Lin Tao and Jiang Yan played chess for an entire period.

In the span of most of a class, they played six or seven rounds. Lin Tao — who had declared she had never met her match — was dispatched by Jiang Yan in quick, decisive fashion every single game using a different approach each time.

“I quit.” After losing yet another round, Lin Tao exited the game without a hint of sentiment and muttered flatly, “I have absolutely! Zero! Sense of participation in these games!”

Jiang Yan rubbed his temple, his voice laced with amusement — half teasing, half mocking. “Wasn’t someone saying she’d never met her match?”

“What I meant was—” The words stopped dead. However she tried to spin it, it was a past embarrassment, and even after being together this long, Lin Tao’s competitive spirit with Jiang Yan showed no signs of shrinking — only growing.

She kept her expression completely neutral and fabricated a reason smoothly. “It’s just that it’s been a good few years since I last left the chess world. I’ve gotten rusty.”

“Fair enough.” Jiang Yan nodded. “Nobody said otherwise.”

“……”

The way he said it made it perfectly clear he didn’t believe a word. Lin Tao pressed her lips together, competitive drive reignited, picked up her phone, and opened the mobile game on her home screen. “Come on. Let’s go open a room.”

“Hmm?” Jiang Yan’s brow arched upward, the smile at his lips deepening. “Are you old enough for that, little one?”

“Oh for—” Lin Tao held up her phone. “I mean open a private room in the game for a one-on-one match. Where did your mind just go? You have nothing in your head but trash.”

“……”

The mobile game had several modes — casual matches, ranked matches, fun modes, and so on. Among them was also a mode where players could freely create private rooms to team up or play one-on-one.

Jiang Yan had been playing this game since freshman year of high school. After a couple of months of reaching the top rank, he gradually reduced his playtime until the app became one of those many mostly-forgotten icons sitting on his phone.

Having been inactive for so long, the game needed a significant update.

Jiang Yan simply uninstalled the app and went to the app store to download the latest version directly.

While it was downloading, Lin Tao had already entered the game and opened a private room.

“Jiang Yan.” Lin Tao looked down as she tapped through the screen, collecting items gifted by the game system and limited-time events. Her tone suddenly turned serious. “There really isn’t anything wrong with me. I had insomnia for a stretch back in third year of middle school too. When I say you don’t need to worry too much, I genuinely mean it.”

The person who usually never allowed her to play on her phone during class had today taken the initiative to get her to play a game together. Lin Tao wasn’t slow to catch on — she knew perfectly well what the reason was.

“I know my own state better than anyone,” Lin Tao said. She turned to look at Jiang Yan. “If something was actually wrong, I wouldn’t hide it from you. After all, there’s still a long road ahead that I’ll have to walk on my own. I won’t let anything go wrong with me right now.”

Jiang Yan’s eyes dropped slightly. He looked at her for a moment without speaking.

“Don’t you trust me?” Lin Tao asked, holding his gaze.

“That’s not it.” Jiang Yan shook his head. “I trust you.”

“Good.” Lin Tao looked away and quickly moved on. “Is your game downloaded yet?”

Jiang Yan glanced at his phone screen and said softly, “Still installing.”

“You’re so slow.” Lin Tao muttered. “By the time it’s ready, class will probably already be over.”

“……”

The final exams arrived on schedule.

This was a joint exam across ten schools. All students took their exams at their own schools, but the invigilators in every exam room were teachers from other schools. Exam room assignments were not sorted by academic ranking — instead, everyone was completely shuffled and assigned at random.

Desk placement within the exam rooms and the order of exam subjects all followed the standards of the actual college entrance exam.

Jiang Yan had originally not intended to sit this exam, but Teacher Yu pointed out that it was still the last exam of his high school years and that a person ought to see things through from start to finish. So he had Jiang Yan added to the exam roster after all.

The final exam timetable and admission tickets were distributed to students the day before the exams.

Lin Tao and Jiang Yan were not in the same exam room, only on the same floor.

For the two days of exams, Meng Xin also stayed at the internet café, sharing a room with Lin Tao.

On the evening after the first day — which had covered Chinese and Mathematics — Jiang Yan had something to take care of and left school early. Lin Tao and Meng Xin went to the food street outside the school gate to buy dinner.

Along the way, they passed a spicy hot pot shop, the aroma drifting out irresistibly. Lin Tao stopped in her tracks. “Why don’t we eat here?”

“No,” Meng Xin said. “There’s still one more exam day tomorrow. We’re eating light today.”

Lin Tao made a last-ditch effort. “What if I just get a plain broth?”

“Please stop insulting the spicy hot pot,” Meng Xin said, pulling her along. “A spicy hot pot without spice is a spicy hot pot that has lost its soul.”

“……”

It’s just a bowl of hot pot. Did you really have to elevate it to that level???

