Just after class ended, everyone was in a rush to get back to the dorms to wash up and sleep. The corridor was packed with people squeezing past each other, all wearing the same school uniform, all pushing forward.
Ahead of me walked the disciplinary director and Ryan's homeroom teacher.
Sycamore City High strictly forbade romance between students. A guy and girl eating together in the cafeteria would get lectured by the patrolling teachers.
After evening self-study, boys and girls who wanted to walk together had to sneak along the back paths.
I turned in surprise to look at the hand grabbing my arm.
Noisy chatter and laughter, corridor lights flickering on and off, people of varying heights—a crowd of young men and women in the flush of youth, all wearing the same uniform, the summer heat belying their restless hearts.
Ryan seemed to have just pushed through the crowded sea of people. One hand gripped my arm tightly, his hair slightly mussed.
His gaze was intense, his head lowered as he looked down at me.
Classmates streamed past on both sides of him, those passing by casting curious glances his way.
All sound fell away, all people disappeared. Every scene became a feeling.
I stared at him blankly.
I saw his lips moving, as if saying something.
I strained to make it out:
"Let's walk together."
I have to admit.
In that moment.
I did hear the deafening sound of my heart racing.
9
It seemed like from that day on.
Every evening after class, Ryan would wait by his classroom door for me to hurry down from the fourth floor.
Then we'd walk, one in front, one behind.
The rules said we couldn't walk side by side.
But our hearts seemed to have been walking side by side all along.
Neither of us spoke of how beautiful the moonlight was that night.
Being in spring, there was no need to rush summer's flowers into bloom.
The destination was the same. How we walked didn't matter much.
The words left unspoken shouldn't become our shackles.
When your heart holds love, just keep reaching upward—you'll meet again eventually.
I don't know when it started, but the teaching building's LED screen began displaying the college entrance exam countdown. I don't know when it started, but a countdown sign suddenly appeared in our classroom. I don't know when it started, but after class you rarely heard laughter anymore.
Senior year descended like an invading rain, bringing overwhelming pressure without warning.
Endless exam papers and never-finished problems fell like raindrops on everyone's backs. A single sheet couldn't crush your shoulders, but it gradually wore down your spirit.
Approaching midwinter. Snow had been swept into little mountains in the tree wells, and the remaining snow on the teaching building's roof had not yet melted.
Desk surfaces were stacked into small mountains of supplementary materials and test papers.
It was already approaching dusk. Perhaps because snow was imminent, the sky was painted a flat yellow, like sunset smeared across the heavens.
Evening self-study was, as usual, for working on papers.
The math teacher stood beside me, watching me hastily write answers that were completely off the mark.
His brow furrowed gradually, and his stern voice rang down from above.
"The college entrance exam is just over a hundred days away. How can you still not know how to do trigonometric functions?"
The classmates who'd been working on papers all looked up. The teacher's voice shattered the silence.
Their gazes fell on me like needles.
I'd always been the one who cared most about face, the most competitive.
I lowered my head, my mind a tangled mess.
All I could hear was a deafening chorus— "I'm doomed, I'm an idiot, why can't I get even the simple stuff right, I'm going to fail."
My nose tingled, but I held back from crying.
After evening class ended, everyone rushed downstairs toward the dorms.
I crouched in the corridor outside our classroom, watching all kinds of classmates disappear at the far end of the hallway.
Until the classroom lights went out, and the motion-sensor corridor lights dimmed into darkness too, swallowed by the silence.
I hugged my schoolbag and crouched by the door, head lowered, unable to move, consumed by boundless despair.
Suddenly, the corridor lights came on.
Someone had come running up.
Ryan appeared at the far end of the corridor, panting. He spotted me immediately, huddled in the corner.
Heavy snow was falling in earnest. Flakes drifted in through the gaps in the corridor windows that hadn't been properly shut.
Step by step, the light traveled from that end all the way to where I was, illuminating the winter night.
That familiar warmth crouched down in front of me.
And said softly:
"Lin Jingjing, don't cry."
The last motion-sensor light went out. The corridor had over a dozen surveillance cameras.
I pressed my head against Ryan's chest.
The darkness hid our surging love.
In that moment, everything else seemed not to matter anymore.
From that day on, Ryan would come up to the fourth floor and tutor me whenever he had any free time.
I couldn't do trigonometric functions, so he'd teach me until I could.
Starting from the basics, he'd scour for different problem types for me every day.
