GT - 2

No one spoke; the quiet air was subtly tinged with something Cheng Mi couldn’t quite explain.

After a few seconds, his gaze coldly swept over her, and he turned his wheelchair.

Cheng Mi leaned against the doorframe, motionless, her eyes following him.

His eyebrows were hidden in shadow, his skin so pale it lacked any trace of color, like a fragile item no one would dare to bump.

At two in the morning, in the living room, every detail was magnified infinitely.

It wasn’t until the heavy solid wood door on the west side closed, cutting off the light spilling from the room, that Cheng Mi withdrew her gaze.

Suddenly plunged into darkness, her vision was filled only with endless void. She blinked slowly a couple of times, to no avail; the night clung to her pupils like a black film.

Cheng Mi didn’t linger by the door. She pushed her suitcase inside and stood in the entryway, only now considering where her room was.

Pulling out her phone, as expected, Si Huiru had sent her a text message. It had been sent a few hours ago, and Si Huiru was indeed meticulous; she had written down every detail about where her room was, where the bathroom was, and where the new towels and toothbrushes were kept.

Cheng Mi didn’t turn on the light. After her eyes adjusted to the dark, she pushed her suitcase and walked west.

She walked towards the room whose door had just closed.

The wheels of the suitcase rumbled, moving from the spacious living room to a one-meter-wide corridor, finally stopping abruptly in front of that door.

At the end of the corridor, a casement window was half-open, and moonlight filtered through the branches outside, falling onto the floor.

Cheng Mi stood between two doors, her slender fingers idly resting on the suitcase handle, her eyes lifting from her phone screen.

The room on her right was hers.

From the crack at the bottom of the door opposite, which had just closed, a faint light escaped. The night was silent.

Cheng Mi’s gaze paused for a moment as it passed, but she didn’t dwell on it much, quickly moving on. She pushed open her own room door and entered.

________________________________________

The next day, her alarm was set for 6:30 AM, but Cheng Mi woke up even earlier.

Logically, after tossing and turning until midnight and having several glasses of alcohol, any normal person should be in a deep sleep at this hour.

But Cheng Mi wasn’t that kind of normal person.

Her self-discipline far outweighed her physiological laziness. She lived each day with a clear understanding of what needed to be done and how to do it, even though she often appeared to be the most casual and unhurried person in a crowd.

Dawn broke, and a thin sunbeam rested in the gaps of the sheer curtains, a streak of light piercing through the gloom.

She opened her eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, an unfamiliar bed, and equally unfamiliar sounds of movement outside her door.

Cheng Mi zoned out for a few seconds, then slowly turned over.

She lay on her stomach at the edge of the bed, one arm dangling off, her wine-red fingertips hanging loosely. A black spaghetti strap had slipped off her shoulder, dangling halfway down her arm.

She was fair-skinned, and the stark contrast of black and red made her paleness even more striking.

Through the door, she could vaguely hear the sound of boiling water and sizzling oil from frying food. Her gaze fixed on the door.

Feeling a bit of a nicotine craving, her fingertips unconsciously tapped on the cigarette pack on the bedside table, but in the end, she pushed the pack away.

She walked barefoot to her suitcase, pulled out some intimate wear, fastened it from behind, and then picked out some clothes to change into. After that, she came out of her room. As she opened the door, she heard sounds from the entryway.

Cheng Mi looked up and saw a woman handing an umbrella to a boy: “The weather forecast says it’ll rain today. Make sure you take the umbrella; don’t catch a cold.”

She then asked, “Are you really able to go to school? Are you still feeling unwell?”

The woman had her hair loosely tied back in a bun, her hair fine and soft. Her voice was the same as the one on the phone yesterday, so this person was probably Si Huiru.

And the boy.

As Si Huiru asked, “Did you take your medicine?”, he seemed to sense her gaze and looked over.

His eyes crossed over the woman’s shoulder, and Cheng Mi’s gaze, which she hadn’t had time to avert from his legs, met his directly.

He was standing, not in a wheelchair like last night. So, his legs were fine after all?

Even in daylight, his pallor hadn’t lessened, like a vast expanse of white snow radiating cold.

