September inXi City was still stifling and oppressive. The heat rolled in with the wind, and though it was only nine in the morning, sunlight already blazed across the entire school grounds.
Today was the opening ceremony for No. 10 Middle School — also the enrollment pledge assembly for the new senior-year students. The school required all students to wear their uniforms for the ceremony, and from a distance, the vast school grounds looked like a sea of blue and white.
The ceremony had not yet started. Dean of Discipline Li Kun and the student council members were making their rounds, checking each class’s attendance and whether students’ attire met the required standards.
Class 18 of Senior Year 2 was positioned directly beneath the viewing platform. Lin Tao stood in the girls’ line wearing a school uniform that didn’t quite fit her, which drew a few stray glances her way.
She didn’t mind much. She threaded her earphones out through her uniform sleeve, blocking out the noisy chatter around her, and sank into her own world.
When the song in her earphones reached the part that went — “…long ago, long ago / someone loved you for a long, long time / but somehow / the wind, gradually / blew the distance wider…” — Lin Tao lifted her head and spotted Jiang Yan standing at the front of their line.
The summer sunlight was bright and fierce. He stood right there in it, and his whole figure seemed to glow.
Lin Tao suddenly recalled that morning in the classroom —
He had reached into his desk and pulled out his own uniform jacket, holding it out to her, his tone perfectly casual. “Wear mine for now. There’s an inspection this morning.”
She hadn’t dared take it then. She had no idea what underhanded scheme this guy might have in mind.
Jiang Yan saw her wary expression and bit down on the inside of his cheek, laughing out loud. “What’s that for — scared I poisoned the uniform?”
Lin Tao curled her lip and asked, “If you give yours to me, what are you going to do?”
“Don’t worry about me.” Jiang Yan said nothing more and simply tossed the jacket to her.
Lin Tao instinctively reached out and caught it. The oversized uniform fell over her head, and a fresh, indescribable new-clothing scent washed over her.
She draped the jacket over her arm and, for the first time entirely from her heart, said, “Thank you.”
Jiang Yan gave an indifferent shrug, picked up his phone from the desk, rose, and walked out of the classroom. His build was slender and tall; when he walked, his back was perfectly straight, like a bamboo pole.
Lin Tao was thinking exactly that when, without her realizing it, the image in her mind began to overlap with the figure standing at the front of the line.
Right now, Jiang Yan was wearing a uniform he’d borrowed from who-knows-where, standing in front of Class 18, one hand resting on the class sign. Occasionally he turned his head to speak with the boy beside him; the clean, easy arc of his side profile, and the smile that surfaced without any effort — who knew how many female classmates’ hearts that had stirred.
Lin Tao lowered her eyes and turned the volume up. The song in her earphones grew clearer.
“…on the day the wind blew I tried to hold your hand but the rain somehow gradually grew too heavy for me to see you how much longer until I can be by your side…”
The lengthy opening ceremony ended with the senior students’ rallying cries, arms thrust into the air. Old Yu had told them beforehand: once the ceremony was over, head straight back to the classroom — he had something to announce.
After sending Meng Xin a message saying she wouldn’t be eating lunch with her, Lin Tao went straight back to the classroom.
When she arrived, she found that the names of the entire class had been written on the blackboard at the front of the room, arranged in pairs of two per row and eight per column.
Two extra names were placed to the left and right of the teacher’s podium — a spot that could only be called the class’s SVIP seats.
At the very top of the names, six large characters had been written:
Class 18 Seating Chart.
Lin Tao scanned it and quickly found her own name in the second-to-last row of the first group, then glanced at the name of the person beside her.
Jiang Yan.
Jiang Yan!?
Lin Tao’s mind exploded with question marks. The mouthful of water she’d just swallowed lodged itself halfway down her throat, neither going up nor down, and her whole self went completely blank.
Old Yu was really the type of person whose next move you could never predict.
Soon the other students began returning from the school grounds. When they saw the seating chart on the blackboard, they too were stunned.
“What the heck, Old Yu put me next to Liu Tianrun? Doesn’t he know we got into a fight back in Year 1?”
One of the boys found his name assigned to a SVIP seat and couldn’t hold back a curse. “Damn, does Old Yu have something against me? No way — I need to go have a serious talk with him.”
Of course, some people were extremely pleased with the new seating arrangement.
Xu Yichuan had just come back from the school convenience store with a bottle of water. When he saw that his new seatmate was the beauty queen from Year 1, Class 7, he burst into unrestrained laughter. “Hahahahaha Old Yu gets me so well!”
“I love him.”
“My moment has finally come.”
Beside him, Hu Hanghang and Song Yuan saw that they’d been placed next to each other again and exchanged simultaneous eye-rolls.
“I must’ve used up every last drop of my good luck in eight previous lifetimes — sat with you in Year 1, sat with you in Year 2.”
Song Yuan was equally disgusted. “You think I want to sit with you, Hu Fatty?”
“Damn, Your Royal Highness Song.” The three of them were childhood friends who’d grown up playing together since they were still in diapers. Back when Song Yuan was little, his mother used to dress him up like a girl, so Xu Yichuan had given him the nickname “Princess Song.”
“Hu Fatty!”
The two of them bickered like kindergarteners.
Xu Yichuan glanced around at the blackboard once more and suddenly made a discovery. He smacked them both on the shoulder. “Hey, hey, hey — stop arguing. Look at who our Yan-bro’s seatmate is.”
The two looked at the blackboard together, and the moment they saw the name written there, they said in perfect unison: “Damn, Old Yu. Nice work.”
Xu Yichuan’s expression cracked with laughter he couldn’t contain. “Starting today I have a whole new outlook on high school life, hahahahaha!”
While they were talking, Jiang Yan came in from outside. The uniform jacket he’d been wearing earlier was gone; he was back in his short sleeves. “What are you all laughing at?”
