Chapter 46

Chapter 8: The birthday party confession incident (Part one)

If blood traveled 6,894 kilometers through the human body every day, the equivalent of circling the earth 375 times in sixty years, then what traveled even faster at City First Middle School? Naturally, it was those sensational pieces of news that spread like wildfire.

Su Can had once had a crush on Chen Lingshan. Su Can had a crush on Chen Lingshan. Su Can would definitely confess to her in high school. Su Can would confess soon. Su Can was about to confess to Chen Lingshan. The evolution of these statements always caught people off guard. Even Michael Bay, who would choreograph all those robots in later years, would probably have found it dizzying.

And so, in just a few days, Su Can became someone who gazed covetously at Chen Lingshan, one of the prettiest girls in their year, and might even have been secretly considering when to send her a love letter, or make a less clichéd surprise confession.

These beguiling rumors led everyone astray, to the point that even Xue Yiyang occasionally looked at Su Can with a half-appraising expression, as though trying to see inside the heart of this close friend he had grown up with. He all but wanted to crack Su Can's head open with a couple of blows from a nutcracker's hammer and inspect everything inside.

Chen Lingshan, however, seemed to know nothing about it and remained unmoved. Every day, she still laughed and joked with her friends between classes. Boys from the neighboring class still suddenly blushed as they hurried past her, and she still gathered with Xue Yiyang and Su Can to chat and laugh, occasionally teasing Su Can with a lovely smile. Everything was thoroughly cheerful, and life and studies proceeded side by side without conflict, like an egg's white and yolk enclosed in a solid shell, with not the slightest leak.

Interestingly, no matter how wildly others embellished the matter of Su Can and Chen Lingshan-even when everyone gathered after class to listen to Xue Yiyang ramble about everything under the sun, while Li Ai, Zhang Xi, and the others roared with laughter behind them-no one ever brought it out into the open.

It was all like a bag of popcorn in a microwave, swelling and swelling, but no one knew on which day the paper bag would burst open.

Until one day in physics class, when Xue Yiyang suddenly turned toward Su Can and said, "When are you planning to go after Chen Lingshan?"

As he spoke, the physics teacher was using gravitational acceleration to calculate the ratio between the falling times of two objects of equal mass on the earth and the moon, a matter of astrophysics. Su Can felt that the angle through which Xue Yiyang's head had just turned was as unreal as planetary science.

"Go after Chen Lingshan?" Since returning to the past, he had quietly kept working, constantly improving himself. Even when he encountered Chen Lingshan, what he felt was only a kind of nostalgia for the past. It was a peculiar feeling: everything he had experienced in his later life had instead begun to seem less real, while the world in which he now lived and grew was his real life. Everything in the future, because it had yet to happen, held no meaning. What truly mattered was that this was a fresh start, and he had the right to make entirely new choices.

"Oh, give it a rest!" Probably because he saw Su Can's astonished expression, Xue Yiyang chuckled and patted him on the shoulder. "Wasn't she the whole reason you came to No. 1 High School? Don't tell me you came for me! I did underestimate you a little before, buddy, but now I've got a rough idea of what you've got going for you. Go for it. I believe in you! If you need any help, I'd even be willing to jump out and pretend to rob you!"

"You've watched too many Hong Kong movies!" Su Can could not help laughing.

What followed became a little awkward. For instance, one day during the exercise break after second period, as everyone walked across the sports field, girls from other classes came up to Chen Lingshan affectionately, then casually pointed toward Su Can, who was walking nearby with Xue Yiyang. "Wow! So that's your Su Can!"

Or while they were sunning themselves and chatting on the balcony, all the friends around Chen Lingshan suddenly said, "Oh, I still have some practice questions to copy! We're heading back for a bit," and left her together. Xue Yiyang, who was standing with Su Can, also winked at him. "I suddenly need to hit the WC, take a leak, and have a smoke in the restroom while I'm at it!"

Then the whole group cleared out, leaving only a stunned Chen Lingshan facing Su Can, whose expression was scarcely any less bewildered.

The truly wicked part was that one of the girls who had just entered the classroom even remembered to poke her head back out through the doorway. "We won't interrupt your time alone together!"

And so the silence became even deeper. Chen Lingshan lowered her head and lightly nudged a flake of plaster that had fallen from the ceiling with the tip of her shoe. Sunlight fell loosely across her back and Su Can's face, outlining them in light.

Su Can, who had no idea what to say at a time like this, finally could not resist breaking into a grin. "They really have nothing better to do."

Su Can knew that, with Xue Yiyang acting like a neighborhood loudspeaker, the absurd story that he had entered No. 1 High School because of Chen Lingshan was bound to get around. But he had never expected things to become this exaggerated, with every sign of growing more and more intense.

In truth, even Su Can could not quite say how he felt about Chen Lingshan. Feelings for a first love were always beautiful. Everyone had emotions like that, only for them to be crushed beneath the tumult of later life and buried beneath the painful price of growing up, before there was time to savor them.

Yet one day, at some familiar street corner, when something overlapped with an event buried deep in memory, that sudden surge would always make some place deep within the heart ache despite itself.

Xiao Yunyun's birthday fell on Sunday. The afternoon meal was to be held at a Chinese restaurant specializing in stewed dishes, with distinctive decor that suited her genteel style very well.

After his mother found out that the birthday party Su Can was attending was actually Xiao Yunyun's, she was a little surprised. After all, everyone had seen how strongly Xiao Yunyun's family had opposed their daughter associating with Su Can back then; it simply was not something they could readily say aloud.

Su Can went to his youngest uncle Zeng Zhaoding's gift shop and picked out a Disney stuffed toy. Disney merchandise had already been expensive back then, and in all of Xiahai City, only his uncle's boutique had caught on to the trend and stocked a batch. Even at cost price, the Teddy Bear, barely twenty centimeters tall, cost Su Can nearly two hundred yuan.

Since it was still early anyway, Su Can went over and organized some of the week's key study points, then kept track of the time and left home to walk to the restaurant where they had agreed to meet.

Xiahai was a small city, especially before it received its designation as a tourist city, when the main urban area had yet to expand. Walking anywhere did not take much time. Besides, he was accustomed to life in the big cities of later years, where not every neighborhood had a direct bus service. The distance he had once walked through a single neighborhood was often equivalent to three or four neighborhoods in the small city of Xiahai, so Su Can did not find it far.

What he had not expected was that, in this little city, social circles were naturally small as well.

Su Can stopped at the entrance to a small pedestrian street. He was sure that he had just spotted someone he knew.

On this weekend afternoon, Chen Lingshan wore a pretty Bohemian-style pleated skirt. Her hair was not tied back as it usually was at school, but fell over her shoulders, with a distinctive little floral hair clip above her forehead. In black knee socks and little leather shoes, she looked as though she were going to some banquet.

Beside her stood a boy with a gray hood and white sneakers. His features were bright and handsome, the sort most girls liked. The two looked like a golden boy and a jade maiden, standing out especially strongly on this street.

Chen Lingshan seemed to mention something exciting. Just after coming out of a clothing store, she took the young man by the wrist and ducked into a jewelry and gift shop. Before long, the two emerged carrying bags of all sizes, flagged down a taxi at the street corner, and climbed into the back seat and left.