Hedgehog's Belly - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

During physical education class, the badminton teacher called for independent practice.

“So you’re saying Sister Luo went, but she also came back?” Yan Qingzhu balanced a shuttlecock on her racket, her tone carrying a hint of confusion.

“Yeah. She definitely went.” Ye Nanqiao squatted to the side, propping her face in her hands, her gaze helpless.

Yan Qingzhu frowned: “How do you know?”

After a long pause, Ye Nanqiao slowly uttered: “Because I didn’t go.”

Yan Qingzhu was full of question marks; these two were clearly acting at cross-purposes. After returning the borrowed racket to its owner, she sat with Ye Nanqiao on a corner bench. Autumn was deepening, and the leaves outside the window rustled. A cool breeze lightly kissed the beads of sweat sliding down Yan Qingzhu’s neck, creating a hazy, cold beauty under the light.

Ye Nanqiao recalled that day when she was still bragging to Luo Daier about getting a ticket, yet somehow things turned out like this.

Her mind kept replaying the scene.

“Jiahui, I got a ticket!” Ye Nanqiao brandished the ticket, turning to look at Luo Daier, but Luo Daier didn’t meet her eyes, simply turning a new page in her chemistry book.

“Sister Daier?” Ye Nanqiao frowned slightly, calling her name several times without a response.

She sat directly in Yan Qingzhu’s seat, quickly brushed aside the hair by Luo Daier’s ear, and snatched her earphone off. Ye Nanqiao hadn’t expected her fingernail to graze the other girl’s ear cartilage; the person let out a low “tsk.”

The ear is a most sensitive spot. Luo Daier instinctively covered her ear, squinting as she glared at the person in front of her. Their eyes met; facing Luo Daier’s sharp gaze while holding the wireless earphone in one hand, Ye Nanqiao’s heart suddenly skipped a beat, and a cold sweat broke out on her back.

The memory of blowing air into Luo Daier’s ear shortly after school started—and the resulting “lesson” Luo Daier gave her—was vivid in her mind; Luo Daier had given her the cold shoulder for an entire week after that. If it had been Yan Qingzhu instead, a physical fight would have been unavoidable.

“Um… Sister Daier, don’t be mad at me, let me explain—” Ye Nanqiao stammered, frantically searching for an excuse.

“Do you understand the English reading comprehension questions you got wrong?” Luo Daier snatched the earphone back. Although her tone was a bit cold, there was no trace of blame.

Ye Nanqiao didn’t expect this reaction: “I understand them all.”

Luo Daier sighed, her gaze falling back onto the textbook, her voice faint: “Be careful next time. Find proper evidence in the text before making a choice.”

Ye Nanqiao nodded slightly, but she didn’t like how Luo Daier always talked about reading comprehension questions. They were clearly best friends, yet they never mentioned anything outside of studying; it was truly boring.

“Sister Daier, are you going to the vocal group’s performance this afternoon?” Ye Nanqiao asked despite already knowing the answer, just to confirm the bet she had made with Yan Qingzhu.

“Not going.” Luo Daier flipped through her book, jotting down a few annotations in the margins.

As expected, she was more stubborn than a mule.

But in the next second, Luo Daier paused. She turned back to Ye Nanqiao and asked cautiously: “Are you going?”

“But you’re not going, and Yan Qingzhu is part of the judging panel.” Ye Nanqiao sat in Yan Qingzhu’s chair, leaning her body back to stare blankly at the ceiling fan. The blades were being nudged by the wind from the window, making a mechanical “creak.”

“Going by myself would be so boring.” “But I still want to go.”

Her tone was solemn and sincere; those were Ye Nanqiao’s true feelings.

“Even if you guys aren’t there, I’m going.” Ye Nanqiao smiled at Luo Daier, reckless and proud.

Unexpectedly, Luo Daier looked down for a long time before coldly uttering a single sentence.

“If only you put this much effort into your studies.”

Then she pushed her chair back, stood up, and walked out of the classroom.

She didn’t notice the change in Ye Nanqiao’s expression.

Those familiar words floated to the surface from the deep reaches of memory, only to be pushed back down by Ye Nanqiao. Whenever anyone asked about her dreams for the future, Father and Mother Ye would always shield her behind them, answering with a smile: “Our Nanqiao is going to study finance in the future.”

But little Nanqiao would tug at her father’s hem and whisper: “But I want to study food science.”

“Are you stupid? Once you have money, you can hire the best chefs. Why would you cook?” Mother Ye had pulled little Nanqiao into a corner. “You should learn from your older brother. Put your heart into studying; don’t think about these useless things all day.”

