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The class bell had already rung.
Cheng Mi followed Si Tingyan, walking together to the sports field.
From a distance, three classes stood by the sports field, having already lined up for some time since class started. Their respective PE teachers were taking attendance with clipboards.
Cheng Mi and Si Tingyan arrived late.
The school path was almost empty, and the two of them, in this deserted space, looked particularly conspicuous, drawing attention as they walked.
Three classes, from sophomore to junior year, almost half the people turned to look in their direction.
Dozens of gazes, not too many, not too few.
Cheng Mi felt a particularly sharp one among them, as if it could pierce the air, directly aimed at her.
Without much effort, she immediately caught that gaze.
Qiao Yunmiao, from Class 10 of sophomore year, standing in the second row in front of the bulletin board, was looking at her, with deep hatred in her eyes.
It wasn’t surprising, because she was walking with Si Tingyan now.
A teacher turned to look, it was Cheng Mi’s PE teacher, a man, quite dark-skinned.
“What’s wrong with those two students of yours? Class has already started, why are they just getting here? Hurry up and get in line.”
Cheng Mi pretended not to see Qiao Yunmiao’s gaze, and she and Si Tingyan walked towards their respective classes, standing in the line for Class 4 of junior year.
Zheng Hongkai was standing behind her, and amidst the teacher’s roll call, he asked her, “Were you called to the office by Old Wei?”
“Yeah.”
“I knew it,” Zheng Hongkai said, “Why are you hanging out with that guy named Si?”
Cheng Mi didn’t say anything after hearing that.
Si Tingyan’s class was diagonally opposite, and Cheng Mi could see him.
He stood calmly in the line.
In other people’s eyes, they were strangers.
Remembering the touch on her lips in the stairwell earlier, Cheng Mi watched him for a while before looking away.
Usually, when sophomores arrived at the sports field for warm-ups, the juniors would have already dispersed. But today, juniors couldn’t escape the clutches of the physical education test. Not only did they not disperse, but several more events awaited them.
The PE teacher stood in front, tapping the clipboard against his hand, announcing the test events: “50-meter sprint, standing long jump, then sit-ups for girls, and pull-ups for boys. You all practiced these a lot in your freshman and sophomore years, so there shouldn’t be any problems. Warm up a bit and get ready for the test.”
A chorus of sighs filled the air, each student looking as distressed as if they were about to breathe their last, even before the test began.
The PE teacher pointed at them with the clipboard: “Look at you, so unpromising. As juniors, you don’t exercise every day, and now you complain about being tired just taking a test. Is it going to kill you?”
Zheng Hongkai behind Cheng Mi shouted to the teacher: “Isn’t that right, teacher? We are all fragile flowers of the motherland. Can you go easy on us later?”
The class burst into laughter, and Zheng Hongkai received a laughing scolding from the teacher.
There was no escaping the test, so after the teacher had the sports committee lead them through a warm-up, the test began.
After Cheng Mi and her classmates finished the standing long jump and sit-ups, the two sophomore classes on the sports field had already dispersed and were engaging in various activities.
People were playing basketball, running, playing badminton, a chaotic mix of figures.
Cheng Mi scanned the surroundings but didn’t see Si Tingyan.
Then the PE teacher called Cheng Mi’s student number; it was her turn to run the 50-meter sprint.
Four girls, four lanes. Cheng Mi was in the second outer lane. She casually grabbed her hair and tied it into a high ponytail at the back of her head.
The 50-meter dash was just a short stretch of track, not testing endurance, but only speed.
Among those girls, Cheng Mi had the advantage of long legs, and she wasn’t completely inactive on a daily basis, so she ran quite well in a few seconds.
After she came off the track, Meng Yin, who was waiting to run later, told her, “You look really good when you run.”
Due to her personality, although it was a compliment, Meng Yin’s voice always sounded a bit shy when she said it.
Her cheeks were fair and round, and her voice was soft.
Cheng Mi laughed: “What kind of description is that?”
