You Always Surpass Others
Zhou Anran’s heart raced for the umpteenth time that night.
She wasn’t 100% certain of his feelings yet. But at this moment, she suddenly felt an impulse in her heart, and suddenly didn’t want to overthink anymore.
Not about the future.
Not about what comes after.
Not about the consequences of exposing her feelings in front of him.
Just like moths with their innate phototaxis cannot resist dazzling flames.
She couldn’t resist Chen Luobai at this moment either.
No one could resist Chen Luobai at this moment.
Zhou Anran pushed off with her hands and leaped down, jumping straight into the young man’s arms.
The instant he caught her, Chen Luobai suddenly felt a bit of regret.
Because of the momentum, the girl’s upper body was almost completely pressed against his chest.
Chen Luobai’s body stiffened for a moment, his hand on her lower back tightened, his Adam’s apple involuntarily bobbed up and down several times, his gaze averted, then after two seconds, fell back on her face.
Her feet were off the ground as he held her, that soft, pretty little face almost right before his eyes, at a distance where he could kiss her if he lowered his head just a bit more, even the texture of her lips was clear.
Chen Luobai maintained this distance without moving, his voice low as he asked her, “Zhou Anran, will you come to watch me play ball next week?”
The distance was so close that when he spoke, Zhou Anran could feel his warm breath brushing against her face with each word.
It made her face burn up again.
Unlike the previous times when he had loosely supported her back, this time she was suspended in his arms, in a posture even more intimate than a normal hug.
Her heart felt like it might truly overload, and her brain seemed on the verge of shutting down.
Zhou Anran lowered her eyelashes, not daring to look at him, only saying softly, “Put me down first.”
Chen Luobai saw her face was so red it looked like it could drip blood, her eyelashes trembling more violently than ever before, her tone so soft it was like she was pouting. Some of the mischievous factors suppressed in his heart were instead provoked. The hand on her waist tightened even more, pressing her closer to him. His voice remained low: “Promise me first.”
Zhou Anran: “…?”
How could he be so unreasonable?
The distance was close.
Even without looking up, she could feel his face was almost touching hers. In her vision were his nose bridge and slightly thin lips, also very, very close. Her heart was beating so fast she felt a bit panicked, her fingers couldn’t help but clutch at his jacket.
But it seemed she was also happy.
“I never said I wouldn’t go.”
*
The place where Yu Bingqin and the others were having late-night snacks was a barbecue restaurant.
When Zhou Anran arrived with Chen Luobai, she saw two empty seats next to Yu Bingqin, probably intentionally leaving for the two of them.
She walked over and sat down next to Yu Bingqin.
Yu Bingqin handed her a few skewers of grilled food.
Zhou Anran said thank you, took them, and put them on the plate in front of her, then lowered her head and slowly ate one, not saying anything more.
Chen Luobai raised an eyebrow: “Where’s mine?”
Yu Bingqin glanced at him coldly: “Don’t you have hands?”
“I wasn’t asking you.” Chen Luobai said, turning his head to look at the girl beside him again, “You’re not going to share two skewers with me?”
Zhou Anran: “…?”
Yu Bingqin followed his gaze and looked down again.
The tip of the girl’s ear was as red as blood, and her fair little face also flushed.
“Chen Luobai.” Yu Bingqin stood up with a cold face, “Come with me to get some drinks.”
Chen Luobai slowly withdrew his gaze and stood up from his chair: “Alright.”
The restaurant was busy, and the few waiters couldn’t keep up.
Yu Bingqin walked to the counter and said to the person inside: “Give our table another dozen beers.”
Waiter: “Table 16, right?”
Yu Bingqin “mm” -ed, then turned her head slightly: “What does she drink?”
Chen Luobai leaned lazily against the counter: “Get her a can of cola.”
“We’re out of canned cola.” The waiter asked him, “Is bottled okay?”
Chen Luobai nodded.
The waiter gave him a bottle of cola.
Chen Luobai reached out and took a straw for herself.
As they walked back, Yu Bingqin finally said softly: “Didn’t I tell you not to bully her?”
