The Scorching Sun - 14

Fang Zhuo's 1500 meter race was scheduled for the third day, leaving her free to do as she pleased during the first two.

To satisfy her homeroom teacher's expectations, she dutifully made a token appearance at the track each day. She would wander around once, settle into a corner to memorize vocabulary, squeeze out a couple of radio announcements to fulfill her assignment, then spend the rest of her time in the dormitory or classroom.

That afternoon, she was working through the exercise book her homeroom teacher had given her. After finally solving a question that had kept her stuck for ages, she looked up at the competition schedule written on the blackboard.

The distant voice of the announcer drifted into the classroom, mingling with muffled cheers and rousing music. It was a revelry that felt completely out of step with Fang Zhuo.

She turned to glance at the clock on the wall.

Ten minutes until Zhao Jiayou's 400-meter race. Yan Lie's high jump would follow immediately afterward.

Thanks to their relentless publicity campaign in class, even Fang Zhuo had memorized the schedule.

She set down her pen and decided she might as well go take a look.

The teaching building was still relatively quiet, but the moment she stepped outside, rounded the flower bed, and entered the open campus, the noise crashed over her.

The sky was overcast, though the breeze still carried a lingering warmth as it brushed against her face. Mixed into it was the familiar fragrance of osmanthus blossoms. It smelled unmistakably like autumn.

She climbed up to the spectator stands overlooking the track and gazed down from above.

Zhao Jiayou's 400 meters had already ended, and the broadcasting station was announcing the results.

True to his word, he'd finished first in his preliminary heat. The runners from the next group stood scattered across the track, stretching, chatting, and waiting for their turn.

Her gaze wandered before settling on the high jump area at the side of the field. It was packed several layers deep with spectators. From where she stood, she couldn't see a thing.

So Fang Zhuo changed course and walked over to the campus convenience store. Standing on a small stone beside it, she craned over the sea of heads, peering toward the center of the crowd from more than ten meters away.

Yan Lie was in a black tracksuit. Against his fair skin, the contrast was striking. He seemed born with a filter no one else possessed, fresh and effortlessly striking, like a cool breeze in the middle of summer. Even without seeing his face clearly, she knew at once it was him.

It wasn't long before his turn came. Even the spectators grew noticeably more animated. Several girls gathered outside the white boundary line, erupting into excited squeals the moment he stepped onto the field. Their enthusiasm irritated boys from other classes, who angrily yelled "traitors!”. Their indignant scolding rose loud enough to carry all the way to where Fang Zhuo stood, drowning out the surrounding noise.

Yan Lie didn't react much. He merely swept a calm glance over the crossbar, then turned and flashed a hand signal to someone behind him. Judging from the shove he received immediately afterward, he'd probably said something outrageously cocky.

As he sprinted toward the bar and leaped, Fang Zhuo instinctively wanted to close her eyes.

To her surprise, his technique was genuinely impressive. Unlike the awkward attempts she'd seen from the boys before him, his movement was light, clean, and athletic. After clearing the bar with a flawless Fosbury flop, he rolled naturally across the landing mat and sprang back to his feet in one smooth motion.

There was really only one flaw: his loose shirt had ridden up during the jump, briefly exposing the muscles at his waist to public view.

Then again, perhaps that wasn't a flaw at all.

The crowd exploded into the loudest screams she'd heard all afternoon. Even the people standing in front of Fang Zhuo sucked in sharp breaths, exchanging knowing giggles under their breath.

Yan Lie glanced down at his shoes and turned to head back to the waiting area.

Then, for no reason that made any sense, as though he'd sensed her gaze, he turned his head and looked directly toward Fang Zhuo with uncanny precision.

A faint smile still lingered on her lips. Instinctively, she tried to suppress it, then realized he couldn't possibly see such a tiny expression from this distance, and there was no reason to feel awkward anyway. So she simply met his eyes without looking away.

He seemed to smile.

Lifting his chin high, he waved at her across the crowd. It looked as though he wanted to come over, but Zhao Jiayou immediately grabbed him from behind and hauled him back.

The sunlight was warm, the breeze gentle.

For no apparent reason, a line floated into Fang Zhuo's mind, one from a love letter someone had once given her.

"I think you must be a flower. Passing by you, my journey is left with nothing but your fragrance. And after I leave, it feels as though you're everywhere."

She had only glanced at it before tossing it aside. At the time, all she'd thought was: If you've already left, what's the point of writing love letters? And if this flower is supposedly everywhere, it can't be anything more than an ordinary wildflower. This person really has no way with words.

Yet somehow, the words had stayed with her. Now it drifted up from the dusty bottom of her memory, making her vaguely realize she might have misunderstood it all those years ago.

Still, Fang Zhuo stubbornly felt something about it was off.