Meng Yin pondered for a moment and then said, “It’s just that everyone else doesn’t look good when they run.”
Grimacing, hair flying everywhere.
“But you’re different.” Even her aura was different from others.
Meng Yin’s short hair had grown a bit longer, resting on the back of her neck. She looked uncomfortable and adjusted it.
Cheng Mi looked at her, then used her finger to unhook the hair tie from the back of her head. Her chestnut-colored long hair immediately came loose, and the black hair tie snapped onto her finger.
She handed the hair tie to Meng Yin casually, taking over from where she left off.
“No, everyone’s the same. Be confident, you’re beautiful too.”
Cheng Mi told her, “If I’m not confident, I’m not beautiful either.”
Meng Yin paused slightly.
Soon, Meng Yin’s name was called by the teacher, and she went to the track to get ready.
Cheng Mi had already finished all her events today, so there was nothing for her to do standing there. She looked around again and didn’t see Si Tingyan, so she walked towards the small shop next to the sports field.
The small shop was crowded during PE class, with people buying water and snacks. A few people were squeezed in front of the sausage machine near the counter.
Cheng Mi walked to the ice cream freezer, pulled open the glass partition on top, and intended to get a bottle of mineral water.
Cool air wafted out, and inside, colorful drinks and popsicles were mixed together, but there wasn’t a single bottle of mineral water.
Cheng Mi had thrown away her water bottle that morning and forgotten about it at noon. She hadn’t had water for half a day, and her thirst only kicked in after running.
After searching again and finding nothing, she asked the owner, “Do you have any more mineral water?”
The owner had probably been asked that question many times already, and he answered quickly: “None left, the stock hasn’t arrived yet, probably not until after school.”
The owner was putting sausages into a bag for someone: “Many people came to buy just now but couldn’t get any. The last bottle was bought by a student half an hour ago.”
Speaking of this, the owner seemed to find it amusing.
“Just now, a few girls asked that boy if he could let them have the water, but that student didn’t give it to them.”
Cheng Mi just heard it and didn’t pay much attention to the words.
No mineral water, so she had to settle for something else.
Cheng Mi took a can of iced cola and went to the counter to pay.
After buying the cola and coming out of the small shop, some students from her class were still running on the sports field, waiting in line noisily.
Cheng Mi’s fingernail was stuck in the tab, just as she was about to pull it up, a girl next to her class’s PE teacher suddenly looked up, found her, and ran towards her.
This girl was the sports committee member of Cheng Mi’s class, a girl with great talent in all aspects of sports, long-limbed.
The sports committee member ran up to her, panting: “Cheng Mi, the teacher didn’t press the timer when you ran just now, so your result wasn’t recorded. He wants you to go back and run again.”
Fortunately, it was only 50 meters, not 800 meters.
“Okay,” Cheng Mi said, placing the cola in her hand on the edge of a nearby flower bed. She walked with the sports committee member towards the track.
A group of boys and girls from their class were still waiting to run, bored, they gathered together chatting animatedly, making so much noise that Cheng Mi felt like she had arrived at a party.
She had run before, and as soon as she arrived, the PE teacher told her to join the queue and run again.
Cheng Mi’s hair wasn’t tied up this time. As soon as the whistle blew, her long hair flew freely in the wind.
Along that short stretch of track, as Cheng Mi ran, there was only the sound of the wind rushing past her ears.
Vaguely, a few unrestrained laughter from girls, and the sound of something being kicked and hitting.
Fifty meters didn’t consume much energy. Cheng Mi ran at about the same speed this time as last.
After her score was recorded, she left the track. The cola was still on the flower bed where she’d left it, and she walked towards it.
Before she even reached there, she saw Qiao Yunmiao and her friends from a distance.
They were by the ping-pong table, not playing ping-pong, no paddles in sight, just leaning there chatting and laughing.
When they saw her approaching, they didn’t, as usual, overtly or covertly mock her, but simply exchanged glances.
The ping-pong table was a few meters away from the flower bed.
Cheng Mi pretended not to see them and walked straight to the flower bed.
