Transfer students always become the center of attention, and I am no exception.
At first, people were curious about the special car that picked me up and was said to be "cool and flashy", and then they speculated about my background and origins. Later, after hearing my name, they all gasped in surprise.
It turns out that my reputation as a "ghostly" person has indeed spread far and wide as Aixi said, otherwise, they wouldn't have immediately looked as if they had seen a ghost after listening to my self-introduction.
I was insecure about my reputation.
For several days, there were always people with nothing to do surrounding me, watching everything I did.
One afternoon, someone finally recalled the scene of my first visit to Baisha, and shouted and exposed my past: "Ha, I was wondering why she looked familiar, isn't she the 'grass-headed girl' who stopped Senior Jian Chen at the school gate that day? It's true, Senior ignored her, but she actually followed him to Baisha College, she's really shameless."
Someone immediately expressed surprise: "Ai Banxia, ​​why did you suddenly come here?"
Amidst the mocking or contemptuous gazes of the crowd, and the whispers in my ears, I greeted them with a smile, without hiding the purpose of my coming here.
"Because of Jian Chen."
Everyone fell silent and looked at each other.
Some people sneered in disdain, while others kindly reminded me: "Ai Banxia, ​​Senior Jian Chen has a girlfriend."
I still kept smiling and replied calmly: "Yes, I know."
"I knew you still said such shameless words!" The girls who were fed up with it roared at me excitedly.
I shook my head nonchalantly and said, "Liking him is my own business, pursuing him is my own business. It has nothing to do with whether he has a girlfriend or not, because it's his business whether he accepts it or not. But everyone has the right to pursue the person they like."
Obviously, most people found it difficult to accept my point of view. Not long after, the news that I, Ai Banxia, ​​was going to pursue Jian Chen spread like wildfire on campus, and all kinds of criticisms came my way.
I didn't care about these criticisms, but I didn't expect that this would bring Jian Chen directly to me.
Friday is the day when students are not allowed to wear school uniforms at Baisha College.
I have always known that I am beautiful.
The small oval face looks even thinner because of the pair of big round eyes; the rosy pink on her cheeks because of the warm afternoon sunshine is just the right amount of beauty; her short, thin hair has only three or two half curls playfully turned outwards at the tips, and because her hair color is too dark, the graceful half-curls are dotted with faint blue under the snow-white light.
The dress is made of organza, and is paired with a long cashmere coat in the color of green apple, which almost covers the entire dress. Only when she walks gently can a corner of the intricate and beautiful white lace skirt be vaguely revealed.
This is the Ai Banxia that I have always known and loved. But, God knows, at this moment, how much I hate this short hair, no wonder the little peacocks in Baisha College call it "grass pile", obviously most of the girls in this school have thick long curly hair.
I recalled the girl who accompanied Jian Chen twice, her thick curly hair was stunningly beautiful.
Maybe Jian Chen also likes long hair.
Thinking of this, I began to feel discouraged unconsciously.
But, I am Ai Banxia, ​​the invincible Ai Banxia, ​​the Ai Banxia who never gives up.
He raised the corners of his mouth almost in a huff, and smiled stubbornly and willfully at himself in the mirror, but his heart was beating wildly for a long time.
Because this moment is different from the past, this is the first time that Jian Chen has taken the initiative to ask someone to meet me.
The agreed time had long passed, and the boy I had been waiting for did not show up.
Pink cherry blossoms fell all over the school's boulevard. I stood stiffly under a cherry tree, looking expectantly at the people coming and going on the street.
I believe that as soon as Jian Chen appears, I will be able to recognize him from the crowd at a glance.
Because he is a little stone! The little stone that I have hidden in my heart and silently recited countless times, with his eyebrows and eyes deeply engraved in my heart!
That was in the orphanage. The only little stone that gave me warmth was this little stone. It is the warmth that I cannot give up now that I am lacking love!
However, when the boy I had been waiting for for a long time appeared in front of me, hugging the girl in a bright red sweater and with black curly hair, my heart, which had been beating violently because of this meeting, suddenly felt like being pierced by a needle, and I was so painful that I couldn't speak for a while.
"Are you Ai Banxia?"
The boy's tall figure stopped in front of me, looking down at me who was half a head shorter than him, his eyes squinting coldly, his brows furrowed impatiently, and asked me. Next to him, the breathtakingly beautiful girl, gently smiled and took his arm, declaring her ownership.
Students passing by kept stopping to look.
I pretended not to hear what he said and kept my eyes fixed on the girl next to Jian Chen.
It was a face with a confident expression, proud and beautiful, with bright red lips on the fair face, beautiful and flamboyant.
I know very well that a man like him must be surrounded by beautiful women.
However, I didn't expect that the opponent was so beautiful, so confident, and so strong.
"I heard you like me?"
Without any concealment, Jian Chen raised his eyes slightly and spoke to me indifferently.
My wandering mind was finally pulled away by him. Meeting his cold eyes without any emotion, I shuddered suddenly and tried to force myself to remain calm.
"Yes, I like you!"
I like you, little stone.
I didn't say the latter sentence because I was afraid of being ignored by him again, and being told once again that he had long forgotten Little Stone and the days when we kept each other warm in the orphanage.
"But, sorry, I don't like you!" It was a very straightforward rejection, without a trace of warmth.
My heart ached. I wanted to smile and calmly tell him, "It's okay, as long as I like you." However, he didn't even give me a chance to continue smiling. The moment I finished speaking, Jian Chen had already pulled the beautiful girl next to him and lowered his head.