More than a flower, which blooms and withers, and which only came to mind when you happened to see them, the only thing that was truly everywhere, every moment of every day, besides the air itself, was sunlight.

Which only proved how unreliable young people's declarations of love really were.

It should be rewritten like this:

"I think you must be a ray of sunlight. Every morning when the sun rises, it feels like you're everywhere. The day the sun and moon stop... stop taking turns… the Earth will be destroyed."

Fang Zhuo clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. That last sentence alone would cost her 55 points off a 60-point essay.

While her thoughts wandered in every direction, the next competitor had already begun his attempt.

The student after Yan Lie belonged to the school track-and-field team. His jump was just as effortless, yet Fang Zhuo couldn't shake the feeling that it lacked Yan Lie's natural ease.

Every muscle in his body stayed rigidly tensed, the curve of his body look stiff instead of graceful. They were performing the exact same movement, and he wasn't even as tall as Yan Lie, yet when he landed, he hit the mat like a hammer.

I'm biased.

Fang Zhuo silently confessed to herself. Her attitude wasn't fair. She shouldn't be so unreasonable.

The event ended quickly. She'd only let her thoughts drift for a moment and already the judge was standing to announce the results.

Apparently one of the participants was a specialist high jumper recruited into the school through athletics. In the end, Yan Lie competed against him alone for several more rounds. He lost and had to settle for second place.

Dusting the dirt from his black sportswear, he was immediately hooked around the neck by Zhao Jiayou, who leaned his full weight onto him from behind until he couldn't even straighten up. As the two of them wrestled and laughed, Yan Lie kept glancing toward Fang Zhuo. Before he could slip away, though, he was intercepted by a few girls waiting in front of him.

Fang Zhuo quietly turned around, went into the convenience store, and bought herself a loaf of bread for lunch. By the time she came back out, Yan Lie had already been dragged away by his friends toward the awards platform to receive his medal.

***

That evening during self-study, the students who had spent the entire day competing gathered back in the classroom. They chatted noisily about everything that had happened, exaggerated their exploits, and, for once, openly displayed the youthful energy people their age were supposed to have.

The homeroom teacher came in to supervise and told everyone to quiet down, but it had little effect. At her wit's end, she instructed the class monitor to copy a movie over and play it on the classroom projector, on the condition that the noise stop.

The class monitor let out a cheer and sprinted out of the room. The boys immediately yelled for a horror movie, while the girls instantly protested with cries of "Absolutely not!" The classroom descended into chaos until Homeroom Teacher's expression turned icy enough to silence everyone.

Yan Lie arrived rather late. Fresh from a shower, he'd changed into a clean white outfit.

As soon as he sat down, Shen Musi dropped a silver medal onto his desk. "Lie Lie, your medal. I already registered it for you. You're welcome."

Fang Zhuo looked over in surprise. "You didn't go up to receive it yourself? Why?"

"Standing up there for photos just feels dumb. And I didn't get first anyway.” Yan Lie casually set the silver medal in the corner of his desk before smiling at her. "So? Was the high jump fun to watch?"

Fang Zhuo thought back on it. Setting aside the handful of genuinely skilled athletes, even the amateurs hadn't been nearly as zombie-like as she'd thought. At worst, they'd looked a little comical.

She offered an objective "It's alright," then added, "Better than long jump."

"Hey, don't start comparing events like that." Yan Lie lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Whatever you do, don't let Zhao Jiayou hear you. The only event he signed up for was the long jump."

Feeling inexplicably guilty, Fang Zhuo darted a glance toward the window, only to realize Zhao Jiayou wasn't even in the classroom.

Yan Lie slipped a hand into his pocket and rummaged around for a moment. Then, with a mysterious grin, he pulled out a gold medal and placed it on the desk. "I may not have won the high jump, but luckily I also signed up for the hundred-meter sprint."

This year's medals at No. 1 High School were beautifully made, with intricate details that made them look surprisingly expensive.

She wanted one.

Catching the unmistakable admiration in her eyes, Yan Lie chuckled softly. "Want it?"

Fang Zhuo calmly looked away, showing no sign of lingering attachment. "I'll have one tomorrow."

Yan Lie remembered she'd signed up for the 1500 meter race. Her confidence struck him as both outrageously bold and oddly adorable. He was just about to tease her when the familiar opening theme of the movie began playing.

The lights dimmed, and the classroom gradually fell silent.

Shadows softened Fang Zhuo's features while the pale glow from the screen washed over her face. She focused all her attention on the movie, watching with quiet concentration. Yan Lie swallowed the words he'd been about to say.

***

The following afternoon began with the boys' 3000 race, followed by the girls' 1500.

Fang Zhuo didn't dare eat much lunch. She drank two extra bottles of water and headed to the track early to get ready.

