Chapter 8

Chapter 9: A secret couple

Tang Wu stood at the school's main gate like a delicate, freshly washed lotus. Today, she wore a spotless white T-shirt that showed off every line of the figure she already had at sixteen. Many passing ninth graders looked at this campus beauty of the junior division and, thinking of their approaching graduation and how everyone would go their separate ways, felt an indescribable regret tangled with heartache.

Tang Wu's face was flushed. While she had been standing there, several boys had boldly confessed their feelings, only to flee in embarrassment after she politely turned them down.

There were too many defeated suitors to count. Their most direct contribution was to scare off even more would-be challengers. Some thin-skinned boys, in particular, knew that if they did not confess before graduation, they would never have another chance, yet in the end they still concealed the love letters in their hands and brushed past Tang Wu. In the years ahead, these moments might become lifelong regrets for some, or little episodes they would smile over when they looked back.

Holding several stacks of love letters she could neither throw away nor comfortably keep, Tang Wu could not help inwardly blaming Su Can. When school had been dismissed on this final day, her close girlfriends had all known she was going to lend Su Can her test papers to photocopy. Besides, since this was the last day before vacation, the girls all had things of their own to do, so none had walked out with her.

Seeing Su Can endlessly sorting his books at his desk, Tang Wu had felt that waiting for him in the classroom would not look quite right. To be honest, she had never waited like this for any boy before, so she had simply walked slowly while waiting. Now she had reached the main gate, and Su Can still had not followed her out, leaving her with nowhere else to wait. She was the class monitor; she could not simply walk away after promising to do something.

Yet this only made the situation look even less proper. Just as a trace of resentment rose in Tang Wu's heart, Su Can finally appeared, panting beneath a hefty schoolbag.

"You're here?" Although Tang Wu was unhappy with Su Can, she never let such things show. She merely frowned. Besides, he looked rather funny like this.

Now the passersby who knew Tang Wu all stared at her with their mouths hanging open. This icy beauty, a campus belle who had been famous throughout their three years of junior high, had left everyone wondering what she was doing at the school gate. Even those who had confessed had met with rejection and left dejectedly. Who would have guessed she was waiting for a boy?

"Sorry for the wait. This thing's so heavy. Looks like all three years of junior high decided to dump their burden on me today!" Su Can naturally thought of all the material he had failed to learn during junior high. Mastering it in just these two days would be no joke.

Tang Wu swept a slightly puzzled gaze over Su Can. The reason waiting here had felt improper was simply that waiting for a boy for the first time looked a little suggestive. More importantly, if Su Can saw her, he would inevitably feel a smug little thrill of vanity, which would make her somewhat uncomfortable.

Tang Wu was exceptionally perceptive and saw many things clearly. It was only her cold exterior that made her unaccustomed to speaking her mind.

Who would have thought that Su Can would arrive with a trace of apology in his eyes, and that the emphasis in his voice would reveal how completely his thoughts were absorbed in his study books? None of what Tang Wu had anticipated had happened, making her take another look at him.

Tang Wu handed over the test papers for each subject, and one by one they passed through

the scanner at the typing and photocopying shop. Su Can was left holding a dozen or so photocopied test papers for the various subjects, along with their answer keys.

For Su Can at this stage, stock prices, the trends of the times, and business opportunities in the information industry were all rather remote. None could compare to these papers, which could address his most pressing problem. Holding them felt like gripping his own future.

The aroma of snack stalls drifted outside the photocopying shop, while gold-edged clouds hung quietly in the sky. With the copying finished, Tang Wu theoretically had no further business with Su Can, yet she walked out beside him. She glanced back at the school's outer wall, and a rare trace of reluctance showed between her brows. Turning to Su Can, she said, "I want to go back inside and take another look around. After today, there might not be many chances."

Su Can looked at Tang Wu in some surprise, trying hard to remember whether she had walked around the school on that final afternoon before the high school entrance exams. But however hard he searched his memory, he could find nothing of the sort. Still, seeing his class monitor, renowned for her coldness, reveal even this hint of attachment was surprising enough.

Seeing his expression, Tang Wu continued with an air of forced casualness, "Are you going home? It's all right."

"There's no point going home so early. It's not as if I'm rushing back for dinner. Come on, I'll go back with you."

Su Can felt he had just accomplished a feat he had dreamed of throughout junior high but never achieved.

Strolling through the campus with their class monitor, Tang Wu. Unfortunately, Su Can was no longer that sixteen-year-old boy, at least not mentally. Although Tang Wu already possessed remarkable looks and bearing at sixteen, she could no longer make him blush, his heart race, and his emotions tremble the way an ordinary junior high boy's would have back then.

Walking through the school as it had been eleven years ago, however, brought every familiar place vividly before his eyes. The sports field, still overgrown with weeds now, would change considerably in the next few years. More space would be cleared, concrete laid, and basketball hoops erected. The jogging track would be covered with cinders and marked with clear white lanes. Later, flower beds would replace the clumps of horsetail grass that made the ground so uneven underfoot.

