The next day, the stuffy weather started to get windy.
The wind blew across the scorching hot rubber track, through the treetops, and across the entire stadium, bringing a rare hint of coolness.
Lin Zhexia’s relay event was the last one in the morning.
She pinned her contestant number on her back and waited for her number to be called over the broadcast.
“Would the participants for the second-year girls’ relay race please go to Area A to prepare—”
Contestants needed to arrive fifteen minutes early to line up. After hearing the announcement, Lin Zhexia followed the others down from the side of the stands.
When she arrived at Area A and had just lined up, she saw two extremely familiar people sitting by the track.
Xu Ting waved at her: “Hi, Lin Shao.”
Lin Zhexia was a bit surprised: “Why are you here?”
After saying this, she turned to the other person, “And you, shouldn’t you be sitting in the stands?”
Chi Yao wasn’t wearing his school uniform today. Many students weren’t, taking advantage of the fact that there were too many people for the school to monitor effectively—and many people needed to change clothes after their events, so the school tacitly allowed not wearing uniforms on the second day.
He was wearing a simple T-shirt paired with jeans, his legs excessively long. Perhaps to avoid the sun, he had a jacket draped over his knees as he sat side by side with Xu Ting on the inside of the rubber track.
Almost simultaneously, both the person and the dog spoke—
Xu Ting: “We came down to cheer you on.”
Chi Yao casually: “Had nothing better to do, came down to watch the turtle race.”
“…”
“You spend all day with Xu Ting,” Lin Zhexia said, holding her breath, “you should learn from him how to talk like a human.”
Xu Ting nudged him with his elbow: “Did you hear that?”
Chi Yao: “Can’t hear, gone deaf.”
Lin Zhexia: “You’re the turtle. I’m in the fourth position, just wait and see what amazing speed looks like.”
Chi Yao didn’t speak, but his whole demeanor expressed one thing.
A contemptuous meaning: You? Amazing? Really?
As they were talking, her team started to take attendance.
Lin Zhexia stopped talking to Chi Yao. In the past, she would have silently recited “The doubts of my enemies are my greatest motivation to move forward, I must make that dog Chi Yao look at me with new eyes,” but now she found her thoughts were completely different.
The closer it got to her turn, the more nervous she became.
But this nervousness wasn’t because of the referee’s starting gun, but because she realized Chi Yao was watching her from the sidelines. And he would be watching her the entire time.
It was strange.
This awareness suddenly made her start to feel nervous.
The relay race proceeded quickly. As she prepared to receive the baton, she tried to reassure herself: So what if he’s close by? So what if he’s sitting at the side watching her run?
So what if…
Lin Zhexia ran toward the finish line with these thoughts, but halfway through, she realized something was wrong.
She hadn’t warmed up, plus she was under psychological pressure, and she had exerted too much force at the start. After running just a few steps, her calf started to cramp.
By the time she realized what was happening, her knee had scraped hard against the rubber track, burning with pain.
Xu Ting shouted “Holy shit.”
“How did she fall?”
He instinctively wanted to rush over to help, but quickly realized that if anyone should go help, it should be Chi Yao. When he turned around, however, he found Chi Yao hadn’t moved. “Aren’t you going to help her up?”
“Let her finish the race.”
Xu Ting thought this was outrageous and couldn’t help saying: “She fell and you still expect her to run…”
He wanted to say you’re too cold-blooded, but was surprised to find that Chi Yao was very tense right now.
The young man’s Adam’s apple moved with difficulty as he spoke: “Rather than being helped off midway, she would prefer to finish. Because this is a relay race, not just about her but the whole team. With her personality, she would blame herself if she didn’t finish.”
“So… let her finish the race.”
Xu Ting was stunned.
He looked back at the track and saw that Lin Zhexia indeed hadn’t let anyone help her. She pushed herself up from the ground as quickly as possible and continued running forward.
But after that fall, Class 7, which had been in the lead, was now behind the others by quite a distance.
“Is this what it’s like when people grow up together?” Xu Ting rubbed his nose and said, “It is different from ordinary friendships. Before, I just thought you two were very close, but I didn’t realize it was to this extent, knowing what each other is thinking without saying a word.”
Finally, to no one’s surprise, Lin Zhexia was the last to cross the finish line.
Chi Yao waited for her at the finish line, crouching down: “Get on, let’s go to the infirmary.”
Before climbing onto his back, Lin Zhexia emphasized: “If I hadn’t fallen, I definitely would have been first.”
This time, Chi Yao didn’t retort, just made an “Mm” sound from his throat.
“That ‘Mm’ better not be just humoring me.”