“Wow!! It snowed yesterday!”

As soon as it was light in the morning, someone in the dormitory was leaning out the window, shouting back.

Immediately, everyone excitedly got up and rushed to gather around the window to see the snow.

It had snowed all night, and now, looking out, everything was white. The rooftops and treetops were all covered with a thick layer of snow.

Everyone quickly finished washing up, got dressed, and ran outside to play. Huang Yao and Shi Niannian went downstairs together.

Many people were already by the flower beds below the dormitory. Some early risers were already laughing and having snowball fights. The snowy ground was filled with laughter and joy, not at all like the atmosphere of an imminent experimental competition.

Huang Yao crouched down to scoop up some snow, smiling as she threw it at Shi Niannian.

“Ah.” She hadn’t reacted in time and let out a light cry.

The snow was very soft and didn’t hurt when it hit someone. Huang Yao had thrown it slightly off target, brushing past the hood of her down jacket, with snowflakes scattering along the fluffy edge of the hood.

Huang Yao bent over laughing from the other side.

Shi Niannian shook her hood and also smiled good-naturedly.

“By the way, Niannian,” Huang Yao took her arm and asked, “did someone call you yesterday? I think I heard a sound.”

She jumped in fright with an “Ah,” and after a moment, embarrassedly and guiltily answered: “My brother.”

“Do you have a brother? I thought you were an only child,” Huang Yao said.

“Not… a real brother,” she answered, lowering her head.

Just as she finished speaking, a laugh sounded from behind her, a familiar voice. Shi Niannian’s heart skipped a beat, and she instinctively turned her head.

Jiang Wang was standing behind her.

The young man wore a clean, crisp black windbreaker. Perhaps he hadn’t slept well last night, as his voice had a heavy nasal tone. He knowingly curved his lips slightly, looking at her with a half-smile, and raised his hand to gently brush off the snow from her hood.

Having just guiltily told a lie, only to be discovered by him when she turned around, Shi Niannian felt so embarrassed that she couldn’t raise her head.

Jiang Wang raised an eyebrow and asked: “Which brother?”

Fortunately, Huang Yao saw the situation and casually found an excuse to run off to play in the snow with the other girls.

She was too embarrassed to look up and called his name as if begging for mercy.

“Jiang Wang.”

He laughed again, teasing: “Before, when I asked you to call me Brother Jiang Wang, you wouldn’t. How come you secretly call me brother behind my back?”

“Jiang Wang!”

She was both anxious and annoyed, afraid others would hear, so her voice grew a bit louder, and she glanced around.

Jiang Wang was not only famous at First High School but also well-known at other schools, naturally becoming the center of attention wherever he appeared. Many people around were looking in their direction.

Fortunately, they were far away and probably couldn’t hear clearly what Jiang Wang had just said.

Jiang Wang raised his hand, his index finger lightly brushing her chin: “Why are you embarrassed? Brave enough to do it but not admit it?”

Shi Niannian had never been intimate with a boy before and was quite averse to such contact in front of everyone. Instinctively, she wanted to back away.

But when she looked down, she saw the pink hair tie on Jiang Wang’s wrist, with the small rabbit pattern hanging on the outside. For some inexplicable reason, she forced herself to stand there without backing away, despite the awkwardness spreading throughout her body.

Jiang Wang’s fingertip brushed across her chin, and then he withdrew his hand again.

“Don’t wear… this,” she said.

Looking at the hair tie on his hand made Shi Niannian feel embarrassed. She felt that she must not have been fully awake last night—how could she have listened to Jiang Ling’s words and given the hair tie to Jiang Wang?

She didn’t dislike Sheng Xiangwan at all; in fact, she quite liked her—a girl with a good personality, good temper, and straightforwardness.

This made her feel even more selfish and petty.

Having such small thoughts as to “trick” Jiang Wang into wearing her hair tie.

“What’s wrong?” Jiang Wang didn’t mind at all and didn’t feel that wearing such a hair tie affected his school bully image in any way. “Didn’t you give it to me?”

“You could… put it in your pocket.”

Jiang Wang laughed, “Isn’t it quite nice looking?”

“…”

After a pause, Shi Niannian asked him: “Do you have… a cold?”

