BSS - Chapter 25
Chapter 25
Before Deng Chuan could speak, Xu Wei said, "Hey-"
Her voice was light, and her face betrayed no emotion.
Yang Jing let out an "Aiya," and said, "It's no big deal."
She added, "Are you afraid of people finding out you washed my clothes for me?"
"Or about the time someone confessed to you, you told them to wait, and then led them all the way to the door of the teachers' office?"
Xu Wei lowered her head, dipped a slice of fatty beef into her sauce dish, and said calmly, "Well, everyone knows now."
"Hahahahaha." Yang Jing laughed with schadenfreude, then her expression turned serious in a second. "I'm sorry."
"I apologize for tarnishing Teacher Xu's image."
Xu Wei added a piece of tofu skin to her bowl. "If you truly feel guilty, then eat more and talk less."
Yang Jing's eyebrows shot up as if they were about to take flight. Xu Wei pretended not to see.
Deng Chuan asked curiously, "Why did Teacher Xu have to wash your clothes, Sister Yang?"
"Because we were high school students. I don't know if it's still popular with you guys, but back then, it was really trendy to draw on our school uniforms with ink pens or watercolor markers. We'd draw anime characters and stuff. Wearing a flashy uniform made you feel exceptionally different, like you had a spring in your step-"
"You can see it in me now, right? I've always been a trendsetter. So, I also decorated my uniform to be super flashy, and I felt so cool wearing it every day. But your Teacher Xu absolutely couldn't stand it. She thought I was very non-mainstream."
Xu Wei leisurely picked up a piece of duck blood and said, "And that wasn't non-mainstream? It was hideous."
"I think it's hideous now, but I thought it looked good back then."
"I never thought that looked good."
"Fine- so, one day, after evening self-study, everyone was back in the dorm lying in bed, and your Teacher Xu secretly washed my uniform."
"By the time I found out, she had already scrubbed it with bleach until it couldn't be any cleaner."
Deng Chuan tilted her head. "So what was your reaction then, Sister Yang?"
"Me- hehe- what reaction could I have? Everyone was under a lot of pressure back then. I was afraid that seeing my flashy uniform every day had caused her mental stress to skyrocket, which was why she finally couldn't help but wash it. So I didn't dare say anything, afraid I'd provoke her. After she finished washing it, I even took the initiative to take the jacket from her and hang it up to dry."
After finishing her story, Yang Jing finally freed up her mouth to eat a bite of tofu skin.
Deng Chuan was stunned for a moment, then she heard Xu Wei ask, somewhat speechlessly, "Why do you still remember things like that-"
"I have to remember it. This was the most out-of-character thing you did in all three years of high school."
She winked at Deng Chuan.
"Your Teacher Xu is usually very calm, right? Very composed, completely unlike someone who would do something so manic?"
Deng Chuan nodded.
Xu Wei kept her eyes downcast, gently blowing on the piece of tripe on her chopsticks. After a pause, she explained, "I have a bit of OCD…"
"You don't have pure OCD. You just want everything around you to be presented in a way that pleases you," Yang Jing said.
Xu Wei said lightly, "Perhaps."
She nonchalantly placed a heap of lettuce into Yang Jing's bowl. "It must be tough for you to remember such things. Eat more."
Yang Jing's bowl was already piled high with food. She laughed, lowering her head. "Aiya, is this the special treatment I get for eating with a little friend?"
"Otherwise, when have you ever served me food before?"
"…"
This was Yang Jing's happiest moment of the entire meal.
Because after this, the two people across from her started treating her like a teacup again. Xu Wei didn't eat much and put down her chopsticks early, focusing on scooping shrimp paste for Deng Chuan.
This gradually evolved into scooping beef, scooping bamboo shoots, cooking fatty beef, and cooking squid.
A small mountain of food slowly piled up in Deng Chuan's bowl.
As Xu Wei was peeling a shrimp for her, Yang Jing finally couldn't hold back anymore. "Are you really treating her like a little kid?"
Her words reached Deng Chuan's ears. The little friend who had been composed all evening finally felt embarrassed. The tips of her ears quietly turned red, and she spoke with a mix of happiness and shyness, "I can do it myself."
Xu Wei ignored Yang Jing's comment and also dismissed Deng Chuan's refusal, only saying, "You're still at an age where you're growing. Eat more, you might even grow taller."
But Deng Chuan said, "This height is good enough."
Just a little bit taller than her. Standing together, they were already a perfect fit.
Xu Wei smiled.
By this point in the meal, Yang Jing had only eaten a bellyful of lettuce and tofu skin. She really wanted to tell them that the table wasn't that big; even if they lowered their voices, she could still hear them.
But Yang Jing was a smart person. She tried her best to hold it in and channeled her grief and indignation into appetite, successfully ordering two more plates of hand-sliced lamb to the table.
By the time they finished the hot pot, the first evening self-study session was already halfway over.
The steam from the hot pot had made Yang Jing's beautiful curls lose their shape, and they drooped beside her face. As soon as she entered the parking garage, she gave a jaunty wave and said to Xu Wei, "Talk to you later," before running off.
Deng Chuan watched her car drive out of the intersection.
Xu Wei drove her car over and honked, signaling for her to get in.
The ride back was quiet, but the warm atmosphere from the hot pot lingered. Perhaps the silence in the air was too unsettling, so Xu Wei turned on the stereo.
