In the golden autumn, the few osmanthus trees on campus bloomed. Passersby could occasionally catch that faint scent of osmanthus—so delicate it seemed to appear and vanish; you wanted to take another sniff, only to find the scent had already disappeared.

With the holiday approaching, the school’s three-day sports meet had also begun.

After the routine team formation performance, the school leaders gave speeches, followed immediately by the opening ceremony.

Once the opening ceremony concluded, some of the competitions had already started.

Zhou Shiyi signed up for the 1500m and 3000m; those events were both on the last day, so he was drafted to help out at the broadcasting booth.

Every sports meet was a time when a class’s collective sense of honor was forged.

Whenever an event started, everyone from classes without participants would go cheer for them.

The first event to start was the sprint relay; a dense ring of people surrounded the track, and the stands were packed as well.

Before the match started, Zhou Shiyi sat on the announcer’s platform and immediately spotted the most conspicuous person in the crowd: Gu Sheng.

Gu Sheng was wearing a red tracksuit with a red headband. He looked full of youthful energy, a thin layer of muscle covering his body, combining explosive power with aesthetic grace.

“Go, Gu Sheng! Come on!”

“Go, Senior Three Class 1!”

Gu Sheng on the track was, without a doubt, the most conspicuous one; the students from the other classes were not about to be outdone, trying to drown them out with their shouts.

The race hadn’t even started yet, but the spectators in the stands were already tense and on edge.

With the whistle, the four-by-four-hundred sprint relay officially began.

Zhou Shiyi also received the manuscript from Senior Three Class 1.

“Champions of Senior Three Class 1, you are—”

The first two legs ran fairly standardly, consistently staying in the top three. During the exchange between the second and third runners, the third seemed nervous and only came to when the second bumped into him, but fortunately he recovered quickly.

Gu Sheng took his position for the relay; he was the fourth runner, the final sprinter.

He watched the other teams finish their handoffs; his face was steady. As soon as he received the baton, he shot off like an arrow loosed from a bow.

By the time the fourth leg handoff occurred, they had fallen back to fourth place, but Gu Sheng fought hard to catch up, passing the fourth and third runners along the way, and soon he had surged into second.

His speed was terrifying; before long he was running side by side with the leader, who was twenty meters ahead of him moments earlier.

The first-place runner was an athletics student and naturally unwilling to be outdone; the two of them practically crossed the finish line shoulder to shoulder.

When the final results were verified, Gu Sheng won by 0.1 seconds.

While Gu Sheng was competing, the stands around him were full of voices shouting his name, almost deafening.

After finishing the race, a circle of people swarm around him offering water, but he waved them off.

He looked up, glanced toward the broadcasting booth on the main stand, and waved in that direction.

Zhou Shiyi was also infected by that vitality and enthusiasm, and let out a light laugh.

“God Zhou, I’m here to take your shift. You go down and rest for a bit.” The squad leader came up to switch places with Zhou Shiyi.

“Alright.”

After leaving the announcer’s booth, Zhou Shiyi walked across the sports field, still a little dazed, unable to find his team.

He could only head toward the place with the most people.

When he got there, Zhou Shiyi saw the students from Senior Three (Class 1); they didn’t dare shout, only offering quiet cheers.

The high jump competition at the school sports meet was a very watchable event, and Zhou Shiyi had never seen so many people gathered around it before.

Only when he heard people around him talking did he realize it had come down to the final moments—and Gu Sheng had emerged as that dark horse.

The competition had now turned into an attempt to break the school track-and-field record, and competing alongside Gu Sheng were the athletes from Mingde High, so they all wanted to see who would break the record first.

By the later stages of the competition, it was down to Gu Sheng and the two PE students battling it out for first, second, and third place.

Zhou Shiyi also watched as the bar rose higher and higher. Gu Sheng stood on the opposite side, ran up with effortless grace, took off before the bar, and cleared it with a textbook Fosbury flop, landing on the thick mat.

