Chapter 41

Chapter 3: If Only We Had Just Met

Life was always more dramatic than fiction.

In this little inland city, with its mountains, water, sunshine, and camphor trees, there were always a few wish-fulfillment fantasies worth hoping for. Perhaps one day a lottery jackpot worth tens of millions would be won here, or a pretty girl met unexpectedly around a corner would appear again in the early autumn of the following year, opening the curtain on an entirely new story.

For Xue Yiyang, the latter was often even less likely to happen in his life than the former.

Yet the most important issue right now was that the girl whose background countless people had been asking about during freshman registration, whose placement in Class Five had finally set the whole grade stirring, was actually sitting not far from him in his new high school class.

From here, he could gaze at her profile-a sight that could make even a heart frozen stiff in winter race.

This considerably reduced his frustration at finding himself in the same class as Zhang Xi, Sun Ziyi, Li Ai, and the others.

Most importantly, this girl, whom he had seen on the bus during the high school entrance exams, knew his best friend Su Can. Now he was actually in the same class as her. Naturally, that gave him more to brag about in front of Su Can. He would enjoy seeing that look of envy and astonishment on Su Can's face. The guy had stolen the limelight enough over the holidays-enough to make them jealous.

After that beach barbecue alone, several girls had asked him who Su Can was. Even he, Xue Yiyang, rarely received that kind of attention. Still, Su Can's status as a No. 3 Middle School student was enough to put an end to any hopes these little girls from No. 1 High School, with their sense of superiority, might have entertained.

For Tang Wu, nothing was more frustrating or troubling than becoming the center of everyone's gossip behind her back on her very first day at school. The appraising looks from many of her classmates made her uncomfortable too. Although girls more or less felt a little vanity over such admiring gazes, it ceased to be much fun when they became a deluge.

Especially that friend of Su Can's sitting at her seven o'clock, who stared at her looking as though he was one step away from drooling. When she looked over, he even raised a hand in a show of easy friendliness and greeted her. "Hi!"

That gave Tang Wu even more reason to ignore him.

The flutter of Tang Wu's eyelashes betrayed some unease with her current surroundings. At the same time, seeing Xue Yiyang again instinctively brought Su Can to mind. It was hard to imagine that this person, this name, had actually left such a significant mark on her middle school years, which she ought to have been able to leave calmly and rationally in the past.

Now, sitting in a bright new classroom in No. 1 High School's newly built teaching block, with swaying tree shadows outside the windows, the autumn turning bleak, and broad patches of sunlight divided by the shadows of the balcony pillars, Tang Wu understood that all of this would accompany the memories slowly maturing within her over the next three years as she began a course through life toward greater heights.

As for the people who had once been part of her life, they would ultimately be like shooting stars, perhaps recalled by chance someday in the future, but not held in lasting remembrance.

Their homeroom teacher's voice came from outside, and the classroom immediately fell silent. Naturally, no one was stupid enough to give their homeroom teacher the impression, on the first day of school, that they were someone who would need particular disciplining in the future.

Looking at the young man before him, holding a note from the director of the Academic Affairs Office, Xiao Rihua found him somewhat familiar. After thinking a little harder, he immediately recalled the high school entrance exams three months earlier.

In Xiao Rihua's eyes, Su Can had simply given up on himself back then, finishing at lightning speed, handing in his paper, and leaving. That had made a deep impression on him, and he had long since classified him as a badly behaved underachiever.

Looking again at the note issued by the director of the Academic Affairs Office, he frowned. Before Tian Feng became director, the two of them had been neighbors. A dispute over the school's earlier round of collectively funded housing construction had soured relations between them, to the point that their wives had once exchanged abuse. This was no secret at school; everyone had long known about it. Later, after Tian Feng was promoted to director of the Academic Affairs Office, Xiao Rihua's life had become difficult.

He could not remember Tian Feng ever doing him a favor. Seeing Su Can holding a note from him therefore left Xiao Rihua seething, though he could hardly lose his temper. He nodded. "Go on in."

But he was already silently blaming Tian Feng for planting a bitter fruit in his class, and the more he looked at Su Can, the less he liked him.

The classroom door creaked as Su Can pushed it open. Because it was so quiet inside, the noise sounded abruptly amplified. Bright light at the entrance lit everyone's eyes, spilling in past Su Can, warming his back and casting a shadow on the floor.