She could hear the nasal tone in his voice.

“Ah.” He rubbed his nose. “Seems like a bit.”

“I have… medicine in my backpack.”

“Will you bring it to me later, then?”

“Okay,” she nodded.

For the physics experiment competition at noon, they were divided into pairs, not limited to teaming up with classmates from the same school. Instead, they drew lots to determine who their partners would be from among all participants.

When Shi Niannian came down from the dormitory building to go to the laboratory, she brought along some cold medicine that she had mixed in her water cup for Jiang Wang.

Jiang Wang hadn’t arrived yet. She waited outside for five minutes before seeing him come in from outside.

Shi Niannian handed the cup to him.

Jiang Wang raised an eyebrow: “For me?”

“Didn’t I say… I’d bring it to you?”

“Drinking directly from your cup?” he asked.

Shi Niannian paused for a moment, not having thought of this issue, and asked blankly: “Do you mind?”

“I don’t mind,” Jiang Wang laughed, bending down to lean closer to her, his voice hoarse, “I dream of kissing you.”

“Niannian! It’s time to draw lots!” Huang Yao called her from inside the laboratory.

Shi Niannian, with a red face, stuffed the cup into his arms and ran inside.

“What number did you draw?” Huang Yao asked her after they had drawn their lots.

Shi Niannian had just come back to her senses and opened the slip of paper in her hand, which had the number 28 written on it.

“Ah, I’m 13,” Huang Yao said disappointedly. “I’m not in your group.”

Standing at the experiment table according to the number drawn, Shi Niannian still felt her face burning, and inexplicably, her mind conjured up the memory of that day at the bay window in the isolation room—Jiang Wang’s breath and body temperature as he leaned toward her.

Hot.

So hot.

She fanned her face with her hand a couple of times and tied up her loose hair again.

After fixing her hair, she looked up and saw that Jiang Wang had also drawn his lot and was walking toward her.

Getting closer and closer.

“…”

Shi Niannian could hear the thumping of her heartbeat.

She silently clenched her hanging hand into a fist, feeling bewildered and… afraid amidst that clear heartbeat and sense of destiny.

Jiang Wang stopped at an experiment table in front of her.

Only then did she gently breathe a sigh of relief.

“What a coincidence, Jiang Wang,” Sheng Xiangwan stood beside him, smiling with her eyes as she greeted him.

Jiang Wang glanced at her and nodded with an “Mm.”

After the groups were assigned, everyone began working on their respective experiment topics.

Shi Niannian’s partner was a girl from a private high school who wore thick glasses and was also quite quiet by nature.

They had drawn an electrical circuit problem. The two collaborated seamlessly with very little communication, yet their steps were orderly and methodical.

Jiang Wang and Sheng Xiangwan had drawn a mechanics experiment that required them to produce several sets of experimental data. Jiang Wang worked with the equipment and instruments on one side, while Sheng Xiangwan was responsible for recording.

She noticed the hair tie on Jiang Wang’s wrist, her gaze falling on it without hiding. After recording another set of data, she tilted her head and asked: “Is that hair tie on your hand yours?”

“No,” Jiang Wang reported another set of data before saying casually, “It’s my girlfriend’s.”

Shi Niannian paused in her actions and looked up.

Jiang Wang’s broad, straight back was visible as he looked down, manipulating something in his hands, his brows and eyes lowered, very serious, yet displaying a cold aloofness.

“Classmate?” the girl beside her spoke up.

Shi Niannian came back to her senses, lowered her head, and said “Sorry,” then continued with the experiment.

By the time they returned home from the competition site, it was exactly dinner time. As soon as Shi Niannian got home, the dining table was already filled with sumptuous dishes.

Her aunt’s demeanor made it seem as if she had been away taking exams for several months, serving her fish and meat.

She found it both amusing and heartwarming.

This was something she had only experienced since coming to this city for high school.

The next day was Monday again.

Since she had told Jiang Ling on Saturday night that she liked Jiang Wang, as soon as Shi Niannian arrived at school, she was bombarded with all sorts of questions from her, from when she started liking him to when she planned to be with him. The two of them spoke in hushed voices, sitting in a corner of the classroom for half the day.