Chen Luobai casually swung the straw in his hand, the corner of his mouth curling: “Couldn’t help it.”
Yu Bingqin stopped in her tracks and glanced at him coldly.
“You’re protective of her.” Chen Luobai glanced at their table, “Don’t worry, I didn’t bully her, just hugged her a bit.”
After a second’s pause, he couldn’t help but add another sentence.
“Didn’t dare do anything else.”
Yu Bingqin: “You call just hugging her, not bullying? From your tone, it sounds like you’re quite regretful you only hugged her once?”
“Maybe a little.” Chen Luobai’s fingers on the glass bottle moved, almost able to recall the soft feeling of the girl’s waist, “But we’re not officially together yet, so it’s not appropriate.”
“Since you know you’re not official yet, you should be more mindful of boundaries.” Yu Bingqin reminded him.
Chen Luobai laughed again: “Isn’t she your real cousin?”
“If she were my cousin,” Yu Bingqin’s lips also curved very slightly, “she’d be less troublesome than you.”
Table 16 was already in sight.
Their conversation stopped.
Zhou Anran finished her second skewer of barbecue and heard the chair beside her being pulled out. The tall young man sat down next to her, seemingly with a bottle of cola in his hand.
She kept her head down, catching a glimpse of him casually tapping the bottle cap against the edge of the table with his right hand, easily prying it open. His long fingers gripped the bottle, and for an instant, as he exerted force, slightly protruding veins flashed before her eyes.
The opened cola, now with a straw inserted, was placed in front of her.
Along with it came Chen Luobai’s fresh scent as he leaned closer. His voice was very low, his tone gentle, as if coaxing her: “Not angry anymore?”
Zhou Anran’s gaze fell on the small mole above his wrist bone, her voice also very soft: “I’m not angry.”
“If you’re not angry, then pay attention to me?” Chen Luobai pushed the cola towards her again, “You haven’t said a word to me since you sat down, my sister even thought I bullied you.”
Zhou Anran: “…”
As if he hadn’t bullied her.
But it was also her own choice.
She was the one who jumped into his arms.
Zhou Anran pursed her lips, took a few skewers from her plate, and put them on his plate. Her ears seemed to get even hotter: “I’m not ignoring you.”
*
When Zhou Anran returned to the dormitory after this late-night snack, it was already past 10:30.
Her three roommates, including Bai Lingyun who had gone out on a date with Senior Xie, had all returned to the dorm. They must have been tired from playing today, as they were all lying in bed playing with their phones.
Zhou Anran finished washing up and also lay down on her bed.
She casually opened WeChat and scrolled through her Moments feed. When she saw a new avatar appear, she was slightly stunned for a moment before remembering it was Zhu Ran, whom she had added earlier that night.
At the time, she had been stared at by a certain someone and had forgotten to set a nickname for him.
Zhou Anran didn’t rush to set a nickname for him but first looked at the Moments post he had made.
Zhu Ran: [Learned something new tonight, turns out the surname Chen is the reincarnation of a sour lemon]
The accompanying image was a lemon emoji.
Zhou Anran’s finger scrolled down a bit, and she saw a familiar avatar appear in the comments section.
C: [Delete it]
Zhu Ran replied: [Just reminding you, I just added her on WeChat tonight, she can see you threatening me]
Just added tonight?
Was he talking about her?
Zhou Anran exited the Moments feed, went back in, and refreshed again.
She saw a new reply below.
C: [We’re not official yet, don’t post carelessly]
Zhou Anran stared at the words “not official yet,” her fingertip suddenly pausing.
Was it the meaning she thought it was?
She couldn’t help but exit again, wanting to see how Zhu Ran would reply to him, but when she went back in and refreshed, she couldn’t see Zhu Ran’s Moments post anymore.
Had it been deleted?
Zhou Anran stared at the screen, spacing out for a few seconds.
It felt strangely like that conversation had been her imagination.
But at the last gathering, they had only spent a fleeting afternoon together, and Zhu Ran didn’t seem to have added Yan Xingqian and the others. Even if Zhu Ran had added them, he hadn’t.
