The infirmary suddenly became extraordinarily quiet.

Lin Zhexia hardly dared to breathe.

She hadn’t expected that Chi Yao’s skill hadn’t diminished but had improved.

The girl was obviously dumbfounded, unable to say anything for a long time. Finally, she hurriedly said: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

And Chi Yao had the nerve to casually accept this apology: “Yes, it was quite disturbing.”

…

After a while, the girl probably left, and it became completely quiet outside the curtain.

Lin Zhexia was just about to pretend she had just woken up, but before she could start acting, she heard:

“If you’re awake, get up.”

“…”

She sat up in bed. “How did you know I was awake?”

Chi Yao: “Pretending to sleep but still moving around. Only a blind person wouldn’t notice.”

She hadn’t moved that much.

Just a little bit, and he still noticed.

Lin Zhexia didn’t continue this topic and pulled open the curtain: “My knee doesn’t hurt much anymore. Let’s go back to the stands.”

Chi Yao supported her: “Can you walk?”

Lin Zhexia tried taking a few steps: “Yes, just a bit slowly.”

After returning to the stands, Chen Lin and Tang Shuxuan immediately gathered around.

Chen Lin examined her injury: “What happened? Does it still hurt? I was so worried when I saw you fall.”

Tang Shuxuan: “What did the doctor say?”

Lin Zhexia shook her head: “It’s nothing, just a scrape. I wasn’t careful. But because of me, our class came in last…”

Chen Lin: “Not at all. Teacher Xu was even praising you.”

Lin Zhexia picked up on this: “Praising me for what? For persevering despite physical challenges?”

Chen Lin: “…Something like that.”

Lin Zhexia: “…I knew it.”

The sports meet was drawing to a close.

The afternoon events were special, with all teachers participating.

School staff were taking photos with cameras, and students were required to sit in the stands to watch.

During this time, some girls from the neighboring school suddenly ran over to talk to her.

One look at the girl, and it was clear she had heard about what happened in the infirmary. She started with: “Is Chi Yao’s family very poor?”

Lin Zhexia: “……”

She was silent for a moment, then decided to join in: “Extremely poor.”

“When he was little, he almost couldn’t continue school because they couldn’t afford tuition. At seven, he started collecting plastic bottles from neighborhood trash bins to sell for money. By ten, he was working as child labor. At twelve…”

“Enough.” The girl couldn’t bear to hear more.

She turned to another girl beside her and said, “That’s too poor.”

“Someone that poor is not suitable.”

“…”

After they left, Lin Zhexia was bored and secretly chatted with Chi Yao on her phone-

I just helped solidify your poor persona-

After all, we’re good brothers, I couldn’t expose you publicly-

Do you want to hear my brilliant performance?

Chi-dog replied with two words: Not interested

After this topic ended, Lin Zhexia shifted the conversation to the competition below-

I think our class Teacher Xu, definitely can’t run fast-

Last time he went to an internet cafe outside school to catch students, but didn’t catch anyone.

Afterward, he secretly told us he lost face-

But he should be fine-

Because his opponents don’t look very strong either

…

Lin Zhexia became an off-field commentator, reporting the race situation to Chi Yao.

As she was typing, she casually wrote: Why is it so sunny this afternoon?

After chatting for a while, she switched to reluctantly responded to He Yang.

Da Zhuang: You fell? Are you okay?

Da Zhuang: Later we don’t need to take the bus back to school, we can disperse freely. What about you guys? Want to walk together later?

Lin Zhexia replied: I’m fine, not sure, maybe.

Da Zhuang: I advise you to chat less with Chi Yao.

Da Zhuang: Bad company corrupts good character.

Lin Zhexia: .

Da Zhuang: You even use “.” now? You’ve mastered the essence of my bro Yao’s chat style.

Lin Zhexia typed: I can be even more essential

Da Zhuang: How so

Lin Zhexia: Annoy me again, and I’ll block you

Da Zhuang surrendered: …Impressive.

She and He Yang often privately made fun of Chi Yao like this. Mid-conversation, something very light suddenly pressed down, completely covering her head. Her vision went black for a moment, and at the same time, the intense sunlight was completely blocked.

After two seconds, she realized what was covering her head was a jacket.

“Too hot,” Chi Yao had appeared behind her at some point. After dropping the jacket, he stood up and said as if depositing an item: “Hold this for me.”

