Lin Qile sat by the bus window, her eyes swollen as she gazed at the passing scenery. Du Shang asked her why her eyes were in such a state so early in the morning: “Cherry, what’s wrong? Have you been crying?”
Lin Qile looked ahead, overhearing Qin Yaoyun and Cai Fangyuan arguing at the front of the bus.
“What does it have to do with me? How should I know why Yu Jinwen’s Qu Xing password is my birthday?” Qin Yaoyun exclaimed, exasperated.
Cai Fangyuan retorted, “You’ve seen it, haven’t you? You insist on being Yu Qiao’s sister, so now you’re his sister-in-law!”
Yu Qiao, sitting nearby reading “Sports Weekly,” had been trying to suppress his laughter while biting on a milk bag. At this point, he couldn’t hold back anymore and burst out laughing. Qin Yaoyun’s face turned red with anger, her lips quivering as she glared at Yu Qiao.
Du Shang whispered to Lin Qile, “Oh no, looks like she’s about to cry too.”
Yu Qiao, almost choking with laughter and clutching his school uniform, looked up and said, “Qin Yaoyun, Yu Jin likes you. Why are you crying?”
As soon as the bus stopped, Qin Yaoyun got off, wiping away her tears.
Before morning reading, Lin Qile waited for Qin Yaoyun outside Class 3 of the Liberal Arts Department. However, her classmates said Qin Yaoyun wanted her to leave: “She said she doesn’t want to talk to you or see you.”
Lin Qile felt bewildered. She had intended to find Qin Yaoyun to criticize Yu Qiao together, knowing full well that Yu Qiao was the type who couldn’t understand others’ feelings and spoke without considering the situation – truly annoying.
But Qin Yaoyun seemed to be in a particularly bad mood. She hated Yu Qiao and Cai Fangyuan, and by extension, she now hated Lin Qile too. Lin Qile returned to Class 18 and sat down. Yu Qiao tapped her from behind with his water bottle, but she ignored him, feeling deep sympathy for Qin Yaoyun.
Huang Zhanjie took Yu Qiao’s cup from the side and asked Lin Qile, “My lady, shall I fetch water for you today?”
Qin Yaoyun didn’t show up until noon. Lin Qile and Du Shang’s group were eating in the small cafeteria when Qin Yaoyun stormed in. She walked up to Yu Qiao and the school team boys’ table and demanded, “Give me your phone!”
Yu Qiao, in the middle of eating, looked up and asked, “What for?”
Qin Yaoyun insisted, “Never mind, just give it to me quickly!”
The surrounding boys started teasing, saying Yu Qiao had angered his sister again. Yu Qiao reluctantly fished out his phone from his pocket and had a friend pass it to Qin Yaoyun while he continued eating.
Qin Yaoyun took Yu Qiao’s phone, ignoring the laughter around her. She lit up the screen to see a wallpaper of a J-10 fighter jet.
[Please enter unlock password]
Qin Yaoyun swallowed hard, her fingers trembling as she typed.
9-0-0-4-0-9
[Incorrect password, please try again]
Qin Yaoyun suddenly let out a sigh of relief. She casually tossed the phone back onto the school team’s dining table and said to Yu Qiao, “Here’s your phone. I’m done looking.”
Yu Qiao frowned, completely baffled by her behavior.
Today, Qin Yaoyun didn’t sit next to Yu Qiao. She bought a meal at the counter and sat down next to Lin Qile and Du Shang.
“Are you feeling better now?” Lin Qile asked her.
Qin Yaoyun appeared nonchalant. She flipped her hair over her shoulder, put down her chopsticks, and suddenly leaned close to Lin Qile’s ear.
“Did you know that Cen Xiaoman was crying in the girls’ bathroom again today? So many people were there comforting her!”
“What was she crying about?” Lin Qile was puzzled.
Qin Yaoyun eyed her face, “You don’t know?”
Since coming to this school, Lin Qile hadn’t spoken a single word to Cen Xiaoman. Although they were classmates, they had no interaction in daily life.
Besides, Cen Xiaoman was so close to Fei Linge, that she probably disliked Lin Qile as well.
“Cen Xiaoman is super popular,” Qin Yaoyun told her. “Do you remember back in middle school when you wrote a letter to Jiang Qiaoxi? I don’t know exactly what happened, but she was crying in the girls’ bathroom too, with layers of people comforting her. I remember it clearly because I almost couldn’t use the bathroom that broke!”
Lin Qile was very confused, “So… what?”
Qin Yaoyun asked, “Are you and Jiang Qiaoxi dating again?”
Lin Qile was even more bewildered and shook her head, “No, we’re not!”
Qin Yaoyun pressed, “Then why was she crying for so long?”
Lin Qile replied, “How should I know?”
Du Shang asked why girls loved to cry so much.
Lin Qile stood at the door of Class 15, about to part ways with him. She said, “Who would want to cry for no reason?”
Du Shang thought about it and agreed.
Jiang Qiaoxi hadn’t come to school for two days. During breaks, Lin Qile napped at her desk, her cheek pressed against the surface, sleeping and sitting without any grace.
Her deskmate Huang Zhanjie asked Yu Qiao, “What’s wrong with her today?”
Yu Qiao, working on his chemistry homework, replied, “Congratulations, you’ve finally seen her true form.”
Huang Zhanjie was even more confused.
Only the all-black cup with General Eisenhower’s quote sat at the corner of Lin Qile’s desk. As she worked through her self-study period, Lin Qile suddenly looked up and stared at the cup.
Jiang Qiaoxi had asked, “Can I call you again tonight?”