Finally, Shi Niannian couldn’t withstand her questioning anymore and, with a flushed face, pushed her back to her seat.

English morning self-study began.

Today’s task was to do a dictation of the new unit’s vocabulary.

Jiang Wang’s seat was still empty. Liu Guoqi, as always, kept an eye on Jiang Wang’s seat, and after the dictation was completed, seeing that he still hadn’t come to class, he scolded and asked Shi Niannian: “Do you know where he went?”

Shi Niannian also shook her head.

Not long after, her phone vibrated with a message from Jiang Wang.

Class 3, Grade 2, Jiang Wang, Male: Training today, might only come to school in the afternoon. Don’t get bullied.

This contact name was what Shi Niannian had changed it to after Jiang Wang had previously changed his contact name to “boyfriend” in her phone. She was satisfied with this and had no intention of changing it again.

Since Cheng Qi and Lu Ming had left, no one bullied Shi Niannian anymore.

Although some people still laughed at her stutter, most were unintentional and without malice.

Shi Niannian replied: Got it.

Besides her, no one in the class knew about Jiang Wang relearning to swim.

Or rather, no one even knew that Jiang Wang had once been on the provincial swimming team.

He was proud—he had been winning gold medals since he first started swimming, but later had to give it up due to a series of events. It was uncertain whether he could succeed this time.

Jiang Wang had never mentioned it to anyone, so Shi Niannian hadn’t told anyone either.

After the last class in the afternoon, Cai Yucai called the three students participating in the competition to his office.

“Where’s Jiang Wang?” Cai Yucai asked, looking at Shi Niannian and Huang Yao as they entered. “He didn’t come to school again today?”

“Mmm.”

“Alright, I’ll find him tomorrow,” Cai Yucai sighed, taking out a paper densely filled with writing from a drawer. “These are the answers to the competition paper you took on Saturday. Check your answers yourselves. The school needs to estimate the competition results this time.”

Shi Niannian roughly remembered her answers and quickly checked them.

Compared to checking her regular physics papers, she had made quite a few mistakes, but fortunately, the questions she was sure of at the time had no errors.

“How was it?” Cai Yucai asked nervously. “Did you do all right?”

Shi Niannian told him which questions she had gotten wrong.

“All the others are correct?” Cai Yucai asked with surprise.

“Mmm.”

“That’s good, that’s good.” Cai Yucai said with a smile. “A second-class prize, and you can aim for a first-class one.”

Beside her, Huang Yao had been checking for quite a while, occasionally frowning and saying “Ah.” She hadn’t done too well.

Huang Yao’s regular physics grades were not bad, but when it came to competition-level problems, she found them quite challenging.

Cai Yucai analyzed her performance for a while, and as the two were leaving the office, he called out to Shi Niannian again.

“Shi Niannian, wait a moment. I have something else to discuss with you.”

So Huang Yao left first.

“We need a student representative to speak at our New Year’s Eve gala. Originally, I wanted to ask Jiang Wang, but he already declined,” Cai Yucai sighed. “With his personality, once he decides to refuse, no amount of persuasion will change his mind.”

Shi Niannian was taken aback: “Me… speaking?”

“Yes, it should have been you from the start.”

“But, but…” Shi Niannian was a bit flustered. “With my condition, I’ll be… laughed at.”

“You can write a simple speech, five minutes long. It’s not difficult, and you have plenty of time to prepare. Give it a try,” Cai Yucai said. “In the future, when you enter society, you’ll encounter many opportunities to speak in front of people. You can’t avoid it. Practice a bit now, okay?”

Jiang Wang returned to school in the afternoon.

Large patches of sunset glow reflected off the white snow. The snow on the playground had been swept, piled into small mounds along the track.

Shi Niannian was lying on her desk, looking troubled by the task she had been assigned.

She could understand that the homeroom teacher meant well, but she still didn’t dare to speak in front of so many people for a full five minutes. She would embarrass herself.

Jiang Wang was standing beside her, but she didn’t notice, still focused and dejected as she wrote her speech.

Jiang Wang leaned over to look and asked: “New Year’s Eve gala?”