Finally, I never lost a single point on trigonometric functions again.
Every evening after self-study ended, the two of us walked—one in front, one behind.
Winter turned to spring, from withered branches to early summer's tender green.
From heavy snowfall to the revival of all things, from forsythias in bloom to lotus buds just emerging.
He was like my shadow, always right behind me.
He watched me change from the red winter uniform to the blue summer uniform.
He watched my math score climb from 80 to 120.
He watched me go from being downcast every day to laughing freely.
He witnessed my entire youth.
On the day we took our graduation photos, just as I'd finished the class group shot, I saw Ryan waiting for me nearby.
Maybe because break was approaching. Maybe because we were about to graduate. Maybe because parting was imminent.
On that school plaza, everyone was taking photos together. The love that had been pent up in people's hearts was laid bare under the blazing sun that day.
Even the school officials looked the other way, indulging this uncontainable youth.
I smiled as I walked toward Ryan. For the first time, I reached for his hand.
What answered me was his large hand gripping mine even tighter.
We held hands. I looked up at him, and he seemed to feel my gaze, turning his head to look at me too.
Just like in the very beginning.
He stood in front of me, his shadow blocking the scorching sunlight.
"Shadow Classmate."
"Mm, I'm here."
—Main Story End—
Extra Chapter One: Short Theater
Before the college entrance exam, my dad and I went to a Daoist temple in the city to pray for exam success.
In the Wenchang Pavilion, I devoutly held a lit lotus lantern and placed it before the deity. The scent of incense filled my nose. I knelt there and silently made my wish.
The not-so-large hall was packed with boys and girls about my age and their parents, expressions serious, eyes full of hope and expectation.
Walking from the temple toward the exit was a long mountain road.
About halfway down, there were some scattered stalls.
Some sold incense, others sold ornaments and beaded bracelets, spread haphazardly along both sides of the path.
My dad went over to a bracelet stall and started browsing.
I looked around. Since entering senior year, I'd rarely had the chance to come out and get fresh air like this.
Suddenly I spotted a small stall off to the side, somewhat inconspicuous. I wasn't sure what it was selling—it had no customers.
For some reason, that stall seemed to exert a pull on me, and I drifted toward it without knowing why.
As I got closer, I realized it was a fortune-telling stall.
The stall owner wasn't wearing dark sunglasses like in TV dramas. He looked about fifty or sixty, smiling serenely, sitting there calmly.
Seeing me approach, he looked up and asked amiably:
"Young lady, are you here for a fortune reading or to seek destined love?"
Hearing him say that, I immediately waved my hands. A fortune reading right before the big exam—if I got a bad result, wouldn't that crush my confidence?
I smiled awkwardly and prepared to slip away.
But before I could turn around, the stall owner spoke again, slowly:
"When the swimming fish leaps from the waves, its joyful freedom is no ordinary thing. Good fortune comes and all things prosper; no more dangers lie ahead."
"Young lady, dreams are the continuation of past-life karmic ties into this life. A golden and jade union, praised through a hundred lifetimes."
I looked up at him in disbelief. The stall owner fanned himself with a palm-leaf fan, having already closed his eyes to rest.
On the way down the mountain, I kept thinking about the last thing the fortune-teller had said to me:
"Young lady, you are blessed with deep fortune. All that you attain will be what you have wished for."
Without those dreams, perhaps Ryan and I would never have met. Ryan didn't talk much, always wearing that cold, distant expression. And me—I was reserved and competitive, not one to freely reveal my feelings. Even if I liked someone, I'd never take the initiative to confess.
So if the dreams hadn't connected us, we would have been like two parallel lines that never intersect.
The scenery outside the car window flew past. I leaned gently against the seat, thinking silently to myself.
So—is this what it means for past-life fate to continue into this life?
A smile curved my lips. Perhaps.
Love is entanglement, relentless and unending, wanting nothing more than to grow old together, life after life.
On the day the college entrance exam results came out, I was out eating at a restaurant with Ryan.
Seeing it was almost noon, I took out my phone to check my score but didn't quite dare to, hesitating back and forth.
After thinking it over, I shoved the phone into Ryan's hands and asked him to check for me.
Ryan calmly entered his own password and left the final step for me. We each held the other's phone.
The page loaded.
I looked with delighted surprise at the score displayed on Ryan's phone. He'd done really well—his score should be solid for the National Defense University he'd always wanted to attend.