Lin Qile didn’t understand: Why ask? You can call, and I can choose not to answer. Why even ask?
Lin Qile lowered her head and continued solving problems on her worksheet. Halfway through, she suddenly raised her head again and gazed out the window at the sky.
When would he call?
Even cheerleading practice couldn’t spark Lin Qile’s interest. She walked to the auditorium with her teammates, wearing a tight tank top and short skirt. Passing by so many people, Lin Qile knew clearly that none of them mattered to her; she couldn’t even be bothered to lift her head.
On the way home after school, Qin Yaoyun and Yu Qiao were arguing again at the front.
Qin Yaoyun said that Yu Jin was young and didn’t understand, carelessly setting someone else’s birthday as a password without knowing what it meant.
Cai Fangyuan laughed, “How could he not know? He learned it from Yu Qiao, didn’t he?”
Hearing this, Qin Yaoyun’s eyes lit up. She asked Yu Qiao, “Is your password my birthday?”
Yu Qiao looked up from his newspaper, “If I change my password to your birthday now, will you leave me alone?”
Qin Yaoyun thought for a moment, “Okay!”
Yu Qiao replied, “Then you might as well keep making a fuss.”
Qin Yaoyun burst into tears again and hurriedly got off at the next stop. Lin Qile alighted and heard Cai Fangyuan laughing as he got off, amused by Qin Yaoyun’s antics in front of Yu Qiao. Lin Qile felt increasingly uncomfortable listening to this.
“What’s so funny about it?” she couldn’t help but say.
Cai Fangyuan was startled, the smile instantly vanishing from his face.
The clock ticked slowly, one mark at a time. Lin Qile sat at her desk doing homework, her phone vibrating frequently with messages from Du Shang.
Du Shang: “Cherry, we’re just teasing Qin Yaoyun. Everyone knows she likes Yu Qiao.”
Du Shang: “We’re not making fun of her, there’s no ill intent. Qin Yaoyun is at Yu Qiao’s house eating dinner right now. Don’t believe me? Call and listen, she’s chatting with Yu Qiao. Don’t be angry.”
Du Shang: “Cherry, sometimes laughter is just laughter. If you think deeply about it, it becomes deep. If you forget about it, it’s just a passing breeze, meaning nothing. You laugh at us too sometimes. Who hasn’t made a fool of themselves? After the embarrassment passes, we still sit together, eat together, and chat. You’ve seen my embarrassing moments, I’ve seen yours. Doesn’t that make our relationship stronger? When we look back on it later, we’ll find it funny!”
Du Shang: “How about this: we won’t tease Qin Yaoyun anymore, okay? But I think if we stop, Qin Yaoyun herself might not be happy. Why don’t you ask her? Qin Yaoyun is fine. She’s very happy right now, even joking with Yu Jin.”
Lin Qile finished her homework, took a shower, and sat on her bed talking to Du Shang on the phone. Du Shang said, “Haven’t you noticed? Every time we joke about her and Yu Qiao, she gets really happy.”
Lin Qile was silent for a moment, then said quietly, “I don’t understand…”
Du Shang replied, “You’re a girl, how can you not understand?”
Lin Qile was silent again for a while.
“I hate it when people talk about me,” she mumbled.
Du Shang laughed, “We’re not talking about you. Have you seen any of us talking about you?”
“Du Shang,” Lin Qile said, “I think you could be a doctor too.”
Du Shang was taken aback, “Huh?”
The call lasted for a long time. Midway through, Qin Yaoyun came over and grabbed the phone to chat with Lin Qile for a bit. Qin Yaoyun questioned, “Lin Qile, do you remember saying you wanted to marry Yu Qiao when you grew up back in kindergarten?”
In the background, there was laughter and whistling from the boys, along with Class Monitor Yu’s applause and hearty laughter.
Lin Qile was bewildered and suddenly felt like laughing too. She exclaimed, “No way! I don’t remember that at all!”
Qin Yaoyun also burst out laughing, “I thought you’d forgotten… Now you only think about Jiang Qiaoxi!”
Lin Qile, hearing that name suddenly from Qin Yaoyun’s mouth, didn’t feel as sad as she expected.
Qin Yaoyun, holding the phone and standing among so many people at Yu Qiao’s dining table, was stunned.
“Why… why are you crying?” she asked Lin Qile on the phone.
Jiang Qiaoxi had called Lin Qile several times. It wasn’t that no one answered; the line was constantly busy.
In the darkness of the foreign language high school dormitory after lights out, only occasional sleep-talking from roommates could be heard. Jiang Qiaoxi sat alone in the dark, with only a faint glow from the ember between his fingers.
If the phone went unanswered, at least he would know that Lin Qile was still angry with him, or that she was asleep and didn’t want to answer.
But with the line busy for so long, she must be talking to someone else – friends, classmates, or family members.
For Lin Qile, “Jiang Qiaoxi” had never been that singular, irreplaceable person.
At 10:40 PM, it took Jiang Qiaoxi a moment to realize the call had connected.
He picked up, “Hello?”
“I was talking to Du Shang and the others earlier, so I didn’t notice you called,” Lin Qile explained on the other end.
Jiang Qiaoxi was silent for a moment.
“Jiang Qiaoxi,” Lin Qile said unprompted, “I just had a sudden realization.”
Jiang Qiaoxi was taken aback, “What did you realize?”
Lin Qile said, “When we grow up, the things from before will be like funny stories. They’re not really that important.”
Jiang Qiaoxi felt a pang in his heart.
“What funny stories from before?” he asked.