“…?”

Lin Zhexia pushed the jacket back a bit and turned to look at him. “Can’t you hold it yourself?”

Chi Yao: “Too lazy to hold it.”

Lin Zhexia wanted to say something more, but Chi Yao had already gone down the stands.

She sat with the jacket on for a while and found that it did block the sun.

After a while, it wasn’t as sunny as before.

…

So had he specially come to bring her the jacket?

She thought, as if anticipating a certain answer.

Lin Zhexia checked her chat history with Chi Yao. Among the dense race commentary, her casually typed “Why is it so sunny this afternoon?” lay inconspicuously.

But the next second, she denied it to herself.

What was she thinking?

The sports meet ended. Since they didn’t need to return to school, the three took transportation back together.

Lin Zhexia’s knee was still injured. Sitting in the stands had been fine, but the distance from the bus stop to the residential area was a bit too long for her. Her movement became slower and slower.

Midway, Chi Yao wanted to carry her on his back, but Lin Zhexia suddenly felt an inexplicable awkwardness and didn’t want to be too close to him: “I can walk by myself.”

He Yang admired: “My Summer-bro has a will of steel.”

Lin Zhexia: “…”

The three walked slowly toward Nanxiang Street.

He Yang brought up something about their class and asked Chi Yao: “I heard you met our classmate in the infirmary?”

Chi Yao didn’t feel like discussing this.

He Yang continued: “A girl, quite pretty, very popular in our class. After returning from the infirmary, she started cursing you in the class group chat.”

Chi Yao: “Don’t remember.”

“…”

As a long-time best friend, He Yang couldn’t help but remark: “You were even on our school’s confession wall before. Anyway, after this incident, the girls who still wanted to ask for your contact info don’t want it anymore. Your reputation is exactly like it was in middle school.”

He Yang added: “No, it’s even worse.”

Lin Zhexia didn’t know much about what happened during their middle school years. The only impression she had was that phrase “don’t approach” from the post, and the few words He Yang had mentioned to her before.

She couldn’t help asking: “What reputation?”

He Yang: “Notoriously handsome guy.”

“…”

Very accurate.

“It’s a talent of his,” He Yang said, “wasting that face.”

As they talked, the three reached the Nanxiang Street sign.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the tree’s shade. The bluestone pavement was scorching hot, and the air was stuffy and hot, but Lin Zhexia felt a bit happy.

It was a happiness that rationally shouldn’t exist but still couldn’t be controlled, emerging from a deeply hidden place.

He Yang asked again: “By the way, there’s a short vacation coming up. What are your plans? My parents want to go traveling, but in this weather, traveling just means being crowded with people.”

Lin Zhexia and Chi Yao spoke almost simultaneously—

Lin Zhexia: “Study at home.”

Chi Yao: “Have a competition.”

“You have a competition?” Lin Zhexia turned to look at him. “What competition? How come I don’t know about it?”

“Physics competition.”

Chi Yao simply said, “Going to Haicheng City, three days and two nights, Old Liu is leading the team.”

Lin Zhexia made an “Oh” sound: “That’s quite far.”

After returning home, Lin He and Wei Ping were also discussing the short vacation.

“Xiaxia,” hearing her open the door, Lin He’s voice immediately came from the living room, “Your Uncle Wei and I are planning to travel during the short vacation. What do you think?”

Lin Zhexia’s thoughts were the same as He Yang’s: “I think it’s too hot. You two go ahead, I’ll stay home and do homework.”

Wei Ping: “It’s a rare holiday, don’t you want to go out?”

Lin Zhexia: “If I have to go out, I’d rather do an extra set of test papers.”

Wei Ping wanted to say something more.

Lin Zhexia quickly said, “You rarely have a chance to leave me at home and enjoy time together. I advise you to cherish this opportunity.”

Seeing her firm attitude, Lin He and Wei Ping didn’t insist further.

As they were talking, Lin Zhexia moved from the entrance to the living room, appearing before the two. Lin He was surprised and asked: “What happened to your knee, and… where did that jacket come from?”

“I accidentally fell while running, but it’s nothing serious.”

Lin Zhexia explained the first part, but didn’t immediately react to the second question.

Following Lin He’s gaze, she looked down and saw the oversized black sun-protection jacket she was wearing.

