Thanks to Chen Meihua's efforts, I paid a quarter less tuition than other students and entered this middle school.
However, unfortunately, even though my grades were among the best in this middle school, I was still assigned to the mixed class D - the class with the worst grades and the weakest teaching staff in the entire grade.
At this point, I really had nothing to look forward to. Even the relatively new clothes I had prepared earlier for my new school were pushed to the bottom of my closet.
I hope no one will bully me. This is my most sincere wish.
Since I was little, I have always been called the most honest and well-behaved student in the class by teachers, and in fact, I am indeed so. In the previous school, if I had not had a female bully who was on good terms with me as my deskmate, I am afraid that people who bullied me would have lined up in a row.
On the morning of my new school day, Chen Meihua took out the bread and milk she had prepared for me from the refrigerator and put them in my schoolbag before I woke up. It was not until I was dawdling at the door putting on my shoes that she pointed at my schoolbag awkwardly and told me about it. Then, before I could say thank you in surprise, she pushed me out of the house.
Look, she is always so proud.
But maybe she still cares about me a little bit, doesn't she?
With this little bit of care, I was not so nervous. Along the way, I pretended to walk easily and even hummed a song.
Finally, five minutes before class, I came to the head teacher.
The head teacher is a young girl. The reason why she is called a young girl is that she dresses like a college student who has not yet grown out of her childishness.
But it’s a good thing this way, I’m not so nervous anymore.
She seemed to like a good student like me and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw me. I greeted her briskly, and then she took me to the classroom where I would live for the next two years.
When I stepped onto the podium, my mind went blank. In this respect, Pei Zhiming and I are exactly alike. Chen Meihua said that he is honest and thin-skinned, and he gets so nervous that he can't speak properly. I think he passed on these things to me without reservation, so that when I said my first sentence, I spoke in my hometown dialect.
The next second, there was a burst of laughter from the audience, and the courage I had just mustered up was gone.
A voice shouted, "What are you laughing at? What's so funny?"
I raised my head slightly, thinking I was seeing things.
I don’t know if that boy wanted to make me, who is a little shortsighted, see clearly, but he stood up and pointed at the group of boys who were grinning, and said majestically: “If you keep grinning, you will be responsible for the sanitation of the classroom this week.”
It was a domineering and intimidating look that I had never seen before. As soon as the words fell, the group of boys seemed to have been deflated and no longer did anything out of line.
I looked at the head teacher next to me curiously. She didn't look unhappy at all. Instead, she said with relief: "Did you hear that? If you don't listen, the monitor will be angry ."
This word full of praise caused a group of girls in the audience to laugh, and some even looked at him with infatuated eyes.
He did not seem to be elated by the girls' attention. Instead, he sat down with a serious face like an old cadre. Then, unexpectedly, he raised his eyebrows at me and smiled.
My heart suddenly started beating fast.
"Okay, Pei Jixing, just sit in the empty seat behind Lu Mingyu. He's the class monitor, so just go to him if you have any questions."
Following the teacher's voice, I took light steps, as if walking on soft cotton, walked to my seat in a daze and sat down.
When the bell rang, I sat up straight and listened to the whole class.
But I know that I was absent-minded for the whole class. I don't know what I was thinking, but looking at the back of the man in front of me, I just couldn't concentrate. He was wearing a thin uniform shirt, and a soft off-white knitted waistcoat like the boy before, but he wore it more casually. He leaned against the back of the chair, and I could smell the faint scent of men's perfume on him as long as I lowered my head to read.
"Hey, little star, why are you here to study!" As soon as the bell rang, he quickly changed his position to face me, as if the spell of immobilization was lifted.
My hand holding the ballpoint pen slipped all of a sudden, and the pen drew an ugly mark on the brand new notebook. I smiled habitually, looking at him, my cheeks slightly hot.
Only Chen Meihua knows that every time I show this smile, it means I am shy.
"Why are you grinning like an idiot?" He was amused by me and took out a pen and tapped me on the head.
"Hey, do you two know each other? No wonder you spoke for her!" A boy sitting next to her came over and joined the chat.
"Yes, she is mine, don't try to bully her!" He leaned back in his chair lazily and looked up to warn.
"Your people? How many good sisters do you have? Haha!" A girl with an exaggerated hairstyle laughed and teased as much as she could.
