Chapter 45

Zhou Wu had a habit of exercising and needed to run over 5 kilometers every day to feel comfortable. Since he didn’t run in the morning, he took a nap at home and then dragged Yeye out for a night run.

Halfway through, the dog couldn’t run anymore. Zhou Wu kicked it twice with his leg in annoyance and stopped at the bridge to rest.

“Yeye, shake hands, shake hands,” Qin Yun crouched down, his hand staying in the air for a long time, but he only received a cold shoulder from the Samoyed. He turned around and complained, “The dog you raised has a problem; it doesn’t like people.”

“It’s picky,” Zhou Wu lazily replied, “It doesn’t like dealing with ugly people.”

“?!” Qin Yun was shocked. “Is this how you treat a good buddy who came running with you?”

Zhou Wu didn’t respond. Qin Yun had shown up uninvited, insisted on coming along for the night run, and even borrowed his newly bought sportswear. Who gave him the face to act like this? “This outfit is 7,800. Transfer me the money on WeChat.”

“Hey, you’re getting cold on me,” Qin Yun grinned.

Zhou Wu didn’t answer. He leaned against the railing, glanced at his watch, then looked down at the dog, who was panting heavily by his feet. “Let’s rest for two more minutes.”

“Don’t rush, let’s talk for a bit,” Qin Yun stood up, leaned sideways against the railing. “When did you and Wen Ci start? Wasn’t that her on your back earlier…?”

Zhou Wu didn’t say anything, silently acknowledging the question.

Qin Yun reached out to tug at Zhou Wu’s clothes, but Zhou Wu elbowed him away, laughing and scolding, “Are you crazy? What are you doing?”

“I’m just looking at your back. I remember the scratches were pretty dramatic,” Qin Yun was shocked. “Could those have been made by Wen Ci?!”

Wen Ci must have been just as shocked. After what happened that day, she cut her nails the next day. Last night, the scratches on his body were from her fingertips, and the one on his neck came from the bracelet he gave her.

The bracelet was already the smallest size, but it still looked wide on her wrist. Every time Wen Ci held his hand tightly to avoid hitting the headboard, the diamond bracelet would swing up and down on her wrist.

Zhou Wu cleared his throat, responding perfunctorily, “It healed a long time ago.”

“Is it because teachers have strong hands? Last night, I almost got scratched to death by Dou Yiqing’s manicure,” Qin Yun suddenly recalled, lowering his head and laughing helplessly. “Tsk, I’ve always thought Dou Yiqing had a crush on me. Why else would she only remember my name in high school but not anyone else’s? She just wanted to get my attention. Sure enough, when I arrived on the island with her a while ago, she pretended to be drunk and kissed me. Damn, she succeeded last night…”

“She complained that I kept messaging her and blocked me. Haha, it’s just the classic ‘push-pull’ game. I saw through it a long time ago. Hey, should I buy a house near Jiangzhong? Otherwise, if I agree to date her soon, it’ll be hard for her to visit me when she’s working.”

As Qin Yun spoke, he opened a house-hunting app, sorted the listings by price from high to low, and selected a nicely decorated one. Just as he was about to show Zhou Wu, Zhou Wu suddenly turned his face around and asked without any preamble, “How many points did I score in the basketball finals in sophomore year?”

“?!” Qin Yun was stunned by the question. “I can’t even remember how many points I got on my college entrance exams.”

Zhou Wu clicked his tongue indifferently, then turned his gaze back to the distance.

“Why are you asking about that all of a sudden?” Qin Yun recalled, “Anyway, you scored the highest. You were like a cheat code that game, and even the coach asked if you were going to join the provincial team. Don’t you remember? Even Lao Yu took a bunch of photos and posted them online.”

Zhou Wu paused. “Where did they post them?”

Qin Yun chuckled, “Where else could it be? QQ/QQ Space.”

When they returned from the night run, Zhou Wu opened his computer and downloaded QQ.

He hadn’t opened the app in years, having originally created the account to play games. After going abroad, he switched to other games and never logged in again.

He retrieved the password using his phone number and logged in, where he found the group chat from the school anniversary.

Zhou Wu scrolled through the chat records, but didn’t find the name he was looking for. He exited the chat and casually changed his profile picture to a default one, then searched for Yu Binhong in his friend list.

The old man had been quite trendy back then, and his profile picture was a low-resolution selfie. It was obvious that this software had been neglected by him for a long time, as the last update in his space was seven years ago.

Yu Binhong’s space had many albums, each clearly labeled. Zhou Wu found the album for his year, clicked on it, leaned back on the sofa, and began scrolling through the photos one by one.

After flipping through a few, he finally saw the person he had been looking for.

The photo seemed to have been taken from the classroom door. Due to the passage of time, the quality wasn’t great, and the students in the classroom were slumped over, with only a few still sitting.

Wen Ci is one of them, sitting in the first row, with delicate features, eyelids half-lidded in exhaustion, looking very sleepy. She rests her hand on her cheek, her head lowered as she grabs a pen, appearing like she’s about to topple over.

So young. Did she look like this in high school? Zhou Wu glanced at the time and calculated—it was during her first year of high school.

Yu Binhong added a caption to the photo: “Today’s students have no energy.”

Qin Yun replied below: “848, are you letting them sleep during breaks?”