Ye Nanqiao lowered her head, her eyelashes trembling as she slowly watched Luo Daier’s silhouette. Her voice was laced with exhaustion.

“But Sister Daier, not everyone wants to get into a top university like you.”

Sister Daier, I really want to be your friend. I worked hard to get onto the Top 50 list not for the grades, but because I wanted our names to be close together. Stop talking about English reading comprehension; I want to hear your story. But I don’t know you at all.

It was lunch break. Ye Nanqiao lay on her desk, her thumb stroking the Foreign Language Festival ticket. Under the refraction of light, it shimmered like a laser rainbow, gorgeous and dazzling. Ye Nanqiao marveled that the school had been so thoughtful to design the ticket as a commemorative one, several levels higher than ordinary paper tickets. Her gaze drifted out the window, where she spotted a familiar figure.

When she stepped outside, the junior student was stamping her feet nervously; her face showed a hint of relief the moment she saw Ye Nanqiao.

The junior said anxiously: “Senior, do you have a ticket for the vocal department?”

She got straight to the point.

Before Ye Nanqiao could react, the junior hurriedly explained, her voice carrying a sob as she rubbed her eyes. “I originally wanted to watch with my friends, but I don’t have a ticket yet…”

Ye Nanqiao’s brow furrowed. She felt bad for the tearful girl in front of her. Just as she was thinking of handing over the ticket hidden behind her back, the junior spoke again.

“Senior Ye, the workload for you second-year students is very intense right now, isn’t it? Won’t going to the Foreign Language Festival affect your studies?” The junior cried quite convincingly. Ye Nanqiao finally realized this person had come prepared. “After all, you’re a Top 50 scholar. Scholars don’t like going to festivals, do they? If Senior…”

Before the junior could finish, Ye Nanqiao thrust her cherished ticket directly in front of the girl.

Her voice was low: “Zhou Li, if you want it, I can give it to you.”

But as the junior’s face lit up and she reached out to take it, Ye Nanqiao suddenly lifted the ticket high above her head. The junior’s eyes widened, watching Ye Nanqiao in surprise.

Ye Nanqiao stood there, cold as frost, her gaze devoid of emotion. She stared down at the junior. “I have never been a ‘scholar.’ But scholars can also like these activities, understand?”

“Take it.” This time, Ye Nanqiao’s heart softened. “After you’re done watching, remember to give the commemorative stub back to me.”

The junior wiped away her last tear, gave a ninety-degree bow of thanks, and then scurried away.

When she returned to her seat, Ye Nanqiao looked deathly still. She lay on the desk, hiding her face with her arms, the corners of her eyes slightly red.

Her seatmate, A-ya, rubbed her head and asked softly in a light tone: “You clearly wanted to go so much; why did you give the ticket away?”

Although A-ya’s grades weren’t good, she was kind-hearted. Usually, she didn’t care about the noise of the “Childhood Friends Squad,” but whenever Ye Nanqiao’s mood dropped, she could sense it instantly.

Ye Nanqiao buried her face in her arms and simply shook her head without saying a word.

A-ya knew she felt wronged.

After a long time, Ye Nanqiao peeked her head out, her voice slightly raspy. “When I was in middle school, someone was always stealing money. The homeroom teacher asked the class president to tally the number of people who lost money.”

“At that time, I inexplicably lost fifty yuan, so I went to tell the class president.” Ye Nanqiao closed her eyes, recalling the look of confusion on the middle school class president’s face, followed by a contemptuous smile.

“Does the Great Miss Ye actually care about fifty yuan?” Who knew the class president would roll her eyes and push Ye Nanqiao aside. “Can the ‘Great Miss’ not be greedy at a time like this?”

Later, the story spread to everyone. The instigators added fuel to the fire, the sensible ones acted mysterious, and the bystanders threw shade. By the time it reached Ye Nanqiao’s ears, it had become a story of “Miss Ye Nanqiao” forcing the whole class to raise funds for her.

The “Great Miss of Jingguan Garden” was greedy for small change and utterly stupid.

When facing her homeroom teacher, Ye Nanqiao still insisted on the truth, but in the end, the teacher only dropped one sentence.

“It’s just fifty yuan. Your family is so well-off, you shouldn’t care about such things.”

When she wanted to protect her own interests, she was instead called inconsiderate and greedy.

“The teacher brushed it off, and I spent the most difficult three years of middle school that way.” Ye Nanqiao sighed, resting her head on her other hand.

After her older brother found out, he used money to settle the matter. Only then did the homeroom teacher exonerate Ye Nanqiao in class, saying people should believe in the truth and not be blinded by rumors.

