After Xu You finished studying the questions assigned by the teacher, the classroom was nearly empty. The ceiling fan continued to spin lazily, while the standing air conditioner’s blades were closed.
She packed up her things and closed the classroom door behind her.
The school was large, with the middle school and high school sections in different areas.
Along the way, there were several supermarkets and bubble tea shops. Hot waves mixed with the wind, and the asphalt road surface was scorching.
Tree-lined paths shadowed the academic buildings. Xu You asked someone for directions and found her way to the Zhicheng Building to collect her school uniforms. She received two sets each for spring and fall, all packed in transparent plastic bags.
After leaving the Zhicheng Building, Xu You wandered around for a while. She discovered a pathway filled with roses nearby, separated by a patch of grass from an old wall. Ivy climbed the wall, creating dappled patterns in the sunlight. It was a very quiet place.
She paused when she saw a cat happily running into the area. Xu You walked over and crouched down.
In the damp soil, there were some small unknown white flowers and occasional butterflies.
Xu You loved flowers. She had grown up with her grandmother, whose front yard had a small garden filled with gardenia, orchids, portulaca, and magnolia.
Perhaps because she didn’t have many friends to play with, Xu You had always been quiet.
After school, she would crouch in front of the flower bed with her backpack, sometimes smelling the flowers, until dinner time.
The leaves rustled urgently in the wind. After watching for a while longer, she pressed against her knees, planning to stand up and look for her dormitory.
Suddenly, there came hurried footsteps mixed with the cursing voices of a group of boys approaching.
Xu You’s heart tightened. She turned her head to peek through the gap and froze, covering her mouth with her hand.
—
There seemed to be two groups of people, pushing and shoving while arguing about something.
Xu You held her breath, carefully observing for a while, not daring to move for fear of being discovered.
When she was young, her brother had made her watch Hong Kong triad movies, leaving her with lasting trauma from the violent scenes. So she was very afraid of troublemakers, especially since several of the boys had dyed yellow hair, looking like delinquents.
After a few glances, she realized that two people in the group looked familiar.
They seemed to be her classmates…
Xu You was a bit stunned.
That rude boy who had taken her draft paper, and another mischievous dark-skinned boy.
Song Yifan and Xie Ci.
Among the pushing and shoving crowd, the two of them stood to one side chatting. Xie Ci wore his school uniform jacket draped over his shoulders, casually leaning against the wall while smoking.
“Xie Ci, damn you, don’t think I’m afraid just because you have more people!”
Fu Yishun clenched his fists, very angry: “You think you’re so great? Getting people to mess with me?”
“Hey hey hey hey, watch how you’re talking!”
Someone couldn’t hold back anymore, stepping forward to push Fu Yishun’s shoulder, also angry: “You’re asking for it. Told you not to go after Qiu Qingqing, don’t you know she’s Ci-ge’s girlfriend?”
When this name was mentioned, Fu Yishun’s face immediately changed. As for Xie Ci, he maintained his uninvolved, lazy demeanor, not saying a word.
One person made the first move, and the rest started getting restless.
The atmosphere was tense, ready to explode.
Song Yifan couldn’t help joking even at this time, “Why are you asking Xie Ci this? Don’t you know how awesome he is?”
Xie Ci gave him a bland glance.
“Have you heard the saying?”
After coughing twice, Song Yifan got serious. He pointed at Xie Ci, tossing a small stone with his other hand, chin raised.
“Who runs Yi Zhong (T/N: the school)? Whatever Ci-ge says goes, got it?”
The circle of boys laughed, even Xie Ci couldn’t help it, smiling as he kicked Song Yifan.
Xu You, hiding in the gap between the bushes not far away, silently thought that this group of people looked like trouble.
At her previous school, there were students like them too, but not many. They always moved in groups or pairs, laughing and making noise loudly, dressed fashionably. They only came to school to kill time, eager to break school rules, treating skipping class as fun.
Xu You felt like they lived in two different worlds. Whenever she encountered them, she habitually avoided them, not wanting to get involved in any trouble.
But today….
The two groups started arguing about something again. Fu Yishun got triggered by something he heard, grabbed the collar of a boy in front of him, and threw a punch.
Accompanied by an angry roar.
The rest of the people swarmed in, and the two sides immediately started fighting.
After a while, Fu Yishun’s side had fewer people and quickly lost ground, getting pinned to the ground.
Xie Ci separated from the crowd, grabbed Fu Yishun’s clothes, dragged him across the grass, and impatiently threw him against the wall.
Fu Yishun struggled to get up, wanting to punch Xie Ci. But he was grabbed by the hair, his face forced upward.
Xu You watched from a moderate distance.
Xie Ci had one hand in his pocket as he bent down, tilting his head to face Fu Yishun.
“Don’t mess with me.”
After saying this, he raised his arm and forcefully extinguished his cigarette on the wall beside them.
—
After the group left, Xu You remained crouched in place, her face pale. It took half an hour to calm down before she dared to stand up.
Just half a day at school, and she had already witnessed how crazy those delinquent students could be.
She couldn’t even eat anymore.
