Hopeless Romance (GL) - Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Pei Lang had originally applied to Teacher Chen for permission to live at home during the training, but after being rejected, he negotiated it down to going home for dinner. His excuse was a “stomach condition” that required a specific nutritional diet for every meal. According to Pei Lang, he had already sacrificed two meals for the sake of the intensive training, and in all fairness, the teacher had to let him go home to eat. When verifying the situation, Teacher Chen spoke to Pei Lang’s mother. Her voice was steady and indifferent; Teacher Chen rarely encountered parents who were so lacking in enthusiasm.

Having participated in intensive training once before, Pei Lang was naturally much better adjusted than the seventh-grade newcomers. Besides, the evaluations hadn’t started yet—the truly difficult days were still ahead. Initially, he hadn’t cared much about the math competition; even without the “direct admission” perks that came with winning, his grades were more than sufficient. However, after failing to make the cut last year, his mindset had shifted significantly. Putting direct admission aside, he was determined to win the math competition prize this year.

Although Pei Lang had promised he would try to slip out, Jiang Zhouchi was uncertain. There were so few students in the training camp compared to the usual crowd, and the teachers’ focus was concentrated, leaving little room for anyone to exploit a loophole. Nonetheless, Jiang Zhouchi arrived early at the school gate to wait. After being dropped off that morning, she had gone home to spray on some perfume. She remembered it was a gift from Meng Sihua of Class 3—a boy who had pursued her for a long time using the standard playbook of gifts and love letters, ranging from breakfast snacks to expensive perfumes and clothes. Jiang Zhouchi had accepted plenty, but she never opened the letters; they likely ended up being sold to the scrap station by her mother. At the moment she pressed the nozzle, the woman lying on the narrow bed behind her sniffed deeply and whispered, “How fragrant.” The fine mist formed a dense barrier, isolating Jiang Zhouchi from that voice. In her mind, she was already envisioning a more beautiful future.

“Didn’t you say it was hot? Why didn’t you change?” Jiang Zhouchi was still wearing the same outfit from earlier, though she had rolled up her sleeves. She had intended to change, but after rummaging through her things at home, she truly couldn’t find a single decent alternative.

“It’s fine, and it’s too much trouble anyway.” Even in front of Pei Lang, Jiang Zhouchi was an expert at masking herself. “Did I act well just now?” This was her first time doing something like this—playing the role of a mother, and her boyfriend’s mother at that. She had struggled not to laugh and had even lowered her voice to sound more mature.

“You were amazing. How else would I have gotten out? Right, Mom?” When Pei Lang’s mischievous side took over, he couldn’t resist a joke. He was quick, grabbing her hand before she could hit him, and led her toward the mall near the school. Since it was the winter/summer break, the shop owners at the school gate had all gone on vacation, so they had to go further away to find food.

Pei Lang still remembered the first time he saw Jiang Zhouchi. The cafeteria at noon was a surging tide of hundreds of students in identical uniforms. Jiang Zhouchi, holding her tray, moved through the crowd and happened to stop right in front of him. He had heard the name many times before, always in the context of how stunningly beautiful she was. Pei Lang was a narcissist; he knew he was good-looking, and others were happy to validate his looks and aura, so he hadn’t paid much attention to a beauty that existed only in hearsay. But the moment she came face-to-face with him, Pei Lang suddenly understood the girls who had always stared at him. Her long, unpinned hair partially covered her face, but the eye that remained visible seemed to pierce right through to his thoughts. In the dimly lit space, her features became blurred and even more beautiful. In that moment of distraction, he heard her ask him to move. He snapped out of it and stepped aside, and as the scent of her hair drifted past him, Pei Lang’s face flushed in the ambiguity of the moment.

Later, he did some digging, asking classmates who knew the seventh graders. In a campus this large, there are always a few whose minds aren’t on studying but are masters at socializing—it felt like there was no one at Yunchuan Middle School they didn’t know. Thanks to Jiang Zhouchi’s widespread reputation, finding out about her wasn’t hard. There was a fairly familiar seventh grader named Kong Qi who knew her situation quite well. According to him, so many people asked about her that he could list not just her class and age, but her hobbies and interests as well. Pei Lang thought Kong Qi was a lot like the “paparazzi” mentioned in newspapers.

Pei Lang couldn’t bring himself to follow the crowd by sending gifts. It wasn’t about pride; it was just that whenever he saw a pile of gifts and letters on his own desk, he felt burdened. Not only was the affection overwhelming, but the money spent on those gifts made him feel pressured. He figured Jiang Zhouchi probably shared this annoyance, especially when people suddenly jumped out to hand her love letters on the way home—he wondered if she ever got scared. Despite always being pursued and gaining plenty of experience in rejecting people, he hadn’t made any progress in other areas of romance.

Fortunately, the workload at Yunchuan was heavy and the competition pressure was high, forcing Pei Lang to distract himself. It wasn’t until he was playing basketball with friends that he heard boys on the next court talking about Jiang Zhouchi. One of them, a failed suitor, was resentfully speculating on what kind of guy she would actually like, still believing he was more than a match for her. Another boy, holding a ball, said his girlfriend told him Jiang Zhouchi had admitted to liking Pei Lang—though she had heard it from a classmate of Jiang’s. Who knew how many mouths that rumor had passed through before traveling from that classroom to this small basketball court? True or not, a girl as radiant as Jiang Zhouchi was a fitting match for someone like him. Since the universe had let him hear it, he decided it was true.