Yu Binhong seemed to be using the album as a disciplinary log, with almost every photo showing students breaking the rules. Zhou Wu scrolled through for a while, and didn’t see Wen Ci again. Instead, he saw a photo of himself.

It was of him sleeping in the last row of the classroom. Yu Binhong’s caption read: “Zhou Wu, skipping P.E.”

Zhou Wu smiled in amusement and was about to scroll back when he suddenly stopped.

In P.E., the classroom was empty except for him and one other person.

After a moment, he zoomed in on the photo, examining the blurry figure in the corner.

It was Wen Ci.

In the photo, he was wearing the summer uniform, the fabric on his back slightly wrinkled, while Wen Ci was in a fall jacket with the zipper neatly closed. The two looked out of place, as though they weren’t in the same season.

Wen Ci was bent over getting water, but her head was tilted, looking at him.

He faced the window, and Wen Ci faced him. Neither of them noticed Yu Binhong secretly taking the photo from the hallway.

In the next photo, Zhou Wu was standing by the wall in the classroom corridor as punishment, wearing a gray sweatshirt. Yu Binhong captioned it: “Zhou Wu, late, not in uniform.”

In the corner by the window in the first row, Wen Ci stood holding an English textbook, her head secretly peeking out from behind the book to look at him.

Next, there was a photo without him, but with Wen Ci, taken in the teacher’s office. Yu Binhong captioned it: “This time, the class average score was second in the entire grade.”

Wen Ci had her back to the camera, holding an English test paper, though the content was too blurry to make out. However, he could vaguely see a small dog drawn on the blank spaces.

Zhou Wu remembered that he lost five points on the test for that dog.

—-

Finally, he found the photo from that basketball game.

Zhou Wu ignored his own figure in the center and zoomed in on the audience in the back row. After flipping through several pictures, his eyes blurred, but he finally found the person he was looking for in the last one.

Wen Ci wasn’t in the stands.

Outside the basketball court’s iron fence, a thin figure stood on tiptoe, trying to peer in, with Zhou Wu’s familiar black vintage bicycle parked beside them.

Zhou Wu had thought about it a lot last night. If the person Wen Ci liked wasn’t Xiang Wen, then the traits he had mentioned earlier, could they really not be about Xiang Wen? After all, as far as he knew, Xiang Wen couldn’t play basketball.

Then, he suddenly remembered a game he had played, and Wen Ci must have watched it.

It had been so long that he didn’t remember how the game went. He was a bit concerned, wondering if he hadn’t played well. He couldn’t help but ask Qin Yun, then came across this album.

Why is everyone in the audience so tall? Could Wen Ci even see?

Zhou Wu lowered his eyes, zooming in and out on Wen Ci’s figure several times.

It seemed that Wen Ci really liked him.

Since high school.

Zhou Wu put down the computer and went out to the balcony for a cigarette. The cigarette, lit and held between his fingers, wasn’t smoked. The smoke rose slowly and was soon blown away by the night wind.

The night was quiet, and Zhou Wu could hear his own heartbeat. He lazily and absurdly wondered if it had ever beaten so fast before.

Ever since he confirmed that Wen Ci liked him, Zhou Wu had been feeling euphoric, almost to the point of being overly excited, mixed with other emotions he couldn’t quite explain.

His ears felt warm, but Zhou Wu couldn’t be bothered. When did Wen Ci start liking him? Was it in first year? He didn’t remember. Second year? He had carried her to the school clinic during sports day. She had said thank you, and he nodded, and then it was over. Third year? Probably before then, when Wen Ci was already urging him to submit his English homework, and she didn’t care whether Qin Yun did or not.

Liking someone but not confessing. Well, a little liar like her wouldn’t confess. She’d only come over to ask him for casual sex and then lie, saying she liked someone else. Besides, even if she had confessed, he wouldn’t have agreed back then. He hadn’t paid attention to her.

Had she always liked him? What did she feel when she found out he was with Duan Wei? After so many years, still liking him?

The cigarette burned down, and Zhou Wu didn’t take a drag. He tossed the cigarette butt into the trash can and lit another one, then realized he had just called Wen Ci on video.

The other side picked up slowly. Wen Ci was sitting at a desk, a towel over her head, with water droplets still dripping from her damp hair.

“Sorry, I was just taking a shower.” The phone was lying flat on the desk, and Wen Ci looked down at the camera. The angle was terrible, but it made her look kind of cute. Because of their earlier conversation in the car, her eyes were a little evasive. She awkwardly asked, “What’s up?”

Some things weren’t clear, and such an important matter couldn’t be discussed over the phone. Zhou Wu paused for two seconds: “Yeye wants to see you.”

Wen Ci was stunned, looking around: “I miss it too. Where is it?”

“Next to my legs.”

Wen Ci placed both hands on the desk, looking like she did in class. She waited for a moment, but when he didn’t do anything else, she spoke up: “Can you move the phone so I can see it?”

“No.”

“I was lying earlier. The dog can’t talk.” Zhou Wu lowered his eyes to look at her, “It’s me who wants to see you.”

—

Under the desk lamp, Wen Ci’s face slowly turned red: “Oh, oh, okay.”

There was a brief silence on the phone. Wen Ci leaned closer to the camera and suggested, “How about I dry my hair and call you back? I think… I might look a little ugly right now.”

The cigarette burned down to his fingers. Zhou Wu flicked it out, suddenly realizing what the other emotion was.

It was tenderness.