◎Flowers and Youth◎
Chun Zao struggled to hold back, managing not to look so shocked that she’d have to turn around for another glance.
Was this the privilege of being first in the grade?
She had never seen anyone speak to a teacher so matter-of-factly—it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say their roles were reversed.
Sure enough, the teacher instantly lost his temper—
“Go, go, go, go! Get out!”
The middle-aged man shooed him away like shooing ducks, no longer looking at Yuan Ye, grabbing his teacup from the desk to leave his seat.
Yuan Ye was forced to step back two paces to make way for him.
Unaware of the situation, Chun Zao straightened up and was about to leave when her shoulder blade was suddenly bumped.
Though the force wasn’t great, for her who hadn’t fully stabilized her center of gravity, it was enough to make her stumble slightly forward.
She steadied herself against the desk edge and looked back in surprise, meeting the boy who had simultaneously turned to check.
A momentary ripple flashed in his eyes, quickly settling.
“Sorry,” he said in a low voice.
Chun Zao hurriedly said, “It’s okay,” then immediately averted her gaze.
In her peripheral vision, a white shadow flashed as the boy had already quickly left the office with a resolute yet nonchalant bearing.
Goosebumps spread again on Chun Zao’s arms, which had just adapted to room temperature. She clutched her bare forearms and also walked out.
Just as she stepped through the doorframe, she saw Yuan Ye again. He hadn’t returned to his classroom but was standing by the door.
Just as she wondered why, he suddenly called out to her, expressing his apology more formally: “Sorry for bumping into you just now.”
So he had been waiting for her.
Chun Zao inexplicably became nervous, but it was a different kind of nervousness from this morning.
Then there had been a table as a barrier, so she didn’t need to directly face Yuan Ye’s somewhat imposing figure.
She also hadn’t eavesdropped on his conversation with the teacher, consuming some gossip she shouldn’t have touched.
Her uneasiness expanded infinitely, constantly squeezing her heart. Chun Zao feigned calm and stiffly repeated similar words: “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter at all.”
He asked again: “You came up to submit homework?”
“Yes,” Chun Zao nodded: “English homework.”
Probably deducing she was the English class representative, the boy said no more, only asking: “Going back to class?”
Chun Zao made a “huh?” sound, then realized he was asking if they should go downstairs together, and nodded in agreement.
Their sophomore year had sixteen classes total, with a 1:3 ratio of liberal arts to sciences. Classes 1, 2, and 3 were the elite classes, the rest were regular classes. Yuan Ye was in Class 1, Chun Zao in Class 3—their classrooms were quite close, so they could walk together.
This journey was very silent, as if copying and pasting the social torture from the morning breakfast table. Chun Zao’s hands hung at her sides, her fingers slightly clenched.
During this time, she did think about initiating conversation, opening her mouth to ask him:
“I think I heard you say you’re not participating in something—is it the math olympiad?”—to demonstrate she was just an innocent audience member who had mistakenly entered the scene, but she felt it was meddling. Their relationship wasn’t familiar enough for this, so she gave up.
Yizhong’s teaching building was nearly square when viewed from above, with access from all four sides. Bathrooms and hot water rooms were on both sides, while the classroom area had three staircases—left, middle, and right—for crowd distribution.
Chun Zao and Yuan Ye came down the middle staircase. Reaching the first floor, turning left was Class 3, with class numbers continuing forward in sequence. Yuan Ye’s class was at the very end.
Class 3 was the liberal arts experimental class, mostly girls.
So when Yuan Ye, who had some school-wide fame, appeared in the hallway, quite a few people in the class raised their heads like a flock of geese spotting fresh cabbage.
He followed Chun Zao and stopped at Class 3’s front door.
Released from prison, Chun Zao hurriedly said goodbye: “I’ll go in first.”
Thinking again, she quietly added: “Bye-bye.”
“Okay.” The boy smiled in response and lifted his foot to leave.
As soon as she entered, Chun Zao was grabbed by the neck and nearly stumbled. She turned to find the culprit: “What are you doing?”
Tong Yue’s arm was still draped over her shoulder: “The one who was just talking to you! Who? That was Yuan Ye, wasn’t it?”
“Seems like it.” Chun Zao pushed away her arm and walked to her seat.
“What do you mean ‘seems like it,'” Tong Yue followed closely, her voice deliberately loud enough to stir up trouble: “You two were walking together just now.”
The gossip crowd’s gazes all converged in this direction.
Chun Zao escaped to her seat, and Tong Yue plopped down on her deskmate’s empty chair, clearly determined to get to the bottom of this.
Chun Zao had no choice but to sigh: “Keep your voice down and I’ll tell you.”
Tong Yue manually zipped her mouth shut, speaking barely above a whisper: “Confess honestly—how did you meet him?”
Chun Zao organized the books on her desk: “The house I live in—the senior sister who lived there before moved out, right? Then…” She glanced over.
Tong Yue understood immediately: “The new resident is Yuan Ye?”
Chun Zao nodded, then nodded again.