By this time, my cheeks were already burning hot. Fortunately, I am not someone who blushes easily.
"Don't talk nonsense." I pushed Lu Mingyu gently .
He suddenly smiled, his eyes curved, like a naughty child.
I really don't understand this person. How can he be serious like an adult at one moment and cute like a child at another?
"Hey, seriously, why did you come here suddenly?" He put my scattered ballpoint pens into his pencil case one by one.
"I got into some trouble, so I transferred to another school," I told him truthfully.
"You? Trouble?" He looked incredulous. "What kind of trouble can you cause!"
"Are you in love?" A boy holding a comic book interrupted again, causing Lu Mingyu to pick up a pen and throw it at him. The boy laughed and covered his face with the book, not looking angry at all. It can be seen that Lu Mingyu is very popular in the class.
Who knew that when he turned around, Lu Mingyu asked as if he was serious: "Are you really in love?"
"Don't talk nonsense!"
My voice rose slightly, attracting the attention of several people around us who were already paying attention to us. Lu Mingyu immediately made a gesture of zipping his mouth.
"Why did you move suddenly?" I changed the subject.
"Oh, didn't I tell you?" He scratched his hair, and his bangs became split in half, but he was still very handsome. "Sorry, my family was about to move, and I was in a hurry and couldn't tell you."
"It doesn't matter. After all, we are not very familiar with each other." I said this honestly.
"What do you mean by familiar or not? We will be familiar with each other in the future." He raised his eyebrows, looking unhappy with what I said. Finally, he came closer and said in a voice that was just loud enough for me to hear: "There are a lot of hooligans in the class, but don't be afraid, I'm here."
His tone was low, and his voice was magnetic and gentle. I breathed in the air mixed with his faint scent, lowered my eyes, and nodded obediently.
That night, Chen Meihua still did not invite friends to play mahjong, but cooked dinner for me for the first time. Her cooking skills had not improved in all these years, and I suddenly lost my appetite when I saw the scrambled tomato eggs and burnt sweet and sour spareribs she made.
She saw through my thoughts and hit me hard on the head: "I haven't been in the kitchen for 800 years, and you still dare to look down on me?"
"No." I grabbed the chopsticks, picked up a mouthful of food and stuffed it into my mouth, "How dare I."
Surprisingly, it tasted pretty good.
Seeing me eating with gusto, her frown gradually relaxed. She lit a cigarette and smoked it slowly.
"How is the new school? Is anyone bullying you?"
"No, everyone is fine." I said vaguely.
"You, like that short-lived ghost, are so honest." She snorted, "You should smile more often and not always have a stern face. Don't hit a smiling person, understand? I don't have the money to transfer you to another school."
I put down my chopsticks and looked at her straight.
She was stunned, thinking I was going to say something disobedient, and even the expression on her face became ferocious.
"Okay, I'll smile more." After saying that, I grinned at her with a fake smile.
She looked at me as if I were a lunatic, snorted and walked away.
I retracted the expression on my face and felt that I was extremely smart. Although I looked dull and stupid, I was more than capable of dealing with Chen Meihua.
After dinner, I returned to my own little room and took out the clothes that were hidden under the closet.
It was a red double-breasted woolen coat, not a new style, but it looked good on me. This coat was altered by Chen Meihua from her old coat, and it was the only decent piece of clothing she gave me.
I held it quietly in my arms, and my palms were filled with subtle warmth.
The weather is getting warmer, the ice and snow are gradually melting, and the morning sun is becoming particularly friendly.
I was wearing that red coat, walking briskly on the way to school, feeling as good as if I was riding a hydrogen balloon. At this moment, a hand slapped my schoolbag hard behind me, and I screamed "Ah!" in fright. The person behind me immediately jumped in front of me, staring at me with wide eyes: "I scared you!"
It was Lu Mingyu. I subconsciously suppressed my panic and shook my head.
He felt relieved and walked beside me carelessly: "You changed your clothes, I almost didn't recognize you."
"Why are you walking this way? Didn't you move?" I took careful steps, holding on to the shoulder straps of my backpack tightly with both hands because I didn't know where to put them.
"Oh, there was a traffic jam today, so the driver took a detour to bring me here."
After he said this, we stopped at an intersection. At the moment when the red light turned green, he didn't think twice and directly grabbed my hand holding the shoulder strap, pulled me, and strode across the zebra crossing.
