OS - 39

After the New Year, community workers came to Zhou Yu’s house to assess their situation. Grandma was unable to care for herself and was among the oldest group of seniors in the county. Liu Fen’s mood fluctuated, requiring medication to stabilize, and she was incapable of looking after the elderly woman alone.

They suggested Zhou Yu send Grandma to the newly built nursing home. The government offered subsidies, so the monthly fee wasn’t much.

Grandma smiled cheerfully, agreeing to everything asked of her.

Even if the staff hadn’t come, Zhou Yu should have started considering this. Even if she went to the nearest city for university, she wouldn’t be able to come back every week.

But Liu Fen disagreed.

Zhou Yu knew this would be the outcome.

At the start of the semester, seats were rearranged. Cheng Yanqing and Yanci became deskmates, but Yanci didn’t come to school the next day.

Students could apply to study at home. Li Zhen also lived on Changchun Road and would take time to bring test papers for each subject to Yanci. If he wasn’t busy, he would also sit inside for a bit. Everything in the house was new, and Yanci seemed to have started anew, but Li Zhen always felt that he hadn’t truly emerged from the shadows. Although he was always seen reading, a person’s eyes couldn’t lie.

Cheng Yuzhou returned to school ten days late. His seat was behind Zhou Yu’s. Zhou Yu didn’t notice he was at school until after the morning self-study session. She was passing back the newly distributed test papers, and it was the last one. Without turning around, she folded it and placed it on his desk from behind with one hand.

The fingers below the test paper were squeezed.

Zhou Yu froze. The deathly quiet classroom seemed to suddenly come alive. The windows were open for ventilation, and someone had tied a paper pinwheel to the railing, which whirred in the wind.

She felt something being slipped onto her ring finger. When she turned around, Cheng Yuzhou was also looking at her.

It was a bookmark made from a plane tree leaf. He had put the thin string tied to the base of the leaf onto her finger.

“Last year’s leaf, I kept it pressed in a book. Over the New Year, I had nothing to do, so I took it out and processed it.”

“It’s beautiful,” she genuinely liked it, but also felt embarrassed. “I don’t have anything to give you.”

“You don’t?” Cheng Yuzhou thought for a moment. “You do, actually.”

Zhou Yu pointed to the homework on her desk. “Only a pile of test papers.”

However, Cheng Yuzhou didn’t look at those test papers. The students in the classroom were either eating or sleeping. A few were standing outside in the corridor, but they all had their backs to the classroom.

He could do something mischievous.

No one would notice.

Cheng Yuzhou extended one foot forward, hooked Zhou Yu’s chair, and pulled it back. She leaned forward onto his desk due to inertia. He took the opportunity to lean in, almost kissing her, but he didn’t.

The student who had been erasing the blackboard turned around. Cheng Yuzhou retreated to an appropriate distance before the student looked their way. Zhou Yu didn’t like being gossiped about by her classmates.

He wasn’t wearing his school uniform today.

Zhou Yu remembered seeing him at the convenience store last summer when he had just returned from Nanjing. He had an aloofness about him, like a rich young master.

Their school uniforms were probably the only thing they had in common.

“I didn’t wear it during the holiday, so it was in the wardrobe and got a smell. I washed both sets yesterday, and they’re not dry yet,” Cheng Yuzhou pulled up his jacket zipper. “What do you want to eat? I’ll go buy it.”

Zhou Yu said, “I drank soy milk before class. You should go eat.”

“I also ate this morning. Grandma cooked eggs and millet porridge,” Cheng Yuzhou sat back down. He actually really wanted to touch her face, but more and more people were returning to the classroom after breakfast. “Why are you so thin again?”

“It’s because I’m wearing fewer clothes. I actually haven’t lost a single pound,” Zhou Yu’s final exam results weren’t good.

The final exam papers were designed according to the gaokao standards. Qing Hang consistently ranked first in the grade, and she had also entered the top ten, but only twice. Every monthly exam after that, she couldn’t cross that line.