Shi Niannian turned her head at his voice, almost bumping into him, then moved back a bit, turned around again, and hung her head with her ears drooping as she responded with an “Mmm.”

Jiang Wang ruffled her hair, pulled out a chair, and sat down beside her: “Why are you so wilted? Did someone bully you?”

“No.” She shook her head as she lay on the desk.

She didn’t know when it had started, but she had already become accustomed to Jiang Wang’s intimate gestures beside her. She could accept them quite calmly without feeling repulsed.

Evening self-study began.

Today, Liu Guoqi was supervising the class, so Jiang Wang didn’t talk anymore and casually flipped through today’s homework.

He rarely did homework. He had already studied the Grade 2 content before, so he would just glance at it. Only if there were difficult problems would he possibly pick up a pen and write a few steps on calculation paper, but he wouldn’t complete it—he would just roughly write out the approach. Once he understood it himself, he would stop writing.

Shi Niannian had already finished her homework during the day and was still struggling with her speech.

The speech itself wasn’t hard to write. Even though she had never given a speech before, she had heard many. She just didn’t know how she would fluently read this page of text in front of people.

She hadn’t written it too long, leaving some time for her stutter.

With her hands propping up her face, she worked hard to read it silently, but silent reading was ultimately different from actually reading it aloud.

Jiang Wang had roughly gone through all the homework and turned his head to look at Shi Niannian.

“Can you read it?”

She knocked her forehead against the edge of the desk, making a quite clear “thud” sound. Her forehead turned red, and she said dejectedly: “I can’t.”

She put the speech on her lap, raised her forehead slightly, and was about to knock it a second time, but this time there was no sound—she hit Jiang Wang’s palm instead.

She paused and turned to look.

Jiang Wang was also looking at her, his palm against her forehead, lifting her head. He said, “Little girl, aren’t you afraid of pain? Your forehead is all red.”

During evening self-study, everyone was doing homework, and no one noticed the movement over here. When Jiang Wang spoke, he kept his voice low, revealing indiscernible indulgence and doting.

Shi Niannian’s heart skipped a couple of beats. She stammered as she rubbed her forehead and sat up straight, lowering her head and pretending to focus on reading the speech.

“You need to read it aloud,” Jiang Wang said.

“I know,” Shi Niannian said softly. “But right now, it’s evening self-study.”

“Come on, I’ll take you somewhere.”

When the two walked out of the classroom one after another, Liu Guoqi raised his head and looked at them. However, since Shi Niannian had always been so well-behaved, he didn’t suspect anything and just glanced before lowering his head again to continue grading homework.

The school campus was quiet at night.

Shi Niannian followed Jiang Wang out of the teaching building, across the basketball court, and turned into a small path on one side.

It was pitch dark.

She stopped in her tracks.

Jiang Wang turned back to look at her: “Scared?”

“Dark.”

Jiang Wang reached out his hand for her to hold.

Shi Niannian looked down, paused for two seconds, then extended two fair fingers and grabbed his sleeve.

Jiang Wang laughed, letting her hold onto his sleeve as he led her further in.

There was an abandoned small hut here, probably used by the school to store miscellaneous items in the past. The door outside was a horizontal iron sliding door, locked with a padlock.

Jiang Wang picked up the lock and looked at it.

He had come to this place several times before with Xu Ningqing and Fan Mengming. It was considered a secret base. However, Jiang Wang had more training then and didn’t come as frequently as the other two.

Xu Ningqing had even connected an internet cable here, skipping self-study classes to play games, and even ordering hot pot delivery to eat while playing. It was as carefree as could be.

They had specially found a locksmith to make a copy of the key for this place and had left it inside after graduation.

Jiang Wang looked around, turned to Shi Niannian, and said “Wait for me here for a moment,” then took two steps back, grabbed onto a window opening, and jumped in.

It all happened in just three seconds, and Shi Niannian hadn’t even reacted.

She still hadn’t figured out why Jiang Wang had brought her here. It was pitch dark around, and she was afraid of being discovered skipping class by the school security.

After standing there for two seconds, she looked up at the window ledge, took two steps back—

Jiang Wang had found the door key that Fan Mengming had left in the drawer of an old wooden table. Just as he turned around, intending to open the door for Shi Niannian, he heard a sound from the window ledge.