The cool autumn breeze swept through the windows into the classroom as the ceiling fans turned slowly. In the back row, Zhang Xi, Li Ai, and several other boys, who had been talking with their heads lowered about Tang Wu, suddenly widened their eyes.

Some of those who had met him at the beach barbecue during the holidays clearly also remembered this young man in a hooded jacket and casual trousers, with his easy, unrestrained air. Their mouths fell slightly open, but their eyes all turned toward Xue Yiyang.

Tang Wu suppressed the astonishment that rippled across her lake-still heart, but her rosy lips could not help parting. The instant Su Can appeared, she immediately recalled the day they had strolled around campus together on the eve of graduation: the grass looking a little listless, the light fading as dusk advanced, and the encouragement she had suddenly offered him. After taking a walk alone with a boy after school, that had been the next most unlikely thing for her to do.

The slight melancholy of their final parting at the crossroads froze into this moment, with Su Can appearing, bright and fresh, in the classroom doorway.

It was still only freshman registration, and many students had yet to arrive. The seat beside Xue Yiyang was empty, as was the seat beside Tang Wu. Homeroom teachers at No. 1 High School did not deliberately rearrange seating in newly formed classes. Generally, whichever seat you took when you registered was more or less where you stayed.

Most of the students in this class had also come up from No. 1 High School's middle school division, and their sense of territorial loyalty was strong. Besides, with a girl as popular as Tang Wu appearing out of nowhere, most of the girls felt some hostility toward her. Coupled with her proud aloofness, a glance at her made the boys' hearts race, but made them even more flustered. There were no boys who had both the desire and the courage to sit beside her, so it was perfectly reasonable that Tang Wu currently had no deskmate.

Not everyone would treasure something that shone too brightly. Another possibility was that they would avoid it from the bottom of their hearts.

Watching Su Can walk down the aisle, Tang Wu had already regained her usual cool pride, but her heart tightened a little. What would happen if Su Can chose to sit beside her?

That fleeting nervousness did not escape Su Can's notice. He smiled slightly as he walked past her, then went to Xue Yiyang's side, set down his schoolbag, and sat.

Su Can suppressed the tempting thought of spending three years sharing a desk with Tang Wu, his middle school class monitor and former secret crush. He ultimately chose Xue Yiyang not because he was some paragon of restraint unmoved by a beautiful girl, but because he understood the truth that one should always leave a little room in everything.

He could not possibly claim every good thing for himself. Having been reborn, gaining a chance to change his fate, and being able to sit in the same bright classroom as Tang Wu, at the same starting line-these were already things he would never even have dared imagine in his previous life.

If he grew any more extravagant, perhaps heaven would take a dislike to him one day and withdraw these opportunities.

He had grown accustomed to gratitude. The lessons of the later life in which he had fallen hard enough to bloody his head had also taught him the caution of never taking things too far or setting his expectations too high. Perhaps the suffering of that later life was itself a kind of wealth, teaching him these truths and allowing him to face life with greater equanimity, whether it brought calm seas or churning storms.

Meanwhile, Xue Yiyang gave Su Can's arm a vicious pinch, making him cry out in pain and glare at him. The guy actually grinned foolishly at him with utter shamelessness. "It hurts... so it really is you... this isn't a dream..."

The identity of Tang Wu's deskmate was finally revealed. Chen Lingshan walked in, causing yet another uproar-a girl who had already been well known in the middle school division. When she entered, Chen Lingshan did not notice Su Can or Xue Yiyang. Instead, she spotted Tang Wu, who had already been the center of attention at freshman registration. Driven by the competitive instinct between girls, Chen Lingshan did not retreat in the slightest before Tang Wu's radiance. Carrying a pink Nike sports-series schoolbag, she sat beside her.

As the two girls exchanged charming smiles, their eyes flashed with hostile sparks.

Zhang Xi, Li Ai, and the other boisterous boys in the back now had even more to talk about. Zhang Xi nodded with a worldly air. "Our class is going to be famous now. What a gathering of beauties!"

Su Can and Xue Yiyang were both dumbstruck. They exchanged a glance.

Life was often more indulgent than wish-fulfillment fiction. This was more or less what that meant.