Teacher Xu was looking through last year’s speech drafts for her reference.
While Teacher Xu wasn’t paying attention, Lin Zhexia whispered back to him: “You were secretly mocking me just now.”
“I was quite open about it.”
“…”
Lin Zhexia removed the word ‘secretly’ and accused him again: “You mocked me.”
The person behind her said, “Yes, I mocked you.”
“…”
“I mock you, and I pinch you once—that’s not excessive, right?”
After chatting with him for a bit, Lin Zhexia became angrier, “I didn’t manage to pinch you just now, don’t leave when we go out, let me pinch you again.”
Chi Yao’s voice paused slightly.
“Do I look to you…”
“?”
He continued immediately: “Like someone whose brain is waterlogged?”
He certainly didn’t look like that.
So by the time Lin Zhexia left the office carrying a stack of award-winning speech drafts from previous competitions, Chi Yao had already gone.
Back in class, Lin Zhexia gave Tang Shuxuan her share and relayed the requirements Teacher Xu had just told her.
Unexpectedly, Tang Shuxuan calmly said: “Oh, okay, got it.”
Lin Zhexia: “Aren’t you nervous?”
“Nervous about what?” Tang Shuxuan asked.
“The speech! And Teacher Xu said they’ll randomly select over a thousand students and teachers from the whole school as the audience, over a thousand.”
Contrary to her expectations, Tang Shuxuan shyly adjusted her hair: “If getting on stage this time makes that senior from third year notice me, I wouldn’t be afraid even if it were a ten-thousand-person auditorium, let alone a thousand.”
“…”
She had almost forgotten that after failing to get Chi Yao’s contact information, Tang Shuxuan had shifted her target to a certain senior.
Although a year had passed, she hadn’t made any progress.
She had underestimated the world of a lovesick girl.
For the next half day of classes, Lin Zhexia couldn’t focus on the lectures.
The speech competition felt like a heavy stone pressing down on her heart.
In the evening, Lin Zhexia sat at her desk, staring worriedly at a paper titled “Chengan No. 2 Middle School’s 10th Speech Competition.”
She had flipped that paper back and forth, examining it until it was almost crumpled.
At this moment, Lin He knocked on the door and said softly: “I’m coming in.”
There was no time to put away the paper, so Lin He saw the competition paper on the desk as soon as she entered.
“A speech competition,” Lin He said, “are you participating?”
Lin Zhexia said with some concern: “Yes, our teacher wants me to participate.”
Knowing her child best, Lin He was also a bit worried: “Participating in competitions is a good thing, but with your personality, you’re only glib around people you know at home. Sometimes you can’t even get a word out when you go outside. Can you manage to compete on stage?”
“…”
Lin He knew her well.
She probably couldn’t handle it.
In the end, she could only say: “I’ll… try my best.”
After Lin He left, Tang Shuxuan happened to send a message, comforting her on WeChat: Don’t worry, I’ve participated in this kind of competition before. Just keep calm. It’s not much different from standing up to answer questions in class.
Tang Shuxuan: Or is there a boy whose attention you want to attract? You can use that as a goal, like me.
Lin Zhexia replied: Then I want to disappear from the eyes of all the boys in school.
Chen Lin also sent a message: Deskmate, just pretend those thousand people in the audience are cabbages.
Lin Zhexia replied to Chen Lin: A thousand cabbages are still pretty terrifying.
After replying, Lin Zhexia put her phone aside and sighed.
She was worried she would mess up.
…
This had little to do with courage, because in life, there are many things that you have to do but require a lot of courage to accomplish.
It’s just that sometimes, mustering that courage is difficult.
Over the weekend, she spent one day writing her speech, which turned out quite conventional, full of templated sentences.
In the end, she managed to elevate the theme somewhat, making it look reasonably good.