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The cola had been chilled on ice — the cold shot straight to her head, cutting through the mental fog that had settled over Li Kuiyi from lack of oxygen.
On instinct, she reached out to steady herself, and her fingers overlapped with He Youyuan’s hand. His fingertips carried an icy dampness that grazed the back of her hand, leaving a faint trail of moisture.
“What’s wrong with you!” Xia Leyi scolded him with a look, then turned to Li Kuiyi, her tone somewhere between comfort and explanation. “Don’t mind him — he always talks like that. He’s insufferable.”
Right. She’d already had a taste of that.
Li Kuiyi looked up at the handsome face before her, barely concealing its smugness, let out a small sigh, then looked away and said, calm as ever, “Oh.”
One simple syllable — and yet it made He Youyuan bristle instantly.
What do you mean, “Oh”? Wouldn’t any normal person say “No, no, I don’t mind at all”? That “Oh” of hers meant she genuinely thought he was insufferable, didn’t it? And the way she sighed — with that resigned, tolerant air — like an elder too tired to bother with a difficult child.
He had thought he’d finally gained the upper hand in his ongoing skirmishes with that sour-faced pineapple. And yet, somehow, she was still looking down at him.
Infuriating. Absolutely infuriating.
He never should have expected a pineapple to turn sweet and pleasant. The thing was born to stab your mouth with calcium oxalate crystals.
He Youyuan fixed his gaze on Li Kuiyi, his chest rising and falling slightly, unable to find anything to say. The words jammed up behind his teeth for a long moment before finally bursting out: “You drink my cola, and then you treat me like this!”
His tone was fierce, but there was an inexplicable undercurrent of hurt beneath it.
Li Kuiyi blinked in surprise. When had she said anything to him?
She was pretty sure the only thing she’d said, from start to finish, was a single “Oh.” How had she managed to step on a landmine with that?
Truly baffling, this person’s temper. She paused for two seconds, then tentatively held out the can of cola. “Then… do you want it back?”
“…No!” He Youyuan glared at her with undisguised venom, shoved both hands in his pockets, and turned away with cold finality.
Leaving the four of them staring at each other.
For Zhou Fanghua, her impression of him as “a person with a difficult temper” had deepened by another layer. For Xia Leyi and Qi Yu, it was simply another episode of his usual strange behavior — unexpected, yet somehow not entirely surprising. For Li Kuiyi, it was a very large, resounding: I made him angry again?
Why, though? As far as she could tell, she hadn’t done anything — except, on the day before school started, not admitting that she had laughed at him.
But surely that wasn’t worth holding a grudge this long?
Li Kuiyi couldn’t make sense of it, so she decided not to bother. She handed the cola to Xia Leyi and said, “Here, you can have it.”
Xia Leyi looked surprised. “Why are you giving it to me?”
“Oh — didn’t you want cola?” Li Kuiyi was genuinely puzzled. If she hadn’t wanted it, why had she used herself as an excuse to get the cola from He Youyuan in the first place?
Xia Leyi burst into a laugh. “I don’t actually want cola — I just wanted to tease a handsome guy.”
She said it without a shred of embarrassment, which left the other three speechless. Zhou Fanghua and Qi Yu, both easily flustered, even looked mildly mortified.
“Then consider this the fruit of your teasing.” Li Kuiyi accepted the explanation without missing a beat and held the can out again.
Xia Leyi shook her head, clasped her hands behind her back, and walked away with a light step. “He gave it to you — I don’t want it.” The fishbone braid down her back swayed with each step. Even in the most ordinary school uniform, she carried herself like a princess.
Li Kuiyi watched that slender, graceful figure grow smaller in the distance, and felt, all of a sudden, that the cola in her hand had gone unbearably cold. Her fingers felt almost frostbitten against the aluminum can, as if a layer of frost had frozen them to the metal.
When they returned to the classroom, they found that the weekly exam papers had already been handed back. Clusters of classmates gathered here and there, peeking at each other’s scores.
“Oh my gosh! Ninety-two — I actually scored ninety-two! I thought I’d get seventy at most.”
