Tongcheng had always enjoyed excellent public security. While it hadn't quite reached the level where people could leave their doors unlocked at night, its crime rate was consistently the lowest in the province.
People often said that even the local thugs in Tongcheng had higher standards than those in other cities. Years ago, a news report surfaced about a local, honest noodle shop on the verge of bankruptcy. The neighborhood hoodlums spontaneously started frequenting the shop to eat. They didn't fight or cause trouble; they just sat quietly, ate their noodles, and paid their bills, miraculously saving the business. Later, when journalists investigated, they discovered the owner, a man named Yuan, was a former gang leader who had retired. Because he was only skilled at being a thug and lacked any business sense, the shop had been hemorrhaging money...
There were many such human-interest stories in the local news. Tongcheng had a few small, disorganized gangs, though "disorganized" was an understatement—they frequently made the news for helping elderly women cross the street or giving up their seats on the bus to seniors, which was considered a total embarrassment to their "tough" reputations. Aside from that, nothing as serious as murder or arson ever really happened.
Recently, however, a truly major incident occurred. It made the local newspapers, taking up a significant portion of the layout.
The report stated that a junior high school girl had gone missing. Her parents were remarkably negligent, waiting nearly two months before reporting it to the police. The girl had just finished her High School Entrance Exam and planned to visit a nearby prefecture-level city with friends, a plan she had cleared with her parents in advance.
The parents were rarely home themselves; they ran a small business and were often out of town ordering and collecting stock, so they didn't keep a close eye on their daughter's whereabouts. It wasn't until they realized she hadn't replied to a text or answered a call in nearly two months that they realized something was wrong.
Once they sensed the danger, they hurriedly contacted the classmates she was supposed to be traveling with, only to learn that they had returned long ago. Furthermore, when they had boarded the bus for the trip, the girl had stood them up and never showed. In other words, she had never left the city with them at all.
She hadn't gone on the trip, she wasn't at home, and there had been no word from her for two months. With the new school year about to start, the parents finally thought to call the police. The officers found the situation quite difficult. Too much time had passed, and they had missed the "golden forty-eight hours." It was impossible to determine the exact time or location of her disappearance, and they didn't even know if she was dead or alive. The police were still following up on the investigation, but the newspaper didn't mention any current progress.
At the time, Tan Zhengqi was shaking out the newspaper and sighing. Seeing Tan Junzi squatting nearby, packing her luggage, he said, "Look at this. She just finished her exams, same age as you. You have to be careful. Last time you mentioned that little friend of yours, Qin-something..."
Tan Junzi was forcefully stuffing a toiletry bag and sunscreen into her duffel. The new tenth graders were heading to a suburban military training base in a few days, and she had been packing for nearly two hours, terrified of forgetting something. Squatting for so long had made her a bit lightheaded. "Qin Ruanshu. Grandpa, why can't you ever remember her name? We've known each other for eight years, and every time you call her 'Qin-something'."
The sound of the front door opening signaled Chang Ying’s arrival.
She shook her bottle of sunscreen; there was only a bit left at the bottom, definitely not enough. Military training lasted seven days, and since they were going to a remote base, she needed to be well-prepared. *Right, I need a small tube of toothpaste too,* she thought. She moved to go to the bathroom to grab it and stood up abruptly. The sudden movement made her vision swim with stars. As she stumbled back a step, a pair of large hands gently caught her by the back.
"Whoa, falling over already?" Chang Ying caught her naturally, as if steadying a tipped-over bottle of oil. The moment Tan Junzi regained her footing, she reflexively jumped away. Chang Ying blinked in surprise.
"You're just in time," Tan Junzi said, acting as if nothing had happened. "Let's go to the supermarket. I have some things to buy. Think if there's anything you need." She shook the sunscreen bottle at him.
***
It might be a bit embarrassing to admit that a girl as spirited as her couldn't ride a bicycle. However, there was a theory that those who could ride a tricycle couldn't ride a bicycle, and vice versa. Tan Junzi belonged to the former category; Chang Ying belonged to the latter.
When they were little, she used to pedal her grandfather's tricycle, racing Chang Ying all around the courtyard. Now, it was Chang Ying's turn to ferry her here and there on his bicycle.
She remembered when she tried to learn to ride a bike in middle school. she couldn't turn and could only ride in a straight line. Chang Ying had taken her to a park on the outskirts of town where there were fewer people and a large open space without trees to teach her.