The girl seemed to have known what he wanted to do, and she naturally raised her head and went to meet him.
When they kissed each other in front of me so tacitly, I realized that it takes a lot of strength to force a smile.
I stood there in a daze, like a puppet with its strings pulled, staring blankly at the well-matched couple kissing passionately under the cherry tree.
I didn't even have the courage to go up and separate them.
"See? Stop liking me. Your liking annoys me. I don't like people always putting my name together with 'evil beast' or 'grass stump'. I think you understand what I mean!"
It was not until Jian Chen and his female companion had left for a long time that I came to my senses, loosened my clenched fists, and looked at the nail marks on the palms of my hands, feeling indescribably sad.
I slowly reached my hand towards the atrium on the left side of my chest and discovered that the place was in extreme pain.
I raised my head stubbornly and blinked hard to prevent the tears from falling.
I promised Aisi in my heart that his sister would not cry.
This is just the beginning, Ai Banxia, ​​you are not such a weak person. If you cry like this, what will you do in the future?
After not seeing each other for ten years, it is normal for Xiao Shitou to forget you, as long as he doesn't forget you for the rest of his life.
I secretly told myself that as long as I didn’t give up, my little stone would come back to me one day.
Because he knows that I need his warmth.
I went home, lay on the bed, and put myself in a "big" shape, thinking about nothing, just emptying my mind.
The bedroom is on the second floor. Through the huge French windows, you can clearly see the raindrops "crackling" on the banana leaves in front of the window. The world is soaked by the drizzle and becomes clearer bit by bit, as clear as the sky in early summer ten years ago.
At that time, he and I were both under the blue sky of City B. I met him on the first day I was sent to the orphanage. The director took my hand and introduced me to the children. Some older children who liked to play pranks made ferocious faces at me. I was so scared that I grabbed the director's clothes and hid behind her. No matter how she persuaded me, I just kept crying and refused to show up.
After a long time, someone gently pulled my clothes and said, "Don't cry, sister. Here's some candy."
I looked up with sobs, and through my tearful eyes I saw a pair of dark eyes looking at me earnestly. Those eyes seemed to be filled with tiny bits of sunlight, so gentle and soft that they made people trust them immediately.
"I caught a very beautiful butterfly. Do you want to see it?" He came and pulled my hand.
I had always been in a state of keeping strangers away, but I actually let go of the dean's clothes and let him lead me.
"My name is Xiao Shitou, and you? What's your name?" He stopped, tilted his head to look at me, and clumsily wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes with his fingertips.
Seeing me shaking my head, his beautiful eyebrows slightly frowned, and he repeatedly comforted me: "It's okay, it's okay, I didn't even remember my name when I came here."
"Here's some candy for you." He passed the transparent piece of candy to my mouth. "If your mouth feels sweet, you won't want to cry."
The sweetness melts in the mouth, slowly spreading to the left side of the chest, and then accumulates and settles there bit by bit, becoming an indelible memory.
To the extent that, for many years after we separated, I didn't dare touch any kind of candy.
"Can I call you Banxia from now on?" His narrow eyes curved like a beautiful crescent moon. "Half, the summer part. Banxia came here when the summer is halfway through."
Half of half, summer of summer.
It carries all my beautiful memories of summer.
Later, he, who was only two years older than me, became my protector in the orphanage.
At that time, I lost all my memories. No one told me where I came from, who my parents were, what I had experienced, or why I came here. I was a "monster" without memory.
I didn't want to say a word. I was like a frightened little hedgehog, with all my spines standing up and baring my teeth at strangers.
If someone tries to steal my things, I will just fight them silently and won't cry out no matter how badly I get beaten.
Gradually, more and more children looked at me with hostility and made up nursery rhymes to mock me as a little mute. Whenever that happened, Xiao Shitou would protect me behind him and raise his brows to confront those children.
Until one day, Little Stone got his head broken by a big kid because of me. When the bright red blood dripped from his forehead and slid across his dark eyes, I screamed and rushed over to wrestle with the big kid, saying viciously: "Go to hell! Go to hell!"
Only then did they know and believe that I was not a little mute.
Everything that happened before I came to the orphanage is like air, leaving no trace in my brain, and all my memories start with a piece of amber fruit candy and a boy with long eyebrows.
As I thought about it , I felt tired and drowsy, and fell into a distant memory.
I seemed to be back in that familiar place, with the white courtyard wall, the red dome house, and a huge camphor tree in the middle of the yard.
On summer afternoons, when I was six or seven years old, I liked to hide in the shade of trees, holding the hem of the clothes of a little boy who was only a head taller than me, and listen to the cicadas chirping...
I thought we would stay together forever and spend early summer together one after another.
However, I didn't know that we would be separated in that early summer. I held on to his clothes tightly and refused to let go.
At that moment, I suddenly realized that this would probably be a separation between life and death, but I bit my lip to prevent myself from shedding a single tear.
I stubbornly thought that as long as I didn't let go, we would never be separated.
Time is like an eraser that erases memories. Many things, like ink paintings soaked in water, slowly become blurred. I thought that he in my childhood memories would also fade away like those past events, and become unrecognizable. However, every early summer when the sound of cicadas resounds through the sky, as long as I look up and see the sunlight leaking through the gaps in the treetops, I will clearly remember every word and every expression he said that day.
He said, Banxia, ​​ten years. Ten years later, I will come to find you. Definitely.
This year is already the tenth year, Little Stone.
I found you.
But you forgot me.