Lin Tao had thought not being allowed to eat the spicy hot pot was already the end of it — but that turned out to be only the beginning. From that point on, anything with a stronger flavor profile was flatly rejected by Meng Xin.

After being turned down for what felt like the hundredth time, Lin Tao finally complained, “You’re making me think I’m looking at a second Jiang Yan.”

“……” Meng Xin said, “Then just think of it as the campus king asking me to keep an eye on you.”

“Hm?” That was technically true, but Lin Tao turned it over in her mind and ventured, “He didn’t actually ask you to watch over me, did he?”

“What? What are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean.”

Meng Xin tried to brush it off, but Lin Tao had known her for too many years to be so easily brushed off.

“Alright, fine, I’ll tell you.” Unable to hold out against Lin Tao’s persistent coaxing and gentle pressure, Meng Xin came clean. “You’ve been having insomnia lately, right? The campus king was worried it might affect your exams, so he asked me to come stay with you and see if it would help ease your symptoms a bit.”

Lin Tao said nothing. Meng Xin glanced at her and continued, “Don’t overthink it. The campus king is just worried about you. Right around the time the exams ended today, he even texted me asking me to watch what you eat.”

“I know. I’m not overthinking it.” Lin Tao smiled. “I just didn’t know he was this worried about me.”

“Well, that’s what happens when someone likes you,” Meng Xin said with the air of someone who had seen it all. “Because he likes you, he worries.”

“You say that like you really know what you’re talking about.”

“Well, I’ve at least watched enough to know, even if I haven’t experienced it myself.” Meng Xin couldn’t resist rolling her eyes. “I’ve been fed enough secondhand sweetness over these months.”

“……”

As the sky darkened, neither of them lingered long on the street. They went to a small dumpling shop, ate a bowl of wontons each, and headed back to the café.

Guan Che was at the café as well, but he seemed busy — his computer barely left his hands, and it took him half a day to remember to eat a mouthful of food.

Lin Tao and Meng Xin didn’t go over to bother him and headed straight up the stairs — where they came face to face with Jiang Yan on the second floor. Meng Xin said a quick hello and went back to her room.

Once she was gone, Lin Tao stepped off the last stair. “Didn’t you go out to take care of something? Why are you back so soon?”

“Finished.” Jiang Yan said. “Have you eaten?”

“Yes.” Lin Tao thought of something and said deliberately, “We had a small wonton soup with clear broth — very mild, not a drop of chili oil.”

Jiang Yan smiled. “Am I supposed to praise you for that?”

“……” Lin Tao asked, “Have you eaten?”

“I have.”

The two of them stood at the staircase landing and chatted idly. Guan Che came up from downstairs carrying his laptop, saw the two of them, and said with a smile, “Can’t you two walk a few more steps? Do you have to stand right there?”

Jiang Yan shot back, “I feel like it.”

“……”

Lin Tao pressed her lips together and quickly changed the subject. “Guan Che, why did you come back all of a sudden?”

“Winter break started.” Guan Che walked up a few steps, putting the three of them all standing at the staircase landing together. “How did the exams go today?”

Lin Tao made a hushing gesture. “Guan Che, don’t you know that asking people how they did right after an exam is considered bad luck?”

“Is that so? Then I won’t ask.” Guan Che leaned against the staircase railing, his expression mild and warm. “But just looking at you, I’d say it went pretty well?”

“……”

Guan Che curved his lips, decided not to pursue the topic further, and headed on up the stairs on his own. On the third-floor landing, he ran into Meng Xin, who had already changed into her pajamas.

Meng Xin must have been in a hurry to get somewhere, because when she saw Guan Che, she stopped short with a sudden jolt — nearly walking straight into him. “Oh.”

The two of them had little interaction beyond a few group gaming sessions.

Guan Che stepped back slightly and asked casually, “Going out?”

“Yeah, my parents brought me some food.” Meng Xin pointed downstairs. “I’m heading down.”

Guan Che glanced at her pajamas. His lips moved slightly, but in the end he said nothing. “Alright, go ahead.”

Meng Xin nodded, then hurried down the stairs.

Guan Che stood there for a moment, listening to her exchange a few words with Lin Tao, followed by the thump thump of slippers going down the stairs.

He turned his head slightly and went back to his room.

The final two exams were the science combined paper and English.

Before the science exam, Lin Tao had been somewhat anxious about physics — but fortunately, the physics portion turned out not to be as difficult as she had feared.

It was a rare occasion when physics didn’t drag her scores down. The moment the science exam ended, Lin Tao could barely contain the urge to sprint straight to Jiang Yan and show off.

The invigilators went around collecting the exam papers and answer sheets one by one. Unless you had submitted early, you had to wait for the invigilator to finish collecting everything and confirm there were no issues before you could leave the room.

