Chapter 315 - 137: Silhouettes Between Classes

Chapter 315: Chapter 137: Silhouettes Between Classes

Youth, perhaps, is watching a crowd of boys and girls do calisthenics from the edge of the sports field.

"Lu Qinglian is leading the exercises," Qingyi said suddenly. "Have you ever seen her do them in her blue robes?"

"I don’t think so..." Zhang Shutong said, trying to recall.

Across the massive crowd, his eyes quickly found a figure in a red and white tracksuit. The girl wore her hair in a high ponytail. Under the relatively bright winter sun, the other students were already panting slightly, with fine beads of sweat on their foreheads and flushed cheeks. But Lu Qinglian’s face was like a piece of flawless porcelain. She was already fair-skinned, and now it seemed to reflect a cold light under the sun.

Her high ponytail rose and fell with her movements. Her form was unhurried and precise—so perfect it could be recorded for a tutorial. It was never exaggerated, nor was it restrained, always perfectly on beat.

The two of them exchanged some meaningless banter before beginning to patrol the school grounds like a pair of inspecting officials.

Du Kang, for instance, was leading Class Three. He could also spot Ruoping, who was bouncing around cheerfully.

Zhang Shutong subconsciously glanced toward the Class Two lines but didn’t see the figure in the red scarf. There were plenty of girls with medium-length hair, and he thought about looking for her hair pendant, but many people were wearing hair ornaments. He gave up.

The *other* side of youth is when everyone else is doing calisthenics, but you get caught by the gym teacher.

"What are you two doing, just wandering around?" The gym teacher had a build similar to that Officer Xiong.

"He’s on the sick list," Qingyi said calmly, pointing.

"He’s my escort," Zhang Shutong added, just as composed.

"If you’ve got nothing better to do, get back to class." The gym teacher shot them a glare, blew his whistle, and ran off to deal with some students who were roughhousing.

The two went to stand on the steps of the academic building.

"Sigh. That injury on your hand is a real pain," Qingyi sighed. "Who knows when we’ll be able to go fishing again. Besides, I bet your mom doesn’t want you running around." ℯ

"Maybe in a few more days? The doctor told me to come back for a check-up next week."

"Don’t forget to go eat at noon."

"Okay." Zhang Shutong nodded. "But just in case, let me confirm something. I was rescued from an avalanche, right?"

"Uh, why the sudden question? Of course you were."

"And that night, I took Gu Qiuyan out of her house?"

"Yeah."

"On Wednesday, we went fishing and ran into poachers? On Thursday, Zhou Ziheng was caught, and on Friday, school was canceled because of the snow?"

"Is there something wrong with any of that?"

"No, just asking."

Zhang Shutong asked a few more things about Gu Qiuyan, like whether the scarf incident had happened, and found that everything matched his memory.

He breathed a sigh of relief. ’Honestly, Qingyi’s behavior was making my mind run wild.’

He made it back to the classroom before the broadcast calisthenics ended. His mission to wander around for the day was complete. Zhang Shutong propped his chin on his desk—not because he liked the pose, but because with one arm hanging at his side, he couldn’t lay his head down properly.

He took out his phone and typed with one hand.

AutumnRain Mianmian:

"Did you go to calisthenics?"

NewPeachTalisman:

"I was in the classroom."

QQ didn’t have a "...is typing" feature. Zhang Shutong knew she was a slow typer; sometimes, a lack of an immediate reply didn’t mean the conversation was over, just that she was still poking at the screen.

Speaking of which, he used to laugh at AutumnRain Mianmian for her one-finger typing style, but he wasn’t much better off now.

"I definitely didn’t see you."

"When?"

"During the morning exercises."

"I went down for a bit. Did you need me for something?"

After a moment, a new message arrived:

"Who said I needed you for something? I was just on my way to the teacher’s office and happened to glance into your classroom." A few seconds later: "Gotta go. Don’t forget about lunch."

Zhang Shutong replied with an "okay."

He had a lunch gathering to attend.

Miss Gu was hosting.

She seemed to have an itch to spend some money. She’d been cooped up for the past few days, and now that her family’s supervision had finally loosened up a bit, she was eager to arrange a meal out.

The location was that mall.

Neither her father nor she herself would ever let her hang around the commercial street again.

Not that Gu Qiuyan cared. She hardly ever shopped there anyway. The rare times she went were just to treat her underlings to a meal.

