Hunting pheasants

Sunlight spilled over Daqing Mountain. Boulders stubbornly poked their heads out of the soil, and the low shrubs remained lush and green, resisting autumn's bleakness...

The weeds were gradually withering, growing especially soft. A sign reading "Whoever starts a fire is responsible" hung limply at an angle from a little tree as thick as a fist...

"I'm so tired!" Ye Zhulan wiped the sweat from her forehead, her voice carrying a languid, coy complaint...

Qin An looked back and held out his hand...

Ye Zhulan hesitated, but finally took Qin An's hand...

The back of her hand was warm, her palm slightly cool. Holding that soft, slender hand actually made Qin An feel an incomparable happiness...

Qin An was hardly going to tell Ye Zhulan anything about holding her hand and growing old together, but he was willing to lead her by the hand like this, letting her follow behind him...

Ye Zhulan lowered her head and let him lead her, her cheeks burning hot. She did not know whether it was from embarrassment or the sun. She kept feeling that there was so much meaning in the way he held her hand this time. She gave a gentle tug, but he only held on tighter, so she let him...

"You're too young. Just getting to touch your little hand is what I look forward to most..." Pulling Ye Zhulan along took some effort for Qin An too. Daqing Mountain was not high, but it was steep enough...

"What are you talking about? You're taking liberties..." Ye Zhulan raised her other hand and gave him a light smack. "What else would you want to do?"

"Kiss you..." Qin An said with a smile, watching a blush spread from the roots of her ears and even creep onto her fingers...

"I told you, you're not allowed to say things like that to me..." Ye Zhulan was unbearably embarrassed. Qin An was growing more and more shameless. Whenever a scene like that appeared on television, Ye Zhulan would hug her doll and bury her face in embarrassment, all sorts of strange feelings stirring inside her. But if Qin An really tried to do something like that to her, Ye Zhulan felt she would run away...

Girls did mature a little earlier, after all. Ye Zhulan simply had not expected Qin An to be even more thoroughly mature...

"A lot of things can only be done, not said. But if you really never say them, that doesn't mean you won't have regrets later. I want you to know everything I'm thinking. Who knows whether I'll have another chance to tell you?" Qin An understood better than anyone that some things, once missed, were missed for a lifetime. Having another chance, he naturally treasured them all the more, cherishing them carefully, but not to the point of being afraid to touch them...

Hearing the faint complexity in Qin An's tone, Ye Zhulan felt a little lost too. "Yes... the high school entrance exams are coming. What are you going to do? Lots of people say your grades are bad because of me..."

A girl's heart was especially sensitive. Plenty of people talked about her and Qin An, and it was not as though she had never heard them. With his current grades, Qin An could at best get into a vocational high school. If they could not attend the same school after the entrance exams, Qin An really would not have many chances to say much to her...

"A year is enough to prepare for the entrance exams. Maybe I used to be so enchanted by you that I lost my head, and I still am... but I won't let my studies fall behind again..."

It would not be an exaggeration to say she haunted his dreams. The name Ye Zhulan had long since taken root in the softest place in his heart. It had never blossomed into any dazzling petals, but it grew stubbornly, sinking its roots ever deeper...

Children in those days were as innocent as blank paper. A brush of fingers could leave them blushing and their hearts racing for an entire day. The closeness between Ye Zhulan and Qin An already made them unusual. Even now, the way Qin An spoke was too much for Ye Zhulan, whose feelings toward the opposite sex were still limited to a yearning for something simple and innocent...

"Do you really want to kiss me?" Her cheeks flushed, Ye Zhulan spoke in a voice as quiet as a mosquito, her heart trembling softly. Perhaps Qin An's boldness had rubbed off on her. Ye Zhulan summoned all her courage. Or perhaps she could give him that same courage, so that they could cross the dividing line of the entrance exams and still walk together...

Her delicate face was so red with embarrassment that it looked suffused with blood. Beneath her faintly trembling lashes, Ye Zhulan's glimmering eyes were long and alluring, her soft lips vividly red. She lowered her head, staring nervously at her chest, its slight swell rising and falling with her hurried breaths. As she said those words, the young girl's tender feelings blossomed in that instant, enough to set a heart adrift...

"Even in my dreams..."

Qin An was telling the truth. There had probably been so very many dreams, all so sweet. After he woke, everything turned empty, as though his entire soul had been drawn out of him. He wanted to do nothing, preferring to stay in the dream and never wake...

"If you score higher than me on the entrance exams, I'll let you kiss me... otherwise, you're not even allowed to think about it..." Ye Zhulan suddenly pulled free of Qin An's hand and ran up the mountain...

The unexpected delight flooded his chest, yet Qin An felt a little ache. The innocent, inexplicable feelings of youth truly did draw one back into memories. Yet it was precisely that innocence that made it hard to express what was really in one's heart. Without having another chance, Qin An could hardly believe that his former self, also in his final year of junior high, would necessarily have dared to boldly confess to Ye Zhulan even if he had known she felt the same way about him. The final outcome would not have changed at all...

Qin An caught up with Ye Zhulan behind a mound of earth halfway up the mountain. The blush had yet to fade from her cheeks. She hid behind the mound, her delicate fingers nervously clutching a small stone. Hearing Qin An's footsteps, she put a finger to her lips and softly shushed him...

Following Ye Zhulan's gaze, Qin An saw a pheasant leisurely turning over grass seeds. Without another word, he took a slingshot from his trouser pocket and loaded three steel balls into its pouch...

The pheasant was a full twenty-odd meters from the mound. It was not an inanimate target, after all, and Qin An was not very confident either. Three steel balls offered the best balance between spread and accuracy. Qin An narrowed his eyes to aim, his fingers swiftly drawing back the rubber bands...

Ye Zhulan turned her head curiously and watched him narrow his eyes. With his casual air gone, he actually had a handsome bearing she had never noticed before...

Ye Zhulan leaned close beside him, not daring to breathe loudly. Smelling the faint scent of his body, she felt her heart pound...

"Squawk!"

The pheasant let out a wretched cry, flapped its wings a few times, and fell out of the air to the ground. Ye Zhulan and Qin An ran out from behind the mound and caught it. As they looked into each other's eyes, both were brimming with excitement...

Daqing Mountain was also home to Qingshan Town Television Station. Staff worked shifts at the transmission tower on the summit, where a small water tank had been installed, perfect for washing up...

Only when she watched Qin An take a knife, seasonings, a lighter, and other supplies from his schoolbag, all prepared in advance, did Ye Zhulan realize that he had not come merely to hunt pheasants for fun...

The campfire blazed. The heat rolling toward her forced Ye Zhulan to squat some distance away. As she smelled wave after wave of delicious aroma, Ye Zhulan clutched her stomach in discomfort. To Qin An, the expectant look in her eyes seemed rather pitiful...

He tore off a drumstick and handed it to Ye Zhulan. Watching her enjoy it so happily, Qin An could not help wiping the sweat from her forehead with his fingers. "Are you happy?"

Ye Zhulan nodded emphatically, grease still glistening at the corners of her mouth, her lovely eyes smiling as she looked at Qin An...