Xu Yichuan sidled over. “Bro, do you believe in fate?”
Jiang Yan pulled out his chair and sat down. “I believe in your mother.”
“My mother also believes in fate.” Xu Yichuan stepped to the side, and along with the other two idiots, pointed at the blackboard, complete with his own self-supplied da-da-da-da-da drumroll sound effect. “Behold! Hot off the press — Old Yu’s signature seating chart!”
Jiang Yan lazily looked up toward the front. His narrow, elongated eyes half-closed, and he searched the bottom of the chart until he found his own name — and the name of his seatmate.
“……”
He clicked his tongue softly, the tip resting against his lower jaw, and then suddenly laughed. “This Old Yu really is something.”
The new seating chart wasn’t formally announced until Old Yu brought it up in the afternoon math class.
“When the bell rings, everyone please rearrange yourselves according to the seating chart I wrote on the board at noon.”
Old Yu wore a smile, looking perfectly amiable. “I spent the night drawing up this seating chart based on each of your individual traits. The seatmates I’ve selected for you are all one in ten thousand — absolutely ideal matches.”
Everyone: “……”
Lin Tao: “Ideally matched to what, a hammer?”
Class was almost over, and Old Yu stopped teaching. “All right, let’s start moving now — try to get settled before the bell rings so it doesn’t eat into your break.”
Lin Tao’s current seatmate, Du Wenbo, wasn’t moving anywhere. As the soon-to-be-former seatmate of a single day, he finally offered some acknowledgment: he lifted his head and looked at her — just a few seconds — then dropped it back down.
“……”
Fine, fine. The class stays the same but the seatmates are always changing — all of it temporary, all of it an illusion.
Even so, when Lin Tao turned around and actually saw her new seatmate, a small part of her really did feel like dropping out of school.
Jiang Yan had originally been sitting in the very last row of the first group. Now he simply stood and moved one spot forward. When he saw Lin Tao approaching, he asked quite politely, “Which side do you want?”
With the intention of not inconveniencing anyone in the future, Lin Tao placed her bag on the desk closest to the aisle. “This one.”
Jiang Yan nodded, then swung one long leg over and settled into the inner seat. Lin Tao sat down next to him.
Since school had just started, there weren’t many textbooks to deal with, and the rest of the class had quickly finished rearranging.
Old Yu stood at the podium, satisfied with the sight of everyone seated according to his arrangement, and spoke once more. “From this moment forward, you are officially classmates and seatmates — and you are under the protection of my rules and regulations.”
At those words, Lin Tao and Jiang Yan instinctively glanced at each other. After about two or three seconds, they each looked away.
Hu Hanghang, sitting behind the two of them, said, “You know what Old Yu sounds like right now? Like one of those people at the civil registry office.”
He pinched his voice to mimic the tone: “From this moment forward, you are officially husband and wife. From this day on, for richer or for poorer, you shall not part.”
Lin Tao: “……”
The seats had barely been exchanged when the bell rang. The ten-minute break erupted into noise throughout the classroom — except for the section at the back of the first group, which was as quiet as if it existed in its own isolated corner, with only the occasional chill of a cold draft sweeping through.
Neither Lin Tao nor Jiang Yan moved from their seats. Even more awkward was the fact that both of them had their arms in plaster casts, and sitting side by side, the two casts kept bumping into each other without warning.
Thunk on the left, thunk on the right.
It put a strange unease in anyone listening.
Hu Hanghang and Song Yuan squeezed over to Xu Yichuan’s seat the moment class was out.
Hu Hanghang patted his own fleshy chest. “That is no place for a human being. It’s the dead heat of summer and I genuinely felt the chill of winter sitting back there.”
“I’d honestly rather swap with Huang Jiji at the SVIP seat than sit behind them.”
On that side of the room, lively chatter.
On the other side, still upholding the principle that silence is golden.
Lin Tao sat at her desk and fished out the next class’s textbook, spreading it open and pretending to review it. Jiang Yan, meanwhile, had been on his phone from the moment he sat down.
After a while, both of them apparently noticed the awkwardness. Jiang Yan was the first to put down his phone. His gaze landed on Lin Tao’s arm, and he finally found something to say. “What happened to your arm?”
Apparently not expecting the question, Lin Tao instinctively answered, “Fell off a bike.” Then, as if to cover something up, she added, “An electric bike.”
“Oh.” Jiang Yan leaned back against the desk, his slender fingers resting on the surface, tapping one after another — waiting for her to ask about him.
A full minute passed. Lin Tao didn’t open her mouth.
Jiang Yan stopped tapping his fingers. He propped his arm up, rested his head on his hand, and tilted his head to look at her. “You’re not going to ask about me?”
Lin Tao turned to look at him and asked with complete sincerity: “Ask what?”
“……” Jiang Yan clicked his tongue, blinking twice, and reminded her: “The arm.”
“Oh.” Lin Tao looked away, her tone perfectly natural. “I don’t feel like asking.”
“……”
Author’s Note: —Jiang Yan: my wife is sharper than me (activating grudge mode)—
Good evening! Things have been hectic lately, and after opening the novel I wasn’t putting much focus on Jinjiang either. That’s all cleared up now — going forward I’ll gradually shift more of my attention back here!
This isn’t the novel from the original pre-sale listing, and quite a bit of time has passed since then, so I was genuinely nervous when I opened. But no matter what — this time I won’t disappear on you again!
Please keep showing your support! Love you all!! —
Appreciation for grenades from Perilla ×2 Appreciation for grenades ×1 and landmines ×3 from biu Appreciation for landmines ×2 from One Little Orange Appreciation for landmines ×2 from the Diga Clan
Hahahaha I also spotted the Magic Castle Clan qwq