"There are a lot of cars here, so you have to be careful when crossing the road next time." He turned around and said to me seriously.
I stared at him blankly, his warmth still lingering on my wrist. Before I could say anything, groups of three or five people rushed over and surrounded Lu Mingyu.
There were both men and women, all dressed elegantly and beautifully.
"Hey, why are you walking this way today?" A boy put his arm around his shoulders.
"There's a traffic jam!" replied a girl who was eating a pancake.
"Hey, have you finished your homework? Mr. Yu will check it today!" another tall boy chattered.
"I don't have one, do you?"
"Then he's dead! What about you, Lu Mingyu?"
"How could I possibly do that!"
"Hey, we played that game so hard yesterday!"
"I was just saying that my mom scolded me so much for giving you guys some blood!"
…
They were walking and chatting in front of me, and the distance between me and Lu Mingyu gradually widened. I put my hands back on the shoulder straps and silently watched their backs merge into the crowd that poured into the school gate early in the morning.
It was not until this moment that I clearly understood that Lu Mingyu and I were never from the same world.
According to the schedule, the second period is Lao Yu's class.
Lao Yu is a thin middle-aged man who teaches us mathematics. He is the strictest of all teachers. If you don't finish the homework he assigns, you may be beaten. The homework he assigned yesterday seemed to be difficult, because the students in the class were like crazy and started borrowing homework from each other early in the morning, including Lu Mingyu.
Compared with them, I seem to be much calmer.
Just as I was sharpening my pencil, the girl who was in the same group with Lu Mingyu in the morning suddenly sat in Lu Mingyu's seat and talked to me very enthusiastically.
"Hi, good kid, have you finished the homework that Mr. Yu assigned to you?" She stretched out her red-nailed hand and held my face.
I was a little panicked and gently took her hand away: "Are you talking about the three papers from yesterday?"
“Yes, yes, yes.” She nodded her head rapidly. “It’s extremely difficult. Even the best student in our class couldn’t finish it because it was too difficult.”
"Well...it's okay." I raised my eyebrows embarrassedly.
I didn't lie, those three papers were indeed not that difficult.
"Does that mean you're done?"
"Um."
"I knew it!" She clapped her hands happily. "Can you lend it to me? We really can't guess the answers to many of the big questions!"
"Why are you sitting here with me? Get up, get up!" Lu Mingyu came back at this time and drove her away impatiently.
"You're back just in time. Your good sister has done everything. She's awesome!" The girl gave a thumbs up without hesitation.
But Lu Mingyu looked at me awkwardly, turned away and still chased her away.
The girl didn't want to and still asked me to borrow the test paper.
While they were arguing, I couldn't bear to watch it anymore, so I just took out the test paper and handed it to them.
"Just don't break it." My voice was very soft, but it magically quieted the whole noisy class. Many eyes were cast towards me, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable. The girl cheered and hurried to catch it. I sat back and continued to sharpen my pencil.
" She scared you just now, right?" Lu Mingyu leaned gently against my desk, his tone also soft.
"No." I shook my head. But he smiled a little embarrassedly. I knew that he was stubbornly refusing to borrow the test paper from me this morning, probably to save face.
"Hey, you always talk so little. I don't know what to say to you." He scratched his hair again and fiddled with my pencil case casually.
I stopped moving and my heart suddenly skipped a beat.
"You weren't angry this morning, were you? When I turned around to look for you, I found that you were gone."
Does he still remember this?
The corners of my mouth finally couldn't help but rise slightly.
"Hey, you finally smiled. You've been frowning all morning!" He rolled his eyes, deliberately put on a silly expression, and then shook his head and said.
"Is there? Probably not." I retorted.
He suddenly pinched my face and forcibly pushed the corner of my mouth upwards. At that moment, my mind went blank. All I could smell was the faint scent of his perfume and the tobacco on his fingertips.
"Boom, boom, boom."
I swear, I've never heard my heartbeat so clearly.
"Lu Mingyu, don't bully female classmates!" At this moment, a book was thrown from the classroom door and hit him hard on the head.
He let me go, covered his head, and grimaced in pain.
The whole class burst into laughter at this moment. Lao Yu held the textbook and walked up to the podium with a serious face.