She also didn’t have anyone she could ask.
Her phone suddenly buzzed.
Zhou Anran returned to the main interface.
She saw that Yan Xingqian had tagged her in the small group chat.
Yan Xingqian: [Ran Ran, haven’t you finished eating with Chen Luobai yet?]
Zhang Shuxian: [Maybe they finished eating and went to do something else]
Yan Xingqian: [@Zhou Anran]
Zhou Anran: “…”
Zhou Anran: [I’m back]
Zhou Anran: [I told you Zhu Ran was eating with us too]
Sheng Xiaowen: [He’s not important]
Yan Xingqian: [Exactly]
Yan Xingqian: [What’s important about a third wheel]
Zhang Shuxian: [Hehe quickly tell us how things are between you two]
Zhou Anran: [Just like that]
Sheng Xiaowen: [What do you mean by ‘just like that’]
Zhou Anran: [It’s]
Zhou Anran: [You guys were right, I really can think about it more]
Zhou Anran: [That kind of ‘like that’]
Yan Xingqian: [!!!!]
Yan Xingqian: [So Chen Luobai likes you?]
Zhou Anran touched her ear: [Maybe]
Zhou Anran: [I’m not too sure]
Sheng Xiaowen: [Stop with the ‘maybe’]
Sheng Xiaowen: [Chen Luobai’s character is well-known, he’s never messed with any girl before, and has always kept his distance]
Sheng Xiaowen: [For someone as cautious as you to be certain enough to say you can think about it more, it must mean he likes you]
Zhang Shuxian: [No]
Zhang Shuxian: [Am I the only one curious?]
Zhang Shuxian: [What on earth happened tonight?!]
Zhang Shuxian: [Ranran told us last week she didn’t dare to think too much]
Zhang Shuxian: [Tonight, it suddenly reached the point of confirming he likes you a bit]
Zhou Anran: “…?”
She hadn’t confirmed anything; she only said it was possible.
It wasn’t just tonight either.
This week, his various behaviors seemed to constantly prove this possibility to her.
Although tonight was indeed the most obvious.
Yan Xingqian: [I’m curious too!!]
Yan Xingqian: [I don’t care]
Yan Xingqian: [Ranran, I’m coming to see you this weekend]
Yan Xingqian: [I’m so curious to see what Chen Luobai pursuing someone looks like]
Sheng Xiaowen: [Curious +1]
Zhang Shuxian: [To be honest, I never thought there’d be a day when Chen Luobai would actively pursue someone]
Zhang Shuxian: [Crying cat.jpg]
Zhang Shuxian: [I regret staying in Nancheng]
Zhang Shuxian: [I want to see too]
Zhang Shuxian: [But I really can’t spare two days this week]
Yan Xingqian: [No worries, we’ll give you a live broadcast]
Zhou Anran: “…?”
Yan Xingqian: [Then it’s settled]
Sheng Xiaowen: [Don’t worry, if he asks you out for dinner next weekend, we’ll just observe from afar, not disturbing you]
Zhou Anran: [He didn’t ask me out for dinner]
Sheng Xiaowen: [For such a smart person, he doesn’t understand the concept of striking while the iron is hot?]
Zhou Anran: […]
Zhou Anran: [Our school’s internal basketball tournament starts next weekend]
Zhou Anran: [He asked me to watch him play on Saturday]
Yan Xingqian: [That’s perfect]
Yan Xingqian: [We’ve seen the spectacle of his basketball games before, there will be more spectators in college, not fewer]
Yan Xingqian: [With so many onlookers, two more won’t make a difference]
*
After a midterm week, the semester was only half over. Zhou Anran and her roommate dutifully went to the library again on Sunday after resting on Saturday.
In the evening, Bai Lingyun and Xie Jingyi both had meetings to attend. After dinner, Zhou Anran didn’t go with them but stayed at the library with Yu Xinyue until closing time before returning.
When they got back to the dorm, Bai Lingyun and Xie Jingyi had already returned. The two were sitting at Xie Jingyi’s desk, heads close together, watching some video on their phone.
