It was the annual start of the school year at Lin City No. 1 High School.
“Have you heard? It seems they changed the military training1 starting from our year. My goodness, in such hot weather, we have to go to some godforsaken place for half a month. How are we supposed to survive? Life is so hard.”
Yao Jing linked arms with Ma Xuanrui, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the glaring sun. The two followed the crowd to the flag square for the assembly, both wearing the newly issued military training uniforms, still reeking of the unpleasant glue smell.
Ma Xuanrui shook her head, “I don’t know either… Let’s see what they say at the assembly.”
They had attended the same middle school and were familiar with each other from participating in a dance competition together. Having been assigned to the same class and becoming desk mates on the first day of school, they had already become quite close in just one morning.
As they reached the square, they saw a sea of people, with various class groups already loosely lined up.
But there was a problem…
Everyone was wearing the same clothes, with no class signs or identifiers. Yao Jing and Ma Xuanrui felt a bit lost.
How… how were they supposed to find their class?
Everyone had just met their new classmates that morning and weren’t familiar with each other. As girls, they felt shy. They didn’t dare to look around much, always feeling like unfamiliar boys were watching them.
They were afraid of awkwardly making eye contact.
“Should we… go to the front of the lines to look?” Yao Jing suggested, biting her lip. “There’s no other way. It seems the class numbers are only written on the ground at the front of each line.”
Ma Xuanrui felt conflicted. Although she felt it was embarrassing and awkward to search for their class in public like this, they had no other choice now.
The head teacher’s voice came urgently over the loudspeaker, “—Late students, hurry up! The mobilization meeting is about to begin! Quickly get into your class lines, don’t dawdle, everyone run!”
“Let’s go,” Yao Jing steeled herself, reaching up to straighten her hair.
Ma Xuanrui lowered her head and followed behind Yao Jing. Yao Jing was more outgoing, leading the way in front, constantly saying “excuse me” in a low voice. Ma Xuanrui just kept her head down as she walked, hunching her shoulders, trying to minimize her presence as much as possible.
“It should be over there! I recognize that boy, he’s in our class,” Yao Jing said excitedly, quickening her pace.
Time was running short, with more urgent calls coming over the loudspeaker, so they both started running, carefully weaving through the crowd.
Ma Xuanrui was pulled by her wrist, slightly offset, following behind Yao Jing, not able to see the path clearly.
“We’re almost there, almost there!” Yao Jing’s voice came from ahead.
Suddenly, Ma Xuanrui’s foot caught on something, and she lost her balance, stumbling forward. Just as a scream was about to escape her throat, a strong force grabbed her arm.
Someone had quickly reached out to steady her.
She barely managed to regain her balance.
Yao Jing was also startled, turning her head to check on the situation.
Feeling the curious gazes gathering around her, Ma Xuanrui felt like she had ants crawling on her back. She slowly let out a breath. The boy who had grabbed her arm quickly let go.
A voice came from above her head, “Are you okay?”
It was very gentle, a young man’s voice, slightly deep and a bit husky.
Ma Xuanrui collected herself before daring to look up.
The sunlight was intense. The boy in front of her had skin as white as porcelain glaze, with a thin, handsome face. Under his thin eyelids, a pair of eyes gazed at her, their look gentle and calm.
He was like a figure painted in an old picture, a gentle breeze on a spring day, yet also very plain.
Her heart was pounding. She jumped back as if scalded, retreating two steps. She felt her mind had never been so blank before, her legs slightly weak. Not daring to meet his eyes, she lowered her head slightly and stammered, “I… I’m fine, thank you.”
The young girl’s face was flushed with embarrassment, her teeth biting her lower lip, showing a bit of the sweet innocence characteristic of her age.
“Mm.”
Xu Xingchun quietly looked her over, nodded once, and didn’t continue the conversation. There wasn’t even any extra expression on his face.
—
After returning to their ranks, they lined up by height. Ma Xuanrui was quite petite, so she ended up in the front row. She stared intently at the ground in front of her feet. If she raised her eyes just slightly, she could see the person standing at the very front of the line.
His side profile was tall and slender.
He must be the class monitor, or maybe the sports representative?
He was really tall, somewhat thin, but the military training uniform fit him just right, not looking baggy on him at all.