There was still a damaged corner in the perimeter wall, where countless students had climbed out to skip class. Su Can had done it once himself. There was a small fishpond on the other side, a secret he had discovered only after throwing his schoolbag over the wall and climbing up.

Remembering all this as he looked at the scene before him, Su Can felt an emotion he could not quite identify well up inside, especially with Tang Wu beside him.

Of course Su Can understood Little Tang Wu's feelings. Her grades had long since exceeded No. 1 High School's admission requirements, not to mention the special treatment offered back then. If you were a top student, No. 1 High School would admit you unconditionally, even waiving all tuition and miscellaneous fees. Tang Wu was clearly among those singled out for such consideration. Knowing she would leave this school, she still could not bear to part with the three years she had spent here and was easing that reluctance in her own way.

On a patch of sloping lawn, Tang Wu actually sat down on the ground. Finding this uncharacteristic behavior quite novel, Su Can sat beside her. A breeze blew over them, sending wisps of grass fluff dancing between them. It was a very quiet scene.

"Su Can, you're actually quite smart. If you worked a little harder, you'd definitely get good grades. You don't need to do that."

"Do what?" Su Can asked in surprise.

"I heard about you showing Dong Qingyun the answers to yesterday's exercises today. If you want other people's respect, you don't have to go about it that way." Tang Wu glanced at Su Can, and only after seeing that her words had not wounded him did she continue with relief. "Your grades are a little below No. 3 Middle School's admission cutoff, but if you keep studying with this much enthusiasm, I believe you can make it."

Su Can was speechless. So Tang Wu had heard about him checking answers with Dong Qingyun that morning and thought he had deliberately used this approach to hold his head high. After all, a ninety-three percent accuracy rate was hardly possible even for Tang Wu. She might get a very high proportion right, but she had worked on that paper herself last night. Even she could not have finished all those exercises in the few hours between dinner and bedtime. For Su Can to do it would have been nothing short of fantasy.

"Yeah, I understand." Su Can grinned at Tang Wu.

Tang Wu froze for a moment. Once again, she saw something different in Su Can's eyes and manner, as though another soul lived deep inside him. His smile was so radiant and clear that she could not help turning her head away. What's wrong with me? Why did I suddenly think about this boy's presence on the fringes of my life over the past three years while he was photocopying the exercises, and feel so reluctant to leave the school and all of this behind? And why did my heart just give that inexplicable little jump?

Looking at Little Tang Wu's bright eyes eleven years in the past, and sensing the kind heart beneath her usually cold exterior, Su Can realized how hard it was for him to accept that she would be murdered over a romantic relationship ten years later.

Since he had come back, that meant he could not live this life again for nothing. He would change what fate had in store!

Su Can silently made up his mind.

When the two walked out of the school side by side, their junior high homeroom teacher, Mr. Zhou, was at the gate discussing something with a school administrator. Young Mr. Zhou had come fresh from teachers' college and had less than three years of teaching experience. Reportedly, after being reassigned among several schools, he had eventually been transferred to No. 3 Middle School. Finally, he had been assigned to Su Can's class as their English teacher and homeroom teacher. He was quick-tempered and had disciplined several of the class troublemakers so thoroughly that, even after they became street hoodlums later in life, they still remembered him with considerable awe.

As Su Can recalled, Mr. Zhou had taught another junior high cohort afterward and then become known for his strict methods. By 2009, he was already the principal of a middle school in Xiahai City. His career could certainly be called a flourishing success.

Seeing the two of them emerge side by side, Mr. Zhou first stared in surprise. Even Little Tang Wu grew uncomfortable. After all, graduation was approaching, and here she and Su Can were, coming out after strolling around school together after dismissal. Their teacher might well draw certain conclusions, yet explaining now would hardly be appropriate.

The two could only nod in greeting, without interrupting his conversation with the vice principal.

But just as they finally left the school gate, Su Can distinctly saw Mr. Zhou give him a thumbs-up. This normally stern teacher, practically synonymous with a tyrant, now looked every bit a match for Su Can's leering coworkers eleven years later.

Yet how could Su Can have known the tremendous shock running through Mr. Zhou's mind?

Tang Wu, my class's precious class monitor-how did I never notice? So she and that obscure kid Su Can were a secret couple all along!

At the fork where their routes diverged, there were no high-tech things like pedestrian crossing lights back then, so Su Can crossed the street with Tang Wu before waving goodbye.

"Well then, see you next term."

Tang Wu paused. Her instinctive thought was, How would I see Su Can again at City First Middle School?

Then, seeing his clear eyes and utterly unclouded smile, Tang Wu still pursed her little lips and nodded.

"Mm."

Tang Wu felt a little sad. She knew the naive Su Can had not yet understood that she would not be appearing at No. 3 Middle School next school year. They were two people whom the dividing line of high school would send down different paths in life.