You Said You Liked Me, Didn’t You? - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It was impossible for Nan Yang not to notice such a prolonged gaze. She turned her head to look over, froze for a moment, and subconsciously averted her eyes. However, she quickly looked back, gave a polite and courteous smile, and immediately left the classroom with her friend.

Li Canglang withdrew her gaze and lowered her head slightly. With her hands clasped over her knees, she sat quietly in her chair, appearing calm on the outside, though her eyes were somewhat out of focus.

The afternoon sun slanted westward, passing through the classroom doors and windows, cutting distinct boundaries of light and shadow across the desks. Fine dust motes danced up and down over the books. In the distance, the faint sound of the school broadcast could be heard, mixing with the surrounding clamor. An inexplicable feeling welled up in her heart, causing the corners of her eyes to grow slightly moist.

After a long while, Li Canglang calmed her emotions, let out a long breath, and stood up to leave the classroom.

In this city, No. 1 High School was the best high school. Most of the students studying here had excellent academic achievements, while a small fraction came from wealthy families; either their scores or the school choice fee had to meet the standard.

Compared to ten years later, the school buildings were still the same ones. Only minor aspects like the greenery and streetlights had undergone subtle changes.

Outside the school, however, it was vastly different. It seemed that outside every school, stationery shops, bookstores, milk tea shops, and snack carts were indispensable. Over the course of ten years, these places had changed hands many times.

It was exactly dinner time. As Li Canglang walked along, her eyes were filled with snacks: hand-shredded pancakes, seaweed rice balls, langya potatoes, bobo chicken, bozai cakes, egg cakes, red bean cakes…

It seemed like things hadn’t changed that much either… Left and right, there were students in school uniforms. The appetite of one’s youth was also very simple.

A strange sense of wonder arose in Li Canglang’s heart. Unlike the nostalgic sighing of revisiting an old haunt in the past, she had truly returned to her student days. Thinking of this, her footsteps couldn’t help but become a bit brisker.

Passing through another inconspicuous small alley and turning in a few steps, she arrived at a mutton rice noodle shop.

The fragrance drifted all the way outside the door. The somewhat dated signboard did not affect the flow of customers at all. Li Canglang walked into the shop, swept her gaze around, and suddenly froze.

Nan Yang was also in the shop.

She could swear that she absolutely, definitely had no intention of tailing her. It was entirely a coincidence; she had not expected Nan Yang to happen to be here as well.

Nan Yang was facing directly toward the entrance. Her gaze swept past her, and her expression didn’t change, as if she hadn’t noticed.

Li Canglang found an empty seat to sit down by herself, instead of pressing forward to sit together. They were not familiar with each other yet, and being too enthusiastic would only produce the opposite effect.

Out of the corner of her eye, she unconsciously glanced at Nan Yang. Nan Yang was saying something to the friend sitting next to her. Li Canglang couldn’t hear very clearly, but seeing the way she smiled, she spaced out again.

Come to think of it, meeting here wasn’t entirely a coincidence; both she and Nan Yang liked this shop very much.

This shop had been open at No. 1 High School for many years. It was run by a married couple. The owner was a kind-hearted auntie in her forties, and occasionally her husband would come to help out.

Not to mention the taste was excellent, the price had always been very conscientious. Sour cabbage rice noodles were three yuan and fifty cents, and adding beef or mutton made it five yuan. Even up until Li Canglang graduated from university, it had always remained at this price.

However, it later closed down and was transferred to someone else, though it was unknown whether it was because they couldn’t make money or because they grew old.

After she and Nan Yang became well-acquainted, they would occasionally come to this shop together. One time, she happened to be wearing a black baseball cap. Because she was wearing a loose school uniform and was relatively tall, she was somehow mistaken for a boy by the auntie.

When it came time to pay, it just happened to be Nan Yang’s turn. The auntie glanced at her and muttered, “Young man, how can you let your girlfriend pay for a bowl of noodles?”

She was stunned for a moment, exchanged a glance with Nan Yang, and for some reason, her brain short-circuited. She explained awkwardly, “Auntie, she is not my girlfriend.”

The auntie gave an “oh,” remaining completely unmoved, and the way she looked at her still didn’t change.

By this time, the change had already been handed over. It wasn’t convenient for her to explain her gender further, so she could only acquiesce to the misunderstanding.

Nan Yang stood beside her, biting her lip to hold back her laughter. Once they stepped out of the shop door, she burst out laughing, looking her up and down as she said, “It really is easy to cause a misunderstanding. Why don’t you grow your hair long?”

She replied gloomily, “For the sake of studying. Managing long hair wastes too much time.”

Nan Yang was temporarily at a loss for words and joked, “Top student, can you please not work so hard? Leave a path of survival for the rest of us.”

Pausing for a moment, she lightly tapped her chin with her index finger, showing a thoughtful expression again, “But, it seems to make a certain amount of sense. It really is a hassle.”

“Actually, looking at it this way, it’s quite handsome,” Nan Yang turned around, put her hands behind her back, tilted her head, and looked at her with a smile for a while, before teasing again, “If you were a boy, I would be willing to be your girlfriend.”