They could hear bursts of cheering from inside.
“Isn’t he handsome?” Xie Jingyi asked.
Bai Lingyun: “Really handsome. If I were there and he smiled at me like that, I think my legs would go weak.”
“Watch your words; you have a boyfriend,” Xie Jingyi elbowed her. “If Xie Senior heard you, your legs might go weak for real.”
“It’s just secretly admiring a handsome guy, he won’t hear anyway—” Bai Lingyun’s gaze flickered, her voice faltering, “Ahem… Anran’s back, don’t corrupt her.”
?
Zhou Anran put down her things: “What are you talking about?”
“Talking about your classmate,” Bai Lingyun said.
Xie Jingyi: “We’re talking about Chen, the campus heartthrob.”
Zhou Anran’s breath caught: “What about him?”
“He went to practice basketball with some seniors at the outdoor court today. He was on fire,” Xie Jingyi handed her the phone. “See for yourself.”
Zhou Anran took it.
The video was filmed by someone, focusing solely on him throughout.
The young man was wearing all-white basketball attire today. Perhaps because the weather had turned colder and they were outdoors, he wore black compression tights under his basketball shorts.
In the short ten-second video, the man in white dribbled past the defender, then jumped and took an open three-point shot.
At the end of the video, he turned towards the camera, lifting his chin slightly at someone, his smile confident and unrestrained, as if he was smiling directly at the viewer.
The video ended on this frame.
“Anran,” Xie Jingyi looked up, “why are you so calm? This video is driving everyone crazy today, but you watched it without any reaction.”
Zhou Anran: “…”
“I’m used to it.”
Used to see him look incredibly handsome on the basketball court.
Even more used to hiding all her emotions about him in front of others, not daring to reveal a trace of her feelings for him.
In her first year of high school, she even kept it from Yan Xingqian.
“That’s true,” Xie Jingyi took back her phone. “I forgot you were high school classmates. You must have had many chances to see him play basketball before. By the way, in high school, were there also many girls bringing him water?”
Zhou Anran keenly noticed Xie Jingyi’s use of the word “also.”
“Not many in high school. Our school was strict. There were more who secretly confessed to him or slipped him love letters and gifts, but not so openly,” she paused, then asked casually, “Were there many people bringing him water today?”
“Yes, I said he was on fire,” Xie Jingyi said. “At first, people were considerate of you, but today many didn’t hold back. After all, a handsome guy who’s good at basketball is a double threat.”
Zhou Anran was stunned: “Considerate of me?”
Xie Jingyi: “Well, he’s only close to you among girls, and many don’t know you’re high school classmates, so they’ve been observing. But maybe because there’s been no news of you two getting together, and he was so impressive on the court today, several girls brought him water on the spot.”
Zhou Anran’s heart tightened slightly.
“Did he accept?” Bai Lingyun asked the question for her first.
Xie Jingyi shook her head: “No, not a single one. That included the beauty of the Chinese department. I heard after being rejected, she declared she’s going to seriously pursue him now.”
“What’s that about?” Bai Lingyun was curious.
Xie Jingyi: “Apparently, she thinks well-behaved handsome guys are a dying breed, and she doesn’t want to let this rare one go.”
Bai Lingyun’s phone suddenly rang.
She looked down, her face instantly lighting up with a smile: “Xie Zihan is calling me. I’ll go take it.”
“Go ahead, we’ve been gossiping all evening,” Xie Jingyi sighed. “I need to work on my assignments.”
Zhou Anran didn’t ask any more questions. After washing up, she climbed into bed.
She opened WeChat, her finger scrolling down to his avatar.
The chat history still showed his last message from yesterday when he came to pick her up: “Don’t play with your phone while coming downstairs.” There were no new messages after that.
Zhou Anran pressed her lips together.
Could it be…
Was she overthinking?
There were just too many people who liked him. She really couldn’t believe she would be the most special, the luckiest one.
Zhou Anran opened his chat window, wanting to ask about his afternoon basketball game, but felt she had no right to. In the end, she exited without sending anything.
She repeated this several times.
