Little Garden - 7
Fang Zhixiao tracked Li Kuiyi's "love live" with the vigilance of a hawk.
She couldn't have cared less whether this so-called romance had legs to stand on. For someone like Li Kuiyi, taking the initiative to ask a boy for his contact information was already an earth-shattering event.
After all, in Fang Zhixiao's eyes, Li Kuiyi had been her original Aloof Beauty.
Back in middle school, when they'd been assigned to the same dorm room, Fang Zhixiao had spent two full weeks not daring to say a single word to her. At first she genuinely couldn't understand it. They were the same age. Who did she think she was, walking around with that grumpy expression all day?
But Fang Zhixiao seemed to have a bit of a masochistic streak. The colder someone was, the hotter her curiosity burned.
And so she threw herself wholeheartedly into the mission to conquer the Aloof Beauty.
Li Kuiyi might have looked unremarkable at first glance, but there were depths to her that weren't immediately apparent. It was as though she'd built herself an entire private system for navigating the world. She wouldn't step outside it, and no one else could step inside. Fang Zhixiao lost battle after battle, then tried again only to fail again, until one day, even heaven itself apparently couldn't stand watching anymore and handed her an opportunity. Li Kuiyi got her first period.
They hadn't had health class yet. She clearly had no idea what to do. Her ears were bright red, and for the first time in her life, the words "at a complete loss" wrote themselves across her face.
As a seasoned veteran, Fang Zhixiao took her under her wing like a mother hen, walked her through the mechanics of a sanitary pad, and painstakingly listed all the things she shouldn't do: no cold drinks, no spicy food, no strenuous exercise...
It was only later that Fang Zhixiao learned Li Kuiyi had been raised by her grandmother, who didn't pay much attention to her. There really hadn't been anyone to teach her these things.
Once her first period was over, Li Kuiyi treated Fang Zhixiao to shaved ice. Bright magenta fruit syrup smeared across Fang Zhixiao's mouth. Her teeth chattering from the cold, she asked, "So... are we best friends now?"
Li Kuiyi turned her face away. "Fifty-percent friends."
Tch. What a tsundere.
So what had He Youyuan ever done to deserve Li Kuiyi adding him on her own initiative? All he had going for him was a decent face.
There had to be something going on. If there wasn't, she'd eat a needle.
"There's really no progress." After evening self-study, Li Kuiyi stood at the school gate, absently gripping the strap of her schoolbag. "He still hasn't accepted my friend request."
Fang Zhixiao's gossip campaign had hit a roadblock. She ground her teeth. "That sneaky dog. Who does he think he is, acting all high and mighty."
Whatever. If she couldn't add him, she couldn't add him. Li Kuiyi wasn't particularly bothered. "Forget him. There's a weekly exam on Saturday. Do you want me to help you review? You could sleep over at my place tonight."
At No. 1 High School, students attended classes five days a week, with Saturday reserved for exams. Sunday was off during the day, though evening self-study carried on as usual. During the first semester of Grade One, students still had to study both the arts and sciences, there was no way to test everything in a single day. The subjects rotated from week to week. The first week's exam covered Chinese, mathematics, English, and the science comprehensive paper.
Even one day was a tight schedule, so the weekly exams were roughly half the length of a formal examination, though the questions were more difficult.
Fang Zhixiao wasn't feeling it. School had barely started; she wasn't about to push herself too hard yet. "We'll see. If I start falling behind, I'll ask you to help me."
"Sure."
After they parted at the school gate, Fang Zhixiao hopped onto her little electric scooter and rode off at full speed, disappearing into the night in no time. Li Kuiyi lived in the opposite direction and chose to walk home.
It was strange. Running was the form of exercise Li Kuiyi hated most, yet she loved walking.
Especially on summer nights. A cool breeze drifted through the streets, city lights mingling with the darkness overhead. The world was neither too noisy nor too quiet. Walking like this, surrounded by endless dimness and scattered crowds, she could feel her own presence becoming faint and indistinct, as though she were somehow living in two worlds at once.
