Chapter 9: You Still Have a Home in Jiangzhou?
Shi Qi lay slumped over her desk, face buried in her arms, the tips of her ears still red.
She tried to sort through it from the beginning.
Her younger cousin Chen Yu had asked her to help him pursue Yu Cheng. She'd agreed. She'd delivered the milk tea under her own name, because her cousin said Yu Cheng wouldn't accept things from other people.
Yu Cheng had accepted the milk tea. And drank it. Then in PE class, after the eight-hundred-meter run, Yu Cheng handed her water. At the Equipment Room door, she'd helped Yu Cheng fend off a boy who wouldn't stop pestering her. And then Yu Cheng asked for her WeChat.
No. The order was wrong.
The mung bean paste thing came first.
She jerked her head up, startling Liu Qingqiao.
Mung bean paste. How could she have forgotten the mung bean paste? Yesterday after evening study hall, at the convenience store—four cups of mung bean paste, five people wanting to buy. She'd swiped her student card and paid for all four, then shoved two of them at Yu Cheng and her desk-mate, and dragged Liu Qingqiao away. Zhao Yan got nothing and wailed outside the cafeteria like a stuck pig.
Here was the problem: the mung bean paste wasn't something her cousin had asked her to deliver. Her cousin only told her to deliver milk tea. Those two cups from Gu Ming—her cousin paid for those. She was just the errand runner. The mung bean paste was her own card, her own decision, nothing to do with her cousin at all.
Why had she paid for those four cups of mung bean paste for other people? Her cousin didn't even know mung bean paste was involved. More accurately—at the time, she hadn't been thinking at all about delivering it for her cousin.
She'd seen Yu Cheng standing in front of the freezer, seen only four cups left on the counter, seen five people and not enough to go around—and then her body just moved.
When she swiped the card, there was only one thought in her head: let her have some.
Shi Qi buried her face back in her arms, deeper this time.
Done for. She'd dug herself a pit and jumped right in.
And then the WeChat. When Yu Cheng asked for her WeChat—that expression, that tone.
"Is that a no?"
Those three words were still looping in her head.
What had her reaction been again? Hands trembling as she fumbled out her phone, scanned the other girl's QR code.
She hadn't hesitated for even a second. Yu Cheng hadn't even finished speaking before she'd pulled up her QR code. As if she'd been waiting for this moment all along, just waiting for Yu Cheng to ask.
But she was supposed to be helping her cousin pursue Yu Cheng.
Shi Qi stabbed herself in the heart. Helping her cousin chase someone, and she ended up getting charmed first.
The bell rang. Liu Qingqiao put away her little fan, patted her shoulder, and said let's go, art class. Only then did Shi Qi slowly peel herself off the desk, stuff her sketchbook and pencil case into her bag, and follow everyone out.
Art class wasn't held in their own classroom. Their class's studio was on the fourth floor of the Comprehensive Building, and they had to take a covered walkway to get there. The Comprehensive Building was the newest one at school—big windows, great light.
The art classroom took up half of the fourth floor. The other half was the music classroom, usually empty except for choir practice on Monday and Wednesday afternoons.
By the time Shi Qi followed the stream of Class Three students to the bottom of the Comprehensive Building, Class Two happened to be heading in too. The two classes jammed together at the stairwell entrance.
Shi Qi was squeezed in the middle of the crowd—Liu Qingqiao beside her, Zhao Yan in front, two girls she didn't know well behind her. She shuffled mechanically upward with the flow, still thinking about the WeChat thing.
At the third-floor corner, she saw Yu Cheng.
Class Three went left to the studio. Class Two went right to the physics lab. Yu Cheng was walking at the very back of Class Two's line.
She looked the same as always. Her long black hair was tied in a low ponytail today, a few loose strands hanging by her ears, the natural curls at the ends showing a faint brown in the sunlight.
Her uniform was neat and proper, zipper pulled up to her chest, revealing the collar of the white short-sleeve underneath.
She walked slowly, keeping about two meters between herself and the person ahead, expression cold, eyes flat and unreadable.
A few Class Two girls nearby were chatting, giggling about whether the physics teacher would run overtime again today.
Yu Cheng didn't join in—didn't even glance their way. A boy ran past her and nearly bumped into her, quickly said "sorry," and she didn't even lift her eyelids, just shifted half a step to the side.
Shi Qi stood at the studio door, hand on the doorframe, looking right.
