Chapter 2: 1

Number Seven Secondary is brutal. This is the conclusion that He Pingyi inferred two weeks after school started.

 

"It’s August, how could the school leaders come up with afternoon running exercises?" Even though he said that, He Pingyi casually tossed the open book on the table, stepped his long legs over the stool, and grabbed Wang Xiaowei's neck to drag him out.

 

"Your fucking uncle!" Wang Xiaowei, who was around 180 centimetres tall, was choked until he was out of breath. "Go away, let go, I’m not going."

 

“A big guy like you pretending to be sick to skip class? Don’t you find that shameful?"

 

“How am I pretending to be sick? I…”

 

Wang Xiaowei had not finished speaking before He Pingyi butted in, "I know. You broke your younger sister's potted plant, she chased after you and beat you up, so you jumped down the stairs, and then you didn't stand still, and finally you sat on the ground, but there was a skateboard that a kid who lived on the first floor put there, and it smacked your butt. But when did this happen? Do you remember?"

 

"Go away," Wang Xiaowei corrected him with impatience, "It wasn’t a potted plant but a succulent. My sister has raised it well."

 

"Oh, a succulent," He Pingyi thought there was no difference between the two, "Isn't that still a potted plant? "

 

“A potted fart," Wang Xiaowei shook off He Pingyi's arm on his shoulder. "Don't tug at me."

 

He Pingyi laughed lazily as usual.

 

Two weeks after the start of term, Wang Xiaowei felt that this deskmate never completely woke up, his eyes perpetually half-lidded. When he was dragged up by the teacher to answer a question, his eyes would only open more than half-way at most. Wang Xiaowei straightened the collar that had been pulled askew, and glanced sideways at He Pingyi. He just happened to see the scar on He Pingyi’s brow bone, shallow but extensive. Wang Xiaowei asked before where the scar came from, but He Pingyi didn't answer. However, Wang Xiaowei was very curious about it. Everytime he sees it, the words that tumbled to his mouth couldn’t be held back at all.

 

"Your..."

 

"Eh?" He Pingyi turned his head and looked at the railing on the second floor towards the loudspeaker on the main building. He feigned surprise, both eyebrows raised, "Hey, the song changed."

 

Hearing this, Wang Xiaowei also paid attention: "Oh, they’re not going to play "Chrysanthemum Terrace" anymore? What kind of song is this?"

 

He Pingyi bopped his head twice in time with the song’s melody. Without answering the question, he swung his arms and continued to walk forward.

 

All year round, He Pingyi's most disliked season was summer—scorching and lethargic.

 

The corridor was packed with people, and He Pingyi's view was jostled up and down. Half-muddled and half-obscured, he felt like he could fall asleep while walking. When sleepy, He Pingyi can be the epitome of ultimate laziness. For example, right now, he couldn't even spare some energy to move his body. Everytime He Pingyi stepped on the ground, Wang Xiaowei was scared that all of He Pingyi’s joints and bones would tremble so hard that all his organs from head to toe would become dizzy from motion sickness.

 

He Pingyi was so sleepy that he couldn't open his eyes and gave a huge yawn. He pressed his hand against his nape and rolled his neck to relax. His shoulders were tense, and he involuntarily swung his other hand in a bigger arc.

 

With this one swing of his arm, he hit the person behind him.

 

He Pingyi got a shock and his head immediately cleared. He turned hastily around, and when he couldn’t see the person behind him clearly, he started to apologise in a hurry, "Sorry, sorry."

 

Was it due to the yawn just now that the moisture remaining in his eyes have not yet dissipated, or was it because of the sparse lighting in the corridor? Or perhaps it was just too crowded... Whatever the reason, it made him turn around this moment. He Pingyi's entire field of vision was chaotic and indistinct——he was still saying 'sorry.' The boy in his eyes didn't speak; he just pursed his lips and looked at him with a smile.

 

Because this happened in the school corridor, because the cacophony drowned out his thoughts, the face in front of him seemed to be infinitely magnified and became the sole, clear existence.

 

Gentle and soft.