Tonight, though, it was late. Since the semester officially began, evening self-study had expanded to four periods, and classes didn't end until 10:20 p.m.
There were hardly any pedestrians left on the streets, even the traffic had thinned. Only students coming home from evening classes occasionally swept past on bicycles, their uniforms billowing with the wind, outlining the sharp, vivid shape of youth.
By the time Li Kuiyi wandered home, it was nearly eleven. She bent to change her shoes at the entryway and stopped.
A pair of unfamiliar canvas sneakers sat on the floor. Not the kind of thing a middle-aged man like Li Jianye would ever wear.
She straightened, her gaze drifting toward her brother's room. Whenever Su Jianlin came to stay, he slept in her brother's room.
The door was shut tight. Something about knowing he might be behind it made the door feel suddenly colder, more forbidding, like a wall built to keep the world out.
No light showed beneath it. He must already be asleep.
Su Jianlin lived with Grandma and her second uncle's family in Wenxi County, under Liuyuan City jurisdiction. When Li Kuiyi was three, Li Jianye and Xu Manhua had sent her there. They'd wanted a son, and the one-child policy was being enforced extremely strict at the time, so they told everyone that Li Kuiyi was a relative's child who had been fostered by their family.
Su Jianlin, though, was the one who'd been truly fostered with the Li family.
They'd met for the first time under the great yellow birch at the old family house. She was five, he was nine. Wind rustled through the leaves above them as the two of them stared at each other for a long time without saying a word.
She thought she'd be calling him older brother. Instead, the adults told her to call him Uncle.
Su Jianlin was quiet, even quieter than she was. He ate, slept, and walked in almost complete silence.
He was an excellent student. Last year, he'd been admitted to Zhejiang University’s Qiushi Academy. People said he had fallen short of Tsinghua and Peking University by little more than the width of a fingernail. Once, she'd asked him, "Is Zhejiang University pretty?" His answer still had been only two words. "It's alright."
Li Kuiyi quietly slipped into her room.
The first thing she did was unlock the drawer and take out her phone to message Fang Zhixiao. After school officially started, Liu Xinzhao had specifically instructed them not to bring their phones onto campus anymore. Li Kuiyi had no interest in deliberately defying school rules, so she'd locked hers away, only taking it out after evening classes to check her messages.
Li Kuiyi: If you loved studying even a fraction as much as you love meddling, you wouldn't have missed your chance at love.
Fang Zhixiao: What does that mean?
Li Kuiyi: Figure it out yourself.
She returned to the message list and checked again. He Youyuan still hadn't accepted her friend request.
Was he really that angry with her?
Or was he genuinely the kind of person who considered himself too good for adding people as friends?
But he didn't seem like that.
Fang Zhixiao quickly figured it out. "Is Su Jianlin at your house?!"
Li Kuiyi: Eighty percent chance he's here.
Fang Zhixiao: What do you mean, eighty percent? You haven't seen him?
Li Kuiyi: No. He's probably already asleep, but the shoes by the door should be his. It's about time for universities to start too.
Fang Zhixiao: Waaah, is it too late for me to come over now?
Fang Zhixiao: This is all your fault, all your fault! Last time I asked you to ask him for me, and you wouldn't!
Li Kuiyi: He doesn't really talk to me either.
Fang Zhixiao: I don't care, it's still your fault. Your punishment is to take a picture of him for me.
Li Kuiyi: Can't do it.
Asking him to take a picture would be far too strange. Besides, she might not even see Su Jianlin. She had to leave the house at six every morning, and he might not even be awake by then.
Fang Zhixiao: Hmph. We're through!
As it turned out, she did see Su Jianlin.
At five forty in the morning, Li Kuiyi got up and went to wash. The moment she turned the handle on her bedroom door, the harsh white light from the dining room stabbed at her eyes. She blinked and adjusted to it, then realized Su Jianlin was sitting at the dining table eating breakfast, a black suitcase stood beside him.
Hearing the noise, he turned his head calmly. "I bought enough breakfast for five people."
There really was a whole spread on the table: steamed buns, fried dough sticks, scallion-oil noodles, soy milk, a little of everything.