The more she wanted to break out, the further she got from her goal.

During the holiday, she rarely went out and redid the test papers. There was a chance to correct mistakes, but the gaokao was only once.

“Only eating and not exercising, I’m actually worried I’ll get fat.”

Progress had been made on the illegal coal mine case. Cheng Yuzhou didn’t plan to tell Zhou Yu yet. “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. There are still three months left.”

Zhou Yu’s two attempts to lie were seen through by him, making her feel awkward yet happy. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

Cheng Yuzhou smiled. “Yeah, how do I know? You guess.”

Because she wanted to leave this place too much.

But the shackles binding her were too heavy, making it impossible for her to move. Yet, she was unwilling to give up, wavering and struggling between retreating and being brave every day. On Chinese New Year’s Eve, she had a dream where she turned into a bird and flew to see the plane trees and the Qinhuai River he spoke of, visiting from the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum to the Presidential Palace like a tourist. However, she woke up to find herself in the same old reality.

________________________________________

The final exam before the New Year was the first provincial joint examination. Qing Hang was not only first in the grade at Baicheng No. 1 Middle School but also first in the entire province.

The school sent him to participate in math competitions every year. The honors belonged to the school and to him personally. The news that Tsinghua University’s admissions office contacted him for the independent enrollment written test and interview quickly spread around.

There was envy, and there was disdain.

Cheng Wanyue wasn’t the last to know, but she wasn’t the first either.

Before this, they had been in a cold war for half a month over a small matter. She didn’t go to find Qing Hang after she found out. She was still the unrestrained and proud Cheng Wanyue.

Sunday afternoon’s break allowed students a temporary breather from the high-intensity study pressure. Cheng Wanyue and Cheng Yanqing were not in a hurry to go home. The weather was good. Cheng Yuzhou finished playing basketball and was teasing Zhou Yu with the basketball by the sports field. She had been in the classroom all morning, completely dazed from studying. The basketball was right in front of her, but she couldn’t grab it.

Qing Hang was waiting for Cheng Wanyue, waiting for her to leave the group of boys on the basketball court.

She had promised him countless times, but she had never truly done it.

A boy chuckled, “Why do all the Chengs love ‘poverty alleviation’? Both the girls and the boys. Could this thing be a family inheritance?”

“The Cheng family has been supporting Qing Hang for more than a day or two. Climbing out of the slums step by step, it’s hard to say whether he’ll be ambitious and ungrateful or know how to repay kindness in the future. However, Cheng Wanyue doesn’t seem to care much.”

“Didn’t Cheng Yuzhou beat up Wang Chuang last year because of Zhou Yu? I heard Wang Chuang took photos of Zhou Yu and posted them in a group, and he saw them.”

“What kind of photos? Did you see them?”

“No, I heard Wang Chuang pursued Zhou Yu in junior high but didn’t succeed. It probably wasn’t just ordinary photos.”

Cheng Yuzhou had read a self-criticism during the Monday flag-raising ceremony. Afterwards, he said it was a small conflict during a basketball game, and Zhou Yu believed him. Only now did she learn from two strangers that it was because of her.

She had no contact with Wang Chuang during her three years of high school, so there couldn’t have been any complicated photos.

Rumors always spread wilder and wilder. Yanci hadn’t come to school since the semester started. Some even said he had committed a crime and been arrested.

Cheng Wanyue didn’t hear these things. She picked up her backpack and waved to the group of boys, purely because she was thirsty and wanted to buy a drink. Qing Hang had already left two minutes ago.

“Ayu, I’m going home!”

“Okay, see you tomorrow.”

Cheng Yuzhou put away the basketball and went downstairs. Zhou Yu was still sitting in the same spot he had been before he went upstairs.

He walked over and took the open vocabulary book that was covering her face. The sun shone on her face, making her skin appear somewhat transparently pale.