Chapter 6

“I saw you standing on the stage receiving your award today. How did it feel?”

Lying on her bed with her hair still damp, Song Jianan held a warm cup of ginger tea in her hands. She smiled secretly to herself.

I was actually standing right beside you.

Su Li always replied quickly.

“It felt pretty ordinary. Nothing special. The only thing I remember is how hot the spotlight was.”

She couldn’t help laughing.

Then she sincerely replied,

“Congratulations anyway. By the way, what songs have you been listening to lately?”

“Chen Sheng’s music. You’ve probably never heard of him—his songs are pretty old. You definitely know Rene Liu, though. Chen Sheng was her teacher. Go listen to his song ‘Meteor.’ The female vocals are really beautiful.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

The next day, Song Jianan went to school.

Perhaps because she’d been caught in the rain, she felt exhausted. She spent the entire morning slumped over her desk, looking listless.

During the break, Zhang Jingkang nudged her.

“Where did you two go last night? How come both of you caught colds?”

She answered lazily,

“Us? Who else? It rained so heavily last night. We got soaked when we came out.”

“Duan Jiachen. Looks like he caught a cold too.”

Song Jianan lifted her head and glanced around the classroom.

Duan Jiachen wasn’t there.

She had just gotten up to look for him when a girl she barely knew passed by the classroom window.

The girl’s eyes immediately lit up when she saw Song Jianan.

“Song Jianan! Can I borrow your Chinese workbook? Our teacher’s checking them, and I’m doomed!”

Song Jianan paused.

She recognized her as an old classmate from middle school in Class Eight. They had only been acquaintances who occasionally nodded to each other.

She treasured her books and almost never lent them to anyone.

She had just started to explain that she hadn’t brought it and would borrow one for her later when the girl hurriedly continued,

“Our Chinese teacher is impossible! She knows we never do this homework, so she suddenly decided to inspect it. She even asked our class monitor to check everyone. If I get caught, I’m dead!”

Class monitor…

The Class Eight monitor… isn’t that Su Li?

The refusal that had reached Song Jianan’s lips quietly disappeared.

She immediately took the spotless workbook from her schoolbag.

The girl opened it and gasped.

“Wow! You’ve finished everything! And your handwriting is so pretty. Thank you so much, Song Jianan! I’ll return it after class. Thank you!”

Then she hugged the workbook and hurried away.

Song Jianan smiled helplessly.

Beside her, Zhang Jingkang looked surprised.

“Wow. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you lend a book to someone you barely know.”

Then she suddenly remembered something.

“Oh right! The teachers were talking in the office earlier. We’re about to be divided into arts and science classes. Have you decided which one you’re choosing?”

Song Jianan shook her head.

“No. What about you?”

“Science, of course. The humanities are definitely my weak point… although I’m not exactly good at science either.”

She thought for a moment.

“I think most of our class will choose science. Maybe just a few girls will pick the humanities. But honestly, I think you’d be perfect for humanities.”

“Really?”

Song Jianan nodded thoughtfully.

“I’ll have to think about it.”

At noon, she no longer went home.

To save time, she quickly finished lunch in the cafeteria before heading to the library for self-study.

The Chinese workbook was inside her schoolbag.

An hour earlier, it had been lying on a desk in another classroom.

She wondered…

Had Su Li looked at it for even a second?

Would he recognize someone else’s handwriting?

How could he possibly know?

Song Jianan laughed at herself.

The afternoon sun shone directly onto her, warm yet slightly dazzling.

Only when she looked up did she realize that the girl who usually sat opposite her reading every day hadn’t come today.

She had always complained that the girl blocked the sunlight, leaving her hands cold.

Now, with the sunlight falling directly onto her, she found herself strangely unaccustomed to it.

Her thoughts drifted to Su Li.

If he were sitting across from me…

If one day I stopped coming…

Would he remember that I always brushed the strands of hair covering my eyes aside with my right hand?

Would he remember the sunlight passing through my hair and between my fingers before falling softly onto his book?

She couldn’t concentrate on studying.

Instead, she took out her diary and began writing.

When writing to Su Li in her diary, she could be mischievous, sincere, childish, brave…

She could even dream.

> Secret love in novels and movies is always dramatic. It’s subtle, full of twists and turns, and leaves me endlessly captivated.

In those stories, secret crushes always end with the most beautiful and unexpected happy endings. No matter how ordinary the girl is, she always wins the love of the prince who seemed completely out of reach.

I’ve read so many stories like that.

Every single time, they make me unbelievably happy.

I secretly imagine those moments too.

Running into him by chance at a street corner.

Meeting him in the school hallway.

Maybe in the next second…

Maybe one day…

He’ll stand in front of me and say,

“Actually… I’ve noticed you for a long time.”

Every day I live inside fantasies I’ve woven for myself.

Sometimes I really want to walk up to him and confess.

But I know I’m not worthy of him.

He’s so outstanding…

Yet so distant.

I’m so ordinary.

In the end, reason always wins.

I’ll quietly like him…

But I’ll never confess.

I’m afraid that if I speak this perfect secret love aloud, one rejection would completely shatter it.

Secret love isn’t filled with overwhelming joy or unbearable sorrow.

