Still a Traditional Opera Girl

There was a physical education class in the afternoon.

It was extremely rare today; the PE teacher was full of energy and hadn't canceled the class due to a sudden illness.

The whole class was very happy, forming small groups of two or three, walking quickly and chatting as they headed to the main sports field.

There were almost no bookworms still thinking about studying at this time.

The reason why top students are top students is that they study when they should study and play when they should play, able to fully and reasonably arrange their time.

Several people gathered around Chen Guiliang, including Xie Yang, Yang Hao, and Xu Haibo from the same dorm, as well as Guan Zhiqiang, one of the Three Divine Generals.

"Who was the girl who came looking for you at noon?" Xie Yang asked curiously.

Chen Guiliang said, "A junior from the first year."

Xie Yang said enviously, "Not bad. When she left, she passed by my seat. I took a closer look, and she's actually very pretty. Oh, right, what's her name? Which class in the first year?"

"I don't know," Chen Guiliang said.

"Bang bang bang bang..."

Li Jun, wearing an MP3 and bouncing a basketball in his hand, gradually caught up from behind.

Although this guy was annoying, he was still on the school basketball team. He was good at basketball, and whenever it was PE class, there were always a few students who loved playing basketball gathered around Li Jun to play together.

"Damn, Zheng Feng, you're forgetting your friends for a girl!"

A student playing ball shouted at Zheng Feng, "Stop being a lackey, hurry up and come play basketball."

Zheng Feng's face turned red with embarrassment, and he quickly threw down Bian Guanyue and ran over.

Without the lackey, Bian Guanyue instantly felt much more comfortable.

She put on her earphones and strolled leisurely, listening to music.

Wang Siyu and a few close female friends came up to her arm in arm: "Bian, what kind of music do you usually listen to? Do you listen to Jay Chou?"

"Yes," Bian Guanyue took off one earbud.

Although she appeared extremely indifferent, she wasn't truly self-absorbed.

Just like now, when someone spoke to her, she took off one earbud. One was to show basic respect to the other person, and the other was to avoid missing anything they said.

Wang Siyu said, "I like Dong Feng Po the most. Which Jay Chou song do you like?"

"Yi Fu Zhi Ming," Bian Guanyue replied.

"I like Qing Tian the most."

"Shuang Jie Gun is clearly the coolest."

"Ai Zai Xi Yuan Qian, Ai Zai Xi Yuan Qian!"

"..."

Several girls successively joined the discussion, chattering non-stop with Jay Chou as the topic.

In the blink of an eye, they had arrived at the main sports field.

Class hadn't started yet, and the basketball courts were all occupied; they had to wait a while for a spot.

Li Jun put the basketball on the ground and pointed at a leaf, saying, "Believe it or not, I can jump up and touch it?"

Naturally, everyone didn't believe him.

Li Jun immediately took off his jacket, slowly rolled up his sleeves, and looked at Bian Guanyue. To attract the girls' attention, he raised his voice and shouted, "Watch closely, I'm going to touch it!"

Sure enough, a few girls looked over.

Li Jun ran a few steps and jumped up suddenly, not only touching the leaf but also plucking it off. He said proudly, "Easy peasy. It's just a little higher than the hoop. I can easily dunk normally!"

"Wow!"

Many students, both boys and girls, exclaimed in admiration.

Li Jun stood with his hands on his hips, his neck straight, looking down on everyone proudly, feeling incredibly awesome.

Xie Yang commented in a low voice, "Idiot."

Xu Haibo also said, "All brawn, no brain."

Chen Guiliang smiled.

In a flash, the class bell rang, and the PE teacher blew the whistle by the side of the field.

After gathering and calling roll, the PE teacher said, "There's nothing much planned for today. After a thousand-meter slow run, you can have free activity. Reassemble and call roll before the end of class. You need to warm up before running, follow me and do a set of exercises."

During the warm-up, everyone's movements were loose and sloppy, as if being too serious would be mocked.

Only Chen Guiliang did the exercises most standardly; he felt that he really needed to exercise.

"Okay, warm-up is done, one thousand meters slow run. Don't be lazy, I'm watching."

The whistle blew, and the running began.

Less than five hundred meters in, the students were already clearly divided, running in several echelons.

Chen Guiliang was in the middle echelon, neither high nor low. But he felt a bit weak and needed to eat more and supplement with meat. His small frame hadn't recovered from long-term malnutrition.

