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"..."

Tang Shi turned around and stared at the dumbfounded Lu Hengzhi. It was not until the girl shoved the envelope into Tang Shi's hand and hurriedly ran off that he suddenly came back to his senses. "I mean... that person just now was eavesdropping on us, right?"

Lu Hengzhi: "..."

#What should I do when my childhood friend can never grasp the point (:з)∠)#

The hardest thing in the world to keep was a so-called secret, while the easiest thing to spread was all kinds of rumors. Especially in a school, where the environment was relatively simple and dull and the people were relatively gossipy and repressed—even trivial things like someone from one class confessing to someone from another could circulate for days, let alone more explosive news.

So, in no more than the time it took to eat lunch, the rumor that Lu Hengzhi and Tang Shi from Class Three, First Year would team up to compete in Dance Miracle had spread throughout First High School. Never mind the endless stream of students from other classes coming over after lunch to gawk at them like monkeys, or their own classmates chattering nonstop; even during afternoon classes, teachers from every subject stared at the two of them with novelty written all over their faces, as though they had never seen them before.

By the second Chinese class that afternoon, their homeroom teacher, Old Yu, had even put on a stern face and lectured at length about how "students should focus on their studies and not neglect their proper duties," before reluctantly beginning the lesson.

By the time school let out, Tang Shi could already see crowds everywhere pointing at them and whispering among themselves. Naturally, there was no shortage of female students coming over to deliver love letters, each one saying in a seemingly calm but actually rather coy tone, "I support you~"

Support my ass. What, did they think they were chirping little birds?

#My Youth Can't Possibly Be This Gossipy#

After parting ways with his childhood friend Lu Hengzhi at the intersection, Tang Shi rode his bicycle home at an unhurried pace. Seeing that the house was dark, he knew Tang Mom had not returned because she had not finished selling all the buns that evening. Tang Shi locked his bike in the courtyard, carried his schoolbag inside, turned on the lights, and went into the kitchen. Looking at the cold stove and empty pots, he washed his hands and began rinsing rice to make dinner.

Tang Shi's cooking skills had been honed in college. Back then, the cafeteria food tasted terrible, while restaurants outside were too expensive. He could only buy an induction cooker and teach himself to cook, then go to the cafeteria to buy four liang of rice to bring back. Perhaps all foodies had a talent for cooking; the dishes Tang Shi made tasted pretty good, the kind one could happily swallow. His dorm mates eventually handed him their meal money and had him handle their food. The whole dorm full of guys ended up looking rosy and well-fed.

Unfortunately, during Tang Shi's junior year, a freshman had forgotten he was still smoking when he fell asleep. His cigarette butt dropped onto the blanket and started a fire. If one of the guys in their dorm had not returned early, that freshman might have been braised alive. After that, the school began taking fire and electrical safety seriously. They confiscated every electrical appliance from the dorms except phones and computers, even electric water heaters. Countless household appliances were piled into two small mountains on the athletic field, and the school leaders "set fire to the mountains" in front of all the students. They repeatedly warned everyone not to steal electricity in the dorms and even shamelessly restricted the amount of electricity each dorm could use. Other than charging phones and computers, plugging in anything else would trip the breaker.

And Tang Shi's good days came to an end. He had no choice but to return to the life of fighting for cafeteria food and eating pig slop. Fortunately, internships began in the second semester of junior year. Tang Shi got lucky and landed an internship at a foreign company. After graduation, he naturally stayed on at that company, until he resigned two years later and returned home to begin his modest life of making money by writing.

While reminiscing about his dry, unremarkable youth, Tang Shi finished steaming the rice and rummaged around the kitchen for a long while. He found one tomato and two cucumbers, made scrambled eggs with tomatoes, mixed up a cold cucumber-and-ham dish, washed the wok and his hands, then carried the dishes to the table and covered them with a food cover before finally going back to his room to do homework.