But besides him, a few of her close friends were also coming.

Zhang Shutong realized he was quite busy now. Lunch with Gu Qiuyan, finding notes with Lu Qinglian in the afternoon... He was finally living the student life he hadn’t experienced in so long, yet he was still spinning like a top.

He took advantage of the time before class to go to the restroom. As he passed Class Two, he happened to hear the light laughter of a group of girls from inside.

Peeking through the back door, he saw Gu Qiuyan—the same one who had just said "Gotta go"—chatting with a few other girls.

She was still in her old spot—the one by the window. It was the same seat she had in Class One, and now in Class Two. The only explanation was that Miss Gu had a special fondness for this particular spot.

Zhang Shutong had expected to see her "little secretary"—the one who became a "big secretary" eight years later and had left a deep impression on him. But they were all unfamiliar faces, or rather, her new Class Two classmates.

Zhang Shutong was thoroughly impressed.

’It really must have been a drag for Gu Qiuyan to be in our old class,’ he thought. ’It seems the theory that she actively isolated herself from everyone wasn’t wrong after all.’

Zhang Shutong didn’t watch any longer. He continued on his way and ran into Du Kang.

His words were muffled by something in his mouth:

"I was just looking for you. Your class’s Teacher Xu is terrifying; she didn’t let anyone go for half the morning. By the way, Shutong, has that punk Wu Shengyu given you any trouble? If he has, just let your bro know."

He grinned, revealing a set of black teeth.

Zhang Shutong froze, then quickly asked, "What happened to you? It’s only been a few periods, but you look like you just took a trip to Africa... No, wait, people in Africa have white teeth."

A closer look revealed that he was eating a bar of chocolate. Dove chocolate.

’Is it raining chocolate today?’ Zhang Shutong grumbled internally.

"Don’t tell me you got that bar from Gu Qiuyan too?"

He was just making a casual comment, but to his surprise, Du Kang actually nodded.

"Yeah. She said her dad got a shipment from the mall, and we can have as much as we want."

Zhang Shutong was stunned again, but not by that. The real point was:

"Aren’t you in Class Three?"

Zhang Shutong had a very strange feeling. He’d only been away from school for a few days, yet there was a subtle sense of oddness hanging in the air.

"Oh, I have Ruoping to thank for it," Du Kang said.

’Zhang Shutong remembered that in one timeline, at the mall, his mom had given Gu Qiuyan a chocolate bar, which she had broken in half to share with Ruoping. In ancient times, military power was relinquished over a cup of wine; today, old grudges were being resolved over a bar of Dove. It even rhymed. The role of chocolate in this world is a powerful constant,’ he thought.

During the break after third period, Ruoping came by to visit his class. The moment she entered, she spotted him doing his homework.

Her triumphant return as the new Squad Leader Feng was quite the spectacle. She plopped down in Lu Qinglian’s seat and leaned over.

"Well, well, look at you, studying so hard?"

"Busy. Do not disturb," Zhang Shutong said dismissively.

Ruoping asked how his hand was, and Zhang Shutong said it was recovering well.

"Who’s your new deskmate? Maybe I know them?"

"Of course you know her. It’s Lu Qinglian."

"Lu Qinglian? How did you end up sitting with Qinglian?"

"The head teacher arranged it."

"Let me interview you, then. How does it feel?"

Ruoping curled her hand into a fist like a microphone and stuck it in front of his mouth. Zhang Shutong knew she was just messing around and turned his head to dodge it.

Ruoping then pretended she was going to ruffle his hair, but Zhang Shutong now had a get-out-of-jail-free card. He raised his injured arm, and Ruoping gritted her teeth and restrained herself.

"From now on, we can only chat during breaks." Ruoping’s face fell. Girls were always more sensitive about these things. "Why did they have to split the classes? We won’t even be in the same graduation photo anymore."

"Now that you mention it, that’s true," Zhang Shutong thought, the realization dawning on him. ’In the past, no matter how the future changed, we were always in the same photo.’ "But we can just take one together separately. It’s not a big deal, right?"

"How is it not a big deal? There’s the yearbook, too! It’s about memories, you know? M-E-M-O-R-I-E-S, get it? And Song is gone, too." Although she was now a squad leader, Ruoping wasn’t as thrilled as one might expect. The girl slumped listlessly onto the desk. "Suddenly, everything feels so boring."