She pinned her race bib to the inside of her school jacket and paced back and forth along the roadside to warm up. None of her classmates had expected her to enter this event, so they crowded around the other runners, enthusiastically serving up one bowl of motivational nonsense after another.

The one representing the class in the boys' 3000 was Shen Musi.

He'd originally signed up planning to coast through it. Then he realized their class had unexpectedly accumulated enough points to escape the bottom three and even had a chance at a record-breaking finish. Figuring he should at least make an appearance so the class wouldn't lose points, he set off with the pack.

After only one kilometer, however, one of the school team's runners lapped him.

Hearing the cheers erupt ahead of him, all for the opponent behind him, Shen Musi grew deeply embarrassed. He quietly slipped off the track at the side.

The moment he stepped down, he came face-to-face with Fang Zhuo.

The two of them stared at each other in silence.

Perhaps because Fang Zhuo's gaze looked unusually cold, Shen Musi suddenly felt threatened. His brain short-circuited. Without thinking, he turned around and climbed back onto the track, determined to finish the journey he'd abandoned.

The PE teacher spotted him immediately and shouted, "Hey! Hey! Once you've left the track, you can't go back on! What are you doing!"

Shen Musi continued jogging with the runners, suddenly trapped between retreat and advance.

Fang Zhuo hurried over, caught him, and dragged the thoroughly bewildered Comrade Cake off to find Yan Lie.

Yan Lie had already noticed the commotion and was running over from the opposite side. When he reached them, he laughed helplessly. "What are you doing? Either run or don't run. You can't just bounce back and forth."

Shen Musi looked deeply wronged, but with Fang Zhuo standing there, he didn't dare explain himself. His lips quivered for a moment before he muttered, "You wouldn't understand. This is the struggle inside a man's heart."

He sucked in a huge breath, mourning the sympathy he'd failed to receive. "I'm so tired..."

Yan Lie pushed him toward the class's resting area. "Go sit down over there."

Once Shen Musi had shuffled off, Yan Lie turned back to Fang Zhuo. "You're not actually running, are you?"

Fang Zhuo pulled down her zipper and proudly revealed her race bib, complete with its wonderfully auspicious number. "Why wouldn't I? I've already checked in."

Yan Lie's face cycled through shock, disbelief, and utter helplessness. In the end, all of it condensed into one sentence. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Fang Zhuo shot him a sideways glance that made him feel as though she'd just looked at an idiot.

Once the 3000 meter results had been finalized and the track cleared, it was soon time for the girls' 1500.

The announcement played twice over the loudspeaker, and competitors gathered at the starting line for roll call.

When the homeroom teacher, who had been standing nearby watching the races, suddenly spotted Fang Zhuo lining up with the 1500 meter runners, her face changed instantly. "You! What are you doing over there?"

Fang Zhuo: "??"

The surrounding students finally noticed her too. They'd already been wondering why she kept squeezing toward the track and thought it looked like a safety hazard. But when they saw the bright red race bib hanging from her chest, every one of them visibly shuddered.

As the referee called her number, Fang Zhuo calmly raised her hand, proving through her actions that she, too, was someone chasing a dream.

The homeroom teacher's "Absolutely not!" was halfway out of her mouth when Zhao Jiayou, in full dramatic meltdown, beat her to it.

"How can you run the 1500?! Are you even warmed up?!"

Fang Zhuo turned her face away in annoyance, refusing to answer him.

Yan Lie squeezed to the front of the crowd and gently caught hold of the homeroom teacher before she could charge over.

"Don't worry. I've already contacted the infirmary. As soon as they heard it was the malnourished student who fainted last time running today, they reserved a bed for her in advance and said she'd be welcome back anytime."

The homeroom teacher sighed in relief. "Good, that's good."

Listening to the two of them take turns insulting her, Fang Zhuo protested, "This is too much."

The referee had been standing there with a stern face organizing the runners, but after overhearing them for a while, even he couldn't resist asking, "...Did you at least buy insurance?"

Fang Zhuo: "...?" Was there anything left to mock?

She felt the prejudice against her was completely unreasonable.

The total distance these people had run in their lives probably didn't even match the number of mountain trails she'd climbed. Back in elementary school, she'd carried bamboo baskets weighing dozens of pounds over rugged mountain paths for hours at a time. Then she'd spend the day picking oranges, cutting rabbit grass, and digging up potatoes.

Maybe she lacked explosive speed.

But when it came to endurance, she had years of mountain life on her side.

No point trying to explain that to these people.

She quietly took her place on the starting line, shut out every doubtful voice around her, and waited for the starting signal, ready to prove herself.

The sharp crack of the starter's pistol rang out.

The runners surged forward.

Fang Zhuo settled into the middle of the pack as the race began.