Chang Ying was patient, but no matter how he taught her, she couldn't get the hang of it. Tan Junzi wasn't afraid of falling, though; her style was incredibly confident. Once she got moving, Chang Ying couldn't even keep up. He watched helplessly as she sped off in a perfectly straight line and rode directly into the moat.
The moat was essentially a stinky ditch filled with silt and trash, though it wasn't deep. Chang Ying had crouched on the bank, looking at Tan Junzi with stinking weeds draped over her head, feeling both amused and helpless. "Maybe stop learning? I'll just give you rides from now on, okay?" On the way home, Chang Ying felt like he had a "Grimer" on his backseat—smelly but well-behaved.
Later, Tan Junzi didn't actually make him drive her everywhere. She usually walked to school, or took the bus for one stop if the weather was bad, since it was close. It was only for the weekly major shopping trips that she would call on Chang Ying and his bike.
***
It was a bit of a distance from home to the supermarket, about a ten-minute ride. That supermarket was one of the largest and most well-stocked in Tongcheng. Whenever she ran out of daily necessities, she would drag Chang Ying there, because the small shops near her house often sold unreliable or counterfeit goods.
At this moment, Tan Junzi felt incredibly awkward sitting on the backseat. Ever since that dream, she found it difficult to even look at Chang Ying. She sat sideways, and usually, she would rest one hand on his waist for balance. Now, however, her hands were tightly gripping the metal bar of the luggage rack, avoiding any contact with him.
She didn't know if Chang Ying noticed her awkwardness; he probably didn't. He was chatting with her casually as he pedaled, seemingly unaware that she was afraid to touch his waist.
But even without touching him, Tan Junzi could feel the faint heat radiating from the boy's back, brushing against her arms. It was a hot summer, and many boys smelled of sweat, but Chang Ying smelled wonderful—a very fresh scent of laundry detergent mixed with fabric softener, underpinned by a faint, elusive woody fragrance. She couldn't identify the wood, but if she had to describe it, it was like a forest after a snowfall. One whiff and you knew it was Chang Ying.
Starting from that woody scent, her thoughts began to wander. Suddenly, the bike hit a bump, and Tan Junzi felt a sudden weightlessness. Like a roller coaster, they plunged down an incredibly steep slope. Terrified, she instinctively threw her arms around Chang Ying's waist. Before her long, drawn-out "Ahhh!!!" could even finish, Chang Ying slammed on the brakes at the bottom of the hill.
"Which road is this? I don't think we've ever taken it before." Tan Junzi let go of him, looking around in confusion. She didn't remember a steep hill on the way to the supermarket.
Chang Ying turned halfway back, a half-smile playing on his lips. "I took a shortcut today. I didn't realize there was such a drop. Sorry."
The apology sounded entirely insincere.
Tan Junzi even had the suspicion that he knew the hill was there and did it on purpose.
"...You scared me to death. That was way too steep." Tan Junzi didn't know what else to say. A moment ago, she had been clinging to his back like a koala.
Chang Ying reached out and patted her head—or rather, he tried to smooth down a few stray hairs that had puffed up. "Then remember to hold on to me tight... Why won't this strand stay down?"
When Chang Ying started pedaling again, Tan Junzi obediently held onto his waist. But she didn't know where to put her hands. A bit lower? A bit higher? Strange, where did she usually put them?
Her hands shifted up and down his waist, making her feel like she was being inappropriate.
Suddenly, Chang Ying took one hand off the handlebar and, without even looking back, accurately caught her fidgeting wrist and pressed it firmly against his side. "Tan Junzi, I didn't realize it before, but are you trying to take liberties with me?"
Chang Ying tilted his head. His hair fluttered in the wind, but his voice was calm. "Stop moving around." Having said that, he let go of her hand and returned it to the handlebar.
*If you touch someone, you have to take responsibility.*
Tan Junzi stopped moving. Sitting on the backseat, she felt as still as an amphibian on a tree trunk—like a lizard or a chameleon.
But her palms felt like they were on fire. The boy's waist was firm and hot. It felt as if ten thousand ants were crawling from his waist to her hands, then up her arms to her heart, her brain, and her entire body. She felt a tingling numbness, as if she were floating in mid-air. It wasn't exactly uncomfortable, but it wasn't comfortable either; it was just... unsettling.
