In February 2003, on the first day of the new semester at Provincial No. 1 High School’s competition class, Wei Ruoxing ran into Tan Qianche at the entrance of the boys’ dormitory building.

The weather wasn’t good that day, with a drizzling gray rain. Wei Ruoxing held an umbrella in her left hand and a suitcase in her right, and through the misty rain, she and Tan Qianche stared at each other for a while.

“Hello,” Wei Ruoxing greeted him.

Tan Qianche was wearing Provincial No. 1 High School’s winter uniform. He was about 1.86 meters tall, with slightly dark skin, long legs, and an air of sunny cheerfulness in his every movement that dispelled the cold and gloom of the winter rain.

He walked toward Wei Ruoxing, noticed the name tag on her suitcase, and asked, “Are you Wei Ruoxing, the new transfer student?”

There was only one small path at the entrance of the dormitory building that wasn’t waterlogged. Tan Qianche stepped over several water channels in one stride. Wei Ruoxing looked down briefly, then said, “I’m in Class 18. I transferred from Jiangming No. 1 High School.”

“Jiangming No. 1 High School?” Tan Qianche evaluated fairly, “That’s a good school. If you could transfer to our class, it means you’re pretty good too.”

Wei Ruoxing felt an inexplicable urge to one-up him: “I’ve won a provincial competition first prize.”

Tan Qianche smiled and said, “That’s great, first prize.”

His praise for her was limited to just that one sentence.

As a transfer student newly arrived, Wei Ruoxing didn’t know her way around. The paths were slippery in the rain, and the wheels of her suitcase were completely broken. She couldn’t find the girls’ dormitory building and was too embarrassed to ask others for help. Students were coming and going on campus, and she lingered briefly outside the boys’ dormitory building, unexpectedly running into Tan Qianche, the Class 18 monitor.

Tan Qianche carried her suitcase to the girls’ dormitory building.

Not knowing how to thank him properly, she fished out two candies from her pocket and placed them in his palm. He watched her walk away, unwrapped one of the candies, and tasted a sour and sweet lemon soft candy.

*

Wei Ruoxing wasn’t a local from the provincial capital.

At the end of last year, her parents’ work situation changed, and the whole family moved to the provincial capital. Her parents arranged for Wei Ruoxing to transfer schools. She left the familiar environment of her upbringing and suddenly arrived in a completely unfamiliar city, entering a class that had already bonded well, with more than a few concerns in her heart.

That year, Wei Ruoxing had just turned sixteen.

She didn’t have an easy time at Provincial No. 1 High School. She couldn’t adapt to boarding school life, couldn’t integrate into the social circles of Class 1(18), and faced tremendous academic pressure—Provincial No. 1 High School had a rather special teaching approach, with competition coaches following the principle of “teaching according to aptitude.” They thought Wei Ruoxing was a promising talent, so they assigned her heavy study tasks.

Wei Ruoxing always believed she could complete assignments on time and meet the teachers’ requirements with just a bit more effort.

So, she studied late into the night in her dormitory, fighting on continuously. However, she was often drowsy during the day, couldn’t concentrate at night, didn’t complete her assignments well, and her test scores kept dropping, gradually falling from the upper-middle ranks of the class to the lower-middle.

Wei Ruoxing’s parents learned about their daughter’s situation and were naturally worried—their daughter had never caused her elders to worry about her grades growing up. Her parents called the homeroom teacher, describing Wei Ruoxing’s problems in detail. The homeroom teacher took it seriously, having several talks with Wei Ruoxing, often calling her out to the corridor during evening self-study to chat.

The homeroom teacher was a female teacher over forty years old. She cared about every student, including the newly transferred Wei Ruoxing.

The homeroom teacher’s words enlightened Wei Ruoxing: “You can go home on weekends, right? If you’re finding it difficult to study, get a tutor to help you sort through the competition points. I had a student last year who won a national silver award and was also the science valedictorian in the college entrance examination. Let me tell you about his study experience—what are exams? Exams are sample surveys, taking a few samples from a large pool of test points to check your mastery. If you want high scores, you need to first identify and fill in your gaps, familiarize yourself with, and master all knowledge points… You’re a smart student, you understand what I mean, right?”