When Gu Sheng jumped over, there was still a gap before his back reached the bar—obviously he had some reserves.

The other two athletes easily cleared the bar, and their scores were neck and neck with Gu Sheng’s.

The first to fall behind was a relatively short athlete; the current point of interest was whether Gu Sheng could surpass him and take first place.

As the jumping bar rose higher and higher, the atmosphere around them was swept up.

“Gu Sheng, go for it!”

“Come on!”

No one seemed to know who started it, but everyone nearby—whether they knew Gu Sheng or not—was cheering him on.

Nothing else—this match’s main attraction was him.

Just Gu Sheng’s tall, upright figure, plus that stubborn resilience and skill, were enough to make them remember him.

The freshmen in tenth grade, upon learning Gu Sheng was already a senior, felt a bit of regret.

“Go, Gu Sheng!” Zhou Shiyi, swept up by the atmosphere, shouted along from the crowd.

Gu Sheng immediately turned his head and, with precision in the crowd, found Zhou Shiyi’s position.

Among so many people present, Gu Sheng deliberately only saw Zhou Shiyi.

Gu Sheng smiled at him, and the surrounding fangirls and fanboys began screaming.

Although they didn’t know who Gu Sheng was smiling at, that smile was like the clearing after snow; the boy who always wore a cold face revealed his smile, and many holding phones wished they could record the moment.

The photo was also posted to Mingde High School’s forum, becoming a classic GIF.

Soon Gu Sheng focused his energy on the competition, and in the end both of them broke the school sports meet records.

That athlete went on to compete in other events, and in the end the two of them decided to keep that record and shared first place.

Gu Sheng raised his arm and wiped the sweat from his forehead, prompting everyone else to scream once again.

“Ahhhhh, he’s so handsome, is he looking at me!”

“Hormones through the roof, no wonder he’s an S-rank alpha from Mingde High!”

Zhou Shiyi watched Gu Sheng walk over to him and hand him a tissue.

Gu Sheng looked a little overwhelmed by the attention: “Thanks. What are you doing here?”

Zhou Shiyi: “Class rep, for me — it just so happened I ran into your match, I saw the whole thing. You’re really amazing.”

Gu Sheng suddenly blushed. Even surrounded by so many onlookers and hecklers, he could stay calm, but a single compliment from Zhou Shiyi made him feel a little embarrassed.

“Actually, toward the end, if he hadn’t spoken first, I would have just conceded.”

“That’s still impressive.” The two of them walked side by side across the lawn, drawing most people’s attention.

The two of them were photographed from behind, and the image was posted to the forum.

For some reason, even though there was no physical contact or eye contact between them, and there was enough space between them for another person to stand, the harmonious vibe between them made people feel they were such a good match.

Besides, one of them was Gu Sheng, who had just been the center of attention on the field, and Zhou Shiyi’s identity had also been uncovered.

“Such a shame, Zhou Shen is a beta.”

“What’s wrong with being a beta, are you discriminating based on gender?”

“Zhou Shen is a beta — does that mean they can’t be together?”

“But wouldn’t a beta and an alpha be even hotter?”

“The neighbors already dug it up: that godly male voice in the broadcast room just now was Zhou Shiyi. Just seeing them stand together, I could already imagine their married life.”

“I don’t ship romance; shipping friendship is fine too.”

“What friendship? Didn’t you see the look the alpha had, like he was about to eat the beta? As pictured.”

……

That post eventually sank, and it wasn’t until many years later when someone bumped it back up that people learned the truth — those two had actually been real.

The sports meet progressed quickly; Zhou Shiyi pinned on his number tag, warmed up, and prepared for the events.

Long-distance races take a long time, so each event is decided in a single round; in the end they rank everyone by time.

Senior Year Class 1 has been in the spotlight lately — they’ve taken first place in several events in a row and broken three records, two of them by Gu Sheng.

