Liu Chang'an turned off the accompaniment and music. Like some old-fashioned emcee testing a microphone before a leader's speech, he tapped it and said, "Testing, testing." The private room fell quiet.
Qian Ning and Lu Yuan felt a pang of regret. Why hadn't either of them had the courage to take the microphone and confess to Bai Hui just now?
Did the sound of a voice echoing make a girl's heart beat faster, too?
Liu Chang'an looked at his classmates from all three years of high school. They had gone from the innocence of early adolescence to the last traces of youthful naivete, ready to leave the true ivory tower and begin adapting to college life and the wider world. Perhaps they would reunite during their first college break. Perhaps it would be at a class reunion ten years from now, or twenty, or thirty... Their faces would grow old, and they would become fleeting passersby in one another's lives, stirring only tiny ripples in the long river of time.
Liu Chang'an's voice was gentle, touched with emotion.
"After the autumn of 2014, I enrolled and stepped onto the Affiliated High School campus for the first time. There were crowds of noisy people, quiet tree-shaded paths, busy teachers and staff, and countless unfamiliar young faces. Some of them are sitting right here now... Just like that, three years have passed."
Liu Chang'an paused and looked at his classmates. They had quieted down, though their gazes still shifted between him and Bai Hui.
Liu Chang'an glanced at Bai Hui, too. Bai Hui parted her lips, nearly blurting out the lines she'd prepared. There was something about Liu Chang'an's gaze that made her cheeks burn. He wasn't the type she liked, but girls were emotional creatures, easily swept up in their feelings. In this setting, with her classmates watching and his gentle voice washing over her like a caress against her earlobe, she couldn't help feeling things that ran counter to her rational decision.
Bai Hui managed to hold herself back. She had to wait until he confessed before she could speak. This was probably her last victory after three years of high school and An Nuan.
"That was also the first time I met Qian Ning, Lu Yuan, Zhao Wuqiang... Miao Yingying and Lin Xinhuai. Oh, and Lin Xinhuai was sitting behind Miao Yingying that day. Looks like his ulterior motives started three years ago..."
The classmates burst into laughter. Lin Xinhuai rubbed his head, Miao Yingying blushed bashfully, and she gave Liu Chang'an a sympathetic glance. She knew, too, that Bai Hui could never accept him.
Liu Chang'an turned his gaze to Bai Hui. The corners of her lips curled up slightly, as if she were remembering their first meeting, too.
"Later, I walked out of the classroom. That was also the first time I saw Bai Hui. She was wearing a short skirt with gray, black, and white stripes, a white uniform shirt, and a red bow. Her twin ponytails swayed as she walked, and her face wore a slightly shy yet warm smile. She was very cute..."
Liu Chang'an paused. The other classmates all burst out laughing. The story of Liu Chang'an seeing Bai Hui fall down the stairs on the first day of school had been repeated so often that everyone knew it by heart. To some extent, it had even boosted Bai Hui's popularity. Plenty of people had wondered: just how beautiful did a girl have to be to make someone lose his senses like that?
"I'm sorry... I arrived a little late that day. I only found out later that you were in our class, too..." Bai Hui looked a little proud and pleased, but still wore an apologetic, shy expression as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
"It had nothing to do with you." Liu Chang'an shook his head.
"Maybe he was just a toad who wanted to eat swan meat."
As the atmosphere between Liu Chang'an and Bai Hui grew more intimate, Qian Ning couldn't help sneering.
His voice wasn't loud, but everyone heard him. Bai Hui's expression changed. She didn't want Qian Ning's mockery to scare Liu Chang'an into silence. That would ruin her victory completely.
"Yes... That was also the first time I saw An Nuan. She was as beautiful as a swan..."
Liu Chang'an set down the microphone. His voice drifted through the room, yet somehow sounded even clearer than when he'd been speaking into it. How had the conversation suddenly turned to An Nuan?
"An Nuan was sitting not far behind Bai Hui. Sunlight passed through the shade of the trees and fell on her shoulders and cheeks. It seemed I could clearly see every tiny hair on her soft earlobes. Her fair, slender neck was as graceful as a swan's. Behind her long lashes, her bright eyes seemed to hold glittering black pearls. She was wearing a skirt with gray, white, and black stripes, too. One foot was planted forward, while the other was raised behind her against the wall. Then she suddenly turned and looked at me... I felt as though I were crossing countless years of time. I saw a riverbank and heard the cry of ospreys. Like the man in the poem, I longed for her day and night, thinking of her constantly, tossing and turning. Perhaps that was what happened when you saw a woman like An Nuan... I felt a little dizzy and fell down the stairs."