 

These were actually the words He Pingyi thought of at that moment.

 

Once upon a time, he used to think that these descriptions were just used in writing to make sentences sound nicer. He never thought that the first time he truly understood these two words would be in a frantic turning of his head, in a boy’s smiling expression.

 

If he had to describe his shock at this time, He Pingyi could only reveal the two uncultured words that popped out of his head. As if oxygen-deprived, He Pingyi lost the human ability of self-restraint. He foolishly turned his head around and backed down the last two steps.

 

When the sun shone on his face again as he walked out of the corridor, inside He Pingyi’s mind, something intense and incomparable suddenly gushed forth. A crazy and provocative thought—if he were a girl, I would definitely pursue him and marry him.

 

This was completely unlike his usual musings, and he gave himself a scare. He Pingyi was a little dazed, his body stopping involuntarily, and he spun around to look back. One after another, students in school uniforms filed out from the corridor, and for a long time he couldn't find that face.

 

Wang Xiaowei was still talking to him, and he suddenly noticed no one was at his side. He looked at him in bewilderment.

 

"What are you doing?"

 

He Pingyi immediately asked Wang Xiaowei, "Which class has a fair and clean looking boy? A very good-looking student?"

 

"What?" The topic came too abruptly, surprising Wang Xiaowei that he moved his head forward.

 

"Fair skinned, not tall, he should be quite..." He Pingyi looked around twice, saw the inexplicable expression on Wang Xiaowei's face, and backtracked, "Forget about it, not important."

 

Each class will gather first before running, and the students on duty will take attendance. The school mandates that students shouldn’t be idly sitting all the time. As long as it’s not a serious condition that prevents moving or standing, even if they were on leave of absence, students still had to stand alongside the others and bask in the sun. This is also the reason why He Pingyi looked down on Wang Xiaowei’s excuse earlier. Even the girls who asked for leave for one reason or another were standing here, and Wang Xiaowei had the nerve to hide in the classroom and sleep.

 

When they finally reached the assembly point, Wang Xiaowei still insisted on standing to one side but was dragged away by the collar by He Pingyi. Wang Xiaowei stood there mumbling to himself. On the other hand, He Pingyi still has not recovered from that look just now.

 

The third years of Number Seven Secondary were assigned a separate campus building, and the experimental class was further divided within the small two-story structure. The teacher's office and the washrooms can be found on the first floor, while the classrooms were located on the second floor. There were six classes in total, four were science-centred and two were liberal arts-focused. The science and humanities classes were separated on either of the stairs. They only had this number of classes in the whole building, how come he had never seen this person before? Was he under the humanities curriculum?

 

He Pingyi shoved his hand in his pocket and frowned, his feet stamping up and down in place, stepping on the white line on the ground.

 

Fair skinned and doe-eyed, not wearing any spectacles, a short stature, and as for the smile...

 

"Is there anyone else asking for leave?" Chen Ji, the class adviser, stood in front of the class and asked.

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"Yes!"

 

Chen Ji already started calling for the sports committee. He Pingyi suddenly shouted and raised his hand.

 

Beside him, Wang Xiaowei, who had been constantly provoked all this time, was stunned by this pretentious desertion, much like how a cicada leaves its empty husk behind to fool others, and glared at him, "The hell?"

 

He Pingyi's mental quality was obviously better than Wang Xiaowei's, and he stepped out of the queue with candour. No discomfort could be perceived in his posture while he walked away.

 

When the group of students set off, Wang Xiaowei was still swearing furiously at He Pingyi.

 

During the first class break in the afternoon, the sun loomed in the sky. He Pingyi could hardly open his eyes, but he squinted in perseverance at the student groups passing by. What annoyed him was how their school imitated others and made them do "plate-style" running exercises. Only the breadth of one palm separated the backs and chests of the students, practically sticking to each other like plates stacked on top of the other. Sometimes he couldn’t see the people on the outside edge at all.

 

He Pingyi himself didn't know what he was doing right now. Perhaps, he wanted to know which class the boy was in. Or maybe he wanted to be friends with him, and possibly...