Starting tomorrow, I'll wake up early to exercise and stick to running.

After running a thousand meters, people were sprawled all over the track.

Some were even taking shortcuts, but the PE teacher pretended not to see, only telling the students who were lying down from exhaustion, "Don't lie down or sit immediately after exercising. Everyone, stand up and walk around!"

Li Jun put one hand on his hip and pointed at everyone with the other. "Haha, you guys are too weak. You can't handle just a thousand meters."

A bunch of classmates shot him disgusted looks.

Chen Guiliang walked slowly, clutching his stomach and panting. He ran well within the first five hundred meters, and his short-distance sprints had explosive power. But long-distance running was a bit of a drag. Halfway through, his stamina couldn't keep up, and he needed to supplement his nutrition and exercise more.

Bian Guanyue had also finished running by now, her face unchanged and her breathing steady. Running a thousand meters was effortless for her.

"Old Bian, your stamina is good," Chen Guiliang had recovered.

The address was a bit unexpected. Bian Guanyue asked doubtfully, "Are you calling me?"

Chen Guiliang said, "Yeah. If you're not satisfied, I can call you Little Bian from now on."

Bian Guanyue didn't respond, put on her earphones, and started listening to music.

Sigh, this one is too difficult to deal with.

Chen Guiliang didn't even know what her hobbies were. When he asked, she wouldn't say, and hinting didn't work either.

Anyway, she was very mysterious.

Very challenging, Chen Guiliang's interest greatly increased.

"Great Hero Chen, let's play ping pong!" Xu Haibo shouted from a distance.

"Coming, coming!"

Chen Guiliang responded twice, then asked Bian Guanyue, "Want to play ping pong?"

Bian Guanyue shook her head. "No."

Chen Guiliang said no more and jogged towards the ping pong table.

"Report to the Disciplinary Office, report to the Disciplinary Office, Jay Chou from Class 2, Grade 3, please come to the Disciplinary Office immediately..."

His roommate, Li Yulin, held a ping pong paddle and started singing. The broken guitar in their dorm room was his, and he was also the one who was scared away during the date at the artificial lake that night.

When Chen Guiliang was in his second year of high school, he had also learned guitar from Li Yulin.

But the results were limited; he only learned to play "Two Tigers" and "Little Star."

After Chen Guiliang left the track, Bian Guanyue also rejected invitations from several girls.

She walked around the track alone, her MP3 on at some point, and Stefanie Sun's "Sky" came through her earphones.

"My sky, why is it filled with wet tears?"

"My sky, why is its face always gray?"

"Drifting on the other side of the world, letting loneliness invade again and again..."

On the east side of the track, students were playing ping pong.

On the west side of the track, students were playing basketball.

In the center of the track was a soccer field, where some students were playing soccer.

There were also many girls gathered, chatting in groups of three or five with smiles on their faces, not knowing what interesting things they were talking about.

These things seemed to have nothing to do with Bian Guanyue.

She was like someone extracted from this world, empty above, below, left, and right.

Only one song, one person remained.

In the blink of an eye, Chen Guiliang had been reborn for a week.

Besides gradually getting closer to Bian Guanyue, the rest of his time was spent familiarizing himself with high school textbooks.

English and math gave him the biggest headache!

He had to go home and get the textbooks from his first and second years of high school and slowly catch up chapter by chapter.

The Meng Ya Magazine should have received his manuscript by now. But whether the article had been read was hard to say. After all, with over 400,000 submissions, it would take the organizers more than a month to review them.

Friday, after school in the morning.

Bian Guanyue spoke first. "Did you finish yesterday's geography practice test?"

"Yes, I finished it," Chen Guiliang said.

Bian Guanyue said, "There's a big question I don't understand. Can I borrow yours to take a look?"

"Here." Chen Guiliang took the test paper from his desk drawer.

Bian Guanyue took the practice test, folded it, and put it in her backpack.

Zheng Feng offered eagerly, "I finished my test too."

Bian Guanyue acted as if she hadn't heard and walked out with her backpack.

Zheng Feng quickly followed.

The two walked one after the other to the bus stop to wait.

Many day students were waiting for the bus.

A moment later, before the bus had even stopped completely, Zheng Feng squeezed in as if his life depended on it.