Liu Chang'an paused again, looking a little shy and relieved. "Good thing An Nuan isn't here today. Otherwise, I wouldn't dare say this."
The entire private room fell silent. His classmates stared at Liu Chang'an, dumbfounded and disbelieving. Who could have guessed that after three years of rumors, the truth would be this? It wasn't Bai Hui who had made Liu Chang'an fall down the stairs. It was An Nuan!
Qian Ning and Lu Yuan secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Liu Chang'an looked ordinary enough, but he always gave them a sense of threat. Now everything was fine. They knew Bai Hui well; Liu Chang'an had thoroughly offended her. She probably wanted to kill him right now.
Bai Hui bit her lip, her chest rising and falling as she tried to calm herself. Her cheeks burned. Was Liu Chang'an saying she'd been imagining things for three years? That he'd only ever liked An Nuan, not her, Bai Hui?
Was An Nuan really that beautiful? Was she the lovely, graceful woman from the poem "Guanju"? Was An Nuan the swan meat?
"Liu Chang'an! You knew you'd get rejected, so you did this on purpose!"
After saying that, Bai Hui spun around, flung open the door, and ran out.
"Why are you still standing there? Go after her!" Liu Chang'an said to Qian Ning and Lu Yuan, who were still frozen in place.
Only then did the two of them snap out of it and hurriedly run after her.
After school that afternoon, An Nuan left her classmates with a carefree view of her back and went home in a huff.
There was no doubt Liu Chang'an was a jerk. If a girl like Bai Hui invited him, of course he'd go—especially since she was the one he'd been utterly infatuated with.
Thinking about it carefully, Bai Hui really was pretty. Her cheeks were a little plump, but maybe boys thought that made her cute, like a baby with chubby cheeks. And there was no question about her figure. An Nuan had seen her in the changing room. Bai Hui was as adorable as a plump little white rabbit; even girls could fall for her.
As his friend, all An Nuan could do was occasionally warn him. Liu Chang'an wasn't the sort of person who would listen to advice and change his mind. He treated almost everyone with the same casual indifference. Nobody knew what he was really thinking.
High school was nearly over. Nothing was likely to come of things between Liu Chang'an and Bai Hui, right? But what if they got together that very night? Maybe Liu Chang'an would confess and Bai Hui would say yes... Lu Yuan and Qian Ning were there, so maybe they'd stop them? But in the end, it was between those two.
Lost in a jumble of pointless thoughts, An Nuan returned home. She spotted an unopened package by the door, opened it, carried the parcel inside, and called out, "Mom, did you buy flowers again?"
"Why didn't the delivery person call? They just left the package and went off without a word?"
Her mother's voice came from the bathroom. An Nuan closed the door, then suddenly remembered the important thing she had to do today. She glanced toward the bathroom, kicked off her shoes, and tiptoed over to the sofa to look around. She couldn't find the phone.
She looked in the bedroom, on the balcony, and in the kitchen, but it wasn't there. That left only one possibility: her mother had taken her phone into the bathroom when she went to shower.
Did her mother usually take her phone into the bathroom? An Nuan wasn't sure. She seemed to remember her doing it, but maybe not.
An Nuan called her mother's phone. The call was immediately rejected, and her mother's puzzled voice came from the bathroom. "Why are you calling me?"
"I dialed the wrong number," An Nuan replied hastily.
A moment later, An Nuan heard her mother humming softly in the bathroom. It sounded like an old song from the eighties or nineties. She seemed to be in a good mood.
She'd hung up so quickly. That meant the phone had been right in her hand. Did she really use her phone while showering? An Nuan remembered her mother wasn't that attached to her phone. Or was she just being paranoid and overthinking things?
As she pondered this, An Nuan's phone chimed with a notification. It turned out her classmate Zhao Wuqiang had sent her a friend request.
Even if they were in the same class, most students were only in the same class group chat. They hadn't all added one another as friends. An Nuan wasn't particularly close to Zhao Wuqiang. Maybe, since they were about to graduate, he wanted to add her as a keepsake?
Before you continue