Chapter 61: Can I hold your hand?

One week before the winter camp starts, there was a monthly exam at No. 1 High School.

During the exam, Yao Yi was disheartened. There was no room for improvement in her other subjects. She could only get so many perfect marks. How could she get the marks out of thin air? Needless to say, her essay composition points were not as high as that of Fu Chuan’s.

Recently Yao Yi discovered a particularly frightening thing. It was that Fu Chuan has almost caught up with her in other subjects. As long as there were no accidents, the scores of the two would be the same: full marks.

Sure enough, the only solution was dating?

Yao Yi sat in the examination room, staring at Fu Chuan’s back and thinking bitterly.

Typically, no one at No. 1 High School would hand in their test papers in advance, especially the students who sat closer to the front (TLN: the seating in examination rooms are based on your place in the grade, so since Yao Yi is second place in the grade, she sits in the second seat in the front row), very few people would come out before the examination time was over.

It was just that today Fu Chuan suddenly got up and handed in the test papers ahead of time. Yao Yi, who was staring at him from behind, froze, but then immediately got up and followed Fu Chuan out.

“Classmate, do you want to hand it in too?!” The invigilator was a new freshmen teacher, and he was not too familiar with these two sophomores.

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“R tsv vkale sq oakvkdt, R oydvle vs nsxl swv vs tlv psxl yka.” Ww Ubwyd zlydle byzq ytykdpv vbl oyzz sq vbl pvykap, okvb y bkdv sq zygkdlpp.

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Fkdnl Ww Ubwyd jkpple bla zypv vkxl, Zys Zk oyp hlau lytla vs qkde vbl ywvbsa sq “Mbl Jssj sq Nshl”, yde lhld cswtbv ydsvbla nsru sq bkp zshl twkel sq vbl pyxl plaklp. Mbkp vkxl kv oyp ycswv tkhkdt y caktbv zktbv vs vbspl kd zshl.

Zys Zk lmvaynvle vbl lppldnl qasx kv yde qswde y rzyd vbyv pbl nswze kxrzlxldv.

“When you’re dating, you have to hold hands.” Yao Yi raised her head and said seriously, “Last time you said we would try.”

Fu Chuan looked at Yao Yi quietly, probably because the sun was weak in the winter. Her face became fairer, with a luster like cold jade. Her hair has now reached her shoulders. And because the owner was too lazy to take care of it, allowing it to grow freely, the hair had a soft and fluffy feeling. When her clear eyes were looking at someone, it made the other person feel that they were the only person in her world.

Stretching out his hand, Fu Chuan moved his eyes away, not looking at Yao Yi.

Seeing that Fu Chuan was willing to extend his hand, Yao Yi immediately held his hand happily.

Fu Chuan’s fingers were long and slender, and his palm was warm and soft, making it very comfortable to hold. Yao Yi couldn’t help rubbing his hand with her fingers.

On the contrary, Yao Yi, a girl, had calluses on her hand, feeling rough to the touch.

Fu Chuan held Yao Yi’s hand instead, and led her downstairs together until they walked to a tree on the back hill.

He opened Yao Yi’s hand and looked at her palm. There are also some tiny cocoons on it. It seemed like they were formed by lifting heavy objects.

Yao Yi also followed Fu Chuan’s gaze, feeling a little embarrassed.

Probably because of his previous health condition, Fu Chuan’s skin was pale but satiny. His fingers were well-articulated, sticking out like a work of art. When he was holding Yao Yi’s seemingly ‘scarred’ hand, it really didn’t fit.

“Here…” Fu Chuan pointed to a brand new scar on Yao Yi’s palm, “What happened?”

Yao Yi looked at the place he was pointing at, and honestly shook her head: “I don’t know.”

The scar was not deep, as if it was a shallow cut made somewhere.

Fu Chuan exhaled cold air, and his facial expression was not very good-looking: “How can you hurt yourself even when studying and doing homework all day long?”

After hearing this, Yao Yi’s first feeling was not the worry behind Fu Chuan’s words, but she suspected that he was secretly mocking herself for being clumsy.

“Accident.” Yao Yi snorted in her heart, and replied bluntly.

Anyway, it was already the last exam, and there was no class in the evening, so Fu Chuan took Yao Yi to the pharmacy opposite the school to buy medicine.

“It’s just a small scratch.” Yao Yi’s hand was being held by him, and so she had to follow behind while resisting it.

“What if it gets infected?” Fu Chuan stopped, his brows and eyes tinged with anger, “Don’t you want to date me, how can we date when you fall ill?”

Most of the time Fu Chuan could hide his emotions well, but it was often out of control when he faced Yao Yi. If Yao Yi had the sensitivity of a normal person, she would have been able to find out about this abnormality earlier.

But Yao Yi’s ingenuity was probably all in mathematics, and she was always a little bit slow when it came to other things or people.

“Okay, don’t be angry.” Yao Yi looked at Fu Chuan anxiously, “I still want to date you.”

Walking to the door of the pharmacy, Fu Chuan let go of Yao Yi’s hand: “You wait for me here.”

Yao Yi nodded obediently, and stood at the most conspicuous place in front of the pharmacy.

