BSS - Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Rain was falling outside the window. A fine drizzle wove a net between heaven and earth. The misty rain was hazy, like a dream, washing over the tender new leaves budding on the branches. Fresh air, mingled with the scent of damp earth, drifted in from the window. Everything felt as if it were newly born.
Spring had arrived, just like that, without anyone noticing.
The sky was gray, and the incandescent lights were on in the classroom. Before the neatly arranged desks and chairs, the teenagers hunched over their work shared identical movements and expressions. Books were stacked high, and test papers, covered in annotations of various colors, lay spread out on the desks.
On the bulletin board at the back of the classroom, sticky notes displayed the goals each student had written down.
Deng Chuan finished solving a major problem, let out a soft breath, and looked up toward the teacher's desk.
During the last study hall before school let out, Xu Wei was supervising from the teacher's desk.
One hand rested on the desk while the other held a pen as she graded the newly submitted weekly quizzes. Her expression was serene.
Her focused expression was no different from that of the students in the classroom. It gave Deng Chuan a sense of familiarity, as if they were on the same wavelength.
A sense of peace washed over her.
She gazed at Xu Wei, and the simple act of looking at her brought an inexplicable sense of joy. But the moment of relaxation was fleeting. Deng Chuan was extremely self-disciplined, and she quickly returned to her current mission. Biting her lip, she lowered her head and buried herself once more in the thick workbook on her desk.
Jiang Meng was halfway through a problem when she was startled by the fine threads of rain drifting in through the window. The classroom was quiet, with everyone immersed in their studies. The bright glare of the incandescent lights overhead, set against the fine rain outside, felt like a pale, stagnant dream.
She was in a daze for a moment, and it took a while before she registered her surroundings.
Deng Chuan sat right beside her, their elbows barely a finger's width apart. They were so close that Jiang Meng only had to turn her head slightly to see her profile, lost in concentration.
She was all too familiar with this scene. Deng Chuan's head was slightly lowered, her gaze moving intently over the printed words. The line from her forehead to her chin was perfectly smooth; Jiang Meng felt she could sketch it on paper in a single stroke, right down to the small, prominent bone on the bridge of her nose.
Jiang Meng had stolen countless glances at that profile. During class, between classes, during study hall—even back when they weren't sitting so close, her gaze would travel past the identical blue-and-white shoulders and arms, to settle on that person in a hidden, lingering stare.
Or perhaps it was simply that Deng Chuan's profile was right there, openly drawing her gaze.
Her feelings had arrived silently, like a babbling brook in the night. By the time Jiang Meng became aware of them, they had already soaked the hem of her dress.
They say the essence of love is possession, but Jiang Meng didn't think so. For her, this time of having a secret crush was far sweeter than the confession that came later.
She watched Deng Chuan, saw her win the academic excellence scholarship every year and give a speech as the student representative at the opening ceremony. On the podium, her expression was calm as she spoke, yet her steps were always moving forward. The young woman's face was like a night-blooming cereus, just beginning to blossom in the darkness.
Jiang Meng felt she had been fortunate enough to witness Deng Chuan's growth. Just as now, with a slight turn of her head, she could see the expression in her eyes. So close, within arm's reach, yet so far away, for in four months they would go their separate ways.
Every time Jiang Meng thought of this, it felt like she had swallowed a mouthful of ice water. Her heart ached with a melancholy as fine as the threads of rain outside. But the rhythm of life never paused, always pushing them forward. Her feelings for Deng Chuan were destined to remain unfulfilled, yet it was precisely this doomed love that gave meaning to all her gazes and all her regrets.
She strived to run forward, and she would always remember that such a person had appeared in her youth. She would forever cherish the beauty, and she would forever cherish the regret.
Dusk was falling, yet the clouds had brightened. The slanting rays of the setting sun pierced through a corner of the thick cloud cover, turning the sky into a painter's palette. The rain continued to fall, but its tone had grown warmer.
The bell finally rang, its monotonous tone dragging a long tail, as if it were pulling time along as it ran.
Inside the classroom, the students remained still. A few stood to pack their bags, but the majority seized the moment to finish one last problem before dinner or memorize the day's vocabulary words.
The atmosphere was silent. Xu Wei hadn't left either. She was flipping through the test papers one by one. At last, she folded the stack in half, stood up, and left.
Deng Chuan was oblivious to all this, her head buried in the reference book on her desk.
Studying was a pure endeavor, and she was purely focused on striving for the Gaokao.
The day of the first mock exam arrived quickly.
Deng Chuan sat in the examination hall. Her desk had been wiped clean, but the class schedule and countdown timer taped to it hadn't been removed. The handwriting was elegant. This was a science stream classroom; a few physics calculations were scribbled in the margins of the schedule.
The proctor unsealed the exam papers and began distributing them one by one.
Deng Chuan placed her hands on the desk and took a deep, nervous breath.
An exam paper landed on her desk. The female teacher's long, curly hair brushed against her as she leaned in and whispered, "Good luck!"
She looked up at the sound of the voice. The teacher, noticing her gaze, smiled at her. The bright lipstick suited her well.
It turned out to be her Chinese teacher from her first year of high school.
The teacher had a new hairstyle, which was why Deng Chuan hadn't recognized her at first. She returned the smile. She had been nervous ever since entering the classroom, her expression tense. This small exchange helped her relax a little.
The papers continued to be distributed. The exam proceeded in silence.
The third-year academic building was silent all morning, until the sharp ring of the bell signaling the end of the exam pierced the air, and a clamor was gradually unleashed.
Once the papers were collected, students began to file out in twos and threes, carrying their belongings. The buzz of intense discussion immediately enveloped the entire building.
"Deng Chuan!"