“Oh, please — stop pretending. The middle school entrance exam math was hellish and you still scored over 140. Don’t act modest.”
“Some of us are just exceptionally honest. I said I didn’t do well, and I meant it — fresh from the oven: seventy-seven points.”
“And then there are the truly deranged people who manage to ace even this garbage exam…”
Hearing that, Li Kuiyi couldn’t help but glance at Qi Yu. Her eyes met his just as he looked over at her. Qi Yu’s heart tensed with anxiety, but he managed to squeeze out a smile. “That’s definitely you.”
Li Kuiyi smiled faintly but said nothing, and walked straight to her seat.
She flipped over her paper — and there it was, as expected: a blazing, brilliant one hundred points in red ink at the top.
She folded the paper and tucked it away in her exam folder without giving it another thought. As for the can of cola, she set it on the windowsill and left that alone too.
She picked up her water bottle and went down to the first floor to fill it at the drinking fountain.
On her way back, she turned around to find Qi Yu standing behind her with his own cup, smiling warmly. “Was that you?”
“It was,” Li Kuiyi nodded. Then she returned the question: “Was that also you?”
“It was.”
The two exchanged a small smile, stepped around each other, and went their separate ways — he to fill his cup, she to return to her seat.
Li Kuiyi noticed that Zhou Fanghua was sitting at her desk staring blankly at her exam paper. As Li Kuiyi squeezed past and slid into her seat, she caught a glimpse of the score: sixty-five points.
Should she say something comforting? Or give Zhou Fanghua some space to process it on her own?
After a moment’s thought, she decided to say something. Based on what had happened during last week’s evening study session, Zhou Fanghua didn’t seem to be particularly good at working through her feelings on her own.
Li Kuiyi gave her shoulder a light pat and said quietly, “Don’t be too upset. A lot of the questions on this paper went beyond the curriculum. It doesn’t really prove anything right now.”
Zhou Fanghua’s nose reddened, and her voice came out slightly choked. “But… a lot of people still did well.” Her reddened eyes turned to Li Kuiyi. “Even with the out-of-scope questions, you knew everything, didn’t you?”
“I did,” Li Kuiyi said. “But that’s only because I studied ahead over the summer. And that just means I had a head start — nothing more. The finish line for all three years of high school is still in the same place. It doesn’t move closer because I started running earlier. We’re still all going to sit the university entrance exam on the same day. What I need to do over these three years is master everything on the exam syllabus. What you need to do is exactly the same. So what difference does it make if one person learns it a little sooner and another a little later? As long as you learn it before the exam, that’s all that matters.”
She nodded along as she spoke, quite convinced by her own reasoning. It seemed that ever since she and Zhou Fanghua had become desk neighbors, her ability to comfort people had improved considerably.
“I understand what you’re saying, but it’s hard not to feel a bit discouraged when everyone else seems to get it and you don’t… I guess my mindset just isn’t as steady as yours.” Zhou Fanghua trailed off and lowered her head again.
Pan Junmeng, sitting at the desk in front, had been listening in with great interest. He turned around with a grin, saying to Li Kuiyi, “And who says your finish line is the same as ours? If you enter a math or physics competition, you might get a guaranteed university placement without even having to take the exam…”
Li Kuiyi quickly frowned and shot Pan Junmeng a pointed look while he was still rambling. Even if that possibility existed, there was no need to state it so bluntly — Zhou Fanghua was upset right now!
Pan Junmeng caught her look, blinked quickly, and said, “Let me show you what real comforting looks like!”
He spun around, pulled out his math paper with a dramatic flourish, and spread it in front of Zhou Fanghua. “Take a look at my score — feeling a little better now?”
The paper was covered in red cross marks. The score at the top was glaring: sixty-one points.
And you couldn’t deny it — the moment Zhou Fanghua realized she wasn’t dead last, the tension in her chest eased considerably.
Li Kuiyi: “…”
Well. When it came to comforting people, there was truly no end to what one could learn.