Students from every other class screamed themselves hoarse cheering on their runners.

Only Class 1 was different. Their teacher and classmates stood together by the track earnestly calling out, "Fang Zhuo, if you get tired, just stop, okay? It's fine! Don't force yourself! We don't need first place. Participating is what matters!"

She actually had to waste precious energy glaring back at them. More accurately, she cast them an imperious sideways look, silently hoping they could show a little more backbone instead of sabotaging her morale.

By the second lap, the runners had already split into several groups. Fang Zhuo remained with the leading pack.

Yan Lie stood beside the track holding out a cup of water. As she passed, she shook her head without slowing.

The homeroom teacher checked the time on her watch. "Her pace is really steady. She actually looks... fine. Wasn't her 800 meter result pretty good?"

No one really remembered. They just knew she wasn't in the top few. During fitness testing everyone had been too busy trying to survive themselves to pay attention to anyone else's scores.

By the third lap, everyone's expressions turned serious. One after another, they stared at the track as though facing a life-or-death battle.

Fang Zhuo's legs moved with the unwavering rhythm of machine-driven wheels. Every stride matched the last with mechanical precision. One runner after another fell behind until she'd climbed into fifth place.

The homeroom teacher began to waver. She watched Fang Zhuo run toward her from the far side of the track, then saw her disappear into the distance again.

She wasn't the fastest runner on the field. But she was undoubtedly the calmest. And she was also the thinnest.

Those contradictions somehow coexisted in the same person, making the sight almost impossible to believe.

Seeing victory within reach, Zhao Jiayou flushed bright red with excitement. He was even more worked up than when he'd competed himself, chasing along the side of the track to cheer her on, "Third lap, Fang Zhuo! Eight hundred meters! One more lap and you'll hit twelve hundred! You've only got..."

Before he could finish, Yan Lie clamped a hand over his mouth.

What kind of motivational speech was that? That wasn't encouragement. That was stabbing her to death, one line at a time.

Breaking free, Zhao Jiayou abandoned all reason and roared stubbornly, "Fang Zhuo! GO! If you win first place, I'll call you Dad!"

And Fang Zhuo really did go.

On the fourth lap, she began to accelerate. She surged directly from fifth to second, right on the heels of the frontrunner.

Leading the race was a girl from the school athletics team. The pressure of Fang Zhuo drawing closer forced her to stop holding back. She lengthened her stride and increased her speed.

But Fang Zhuo clung to her like glue. She could hear Fang Zhuo's footsteps, what she couldn't hear was her breathing. It was eerie.

"Fang Zhuo, I love you!"

"Go, Zhuozhuo!"

"You're in second! You're amazing! You're in second! You're the best! Aaaaah!"

The Class 1 students had completely lost their minds watching this. They screamed every incoherent thing that came to mind. By now, even the name "Fang Zhuo" came out warped and distorted, tearing through the air like some kind of demonic wail.

The people nearby quietly edged farther away, afraid the insanity might be contagious.

The finish line drew closer. Fang Zhuo accelerated again.

The girl in the lead jolted in alarm. Her breathing fell apart. When she sensed Fang Zhuo pulling past her, her eyes widened in utter disbelief.

Only the final straight remained.

The homeroom teacher held her breath so tightly she could barely breathe, her eyes fixed on the lone figure charging down the track.

Fang Zhuo's lips had turned pale, pressed into a thin line, while a flush spread across her cheeks. Rounding the final bend, she shifted into the outer lane and sprinted straight ahead without once looking to either side.

Her vision was going blurry, maybe from anemia. She couldn't see where her opponent anymore. All she could make out was the blurry outline of the crowd ahead.

That must be the finish line.

She didn't dare slow down.

Only when the referee shouted, "First place!" did she finally stop.

The instant she came to a halt, both legs gave way beneath her. She nearly collapsed.

A pair of hands caught her shoulders just in time, holding her upright with steady strength. Soon, more and more people crowded in around her, blocking out the sunlight.

The voices around her blurred into one overwhelming roar. Unable to make out what anyone was saying, she asked anxiously, "How did I do?"

Yan Lie's voice sounded above her head, barely containing his excitement. "First place! The gold medal's yours! You're a goddess, a champion... and Zhao Jiayou's dad!"

Fang Zhuo finally relaxed.

Yan Lie walked her slowly around the track for two cooldown laps before helping her over to a chair.

Someone fanned her from the front. Someone else massaged her aching legs.

Wei Xi hurried over with a cup, eagerly pouring water for her, looking moments away from feeding it to her herself.

For the first time in her life, Fang Zhuo experienced what it felt like to be the center of everyone's attention.

She had to admit...it was rather nice.

Keeping a deliberately modest face, she said lightly, "It was all right. Not too bad."

 

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