After the proposal ceremony ended, filming had to continue as scheduled. The set required minor adjustments, so the extras were given fifteen minutes of rest time.
The students scattered in all directions, climbing up into the bleachers to drink the ginger tea provided by the production crew, chatting and laughing noisily about what had just happened. The girls were all saying things like “Yi Zhong owes me a mutual secret crush,” — all except Xu Huaishi, who was sitting in the corner of the bleachers, crying her eyes out.
She was genuinely, wholeheartedly weeping tears of joy when she suddenly heard an utterly mood-ruining voice: “Xu Huaishi, what are you crying like an idiot for?”
Xu Huaishi looked up and immediately spotted Zhao Yi standing in front of her — over 1.8 meters tall, looming over her like he was ready to come crashing down on her at any moment.
She wiped her tears with her sleeve and glared at him. “Who’s an idiot?”
Zhao Yi clicked his tongue. “Are you a girl or not? You don’t even carry tissues?” As he said this, he pulled a pack of tissues from his trouser pocket and handed her one.
Xu Huaishi took it, her mouth still unrelenting. “Are you a boy or not, carrying tissues around with you?”
“I—” He was so exasperated he started laughing. “I knew you were going to cry like an idiot tonight, so I specifically came prepared, alright?”
The moment he called her an “idiot,” Xu Huaishi froze mid-wipe, then flung the tissue away in refusal. “What awful tissues. So rough.”
“Rougher than my hand?”
She paused, not yet having time to make sense of what he meant, when she saw Zhao Yi raise his hand — the pad of his thumb sweeping gently across the tear tracks beneath her eyes. He moved with a light touch, sighing all the while. “Should’ve known not to buy them. Would’ve been better to just use my hand directly.”
Xu Huaishi’s entire body went stiff. By the time she came to her senses, she had already shoved his hand away and scrambled to her feet. “Your hand is definitely rougher…” she said, then grabbed her skirt and hurried down the bleacher steps. At the very last step, she stumbled, nearly tripping.
“Hey, you have night blindness — where are you running off to!” Zhao Yi’s long legs caught up with her in just a few strides, and he grabbed her by the arm. “Where are you going?”
She shook him off, feeling the spot on her cheek where his thumb had wiped away her tears burning with heat. She pressed her hand against it and said, “To wash my face. Your hands are so rough — I’m going to be disfigured!”
“…”
Zhao Yi watched her disappear around the corner into the women’s restroom beneath the bleachers and had no choice but to stop at the entrance. He turned to leave, then thought about the fact that it was the middle of the night with so many unfamiliar people on school grounds — he wasn’t quite at ease — so he sat himself down on the step ledge instead.
Sitting there, he found himself thinking back to the first time he had encountered Xu Huaishi in this very spot.
During the first semester of their first year of high school, before the arts and sciences split, the two of them hadn’t been classmates yet.
His class at the time was full of rowdy boys — restless and troublemaking. During one PE class, a dispute broke out during a basketball game, and afterwards, some of them had come here to settle things with their fists. He had been on the winning side, but he’d been too effective at fighting — which drew a lot of resentment — and his face ended up bruised. Afterwards, he’d sat alone on this very step in a foul mood.
He’d glanced up and noticed the door to the women’s restroom had been pulled open just a crack. A single eye peered out, and upon seeing him sitting there looking ferocious, it quickly retreated back inside.
He was startled for a moment before it dawned on him — this girl had heard the commotion from the adjacent men’s restroom, and had been hiding inside, too afraid to come out. Only once everything had gone quiet had she dared to peek.
So he called out toward the women’s restroom: “Hey, classmate, what are you afraid of? Everyone’s already left!”
A voice came through the door, doing its best to sound bold: “They’ve left, and you’re still standing there — what are you, a door god?”
He found it funny and stepped forward. “So? What of it?”
To his surprise, the moment she heard his voice getting closer, she let out a startled yelp. “Don’t come in! This is the women’s restroom — there are three mops in here, and I will beat you to death with one if you dare!”
He laughed despite himself. “Classmate, I don’t hit girls.”
“Then why won’t you leave?”
“You come out first, then I’ll leave.”
“You leave first, then I’ll come out.”
“You come out first.”
“You leave first.”
The two of them were at a standoff. He lost patience, grabbed the door handle and said: “Come on out. I promise I won’t touch you — I just want to see what you look like.”
She clutched the door from the inside, refusing to let go. “You think I’m stupid? If you see my face, do I have any future left?”
“…Have you been watching too many TV dramas?”
He began pushing the door forcefully. She began screaming: “Help! Is anyone there? Help——!”