It’s simply an endlessly tangled melancholy…

Mixed with a sweetness that only I can savor alone.

Perhaps it was because of the cold medicine she’d taken that morning.

She rested her head on the desk and gradually drifted into a deep sleep.

She didn’t know how long she’d been asleep before someone gently called her name.

“Song Jianan, if you keep sleeping, you’ll be late.”

Startled, she practically jumped upright.

Only after focusing did she finally see who it was.

She pressed a hand against her chest in relief.

“Duan Jiachen! You scared me to death. Is class about to start? Oh no… I actually fell asleep.”

She hurriedly packed her bag and walked out of the library.

“You got caught in the rain last night, didn’t you?” Duan Jiachen asked as he pulled a bottle from his backpack. “You looked terrible this morning.”

Song Jianan looked at the bottle in surprise.

“What is that? It’s so dark.”

“Medicine.”

He smiled.

“I was sneezing and had a runny nose this morning too. I went home at lunch, drank this, sweated it out, and felt much better. It’s a little bitter, but I brought some candy too. You girls like… what are they called… Swiss candy?”

She took the bottle and sniffed it.

The bitter smell instantly rushed into her nose.

She frowned deeply.

“I’m not drinking this. It has to taste awful. I’d rather just stay sick.”

Duan Jiachen’s expression immediately darkened.

His tone became unusually firm.

“Your mom asked me to bring it. If you don’t drink it, how am I supposed to explain that to her?”

She blinked in surprise.

“My mom asked you to bring it? Then why are you drinking the same medicine too? Hey, stop glaring at me. Fine, I’ll drink it.”

She held her breath and gulped the medicine down in one go before hurriedly popping a piece of candy into her mouth.

“Oh right,” Duan Jiachen asked, “have you decided between the humanities and science?”

“I don’t know.”

She shook her head.

“My grades are pretty balanced. Math is the only subject I’m really bad at. I’ll think about it a little longer. There’s nothing I especially want to study or am particularly good at.”

Then she smiled.

“But you must be choosing science.”

“Yeah.”

He nodded.

“I want to study civil engineering, so science is the only choice.”

“Good luck!”

By the time she got home, she was already feeling much better.

Nibbling on an apple, she asked through a mouthful of fruit,

“Mom, what was that medicine Duan Jiachen brought today? It worked really well… it just tasted terrible.”

Her mother was washing dishes.

The running water drowned out most of the sentence.

She looked confused.

“What about Duan Jiachen? I didn’t see him today. What happened?”

Song Jianan froze.

She quickly changed the subject.

“Nothing. I meant the medicine I took this morning. The side effects were awful. I almost fell asleep during self-study at noon. Luckily Duan Jiachen woke me up, or I definitely would’ve been late.”

“Oh.”

Her mother answered absentmindedly.

“You really never stop making me worry. Running home without an umbrella… getting sick serves you right. Finish your apple and go study. Just because you won one scholarship doesn’t mean you can get complacent.”

“I know…”

Song Jianan sighed.

She tossed the apple core into the trash with a soft thump.

Then she quietly took out her phone and sent Duan Jiachen a message.

“Thanks for the medicine.”

He didn’t reply for a long time.

She didn’t think much of it.

After finishing her homework, both sleepiness and exhaustion overwhelmed her, and she fell asleep almost immediately.

Sure enough, a week later the entire school held a large parent meeting about the upcoming division between humanities and science classes, as well as the establishment of art classes.

Afterward, each class held its own separate meeting.

When Song Jianan’s father returned home, he immediately asked,

“Nannan, have you decided between humanities and science? Make the choice yourself. Your teachers recommend humanities. Although your humanities and science grades are similar, your foundation in the humanities is stronger. You’ll be more competitive, and your studies will be easier. That way, you’ll have more time to improve your math.”

Her mother was even more straightforward.

“If that’s what the teachers recommend, then that’s definitely the right choice. Nannan, what are you hesitating for? Just choose the humanities.”

Song Jianan sat silently beside them.

Over the past few days, countless conversations with teachers had left her emotionally drained.

She didn’t want to choose the humanities.

Even though it really was her stronger subject.

Because choosing it meant leaving her current class…

Leaving her classmates…

And the humanities classes were all located in another building.

If that happened, she’d have even fewer chances to see the person she looked forward to seeing every single day.

“Let me think about it for a while.”

She stood up slowly and returned to her bedroom.

Taking out her phone, she sent Su Li a message.

“I don’t know whether I should choose humanities or science. What should I do? I’m really troubled.”

She waited.

No reply came.

Bored, Song Jianan lay on her bed, suddenly feeling an emptiness spread through her heart.

About half an hour later, her phone finally vibrated.

Su Li had replied.

“First, choose what you like. Second, choose what suits you. Third, choose what you won’t regret. Fourth, choose the one with the best future prospects. Doesn’t that solve it?”

The courage she’d forced herself to display before her parents and teachers…

The fear of the unknown future she’d desperately tried to hide…

The tangled mess of confusion inside her heart…

Whether it remained silent or threatened to burst apart…

All of it slowly settled because of those few simple words from him.

It was as though the clouds had finally parted.

For the first time…

The future suddenly seemed much clearer.

And quietly, she finally knew what her answer would be.