◎Summer Sparkling Water◎
The person outside wasn’t a stranger to Chun Zao.
More precisely, most students at her high school weren’t strangers to him.
Initially at school, Chun Zao couldn’t match the real person to the name.
She truly figured it out in the second month of attending Yizhong. At the time, she was going upstairs with a friend who had been chattering away nonstop when she suddenly went silent, repeatedly nudging Chun Zao’s arm with her elbow.
Chun Zao looked at her, puzzled, only to see her whispering shrilly: “Don’t look at me! Look ahead!”
Chun Zao turned around and saw boys walking together as well.
That was the first time Chun Zao witnessed human disparity and species diversity.
Wearing the same blue and white school uniform, everyone else looked like wrinkled cartons of milk, but he was like a glass of summer sparkling water with azure citrus syrup and yogurt, his smile naturally equipped with a light-filtering effect.
No wonder her friend dramatically kept looking back every few steps after they passed by—once your gaze stuck to someone like that, it was very hard to tear it away.
After the boy disappeared around the corner, she immediately leaned close to Chun Zao, seeking validation: “Isn’t he handsome?”
Chun Zao asked: “Who is he?”
Her friend was surprised: “You don’t know?”
Chun Zao glanced at her: “Is it weird that I don’t know?”
Her friend replied: “That’s Yuan Ye!”
Now Chun Zao understood.
Every grade always had those few names passed down among girls—whenever mentioned, everyone would become animated with tacit understanding. They simply represented several male classmates with exceptionally handsome appearances.
Yuan Ye was one of them.
And he was also very much “both beautiful inside and out.”
If grades were also ranked in hierarchies, Yuan Ye would be at the TOP tier level. After major exams, his photo and name would only appear in the leading position on the honor wall. Initially, girls would gather around to look and secretly take photos, but later everyone became accustomed to it, giving cursory glances, only pretending to be reserved with racing hearts when encountering him in person. Chun Zao had also seen his azure-background two-inch photo many times—a face beautiful enough to be unforgettable—but due to its frequent appearances, the boy’s unchanging innocent smile had gradually become increasingly arrogant and punchable.
Apart from occasionally running into him in hallways or hearing him mentioned by companions, Chun Zao had no interaction with him.
If she had to name one, it would be that they had appeared on the same ranking list several times.
In any high school, there’s always that group of inhumane list-dominators. Every exam was filled with invisible gunsmoke, and after all the clashing of swords and sabers, they were arranged according to their achievements. After the arts and sciences division, Chun Zao no longer participated in the general melee but moved to another camp, another mountain peak.
Competition among top students was inevitable—they would develop prejudices against authority, attempting to challenge, attempting to overthrow, attempting to replace.
Chun Zao had once overestimated her abilities, too.
Unfortunately, Yuan Ye’s grades were as stable as the stratospheric atmosphere, and theories about weak subjects didn’t completely apply to him. He was the best representative of comprehensive development in morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor in the teachers’ minds. Chun Zao couldn’t forget the 100-meter dash at the high school sports meet—the boy galloped across the field like an elegant snow leopard. At the finish line, the boys buried him in a crowd and lifted him high; the girls’ screams nearly burst eardrums.
After tossing and turning for fifteen minutes and repeatedly confirming no one was outside, Chun Zao finally quickly walked out to resolve her forcibly delayed urgent need.
After coming out of the bathroom, the door to the adjacent room had returned to its original state—making it hard not to suspect that the boy’s earlier appearance was just a hallucination.
But after spotting the extra pair of large white boat-like sneakers on the shoe rack, Chun Zao’s hypothesis was immediately overturned.
Yuan Ye had moved in here.
And he was only separated from her by one wall.
Chun Zao turned to face the inside of her bed and found herself staring blankly at the calendar on the wall. Tomorrow was registration day, and the new journey after class division was about to begin, yet heaven had gifted her with an unexpected back-to-school package.
The new roommate’s attitude was undoubtedly friendly, but she wasn’t good at dealing with interpersonal relationships that fell from the sky.
Like tonight, her reaction and behavior were rather poor, treating him like an unwelcome guest—even one encounter felt like too many.
It probably shouldn’t be this way.
But since it had already happened this way, there was nothing to be done about it.
Chun Zao stopped thinking as her eyelids gradually drooped.
…
The next day, Chun Zao was awakened by her mother as usual.
As soon as she sat up, Chun Chuzhen leaned over to the head of the bed with a mysterious expression: “I saw that boy next door.”
Chun Zao ignored last night’s encounter and pretended complete ignorance: “What’s he like?”
Chun Chuzhen said: “Tall and thin, quite good-looking, takes after his father, and he even said good morning to me.”
Chun Zao glanced toward the door: “Where is he?”
Chun Chuzhen said: “Back in his room. He went out shortly after I got up and brought back two boxes of breakfast for us when he returned.”
Chun Zao pressed down her messy bangs: “He’s that polite?”
“Yes, calling me ‘auntie’ so sweetly—I would have felt bad not accepting,” Chun Chuzhen muttered helplessly, then frowned and added: “And oh, he’s living here all by himself.”
Chun Zao was surprised: “Huh?”
Chun Chuzhen lowered her voice to minimum: “I asked him, I said where are your parents, are they coming this afternoon, and he said he’s living alone.”
Chun Zao asked: “No one accompanying him for school?”
“Seems like it,” Chun Chuzhen snorted: “I said, how could they manage the older one when they have a little one at home. But doesn’t he have any grandparents either? His parents didn’t look that old.”