I beamed and looked up to hand him his phone back, and when I raised my head, Ryan was smiling at me too.
Ryan wasn't one to smile easily. You only saw him smile when he was truly happy. And his smile was beautiful—like a noble prince from a TV drama.
"Lin Jingjing, you did great."
The phone screen was now facing me. I saw my score.
I'd done really well—even better than my best mock exam.
I let out a whoop of joy and threw myself into Ryan's arms.
I hugged him tightly, my face buried in his clothes.
But my voice was slightly choked.
"Ryan, I did it. I did amazing on my math."
What answered me were his arms, carefully wrapping around me.
It seemed only natural that we ended up together. No grand ceremony or confession—just the natural course of things, hands finding each other as hearts made their silent pact.
On the evening of Qixi Festival, Ryan and I had been out all day. He was walking me to the bottom of my building, and I was about to turn around and go inside.
Ryan called out to stop me.
He was dressed very handsomely today. When I first saw him, I even teased him about how formal he looked.
Darkness had filled the sky. The day was fading. On a midsummer night, the moon hung from the branches. Streetlights cast their sparse glow. In the distance came the sounds of children playing.
Ryan stood beneath a lamppost. He just looked at me, smiling.
The flutter of a youthful heart never stops at summer's peak—it rides the wind toward tomorrow's rising sun.
Extra Chapter Two: "Lin Jingjing—I like you."
My name is Ryan.
My mom always says I wear a perpetual frown, looking like I'm running a tribunal. She grumbles that she gave birth to the King of Hell.
I don't see the problem. Nothing's funny, so why should I smile? If I have time to smile, I could be studying the structural design of aircraft carriers.
My aunt once suspected I liked boys.
My mom snorted at that and told my aunt that even boys wouldn't want a block of ice like me.
I thought about it in silence. In my fifteen or sixteen years of life, it was true that I only had guy friends. The number of times I'd spoken to a girl could be counted on one hand, and those were all under duress.
Starting high school, I decided to change the status quo—or rather, this high school was where I'd try not talking to anyone.
On registration day, it was blazing hot, the sun scorching down on my head.
Someone in the registration line suddenly called my name. The voice was unfamiliar. I frowned and looked back, and in my peripheral vision caught someone crouched in the shade of my shadow behind me.
A little ball of a person, huddled in my patch of shade, like a lazy orange cat that had suddenly wandered into my world.
I was suddenly amused, and laughed for no discernible reason.
I was dying of the heat, and this person was getting a free ride in my shade.
Later, the teacher couldn't help but glance at her a few extra times.
She was from the class next door—hard not to run into her.
I often studied secretly in my dreams.
I didn't find this behavior shameful at all.
Because I was also studying when I wasn't sleeping. This was aboveboard studying—a passion for learning.
So my dreams were always full of math problems.
Until one day after she appeared.
My dreams ran a new program. No more dry math formulas and physics problems.
She just barged into my stagnant-as-dead-water world and stirred up monstrous waves.
I couldn't help wanting to get closer to her. When she was spacing out alone in the hallway, I'd quietly sidle up next to her shadow and pretend to read.
When I saw her agonizing over those blasted math problems, I couldn't resist wanting to teach her.
When I found out she was the award presenter at the ceremony, I volunteered to be the props team leader.
I was never one to seek the spotlight, but her arrival made me break my own rules without thinking.
During military training, when I saw her surrounded by a crowd, I went and sang a song. At the sports meet, when she was presenting awards, I quietly signed up for events I excelled at.
I often joked to myself that I was like a peacock spreading its tail, unable to resist showing off my best side to her.
Some people just have a fatal allure—like karma from a past life, a destined bond continuing into this one.
I always thought that terrible thing called "liking someone" would never happen to me.
After all, as my mom said, I have people-repelling disorder. (Let's assume Mom's right.)
But I still fell helplessly, hopelessly for Lin Jingjing.
It took me many years to figure out what "liking" means.
Liking someone is falling into a swamp, your body and soul slowly drowning in it. That fatal attraction pulls you down together, cast aside by the devil of hell, and when you look back, you've already sunk deep into your very flesh and organs. From then on, every emotion and desire is entangled with that person.
Let me emphasize once more.
I don't like smiling. But facing Lin Jingjing's face.
I can't bring myself to be cold.
Mm. Lin Jingjing, this is my proposal speech.
I stayed up all last night thinking about how to write it, and now you've heard the whole thing.
So—will you marry me?