A female singer's low, husky voice drifted out, like a layer of sandpaper rubbing against the other side of life:
Aren't you somethin' to admire,
Cause your shine is somethin' like a mirror,
And I can't help but notice,
You reflect in this heart of mine.
The song's tempo was steady, the car's speed was steady, and their breathing and heartbeats were steady too.
The streetlights illuminated the faces of the two people in the car.
They were both beautiful, their expressions calm, everything about them perfectly in place. But amidst such a song, such streetlights, and such silence, an unknowable secret emerged, and they both sensed its trajectory.
They both tacitly kept this secret.
This was something completely different from their peaceful lives, their peaceful work and studies. But it appeared so naturally, like a swollen drop of water merging into the sea.
Deng Chuan's young heart swelled with the song, as if it couldn't bear the weight, and she closed her eyes.
The music continued to flow slowly:
Show me how to fight for now,
And I'll tell you, baby, it was easy.
The orange streetlights stood tall into the distance. The traffic was a constant stream, and the endless taillights, from far to near, formed a glittering river of stars. The sky, however, was empty, so black it could suck a person in, with a single white, bright moon hanging on the horizon.
Under such moonlight, they drove, crossing the river of stars, heading toward the deep horizon.
When they arrived at school, it was the break after the first evening self-study session.
The sound of Xu Wei locking the car was like a perfectly timed reminder.
Deng Chuan was instantly jolted from her previous state. She felt the faint, tense atmosphere in the campus air, and her study mode was reawakened.
She adjusted her breathing and followed Xu Wei into the academic building.
On the nights leading up to the final exams, there were an exceptional number of people who were tense and not in a good state. On almost every floor, students could be seen sitting alone on the stairs, holding books and quietly reviewing with their heads down. Even the self-study area that had been abandoned after winter set in because it was too cold was now dotted with the lights of students' personal desk lamps.
Although it was break time, the atmosphere remained tense and quiet.
Xu Wei walked Deng Chuan to the classroom door, then led a group of students with questions toward the office.
Deng Chuan sat down at her desk, her mind as still as water, and reviewed with single-minded focus for two full hours.
Only when the bell rang to signal the end of self-study did she break free from her state of intense concentration. But she didn't leave the classroom immediately. Instead, she lingered along with everyone else until the lights in the academic building were completely turned off, then followed the main crowd back.
She was the one who checked the classroom doors and windows, turned off the lights, and closed the door.
Teacher Xu hadn't come.
Alright, Deng Chuan thought, but tonight was enough.
The distance, the smiles, the secrets, and the moonlight—she would save them to savor in her dreams after the exams were over.
During the two days of final exams, a light but persistent snow fell.
The snowflakes drifted down from the sky, just as the tip of Deng Chuan's pen landed on the exam paper with a soft scratching sound.
The exam hall was arranged by grade ranking, so most of the faces were familiar. After the exam on the second day, the proctor was still at the front, organizing and sealing the test papers. Deng Chuan sat at her desk, packing her things. She saw Wu Fuwu walking out, with Yu Xiao following behind him.
They called out to her, "Deng Chuan! See you next year!"
Deng Chuan couldn't help but smile back. In the hallway, the voices of the teenagers echoed in the winter wind:
"See you next year!"
"Happy New Year!"
"Good luck on the Gaokao!"
Jiang Meng smiled too, her smile the same as when they first met. She also said, "Deng Chuan, see you next year."
There wasn't much luggage to pack to take home. Deng Chuan took her duvet cover and jacket, and also packed a schoolbag full of study materials like her math review workbook and English vocabulary book, which she carried home on her back, heavy and full.
For the first two days of the break, Tang Lijuan came home on time after work and made all sorts of soups for her daughter. This affection was too heavy; the soups, supposedly from Cantonese tonic food recipes, were either too rich or utterly bland.
Deng Chuan had planned to use this as a topic of conversation with Xu Wei, but Xu Wei admitted frankly, "I don't like tonic soups either."
Fortunately, Tang Lijuan's enthusiasm didn't last long. She managed to persist for a rare three days, but seeing that Deng Chuan really didn't like the soups, she decided to let it go. She spent her free time battling it out in online mahjong, considering it a form of relaxation.
The new year was drawing closer. Yang Jing and Xu Wei had gone on a road trip to Xi'an. Xu Wei even sent her a few photos, lamenting that the weather was too cold and that the oil-splashed spicy noodles were delicious.
Their chat history stopped the previous night. Deng Chuan had asked her if she was back from Xi'an, if she had gotten home.
Xu Wei replied: Home. Just landed.
She then urged her to sleep, saying not to stay up late studying, as it wasn't worth it. Lying in her bed, Deng Chuan typed and asked her if she was hungry, if she was going to get a late-night snack.
She had been reading a lot of travelogues about Chaoshan recently and knew that it was called a "foodie's paradise." She felt a strong yearning for Xu Wei's hometown.
Xu Wei didn't reply for a while. It wasn't until Deng Chuan was half-asleep that she heard her phone chime with a notification.
She groggily picked it up to look.
Xu Wei had sent a photo of a late-night snack: a golden fried egg, fragrant braised sauce, and vibrant green cilantro. She told her she was eating now. You're probably asleep, right? Good night.
Good night.
Deng Chuan said silently in her heart.
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