Finally, she didn’t send anything, only sharing the original Cantonese song that Yu Bingqin sang yesterday on her Moments.
Zhou Anran listlessly scrolled through others’ Moments, and when she exited, she saw two new Moments notifications.
Chen Luobai had liked her Moment.
He also left a comment.
C: [You like it?]
?
Was he asking if she liked the song?
Zhou Anran wasn’t sure what he meant, so she just replied with a small question mark: [?]
In the next second, her phone vibrated gently.
Someone had sent her a message.
Seeing no new notifications from Moments, Zhou Anran returned to the main interface and saw the message was from him.
His avatar jumped to the top of the screen, with a small number 1 above it.
The phone vibrated again.
It became number 2.
Zhou Anran opened his chat window.
C: [I’ve been busy lately]
C: [Preparing for the basketball tournament]
And probably busy dealing with girls pursuing him.
A small bubble of sourness rose in Zhou Anran’s heart.
The top of the chat window showed “The other party is typing.”
So she didn’t rush to reply.
A second later.
A new message popped in.
C: [I’ll learn it and play it for you during winter break]
?
Zhou Anran didn’t understand: [Learn what?]
C: [Guitar]
C: [Don’t you like “Unconditional”?]
He wants to learn just because she likes it?
That small sour bubble seemed to be filled with honey now.
She was already busy enough with just studying.
She could imagine how busy he must be now.
Zhou Anran: [I don’t like it that much]
Zhou Anran: [I just thought Yu Senior sang it well last night]
C: [Only Yu senior sang well last night?]
The image of him singing beside her last night suddenly flashed in her mind.
The little bubble in Zhou Anran’s heart burst.
As if possessed, she replied: [You sang well too]
Perhaps because she had never said such things to him before, after sending it, Zhou Anran became inexplicably flushed and flustered, hurriedly clicking to recall the message.
C: [What did you recall?]
Did he not see it?
Zhou Anran breathed a sigh of relief but also felt a bit disappointed.
Zhou Anran: [Nothing]
Zhou Anran: [Just a typo]
C: [Zhou Anran]
Why does he seem to like calling her full name like this?
Even if it’s okay in person, why does he do it on WeChat too?
C: [And here I was praising you for not being timid last night]
Zhou Anran: “?”
But she is timid.
Why did he suddenly bring this up?
Before she could ask him, her phone chimed again.
C: [What’s there to recall about saying I sang well too?]
Zhou Anran: “!”
Zhou Anran: [If you saw it, why did you ask?]
C: [I wanted you to willingly say it to me]
Zhou Anran now felt like countless little bubbles were bursting in her heart simultaneously.
Yan Xingqian and the others said they wanted to see how he would pursue her.
She didn’t know if this counted as him pursuing her, but she was already struggling to handle it.
Zhou Anran touched her burning ears: [I’m going to sleep]
After a pause, she couldn’t help but add, blushing: [You played basketball all afternoon, you should sleep early too]
C: [How do you know I played basketball all afternoon?]
C: [You knew but didn’t come to watch?]
Zhou Anran: “…”
He didn’t tell her he was going to practice at the outdoor court today.
Zhou Anran didn’t dare say this to him, only replying: [I only found out from my roommates tonight]
Remembering Xie Jingyi’s words, another small sour bubble rose in her heart: [Besides, didn’t a lot of people go watch? You wouldn’t miss me]
Her gaze fell on the last message, feeling very sour. She wanted to recall it, but before she could decide, her phone rang twice.
C: [Do you remember the lyrics to “Unconditional”?]
C: [What comes after “I still say I’m grateful”?]
Zhou Anran: “…?”
Why did he suddenly jump to the lyrics?
She had only heard Yu Bingqin sing this song once last night, then searched and listened to it once more after returning. She didn’t remember the lyrics.
Zhou Anran opened a search app, looked up the lyrics for “Unconditional,” and scrolled down from the first line. When she saw the line he mentioned, her finger suddenly stopped, and this time it felt like fireworks exploded in her heart, brilliant and clamorous.
The page clearly showed—
“I still say I’m grateful You always surpass others.”