[“I promise, smooth sailing ahead.”]

Luo Siyu agreed.

What else could she do? She didn’t have much of a choice. She still needed someone to temporarily fill in for her parents and give her pocket money. Until she found a better boyfriend, she’d just have to make do with Ding Peng as a makeshift meal ticket for the short term — oh well, he could also help pass the time, which wasn’t too bad either.

And so, they “got together.”

The second semester of senior year was undoubtedly the fastest-moving term anyone had ever experienced during their school years.

It flew by. Even those least sensitive to the passage of time could feel its hurried departure. After the big mock exams, the college entrance exam suddenly felt like it was just around the corner. The pressure of review was suffocating, a looming sense of fate hanging over everyone’s heads.

Zhou Leqi’s anxiety exploded fiercely at this critical juncture.

She didn’t know why she suddenly had a mental breakdown. Insomnia, which had been gone for a while, came creeping back. She started staying awake all night again, even began losing her hair. Even when she managed to fall asleep for a bit, nightmares plagued her. In her dreams, she kept reliving the past two years of checking her scores. The page showing her college entrance exam results kept refreshing, the specific numbers blurring into an indistinct mess, leaving only a stark five-digit provincial ranking glaring in the center of the screen — a reminder of her two colossal failures.

Then she’d jolt awake, heart pounding, drenched in sweat, unable to fall back asleep.

As usual, she didn’t dare tell Yu Qing about any of this, fearing it would upset the fragile peace Yu Qing had finally found. Lately, Yu Qing had been learning video editing, spending her days watching and cutting videos, finding rare fulfillment and joy. It seemed she had finally taken a crucial step out of the shadow left by Zhou Lei.

At the same time, Zhou Leqi didn’t dare share her pain with Hou Zihao either. She knew that if she told him about her insomnia, he’d stay up with her all night. He’d worry endlessly, running around trying to help her — but that wouldn’t be fair to him. He, too, had to face this life-altering exam. She couldn’t hold him back.

So she went to the hospital alone, secretly seeing a doctor. She begged for stronger medication and advice on how to sleep. She couldn’t afford another bout of sleepless nights leading to memory loss; it would ruin her chances in the exam.

The doctor sensed her intense anxiety and suggested psychological counseling in addition to medication. But the cost was exorbitant, and it would take up too much time. Zhou Leqi had neither the money nor the time for that, so she refused. She just swallowed her pills in silence.

Even so, she still didn’t perform well in the sixth mock exam at the beginning of March.

Her score dropped below 700 — 693, placing her 42nd in the entire grade. She was a full 39 points behind Hou Zihao, who ranked first.

That result shattered her completely.

March was so close to June. At this point, any bad news felt like an ominous omen. Zhou Leqi was in an extremely sensitive and tense state, teetering on the edge. She spiraled into the depths of pessimism, overwhelmed by a flood of negative emotions. She began to believe her college entrance exam was doomed, that she was trapped in an inescapable cycle of failure.

She became even quieter, even more anxious. She secretly looked up universities she might get into with a provincial ranking outside the top thousand. The huge drop in her performance made her unable to focus on studying, and soon she was back to sleepless nights.

No matter how hard she tried to hide it, Hou Zihao eventually noticed something was wrong.

He hadn’t expected her to fail the sixth mock exam. Unprepared, all he could do was comfort her, soothe her, and help her analyze why she lost points this time — just a misstep in the Chinese essay and a miscalculation in one major math problem. Everything else was fine. But Zhou Leqi couldn’t hear any of it. She was no longer calm, consumed by the fear of failing again.

That fear was so overwhelming it made her break down in tears. She sobbed uncontrollably and said to Hou Zihao, “You don’t understand, you really don’t... There are 500,000 people taking the exam in our province. Do you understand what that means?”

“Do you know the terror of checking your scores?” she cried, though it sounded more like she was asking herself. “One point can mean a difference of a thousand ranks. Another point, another thousand. It’s all people, everywhere, so many people...”

She was sobbing so hard now, her voice breaking.

Despair and frustration overwhelmed her.

She hated how weak she was at this moment. She knew she wasn’t being rational, and she knew the best thing she could do was study and practice problems instead of wasting time crying. But she was exhausted... At such a tense time, even the smallest failure could destroy her. It brought back memories she had forced herself to forget — memories so painful they felt unbearable.

And then he embraced her.

A light, gentle, colorless and scentless hug.

“There aren’t that many people,” his voice was right next to her, like a ray of sunlight breaking through a web of shadows. “Zhou Leqi, there’s only me.”

“You just need to score higher than me.”

“Could you really lose to me?”

He smiled, speaking in that familiar nonchalant tone of his, so relaxed and natural. The crushing narrative of fear he dismantled with a single sentence turned into a casual joke, a game not worth shedding tears over.

He cupped her face, bringing her close. Their eyes met, and she could clearly see the brightness and openness in his gaze.

Like the gentle sea under clear skies in D City.

“Don’t look at others, don’t compare yourself to others,” he said softly. “Just compete with me. Whoever wins gets to make the rules at home.”

Of course, he couldn’t stay serious for long. Soon, he was joking around again.