But the rumors didn’t let her go. Three years later, when Ye Nanqiao was a freshman in high school and checked the middle school forum, those filthy words still existed. Eventually, she made up her mind to delete every single contact related to middle school.

Her brother told her when she was little: what can be settled with money isn’t a problem; what can’t be settled with money is the real problem.

Ye Nanqiao finally understood.

“It’s just a festival ticket; if I gave it away, I gave it away.” Ye Nanqiao forced a difficult smile, her tone weary. “If I hadn’t, who knows what kind of gossip people would have started.”

A-ya only smiled faintly. Ye Nanqiao knew A-ya didn’t care about the gossip; she just wanted someone to talk to. She was well aware that A-ya was nothing like the Childhood Friends Squad; instead, she was like an emotional hollow tree—as long as she spoke, A-ya would listen.

A-ya wouldn’t laugh and tease like Yan Qingzhu, nor would she nag about studying like Sister Daier.

But Ye Nanqiao knew that A-ya really wasn’t like a “friend”; she felt no sense of belonging with her. A-ya wouldn’t bother to remember Ye Nanqiao’s preferences or birthday, and she didn’t care about her daily habits at all.

Ye Nanqiao could still distinguish between a friend and a “hollow tree.”

While everyone else was at the event with their tickets, only a few remained in class for self-study, and Ye Nanqiao was among them.

Every time the window was forgotten, a gust of wind would scatter the test papers on the desks all over the floor.

And it happened exactly while Ye Nanqiao was working on an English reading comprehension question.

She was halfway through the article. After getting up to pick up the test papers, she didn’t know where to start reading again. Ye Nanqiao could only feel a slight sense of suffocation before forcing herself to continue.

What time is it now? The performance should be halfway through, right? Real idiot, always thinking about things outside the article.

When she sat back down, thinking she would finish the last passage properly, her drowsiness grew even stronger.

Can I take a quick nap? Ye Nanqiao’s eyelids drooped; she felt her left and right eyes fighting each other—a battle no less intense than a brawl with Yan Qingzhu. At this moment, she wished she could give Yan Qingzhu a punch to wake herself up.

She cautiously looked back to check and realized she didn’t see Sister Daier’s silhouette.

Ye Nanqiao chuckled; she would just lie down for a little bit.

But as her consciousness gradually blurred, she was suddenly yanked up by a force. Before Ye Nanqiao could react, she instinctively explained in a panic: “I wasn’t asleep!”

Luo Daier’s face was flushed, her breathing slightly shallow. She gripped Ye Nanqiao’s wrist, her tone urgent: “You didn’t go to the festival?”

Ye Nanqiao noticed that the corners of the other girl’s mouth were trembling slightly, and her eyes were full of worry. This made Ye Nanqiao confused; the person who said she wasn’t going was the one in front of her, so why was she the one who seemed surprised?

“I didn’t go. Is that weird?” Ye Nanqiao looked innocent and helpless, pulling back against Luo Daier’s grip. Luo Daier’s gaze happened to fall on the English test paper on Ye Nanqiao’s desk.

Ye Nanqiao rubbed her head against Luo Daier’s school uniform jacket, looking up with a face full of smiles, like a child waiting for praise.

“I marked all the original text properly. Look how good I am.”

But Luo Daier didn’t praise her; instead, she kept dwelling on the original question.

Luo Daier was full of confusion: “You wanted to go, didn’t you? Why didn’t you go?”

Ye Nanqiao was momentarily speechless; at this moment, the person in front of her seemed a bit like a stranger. Her tone carried a trace of calm—a calm that masked helplessness. “I just wanted to hear you praise me.”

“Besides, going by myself would be so boring.” Ye Nanqiao paused, her other hand pinching herself. It was the first time she had said something against her heart to Sister Daier: “What does this kind of thing matter anyway? If I really want to go to a live house, traveling to a few different cities is no problem.”

Indeed, if she really wanted to go, no one could stop her except herself.

“Nanqiao, if you want to go see it, I can certainly accompany you.” Luo Daier met Ye Nanqiao’s gaze, her eyes deep and warm, her tone intense despite the ache in her heart. “Yan Qingzhu can play around with you, and so can I.”

I only hope you think of me constantly; I only hope I am the first one you think of.

Ye Nanqiao lifted her lashes slightly, her dark pupils staring straight at the person in front of her.

But Sister Daier, I don’t want you to do things you don’t like for my sake.