Despite having many thoughts and receiving advice from friends, Pei Lang didn’t find any of it quite right—though his eventual first step wasn’t particularly graceful either. He remembered that girl he’d met at Teacher Mao’s tutoring session—the one who looked completely oblivious to gossip and happened to be in Jiang Zhouchi’s class. He didn’t want to show up in front of Jiang Zhouchi too abruptly, so he decided to abruptly bother her classmate instead. He didn’t exactly get an answer from Ye Du, but he seemed to realize what he had to do. Perhaps he had planned it all along, and the time just hadn’t been right until the restlessness became unbearable.

When Kong Qi found her and said Pei Lang wanted to meet after school, Jiang Zhouchi experienced an unprecedented surge of joy. The boy sitting on the distant bleachers was finally walking toward her, step by step—even though she had walked a very long road alone to make it happen.

Ginkgo trees were everywhere at Yunchuan Middle School, their lush new green providing a sense of coolness in the height of summer. Pei Lang and Jiang Zhouchi walked side-by-side under the shade, keeping a small distance—the perfect gap for a first encounter. For the most part, they were silent. Pei Lang was truly terrible at intentional small talk and felt it was rude to get straight to the point. Finally, it was Jiang Zhouchi who spoke first, asking him how he dared to ride a motorcycle at such a young age.

To Pei Lang, motorcycles were an instinct. He remembered the feeling clearly from the first time he stood on a podium. As a young boy, when he was first placed on the seat, he wasn’t afraid; he just found it novel. After falling many times, he became familiar with the sport and gradually started competing. Today, riding a motorcycle was as natural as eating or sleeping. He didn’t know how to describe the feeling to her. After a thought, he said, “Maybe when God created me, He put a motorcycle inside.”

“So there’s a vehicle in your stomach?” Jiang Zhouchi couldn’t help but remember her childhood, when her mother forbade her from swallowing watermelon seeds because they would grow into big watermelons in her belly. She used to be so scared she’d spit them out immediately, sometimes so fast the juice would run down her chin, looking quite pathetic.

Pei Lang patted his flat stomach and said, “Then I might have to disappoint you.” Many memories of learning to drive were unveiled during this conversation. Without realizing it, Pei Lang talked a lot. Feeling it wasn’t right to only talk about himself, he asked her about her childhood.

Regarding her childhood, Jiang Zhouchi still loved that period. Her father was still there, her mother was still normal, and she could be just a kid like everyone else. Her strongest memory was her parents taking her to fly kites every year. The kites were handmade by her father, with a different design every time. In her memory, her mother was an expert; as soon as the string reached her hands, she could control it perfectly. Most of the time, she succeeded on the first try, unlike her father, who had to try several times to get the kite up. Once it was flying, the string would be handed to Jiang Zhouchi. Watching the kite climb higher and higher, her joy grew. Sometimes, if she saw someone else’s kite flying higher than theirs, she’d throw a tantrum, and her father would coax her by promising to make an even better one next year. Year after year, the kites flew to a distant place.

“When I was little, my mom took me to learn dance. It hurt so much and I hated going. I wasn’t like you, doing something I loved.” Jiang Zhouchi thought to herself that it was common for girls to learn dance and just as natural to quit when they grew up. Drawing from stories she’d heard, she wove a convincing tale of a girl who studied ballet but gave it up because of the pain.

When the second bell rang, Pei Lang realized they had circled the campus twice. “I’m sorry, I kept you from going home.” He knew he finally had to say what needed to be heard.

“It’s fine,” Jiang Zhouchi said quietly to herself. No one is waiting for me at home anyway.

“This is for you. Read it when you get home, okay?” The hand Pei Lang had been keeping in his school uniform pocket now dropped into Jiang Zhouchi’s palm. She felt a folded letter, still holding the warmth of the sender, matching the temperature of his fingers.

Truth be told, Jiang Zhouchi couldn’t remember how many such letters she had received, but this was the first time she felt the same nervousness and shyness as the other person. The crowd of graduating seniors suddenly broke the school’s silence, their clamor drowning out Jiang Zhouchi’s racing heart and Pei Lang’s slightly trembling voice, allowing them both a chance to act composed.

Jiang Zhouchi did indeed wait until she got home to open the letter, but from the moment Pei Lang stopped, she had already sensed his intent. Perhaps judging others’ affection for her was one of her instincts. Pei Lang’s handwriting was a bit wild compared to his face—several parts were hard to read—but the key information was written out stroke by stroke. After reading it, the first thought that entered her mind wasn’t the content, but curiosity over why Pei Lang didn’t choose better stationery. She didn’t expect something from a fancy gift shop, but it shouldn’t have just been a piece of scratch paper.

A week after sending out his first-ever love letter, Pei Lang still hadn’t received a reply. He even began to wonder if she had accidentally lost it. In his relatively short life, he had experienced many unforgettable moments—winning awards, speaking as a student representative, being the star of the sports meet—but as he turned his head and saw Jiang Zhouchi standing at the back door of the classroom, he felt no moment could ever be more radiant than this.

“Pei Lang, I say yes.” He noticed that when she spoke, she liked to tilt her head slightly to the left. With her beaming smile, she looked incredibly cute.

People often say that spring is the season for hearts to stir. Pei Lang, however, felt that summer was also quite nice.