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The next day, they went to take their wedding photos.
Wedding dresses were quite healing. Shen Yihuan, being a carefree person, instantly forgot all the unhappy things from yesterday as soon as she walked into the wedding dress shop.
She tried on three dresses and finally settled on an off-the-shoulder, backless gown. The skirt was soft and voluminous with overlapping layers. The stitching on the front was very delicate, with lace flowers blooming uniformly.
The dress perfectly outlined the young woman’s curves. The off-the-shoulder design showed off her prominent collarbones and beautiful, slender neck, making her look breathtakingly gorgeous.
Lu Zhou only took one look and was stunned.
He had always known Shen Yihuan was beautiful and had always thought she was the prettiest person he had ever seen, but he didn’t realize she could be beautiful to this extent.
A staff member next to her put a veil over her head, lifted it, and secured it with small, invisible clips.
Shen Yihuan walked toward him with a radiant smile, her dimples showing. Lu Zhou suddenly felt that everything in his life had been worth it.
Shen Yihuan waved a hand in front of his eyes and laughed. “Are you in a daze?”
Lu Zhou snapped back to reality.
Shen Yihuan lifted the hem of her dress and twirled around. “Do I look good?”
“You look beautiful.”
Of course she did.
Shen Yihuan smiled and asked again, “Am I the most beautiful?”
“Yes.”
Shen Yihuan raised her hand, made a fist, and placed it under his chin like a microphone. “Mr. Lu Zhou, are you happy to be marrying someone so beautiful?”
Lu Zhou also smiled and said, “I’m so happy I could die.”
After buying the wedding dress, they went directly to take photos. Initially, Shen Yihuan had asked a professional photo studio, but they were booked for two weeks. So, they decided to take the pictures themselves.
After all, she was a photographer.
And for wedding photos, Shen Yihuan wanted to do every little bit of it herself, to truly feel the process.
She had a sudden idea to have Lu Zhou wear his military uniform for the photos, so they went back home in the middle of it.
Lu Zhou put on his military shirt, uniform, military boots, and a belt that accentuated his tight waist. With his military cap and medals, his aura was instantly different from when he was in regular clothes.
The location for the wedding photos was, without a doubt, their high school.
It was currently midterm, and they arrived just as class was ending. The familiar school bell rang throughout the campus. The school’s eight-character motto was written on the teaching building, gleaming in the sun.
Shen Yihuan came out of the car holding her wedding dress, immediately drawing attention.
The security guard at the gate stood watching the two of them. “Yo, what are you two here for?”
Shen Yihuan turned around. “Wedding photos.”
Lu Zhou took the camera and tripod out of the car, carrying them with both hands.
The guard said, “Wow. Which one of you is a graduate of this school?”
“Both of us.”
“So you were high school sweethearts?”
Shen Yihuan just smiled without answering.
The security guard nodded to himself and said, “It’s not easy to stay together since high school. Leave your ID cards with me and go on in.”
Shen Yihuan and Lu Zhou took out their ID cards and handed them over.
The guard looked down at them, his expression becoming even more exaggerated. “Lu Zhou!”
Shen Yihuan was surprised. He wasn’t the security guard they had back then. “You know him?”
“Wasn’t he the city’s top science student from our school a long time ago? It’s him! I wasn’t here back then, but I hear the kids inside talking about him all the time.” He looked down again. “Oh right, I’ve heard the name ‘Shen Yihuan’ a few times too.”
Shen Yihuan remembered that during the Beijing stop of her photo exhibition, their group photo and some old photos that had been dug up had indeed created a buzz among the students at their school.
As they entered the school, it was the end of a class, and students were coming out in twos and threes.
Shen Yihuan, in her wedding dress, was hard to miss.
Many boys and girls looked over at them, stared for a few seconds, and then started to scream. One tall, pretty girl ran over.
“Hello, seniors! Are you senior Shen Yihuan and senior Lu Zhou?”
Shen Yihuan hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
The girl covered her face with her hands and shrieked with excitement. She jumped up and down a couple of times before running back to her friends, her voice filled with undisguised excitement. “It’s them! It’s them!”
“...”
Shen Yihuan hadn’t expected that back in their school days, almost no one supported them.
But now, they had somehow mysteriously gained a group of shippers?
They went to the track first. The basketball court was already full of people, probably a few classes that were about to have P.E. class.
Fortunately, Shen Yihuan and Lu Zhou were used to being stared at in school, so they didn’t feel awkward. They just found a shooting angle and set up the tripod.
Shen Yihuan set up the tripod and configured the time delay.
Then she ran over to Lu Zhou.
In the second the camera clicked, she pulled up the corner of her wedding dress, raised it, and gave a beautiful smile.
Her smile was radiant.
Sunlight poured down on them.
Lu Zhou was looking at Shen Yihuan the whole time, not at the camera. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. His heart was beating irregularly.
He remembered that sports day in their second year.
...
Shen Yihuan had participated in the 5,000-meter long-distance run that day.
It was a 500-meter track, so she had to run ten laps.
Lu Zhou was with her while she was checking in. Shen Yihuan didn’t care how many people were around. She just hugged his arm and leaned on him.
“You have to wait for me at the finish line later, okay? Don’t forget,” Shen Yihuan said.
Then, with a gunshot, the most anticipated event, the 5,000-meter run, began.