Wei Ruoxing quickly said she understood.

Her parents arranged a tutor for her, and she also wanted to find a student with good grades at school to guide her. After careful consideration, she chose Tan Qianche.

At that time, Tan Qianche firmly held the position of first in the entire school. He had good grades, a cheerful personality, a proper attitude, and was the monitor of Class 1(18). He took the lead in helping classmates study, which would certainly have a positive effect on building class spirit and promoting the excellent spirit of “helping others”—this was exactly what Wei Ruoxing had in mind.

She found out that Tan Qianche liked playing video games, so she spent over a thousand yuan to buy a small gaming console. Taking advantage of the weekend holiday when dormitory management was less strict, she secretly brought the gaming console to school.

That day happened to be Tan Qianche’s birthday.

Wei Ruoxing invited Tan Qianche downstairs. They sat side by side on a long bench in Provincial No. 1 High School’s garden. Light pink hibiscus flowers bloomed above their shoulders, and as a gentle breeze passed by, petals fell, dyeing her pure white skirt hem pink, just like her cheeks, which now had a hint of pink.

“Tan Qianche,” she suddenly called out to him.

Tan Qianche turned his head to look at her with interest.

Wei Ruoxing hugged the gaming console with both hands. Though she was there for study purposes, to take him as a teacher, she was as nervous as if she were confessing, unable to speak, only managing to call his name again: “Tan Qianche.”

Tan Qianche suddenly leaned an inch closer to her, frightening her into letting out an “Ah!” while he sat in place laughing heartily. She blushed with anger and scolded, “Are you teasing me?”

“Weren’t you teasing me first?” Tan Qianche lazily leaned back against the chair. “Since I sat down, you’ve called my name four times.”

He tilted his head slightly, and the curve from his chin to his neck was perfect.

Tan Qianche was handsome, had excellent grades, and was nicknamed “Class 1(18)’s God Descended.” This joking nickname was too embarrassing, neither rhyming nor having much meaning.

So, Wei Ruoxing composed a rhyme for Tan Qianche: “Class 1(18)’s Tan Qianche, perfect scores in every subject, easily wins the Olympic competitions, talented beyond measure with a mind full of vision.”

She wrote this rhyme in her Chinese literature notebook, which was discovered by her deskmate and classmates in front, eventually spreading throughout the entire grade, even reaching neighboring schools.

Thinking of that rhyme, Tan Qianche found it amusing.

The evening wind ruffled the sunset clouds on the horizon, and he examined her in the last glow of the setting sun.

Wei Ruoxing kept her legs together, hugging a box tightly, and said as if having made a monumental decision: “Happy birthday, monitor. I’m giving you a gaming console, over a thousand yuan, neither expensive nor cheap, please accept it.”

“That’s it?” Tan Qianche asked her.

Wei Ruoxing was on high alert: “What else do you want?”

Tan Qianche moved closer to her again. However, this time, his movements were slow. He took a light breath and asked, “What shampoo do you use? It smells so nice.”

“Do you want to use it too?” Wei Ruoxing pushed the gaming console against his chest. “Alright, I’ll get you a bottle of shampoo too.”

Tan Qianche didn’t understand her meaning: “What exactly do you want from me? Can you just say it directly? Guessing back and forth is tiring.”

Wei Ruoxing slowly turned around. She sat face to face with Tan Qianche, their distance no more than ten centimeters. She saw Tan Qianche’s dark brown eyes, high bridge of nose, and the subtle smile at the corner of his lips. Summoning all her courage, she solemnly asked, “I want to take you as my teacher, is that okay?”

Tan Qianche rested his left elbow on the chair back, and with his right hand, he quickly unwrapped the packaging of the gaming console. He skillfully freed the console from its constraints and said, “Fine, I accept this gift for becoming your teacher. The gift may be light, but the sentiment is heavy.”

“You call this light?” Wei Ruoxing was half-skeptical.

Tan Qianche deceived her with mock seriousness: “You’re from out of town, you don’t understand. In our area, we respect teachers greatly, and the more valuable the gift for taking someone as your teacher, the better. Over a thousand yuan barely meets the standard.”