***
The two-and-a-half-month summer break passed both slowly and quickly. There had been several high-temperature warnings that summer, and even as September approached, the daily temperature hovered around thirty degrees Celsius. If it stayed this hot, the freshmen's military training was going to be brutal.
The students returning to school hadn't quite found their rhythm yet. Some were sluggish from staying at home, while others were exhausted from the final days of frantic homework-cramming.
Half of the new class consisted of students who had been promoted directly from the school's own junior high division. The other half were students who had achieved excellent scores on the High School Entrance Exam and earned their spots. Today was only a half-day for distributing books, meeting new classmates, electing class monitors, giving start-of-term speeches, and explaining the details for the military training departure the following day.
As she entered the school gates, Tan Junzi saw a familiar figure, but the person vanished into the teaching building so quickly she thought she might have been mistaken.
When she entered the classroom, she realized she hadn't been wrong.
"Qin Ke...?" Tan Junzi saw Qin Ke sitting in the Class 1, Grade 10 classroom. She thought she had walked into the wrong room, stepped out to check the sign, and then walked back in.
Today, Qin Ke was obediently wearing the new school uniform—no old-man undershirts, and no toothpick in his mouth. He looked like he hadn't slept enough and was leaning his chair back against the rear wall with a strangely arrogant air, eyes squinted as he dozed. It was hard to tell if he actually wanted to sleep or not in that position; the chair looked like it could tip over at any second.
Tan Junzi stood in front of him. "What are you doing here?"
Qin Ke lifted an eyelid and yawned. "You're allowed to go to school, but I'm not?"
Well, it wasn't that... but his words did make Tan Junzi feel a bit guilty. In her mind, it seemed normal for Qin Ke to appear in any corner of the city *except* for a school. But thinking back, she had run into him during the physical exams, which meant he really was a new tenth grader.
Students continued to trickle into the classroom, and some old classmates greeted Tan Junzi. She pulled out the chair in front of Qin Ke and sat down. The homeroom teacher hadn't assigned seats yet, so everyone sat wherever they liked.
When Zhang Da walked in and saw Tan Junzi talking to Qin Ke, he found the boy familiar. After a moment, he realized with surprise that it was the guy from the KTV front desk. However, he didn't say anything. He and Luo Zihan exchanged their usual greeting—calling each other "idiot"—and he pulled up a chair diagonally in front of Tan Junzi.
Eventually, almost everyone was present. The homeroom teacher was a young man who looked to be about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, wearing glasses and looking quite refined and gentle. He hurried into the room clutching a notebook, his face turning red the moment he saw dozens of pairs of eyes fixed on him.
He stood at the podium for a while, checked his watch, and seeing it was time, he braced himself and began his introduction. "My surname is Li, and my name is Li Wei. You can call me Teacher Li. I am the homeroom teacher for Class 1, Grade 10, and I will also be your Chinese teacher..."
Just then, Chang Ying strolled into the classroom right on the dot. He was carrying a bag of milk and a steamed bun, with his backpack gripped in one hand, looking like a stoic old official as he entered. He was just barely not late.
Chang Ying was so composed that if he hadn't been wearing the uniform, one might have mistaken him for the homeroom teacher. He scanned the room, first looking at Tan Junzi, then searching for an empty seat. There was only one left, in the very first row, directly in front of the teacher. He walked over and sat down expressionlessly. He tucked the bun into the desk drawer and dropped his backpack by his feet.
Chang Ying sitting in the first row was a major obstruction. The row of students behind him felt like they had become rhinoceroses, with Chang Ying being the horn right in the center of their vision. As soon as he sat down, Jiang Chenchen, a student from their old middle school class, impatiently poked his shoulder.
Chang Ying turned his head. "?"
"You're blocking me. Lower your head." Jiang Chenchen's glasses were as thick as bottle bottoms, and his greatest annoyance in life was anyone interfering with his studies. He was currently busy scribbling down Teacher Li's introductory remarks.
Chang Ying looked at him, puzzled. "Is there even anything on the blackboard?"
Jiang Chenchen pursed his lips. Seeing Chang Ying's indifferent attitude, he immediately shot his hand up. "Report, Teacher Li! Chang Ying is too tall; he's blocking my view of the blackboard!"
Teacher Li was bewildered. "Is there... anything on the blackboard?" This batch of students seemed a bit too enthusiastic.
Jiang Chenchen: "..."
***
