How They Met

Hu Lai pushed his bicycle into the building entrance just before the first raindrop hit the ground. Behind him, rain came pouring down with a roar, as if someone upstairs had dumped bucket after bucket of water.

Hu Lai looked back and silently thanked his luck.

Then he took out the chain lock, threaded it through the wheel, and locked the bicycle to the iron stair railing. He took his backpack from the basket, slung it over his shoulders, and headed upstairs.

He knew that the world had changed in some distant places, but everything before his eyes should have remained the same. For example, this old residential complex where his home was located had not changed at all.

In the cramped, crowded stairwell, he turned sideways to avoid an electric scooter that was charging, passed a storage cabinet, and walked alongside walls plastered with little ads for drain clearing and lockpicking services.

Hu Lai even saw the "mural" he had drawn on the stairwell wall back in elementary school.

So he was now certain that nothing around him had changed.

Still, he held onto a sliver of hope—if something had changed, he hoped it was his father, and that his father would no longer oppose him playing football.

That was the only change around him that Hu Lai would have welcomed.

After climbing to the fourth floor, Hu Lai unlocked the door with his key and heard his mother bustling about in the kitchen. He tentatively asked, "Mom, where's Dad?"

If his father had not gone to work today, did that mean he was somehow different?

"Isn't your dad on the night shift today? He left ages ago," his mother's voice drifted out from the kitchen.

"Oh..."

Looks like nothing had changed.

Hu Lai dragged his backpack back to his room. Instead of taking out his books to do homework, the first thing he did was dig out the phone he kept in a drawer at home, turn it back on, and check the balance in his WeChat wallet.

Forty-eight yuan and seventy-three cents.

Yeah, it definitely had not been hacked. The world really had changed.

Hu Lai pulled the ten yuan Song Fatty had given him from his school uniform pocket and laid it on the desk.

His total assets now came to fifty-eight yuan and seventy-three cents.

He let out a long breath.

Nothing in his life had changed, which also meant it would not get any worse. And he had gained another ten yuan.

Hu Lai felt that he had come out ahead.

Of course, he was not going to tell Song Fatty the truth.

Li Qingqing had already showered and dried her hair. Wearing an oversized white men's T-shirt as pajamas, she sat cross-legged on her bed, playing with her phone.

The things she had moved in that afternoon were still piled on the desk and floor, barely unpacked. The bed was the only thing in the room that had been made up.

A knock sounded outside the half-open door, followed by her father's voice. "Get to sleep, Qingqing. You still need to register at school tomorrow."

"What is the school where Mom and Dad went like?" Li Qingqing asked instead.

Li Ziqiang, standing outside the door, smiled. "Won't you see it tomorrow?"

"Right."

"Go to sleep. Everyone's tired today, and we need to get up early tomorrow. It's your first day of school, so you can't be late."

Li Qingqing obediently slipped beneath the covers, leaving only her eyes exposed as she looked at her father outside the door. "Good night, Dad."

"Good night, Qingqing." Li Ziqiang turned off the light in his daughter's bedroom and closed the door for her.

Amid the gentle patter of rain outside the window, separated by a door, her father's footsteps descending the stairs sounded distant and indistinct.

Li Qingqing opened her eyes wide and looked out the window.

Against the black sky, white lines of rain kept falling from the eaves, as though a beaded curtain had been hung across the night.

That was the school where Dad and Mom had met...

Li Qingqing felt both nervous and expectant.

A modern school gate was reflected in a puddle. The four bronze characters reading "Dongchuan Middle School" above it had been washed clean by the rain and gleamed in the morning sunlight, as if plated with gold, no longer dull and lifeless as before.

The gate beneath the four large characters was nearly closed, with only a small entrance on the far right left open for people to pass through.

Crowds of people were the most common sight beneath this gate, but not at this moment.

The morning reading bell had just rung, and faint sounds of students reading could be heard drifting all the way to the entrance.

The reflection in the puddle was like a still painting, capturing every peaceful morning at this middle school.

Until a foot splashed through the puddle.

The silence was shattered by hurried footsteps and heavy panting, just like the broken image in the water.

By the time the shattered reflection reformed, a small, slender figure in a Dongchuan Middle School uniform was rushing through that small entrance in the wavering image.

"Which class?!" a guard shouted from the security office.

"Class 2, Grade 10—" The figure had already run far away, and the reply floated back from the distance.

The morning reading bell had rung three minutes ago. There were hardly any people in the schoolyard, while the teaching buildings in the distance echoed with waves of reading voices.

Li Ziqiang strolled through the quiet campus, looking around before his gaze settled on a four-story L-shaped teaching building. Beside it stood a six-story building, its beautiful glass curtain walls and pristine white exterior especially eye-catching in the sunlight after the rain.

Set against the lovely new teaching building, the shorter one beside it looked even more shabby.

He sighed. "When I first enrolled, that building was still called the new teaching building... Now it's become the old one."

An elderly man with white hair beside him laughed heartily. "Well, that was thirty years ago, after all."

"Yes, thirty years already... You're about to retire, and my daughter has become a student at Dongchuan Middle School too." Li Ziqiang sounded wistful. Life had gone in circles and brought them back here again.

Hearing this, the old principal thought of what it had been like when he had just met Li Qingqing.

When Li Ziqiang had brought Li Qingqing into his office, the old principal had been dazed for a moment, as if time had reversed and he had suddenly returned to thirty years ago.

That youthful, vibrant face, and the way she smiled and said, "Hello, Principal," were almost exactly like that female student from thirty years ago.