“What kind of gifts do people around you give when taking someone as their teacher?” Wei Ruoxing hoped he would provide real examples.

He replied smoothly: “Gifts can’t be given casually; it depends on the teacher’s level.”

Wei Ruoxing was unwittingly led by him into a different topic: “What level are you?”

“Me?” His posture suddenly became proper. “What level do you hope I am?”

Wei Ruoxing took out a grade report from her backpack—this was her monthly exam score from last month, ranking forty-first in the competition class, but the competition class only had about sixty students.

After reading her scores in each subject, Tan Qianche couldn’t help but let out a “Tsk,” and asked, “You seem quite clever, how did you score so poorly? Did you do it on purpose, or do you not know how to solve the problems? Your brain isn’t slow, is it?”

Wei Ruoxing didn’t make a sound.

Tan Qianche rolled the grade report into a tube. Such terrible scores made his head spin just looking at them.

“You don’t need to teach me,” Wei Ruoxing said in a soft voice like water, “Let me study on my own, monitor.”

Tan Qianche was slightly stunned.

Wei Ruoxing had already picked up her bag and stood up.

Bathed in the evening glow, she was incomparably beautiful, proud, and inviolable: “I used to be in the top ten of my grade at Jiangming No. 1 High School, in the top twenty of the city in the high school entrance exam, and won a provincial competition first prize. I’m not stupid, just temporarily haven’t adapted to life here. You don’t need to teach me! I don’t need it. See you at next month’s exam.”

Her voice was very gentle, it could even be said that she spoke with a bit of a coquettish tone. Even though she was throwing down the gauntlet to Tan Qianche, he didn’t take it seriously. He raised the gaming console in his hand: “What about this expensive gift you bought to take me as your teacher?”

“It’s yours!” she said loudly.

He smiled: “I can’t take your things for nothing!”

She was still angry: “I’m not giving it for nothing!”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s a birthday gift!”

She shouted in an angry tone: “Happy birthday!”

Tan Qianche laughed so hard he couldn’t straighten his back.

He sat under a blooming hibiscus tree, and the small gaming console was also touched by pink petals. He took out a dark handkerchief he always carried, gently wiped the screen of the gaming console, pressed the power button, and created a new female player character named “Star.”

This gaming console allowed players to choose their character’s appearance.

Tan Qianche selected a character with explosive hair that looked like The Lion King from Africa.

From that day on, Tan Qianche would spend half an hour every day playing with “Star” on the gaming console. Since Tan Qianche was a popular figure throughout the grade, his daily actions were always noticed by others. Soon, his deskmate discovered his secret.

His desk mate had a big mouth and spread the word everywhere: “Tan Qianche only has one female player in his gaming console, with a Lion King appearance, named Star!”

Wei Ruoxing heard these rumors and felt as if thorns were pricking her back.

In late May, the first-year high school students held a “big cleaning” activity, and Wei Ruoxing and Tan Qianche happened to be assigned to clean the biology lab building. Wei Ruoxing set off carrying a broom and dustpan, while Tan Qianche followed behind her empty-handed. Even the labor committee member couldn’t stand it and criticized Tan Qianche: “Brother Che, you’re much stronger than Wei Ruoxing. Wei Ruoxing has such thin arms and legs, she doesn’t have much strength for work…”

Tan Qianche held Wei Ruoxing’s sleeve and complained to her: “The labor committee member says you don’t have much strength for work.”

But Wei Ruoxing said, “When I work, my strength is not small.”

As if eager to prove herself, she immediately started sweeping, leaving the labor committee member dumbfounded and Tan Qianche amused. He took the broom from Wei Ruoxing’s hands, shouldered it, and led her toward the biology lab building.

*

Behind the biology lab building was a bamboo grove.

Every spring, Provincial No. 1 High School would have students dissect rabbits, white mice, frogs, and other small animals as part of the “biology” course’s extended experiments. Reportedly, some ill-disciplined bad students would secretly bury the animal carcasses in the bamboo grove behind the biology lab building—Wei Ruoxing didn’t believe such hearsay lies.

