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Throughout the meal, Shen Xi maintained his composure and remained silent.
Lin Zhan, feeling bored, wanted to prolong their time together but didn’t know what to do.
She wanted to show him that she was an interesting person, but feared overdoing it and causing him to dislike her.
After some thought, she decided to stay quiet as well.
Once they finished eating, the two returned to their seats. Zheng Yi Mian, seeing Lin Zhan return, asked: “What did you eat for lunch?”
Lin Zhan initially intended to say “meat,” but after struggling to recall which meats she had eaten, she simply replied: “Lettuce.”
There was no helping it—the lettuce had left such a strong impression that it was all she could remember.
In her mind, the greens served by Shen Xi had already reached a level where they could rival meat.
///
It wasn’t until near the end of the event that Shen Xi returned.
At the time, Zhang Ze was playing on his phone. Seeing Shen Xi sit down, he teased: “I heard there were a lot of submissions to the broadcasting station today—even love poems directly addressed to you. Impressive.”
During the sports meet, the broadcasting station would always read various motivational messages.
Some people would sneak in their own love letters disguised as encouragement, hoping others would convey them to Shen Xi on their behalf.
Zheng Yi Mian was puzzled and asked: “Why didn’t I hear any of that?”
“Are you naive? Do you think they’d let you hear it?” Lin Zhan laughed at her. “Of course the broadcasting station intercepted them.”
As soon as she finished speaking, a fearless female voice came through: “Liang Yu! I—”
“—ZZZHHH!” A loud burst of static drowned out the three words everyone knew were coming.
The microphone fell, and someone quickly turned off the power.
The powerful background music abruptly stopped, and the flowery motivational messages disappeared as well.
For a moment, the entire field was eerily silent.
Sun Hong stood up and shouted: “WOW, how thrilling!”
The background music roared back to life like an explosion, and someone pretended to cough: “Sorry about that, there was an unexpected situation—the microphone was snatched…”
“Next up is the motivational message from Class Six, Grade Two: Your figure running across the field…”
After this climactic interlude, everyone’s drowsiness vanished.
Someone from Class Three quietly got up and hurried back to Class Six.
Liang Yu remained seated in Class Six’s area, unmoving, as if the confession just now had nothing to do with him and the commotion was entirely unrelated.
He didn’t care about any of this.
Seeing Tang Yuan rush back, crouching low, he patted the chair next to him, signaling for him to sit down.
Tang Yuan was still catching his breath.
Liang Yu slightly raised his eyelids, finally showing some expression: “How was it?”
“Not bad,” Tang Yuan said. “She finished eating—I watched her eat the whole time.”
Liang Yu’s eyes flickered: “Hmm?”
Tang Yuan quickly corrected himself: “No, no, it wasn’t me watching her finish—it was me seeing her start, then when she finished, I glanced at her food, and it was almost gone!”
Liang Yu’s tone was languid, wrapped in an enduring haze of sleepiness: “That’s good.”
“Yu Ge,” Tang Yuan called him.
Liang Yu: “What?”
Tang Yuan: “After they finished eating, they discovered someone had sent the food, and they speculated about who sent the apples and hand warmers before. Then they speculated about you…”
Liang Yu became interested, lightly tapping his fingers on his leg, and smiled: “What did they speculate about me?”
Tang Yuan hesitated: “Uh… basically, they said you’re short, unattractive, and very insecure.”
Liang Yu, who had never been associated with negative words his entire life and had always been the center of attention, froze mid-smile: “…”
///
At 3:30 PM, the sports meet ended on schedule.
Lin Zhan calculated that she and Shen Xi had sat together for a total of thirty minutes and five seconds that day.
Well, it was progress.
While packing up, Lin Zhan asked Shen Xi: “Aren’t you returning my whistle?”
Shen Xi looked at her: “…”
Lin Zhan internally sighed—she had killed the conversation again.
The way Shen Xi looked at her now made her feel like she had some strange fetish.
Casually, Shen Xi said: “I’ll buy another one and return it to you later.”
Lin Zhan reacted quickly and immediately asked: “Will you personally come to my class to give it to me?”
With the conversation reaching this point, Shen Xi could only nod.
“Alright,” he said. “Personally.”
Since it was something he borrowed, it was only polite to return it himself.
Lin Zhan slung her backpack over her shoulder, thinking that the day hadn’t been entirely fruitless.
But…
She really wanted the whistle Shen Xi had blown into…
///
Lin Zhan and Zheng Yi Mian left with Class Three’s group. Shen Xi was also preparing to leave when someone came to notify him.
“Shen Xi, they told me to inform you that there will be another inspection by leadership in two weeks, and they want you to prepare to give a tour at the art gallery.”
Shen Xi: “Alright, I understand.”