Not daring to wander around campus anymore, she carried her backpack and school uniforms, following the signs to find her dormitory.
As a transfer student, and since Class 9 didn’t have many boarding students, Xu You was assigned to a dorm with students from other classes.
It was a four-person room with air conditioning and a private bathroom, the conditions were decent.
During lunch break, there weren’t many people in the dormitory building.
Xu You’s room was on the fourth floor.
Chen Lizhi had already helped her prepare the bed in the morning, everything was set up, and the female dormitory supervisor had already given instructions. When Xu You opened the door, the girls inside weren’t very surprised.
Chen Xiao, wearing her hair in a bun, sat cross-legged on the bed playing with her phone, and looked up when Xu You came in.
The air conditioning was on in the room.
As soon as Xu You entered, her sweat-dampened back stuck to her cotton clothes, immediately feeling cold from the air conditioning.
There were three girls in the room, two from Class 5, and one from the Sunshine Class.
The roommates were all nice. Xu You chatted briefly with them, then went to organize her things. She hurried to take a shower in the bathroom, and also washed her school uniforms.
Coming out, Xu You was drying her wet hair with a towel, wearing a Winnie the Pooh nightgown that showed her thighs.
Chen Xiao’s eyes lit up as she exclaimed: “My goodness, Xu You, you’re so fair!”
It wasn’t just ordinary paleness, but the kind that was translucent and glowing with a hint of pink.
No wonder she was from the South1, truly showing how the environment shapes the person.
Xu You smiled shyly.
The girl from Sunshine Class was called Li Lingfang. She was currently lying on her desk doing homework when she heard this and glanced at Xu You, asking, “Which class are you in again?”
“Ah?” Xu You paused, thought for a moment, and said: “I think it’s Class 9…”
“Wow, you’re in Class 9!”
Chen Xiao immediately became interested, putting down her phone and saying enthusiastically: “That class has many handsome guys, and they seem to be quite rich too.”
Handsome guys….
One person popped into her mind.
“I… I’m not very sure,” Xu You sat on her bed, pursed her lips, and thought about what had happened at noon.
“Class 9…”
Liao Yuemin and Chen Xiao were in the same class, and had heard about Class 9’s reputation.
Every Monday during the flag-raising ceremony, the academic affairs office would read out a long list of names from Class 9 for warnings.
Everyone was familiar with those few names by now, they were known throughout the grade for causing trouble, and even the discipline teacher was tired of dealing with them. The school still couldn’t do anything about them, probably because their families had power and influence.
Sometimes when Liao Yuemin went to the bathroom during breaks, she often encountered groups of boys carrying basketballs, walking together in the corridor.
They didn’t wear school uniforms, were very tall, and liked to whistle at pretty girls passing by.
Sometimes when she accidentally made eye contact with one of them, she would become so embarrassed that she quickly lowered her head.
At first, she thought they were sports class students, but later learned from others’ gossip that they were from Class 9, and not to be messed with.
Even though they were idle all day and ignorant, they were young masters who would live worry-free lives in the future.
They weren’t from the same world as her.
“The grade’s most handsome guy is also in your class,” Liao Yuemin joined the conversation, looking at Xu You: “Did you see an especially handsome guy when you went this morning?”
“Xie Ci?”
Li Lingfang twirled her pen and asked quickly.
Chen Xiao and Liao Yuemin asked simultaneously: “Aren’t you supposed to be completely focused on studying, not caring about anything else?”
Li Lingfang shrugged, “I heard Xie Ci has something going on with our school flower2…”
The Sunshine Class flower, Qiu Qingqing, was beautiful and had good grades. She was very proud and many people pursued her.
Widely known as the Lin City No. 1 High School version of Shen Jiayi3.
“No, no, not Xie Ci. It’s Xu Xingchun, the top three academic student in our grade, and I think he’s also the class monitor.”
Liao Yuemin pouted, “Though Xie Ci is very handsome too, but he seems too flirtatious, changing girlfriends really fast.”
…
Xu You listened to their gossip, feeling unable to join the conversation, so she remained silent.
Sitting on the bed, slowly waiting for her hair to dry, she started to worry.
That untouchable big shot of their grade, seems to be called Xie Ci…
What should she do about his physics homework?
- This is a cultural perception between Northerners and Southerners in China – Southern Chinese people (???) are seen as fairer, more delicate, shorter, more refined features. Northern Chinese people (???) are seen as darker, tanner, taller, more robust build with stronger and bolder features. It’s based on historical/geographical differences, roughly divided by the Yangtze River, and this difference will form a lot of the basis of this book for a Southerner moving up North! ↩︎
- School flower – a literal translation of a term (xiao hua) that means the prettiest in the school. The most handsome in the school is also known literally as the school grass (xiao cao). ↩︎
- Character from a Taiwanese movie, You Are the Apple of My Eye – this movie took over (and I mean, took over) the Chinese speaking regions of the world when it released, and the main character became an iconic character for not just being a love interest, but the innocence around navigating first loves and adolescent romantic relationships. In today’s internet lingo, she’s ‘???/bai yue guang’ personified. ↩︎
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