Lin Tao twirled her pen, bored. The boy sitting in front of her turned around to strike up a conversation. “Hey, what did you put for the last multiple-choice question on the physics paper?”

“……” Lin Tao actually disliked post-exam answer comparisons the most, but the boy had asked, and she couldn’t just ignore him. “I think I put A.”

“Ah!” The boy looked a bit regretful. “You got that one wrong.”

“……”

The boy seemed to have found an opening. “I’ve done a similar question before. The answer should be D — conservation of gravity and mechanical energy.”

Lin Tao rubbed her temple and didn’t particularly feel like explaining. “Really? I’m not great at physics, so I might have gotten it wrong.”

The boy was about to say something more, but the invigilator at the front had finished sorting everything. “Alright, you may leave.”

Lin Tao shot to her feet. The boy startled.

Lin Tao gave him a polite smile. “Sorry, I’m in a bit of a hurry. See you.”

“Hey — wait—”

The boy tried to call her back, but all that remained was a brisk, unhurried retreating figure.

Lin Tao and Jiang Yan’s exam rooms were on the same floor. Jiang Yan hadn’t submitted early that morning, but it seemed there had been some kind of issue with their room’s collection process. When Lin Tao arrived, his room still hadn’t been dismissed.

Three invigilators were standing at the front talking anxiously about something. Lin Tao stood outside the window and scanned the classroom, spotting Jiang Yan in the third column.

He seemed to be thinking about something, slightly distracted.

It wasn’t until one of the invigilators spoke up and people inside began to move, that he came back to himself, stood up, and tucked his pen and exam admission ticket into his pocket.

Lin Tao stood at the classroom door and counted under her breath. By the time she reached fifty, Jiang Yan had finally come out.

Both of them were well-known figures at the school. Wherever they went, they attracted attention as though they were celebrities — many eyes on them at once.

At first, Lin Tao had been careful not to be too close to him in public to avoid that kind of attention. But over time she had grown immune to those stares.

“Why didn’t you submit early today?” Lin Tao didn’t bother worrying about impressions and grabbed his arm. “Don’t tell me you’ve been away from studying for so long that the questions gave you trouble?”

Jiang Yan let her hold onto him without complaint and said lazily, “I fell asleep for over an hour.”

“……”

Guilty as charged.

The two of them headed downstairs. It had been snowing during the exam, and the ground around the school was blanketed in a layer of white. Their footsteps crunched softly with each step.

“By the way, for the last multiple-choice question on the physics paper — did you pick A or D?”

Jiang Yan thought for a moment. “A.”

“That’s what I thought.” Lin Tao slipped her hand into his coat pocket, murmuring, “How could it possibly be D.”

Jiang Yan caught the hint of something else in her words and asked casually, “What happened?”

“Nothing, really. It was just that when the invigilator was collecting papers, the boy sitting in front of me asked what I put for that question.” Lin Tao thought of him and couldn’t help venting, “I thought he was a bit odd — after I told him my answer, he actually said I got it wrong.”

“Hm.” Jiang Yan stepped through the snow, his tone perfectly flat. “The boy sitting in front of you.”

“……” Lin Tao looked at him. “Excuse me? Do you have something to say?”

“Nothing.” He said, unmoved. “Just a boy.”

“……”

The final exam in the afternoon was English.

Counting the listening section, Lin Tao finished all the questions in just over an hour.

The difficulty must not have been very high this time, because once she put down her pen, quite a few others had also stopped writing. Some who couldn’t wait any longer handed in their papers the moment submission was permitted.

Lin Tao wasn’t in any hurry. She sat and checked through her paper from start to finish.

The clock on the wall ticked on, one second at a time.

At five o’clock, the end-of-exam bell rang.

After the invigilator collected the papers, the room erupted into noise. The boy who had spoken with Lin Tao that morning tried to say something to her again.

Lin Tao cut him off before he could get started. “Don’t ask me — there are so many multiple-choice questions, I can’t remember what I put for any of them.”

The boy scratched his head and smiled. “Actually, I wanted to ask for your QQ number. Maybe we could add each other.”

“……”

“I think I might have fallen for you at first sight.”

“Shock face.”

The boy seemed a little embarrassed. “Well, I heard you say earlier that you’re not great at physics, and I happen to be decent at it. If you have time over winter break, I could help you study.”

Lin Tao was just about to decline when a flat, cold voice came from behind her: “No need for you to teach her.”

She stiffened and turned around. Jiang Yan stood there, expression completely blank. “……”

The boy, whether out of genuine cluelessness or a very good act, asked fearlessly, “And you are?”

Jiang Yan took a step forward and looked down at him. His voice was low and cool. “Matching couple uniforms. Can’t you tell?”

“……”

They’re literally school uniforms, you absolute—!!!