He seemed to merely cast a casual glance, then silently shifted his eyes.

Si Huiru also noticed her and quickly turned to her with a smile: “Cheng Mi, are you awake?”

Cheng Mi turned to Si Huiru and smiled: “I’m awake.”

“Did you sleep well last night?”

“Very well.”

“That’s good,” Si Huiru smiled, unconsciously grasping her apron with both hands. “Then hurry and get ready. Auntie made some breakfast, you can eat it while it’s hot.”

“Mhm.”

Her reply was cut off by the sound of a door closing. The boy took the umbrella and left, his figure already gone from the entryway.

After washing up, Cheng Mi sat down to eat breakfast with Si Huiru. Si Huiru offered to take her to school for registration, but Cheng Mi declined: “I met a few friends last night, coincidentally they’re also from Fenggao. We planned to go together today.”

Si Huiru hesitated slightly: “Today is for registration, and it’s your first time at Fenggao...”

“Registration is just going through the motions. I can handle these things myself,” Cheng Mi said with a smile, looking very considerate. “If I really run into any trouble, I’ll call you later.”

Si Huiru was relieved to hear her say that.

After breakfast, Cheng Mi left, meeting up with Hong Mao and the others at a street corner across the road.

Rush hour traffic was terrible, patience wearing thin, horns blaring incessantly.

Hong Mao and his group were clustered at the intersection. Since they were going to school today, Cheng Mi was dressed simply in a white T-shirt tied at the hem. Before she even got close, Hong Mao and his friends whistled a few times at her.

“I see you’re here; that school beauty’s spot in sophomore year is definitely gone.”

Cheng Mi walked over: “Less flattery.”

One boy chimed in: “It’s really not flattery. How can those small, squinty eyes compare to yours? Only that idiot Zheng Hongkai likes them.”

The boy named Zheng Hongkai was suddenly called out and kicked: “Get lost, would you die if you didn’t mention me?”

Cheng Mi remembered this face; it was the one who was rejected by a girl for the kissing game last night.

“Which class are you in?” Hong Mao asked Cheng Mi.

“Class 4.” The teacher had informed Si Huiru.

“No way, you’re actually in the same class as Zheng Hongkai, that’s too damn good for this kid.”

Zheng Hongkai put him in a headlock: “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with being in the same class as me? I’d be smiling in my sleep!”

Cheng Mi couldn’t be bothered with them. It turned out she wasn’t the only one who found them noisy; someone quickly interrupted them.

“Alright, enough nonsense, let’s go.” Li Zhiyu spoke up from the side and took the lead.

________________________________________

After Cheng Mi completed her enrollment procedures, the first class bell coincidentally rang. Her homeroom teacher led her towards the classroom: “I’ll take you to meet your new classmates.”

Her homeroom teacher was Wei Xiangdong, in his early thirties, about 1.7 meters tall, with a face that spelled out shrewdness. Others wore their glasses on the bridge of their nose, but he wore his on the tip, his small eyes peering over the top of the lenses as if glaring.

Wei Xiangdong handed her three textbooks: “These are the main subject textbooks. We just happened to have some left over from the previous distribution. The other minor subject books will have to wait for the textbook department to approve them. I estimate they’ll be ready tomorrow. For today, you can just share with your deskmate.”

Cheng Mi took them: “Mhm.”

Wei Xiangdong tapped the textbooks in his palm and said, “It might be a little uncomfortable at first in a new environment, but don’t be too nervous. Our classmates and other teachers are all very easy to get along with. If you have any questions about your studies, you can come directly to the office to find me.”

“It’s senior year now. Put your effort into studying and don’t let changing schools affect you.”

It wasn’t just changing schools; it was changing homes.

But Cheng Mi seemed not to take it too seriously, her gaze returning from the hallway outside. Outside, thick clouds covered the sun; in just two hours, the sun had just peeked out from the east and was now submerged again, making it feel suffocating. She curved her lips and nodded in response to the teacher’s earnest advice.

Upon reaching the classroom, noisy chatter echoed between the desks; the commotion of recess hadn’t been fully extinguished by the class bell.

