【12.】

  The first semester of freshman year was still relatively easy-going.

  Time flies so fast, after the eleventh month, I started another two months of classes and then began exams. University exams are different from high school ones, for students like me and Tao Hao who rarely skip class, teachers have a good impression of us. So they give us higher scores for our daily performance, which saves us a lot of trouble in the end. Therefore, I advise all my friends who haven't gone to university yet or are already in university.

  Skipping classes in college is very bad because if you fail the exam, even if you retake it, once your usual grades are low, teachers will easily catch you failing badly.

  The big repair is not scary, what's scary is the cost of reparation.

  It's really a waste of manpower and resources.

  Of course, this is just a bit of advice from someone who's been through it all.

  Let's talk about stories.

  That day off, Tao Hao and I had packed up early and were waiting to go home. Jin Tongtong got up relatively late, her daily routine was very regular, so it seemed a bit unusual. Since that dinner, my relationship with her has been somewhat inexplicably sensitive, not exactly awkward, but not as natural as before. However, such subtle psychological changes are hard for outsiders to detect, probably only the parties involved know.

  For example, if there were only two of us left in the dormitory, Jintongtong would usually plug in her earphones to watch a movie, while I plugged in my earphones to listen to music and do homework. We wouldn't exchange a single word for an entire afternoon.

  I knew she was being unreasonable, but I didn't know how to explain it. There's a Chinese saying that goes "trying to be clever but ending up clumsy", and ordinary people also say "the more you try to explain, the darker it gets". I don't want to make excuses for myself, I think Jin Tongtong always felt uneasy in this relationship, she urgently needed to find a reason to convince herself: Du Bin wasn't not loving her, it's just that there was a third person between their love.

  To put it bluntly, I unknowingly became her imaginary enemy, actually just a scapegoat!

  But sometimes I find it puzzling, she's so beautiful, why does she have no confidence in herself? Does she have to be with Du Bin? Du Bin is indeed excellent, but Tao Hao and I have discussed this issue privately, and we both think that if Jin Tongtong were to dump Du Bin one day and find an even better man, it would be absolutely reliable.

  I struggled with Tao Hao to take down the quilt while secretly listening to Jin Tongtong's phone call with Du Bin.

  Forgive our bad taste... I've said it before, we're both utterly shameless and can't be considered role models for modern women. But then again, neither of us has any aspirations to be in textbooks, so being a bit shameless doesn't matter, anyway, who cares?

  "I'll be going home soon too... there's a lot of stuff." She lay on the bed, biting her lip and asked cautiously "Will you see me off?"

  I think Du Bin should take a look at Jin Tongtong's beauty, she is so beautiful, such a stunning woman frowns her eyebrows to interpret the beauty of Eastern women perfectly, even after several years, I followed Shen Zhong to an art exhibition in Los Angeles, it was a Chinese-American painter, he was born in the United States since childhood, rarely had the opportunity to return home, I don't know why he could interpret the elements of Chinese classics so perfectly in his paintings, I think that's probably because of the Chinese people's innate pursuit of their roots. No matter how far you go, no matter how long you leave home, even if you haven't touched this culture before, as long as you are a Chinese person, as long as the blood of the Yellow Emperor's descendants flows in your body, you will be fascinated by Chinese culture, it is so profound, some scholars may not fully understand it throughout their lives, yet it is so popular that people all over the world can appreciate it.

  I have a strong Chinese complex, people who know me are aware of it. Forgive my nagging.

  That time's painting exhibition, the young painter painted a Chinese classical beauty, wearing a big red wedding dress, with sparkling decorations. The beauty sat on the bed with her knees bent, gently lifting the veil with both hands, frowning at the outside.

  At that moment, I thought of Jin Tongtong.

  Du Bin on the other end of the phone should have said no delivery. Jin Tongtong asked again: "Are you very busy?"

  After a while, she gently hung up the phone and turned over, burying her face deep in the quilt. Even though my relationship with her wasn't that good, at this moment I felt that she loved too humbly. However, Jin Tongtong was very stubborn; once she fell in love with someone, she would love them to death. It's not like ordinary people could advise her otherwise, let alone us, whose relationship hadn't reached that point yet. If I really told her, "Du Bin isn't suitable for you, find another one," she would definitely think I had ulterior motives. Why bother trying to persuade her when it wouldn't do any good?

  Liu Xian had her winter break later than me, after all she's in high school. By the time she was on break, it was already close to Chinese New Year. I hung out with Tao Hao every day, or else I just stayed at home and did nothing.

  That afternoon I was at home, bored and watching a TV show with no nutritional value, my phone suddenly rang loudly, and I still had potato chips in my hand. I picked it up without even looking.

  "Hello."

  "Willow Jia."

  My heart suddenly hung in my throat, and I was always amazed that I could remember his voice at the first time. At that time, I found excuses for myself, attributing it to his good-sounding voice. But at that time, I didn't think that Dubin's voice was also very good, but why couldn't I recognize it?

  And besides, someone who shouts my name as soon as they call me for the first time in their life, he's the first one.

  "My voice suddenly dropped: 'Yeah, it's me.'"

  "Are you okay after falling?"

  "Down?" I subconsciously got down from the sofa and asked strangely "How did you know I was sitting on the sofa?"

  “……”

  He remained silent for a long time, mixed with a sigh of helplessness.

  This sigh made me understand his meaning instantly. I didn't even wear slippers on my feet, and I ran "thud thud thud" to the balcony looking down at the building below.

  He stood there, slender and elegant. Although I knew the word wasn't suitable for describing a man, at that moment, he gave me a feeling of being so clean, so pure. Shen Duan raised his head, gazing at me, his mouth opening and closing, his voice coming through the phone: "I'm about to return to Beijing, Liu Jia, let me see you."

  I almost cried.

  He smiled: "I know you won't come down."

  Shen Diao's voice was laced with fatigue, and there was a sense of weariness that didn't belong to someone his age: "Then please don't move, it's fine just looking at you like this."

  Later on, Shen Zong and I had a big dispute about the memory of that day. I thought he left when it got dark, but he insisted that he stood there for a very long time.

  I looked at him with disdain: "You're a science student, how can you use such an uncertain time noun for so long, and compare it to my 'heavenly darkness'?"

  He smiled, stroking my hair: "It's dark, you can't see me, and you thought I was gone. Then you turned around and went into the house, turned on the light, I don't know what TV show you were watching, but for a long time, you didn't move, just sat there. The curtains cast your shadow, Liu Jia... At that moment, I really felt like maybe in this world, only you and I existed. You lived your own life, did what you wanted to do, watched the TV shows you wanted to watch, ate what you wanted to eat, walked the roads you wanted to walk, loved who you wanted to love, hated what you wanted to hate. And me, as long as I could keep watching like this, it was fine."

  He has always been like this, perhaps he knew exactly how long he had stood there, perhaps he really did stand for a whole night. But he would never tell me that his love was so deep, yet sometimes it was also so gentle. Like the air, silently and quietly surrounding me, but never giving me a feeling of oppression.

  This is the one I love, and I think it's worth it.