Tang Mom came home at around seven in the evening. The moment she entered, she saw the neatly arranged dishes on the dining table. Then she looked at her precious son studying conscientiously inside the room, and warmth filled her heart. Raising her voice, she said, "My son is getting more and more capable. Go wash your hands and come eat. Mom bought you a drumstick."

At that, Tang Shi immediately put down his homework, went into the kitchen to wash his hands, and sat down at the table with a grin. Tang Mom took out the drumstick she had bought and placed it in Tang Shi's bowl before sitting down herself. "There weren't many customers today, so I only just finished selling the buns. There were still a few bowls of porridge left, but I couldn't be bothered to wait any longer, so I came home. You must have been hungry all afternoon, right?"

"No, I ate too much at lunch. I'm not hungry at all." As Tang Shi spoke, he broke the drumstick in his bowl in half and put one half into Tang Mom's bowl. Then he gave her a chopstickful of scrambled eggs with tomatoes and said with a smile, "Try your son's cooking. I searched the kitchen forever and couldn't find much. Otherwise, I could've made you a feast."

Tang Mom took a bite and nodded. "It really is good. But don't cook anymore. You're still young; you just need to study hard. Besides, I'm worried about you using the gas canister and cooking alone at home. What if you cut or burn yourself?"

Tang Shi ate with his head lowered while listening to Tang Mom nag. His eyes were fixed on the Dance Miracle audition footage playing on television. In his mind, scenes from that year replayed on their own—the rehearsal mistake, the broken wire rig, the horrifying fall from midair that left him with fractured bones.

Even as the lingering fear remained, he could not stop himself from entertaining a hopeful thought—What if, this time, I just danced properly and didn't agree to anything so dangerous for the sake of visual effects? Maybe I could compete safely until the end and make up for that old regret.

The moment that thought appeared, his already restless heart became like a field overgrown with weeds. He could not calm down at all. After pondering for a long time, he turned to Tang Mom, who was quietly eating beside him, and tentatively asked, "Mom, what do you think of your son's dancing?"

When older people recalled their youthful years, they always liked to use the phrase "young and reckless." That was because teenagers at that age were always full of unrealistic fantasies. They were passionate, hot-blooded, impulsive, and dared to pour all their energy into what they wanted to do without considering the consequences. They thought they could save the world, even if in the end they changed nothing despite persevering to the last. Yet it could not be denied that such simplicity, purity, hot-blooded chuunibyou spirit—even if it became unbearably embarrassing in memories many years later—left behind a persistence as bright as sunlight deep within one's memories. Such stubborn, passionate days were always precious beyond measure.

And after growing up, after car loans, mortgages, daily necessities, and all the trivial burdens of life that one had never imagined in youth had worn down our edges, when we walked through bustling, prosperous yet indifferent streets crowded with hurried pedestrians, what we missed most would always be those youthful days in our memories: sunlight bright, air fragrant, days when even losing two points on an exam could make us worry for an entire day.

As for Tang Shi, although fate had inflicted plenty of misfortune and regrets upon him, fortunately, there were even more people around him who genuinely cared for him. Some said that those surrounded by love understood gratitude better and found it easier to heal from trauma. Thus, after the summer when he suffered fractures, withdrew from the competition, was left with lasting aftereffects, and even had his appearance ruined, Tang Shi did not, as clichéd novels described, feel that "the sky had turned gray." Instead, encouraged by Tang Mom and his friend Lu Hengzhi, he quickly accepted reality and continued attending school with no particular worries—daydreaming in class, failing exams, venting the overly restless heart of his youth through chuunibyou writing, and leaving behind novel after novel with clichéd plots, immature prose, and even values too painful to look at—

In some ways, Tang Shi could be considered half a literary man—a literary man whose writing was not particularly refined, whose inner self was not especially settled, and whose integrity was not exactly praiseworthy. Although he had worked in the writing industry for many years without producing any widely celebrated masterpiece, there was no denying that Tang Shi had always retained the innocence, weakness, and even ill-timed idealism of a literary person. Whether at sixteen or twenty-six, perhaps because life and reality had not put too much pressure on him, and because he had never been forced by the trivialities of daily life to abandon his ideals and submit to reality, Tang Shi still possessed a sort of passion that could be called decisive at best and impulsive at worst.