A quick glance revealed chaos: some were hunched over furiously catching up on homework, some were squinting while memorizing vocabulary, and a few were chasing each other in the aisle, chairs and tables crashing loudly.

Among those faces, there was, unsurprisingly, a familiar one.

In front, Wei Xiangdong slapped his lesson plan against the door a few times, stifling the noise: “Are you all idle? Making the classroom sound like a wet market. What, are you going to sell vegetables after you graduate?”

“What’s so good about selling vegetables? We slaughter pigs,” Zheng Hongkai shouted back, and the whole class burst into laughter.

Wei Xiangdong pointed at him with a book, a hint of a smile tugging at his stern expression, which greatly reduced his deterrent power: “Zheng Hongkai, nothing to do, huh? Today I’ll print a physics test just for you. Come to my office after school this afternoon; you’re not allowed to leave until you finish it!”

It got even noisier.

Cheng Mi leaned against the wall between the door and the window, her temples throbbing.

“Alright, alright, quiet down now.”

She heard that sentence in her ears, then a calloused hand appeared in her vision.

Wei Xiangdong gestured into the classroom with his textbook: “Go up and introduce yourself, let everyone get to know you.”

The class seemed to have already caught wind of the news about the new transfer student. Before Cheng Mi even entered, a wave of gazes rushed towards the door, whispering and muttering. A few boys even leaned out of the window to look.

Clearly, Zheng Hongkai deserved much of the credit.

Cheng Mi wasn’t shy, so she naturally didn’t need any psychological preparation. She took a step forward and entered the class.

The bustling crowd below instantly fell silent, in stark contrast to Zheng Hongkai’s almost ear-splitting enthusiasm from the back row. He waved at Cheng Mi, gesturing to the empty seat in front of him: “Cheng Mi, sit here.”

Cheng Mi hadn’t even had a chance to reply when Wei Xiangdong blocked her view with an arm, pointing back: “Zheng Hongkai, stop messing around. It’s none of your business whether she sits there or not. Put your thoughts away.”

He then told Cheng Mi to go up to the podium.

Cheng Mi went up and, under everyone’s scrutiny, gracefully revealed an approachable smile: “My name is Cheng Mi. The ‘Cheng’ from the radical ‘he,’ and the ‘Mi’ from ‘mimàn’ (diffuse).”

“I look forward to getting along with you all.”

After her self-introduction, Cheng Mi stepped down from the podium.

In the classroom, only the seat in front of Zheng Hongkai was empty, in the second to last row, by the window. After Cheng Mi sat down, Zheng Hongkai leaned over his desk to chat with her, tossing topics back and forth, and their familiarity increased.

Cheng Mi’s deskmate was a girl with a bob cut, large eyes, and a slightly round nose. Her personality wasn’t aligned with her lively and playful appearance; on the contrary, she was quiet and introverted.

She kept her head down, writing on her test paper, not speaking. Cheng Mi, seeing this, didn’t disturb her.

Two classes went by without a word between them. Finally, Cheng Mi broke the silence.

During the third period, Biology, Cheng Mi didn’t have a textbook and asked if she could share hers.

The girl didn’t expect Cheng Mi to speak to her. She quickly pushed her textbook over, and the words on the tip of her tongue got caught as she looked up and met Cheng Mi’s gaze.

It was very gentle.

Not just a superficial politeness, but a smile that reached her eyes and lips, looking at you earnestly.

Her eyes were like peach blossoms, a thin sheen of moisture glistening with a smile, like an April day.

A gentleness that made one’s heart race.

The girl froze for a moment, then hastily lowered her eyes: “Y-yes, you can.”

“Thank you.”

She glanced over several times, and then, unable to resist looking again, she met Cheng Mi’s gaze.

The teacher on the podium was rambling on, and Cheng Mi’s eyes questioned her.

When she was silently asked what was wrong, the girl hesitated before saying, “You look familiar.”

“Really? Have you been to Jiacheng?”

The girl shook her head.

Cheng Mi smiled: “Then you must have mistaken me for someone else.”

The biology teacher on the podium glanced over, and the two stopped talking.

