was as though something had pinned her in place; her gaze took in everything about him and couldn’t leave.

Amid all the noise around them, Lin Tao quietly raised her hand. She was just about to smooth down those loose strands when the young man suddenly lifted his head. “Alright, you can go back and —”

Her palm connected with his head without warning. Soft dark hair tickled her palm — exactly as warm and yielding as she had imagined. She couldn’t help curling her fingers and giving a small squeeze.

Jiang Yan went completely still, a wave of tingling warmth spreading from the top of his head through all his limbs all at once. His spine snapped straight, his throat moved sharply. “What are you doing?”

As though a switch had been flipped, Lin Tao came back to herself. She yanked her hand back — and in doing so hit her elbow hard on the corner of the desk.

She sucked in a sharp breath of pain, but still managed to mount a defence. “……I thought I saw something in your hair.”

He gave a straightfaced “Oh.” “Thanks.”

“……”

Lin Tao felt mortified, rubbing her elbow and refusing to look at him.

The bell rang for the next class, and the hasty, flustered encounter was finally behind them.

The last period was self-study. Old Yu, departing from his usual hands-off approach, made the surprising decision to have an actual conversation with the class.

It started with grades — everyone’s interest faded quickly — but Old Yu soon steered the topic toward two words that were, for students their age, a particularly charged and sensitive subject.

Early romance.

The moment those words came out, the classroom erupted. Boys slapped their desks in exaggerated excitement; girls were a little more restrained — some bowed their heads, others smiled with pink cheeks.

For Lin Tao those two words were especially charged. The instant Old Yu said them, she automatically glanced at Jiang Yan. He, too, had his eyes down, looking at her.

Neither spoke. But somehow everything seemed understood.

“Feel free to raise any questions you have about early romance. After all, this is the one age when those two words actually apply to you.” Old Yu closed the classroom door. “What gets said in this room today stays in this room. Once you walk out that door, treat it like it was all a dream — nothing said here counts for anything.”

Even so, early romance — for all of them right now — was not just sensitive and charged; it was a forbidden zone. For a moment, nobody spoke.

Old Yu looked out at the class and spread his hands helplessly. “Alright then. Since nobody seems to have anything to say about early romance, let me try a different angle: are you in favour of it or against it? And why?”

That question got a response.

A boy in the class named Chen Qing stood up to answer. “I’m in favour. Feelings don’t have an age limit. Why should there be a rule that young people can’t be in a relationship? If two people genuinely care for each other, what does age have to do with it?”

“I’m against it. Our main purpose at this age is to study. Our parents send us here — not for us to be caught up in romance. Early romance affects academic performance. There’s no arguing with that.”

The rebuttal came from a girl named Qin Shuang, who was also a solid student. As she spoke, Lin Tao caught the expression on the boy who had spoken first change and dim.

Wait — had she just stumbled onto something?

The debate for and against early romance quickly grew lively — everyone jumping in, the classroom buzzing with overlapping voices.

Old Yu stood at the lectern and smiled benevolently at the whole scene.

Lin Tao rested her chin on her arms at her desk and glanced sideways at the person beside her. The young man seemed unmoved by the whole scene, head down, pen in hand, working through an exam paper.

A sigh settled quietly in her chest. She reached for her phone under the desk and logged into the forum, updating the post:

Original poster: The road ahead is long; I shall search high and low.

“What’s going on with you lately?”

Lin Tao had barely posted when a flat, unhurried voice sounded close by. She looked up to find Jiang Yan frowning at her — and at her phone.

Afraid he would see the content on the screen, she locked it quickly and looked innocent. “What do you mean, what’s going on with me?”

Jiang Yan thought again of what Old Yu had said at lunch — that she was reading posts about early romance — and felt a thorn pressing somewhere in his chest. “What have you been staring at on your phone every day lately?”

“Just casually browsing.” Lin Tao kept her expression perfectly composed. “I joined a study forum. I’ve been studying on it.”

Joined a charming-and-winning forum. Been studying how to charm a boy.

“……” Jiang Yan could no longer be bothered with her. He turned back to the exam paper.

Lin Tao leaned toward him. “Jiang.”

He didn’t look up, pen still moving across the blank space in the paper.

Lin Tao had long since grown used to this particular habit of his. She blinked and pressed on. “Do you have any thoughts on what Old Yu is talking about?”

Jiang Yan’s writing hand slipped — the pen dragged a black line down the page. He set it down and turned back without showing anything on his face. “What kind of thoughts?”

“Like… are you in favour or against it?” Lin Tao rested her arms on his desk and looked up at him.

The girl’s features were delicate and fine — a pair of almond-shaped eyes, bright and liquid, with wide, gently curving outer corners and curled lashes. Unlike the sharp oval face currently in fashion, her chin was slightly rounded — the softer, rarer shape of an oval face.

Jiang Yan looked down at her. The last of the afternoon sun spilled through the window, leaving him backlit, his outline softened at the edges. He tossed the question back without offering anything of his own: “What about you?”

Lin Tao fell quiet, and after a few seconds answered in a low voice, “Honestly, I think the phrase ‘early romance’ is wrong in the first place. Every age comes with its own rights. What does liking someone have to do with how old you are?”

She finished speaking and twisted the corner of her book between her fingers. “I’d say I’m in favour, I suppose.”

He curved his lips slightly — as though he agreed with her answer. “Mm. You’re right.”

Lin Tao made a small sound of surprise and touched her face lightly, her brow furrowing just a little. “But before, didn’t you say you were a proud inheritor of socialism and would absolutely never have an early romance.”

“……”

A breeze drifted in through the window outside. Jiang Yan raised a hand to hold down the exam paper the wind was lifting; he looked at her sidelong, and in his eyes, a light was carefully hidden.

“That was then. This is now.”