The class president and the sports rep had already collected several team certificates, grinning so hard their eyes were nearly closed.

Zhou Shiyi was standing on the track when he suddenly heard someone beside him calling his name.

“Zhou Shiyi!”

“Go for it!”

He turned back and saw the class committee organizing classmates to cheer for him.

At one point, only the voices of their class could be heard on the field.

By the last day, classes without events had all been pulled over by the students of Senior Three (1) to cheer for Zhou Shiyi.

Zhou Shiyi was slightly surprised; he hadn’t expected so many people to come cheer for him.

He waved at them with a smile, and saw Gu Sheng in the crowd.

Before the race began, all unrelated personnel were cleared from the track.

“Ready!”

“Go!”

When the wooden starter clapper sounded, everyone on the starting line surged forward.

Zhou Shiyi kept his own pace; while the others sprinted, he didn’t go all out at the start and stayed somewhere in the middle.

By the third lap, as the others began to tire, Zhou Shiyi started to pick up speed and gradually passed them.

On the 1,500-meter track, with two hundred meters to go, Zhou Shiyi was still accelerating.

“Zhou Shiyi, keep going!” “Class 3-1, let’s go!” In the last two hundred meters, Zhou Shiyi could hear the people beside him cheering him on.

He crossed the finish line first in his group; as soon as he did, two people supported him and helped him off to the side to rest.

“Zhou Shen, drink some water, take a break.”

The sports committee member was holding a paper cup, steam still rising from it.

Zhou Shiyi took it, sipped once, moistening his throat.

After fifteen hundred meters comes three thousand meters, and the classmates from the class all gathered around.

“Zhou Shen, you still have to run three thousand meters later, can you do it?”

“Yeah, yeah, being able to finish the whole distance is already really impressive.”

Zhou Shiyi flexed his wrists and ankles. “I can do it.”

When it was time for the race, the cheers for Zhou Shiyi grew louder and louder.

Classmates from the class grabbed hands and dashed across the lawn to cheer him on; people chased alongside him along the way, running with him.

He usually thinks eight hundred meters is too much, but now they were chasing after him for far more than that; their spirits high, they kept cheering Zhou Shiyi on.

“Zhou-shen, have some water.”

Zhou Shiyi took the paper cup, drank a mouthful, then poured the rest of the water over his feverish cheeks. He handed the cup back to the class monitor and began to speed up.

At first Zhou Shiyi’s position was in the middle; the three-kilometer battle line was long, and some people were already starting to fall behind, unable to hold on.

Zhou Shiyi’s pace gradually quickened, overtaking the person in front of him.

By the time he reached the latter half of the course, Zhou Shiyi could no longer hear anyone else. He could only hear the steady rhythm of his own breath and the track ahead; the whole world felt as if it belonged to him alone.

Zhou Shiyi fell in love with the feeling; he sped up, leaving many people unable to keep pace with him.

The pacer couldn’t keep up either, so he had to cross the field and run alongside him for a stretch; different people accompanied him along the way, each running for a bit before handing off to someone else.

All the students from Senior Year Class 1 showed up, and they’d even called over other classes to cheer Zhou Shiyi on together.

Finally, Zhou Shiyi had already lapped the others; he was more than half a lap ahead of second place and was the first to cross the finish line.

Having just run both the 1500 and 3000 meters back-to-back, even Zhou Shiyi felt a bit exhausted, so he didn’t refuse when others helped him.

“Slow down, walk for a bit before you rest.”

Zhou Shiyi turned his head and saw that it was Gu Sheng who had steadied him.

“Zhou Shiyi, you’re really impressive.”

Hearing the same words come from Gu Sheng’s mouth, Zhou Shiyi looked back at him. Gu Sheng raised an eyebrow at him; the two exchanged a knowing look and smiled at each other.

The two of them were soon caught up by the others; they took a group photo together on the playground, the boys and girls facing away from the sun, each face brimming with youth and vitality.