She tightly gripped a broom, sweeping the leaf-covered courtyard while questioning Tan Qianche: “Monitor, I have something to talk to you about. Is there a ‘Lion King’ called ‘Star’ in your gaming console? Did you deliberately let your deskmate see ‘Star’?”

Tan Qianche denied it: “I did no such thing.”

Wei Ruoxing was furious: “You did!”

Tan Qianche argued with her: “Did not.”

“You did!”

“Did not!”

“Did!”

After this cycle repeated more than a dozen times, Tan Qianche suddenly asked: “Did I or didn’t I?”

Wei Ruoxing instinctively replied: “You didn’t!”

Tan Qianche spread his hands, and Wei Ruoxing was about to explode. She threw the broom on the ground: “Just because your grades are good, you can look down on others? Just because you always rank first in the grade, can you dismiss others’ efforts? Do you know how many people aren’t as lucky as you? You despise me, so you can toy with me every day?”

Before she finished speaking, her eyes were filled with tears.

Tan Qianche was stunned.

He hadn’t expected things to develop to this point.

It was also the first time in his life that he had toyed with someone.

He had no idea that girls couldn’t withstand such teasing.

He wanted to apologize, but couldn’t bring himself to—wouldn’t that prove he was wrong? Did he truly feel remorse? To be honest, not much.

Tan Qianche once again took out the handkerchief he always carried. He handed the handkerchief to Wei Ruoxing, and the clean, soft fabric surprised her a bit. At this moment, he said: “I don’t look down on you. I tease you because…”

He stepped forward, looking directly at her: “I like you. Can’t you tell? Even my desk mate could tell.”

There was complete silence.

The floating clouds gradually ceased.

Nearby and in the distance, bamboo grew thickly; shadows crisscrossed all around; the sunlight was serene. Tan Qianche said to himself, “You take a rest. I’ll sweep the ground.”

Tan Qianche rolled up his sleeves, exposing his arms—the labor committee member was right; Tan Qianche was indeed very strong. His arm muscles were firm, with clearly visible veins. Wei Ruoxing crouched nearby, stealing glances at him, and he said: “If you want to look, come over and look properly, can you? I’m not preventing you from looking.”

Wei Ruoxing remained unmoved.

She still felt that Tan Qianche was making fun of her.

But Tan Qianche said: “In the whole school, I only let one person look—you.”

Wei Ruoxing raised her head and met his gaze… clouds, sunlight, and bamboo leaves were all in his eyes.

He approached her slowly, like he was capturing a small animal, kneeling on one knee before her, face to face with direct eye contact. The silence continued to stretch, the atmosphere becoming increasingly ambiguous, and he asked again: “Do you have any feelings for me?”

He pinched his fingers together: “Just a little bit would do.”

Wei Ruoxing rarely gained the upper hand. She turned her head away: “Not even a little bit.”

Tan Qianche was not discouraged at all. He asked: “What kind of boys do you like?”

Wei Ruoxing sneered: “Gentle, considerate, emotionally intelligent, and knows how to respect others!”

All of the above characteristics were almost the opposite of Tan Qianche, especially the last point, completely contrary to Tan Qianche. Tan Qianche’s catchphrase was: “You’re too stupid, I can’t teach you.”

In Class 1(18), many classmates had suffered some form of humiliation when asking Tan Qianche questions. Wei Ruoxing was neither the first nor would she be the last.

She told Tan Qianche, “I’ve disliked you for a long time. How could I possibly have feelings for you?”

Tan Qianche sat on the tiles by the flower bed, lost in thought. He rested both hands on the broom, his demeanor still captivating, as if the broom were not a broom but the scepter of some kingdom.

His love confession was rejected, but he still held power, so he asked unhurriedly: “Are you cold?”

As he spoke, a chilly wind happened to blow by, making Wei Ruoxing shiver. Tan Qianche then began to tell her ghost stories about the biology lab building—supposedly, countless small frogs, rabbits, and white mice had died here, and thousands upon thousands of souls gathered in one place, murmuring a sentence…

At this point, Tan Qianche gestured for Wei Ruoxing to come closer.