“Oh, it’s Chi Yao’s,” she realized she hadn’t returned the jacket to Chi Yao yet and explained, “We were sitting in the open-air stands, it was too sunny, so I borrowed it to block the sun.”

Hearing it was Chi Yao’s jacket, Lin He didn’t say more, only adding: “You’re so careless… be careful when taking a bath later, don’t soak in water for too long.”

Mentioning Chi Yao, Lin He asked an additional question: “Does Chi Yao have any plans for the holiday? If not, you two could do homework together. Your Uncle Wei and I would feel more at ease after we leave.”

“He’s going to participate in a physics competition during the holiday.”

Lin Zhexia added, “Don’t worry, I’m not a three-year-old child anymore. Staying home alone for a few days is no problem.”

“Is that so?” Lin He said, “I remember he always liked physics. When he was little, I think he even said he wanted to be a physicist.”

Lin Zhexia remembered too.

That was during the second year after they met.

At that time, they were assigned a weekend essay titled “My Dream.”

Lin Zhexia had scratched her head in frustration. She was too young then and didn’t understand what a dream was.

After pulling at her hair for a long time, she finally reluctantly wrote on her essay paper: My dream is to protect the environment.

She chose this angle not because she was particularly idealistic, but because it was easier to elaborate on. She denounced the phenomenon of littering on the streets.

Chi Yao wrote his essay faster than she did. She originally wanted to reference his, sneakily grabbed it for a peek, and saw two words: Physics.

“Your dream is so strange. Why do you like this?”

Chi Yao at that time said, “Because it’s interesting.”

Lin Zhexia couldn’t understand what was interesting about it.

But she wasn’t very satisfied with her essay that had just started, and wanted to rewrite it. So she laid on the desk and began to daydream.

She held her pen, doodling on the draft paper, when suddenly a thought lit up in her mind: “If I don’t have a dream yet, does protecting someone else’s dream count as a dream?”

…

That night, as Lin Zhexia lay in bed scrolling through her phone, she came across Teacher Xu’s social media post.

Teacher Xu had shared an article from the school’s official account. The article was titled: Our School Sends Competition Team to Participate in the Third High School Physics Competition in Lianyun City.

Lin Zhexia clicked on it. The article was richly illustrated with text and images.

In it, she saw the names of many key schools, including Lianyun No. 1 High School.

After reading, she discovered that the scale of this competition was much larger than she had imagined. The team that won first place in the previous competition had even made it to the newspaper. On the day of the competition, many media outlets would be filming and reporting, making the event very formal.

After reading the article, she exited and sent a message to Chi Yao-

When are you leaving?

Chi-dog: Day after tomorrow

Lin Zhexia: What time is the day after tomorrow?

Chi Yao seemed to sense something in her words-?-

Just say what you want

Lin Zhexia typed back: As your respected old father, of course, I need to see you off.

The reply came quickly-

Don’t need a limping old father with a cane seeing me off

Lin Zhexia: ……

Unable to argue, she decided to skip this issue: Your jacket is with me, I forgot to return it.

The other side replied with a “.” to indicate acknowledgment.

Lin Zhexia thought of how he had acted like he was ordering her to hold his jacket in the afternoon, and typed: There’s a storage fee for keeping your jacket with me. How would you like to pay the storage fee?

After sending, she prepared for Chi Yao to respond with something annoying.

However, this time Chi Yao said something decent-

In the pocket, take it yourself.

Lin Zhexia:?

Lin Zhexia: What-

Storage fee.

Lin Zhexia put down her phone and reached for the jacket pocket.

Through the thin layer of sun-protection fabric, she felt something hard.

Lin Zhexia hesitantly reached in and then pulled out… an unopened piece of candy-

Where did this candy come from?

Why do you have candy in your pocket?

Chi Yao didn’t reply immediately.

While waiting for a response, Lin Zhexia unwrapped a piece of candy and found it was lemon flavored.

She bit into the candy in her mouth, tasting the unique tartness of lemon mixed with an unmistakable sweetness.

Without reason, she suddenly thought of the can of soda from last summer.

—That ice-cold can of lemon soda, fizzing with cool air.

After a while, her phone vibrated, receiving two new messages:-

Bought at the school store-

Didn’t expect someone not to notice it for half a day

Her relationship with Chi Yao seemed to have started from that can of soda, from that “pop” sound, creating an extremely subtle chemical reaction.