 

Later on, He Pingyi would look back to this time, and think that maybe he just wanted to prove how that moment was not a dream. In this world, such a smiling expression truly existed.

 

This sort of pressing desire to grab on to something — he has experienced it a long time ago — and has also not experienced any of the sort for a long time since then.

 

He Pingyi, who was facing towards the sun, turned around. The passing teams shouted "one, two, three, four," while chanting class slogans. He Pingyi tried his best not to miss a face. Even if it was just a peek of the nose or the corner of an eye, he had to carefully identify it all. But after quite a while, He Pingyi still didn’t see a shadow of that person.

 

The frown on his brows, sunkissed and anxious, deepened. He wanted to try his best to render that face in perfect detail. Only then did he realise that it was such a quick encounter and all his attention had been centred around that face, that smile which attracted him — he couldn’t even recall how the hairstyle looked like.

 

Fair skinned and doe-eyed, not wearing any spectacles, a short stature, and the smile...

 

He Pingyi's eyes suddenly turned as round as saucers.

 

The sun hid behind a cloud, and the light dimmed. The class making their way over were shouting some lines. He Pingyi ignored them completely.

 

The boy on the outermost side of the first row was bouncing up and down, his running rhythm subtly different from the rest. The boy kept looking at him with a somewhat dazed expression. Except for the pair of spectacles resting on the bridge of his nose and the smile that was missing from his face, it completely matched the impression in He Pingyi's memory.

 

Immediately, He Pingyi tightened his hand in his pocket. He wanted to smile at the boy, but such an amicable action was too unfamiliar to He Pingyi. Adding on the nervousness he felt at this time, the corners of He Pingyi's lips did not lift at all.

 

But the group moved forward at a constant speed, and no one waited for him to manage his expression. Seeing that the boy was about to be blocked from his view by the person next to him, He Pingyi followed and moved two steps to the side in a hurry. The girl beside him was reciting words with her head bent. Scared and not knowing what happened, she looked up at him.

 

Realising his unexpected blunder, He Pingyi coughed dryly and went back to his original spot.

 

Lifting his head again, that class has already run a good distance.

 

After seeing that person, He Pingyi intended to restore his usual calm demeanour and reason. When his own classmates ran by again, he counted the classes that passed through, waiting for the boy running the second lap. While waiting, he adjusted the portrait in his mind.

 

Fair skinned, doe-eyed, an attractive nose and mouth, bespectacled...

 

So, he wore glasses?

 

He Pingyi quickly lowered his head and grinned.

 

He wasn't tall, was thin, his hair was slightly longer than other boys, and as for his smile...

 

Just now… He wasn’t smiling...

 

Mind filled with these thoughts, He Pingyi felt a little regretful.

 

On the second lap, He Pingyi accurately pinpointed the arrival of the eighth class. From the moment they entered his viewpoint, He Pingyi's gaze was already latched on that person.

 

But this time, the boy didn't look at him. Not only did he not look at him, but he also seemed to be avoiding him on purpose, always looking straight ahead.

 

He Pingyi didn't know if he was being oversensitive, but he still tilted his head and stared at him silently.

 

Finally, when he was about to run right in front of He Pingyi, the boy turned his head his way. Same as before, he looked at He Pingyi in a daze.

 

He Pingyi raised his hand, not too high, only at chest level, and then waved at him. He Pingyi swore that this is the most "gentle and soft" gesture and expression he could ever muster.

 

Unexpectedly, the boy's face was very calm, not a hint of fear, nor shock, and utterly no change of expression brought about by He Pingyi’s hand wave.

 

He Pingyi didn't put his hand down, he kept the smile on his face and continued to look at him.

 

Time seemed to have stretched on for an eternity. He Pingyi took a deep breath, thinking that the boy would just run past unaffected. The boy suddenly lifted his chin in slightly, quirked the corner of his lips, and looked at him with a smile.

 

As a result, He Pingyi was able to supplement the last and most important description in his mind.

 

His smile looks nice.

 

The best looking one.

 

On this day, He Pingyi finally met Jing Can.

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