Wei Ruoxing moved near him, and like a magician, he pulled a paper rose from his pocket, gently tucking it behind her ear, and said once more: “Wei Ruoxing is smart and beautiful.”

Wei Ruoxing’s heart suddenly began to race violently, as if it could jump out of her throat. Tan Qianche observed her expression and finally revealed a genuine smile: “You like me too.”

He murmured to himself: “You like me too.”

Wei Ruoxing punched his chest, signaling him to shut up. But he insisted on speaking, insisted on talking, like a chatterbox who had never spoken before. Wei Ruoxing’s cheeks were redder than the rose by her ear, and he smiled again: “I still have your gift for taking me as your teacher. Am I your boyfriend now or your coach?”

Wei Ruoxing stubbornly said: “Neither.”

Tan Qianche was also very agreeable: “Fine, if neither, then neither.” But then he immediately asked: “Could you kiss me once?”

Wei Ruoxing turned her back to him, sweeping the ground with her head down: “In your dreams.”

Tan Qianche said, “Just one kiss? I could cherish it for a lifetime.”

“Stop fooling me,” Wei Ruoxing said dismissively. “In two or three years, you’ll have forgotten it completely.”

Tan Qianche shook his head: “Things I don’t want to forget, I won’t forget in this lifetime…” These words had an inexplicable touch of sadness, but he quickly teased: “You don’t understand, right?”

Wei Ruoxing tossed the broom aside. She removed the rose from her ear and released one finger; Tan Qianche thought she was going to throw the flower away. He stood beside her to catch it, and she stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, very bravely yet gently. All the bamboo leaves in the courtyard seemed to cheer in the wind.

*

Thus, the relationship between Tan Qianche and Wei Ruoxing was established.

Tan Qianche fulfilled his promise. He wholeheartedly taught Wei Ruoxing, guiding her from mathematics competitions to physics competitions—physics was Tan Qianche’s specialty.

Wei Ruoxing was indeed a promising talent. After finding the right learning methods, she made rapid progress. Additionally, her family was quite well-off, and her parents spent heavily to hire tutors for various subjects, particularly focusing on developing her English abilities. She gradually became a trump card player at Provincial No. 1 High School in her grade.

Wei Ruoxing always traveled with Tan Qianche to the cities hosting competitions, even if they couldn’t participate in the same competitions—their relationship was both that of teacher and friend, more passionate than lovers yet quite pure. They promised to gain early admission to the best universities in the country together, then return to teach at universities in the provincial capital, becoming an enviable, genuinely loving couple, growing old together.

At the age of eighteen, Wei Ruoxing was already considering phrases like “growing old together.”

She wanted to experience the length of life slowly with Tan Qianche. Perhaps with his companionship, forty years would be but a passing cloud, eighty years just the snap of a finger. By the time they were old and toothless, he would still be able to pull a rose from his pocket to make her laugh.

Tan Qianche promised solemnly: “That’s easy enough. I promise you now.”

“You have to keep your word,” Wei Ruoxing reminded him.

Tan Qianche asked in return: “When have I ever broken my word?”

Wei Ruoxing remained silent.

It was the end of 2004, and the provincial capital had a long-awaited heavy snowfall. Provincial No. 1 High School’s campus was covered with thick new snow, making the teaching buildings and dormitory areas look like they were layered with white cream.

Wei Ruoxing was extremely happy. She pulled Tan Qianche out for a walk in the snow. Tan Qianche didn’t want to go, so Wei Ruoxing said, “I saw a quote on QQ Space a few days ago.”

The campus was quiet and peaceful in the moonlight. Tan Qianche took Wei Ruoxing’s hand. He wasn’t wearing gloves, and neither was she. The winter wind made their knuckles cold, and they held hands more tightly.

Tan Qianche asked her: “Isn’t QQ Space full of non-mainstream stuff?”

Wei Ruoxing sighed: “It is quite non-mainstream, and I don’t know the source, but I just like that quote.”

“What quote exactly?” Tan Qianche asked her.

She let go of his hand, stood on tiptoe to touch his head, caught a few white snowflakes, and was as happy as a child: “Don’t laugh at me when I tell you, the quote is—frost and snow on a hundred heads, this too counts as white hair aging together.”

