A young man and woman stood beneath a bus stop sign. Although they wore masks and hats, several people waiting for the bus couldn’t help but steal a few glances at them.

The young woman wore very light makeup and a pair of large round earrings that made her face appear as small as a palm. Her skin was fair, her eyes bright and dark. She wore a black crop top on top and a white floor-length skirt below. The young man had broad shoulders and long legs. Due to the obstruction of his glasses and mask, his features weren’t clearly visible, but his nose shape was exceptionally perfect. He wore a pullover hoodie with ripped jeans, exuding youthful energy.

Both wore matching baseball caps—they appeared to be a student couple.

The bus they needed arrived. Everyone waiting was heading toward the Times Square direction. They queued up one by one to board, and by the time they got on, there were no empty seats left.

The two of them held onto the hanging straps, swaying slightly with the rocking motion of the bus.

A pedestrian suddenly jaywalked in front of the bus, and the driver braked urgently.

In her panic, Cheng Lele grabbed Chen An’s hand. When the bus started moving again, Cheng Lele pretended to forget about it and didn’t immediately withdraw her hand.

Before she turned eighteen, Chen An had often held her hand. She had been very accustomed to this way of interacting. But after she learned the truth and realized this was actually a very intimate way of interacting, she could no longer see things as they were. The next time her older brother held her hand to cross the street, she remembered how stiff her hand had become—she suspected her blood had congealed—and she had felt an extremely strong urge to shake his hand off.

Now, she wanted to take this opportunity to conduct an experiment to see if her reaction was still that obvious.

Perhaps because they had touched several times recently, it didn’t feel so unbearable, but it also wasn’t as natural as her left hand holding her right hand in earlier years.

There was a vague awareness that this was a man’s hand.

Very good.

Then Cheng Lele secretly placed her other hand on her chest to test her heartbeat rhythm.

Steady as could be, very peaceful.

She quietly withdrew her hand.

Heart fluttering, heart pounding—perhaps those only existed in marry-first-love-later novels.

As for the test subject Chen An, he kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, standing straighter than the stainless steel pole beside him. Even when the high heels of the woman next to him stepped on his foot, he didn’t furrow his brow once, as if he were a handsome wax figure.

When they reached Tianhe Station, the two got off the bus.

Cheng Lele had long since put the experimental results behind her. At this moment, she focused all her attention on the security booth at the school entrance.

Next to the security booth was a hollow stainless steel retractable gate, with only enough space open for two people to pass through.

It was during class time, so no students were seen entering or exiting.

Cheng Lele stared for a long while, then turned to Chen An and said, “Older brother, have you heard this saying? A life without climbing over a school wall is incomplete.”

Chen An replied expressionlessly, “Never heard of it.”

Cheng Lele said, “Well, now you have.”

Chen An asked, “Cheng Lele, why do you conduct business like an underground resistance contact meeting?”

The October heat was still intense. Standing under the bright sun, Cheng Lele’s forehead was covered with a dense layer of sweat. She squatted down in misery, took off her hat, and fanned herself: “True, I’m here to sell movie tickets, but now it feels like I’m selling adult DVDs.”

“Let’s go back,” Chen An made as if to leave.

Cheng Lele grabbed him: “We haven’t even touched the door yet, how can we give up?”

“Didn’t you always say when you were in school, ‘Nothing is difficult in the world, as long as you’re willing to give up’?”

Cheng Lele felt inexplicably attacked by this callback and said casually, “Aren’t you the one who’s best at persisting?” After saying this, she felt like she might have stirred up a hornet’s nest. Just then, two student-looking people came out of the school. She closed her eyes and, hooking her arm through Chen An’s, said, “Let’s go.”

Chen An glanced at the arm pressed against his body, felt it was hard to put into words, and like someone being abducted, was half-sold and half-dragged along by her.

With guilty consciences, as they passed through that gate, Chen An and Cheng Lele looked very much like they were playing a three-legged race game—their acting was clumsy, their movements stiff.

Just as the two were about to safely enter the campus, a person wearing a black security uniform suddenly emerged from the security booth and called out to them in a rough voice: “Students!”

Cheng Lele shouted, “Run!”

Chen An held her back.

The middle-school experience of being chased by security—he hadn’t experienced it at eighteen, and he didn’t want to experience it at twenty-five.

Chen An turned around and looked at the security guard politely: “Hello.”

The security guard pointed his finger disapprovingly, then tapped the flyer posted on the glass: “Everyone entering and exiting must show their health code!”

The two let out a breath of relief and obediently pulled out their phones. The security guard sneered beside them: “Scared like that—skipped class for a date, didn’t you?”

Chen An nodded. Cheng Lele’s clammy hand immediately interlocked fingers with Chen An’s, and she tilted her head toward his shoulder: “Haha, big brother, you really have a sharp eye—you saw right through us.”

The security guard’s face darkened: “Don’t let there be a next time!”

“Yes, yes, thank you, big brother!”

After showing their phones and being let through, Cheng Lele held Chen An’s hand as they walked forward. Behind the security booth was a large sports field. The two walked hand in hand along the walkway beside the field for quite a while before Cheng Lele dared to look back. When she did, the security guard was nowhere to be seen.

Cheng Lele let go of his hand and tugged at the clothes sticking to her body, saying, “It’s because you managed me too strictly that I became so well-behaved—I can’t do anything bad at all. If it were Chen Xiaomu, she definitely wouldn’t be like me.”

No longer intertwined, Chen An rubbed the sweat from his palm and said, “What’s wrong with being a little more well-behaved?”

Cheng Lele was so hot she removed her mask. With one hand, she wiped away the sweat streaming down her face and agreed: “Pretty good, pretty good—I’m a good girl after all. I’m dying of thirst. Let’s go buy some water.”