The physics lab was at the far end of the corridor. A few Class Two students were already standing at the door waiting for it to open. Yu Cheng stopped as soon as she reached the door, leaned against the windowsill in the hallway, opened her physics textbook, and looked down at it.
Shi Qi watched her for a moment, then realized she was watching, quickly pulled her gaze back, and pretended to look for her brushes.
That Yu Cheng just now, standing in the corridor with her head down reading—her expression was so calm it kept people a thousand miles away, completely different from the lively crowd around her.
Then Shi Qi thought of the other Yu Cheng. Just ten minutes ago, in the teaching building corridor, standing less than twenty centimeters away, lashes trembling faintly, two fingers pinching the hem of her shirt, brows slightly furrowed, voice soft and light as she said three words.
"Is that a no?"
Were these two Yu Chengs the same person?
Shi Qi set her pencil case on the easel, unzipped it, and pulled out a 4B pencil.
Her movements were slow—her mind clearly wasn't on the art supplies. Her gaze drifted involuntarily toward the end of the corridor again.
Shi Qi bit her lip. Did she act this cute with her desk-mate too?
The moment that thought surfaced, Shi Qi startled herself. What did she mean, "act this way too"? Act what way?
What Yu Cheng was like with her desk-mate—what business was that of hers? What gave her the right to think Yu Cheng treated her differently?
Shi Qi pressed the 4B pencil against the paper, wrist hovering, but she couldn't bring herself to make a mark. Her face was burning again.
She kept her head down, bangs falling to cover half her face, but she knew her ears must have betrayed her. Because Liu Qingqiao had been watching her for a while now.
"Shi Qi." Liu Qingqiao's voice drifted over from beside her.
"Hm?"
"Your paper's still blank."
Shi Qi looked down—not a single line on the paper. She'd been holding the pencil over the blank page for almost three minutes. "I'm composing," she said stubbornly.
Liu Qingqiao went "oh," dragging out the tail of the sound meaningfully. She turned back to her still life, drew a couple of strokes, then without turning her head added, "Compose all you want, just stop looking to the right."
Shi Qi's face went completely red. She lowered her head, and the pencil finally touched the paper.
When the bell rang for the end of first period, she was the first to bolt out of the studio. She wanted to go to the bathroom, wash her face, and cool down—she still had second period art class.
She nearly collided with the Class Two line coming from the direction of the physics lab. She stepped aside, and her gaze swept the crowd uncontrollably—no Yu Cheng.
Probably walking up ahead.
Shi Qi pulled her gaze back and hurried toward the stairwell. When she reached the corner, her steps paused—Yu Cheng had come from behind her. She must have been at the very back of the line and gotten held up by the teacher for a few words, coming out later than the others.
She saw Shi Qi standing at the stairwell entrance spacing out, and stopped.
The two of them stood at the corner of the fourth-floor corridor, right next to the window. Yu Cheng looked at Shi Qi, and Shi Qi looked at Yu Cheng. Neither said anything.
Then Yu Cheng spoke.
Her voice was very soft, a complete contrast to the coldness in the corridor earlier. "Did you get that thing?"
Shi Qi blinked. "What thing?"
"The WeChat." Yu Cheng pulled her phone from her pocket, screen lit, showing her WeChat chat interface.
She tapped on Shi Qi's profile picture and showed Shi Qi the line that read "You are now friends," "I sent you a message after. You didn't reply."
Shi Qi quickly fished out her phone, unlocked it, opened WeChat. Sure enough, there was a little red dot next to the gray profile picture. She hadn't looked at her phone at all—had no idea Yu Cheng had sent a message.
She tapped open the chat and saw that Yu Cheng had sent a message an hour ago.
"Thank you."
Yu Cheng was still standing in front of her, waiting for her to read it. That made her even more nervous.
"I—I was in class," Shi Qi finally looked up, her voice rougher than she'd expected, "didn't see it."
Yu Cheng nodded. "Mm. You see it now."
Shi Qi looked down at her phone screen, then up at Yu Cheng.
"I'll reply." Shi Qi typed a few characters on her phone and hit send. Yu Cheng's phone buzzed in her pocket.
She took it out and glanced down, and the faint looseness at the corner of her mouth slowly became a tiny, almost imperceptible curve.
"Okay." Yu Cheng put her phone away and turned to head back to class. Shi Qi stood in place, watching her retreating figure go downstairs.
On the phone screen, the message Shi Qi had just sent was still lit up: "You're welcome."