"It’s okay, you still have Du Kang."

"Get lost. *You* have Du Kang."

"Speaking of which, how did you become squad leader?" Zhang Shutong asked curiously. It didn’t seem like Ruoping’s personality; in the past, she’d never cared much for class affairs.

"I was basically mobbed and pushed into it. Suddenly, the emperor’s yellow robe was on me. So I figured I might as well do it for fun."

"Right, let me ask you something," Zhang Shutong said.

"What’s up?"

"Do you remember back in the first year of middle school, you gave Gu Qiuyan a bag of gold coin chocolates?"

Ruoping paused for a second.

"Why are you suddenly asking about that?"

"Qingyi and I were talking about it today. He said Gu Qiuyan handed out a bag of chocolates to Class Two."

"Oh? So what?"

"So that did happen, right?"

"Yeah, it did."

Hearing this, Zhang Shutong finally felt completely at ease.

’Qingyi, even you can be unreliable sometimes, making me all paranoid,’ he thought to himself.

Just then, Lu Qinglian returned. She had probably gone to get some water. She was carrying a transparent plastic cup covered in scratches, with a cartoon bear printed on it. He’d once heard a saying that you could tell a girl’s personality from the style of her cup.

’Wrong.’

Upon seeing Lu Qinglian, Ruoping started chattering away.

"Want to come to the mall for lunch with us? A big group is going."

’If you hadn’t said that, it would have been fine. Now that you have, she definitely won’t go,’ Zhang Shutong thought. As expected, Lu Qinglian shook her head and declined.

Ruoping wasn’t the type to pester someone. Just when he thought she would leave, she asked a completely unrelated question before heading out.

"Oh right, Qinglian, are there really foxes on the mountain?"

Lu Qinglian turned her head to look at Zhang Shutong.

Zhang Shutong returned her gaze with an innocent look.

"I didn’t say anything."

Lu Qinglian looked away.

"What about it?"

"A friend of mine said they saw a fox, so I just wanted to ask. I think I heard a rumor before that there were some on the mountain."

"They appear occasionally."

"So it’s true! Well, see you later..."

Fourth period was a study hall. By the time the dismissal bell rang, Zhang Shutong had finished half of a math worksheet. A message came from Gu Qiuyan, telling him to wait for her at the school gate. He had just put his phone away when the head teacher called him out of the classroom.

Zhang Shutong trudged reluctantly into the office and came out a short while later. He couldn’t be bothered to recall the specifics of the conversation. It was basically just a lecture telling him not to be so restless and to settle down.

’I wonder if it was because I was talking to Lu Qinglian this morning,’ he thought.

He had been delayed for a while. When he got back to the classroom, he saw Lu Qinglian was at her desk, writing something.

’Still grinding through problems?’ Zhang Shutong thought. ’You really are a diligent student.’ He went back to his desk to grab his jacket, only to find that she was grading the quizzes from the morning reading session.

Another one of the academic representative’s duties, probably.

This actually came as a bit of a surprise to Zhang Shutong.

He had thought Lu Qinglian would reject the position outright. After all, she was the type to avoid trouble and wasn’t trying to cultivate a "goody-two-shoes" image for the teachers. He figured she would have refused cleanly, just as she’d refused to count the votes for the new squad leader election, perhaps even causing the teacher to lose a bit of face. Yet she had simply accepted it without any objection.

She was a bit of a contradiction sometimes. Like when she sprained her ankle not long ago, it was hard to tell if she was just used to enduring things, or if she was naturally aloof and therefore indifferent to such matters.

"I’m heading out," Zhang Shutong said, preparing to bolt.

"Do you have the key?" Lu Qinglian asked, frowning.

"Didn’t I give it to you? During the class officer election."

"I mean the key to the rooftop. The door’s locked. I just went to check."

’You’ve got some nerve asking,’ Zhang Shutong thought. ’I’m the one who made a copy of that key in the first place.’

Zhang Shutong knew she had a habit of eating lunch alone on the rooftop.

"Isn’t it under the floor tile on the second-to-last step?"

"Someone took it."

"Took it?"

Zhang Shutong couldn’t help but repeat.

He had hidden that key there for nearly four years. Besides Lu Qinglian, no one else should have known about it.

’Could it be that there’s someone else who uses the rooftop as their secret base?’

That feeling of wrongness was getting stronger and stronger.