“Sister Daier, you treasure me so much, of course I know.” Ye Nanqiao stood up, led Luo Daier back to her seat, and placed her hands on the girl’s shoulders, gesturing for her to sit down. She instead took the English test paper and sat beside her. “I don’t want to play around today; I want Sister Daier to praise me for studying hard.”

“Yan Qingzhu has company, of course, but our Sister Daier is all alone. So, I came to keep you company.” Ye Nanqiao showed the first few reading comprehension articles she had finished to Luo Daier, asking giddily, “Am I great?”

Luo Daier lowered her eyes slightly, the tips of her ears turning red. She took the English test paper and nodded.

“It’s such a shame the school’s commemorative tickets were made so beautifully this time.” When Ye Nanqiao finished the last reading comprehension question, she suddenly remembered her instruction to the junior to return the commemorative stub; she figured she was being utterly stupid.

The “Great Miss of Jingguan Garden” was indeed utterly stupid.

But just as Ye Nanqiao finished speaking, Luo Daier pulled a ticket out of her school uniform pocket. She placed the commemorative part on the desk and pushed it in front of Ye Nanqiao. “The stub was torn off; I don’t know if that matters.”

Ye Nanqiao instantly jumped out of her seat, her face pale with shock. Luo Daier, who never liked activities, actually had a hidden ticket!

Ye Nanqiao trembled, almost stammering, “No… when did you get this?”

“A long time ago.” Luo Daier’s tone was flat. She sat calmly in her seat, their reactions being poles apart. Seeing Ye Nanqiao’s shock, she explained, “Yan Qingzhu gave it to me; I wasn’t going to use it anyway.”

In truth, it was a ticket she had privately communicated with Yan Qingzhu to get. She just knew that if the person in front of her wanted to go but was afraid of not having a ticket, she should have one ready. She understood Ye Nanqiao’s habits well; even without her, Nanqiao would definitely find a way to get one. Luo Daier always thought: But what if? What if she needs it?

“You actually went?” Ye Nanqiao looked at the commemorative stub without the entry portion and cautiously moved closer to Luo Daier.

Luo Daier knew very well that the event wasn’t her goal. But for some reason, just hearing that the person was going somewhere she wasn’t interested in made her feel like it wasn’t so boring anymore. She just wanted to see her again and say: What a coincidence, you’re here too.

Luo Daier didn’t respond directly, but Ye Nanqiao guessed most of it and gave a calm smile.

I didn’t expect Sister Daier to like watching performances too.

“Then this time, I’ll count it as Sister Daier accompanying me.” Ye Nanqiao’s tone was brisk as she leaned back and stretched. “Too bad staying here with me isn’t as interesting as a performance.”

The corners of Luo Daier’s mouth lifted slightly. She handed her the left earphone. Ye Nanqiao took it and put it on. She couldn’t help a mischievous grin: “What, are you giving me a private concert?”

“Ours.” Normally, Daier would dismiss Ye Nanqiao as childish, but at this moment, she admitted it.

Ours, and only ours.

Ye Nanqiao hummed softly along with the gentle rhythm, the melody carrying a trace of worry and sadness. Ye Nanqiao never cared about the lyrics, but the earphone sang:

I also want to declare my love aloud, And I often hold a fluke of hope for the future. Hoping to get the world’s permission, To candidly call her full name once, and then speak of my love.

Ye Nanqiao was immersed in the atmosphere of the song, but she was curious—so Sister Daier liked listening to such somber songs? She was so good to her—remembering she liked Green Plum Green Tea, remembering to bring her along when getting water, always organizing study materials for her. But what about herself? She seemed to know nothing about Daier at all.

Ye Nanqiao was truly a big idiot.

“Ye Nanqiao,” Luo Daier called.

“Eh? Yes!” Ye Nanqiao’s rationality snapped back to clarity.

Luo Daier’s lips trembled slightly, but she hesitated. Suddenly, a cool breeze blew into the classroom, blowing the test papers and books on the desk to the floor.

“Who is it? Why didn’t they close the window again!” Ye Nanqiao said irritably, bending down to pick up the scattered test papers.

And in the moment that the person in front of her bent down, Luo Daier’s lips moved silently. By the time Ye Nanqiao picked them up, Luo Daier was shielding the corner of the table with her hand. Ye Nanqiao smiled and asked her what she had said.

“You finished the reading comprehension questions on your own today. Great job,” Luo Daier smiled faintly.

Hearing this, Ye Nanqiao’s eyes crinkled with joy. She waved her hands excitedly like a child. “Yay! Sister Daier praised me!”

Her happiness was truly filled with love and bliss.

Luo Daier looked at the other girl’s smiling face.

Then I’ll wait until I can candidly call her full name to speak of my love.