During the long break, Cheng Mi was called away by Wei Xiangdong: “Cheng Mi, the textbook department just called and said you can go down to pick up your textbooks now. Go down and get your books; they’re in room 105 on the first floor of the teaching building.”

After Cheng Mi left, the girl took out her phone, which had been frequently lighting up under her desk. She flipped open the phone cover and saw a message from her friend in another class, asking her to have lunch together.

The girl’s eyes slowly widened as she looked at the chat box, not because of her friend’s message, but because of the profile picture her friend had been using for almost a month.

The profile picture was a silhouette from the side: the setting sun was fiery, and a girl sat on the rooftop with her hands braced behind her. The wind blew her hair across her face, her lip color more vibrant than the crimson sky, and when her eyes shifted towards the person taking the photo, her allure was captured.

She must have been talking to a friend at that time, relaxed, yet still so bright and captivating.

And that face was precisely the person who had been sitting beside her a minute ago.

________________________________________

Even good students who usually kept to themselves recognized Cheng Mi, not to mention those who spent all their breaks on the school forum.

The forum was a mixed bag; things buried deep could be dug up, let alone Cheng Mi’s profile picture set, which three out of ten girls used as their avatar. It would be hard not to recognize her.

She had just enrolled this morning, and her appearance, lifestyle, and relationships had already been chewed over.

• Her name is Cheng Mi, a minor online celebrity. She became popular after that set of photos, and now she has many fans. She’s usually quite low-key online, hardly posting anything. Her fans say she’s “pure as a lotus,” but you know, in real life, hehe.

• Cheng Mi has a really good personality. A friend of mine knows her; she’s genuinely beautiful and has a good personality, the type girls like.

• This girl is amazing; she’s already with Li Zhiyu, the heartthrob of the senior year.

A casual sentence stirred up a storm. In the monotonous student life filled with endless exams, matters between boys and girls were far more interesting than piles of heavy textbooks.

Adding to that, Li Zhiyu was the unspoken crush of many girls at school.

Like a stone throwing a thousand ripples, posts about Cheng Mi and Li Zhiyu flooded the forum.

While others were busy labeling her, Cheng Mi carried her books and walked to the second floor.

The first and second years were on higher floors, but the senior year section was on the first and second floors of the teaching building. Earlier, when Cheng Mi went down to the textbook department, the classrooms were bustling, but now the corridor and the row of classrooms were empty.

Distant thunder rumbled, but there was no sign of rain. The corridor was brushed with a dull gray light, and faint sounds of a broadcast could be heard.

Perhaps it was the same set of broadcast exercises done by middle school students across the country; the melody vaguely brought Cheng Mi back to her old school.

The corridor was so quiet that only her footsteps echoed, her shadow cut by the camphor trees, appearing and disappearing.

At some point, another set of footsteps intruded. The pace was calm, neither hurried nor lazy, sometimes aligning with hers, sometimes not.

Cheng Mi casually looked over, and a figure turned the corner.

The young man’s figure carried the unique slenderness and sharpness of his age, silhouetted against the gray-white sky at the end of the corridor, merging into the long, endless dim and dampness. The world seemed to vanish at that moment, leaving only the black and white school uniform figure.

His brows were silently shrouded in a hint of gloom, silent and quiet.

Black hair, black eyes, tiny blue veins almost piercing his pale skin, fragile yet pristine, clearly an image of a good student.

Yet, he lacked any of the gentle politeness of a good student.

Cheng Mi wasn’t sure if it was her imagination, but the aura around him seemed even colder than last night. Her steps maintained their unhurried original rhythm.

The two sets of footsteps gradually drew closer.

When they reached a point where they couldn’t ignore each other’s presence, their gazes inevitably met.

The sharp edges of the new textbooks in her arms pressed against her arm, and the air around them felt sharp, including his gaze.

For just a moment, they passed each other like strangers.

Cheng Mi didn’t look back, continuing her unhurried walk towards the classroom. As she turned into the classroom door, she remembered the name tag that had flashed before her eyes.

Indeed, the same surname as Si Huiru.

—Senior Two (1) Class, Si Tingyan.