Chapter Twenty-Six: The Pink Light
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“Nan’ge, that guy is pretty fierce!” said the slightly plump boy.
“Indeed.” Zheng Nange smiled as he offered his assessment.
“Stop fighting! The police are here!” Zhou Luoyao shouted.
Clatter!
Lin Cheng dropped the brick, then wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Zhao Guangtao had clearly taken the worse beating.
…
Zhou Ye grinned at Lin Cheng. “Take a breather. When they ask you something, answer. If they don’t ask, don’t say anything!”
Zheng Nange merely smiled, as though somehow easing the faint tension between the two of them.
Actually, when Lin Cheng had turned and run off earlier, he had called his butler, Cao Yunping, and told him to report that students were being attacked outside Wuzhou High School. Then he had rushed back…
By the time Cao Yunping arrived with his people, Lin Cheng and the others had already been taken to the station to give their statements.
Cao Yunping was utterly stunned. It had only been a street fight—so why had the bureau chief himself shown up?
One by one, the grade head, the principal, and the homeroom teachers arrived.
Amid the hum of voices, Yu Yan, Lin Cheng, and Zhao Guangtao each went home…
Seven bald men already constituted an organized criminal gang. Reconciliation was out of the question!
As for whatever sentence they received, that was no longer the school’s concern.
Principal Huang Yi gave specific instructions: to protect the students, their identities were not to be made public, and the school would not commend them for their bravery.
Zhao Guangtao did not appear anywhere in the official version of events, while the fact that Lin Cheng had thrown the first punch was “technically” reinterpreted… The traces of three young men from powerful families could faintly be discerned behind the whole operation.
Yu Yan’s homeroom teacher knew about her family situation.
He made a special request: Yu Yan should live at school.
Now that, Lin Cheng thought, was what it meant to have a school—and a teacher—that truly cared!
…
…
In September, all of Wuzhou was steeped in the fragrance of osmanthus.
Perhaps even the people of Wuzhou smelled faintly of osmanthus!
Principal Huang Yi, however, was not particularly interested in the waves of floral scent drifting in through the window.
His attention was fixed on the list of students selected for overseas exchange lying on his desk.
“This Lin Cheng was only just chosen for special development, and now he’s gone and caused such a huge commotion!”
He could not help recalling Lin Cheng’s glorious past—cutting class and ending up dangling from the school fence. His feelings were tangled and complicated.
Fortunately, the whole incident had been contained within the smallest possible sphere of influence. At last, his heart was able to settle…
Sunlight broke into fine fragments across the glass window. As light and shadow flowed, they resembled the marks left by the movement of a clock hand.
As always, Zhuang Sijing entered the classroom with the bell. The moment she sat down, she suddenly said to Lin Cheng:
“I… Dingdang Cat is so beautiful! Even I, a girl, love watching her!”
Lin Cheng thought to himself, I looked so incredibly cool yesterday, and this is how you ignore me?
Zhuang Sijing tossed him a box of chocolates and said anxiously, “Oh no, you probably frightened Dingdang Cat yesterday, you savage! Ah…”
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Lin Cheng: “…”
That was how people who were close to you behaved!
They never cared about how impressive you had been!
Instead, they focused on where you had messed up along the way—
then “mercilessly” pointed it out, leaving you without even the slightest sense of satisfaction!
Before long, Yao Jingying sent him a text message:
“Tonight at eight, Yu Yan wants to meet you outside Xingzhi Bookstore. Are you free? Reply as soon as you see this.”
Lin Cheng replied instantly: “See you there!”
After graduating from elementary school, Lin Cheng and Yu Yan had lost touch. Once they entered high school, Yu Yan had not wanted anything to do with him at all!
At the time, Lin Cheng had been both playful and clueless. It was not until after graduating from university that he finally understood why. By then, however, the water had long since flowed beneath the bridge…
The very day Yu Yan entered her first year of high school, she was officially recognized as the school beauty!
During military training, many boys from the upper grades deliberately came to watch her, along with students from the other classes…
She was the school beauty? Then… what about Su Xiang?
Put it this way: in those days, three great beauties on Earth had simultaneously been crowned the flower of the planet.