The girl had already crossed one leg over, revealing a section of fair, slender ankle. Her fingers tightly gripped the window ledge as she brought her other leg in as well.

Before Jiang Wang could even offer her a hand, she had already agilely and swiftly jumped down from the high wall with lightness, raising a thin layer of dust.

“You…” Jiang Wang looked at her, surprised.

Shi Niannian’s wall-climbing and window-jumping skills had been developed from when she was bullied by Cheng Qi.

She stood up and looked at Jiang Wang.

Jiang Wang had a set of keys hanging from his index finger. He shook them and said with a smile: “I was just about to open the door for you.”

“…” It was only at this moment that Shi Niannian felt a bit embarrassed. She tugged at the hem of her clothes and said, “I was afraid of being seen by someone.”

“It’s not like we’re having an affair,” Jiang Wang said casually, grabbing her wrist and pulling the young girl in front of him, helping her dust off the grime from her sleeve.

No one cleaned this place, and there was a lot of dust on the window ledge.

When she climbed over, she had used her arms to support herself, naturally getting them dirty.

Jiang Wang, on the other hand, had kicked off from the wall, his entire body rising, stepped on the window ledge with just one foot, and flipped in. His clothes and pants were still spotless.

“Such a little girl, why are you so wild when doing things?” Jiang Wang said as he brushed off the dust from her.

When Jiang Wang bent down to dust off the grime from her knees, Shi Niannian finally couldn’t help but take half a step back, mumbling: “I’ll do it… Myself.”

Jiang Wang let her be.

She quickly cleaned her clothes and pants. When she straightened up, Jiang Wang had already cleared out a clean cushion on the side.

Shi Niannian only then noticed the layout of this small, dilapidated hut. There was a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, many jumbled miscellaneous items, and even an electric pot on the table, though it was covered with a layer of dust.

Jiang Wang saw her staring at the electric pot in a daze and said: “That was left by Xu Ningqing and Fan Mengming from before. They used to skip class and come here to eat hot pot.”

“…” Shi Niannian pressed her lips together. “You all… don’t study?”

“Just the two of them, not me,” Jiang Wang patted the cushion beside him, indicating for her to sit. “I couldn’t eat hot pot.”

“Why?” Shi Niannian sat down beside him.

“Athletes can’t eat those things.”

Shi Niannian nodded, looked around the room again, and asked: “Why did you bring me here?”

“What do you think?”

Jiang Wang laughed, and in the empty room, it was particularly clear and provocative.

Shi Niannian didn’t understand. She turned her head and saw Jiang Wang leaning toward her, his hand propped on the cushion. The clean, refreshing scent from the young man’s body also spread over, closely enveloping her.

He leaned in bit by bit, the light from the overhead bulb gathered under his black eyelashes, looking deep and bright.

All around was silence.

The closer he got, the more Shi Niannian leaned back, her elbows propped on the cushion, almost lying down.

Jiang Wang tilted his head, his gaze falling on her lips: “How can a young girl follow someone to such a place without even asking questions?”

“…”

Jiang Wang propped his hands on either side of her, his upper body suspended above her: “How much do you trust me to even climb in by yourself?”

Shi Niannian trusted that Jiang Wang wouldn’t do anything to her, but such actions and postures were still too much. She was so scared that her stutter worsened: “Ji-Ji… Wang…”

The girl’s incredibly beautiful eyes were looking at him. She was leaning back, and due to the effort, the lines of her slender neck stood out, her collarbones deeply concave.

Damn it.

Jiang Wang’s Adam’s apple moved up and down, and he bit his molar, tasting the flavor of his own medicine.

Just one look like that, and he was directly aroused.

Before going to prison, Jiang Wang had also been wild. With his good looks and wealthy family, he had seen countless temptations.

He never thought there would be a day when he couldn’t resist such provocation.

He averted his gaze to the side, hoarsely cursing “Fuck,” and lowered his head.

He had recently cut his hair, and it pricked Shi Niannian’s exposed neck a bit.

His dark, deep eyes closed briefly: “You’re going to be the death of me.”