Tan Qianche indeed remained unmoved: “It’s corny and pretentious.”

Wei Ruoxing sheepishly said: “If I could write poetry, I’d write it myself.”

Tan Qianche then said, “But I like it.”

Wei Ruoxing took his arm, and he said: “If you like it, I like it.”

“You have no self,” Wei Ruoxing criticized him.

He said, “My definition of myself is my self.” He pointed to the sky and said, “In the next ten years, I will achieve earth-shattering accomplishments.”

“Before you turn twenty-eight?” Wei Ruoxing was a bit skeptical.

Tan Qianche suddenly became modest: “Probably.”

Wei Ruoxing asked again: “If you achieve great things by twenty-eight, and I’m still unknown, what should I do?”

The winter wind made Tan Qianche’s head spin. Without thinking, he said, “You can come to my laboratory, help me out, and I’ll hire you as a researcher. Husband and wife working together, you’ll be the new Madame Curie.”

Wei Ruoxing didn’t respond.

She pulled her scarf higher, covering half her face. In the howling north wind, frost and snow surged like a tide, gradually covering her vision.

*

As winter passed and spring arrived, the temperature warmed up. Provincial No. 1 High School organized a province-wide high school subject friendship competition as a warm-up activity for this spring.

Tan Qianche and Wei Ruoxing were both top competitors from Provincial No. 1 High School and naturally needed to win glory for the school in such a small competition.

All high school students from Provincial No. 1 High School who passed the preliminary test could participate in this competition, so this internal selection attracted the attention of many outstanding students.

Within Class 18, everyone was betting on who would get the first place, Tan Qianche or Wei Ruoxing—the vast majority bet on Tan Qianche, while a very small portion thought Wei Ruoxing would win, reasoning that Tan Qianche might deliberately make mistakes on a few questions to give his girlfriend a championship.

Tan Qianche’s desk mate said, “The probability of dinosaurs from the Cretaceous period coming back to life is higher than the probability of Tan Qianche deliberately making mistakes! I’ve been his desk mate for so long, don’t I know him?”

The facts proved the deskmate’s guess correct.

Tan Qianche once again topped the overall rankings.

Everyone had long since become accustomed to this, including Wei Ruoxing. She hadn’t taken this competition seriously at all.

The day after the results were announced, Wei Ruoxing didn’t take a nap. She washed a box of grapes and brought two dragon fruits, planning to take them to the classroom to eat with Tan Qianche. She arrived at the classroom half an hour early, by which time Tan Qianche was already sitting in the back row.

Wei Ruoxing wanted to surprise him. She deliberately went around to the back door of the classroom. Just as she was about to enter through the back door, she heard Tan Qianche’s desk mate ask: “Is Wei Ruoxing a good student trained by your own hands, Teacher Tan?”

Tan Qianche said, “Of course.”

“Yes,” someone else chimed in, “When Wei Ruoxing first transferred here, her grades were so poor. Thanks to our Brother Che’s guidance, right, Brother Che?”

Tan Qianche didn’t refute this. He even said, “My girlfriend’s talent is a bit lacking. She’s not smart, she’s a bit slow.”

His desk mate asked again: “You both want to be physics teachers in the future. If her level is lower, won’t she hold you back?”

“How could that happen?” Tan Qianche said impatiently, “I’ll just write a few more papers myself, put her name on all of them, and won’t her academic reputation rise? Things will naturally work out when the time comes.”

Someone else asked: “Will Wei Ruoxing ever surpass you?”

Tan Qianche exclaimed in surprise: “You must be dreaming.”

Tan Qianche’s voice was very pleasant. But at this moment, every sentence was like a knife cutting across Wei Ruoxing’s heart. She had to acknowledge a fact—in Tan Qianche’s view, she was always a not-so-smart, slow, pitiful person. He liked her, but wouldn’t appreciate her. He adored her but wouldn’t respect her.

Wei Ruoxing’s hands went numb, and the dragon fruit fell to the ground. She didn’t bother to pick it up.