At that time, an inexplicable ripple had arisen in Li Canglang’s heart. Not knowing how to reply, she only said with a straight face, “Stop messing around.”

Thinking about it now, she was truly too cowardly. If it were her current self, she… no matter what, would at least have joked back…

While her thoughts were wandering, the mutton rice noodles were brought to her. A clear broth base, snow-white rice noodles with a few thin slices of mutton floating on top, sprinkled with chopped green onions and cilantro, with a golden crispy pastry resting against the edge of the bowl.

Li Canglang first tasted a mouthful of the soup—it was still the familiar flavor. Picking up her chopsticks, when she poked at the cilantro, she froze again.

She had lived in the North for a period of time when she was a child and grew to love beef and mutton; every time her family bought some, she would look forward to it eagerly. She also quite liked seasonings like green onions and cilantro.

Nan Yang, however, hated the taste of cilantro, and the two of them could hardly reach an agreement on this matter.

When they went out to eat together during university, every time the restaurant accidentally put it in, they would pick it out.

While helping her pick it into her own bowl, Li Canglang would deliberately mock and ask, “If your future partner loves to eat cilantro particularly much, what will you do? Does the food at home have to be cooked in two separate portions?”

Nan Yang glared at her, thought seriously for a moment, wrinkled her nose, and said very reluctantly, “Eating a little bit… that… wouldn’t be impossible, I guess.”

Pausing for a moment, as if remembering something, she added seriously, “But! Before kissing in the future, you must remember to brush your teeth first.”

Li Canglang immediately doubled over with laughter. Under her death stare, she only felt that she was truly adorable.

She thought that if it were her, she would definitely be unwilling to let Nan Yang force herself. After that, she rarely ate cilantro either.

It seemed that because she had returned to her youth, her memory had also improved. Those things she had deliberately tried to forget reappeared clearly in her mind, triggered instantly.

Li Canglang pulled back her thoughts, rubbed her face, and controlled herself not to reminisce further. She picked out the cilantro from her bowl and lowered her head to focus on slurping her noodles.

She ate very quickly. After finishing, she just sat in her seat, holding her chopsticks and pretending she was still eating, while using her peripheral vision to pay attention to the movements of Nan Yang and her friend.

Based on her understanding of Nan Yang, she wasn’t passionate, but she wouldn’t be overly cold either; she would say goodbye when leaving.

Who would have thought that Nan Yang acted as if she hadn’t seen her and walked straight out.

Li Canglang was stupefied for a moment. She hastily put down her chopsticks, caught up, and said, “I’ve finished eating too. Let’s head back together.”

Since they were classmates from the same class, everyone naturally wouldn’t refuse, though they cast a slightly surprised look at her.

In the past, Li Canglang’s image in the hearts of other classmates was actually a bit aloof. She didn’t seem like someone who would proactively say “let’s go together.”

She was tall and slender, kept her hair short, and always had her brow furrowed. She was never seen fooling around with other girls or linking arms to go to the restroom together.

Yet, to say she was unsociable wouldn’t be accurate either. She also served as a subject representative, being conscientious and responsible, having a sense of presence in the class, and getting along reasonably well with the classmates around her.

It was hard to describe, as if she carried a vibe of detachment that prevented people from getting too close.

Leaving the shop door, Nan Yang’s two friends walked on her left and right, so Li Canglang had no choice but to walk on the outer side, separated from Nan Yang by a girl in the middle.

Because of the addition of her, someone they weren’t very familiar with, the three of them seemed at a loss for what to chat about. They fell silent for a few seconds before picking up the previous topic.

“The first paragraph mentioned a sentence, it should be arguing that this is not unique to humans by showing that monkeys also have learning capabilities…”

“Sigh, I didn’t notice that. I thought the whole text was…”

Li Canglang listened quietly for a while and discovered they were still discussing the foreign language exam from earlier.

She couldn’t help but fall silent. Back in the third year of high school, was everyone really this passionate about studying? They wouldn’t even let go of dinner time.

In her impression, it didn’t seem that exaggerated.

Could it be because she had turned into a poor student now and had lost her top-student heart, which was why she appeared completely out of place?

Her expression seemed to turn a bit gloomy. Nan Yang glanced at her and changed the subject, “Alright, let’s stop talking about the exam. Anyway, the answers will come out during evening self-study.”

“But I heard that the third year of high school requires reseating based on grades. What if I performed poorly?”

“Yeah, we might have to sit there for a semester. I don’t want to sit next to xxx; her ranking last exam was just behind me. Ah~ I really want to sit next to you two.”

Okay, fine. Li Canglang felt even more depressed.

As it happened, the classmate next to her saw that she kept her head down without speaking and thought she couldn’t join the conversation, so she kindly took the initiative to ask her, “Li Canglang, who do you want to have as a deskmate?”

Li Canglang turned her head to glance at Nan Yang. Nan Yang happened to be looking at her too.

“Nan Yang,” she replied.

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