Perhaps it was precisely for this reason that, after Tang Shi was reborn, the people around him did not, as clichéd novels portrayed, gain a refreshed impression of the reborn male protagonist and suddenly see him in a new light.

But from another perspective, people called adults mature and teenagers immature because, as time passed and experience accumulated, they gained maturity in perception and calmness in reason. They could distinguish between forces beyond their control and knowing their own limits, rather than charging ahead based on nothing but hot blood. They understood how to weigh pros and cons and avoid misfortune in pursuit of good fortune. Though it sounded a little sad, it was a sign of being better integrated into society.

Ordinary people generally grew up amid constantly increasing experience, ever more encounters, and even ever more setbacks and failures. They matured, their emotional intelligence gradually rose, and they began to become smooth and socially adept, wearing smiling masks as they dealt with all the scrambling masses of humanity. In such an environment, someone who could remain the same for more than a decade without making any progress... Tang Shi truly counted as a rare oddity.

He was practically the textbook example of growing taller without growing any smarter.

That was why, the moment Song Chunyi heard Tang Shi ask that question, she immediately guessed what he might say next. The hand holding her rice bowl paused slightly. She subconsciously glanced at the advertisement on television and said, "No."

Tang Shi raised an eyebrow, lowered his head, and muttered, "I haven't even said anything. Why are you already saying no?"

Song Chunyi shook her head with an amused smile. Looking at Tang Shi, who still refused to give up, she said, "I won't allow you to participate in some random show. Settle down and study properly for me."

Tang Shi clicked his tongue, but he did not press the matter further. Knowing Song Chunyi's temperament well, he understood that if he had no convincing card to put on the table and merely tried to wear Tang Mom down with pleading, she would never yield. For now, perhaps he really had to do as Lu Hengzhi said: practice whenever he had time, then talk again after the holiday.

Song Chunyi watched Tang Shi's eyes dart around, every thought practically written across his face, and secretly shook her head. Deep down, Song Chunyi was not firmly opposed to Tang Shi's wishes, just as in their previous life. It was simply that she had not heard even the slightest hint of determination in Tang Shi's words, so she could not tell whether he was merely acting on a sudden whim or whether he truly wanted to join the talent show and strive for something.

Based on that alone, Tang Mom felt she could not agree so easily—at the very least, she needed more time to observe him.

After dinner, Tang Shi returned to his room as usual to do homework.

Aside from Chinese, history, geography, and politics—subjects that felt somewhat familiar to him and which he had grown increasingly familiar with over years of writing and researching—the math, physics, and chemistry problems he had once found difficult still looked... difficult. It was probably a matter of talent. Since childhood, Tang Shi had never cared much for those subjects. He was the classic type who grew drowsy in class and became lively after class. At his worst, he could fall asleep within ten minutes of a science teacher beginning a lesson. And the reason he had chosen the science track when students were divided into arts and science classes was merely because his homeroom teacher had casually said that getting into college was easier through the science track.

Times had changed. Carrying more than a decade of accumulated knowledge in his head, Tang Shi had returned to high school only to be tormented by these textbooks all over again. Worse still, because he had not touched textbooks in so many years, his foundation was even worse than before. At least back then, Tang Shi still remembered what he had learned in middle school. His mind still held all sorts of formulas, the exact words of every poem, the dates and places of every historical event he was supposed to remember, the names of the world's seven continents and the specialties and mineral resources associated with each of them... But now, Tang Shi's head was filled with wish-fulfillment fantasies from more than a decade later.

Whenever this happened, Tang Shi especially missed the protagonists in his novels—the ones who, the moment they returned to the past, immediately acquired photographic memory, gained higher intelligence and doubled emotional intelligence, spent every day skipping school to do business and scheming against outstanding figures, discussed life and ideals with all kinds of beautiful women in their free time, had no time at all to review textbooks, yet still took first place in every exam.