Chapter 8

Time had probably been slowed down by 100x by the heavens. Otherwise, how could she remember every second of this moment so slowly yet clearly? The images in her retina were more beautiful than those romance movies with pink filters, every frame was Chen Hang.
His slightly wet bangs from the rain, the water droplets disappearing into his collar, their rapid breathing from running, the sparkling water diamonds on his ear cartilage, and those black eyes that shone brighter than all of the above.
So that's how it was.
Noticing Luo Zhuowei's somewhat dazed gaze for some reason, he immediately understandingly yet mistakenly explained: "Ah, if there's a smell on my clothes, please bear with it for now!"
She liked Chen Hang.
Weekend.
Lin Haoyuan, that bastard, had been pestered by some girl who had been blocking his apartment complex entrance for several nights. Fed up, Lin Haoyuan unceremoniously showed up at my apartment door with a bag of beer that was clearly bought last-minute from the convenience store downstairs, shamelessly demanding to take refuge here for the night.
"So impressive, she even chased you to your doorstep." I casually took out a can and opened it, about to gloat and mock him a bit more, when I suddenly remembered he had told me half a month ago that he wanted to pursue Luo Zhuowei.
I looked at him: "Hey, weren't you going to pursue Luo Zhuowei?"
Although Lin Haoyuan had always changed girlfriends quickly, at least he wouldn't do things like two-timing or cheating, and he looked down on that kind of behavior.
Thinking of this, I lost my joking mood. I put the can on the coffee table and lightly kicked Lin Haoyuan, who was sitting on the sofa playing my Switch and ignoring me: "Lin Haoyuan, you're not doing that, are you? Don't do that kind of thing."
"Huh? What did I do?" Hearing me call him by his full name, Lin Haoyuan raised an eyebrow in surprise, looked up to observe my expression, shrugged, tossed the Switch aside, stretched his arms and leaned back on the sofa. "Because Luo Zhuowei is completely unresponsive. Should I keep trying to win her over?"
Lin Haoyuan expressionlessly listed his failures one by one: "She barely replies on WeChat, whenever I ask her out she always says she's busy, and when I greet her at school she's cold as hell."
"So I told you from the start it was impossible." I picked up my backpack that I had casually thrown on the floor, fished out Lin Haoyuan's car keys, and threw them to him. "Here, returning these."
The small car key followed a perfect parabola into Lin Haoyuan's arms. He didn't say anything, just put the keys away, then gave me an annoying, teasing smile: "Chen Hang, do you know what expression you just had?"
I stiffened my face and retorted: "What expression?"
"Heh heh." Lin Haoyuan, that dog, started being mysterious instead. He stood up, hooked his arm around my shoulder, and forced me to sit on the sofa too. "Little Chen Hang, are you playing dumb with Daddy or are you really dumb?"
He handed me the beer I had just put down. After I took it, he also took a can from the plastic bag and opened it, deliberately waiting for me to take a sip before slowly saying: "Do you know Luo Zhuowei is interested in you?"
I almost choked on that sip of fizzy beer: "Lin Haoyuan! Are you looking for death?!"
#13
Thanks to that dog Lin Haoyuan, I couldn't sleep last night.
Tossing and turning, the words "Luo Zhuowei is interested in you" kept rearranging themselves in my mind, impossible to shake off.
And that trash Lin Haoyuan, after dropping this bombshell, refused to reveal more. He fell asleep instantly and started snoring, making me, who stayed awake almost until dawn, want to pin him to the floor and beat his dog head: I seriously suspected he was just hurt by his failed pursuit of Luo Zhuowei and started ignoring facts, twisting black and white, dragging me, his wingman, down with him.
But the sensitive nerves of puberty couldn't withstand this kind of provocation. Even though I knew Lin Haoyuan was just saying this to mess with me, I still couldn't control that idiotic mentality of disbelief yet unable to help but hope.
Chen Hang, don't be stupid.
Luo Zhuowei didn't even like Lin Haoyuan. What makes you think she'd secretly like you?
Right, right, that's exactly how it is.
But Lin Haoyuan's annoying voice from last night was like a demonic sound echoing in my ears, as if ten loudspeakers were playing it on loop in my mind: "During the game, she didn't even look at me once. Her gaze was following you the whole time, wasn't it?"
Luo Zhuowei was just watching the basketball.
"You said she sat where you put your bag—wasn't that intentional?"
Luo Zhuowei just couldn't find a good spot in that crowded outer area!
But the more I told myself this, the more those strange, inappropriate delusions boiled.
I would uncontrollably think of Luo Zhuowei's face, think of that rain last week, think of those few strands of wet hair stuck to her forehead, her gaze at me more ambiguous than the misty rain outside the eaves. This purity was arbitrarily processed by imagination into breathtaking beauty.
What was worse, things I hadn't noticed before also became crystal clear in these baseless fantasies. Nan High's uniform fabric was average, so the shirt she wore was snow-white and thin. When running in the rain, it got slightly wet, and the close-fitting fabric revealed somewhat...
Stop, Chen Hang, are you a beast? What are you thinking?!
Not to mention Luo Zhuowei doesn't like you at all, even if she did, you can't just imagine her in such a lewd way in your mind!
...I had to admit that even though I denied it over and over in my heart, trying every way to dig up countless reasons to convince myself to calmly laugh it off, I was still deeply shaken by Lin Haoyuan's half-true, half-false "Luo Zhuowei is interested in you."
So much so that during morning English dictation, I was completely spaced out. The boring British woman's voice spelling out words was automatically filtered by my ears like white noise. I carelessly filled in the answer sheet and just handed it in.
I'm really going to be killed by that dog Lin Haoyuan.
During break, my phone in the drawer started buzzing. I irritably ruffled the hair on the back of my head, pulled out my phone with my other hand, and unlocked it.
The WeChat notification page was floating on the lock screen:
[Lin Dog Yuan: Want to play basketball after school?]
[Go away, Daddy's not going]
I didn't need to think to know: If I went, Lin Haoyuan would definitely shamelessly continue questioning me about yesterday's topic.
After replying to Lin Haoyuan, I set my phone to silent mode, even starting to think about finding a way to contact that girl Lin Haoyuan was avoiding yesterday and tell her where she could block Lin Haoyuan.
But after that interruption, the messy thoughts in my head had dissipated quite a bit.
—Just as I was thinking this, reality didn't let me off.
"Chen Hang."