Thus, on the way home, he and Zhang Ze conveniently went to the art gallery again.
They didn’t have to go—it was just that when they had nowhere else to go after finishing homework, they would casually visit the art gallery. He was already very familiar with the works there, even memorizing some of them.
However, the local newspaper and the art gallery were hosting a submission competition, and the winning works were supposed to be exhibited today.
These were new works, so to avoid any mishaps, he decided to take a look.
Plus, he could see if anyone from their school had won.
///
The art gallery was sparsely populated, the air conditioning was strong, and it was perfect for appreciating paintings.
The waves of heat were blocked behind the dam-like glass doors.
As they went upstairs to view the new exhibition, Zhang Ze suddenly remembered something: “I heard that Lin Zhan… paints pretty well. Have you seen her work?”
Shen Xi: “...No.”
He vaguely remembered seeing her paintings when they were younger, but the memory was hazy.
Zhang Ze: “Her style seems particularly unique. She’s won many awards for the school, and once the school even put up a big poster to commend her. Do you remember?”
Shen Xi paused thoughtfully: “I have a vague impression.”
That poster had hung for an entire week in the most prominent spot on the bulletin board. It was unlikely any student from Chonggao would forget it.
Zhang Ze continued with interest: “Many people chase after her too. I don’t know why she’s so fixated on you alone, like she’s determined to crash into you…”
Shen Xi calmly glanced at him: “How do you know she’ll crash into me?”
Such a sharp person would only crash into him hard enough to kill him.
Zhang Ze was a bit surprised and asked: “What? So there’s hope between you two?”
Shen Xi sighed helplessly, looking at the exhibition on the wall: “We’re not talking about the same topic.”
He didn’t dislike her, but he didn’t particularly like her either. Because they had met briefly when they were young and she seemed nice, he occasionally helped her out of convenience.
When he said, “If I liked her, I’d write my name backward,” it was just to get Zhang Ze to stop talking.
Zhang Ze kept chatting beside him, but Shen Xi had already tuned him out.
The painting in front of him caught his eye instantly.
It had a full composition and rich colors, delivering a strong impact at first glance.
The contrast between light and shadow, foreground and background.
The background was dark, highlighting the main figure in the painting.
Color wasn’t the key element here—the effect of the painting was.
From the top hung an object resembling silk, loosely falling into the figure’s right palm.
The figure’s right hand rested on their left waist, gripping the silk, eyes tightly shut, their expression both comforting and melancholic.
—No, that wasn’t silk. It was a white cloth used for hanging oneself.
But within the white cloth, there seemed to be a trace of warm light. That faint yellow wrapped around the edges of the cloth, giving it a translucent quality.
The entire painting felt somewhat decadent, yet the touch of light brought vitality to it.
Below the painting was a sentence—an introduction by the creator—
“Grant me glory, and grant me ten thousand spans of white cloth.”
The title of the painting was simple: Grant .
This concise phrase heightened the contradiction, carrying a sense of tragedy and resignation.
Shen Xi stood in front of the painting for a long time, unmoving.
He was often awed by paintings in the gallery, but this time, besides awe, he felt another emotion stirring in his chest.
A fierce entanglement and contradiction—through the painting, the creator had conveyed everything to him.
It wasn’t until Zhang Ze called him that he realized he had been standing there for a long time.
Before leaving, he hastily glanced at the creator’s name—
A Zha.
A Zha. Shen Xi repeated it silently and committed it to memory.
///
After taking a shower at home, Shen Xi lay on his bed.
Ye Qian brought him a plate of cut fruit, and Shen Su was watching TV outside.
He picked up his phone, logged into Weibo, and searched for “A Zha.”
He wanted to see if this person had a Weibo account.
Not expecting much, he pressed search—and to his surprise, a user popped up instantly.
...He had actually found it.
The user’s bio read: [The painter A Zha.]
They had over six thousand followers.
But it was clear the account wasn’t frequently updated; it only had some chibi-style images, character designs, and occasional sketches.
It seemed like a blogger who often read novels and drew character designs as a hobby.
The person he imagined after seeing the exhibition didn’t match this profile.
But upon closer inspection, the art style was similar.
Shen Xi scrolled through her Weibo feed from beginning to end before taking a brief rest.
Her artwork was indeed excellent.
Driven by some inexplicable impulse, he clicked into her profile—but found it empty.
However, since this exhibition was mainly open to artists from W City, even if A Zha hadn’t filled out any information, Shen Xi could roughly guess that she was also based in W City.
This realization felt subtly intriguing.
After exiting, Shen Xi pondered for a moment, then reopened A Zha’s homepage.
His finger hovered for a second, then he clicked “Follow.”
A small box popped up. After a moment of hesitation, Shen Xi changed A Zha’s classification to—
Special Attention.
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