Chapter 49

Chapter 11: The incident that made his name known far and wide

The weekend passed with Xiao Yunyun's birthday party on Sunday. To everyone who attended, it had been a crushing defeat for Su Can, because anyone in the living room had seen Chen Lingshan slide open the balcony door and walk out, and Su Can standing half-hidden in the dim light, his expression unreadable.

In everyone's minds, exactly what expression Su Can wore at that moment no longer mattered.

Many felt sorry for him. They had not expected Chen Lingshan to remain that fortress towering among the clouds, impossible for any boy to conquer. Su Can, whom everyone had considered the most promising contender, had also been swept up in the overwhelming waves and mercilessly dashed against the shore.

Gao Fan, who came over from the dining room afterward and heard what had happened, wore a gloating expression. He thought he had judged things correctly after all. How could the proud Chen Lingshan settle for a boy like Su Can? He was also glad he had not rashly confessed himself. A girl like Chen Lingshan always required a measured approach, a slow simmer, without the slightest impatience. Any misstep could make her vanish like a startled bird. Su Can's failure meant he still had plenty of opportunity. He believed that, with his gradual advances, the day would come when he held Chen Lingshan firmly, body and heart.

Later, Xiao Yunyun returned to the living room after helping her mother in the kitchen. When she heard what had happened, she looked distinctly uncomfortable. Even when she saw everyone out at the end of the party, her face was still a little pale.

But to Su Can, everything that happened that weekend evening was less a romantic failure than a release from his past.

Everyone harbored beautiful hopes and regrets about the things they had once missed, always lamenting their earlier choices with the thought, "If only I could start over." Su Can was no different.

In his later life, on nights when he was exhausted from work yet suddenly could not sleep, he would occasionally think back to the past. He had also wondered: if he could live his life over, would he reach out to those first loves he had never confessed to, those choices that had slipped past him, those people he could have kept but who had abruptly left, and hold their shooting-star figures within his life?

For life was like chess: one could only press forward, fight fiercely, and advance with care through every change of fortune, never taking back a move.

And so we could never know what different lives and outcomes those choices back then might have brought.

But Su Can had done it. Faced with Chen Lingshan, the girl whose brilliance had once made him feel inferior in his own insignificance, he had finally used this chance to return through time and reload his life to make the candid confession he had never made, and had always regretted.

Before life reached its conclusion, it was like a question open to debate. You never knew what you could or could not do, whether what you firmly believed could come true, or whether the things you feared would follow one after another.

Su Can had used his chance to start over to put to the test the love he had reached for but failed to hold.

Yet not everyone had the chance to return to the past and boldly take their first love's hand. He had done it, and that alone was remarkable.

Though it still left his heart fluttering a little, what he felt more was a release that churned his stomach and left him hollow.

With no regrets left, there was nothing to rue.

So when Su Can climbed out of bed on Monday, his heart was filled with an inexplicable brightness. It felt as though only after yesterday had his new life truly begun. At last, he could unhesitatingly bring the past that had troubled him for so many years to a reasonably fitting close.

While rinsing his mouth that morning, Su Can looked into his own deep brown eyes in the mirror and smiled faintly. He was a mature person, after all, able to face many of life's events with a different attitude and find inspiration and hope in them.

This experience of rebirth had also given him a finer mind.

Clearly, however, despite Su Can's deliberate attempts to keep a low profile, life would not grant him that peace. What had happened at the birthday party of Xiao Yunyun, Class Three's class beauty, spread at a terrifying speed among the students of No. 1 High School in this small city.

Even as Su Can rode the No. 8 bus to City First Middle School, two young girls pointed at him along the way. When the bus happened to stop and the engine noise subsided, their whispers suddenly stood out. "Look, that's Su Can from the senior high division."

This was how quickly bad news traveled while good news stayed home. It had not even taken a day; in just one night, Su Can felt he had become a household name.

Of course, that was an exaggeration. Most of the No. 1 High School students on the bus still did not know him, though after today, that would be hard to say.

When he reached his grade's classrooms, everyone looked at him strangely. The little groups gathered in his classroom immediately became so animated at the sight of him that their expressions could only be called spectacular.

His close friend Xue Yiyang, who came in through the door, broke with all precedent by not playing cards with Xiong Fei beside him and instead making a great effort to listen to the lesson. Yet halfway through the first class, Xue Yiyang suddenly turned without warning and grinned at Su Can, waggling his eyebrows. "I heard you confessed to Chen Lingshan yesterday!"

"Cough!" "Cough!" Su Can coughed dryly, choking on his own saliva.

Xue Yiyang patted his shoulder ingratiatingly. "Come on, buddy, tell me what happened. I still haven't heard enough of it."

The English teacher could stand it no longer and pointed into the air with his chalk-holding hand.

"Mr. Shu! Mr. Xue Yiyang! Shut up!"

The whole class burst out laughing. Tang Wu and Chen Lingshan both turned around from their seats up front. The former looked at Su Can with some bewilderment, while the latter's gaze was distinctly alluring, though her cheeks were red. Clearly, quite a few friends from far and wide had come to her that day to verify the rumors about last night.

Su Can met Chen Lingshan's gaze and smiled easily. Naturally, he did not want her to feel burdened by what had happened last night.

Chen Lingshan was visibly taken aback by Su Can's smile and hurriedly turned back around. Yet her cheeks inexplicably burned, and she could not describe what she was feeling.

The incident soon made Su Can a cautionary example for every boy who wanted to pursue Chen Lingshan. On the other hand, it also disappointed some girls who had taken a liking to Su Can. Now, even if someone wanted to pursue him, the circumstances would inevitably place her a notch below Chen Lingshan.

Yet contrary to Su Can's expectations, Chen Lingshan did not deliberately distance herself from his and Xue Yiyang's group because of the incident at Xiao Yunyun's home. Instead, she became even friendlier with them than before. Sometimes, even during the exercise break, she would deliberately wait for the two of them with her little circle. Occasionally during PE, she would generously treat people to drinks and have someone bring drinks over to the two of them as well.

At such times, Chen Lingshan would often stand at one end of the sports field, drinking chilled mineral water with her rosy little lips, her gaze drifting almost imperceptibly toward Su Can beneath the camphor tree.

At that moment, white clouds drifted overhead, and bright patches of sunlight covered the ground.