He stood at the very front of the line with perfect posture, always silent. He didn’t seem at all like the noisy teenagers around him, separated from the bustling atmosphere. He was as elegant as bamboo.
Ma Xuanrui’s mind wandered for a while, and she slowly let out a breath. Surprisingly, what she thought of was how her forehead seemed to have touched that boy’s shoulder earlier…
Just a brief touch.
She had even caught a faint scent from him, very clean, like accidentally spilled ink.
She stood there in a daze, feeling anxious for a while, replaying those brief few minutes of her near-fall in her mind over and over again.
She kept thinking about that moment when their eyes met.
His hand was slightly cool. The strength with which he gripped her arm was a bit firm, steadying her body that was about to fall.
Although Ma Xuanrui couldn’t be called strikingly attractive, she was at least considered pretty, above average among ordinary people. Plus, she had always excelled in her studies and had a gentle personality, so there had been quite a few secret admirers in her previous class. Therefore, she was quite confident about her qualities.
Remembering his attentive and gentle gaze from earlier, she couldn’t help but feel a slight flutter in her heart.
Just as she was lost in thought, another commotion arose from the front.
“You people from Class 9, what are you doing? Trying to show off? You’re late and still don’t know to hurry up? Taking a leisurely stroll in the park? Run! Start running!”
A large group of people came sauntering over, looking very relaxed, as if they were out for a bird walk with cages in hand. They completely ignored the head teacher’s exasperated scolding. The group included both boys and girls, but their privileged air was obvious.
Each of them might as well have had “uneducated and unruly” written on their foreheads.
“So this is where Class 9 is? Damn, we’ve been looking everywhere. It’s scorching hot,” a clear, crisp female voice rang out.
Someone else chimed in, “What are you looking at? Treating us like monkeys?”
The chattering girls at the front of Class 9 temporarily fell silent. Ma Xuanrui and the others’ gazes all fell on Fu Xueli, their eyes unblinking.
She seemed to have a leadership presence in the group. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, revealing a smooth forehead and naturally beautiful eyebrows. Her delicate features were small and exquisite.
Her military training jacket was casually left open, revealing only a white tank top underneath. Her waist was slender and graceful. A large expanse of skin on her chest was as white and tender as freshly peeled lotus root, its dazzling fairness enough to hurt one’s eyes.
This kind of beauty made people feel uneasy.
Ma Xuanrui didn’t know how to describe it. She had never seen a girl so beautiful and charming, so willful and unrestrained, even to the point of being aggressive. With a certain premonition in her heart, she turned to look at Xu Xingchun in front.
He gazed at Fu Xueli for a few seconds.
Seeing this, Ma Xuanrui felt a vague sense of disappointment.
—
As expected, Xu Xingchun was chosen to give the student representative speech.
A bunch of boys from Class 9 liked to cause a commotion, and seeing that the year’s representative was from their class, they immediately started applauding enthusiastically, constantly cheering, with some even whistling wildly. This show-off behavior, as if the honor belonged to them, drew sideways glances from students in nearby classes.
“Hello everyone, my name is Xu Xingchun from Class 9 of the first year. I’m honored to stand here as the representative of the new students to speak.”
He lowered his eyelids, his expression calm and serene. His voice was neither arrogant nor impatient, like a gentle breeze blowing through a quiet forest.
Applause spread across the flag square.
Some classes erupted in excitement.
“Wow, oh my god, do you know who our new student representative is? How can he be so handsome?”
“Xu Xingchun? I know him, we were in the same middle school. He got in with the top score in the city.”
Someone asked curiously, “Top in the city?! So it’s him. I’ve heard about him before, but why would someone with such good grades come to a private school? Is there any gossip, any gossip? Tell us quickly, like does he have a girlfriend or a girl he likes?”
“You’re such a fangirl. I don’t know much, he was in the class next to mine.” The girl speaking had a kind of sparkling light in her eyes, her tone changing, “I don’t know about other things, I just know he’s super smart, often wins awards in competitions, and his grades are amazing. I heard he has a good temperament too. I don’t know who he likes, but I do know that many girls at school have secret crushes on him.”
- In China, school military training (??, J?n xùn) is a mandatory program for high school and university freshmen. It’s 1-2 weeks of basic military skills, marching drills and sometimes survival skills. ↩︎
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