Li Kuiyi managed a dazed "Oh," then asked, "Are you getting up early to catch the high-speed rail?"
"Mm."
"Oh." Li Kuiyi scratched her hair. "I'll go wash up first."
She fled into the bathroom. In the mirror, a few stubborn strands of hair stuck up at odd angles, her under-slept eyes struggled to stay open, a mosquito bite bloomed red on her left cheek, and her shoulders were slightly hunched. Every inch of her seemed to radiate a strange, tightly wound tension.
Li Kuiyi, what are you nervous about?
She slowly exhaled and began washing up at an almost painfully leisurely pace. It was a long while before she emerged, and when she did, she glanced at the clock on the wall with feigned surprise. "Ah, it's already six. I need to hurry, no time to eat at home."
Su Jianlin looked at her but said nothing.
Li Kuiyi went back to her room for her schoolbag, then walked to the table as casually as she could manage. "I'll just take the scallion oil noodles."
To keep the noodles from getting soggy, Su Jianlin had already mixed them, with a fried egg sitting on top.
"You're eating them on the way?" he asked.
"I can eat them in class."
"Oh."
Li Kuiyi picked up the container of noodles and smiled. "I'm leaving. Have a safe trip."
"Wait." Su Jianlin suddenly stood. He rummaged through the tote bag beside him and handed her a small box. "Your fifteenth birthday present."
Li Kuiyi froze.
She looked up at him in surprise, but his face remained as expressionless as ever, as though giving her a present was the most ordinary thing in the world.
The first time Su Jianlin gave her a birthday present, she'd been thirteen. He'd caught a glimpse of her ID number and asked, "August seventeenth is your birthday?"
Li Kuiyi had never celebrated a birthday. She nodded. "Maybe. I don't know if the date is even right."
So, on August sixteenth, thirteen-year-old Li Kuiyi received an MP4 player. He hadn't called it a birthday present. He'd simply said he didn't want the MP4 anymore, so he was giving it to her.
On August eighteenth of the following year, Li Kuiyi received a pair of plush toys, two adorable spiders with big eyes. Again, Su Jianlin didn't call it a birthday present. He'd said a classmate had given them to him, but they were too childish for him, so he'd given them to her.
She'd asked him once, "When's your birthday?"
"I don't know."
"Your ID says..."
"That isn't accurate." He'd cut her off.
This year's gift had arrived late, on September sixth, but this time he said it clearly, This is a birthday present, your fifteenth birthday present.
Li Kuiyi bit her lip and accepted the little box with both hands. In a muffled voice, she said, "Thank you."
"Mm."
She didn't put the present in her bedroom. Instead, she slipped it directly into her schoolbag, then looked up at him again and said seriously, "Goodbye."
"Goodbye."
Li Kuiyi walked fast. She didn't even know what she was hurrying for. The morning air carried a faint chill, rushing into her lungs with every breath, like a quiet mountain breeze stirring across a valley and setting tiny ripples trembling through her heart.
When she reached school, Li Kuiyi took a moment to steady her breathing. She didn't go to the Class 1. Instead, she headed up to the third floor.
He Youyuan was sitting beside the window of Class 12, leaning back against the desk behind him and leisurely drinking milk. Then, without warning, he saw Prickly Pineapple appear at the far end of the corridor and walk straight toward him. He immediately choked mid-sip.
Seriously? All he'd done was not accept her friend request, and now she'd come here in person to demand an explanation?
He watched helplessly as Prickly Pineapple drew closer, and despite himself he was getting nervous. In his panic, he quickly arranged his face into an imposing expression, as though to say, Come on. I'm not afraid of you.
Prickly Pineapple walked right up to him and tapped on the window glass.
He Youyuan's Adam's apple bobbed. He forced himself to look calm and slid the window open, giving her a lofty glance. "What are you..."
He didn't get to finish. Prickly Pineapple had calmly shifted her gaze away from him and toward the girl sitting diagonally ahead of him. "Fang Zhixiao, Su Jianlin bought scallion-oil noodles. Do you want some?”
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