Not many girls participated in this event, so all three grades ran together. Six of them were sports students, and seven were regular students.
Shen Yihuan started in second-to-last place.
During the race, the track was cleared. People could only enter for the final lap. The huge track had only 13 people running lap after lap.
The stands were lively, with people shouting the names of the runners on the track. Shen Yihuan’s name was shouted the loudest.
All of her friends were gathered together, and some were even counting, “Three, two, one, shout!” Their voices echoed across the campus.
After five laps, Shen Yihuan gradually moved from 12th place to 6th. The five people ahead of her were all sports students.
Her skin was so fair that it almost looked blinding in the sun. You could spot her from far away. The girl wore black athletic shorts, her long legs moving rhythmically.
She was a sight to behold.
By the eighth lap, only the top six were still in the race without being lapped. Shen Yihuan was in sixth place. The others had either been lapped two or three times or had already given up.
In the stands, the cheers for Shen Yihuan grew louder and louder with each lap.
Lu Zhou stood at the front of the stands, his eyes never leaving Shen Yihuan.
He watched her run, watched her smile, watched her tilt her head back to drink water, and then throw the bottle outside the track.
He held his breath imperceptibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He could feel his chest ache from the violent pounding of his heart.
Shen Yihuan’s endurance was truly excellent. Her sprinting power might not have been as good as the sports students’, but her endurance was a match for theirs. After nine laps, the top five’s expressions were already strained as they gritted their teeth and continued to run.
Only Shen Yihuan was running with ease. She was even able to interact with the people in the stands while turning corners.
This stirred up a series of cheers and shouts.
In the final lap, the people in the stands were finally “unlocked” and free to run alongside the racers or wait at the finish line.
Lu Zhou came out late. Shen Yihuan was already surrounded by many people running with her.
He watched them with a poker face, almost with indifference. He didn’t run with her anymore but waited at the finish line.
In the last 200 meters, Shen Yihuan started to accelerate, moving from sixth to fifth, then to fourth, and finally to third place.
She was still smiling, her eyes crinkling as she saw Lu Zhou waiting for her at the most prominent spot at the finish line, just as he had promised.
She shouted, “Lu Zhou!”
Her voice was clear, and everyone heard it.
Lu Zhou opened his arms.
Shen Yihuan sprinted across the finish line. Lu Zhou stood five meters away from her.
She leaped up, wrapped her two long, fair legs around Lu Zhou’s waist, and her arms around his neck, flying into his embrace.
The crowd went silent for a second, then broke into frantic cheers.
From that moment on, Lu Zhou knew that no matter how many people Shen Yihuan met on her journey or how many people ran with her, he would be the only one at the finish line. And the only person Shen Yihuan would run to and hug at the end would be him.
Fortunately.
All these years felt like a dream. Now that he had woken up, Shen Yihuan was right there beside him.
________________________________________
They took photos on the track for several dozen minutes.
The P.E. classes ended, and all the students came over.
Knowing they were taking photos, they didn’t get too close. They just stood in a row, watching them.
After the shoot, they packed up the tripod, and a student walked over.
“Senior Shen, how long have you two been together?” the boy asked casually.
This question stumped Shen Yihuan. How long had they been together? The three years they were apart complicated things.
Lu Zhou took Shen Yihuan’s hand, took the camera from her, and said calmly, “Nine years.”
They had been together for five years, apart for more than three, and now back together for almost a year.
The boy and the girls around him gasped in surprise. “Wow! That long?!”
“You were dating in high school. Did your teachers not try to break you up?”
Shen Yihuan smiled and pointed at Lu Zhou. “This is our city’s top science student from back then. He was always number one. Why would any teacher care if he was dating?”
“What about you, senior? Your grades must have been good too!” the girl asked with starry eyes.
“Ah,” Shen Yihuan said, nodding seriously. “I was a little worse than him.”
Lu Zhou, who had been silent, let out a soft laugh, sounding pleased.
Shen Yihuan elbowed him.
The girl sighed, “Ah, so a fairytale love is only for the beautiful and smart students. It has nothing to do with us normal people.”
Shen Yihuan didn’t forget to be positive and kept up her “beautiful genius” persona. “So you all have to study hard too.”
They walked toward the teaching building while chatting, and the class bell rang just as they got there.
Only Lu Zhou and Shen Yihuan were left again.
“Don’t you think I have the vibe of a top student? Otherwise, why would they believe so easily that my grades were only a little worse than yours?” Shen Yihuan said happily to Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou would never say no to Shen Yihuan. He just nodded obediently, indulging her fantasy.
The high school had been renovated a lot. Their old teaching building from when they were students had become an idle science building, only used for chemistry labs.
The senior class’s room had not been renovated into a lab and was still intact.
They walked into Class 1 of the senior year.
This was their old classroom.
Shen Yihuan and Lu Zhou sat in the back corner. Lu Zhou sat against the wall, and Shen Yihuan was in the aisle seat.
She pointed excitedly. “Look! This was our old spot!”
Lu Zhou set up the tripod. “Let’s take a picture here.”
They sat in their old seats, but instead of school uniforms, they were in a military uniform and a wedding dress.
Shen Yihuan held her hands to her face, leaning forward with a brilliant smile. Lu Zhou leaned back in his chair, sitting casually, his gaze fixed on her profile.
Sunlight streamed in from the window. Time seemed to stand still.
Three, two, one.
The photo was taken.
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