She ran back to her dormitory crying all the way, crying while running, crying until she dry-heaved in the bathroom. She wouldn’t have this outcome if she dated any other boy in the school; only Tan Qianche was an exception. He was heaven’s favored child, never experiencing any setbacks. He viewed failures like ants and successful people like looking at future versions of himself.

He was already a formidable person, but he was still extremely admired strength. This wasn’t his fault—who doesn’t admire strength? Even Wei Ruoxing wasn’t immune to this. But she wanted his entire heart, not to be favored and pitied like a defeated opponent.

Wei Ruoxing stayed in her dormitory for an entire day, thinking for an entire day.

Early the next day, she called her parents, deciding to study abroad in America. She couldn’t stay at the same university as Tan Qianche. She wanted a change of environment, to make a big push forward. Without his help, she could still fly high.

*

Wei Ruoxing’s family was very well-off. When her parents heard she wanted to study abroad, they were one hundred percent in agreement and immediately made plans for her. She had already won highly valuable physics awards, and with her good foundation in English, she easily stood out among the applicants.

After everything was settled, Wei Ruoxing told Tan Qianche of her decision.

They had their showdown in the corridor of the top floor of the teaching building. Tan Qianche initially didn’t believe it. After hearing her explanation several times, he still couldn’t accept the reality, repeatedly questioning her: “You’re dumping me?”

She turned it around: “I don’t want to be dumped by you.”

Tan Qianche laughed in extreme anger: “Of course you don’t want to be dumped by me. Besides me, who else could teach you well?”

Wei Ruoxing’s face turned pale. Her thousands of words became one sentence: “You’re too proud.”

“My pride makes you dislike me?” Tan Qianche lost all dignity in his madness, “Or have you taken a fancy to some loser?”

He gripped Wei Ruoxing’s wrist tightly. The morning wind blew her hair into disarray, and she reasoned with him kindly: “I can’t stand how you always look down on me, saying I’m stupid in front of classmates. I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m not stupid; it’s just that you’re too smart. You’re smart and proud, how can I compare to you? Just chasing after you exhausts me. Let go… let go!”

During their dispute, Wei Ruoxing dropped a harsh line: “You’ve been pampered since childhood, always getting perfect scores on tests. Classmates don’t dare provoke you, teachers praise you every day. You’re a genius who’s never experienced setbacks. You can’t possibly understand me! We’re people from two different worlds!”

Hearing her last sentence, Tan Qianche seemed to have an epiphany.

He released her, full of smiles: “Go then, the farther the better.”

Wei Ruoxing, however, paused.

Tan Qianche then very elegantly cursed her with one word: “Scram.”

Before turning around, Wei Ruoxing was expressionless.

After turning around, tears streamed down her face.

In her pocket, she still had the handkerchief, rose, and a couple of pens that Tan Qianche had given her. She treasured these things deeply, yet also wanted to throw them all away, not keeping a single one.

Her parents were waiting for her outside the school gates.

A black Audi was parked by the roadside. Wei Ruoxing wiped her tears as she got into the car. Her mother, seeing her crying heartbrokenly, asked her: “Star, what’s wrong? Going to university in America, do you miss your classmates and teachers?”

She admitted: “I miss them so much…”

Her mother comforted her: “Well, it’s not like you’ll never see them again. You’ll return to China in the future and can meet again.”

“No,” she murmured, “it’s impossible to meet again. There is no future…”

There is no future.

Her relationship with Tan Qianche, lasting over two years, ended in the clear skies of early summer.

During her studies in America, every time she recalled that day, she always felt there were countless ways to salvage the relationship, countless methods for frank and open conversations, but neither of them had adopted them. In the first year, just thinking about Tan Qianche made her uncomfortable. Her experience studying abroad was particularly difficult, but she dared not relax for a moment.

Even though Tan Qianche was so hurtful, she couldn’t forget the tenderness when they were together and believed that when he said things like “I want to marry you and spend a lifetime with you,” his passionate affection was sincere… However, when she heard about Tan Qianche’s colorful university life, she began to doubt that their first love was just a dream of flowers in a mirror and the moon’s reflection in water.,

Fate is fate, but ultimately, they were fated to meet but not to be together.