With my "help", all the students in the class were not "persecuted" by Lao Yu and successfully overcame the "difficulties".
From then on, Lu Mingyu began to habitually ask me to borrow his homework. Even when he couldn't answer the teacher's questions, he would kick my stool to ask me for help. This incident made me, who was unknown in the class, famous in the class. Even people from other classes pointed at me and whispered about me. I was not used to so many people's eyes, so I even sat in the classroom during breaks.
Maybe it was because I was quiet and didn't talk much, and I only knew how to study hard all day, so this empty popularity soon disappeared. I was still the unknown me, and everyone was still thriving. Especially Lu Mingyu, he was very popular, and someone would come to him after class, sometimes it was a boy, sometimes it was a girl. Boys would ask him to go out and play together, and girls would give him love letters and chocolates.
He didn't seem to like sweet things, and always shared them with others. After I refused three times, he finally stopped forcing food on me.
He didn't know that the girl who gave him chocolates burst into tears in the corridor after seeing him casually share the chocolates with others. Her friend hugged her and comforted her, and she looked particularly pitiful.
Looking at his heartless back as he slept on the desk during class, I suddenly felt a little inexplicably angry. For several days, whenever Lu Mingyu talked to me, I kept a straight face and spoke fewer words than squeezing toothpaste.
During the physical education class, the girl who asked me to borrow the test paper last time came over again. Her name was Meng Tian, ​​which was totally different from her carefree personality. Meng Tian held my arm affectionately and took the initiative to tell the teacher that she wanted to practice skating with me.
In fact, I was very afraid of skating. If she hadn't pulled me hard, I would have definitely hidden away and escaped.
"Don't be afraid, it's okay, how about you pull me first?"
After she made this suggestion, I had no choice but to nod. After she put on her skates, she skated a little bit with my support.
"Do you know that there is another girl pursuing Lu Mingyu recently? Oh my God, I am really impressed." Meng Tian brought up the topic.
"It's normal, he's so handsome." I answered expressionlessly.
Meng Tian came over curiously and asked, "Are you angry with him recently?"
I was nervous, as if something had been stabbed in the heart. I held her hand with more force. But I wasn't really angry. Who had I the right to be angry?
"No, I'm not a talkative person." I answered calmly, but I knew I was lying.
"Okay." She stopped, spread her hands, and simply sat on the ground to rest, "That's good."
"Lu Mingyu has always been careless and may not be careful with his words, which may cause unnecessary misunderstandings. Even though he is the class monitor now, he used to be the most troublesome person in the class. Later, he changed his homeroom teacher, and he liked the current homeroom teacher, so he became a little more obedient. In order to prevent him from making trouble, the homeroom teacher made him the class monitor."
"Although he is carefree, he is also very concerned about his reputation. There are many things he cannot say. However, he is a very loyal person. When we were in the first year of high school, a few of us dared to play a prank on the teacher. After we were caught, he took it all on his own. From that time on, he became the dark horse prince in the eyes of almost all the girls in the school."
I stood there, listening to her stupidly, unable to fully comprehend the meaning of her words.
"Hey, how was your skating going?" Lu Mingyu came over at some point and asked in a casual manner.
"It's her turn." Meng Tian took off her skates and handed them to me.
"I'm not skating anymore."
I waved my hands and pretended to run, but Lu Mingyu grabbed me back and said, "We are in class, how can you just say you don't want to slide?" His face was unexpectedly cold.
Meng Tian sensed that the atmosphere was not right, so she simply found an excuse to go to the bathroom.
"I dare not." I don't know if it was because I was scared by his cold face or because I was cold, my voice trembled a little.
When he heard me say this, his attitude softened: "You will be graded at the end of the semester, do you want a scholarship?"
“Scholarship?” My eyes lit up. “You have one in high school too?”
"I don't know about other schools, but our school has it." He maintained a lukewarm attitude, "Hurry up and put it on."
I couldn't refuse his order and had to obey. After I finished my equipment, I found that he had put on his skates. He even took off his coat and was only wearing a thin black sweatshirt and jeans. Fortunately, this was an indoor skating rink, so it wasn't too cold.
"Come on, give me your hand." He stretched out his slender hand and waved it in front of me.
After hesitating for a few seconds, I finally reached out my hand awkwardly and placed it in his warm palm.