The cola was placed on the edge of the ledge as before, and because it was iced, a small ring of water stained the surface underneath.
Cheng Mi hadn’t really paid attention, she bent slightly to pick it up.
Her fingertips paused as they touched the outer wall of the cola.
Water droplets mottled the cold can wall, with a layer of dark gray mixed in, unnoticeable unless looked at closely.
She suddenly remembered the sound she heard while running earlier.
The cola still stood calmly on the edge of the flower bed.
But looking at it now, Cheng Mi felt as if the gas inside it was about to burst out.
She reached out with five fingers and squeezed it, and sure enough, it was rock hard.
It was then that someone walked down from the old building where sports equipment was stored, not far in front of Cheng Mi.
It was Si Tingyan.
Cheng Mi looked over, and Si Tingyan happened to see her too.
For a moment, Cheng Mi kept staring at his face.
Si Tingyan didn’t look away either.
Cheng Mi saw that his fingertips, which were originally just resting on the cola can, suddenly tightened with determination when she thought of the people by the ping-pong table behind her.
The cola had probably been kicked around like a football on the ground for a while, and the gas had expanded, making the entire bottle as hard as iron, impossible to press down on.
After Cheng Mi picked up the cola, she straightened up slightly. Instead of facing Si Tingyan directly, she turned her eyes slightly and glanced at Qiao Yunmiao from the corner of her eye.
Qiao Yunmiao leaned against the ping-pong table, watching her with her arms crossed.
She seemed to have vaguely guessed what Cheng Mi was about to do, and the mocking smile in her eyes turned cold and hard.
Seeing that expression on her face gave Cheng Mi a fleeting, indescribable sense of satisfaction.
She gently withdrew her gaze, no longer looking at Qiao Yunmiao, and walked towards Si Tingyan, who was coming over.
The distance between Cheng Mi and Si Tingyan wasn’t far; in just a few steps, she reached him.
Cheng Mi could already imagine Qiao Yunmiao’s livid expression behind her.
You’re bullying me, aren’t you? You like Si Tingyan, don’t you?
Alright then.
I can let Si Tingyan see your nasty, ugly, bullying self.
And then, I’ll bully your Si Tingyan too.
She stopped in front of Si Tingyan.
Si Tingyan also stopped, looking at her.
Cheng Mi looked up at him: “Thirsty?”
“Want some cola?”
Her voice wasn’t loud when she said this, but it was loud enough for the people behind her to hear.
And although it was a question, it clearly wasn’t asking for Si Tingyan’s opinion. She slowly raised her wrist, her fingertips resting on the cola’s pull tab.
As Cheng Mi expected, Qiao Yunmiao’s voice came from behind: “Cheng Mi!”
Actually, Cheng Mi was just trying to scare her, and a hint of a smile she couldn’t suppress escaped when she heard Qiao Yunmiao’s exasperated tone.
However, before she could shift her attention away from behind her, the cola in her hand was suddenly taken away.
Her hand suddenly felt empty, and Cheng Mi looked up in surprise.
The next second, she heard a click.
The cola tab was pulled open by Si Tingyan’s knuckles.
The agitated gas instantly found an opening and sprayed out.
Bubbles carrying a dark brown liquid immediately burst through Si Tingyan’s well-defined hand, getting all over him.
Cheng Mi was stunned on the spot.
Si Tingyan’s eyes held a hint of gloom, but this displeasure wasn’t directed at her: “Didn’t you want to spray me with cola?”
Cheng Mi looked at him: “I didn’t say that.”
Si Tingyan looked into her eyes: “You had the thought, why didn’t you do it?”
Cheng Mi had indeed considered it just now, but only to spite Qiao Yunmiao. She didn’t know how Si Tingyan had seen through her.
Footsteps hurried from behind, and then Cheng Mi was pushed away by Qiao Yunmiao.
“Are you sick!”
For some reason, it was at this very moment.
Qiao Yunmiao felt that Si Tingyan’s eyes had truly focused on her for the first time.
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