This brought a nearby PE teacher running over, and he had no choice but to give up and slink away in defeat. At the time, he truly had no idea that the person inside had been Xu Huaishi.
He only found out later — and purely because she gave herself away.
A week later, it was the same Wednesday, the same PE class period. He was walking back to the classroom from the field with a basketball under his arm when he came across a group of chattering girls near the bleachers, gossiping about some celebrity.
The girl leading the conversation was talking animatedly, gesturing expressively — and then she saw him and suddenly went quiet.
The girls around her pressed her: “And then what? How did your Li Shican-gege respond?”
She closed her mouth and said nothing. Her face had gone pale as though she’d seen a ghost, and she quickened her pace to pass by him.
He found it peculiar and looked back — just in time to meet her eyes as she turned to glance at him as well.
Their eyes locked, and it clicked for him in an instant. She was most likely the girl from the women’s restroom that day, afraid he might recognize her voice.
In truth, by then, he had completely forgotten about the whole incident — let alone remembered her voice. But now, at least, he got a clear look at her face.
She was interesting. Not bad-looking either.
He went back and started asking around about her, and learned her name. Not long after, when the arts-sciences split came, he found out she had chosen the humanities track.
He figured he wasn’t particularly fond of studying anyway, and the humanities might be easier — so with a stroke of his pen, he signed up for humanities too. He had decided to go and seek out this interesting soul for himself.
When the next semester began, things fell perfectly into place — he ended up in the same class as her.
Their homeroom teacher taught Chinese, and Xu Huaishi happened to excel at the subject, so on the very first day she was assigned the task of taking attendance. When she got to his name, she stood tall and upright and called out with great conviction: “Zhao — Tie——!”
No one in the class responded.
Three seconds passed. He gritted his teeth and raised his hand. “Classmate, you’re the Chinese class rep and you can’t read? That character is Yi — the yi from ‘to go missing.'”
The entire class erupted in laughter.
She looked up from the attendance register, and upon recognizing his face, was visibly startled — yet she held her ground and said: “Chinese class reps aren’t allowed to be nearsighted?”
Recalling all this, Zhao Yi let out a soft snort of laughter — then remembered the two years of being called “Zhao Tie” by his classmates, all because of her, and sighed.
Just then, he saw the women’s restroom door slide open a crack.
Xu Huaishi poked her head out, having heard him laugh. “Hey — you haven’t left?”
He stood up. “What, it took you this long to finally finish dawdling?”
“No, I’m not done yet…” Her voice dropped. She looked left, then right. “Zhao Da, do you have your phone on you?”
She called him “Zhao Tie” when nothing was the matter, and “Zhao Da” the moment she needed something. Zhao Yi was used to it by now. He answered from a distance: “Yeah, why?”
“I don’t have my phone on me. Can I borrow yours to make a call?”
“Sure, then come out here.”
“Pass me the phone first.”
“Why do you have to make a call from inside the bathroom? Just come out.”
“I just — ugh, are you lending it or not? If not, just go get my sister-in-law for me!”
Zhao Yi paused, turning this over in his mind. “What’s going on with you?”
She stomped her foot, growing urgent. “I just need to find my sister-in-law for something!”
He rubbed the tip of his nose, let out an “oh,” and seemed to vaguely understand. He took out his phone, unlocked it, and handed it to her, then stepped back and said: “I’ll wait by the door then.”
Xu Huaishi didn’t reply. She turned and hurried back into the restroom. She couldn’t remember Ruan Yu’s number from memory, so she dialed Xu Huaisong’s instead: “Gege, are you still at school? Is sister-in-law with you?”
She had switched to calling her “sister-in-law” pretty quickly — it probably made Xu Huaisong happy, because his tone was pleasant: “She is. What’s wrong?”
“Hand the phone to her.”
After Ruan Yu picked up and said hello, Xu Huaishi lowered her voice and asked: “Sister-in-law, do you have any sanitary pads? My period just came…”
“Oh, I don’t have any on me. I’ll go buy some and bring them to you — where are you?”
“The restroom beneath the bleachers.”
“Alright, wait for me a bit.”
The call ended. Xu Huaishi clutched her faintly aching abdomen and waited in the dim restroom. After a long while with no sign of anyone, she found herself idle and, out of habit, used her fingerprint to unlock the phone.
Then she was met with a completely unfamiliar wallpaper.
She blinked.
Oh. Her period cramps had muddled her brain — this was Zhao Yi’s phone, not her own.
She pressed the lock button again — but in the very instant she did, she froze.
It wasn’t her phone. So why had her fingerprint unlocked it?

Author’s note: Two days apart feels like six autumns have passed. The extra You’re My Belated Happiness – Chapter is here — are you all happy? (＃＾.＾＃)