The moment our skin touched, I heard an inexplicable scream from the bottom of my heart.
He held my hand and slid backwards. I struggled to control the force on my feet, and he kept me steady before I lost my balance again and again.
"Take your time, don't be afraid."
"It's okay, just follow me."
"Okay, that's it."
"Look, isn't it sliding?"
…
I don't know how long it took, but I was finally able to skate on the ice like him. But he held my hand and didn't let go. Most of the people on the ice rink had left, leaving only him and me, and the breeze blowing in our ears.
When the bell rang for the end of get out of class, he was exhausted and leaned against the railing, drinking water in big gulps.
I sat on the ground and silently took off my skates. I wanted to find something to say, but the words always came to my lips and I couldn't open them. Every time I came to this point, I especially disliked my taciturn personality.
There is obviously no conflict, I'm just throwing a tantrum.
I put my shoes aside in frustration, and a girl came over at this time, holding an exquisite gift box in her hand, blushing, and asked Lu Mingyu to follow her. Without thinking, I knew what was going on.
The nameless anger in my heart rose up again. I picked up my shoes, turned around and left without even looking at them.
It snowed heavily that night.
I climbed up the stairs in a thick and large down jacket, carrying a heavy schoolbag. When I opened the door, the air mixed with stench and smoke hit me in the face, and I almost vomited.
Nothing changed. After I adapted to life in the new school, Chen Meihua opened her mahjong parlor again.
I don’t know if it was my illusion, but I always felt that she called more people over, and naturally, my room was occupied again.
Unfortunately, my period came unexpectedly at this time. The dull pain made me feel uncomfortable and I couldn't eat the dinner I had just heated up. The noisy sound of mahjong and the laughter with dirty words were in my ears. I leaned against the cold wall of the kitchen with empty eyes and curled myself into a ball.
It was snowing heavily outside the window. Although I was in the house, I couldn't feel any warmth.
This winter seems particularly long, so long that I don’t know how I can get through it.
"Pei Jixing, Pei Jixing?"
Faintly, it seemed like someone was calling my name.
I woke up from my light dream. Chen Meihua walked into the kitchen in slippers, holding a cigarette in her mouth, and threw a hundred-yuan bill at me: "Go, go downstairs and buy a few packs of cigarettes and instant noodles. Oh, and a dozen beers."
There was no emotion in her tone, as if she was referring to the user.
I looked at her with a bleak face, my eyes were like a dying fire, getting colder and colder. It was snowing heavily outside, and the supermarket downstairs was being renovated. It would take me at least a quarter of an hour to buy the things she mentioned, and I was in so much pain that I didn't even have the strength to eat.
"I feel so bad right now that I can't help you."
Chen Meihua seemed to have never seen such a cold expression on the face of my dull daughter. She was stunned. After a few seconds, her anger was ignited: "Will you die if you go to buy something? How long ? What's so uncomfortable!"
Her voice was so sharp and sarcastic that I wanted to cover my ears to block it out.
She is always like this. When she is in a good mood, she will give me a little bit of care. When she is in a bad mood, she treats me without even the manners to treat a stranger, and she wants to vent all her bad emotions on me.
In fact, I was kind of fed up with it, especially at a time when my body was suffering from period pain.
"If you want to go, go by yourself." I put the money on the table and still sat there motionless.
Chen Meihua was not a pushover. She picked me up and pushed me toward the door. She yelled at me like a shrew: "Is it because I've spoiled you for a few days that you don't know who you are? I raised you to this age, and it's so hard for you to do some work?"
I stood there, my head was buzzing with pain, and I felt dizzy and had no idea which way was which.
Perhaps provoked by my cold but stubborn attitude, Chen Meihua became even angrier. In her blurred vision, she pointed at the tip of my nose and started to curse. But I couldn't hear what she cursed. I just leaned against the door frame and refused to move. People around us began to walk towards us, trying to stop the fight. Chen Meihua wanted to come over and hit me, but they stopped her one by one.
At this time, there was a violent and rapid knock on the door, and I didn't know who opened the door. In the chaos, a boy wearing a black down jacket and a baseball cap walked in.
My head suddenly buzzed, and all my strength was finally exhausted. As if in shock, I leaned against the door frame and slid down little by little. Finally, everything went dark before my eyes, and I passed out.