He used all his strength to rush to the front and quickly found adjacent empty seats. He ran over in a few steps and plopped down, then used his schoolbag to occupy the seat next to him.

"Bian Guanyue, there's a seat here!" Zheng Feng shouted, seeking credit.

Bian Guanyue frowned. She didn't like people doing this and would rather stand the whole way than owe someone a favor.

But if she refused, it would seem like she didn't consider Zheng Feng a friend.

Yes, although her attitude towards Zheng Feng was cold, she already considered him a friend.

Chen Guiliang and Wang Siyu were also her friends.

Bian Guanyue walked over and sat down. Because they were so close, Zheng Feng became nervous and awkward. He was afraid of offending the goddess, so he shifted his butt to the side, not daring to let his clothes touch Bian Guanyue's.

Zheng Feng felt time pass quickly, and in the blink of an eye, they reached the place where Bian Guanyue got off.

He also got off, planning to walk one stop home.

Zheng Feng stood foolishly by the roadside, watching Bian Guanyue walk into the small alley.

This area belonged to the old city.

The back street, in the strict sense, still completely preserved the architecture from the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China. The government had plans to renovate it into a tourist attraction.

Bian Guanyue's residence belonged to the back street in a broader sense, full of old staff buildings.

The neighbors were all familiar with each other, with no secrets to speak of.

Zheng Feng had subtly inquired with the elders and knew that Bian Guanyue's maternal grandparents were retired old workers from a cotton mill.

Bian Guanyue had a maternal uncle who was currently a civil servant in the city and had moved to the city with his wife and children to settle down.

As for Bian Guanyue's mother, she had remarried to Pengcheng after her divorce.

Regarding Bian Guanyue's father, Zheng Feng had not yet found out any definite information.

Seeing Bian Guanyue disappear around the corner, Zheng Feng quickly followed again until he saw the goddess enter the building before turning back towards his own home.

Bian Guanyue lived on the sixth floor.

Finding no one else in the stairwell, the usually aloof and cold Bian Guanyue seemed to suddenly become lively.

Her steps were light as she climbed the stairs, and she hummed a tune. Sometimes she would take two or three steps at a time.

She put away her key and pushed the door open.

Her maternal grandfather was cooking in the kitchen.

Her maternal grandmother was tending to the flowers and plants on the balcony and said when she heard the door open, "Guanguan is back!"

"I'm back."

A bright smile bloomed on Bian Guanyue's face, completely different from how she was outside.

She threw her schoolbag on the sofa and walked to the side of the TV, facing the wall.

Old newspapers were pasted on the wall, with many footprints on them.

Bian Guanyue suddenly raised her left leg and stepped on the newspaper on the wall, then pressed half of her body forward.

She adjusted her breathing while stretching her leg.

After a moment of preparation, Bian Guanyue began to sing the Sichuan opera Hong Mei Ji:

"Spring is bustling on the red plum branches, yet I encounter a gentleman standing on the painted bridge."

"Break off a branch of pure fragrance to give to the young man, do not fail the heart's secret longing sent to this day."

"Where the wind passes, clothes flutter. How can the heart not leap, the soul not sway..."

When she sang opera, Bian Guanyue's temperament completely changed.

Especially her eyes, they were captivating and soul-stirring.

Traditional opera actors need to practice five methods: hand, eye, body, method, and step.

Anger and joy, sorrow and happiness, can be clearly expressed just by the eyes.

If she used this kind of gaze at school, she could make all the boys in the class lose their minds.

Her maternal grandmother returned to the living room from the balcony and sat on the sofa to watch her granddaughter sing opera. Her face full of wrinkles smoothed out, and she smiled silently, unable to close her mouth.

Before long, Bian Guanyue switched to the other leg.

Suddenly, the sound of a lock turning came from outside the door, followed by the door being pushed open.

Bian Guanyue thought her maternal uncle had returned from the city, but when she turned her head, her expression instantly turned cold: "What are you doing here?"

The person who came was her mother, Guan Xiaolin, who had long since remarried and moved to Pengcheng.

Guan Xiaolin was carrying large and small gift boxes in her hands. Seeing her daughter, she immediately smiled warmly and said, "Your aunt said you transferred schools, so I specially came back to see you. Why didn't you continue studying in Rong City? The conditions there are so good, what can you learn by coming back to the county town?"

Bian Guanyue returned to her bedroom without a word and closed the door with a bang.