For a moment, he wished time really could turn back thirty years. Back then, he had not been the principal, only an ordinary teacher, but he would have been thirty years younger. More importantly, that girl would still have been alive...

Perhaps noticing the principal's daze, Li Ziqiang smiled and pointed at his daughter, saying proudly, "She looks like her mother, doesn't she?"

The old principal came back to himself and nodded. "Mm. Fortunately, she doesn't look like you."

Li Ziqiang burst into loud laughter.

Dressed in the Dongchuan Middle School uniform and carrying her backpack, Li Qingqing followed her homeroom teacher toward the classroom step by step.

But her gaze passed through the sealed glass windows toward the building next door.

Although she had never been to this school before, she could tell at a glance that the somewhat dilapidated old building had to be where her father and mother had attended classes.

Dad and Mom must have met in that corridor, right?

Her father had said that they had not been in the same class at first, so what had their first meeting been like?

How had their eyes found each other across so many people in the corridor during recess?

When they saw each other, would they have realized that they would end up together someday?

How many times had they met before they finally got together?

The homeroom teacher walking ahead did not go directly to the classroom's front door. Instead, she quietly stopped at the back door, rose slightly onto her toes, and peered into the classroom through a small window above the rear entrance.

The sound of reading in the classroom continued unchanged.

Li Qingqing was not in a hurry. She simply waited beside the homeroom teacher while she observed, still gazing at the building next door with curiosity.

Just then, she saw a figure hurry across the open space between the two buildings, quickly disappearing into a blind spot beyond her line of sight.

Ah. Wonder which unlucky person was late.

Li Qingqing thought.

Then she withdrew her gaze and followed the homeroom teacher, who had finished her surveillance, toward the door marked "Class 2, Grade 10."

When the homeroom teacher appeared at the front door, the voices in the classroom noticeably quieted. Quite a few students looked up at her standing in the doorway.

Under everyone's gaze, the homeroom teacher first nodded to the English teacher in the classroom, then walked in, stepped onto the platform, and looked at the several dozen students below.

The middle-aged female teacher did not say a word. She merely swept her stern gaze around the room, and every sound in the classroom vanished, including the ordinary sounds of reading.

"Everyone, pause for a moment. We have a new student transferring into our class today."

After saying that, she beckoned to Li Qingqing, who stood outside the door. "Come in."

Some curious students had already impatiently turned their gazes in that direction.

They saw the doorway darken as a tall figure was outlined in shadow against the morning light.

The ponytailed girl took a brisk step forward, lightly climbed onto the platform, then stood beside the homeroom teacher with her hands behind her back and a smile on her face.

Sunlight slanted in from outside the door and fell upon her profile. The fine fuzz on her face was lit by the sun, tracing her silhouette with a golden edge. Her long eyelashes trembled slightly, as though a breeze had swept through the classroom.

In the morning sunlight, a little deer leaped out from the bushes and straight into the hearts of every boy present.

Someone let out a soft sigh. "Whoa..."

Some girls nervously looked at Luo Kai, only to discover that Luo Kai was also staring blankly at the new student on the platform... Their hearts shattered.

"This is Li Qingqing, the new student transferring into our class," the homeroom teacher said, pointing at Li Qingqing. "Li Qingqing, say hello to everyone."

Every boy unconsciously straightened his upper body and lifted his chin, trying their best to look more composed and handsome.

Even Song Jiajia was no exception. He transformed from a football sprawled across his desk into an upright rugby ball.

Under everyone's gaze, Li Qingqing maintained her smile and gently parted her lips. "Everyone..."

A burst of hurried footsteps interrupted what she was about to say. The thudding echoed back and forth through the enclosed corridor, becoming exceptionally loud and drawing everyone's attention—some turned to look outside the classroom, while others looked toward the empty seat beside Song Jiajia.

"Reporting!!" A figure appeared at the classroom's front door, gripping the doorframe so he would not be flung away.

Li Qingqing was no longer the center of attention. The panting figure in the doorway was.

Even Li Qingqing looked over curiously—so that unlucky person was her classmate...

He was a thin, small figure in a bedraggled state. Sweat ran down his cheeks from his temples. Though he had announced his arrival, he was currently leaning crookedly against the doorframe with both hands braced on his knees, completely ignoring the homeroom teacher's murderous glare as he kept his head down and gulped in huge breaths.

Then Li Qingqing heard the homeroom teacher's teeth-clenched voice beside her. "Hu Lai! Go run three laps around the field!"

A burst of gleeful laughter erupted in the classroom.

"Okay..." Amid the laughter, the boy agreed without hesitation and lifted his head.

Li Qingqing saw the latecomer's face clearly and froze for a moment—wasn't this the person downstairs in the open space yesterday who had been catching a frisbee in his mouth... No, playing football?

The boy seemed to notice Li Qingqing's puzzled gaze. He too curiously glanced at the figure standing beside the homeroom teacher, then turned decisively and ran toward the stairs. The thudding footsteps rang out in the corridor once more.

After the footsteps faded away, the homeroom teacher signaled for Li Qingqing to introduce herself again.

This time, no one interrupted her. Smiling, Li Qingqing greeted the class. "Hello, everyone. My name is Li Qingqing, and starting today, I'll be transferring to Dongchuan Middle School. I like football. I hope we can spend three wonderful years together here."

PS: Thank you to the two new alliance leaders, MumuKing and Heaven-Blessed Water!

Heaven-Blessed Water has been an alliance leader for many of my books, and MumuKing was also an alliance leader for my previous book, Green Glory. It truly makes me happy to see you both again in this new book!