She didn’t know whether to cry or laugh, so she hit him. He didn’t get mad, just laughed and held her hand, listening to her complain, “Can’t you say something serious for once? I’m still upset here.”

“Isn’t this serious?” he argued, half-serious, half-joking. “I’m betting my future position in the household, okay? This is a lifelong deal.”

After pausing briefly, he added, “Let’s get one thing straight: we’re competing fairly. I won’t go easy on you. If you lose, don’t get mad at me.”

That remark sparked her temper.

She hit him again and said, “Who asked you to go easy on me?”

She was a year older than him. If she really lost to him, how embarrassing would that be?

But he just smiled, carefree yet warm.

By April, with only a hundred days left until the college entrance exam, the school held its annual pep rally.

This year’s outstanding student representative was Hou Zihao.

Normally, someone as laid-back as him wouldn’t enjoy giving formal speeches. He found them too stiff and constraining. In the past, he would’ve passed this responsibility to Yan Lin without hesitation.

But this year was different. Zhou Leqi was here. Two years ago, in this very setting, she had changed the course of his life in an almost mystical way. That made him feel a special connection to this event, and he was more than willing to stand on the same stage with her again after two years.

It was both a ritual and a kind of romance.

When he walked onto the stage, all eyes were on him. All the lights converged on him, but in his eyes, there was only one person — the girl he loved.

He tested the microphone briefly, and the chatter in the audience gradually faded away. Everyone watched him in silence, the atmosphere solemn.

“I don’t have much to say, and you shouldn’t expect any profound words from me,” he began his speech amidst the quiet. “Our homeroom teacher always says that science students are illiterate. I’m probably the kind of student who makes him think that way.”

An unconventional opening.

Most of the students present were familiar with their homeroom teacher’s catchphrase. After hearing this, they burst into laughter and turned to look at Old Pan sitting in the audience. Even the principal and the academic director turned their heads to look at him, making his bald spot turn red with embarrassment.

“But I do have something I want to say, which is why I’m standing here today.”

As the laughter subsided, he continued, his tone now more serious, free of jokes. His white uniform shirt was neatly buttoned up, making him look especially handsome and composed.

“When I was in my first year of high school, my grades were average. Before we were divided into arts and sciences, I ranked around 600-700th in the grade, right at the median.”

“I’m not saying poor grades mean no future. If that were true, I should’ve dropped out in my first year — I was just aimlessly drifting through life back then.”

His words were simple and sincere.

“What does it mean to drift aimlessly? It means having no goals, no idea where to go, and never feeling needed.”

“It’s a kind of confusion, or, given my limited vocabulary as an ‘illiterate,’ a kind of loneliness.”

“Loneliness is a strange thing. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much, but once you experience it, it cuts deep. What’s worse is that it often leads people to make irrational, foolish decisions, decisions that can warp their entire lives.”

He rarely became this serious. As he slowed his pace of speech, his seriousness carried a peculiar charm that influenced the mood of the entire room. Everyone listening was drawn into their own memories — the loneliness that everyone has felt at some point.

“Until one person changed me…”

His voice echoed through the microphone again. He paused momentarily, his gaze subtly directed toward someone in the audience. The crowd snapped out of their thoughts, immediately understanding whom he was referring to. Cheers and whistles erupted, while some clueless individuals looked around, confused.

“Hold on, hold on, this isn’t the main point of my speech today,” he chuckled, correcting himself as the principal, academic director, and Old Pan frowned and tried to restore order. “My main point is… I didn’t succeed immediately.”

“I know you’ve built me up to be some kind of legend, but I’m really just an ordinary person. I have to work hard to get results, and sometimes, even when I work hard, I still don’t get results — just like everyone else.”

Disbelieving boos echoed through the hall.

“Really,” he smiled, calm and affable. “In May of my first year, I prepared hard for the monthly exam, but my ranking was still around 500. A month later, during the final exams, I refused to believe it, but my score was only around 300. To be honest, I felt pretty pathetic at the time.”

“It wasn’t until after a summer of hard work that I saw some improvement. I’m not bragging, but I worked incredibly hard that summer. You all know who Yan Lin is, right? I worked harder than him. Looking back, I don’t even know how I managed to push myself that hard. It was insane.”

Laughter rippled through the crowd again. Yan Lin, suddenly mentioned, was nudged by the boys sitting on either side of him. He looked annoyed but couldn’t hide the smile in his eyes.

“So, what’s my takeaway?”

Under the spotlight, Hou Zihao slightly raised his head, his sharp features more pronounced.

“My takeaway is that everyone fails.”

Once again, his gaze subtly drifted toward that girl. It seemed like he was speaking to everyone, but in a way, it felt like he was talking only to her.

“Failure itself isn’t scary. What’s scary is being defeated by your own fear before you even begin. The moment you bow your head, you’ve already lost, and you might never recover.”

“But is feeling fear shameful?”

“Of course not.”

“It just means you’re a normal person, experiencing feelings everyone else experiences. And you’ll have the same chance as everyone else to overcome them.”

In the darkened crowd, her fingers twitched slightly.

“Everything you want is waiting for you a hundred days from now,” he said firmly, his gaze bright and determined. Though he didn’t shout, his words inspired confidence. “Go and claim it. I promise, smooth sailing ahead.”

“That’s all, thank you.”