The rainy season had finally run its course.
The pale blue sky floated with cotton-white clouds, and the temperature climbed fast.
Along the wall at the foot of the teaching building, low shrubs burst into whole branches of pink blossoms. Girls from other classes in the same grade had come in groups to take photos with digital cameras. Qi Han was on the fourth floor, chin propped in his hand, looking down from the window at the strange poses they struck.
Friday afternoon—club activity time. He should have been sweating on the basketball court, but the math teacher had singled him out and stuffed him into the competition class instead.
Qi Han couldn't help a bitter smile.
Math competition? How had something so solemn, upright, and grand ever gotten tangled up with a deadbeat like him, who only wanted to scrape by in peace amid the chaos?
If the teacher had seen the looks the boys cast at Qi Han before rushing out of the classroom—deep sympathy or gleeful schadenfreude—he probably wouldn't have thought he was doing his star pupil such a favor.
Being good at the subject didn't mean he was willing to sacrifice his real interests for more time spent on math—not like the upperclassman sitting to the left of the podium right now.
Last semester, he'd seen the good-news bulletin posted downstairs at Yuanxiang Hall. Of everyone in the school, only one person had been directly admitted through F University's independent enrollment program. That person could truly rest easy now.
And yet he was still at school this semester.
The first time they'd met, they'd opened with a polite "hello." As they ran into each other more often, it became natural for Qi Han to call down from upstairs with a "hey" when he saw him pass below.
Qi Han knew he wasn't some weirdo hanging around school to watch his classmates struggle. He spent more time shuttling between the office building and the first-year teaching wing than he did in Yuanxiang Hall, home to the seniors. Ever since they'd poached this "surplus labor," the competition teacher had been delighted to take it easy—lecture for an hour, then dump everything else on this "teaching assistant" and retreat to the office to watch Dae Jang Geum on the computer.
He could handle every question thrown at him. His mind was something else entirely.
While the first-years below worked through practice papers, he wrote and scribbled at the podium too. Once during break, Qi Han had sneaked a look at the book lying open on his desk—it was a university-level math textbook.
People who didn't know him well thought he was flawless. But everyone had flaws.
Spend enough time around him and it wasn't hard to discover he was basically a walking refrigerator. If Qi Han hadn't spent every day cheerfully calling out to him—and occasionally needling him—he probably wouldn't have crossed paths with anyone in this class at all.
And now, when class ended, he would gather up a pile of math materials, tuck them into his bag, and ask Qi Han: "Are you taking the 130 bus home today, or a taxi?"
It depended on when they got out.
If it coincided with rush hour, the bus would be brutal.
Today, Qi Han checked his watch. Only four-thirty.
"Let's take the 130 together."
—That was the sort of connection he had with Xie Jingyuan.
On the way to the bus stop, they were still debating alternative approaches to an example from the competition handout when Jingyuan's phone rang.
Predictably, the ringtone was as dull as the man himself.
Qi Han refused to be the kind of person who eavesdropped. He turned his head and called out to a female classmate up ahead.
While she answered his question about why she was heading home so late too, she glanced without thinking at the person beside him, walking and taking a call—and her face flushed instantly.
Why did girls these days go for stone-statue cold guys like this?
Qi Han couldn't help looking at him with a trace of confusion.
They were about the same height, so when he turned his head, the first thing he saw was the photo sticker on the flip phone pressed to Jingyuan's ear.
Two people.
A boy and a girl. Intimacy level: five stars.
A couple—no mistake about it.
When Jingyuan closed his phone, Qi Han grinned and tapped the device. "Girlfriend? Pretty cute."
Jingyuan paused a second before realizing what he meant—the girl in the sticker. "My cousin. Every time I peel it off, she puts a new one on. More persistent than a billboard plasterer."
It was the first time Qi Han had heard him sound helpless.
"In elementary school?"
"Same as you—first year of high school." The moment he'd answered seriously, he caught himself. "Do I look like the kind of guy who'd have an elementary-school girlfriend?"
Qi Han laughed out loud at his own momentary triumph.
The topic of "elementary-school girlfriend" ended almost immediately.
Jingyuan mentioned the call from his mother: "She said we ran out of soy sauce at home yesterday. She wants me to bring a bottle back. Remind me again when we get off the bus." Even for something so completely unsuitable for an eighteen-year-old boy to handle, he said it without the slightest sign of bother.
What kind of girl could make a person who handled soy sauce so naturally sound helpless?
They went down the stairs, passed through the school gate, crossed the street.
Would picking the topic back up feel awkward?
At the platform, Jingyuan heard the boy two years his junior ask abruptly: "Does she go to our school? …Your cousin."
Jingyuan paused. "No. She's at Yangming High."
"Oh." Qi Han didn't know what else to say. He grasped for something. "That school is pretty close to your house." Noticing Jingyuan's gaze shift slightly, he added something more natural: "I thought about applying to Yangming too, but my mom said the girls there were too pretty and wouldn't let me go. Said I'd definitely fall in love if I went."
"So you came to Shenghua High to prove to your mom you could date just fine here too?"
"Don't throw that in my face. Girls have been driving me crazy lately."
"Who told you to juggle several boats at your age?"
"You're one to talk. I wasn't even going to bring up Jing Someone-hui and Liu Someone-chuan." He dredged up the other guy's rumored love interests. "The golden triangle of the junior class! Golden triangle!" He even sang it like a jingle.
Jingyuan shot him an icy look. "Enough."
"What score did your cousin get on the high school entrance exam to get into Yangming?"
Jingyuan hesitated a beat longer. In that gap, the Route 130 bus rolled slowly toward the stop.
It was the second time. Too obvious.