The last class of the morning was supposed to be Chinese, but Liu Xinzhao had gone to a meeting and hadn’t returned, so the English teacher seized the opportunity and swooped in for most of the period to review the weekly English exam. After finishing, he smiled sheepishly and said, “There are still about ten minutes left — go ahead and study on your own. Your homeroom teacher asked me to supervise.”
Pan Junmeng delivered a sharp verdict: “Hmph. An ambush.”
Mondays were already the most miserable day for studying, and with lunchtime approaching, everyone was hungry and distracted, their thoughts drifting either toward the cafeteria or homeward. Three minutes before the bell, some students had already quietly packed up their bags under their desks, legs already extended into the aisle, ready to bolt the moment the bell rang.
Li Kuiyi had made plans with Fang Zhixiao to go to “Rao’s Spicy Hot Noodles” together at noon.
Class Twelve’s last class on Monday mornings was physical education, which meant that the moment the bell rang there, their students could dash straight out the school gate. “Rao’s Spicy Hot Noodles” was always packed with people, and getting a seat was nearly impossible under normal circumstances — today felt like a gift from the heavens.
The dismissal bell rang. The school grounds held still for about ten seconds, then erupted into noise.
Li Kuiyi packed up her bag as usual, said goodbye to Zhou Fanghua, and was swept along with the surge of students out of the building.
She was walking a little quickly because Fang Zhixiao was waiting for her.
Passing by the basketball court, she saw it was ringed several layers deep with students, and more were being drawn in by the commotion by the minute.
Li Kuiyi stepped forward out of curiosity, stood on her tiptoes, and peered inside — oh, it was just people playing basketball.
She spotted He Youyuan among them immediately. It had to be said, he really did stand out in a crowd. Even in the same school uniform as everyone else, there was something effortless and striking about him. As he dodged left and right, the fluid lines of his body shifted in and out of view beneath his clothes. Then, all at once, he spun with a feint to throw off his opponent, turned again, and jumped lightly — the ball arced through the air in a clean, beautiful curve and dropped through the hoop.
“Wow!” The girls in the crowd clapped and cheered excitedly. Some of the boys watching crossed their arms and scoffed: “Please. I could do that too.”
Li Kuiyi didn’t know much about basketball and had no particular interest in it. She found He Youyuan objectively good-looking, but thought he clearly hadn’t learned his lesson — he was out there playing basketball in his glasses again. Whatever, not her problem. Fang Zhixiao was waiting at the noodle shop, and she couldn’t afford to linger. But just as she was pulling her gaze away, she suddenly noticed that her class’s sports representative was also among the players, enthusiastically guarding an opponent.
Class One’s sports representative was named Zhou Ce — tall, dark-skinned, with a buzz cut. The kind of person whose appearance made it immediately obvious he was a sports representative.
But hadn’t Class One just gotten out of school? How had he joined a game so quickly? Did he have the ability to be in two places at once?
Li Kuiyi couldn’t help but look a moment longer. And in that moment, she suddenly caught sight of Fang Zhixiao — standing in the innermost ring of the crowd, half-turned, her arms wrapped around another girl’s shoulders, bouncing with excitement every time a basket was scored.
Li Kuiyi’s eyes went wide. She strained her gaze over the tops of people’s heads, trying to confirm it was really Fang Zhixiao.
It was Fang Zhixiao.
She stared at them for several seconds. The two were still pressed closely together.
She lowered herself from her tiptoes, slowly.
She took a half-step back from the crowd.
Should she go in there, pull Fang Zhixiao out, and ask her: “Why didn’t you go to the noodle shop to save us a seat?”
Or ask: “Why are you hugging someone else? Is it because you were with her, and that’s why you forgot about our plans — is that it?”
She turned and walked away from the crowd.
Alone, she made her way to “Rao’s Spicy Hot Noodles.” Just as she’d expected, the place was completely full. She stood quietly in front of the shop beneath a small tree and waited. She raised her wrist to check her watch: 12:13. She’d wait until 12:20 — if Fang Zhixiao arrived before then, she would forgive her.