Chapter 44: Your Childhood Friend is Trending on Social Media

Their neighborhood was in the city center, not far from school, and usually walked home. He had never seen her take the bus before.

Bus 285.

Jiang Chiyu walked to the bus stop sign at the school gate and looked at the routes listed. This bus didn’t pass by their community at all, going in the opposite direction.

He suddenly remembered that Su Tian mentioned in class that Zhou Ying was sick.

Oh.

Coming to his senses, he looked at the route information on the sign again.

Bus 199 was the one that went to their neighborhood.

Jiang Chiyu took a mask out of his pocket, put it on, waited for a bit, and soon got in line to board a bus that arrived.

…

Zhou Ying was getting an IV drip at the community hospital in their neighborhood.

It wasn’t Su Tian’s first time visiting Zhou Ying’s neighborhood, but it was her first time at the community hospital. It took her a while to find it.

A few older women were standing and sitting at the entrance, munching on apples and chatting enthusiastically about something.

Su Tian overheard them – apparently someone’s daughter got divorced again, and someone’s daughter-in-law found someone else.

“…”

Never underestimate the gossip abilities of older women.

Su Tian gripped her backpack straps and walked in.

She found the room number Zhou Ying mentioned and knocked. A weak voice quickly came from inside: “Come in~”

It can’t be that serious, right?

It was a single room. Zhou Ying was lying in a bed, covered with a thick quilt, one hand sticking out with an IV, her face pale.

She struggled to open her eyes. When she saw who came, her expression instantly perked up as she threw off the covers and sat up.

Su Tian: “…”

“Wuwuwu Tian Tian you finally came,” Zhou Ying opened her arms to her. “Come give this sick patient a loving hug.”

Su Tian coldly refused. “No thanks, I’m afraid you’ll pass the fever to me.”

Zhou Ying thought so too, but that wasn’t her real intention anyway. “Did you bring the chips, chicken feet, and soda I asked for?”

Su Tian did, in her backpack.

Yesterday, Zhou Ying pitifully said that she had a fever and everything tasted bland, so she wanted something strong-flavored. But her mom wouldn’t buy it for her, so she had to ask Su Tian to bring some when visiting.

Su Tian actually believed her.

But where did Zhou Ying look even a bit like a patient right now!

Thinking she hadn’t recovered from the fever yet, Su Tian had hesitated over whether to bring her snacks. Now seeing that she looked perfectly fine, Su Tian contemplated for a moment and still irritably dumped the snacks on the bed.

Zhou Ying excitedly opened a bag of chips. “Ugh, why didn’t you get me spicy ones, what flavor is this… cucumber?”

“You’re lucky to get snacks at all. Eating spicy while on an IV drip?”

“Hey, I actually recovered a long time ago. I just didn’t want to go to school. So when the nurse said I could be discharged and go home to take medicine the same day, or keep the IV for a few more days, I immediately chose the latter. Plus, I did really badly on the monthly exams this time, so now that my mom sees I’m sick, she can’t scold me anymore.” Zhou Ying was quite proud.

Su Tian was speechless. “How did you suddenly get a fever then?”

Zhou Ying suddenly choked.

In the few silent seconds that followed, Su Tian belatedly realized something and slowly widened her eyes.

“Um… I’ll just explain a bit. You can’t pry further.” Zhou Ying awkwardly shifted her gaze elsewhere, her face now looking a bit feverish.

Then she gently tapped her lower lip.

“???” Su Tian’s face was filled with question marks and exclamation marks”!?”

“Really? Is it what I think it is???” Su Tian couldn’t believe it. “I was just blindly guessing.”

Zhou Ying stopped eating chips, lay on the bed and covered her head with the quilt, her muffled voice coming from underneath. “Ah you asked. It really was just an accident! A very sudden accident! We both froze! Since I’m telling the truth, just don’t pry anymore!”

What else could Su Tian ask.

She was so shocked her jaw almost dropped.

After a good while, she finally processed this fact and blinked. Afraid that Zhou Ying would suffocate under the covers, she went to pull her out. “Alright, I won’t ask anymore! Come out!”

Zhou Ying’s face was even redder than before as she unnaturally took the chips and continued crunching on them. To shift the focus, she took out her phone from under her pillow and started scrolling through it.

Su Tian took out the assignments Zhou Ying had accumulated over the past few days from her backpack and placed them on the side table. The two chatted on and off without mentioning what just happened.

As Zhou Ying was scrolling, she suddenly cried out, chips spraying from her mouth. “Damn!”

Su Tian silently handed her some tissues. “What happened?”

Zhou Ying didn’t even bother wiping her mouth, dazedly turning her gaze to Su Tian’s face. “Did anything big happen at our school recently?”

Su Tian subconsciously thought of the Monday flag-raising ceremony.

Before she could say anything, Zhou Ying put the phone in front of her, using an extremely certain and affirmative tone:

“Su Tian, your childhood friend is trending on social media.”

Huh?

Huh?!

Su Tian blankly looked over.

Zhou Ying’s phone screen was on the Weibo hot search page. As she looked from top to bottom, she found two familiar phrases:

#HisContactInfoIsDefinitelyWorthMoreThanJustTwoThousandAndThreeHundred

IDKWhyHesStillInHighSchool

One was #5 on the trending list, the other #11.

Both were things the girl said at the Monday flag-raising ceremony.

Su Tian clicked on the 5th trending topic. The most popular top post was a video someone shared, captioned: “Yangming No. 1 High’s Monday flag-raising ceremony, this girl is awesome.”

It was the complete version of that girl’s speech.

Zhou Ying had only seen the text version and hadn’t watched the video yet. So she clicked play from the beginning, gasping and exclaiming along with the reactions of the teachers and students in the video from time to time.

Su Tian told her to keep it down. “If you keep being so loud the doctor will come say you’re disturbing others.”

“It’s fine, this community hospital is very down-to-earth.” Zhou Ying was still watching the video.

It was indeed quite down-to-earth, Su Tian thought, remembering the older ladies sitting at the entrance gossiping.

“She’s confessing to Jiang Chiyu right? Right? Oh my god, this girl is so brave!”

The girl’s logic was very detailed. The first long part completely laid out the process of her being scammed and reporting it to the police. Zhou Ying thoroughly enjoyed the gossip.

After watching the video, Zhou Ying continued scrolling through the posts under this topic. Some netizens were asking if this kind of guy really exists? Many comments were replying: I can attest, his contact info is definitely worth more than 2300.

This line was practically becoming a meme.

Zhou Ying clicked on the profile pages of a few of them. They seemed to be students from their school.

Scrolling further down, a blogger with many reposts, likes and comments shared a photo of a boy wearing Yangming No. 1 High’s uniform waiting for the bus at the school gate. He was wearing a mask so his face wasn’t clear, but his superior height, build, and exceedingly good-looking eyes peeking out all indicated that this person was a handsome guy.   

The blogger captioned it: Ran into today’s fresh “Heaven Sent^[1]fallen from the sky”… Snapped a quick pic.