Deng Chuan was unhurriedly packing away her pens when Yu Xiao and Wu Fuwu walked over, carrying their books and pencil cases.
They had all been in the same exam hall, which made it especially convenient to compare answers.
"What did you pick for the second multiple-choice question on the essay reading comprehension?"
"D," she replied after a moment of thought.
The two of them beamed, and the people nearby cast subtle glances in their direction.
"What about the first multiple-choice question in the classical Chinese section?"
She tilted her head, recalling, "I think it was B."
"Great, great, thanks a million." Wu Fuwu visibly brightened and started making faces at Deng Chuan.
Deng Chuan finished packing her things and replied, "You're welcome."
The paths were filled almost exclusively with third-year students who had just finished their exam; the first and second-years were still in class. Deng Chuan returned the Chinese language notes she'd brought that morning to her classroom.
The math exam was in the afternoon. After a moment's hesitation, she decided to take her error-log notebook with her.
The cafeteria wasn't crowded. Deng Chuan grabbed a bowl of noodles and found a seat in a quiet corner, planning to review her error-log notebook before heading back to the dorm for a nap.
The students, energized after their first exam, were fiercely debating answers at their tables. Their voices echoed loudly in the spacious cafeteria.
"For the 'importance' question, it's obviously the summary sentence, so D!"
"But A is about importance too! Isn't A just a summary of the original sentence?"
"The meaning is different, though. D feels like a safer bet."
"How is it different? They look the same to me!"
"I'm not too sure either. But I chose D."
Suddenly, one of the boys who had been eating with his head down looked up and said with absolute certainty, as if delivering a final verdict, "Guys, stop arguing. My friend said Deng Chuan chose D."
The few boys who had chosen A groaned in despair. One of them sighed and asked resentfully, "For real?" After getting a confirmation, he sighed again. "Just finished the exam and I already know I'm down three points... Great."
The boy at his table patted his shoulder and asked, "So what did she pick for the grammatically incorrect sentence question? Every single one looked right to me."
"Don't know about that one. Didn't hear. I picked C."
"Hey, me too! But B looked like it could be wrong, too."
"Dude, stop talking, or I'm really going to lose it..."
The group gradually fell silent and went back to their food. In her corner, Deng Chuan pushed her bowl of noodles aside to let it cool, her hands never stopping as she flipped through her math error-log notebook.
Her fingertips began to idly spin her pen.
She didn't know why, but she always started spinning her pen whenever she did math problems. Perhaps she was entrusting her rapidly working thoughts to the pen twirling between her fingers.
The pen spun, then stopped, as she scribbled on her scratch paper.
Time slipped by quietly.
The first and second-year students were dismissed from class. The cafeteria suddenly grew boisterous. The long, snaking queue was about to reach her table. Her corner was no longer a corner. The surrounding clamor became impossible to ignore. Deng Chuan's pen paused, and only then did she remember her noodles.
The noodles were completely cold. She paid it no mind, packed up her things, quickly finished the bowl, and headed out of the cafeteria.
She scraped the leftovers from her bowl and went to place it on the cafeteria's conveyor belt for dirty dishes. Holding her notebook in one hand, she turned around awkwardly.
There was someone behind her, so she carefully angled her body to the side, her attention focused entirely on the task at hand.
The next second, she felt a warmth on her shoulder. The soup from a food tray had been spilled all over her.
Both she and the other person froze. The pretty girl holding the tray looked even more flustered. She was wearing a backpack, looking as if she'd just come from class. Her eyes met Deng Chuan's, and she began to stammer apologies.
Deng Chuan glanced at the girl, frowned slightly, and said, "It's fine." She then placed her bowl on the conveyor belt and turned to leave.
She had just reached the entrance of her dormitory when a panting voice called out, and a hand grabbed her sleeve. "Senior!"
The girl's face was flushed from running. She was carrying a bag of yogurt and snacks, obviously purchased in a hurry from the school store. "I'm really so sorry... Why don't you give me your clothes, Senior? I can wash them for you..."
Deng Chuan said again, "It's fine. There's no need." Only this time, her tone was much gentler.
The girl sensed the shift in her tone and seized the opportunity, pressing the bag into Deng Chuan's hands. "If you won't let me do that, then you have to take this, Senior. Otherwise, I'll feel terribly guilty..."
Deng Chuan repeated, "There's no need," and added a polite refusal, "I have to get back."
The girl stubbornly tugged at her sleeve. Deng Chuan was surprised by her strength; in the ensuing struggle, the girl gripped her wrist tightly. "Senior, I'm Wang Chaowei from Class 3 of the second year. I'm really, truly sorry..."
Deng Chuan tried to subtly pull her hand away. "It's really fine. Please don't worry about it."
"Why don't you just give me your jacket, Senior? I'm really, really sorry..."
The girl held onto her with one hand while reaching for her arm with the other, creating what looked, at first glance, like an embrace.
Deng Chuan, growing exasperated, struggled to free her hand. "Classmate, please let go of me."
But the girl was relentless. "Senior..."
The two of them stood by the path, drawing glances from passersby.
This was getting ridiculous. Deng Chuan started to feel frantic. She used more force, trying to pull her wrist free. The girl was still apologizing, looking as if she were about to cry, but her grip on Deng Chuan didn't loosen.
Right in the middle of this struggle, she suddenly heard a clear, calm female voice:
"Deng Chuan."
The tone was placid. The two words drifted over, as light as a fish gliding into a still pond.
The girl's movements froze. Both of them looked toward the source of the voice.
The fish swam into the depths of the pond, sending ripples spreading in circles. Xu Wei was standing quietly not far away. She beckoned to Deng Chuan. "Come here."
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