Two of them were France’s Sophie Marceau and Isabelle Adjani.
The other was Italy’s Monica Bellucci.
The remarkable thing was that all three appeared on the same continent…
Likewise, Hong Kong’s Vivian Chow, Christy Chung, Chingmy Yau, and Joey Wong all belonged to the same small circle, working hard to make better lives for themselves.
Yu Yan was the dream of her classmates!
Many years later, even after countless people had married, they still could not forget her.
Later, when WeChat became popular, a class reunion inspired one “young rascal” to post a long essay in the middle of the night:
I remember that before the sports meet, everyone was out running. At a glance, I saw her warming up in athletic shorts.
Her exposed legs were white and straight, with a flush of pink beneath the pale skin.
Under the setting sun, they seemed to radiate a rosy glow.
They were beautiful as jade. More devastating still, those legs accentuated her healthy, vigorous, upward-spirited air.
It struck straight at hearts that had spent more than a decade in a state of innocence.
Our hearts all skipped several beats.
More than ten years have passed.
Yet the sunlight of that moment, the beauty before me, even the emotion I felt then—the heartbeat, the warmth—all of it remains imprinted on my heart.
I have never found that feeling in anyone else again…
The comments below exploded instantly:
“That was Yu Yan, wasn’t it?”
“What do you mean, our hearts? Your heart was the one that skipped several beats!”
“I love Yu Yan…”
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“It didn’t skip beats. It burned straight through your chest!”
“Yu Yan! Yu Yan! Yu Yan!”
Yao Jingying: You bunch of perverts, all of you shut up!!!!
Yao Jingying: The perverts above—disappear immediately!
It was Yao Jingying who finally brought that awkward adventure in sincere confession to an end:
…
…
When the setting sun dyed the horizon crimson, the first- and second-year students gradually emerged from the school gates with their satchels on their backs, blending into the streams of people.
Quite a few cars were parked outside, all there to pick up children. Some of the license plates were especially eye-catching.
There were also a few motorcycles, as well as parents standing expectantly beside bicycles.
But they were in the minority. After all, this was high school. The students had already begun comparing themselves with one another. A parent arriving on a bicycle with a basket hanging from the handlebars, or on a motorcycle with its seat peeling, was inevitably less dignified than someone arriving in a luxury car. That might also have been why so many students disliked being picked up.
Most students went home by themselves, making the shops along the street exceptionally lively.
It was also an excellent time for admiring pretty girls—and flirting with them.
The third-year students still had evening study sessions ahead of them, which meant they were precisely at the point of greatest hunger.
Zhou Luoyao pointed toward a barbecue restaurant and said to Lin Cheng, “How about we get something to eat?”
Zhou Luoyao, Zheng Nange, and Zhou Ye did practically everything together.
Lin Cheng asked, somewhat puzzled, “Where are Zheng Nange and your brother?”
Zhou Luoyao pouted. “They went out to have fun!”
Skipping class to go out and play during the third year of high school was the most exhilarating thing in the world…
Lin Cheng shook his head with a helpless smile, and the two of them entered a cold-drink shop.
This was Zhou Luoyao and the others’ usual base. The barbecue and wolf-fang potato strips here were excellent, so the place was always packed.
They had barely collected their drinks when Su Xiang walked in.
Su Xiang noticed Zhou Luoyao as well and smiled at her.
There were many people inside. Seeing that Su Xiang could not find a seat, Zhou Luoyao pointed toward their table.
Clatter!
At a nearby table, a boy who had been staring only at Su Xiang dropped the grilled fish in his hands onto the floor.
A beauty of such breathtaking perfection truly possessed overwhelming force, as though the entire stage had been created solely for her.
Anyone who did not know better might have assumed that Zhou Luoyao and Su Xiang were very close. In truth, beautiful women each had their own magnetic field and generally did not draw too near one another.
“Are you here alone, or do you have a beauty waiting for you?” A glint flickered in Zhou Luoyao’s eyes as she gave Su Xiang a teasing look.
“You’re the one with a beauty waiting for you! I came out looking for something to eat.” Su Xiang smiled as she teased Zhou Luoyao in return.