Fu Chuan asked the pharmacist for a few medicines for wounds, and at the same time called Uncle Li: “Mhm… also put them in at the house in Lugu Mountain. Buy all the types of medicines and store them.”

After paying, Fu Chuan came out but did not see Yao Yi. He paused, his heart sank, and before he turned his head to look for her, Yao Yi reappeared in his sight.

In her hand, she held two warm put chai ko (TLN: pudding cake from Hong Kong).

“Here.” Yao Yi handed Fu Chuan a put chai ko, “It’s delicious.”

With Yao Yi’s shallow common sense in life, she could only think of using delicious food to please people.

Fu Chuan closed his eyes heavily, and then opened them again: “I told you to wait here, I was very worried when you suddenly disappeared like this.”

Yao Yi’s movements that were biting the put chai ko paused, and when she heard Fu Chuan’s words, she immediately felt guilty in her heart.

Because of her manners, Yao Yi hardly caused trouble to others. When Fu Chuan said this, she felt that she had made a big mistake.

“Eat it quickly, it will get cold later.” Fu Chuan took out the medicine, “I’ll rub the medicine for you after you finish eating.”

Originally, you could eat the put chai ko in one bite. Yao Yi directly stuffed it into her mouth, chewed it twice and finished it. Fu Chuan handed her the one in his hand, and pulled Yao Yi to sit on the bench.

Yao Yi smelled the sweet and glutinous aroma from the piece of cake in her hand, and looked at Fu Chuan who was earnestly rubbing in the medicine with downcast eyes. She hesitated and  then said, “If you don’t eat it, it will get cold.”

Fu Chuan raised his eyes: “My hands are full of ointments.”

“Then, then I’ll feed you?” Yao Yi didn’t have any extravagant thoughts, and directly pressed the cake to Fu Chuan’s lips without any tenderness.

Fu Chuan didn’t mind either, and took a small bite of the cake in Yao Yi’s hand.

Yao Yi took a look and saw that there was more than half of the cake left, and was a little annoyed: “The cake is delicious only if you eat it in one bite.”

Slowly taking out a tissue to wipe off the ointment on his hands, Fu Chuan lowered his head again, looked deeply into Yao Yi’s eyes, and bit the rest of the cake away.

Yao Yi seemed to be frightened, she moved back a little: “You look so strange like this.” Her heart was so scared that it beat several beats faster.

***

The day before the winter camp started, the results of the monthly exam came out. Yao Yi didn’t even need to look at the grades that the class president had brought over. As long as she saw the way the class president looked at the two of them, she would know that she was still in the everlasting second place.

Looking at Fu Chuan’s side face, Yao Yi actually felt very peaceful in her heart. At some point, she had already confirmed in her heart that as long as Fu Chuan dated her, his grades would drop.

Fu Chuan also turned around at this time: “The temperature in Beijing is lower than Yan City at this time, remember to keep warm when you are outdoors.”

“Oh.” Yao Yi nodded obediently, as the leading party in a relationship needs to show favor to the dominated party frequently and be submissive appropriately.

Yao Yi felt that the words from the Book of Love were quite accurate, and every time she was very obedient, Fu Chuan’s complexion would improve.

“Can you call me when you arrive at the winter camp?” Fu Chuan asked softly.

Yao Yi nodded: “Of course, it’s not a death camp. But I may not be able to answer the phone when I’m solving problems. I will contact you in the evening, okay?”

Fu Chuan agreed, and tacitly believed that Yao Yi would be free every evening of the winter camp.

This time, six students from No. 1 High School went to the mathematics winter camp. Except for Yao Yi and Qin Li who joined halfway, everyone else had started preparing from freshman year to go to the competition. They wanted to directly enter the university from here.

This year’s parents were also bossy, insisting to not let the school organization go with the students to the capital together. The parents of the other four students have negotiated in private that they will accompany their children.

The principal couldn’t force it, so he signed an agreement with the four parents, and finally approached Yao Yi and Qin Li and asked if they wanted their parents or the teacher to accompany them.

The two of them both refused to be accompanied by their parents. They already didn’t have their parents accompanying them when they took tests in elementary school. Why would they want their parents to accompany them in high school?

In the end, they could only send teachers to accompany them. After all, the school had the responsibility to ensure the safety of students when they went out to compete.

Yao Yi and the others arrived at the waiting room at 8:00 for the flight at 9:00 in the morning.

“The students should still be in class now.” This accompanying teacher was very young, and only young teachers were free to accompany them during this period of time. The distance was not considered short, an older teacher couldn’t bear it.

As soon as the teacher finished speaking, Yao Yi’s phone vibrated twice. Seeing  that Qin Li was talking to the teacher, she looked down to look at the message. 

Fu Chuan, who is about to lose first place: [Are you at the airport?]

Isn’t he in class? He dared to play small tricks during class, Yao Yi was complacent in her heart, looked like his grades were going to drop very soon.

Yao Yi replied: [Yes :-)]

Fu Chuan, who is about to lose first place: [Did you bring a coat? It will be very cold when you get to the capital.]

Yao Yi took a look at her bulging backpack: [Yes, yes, you reminded me several times last night, I’m not stupid.]

Fu Chuan, who was secretly sending text messages to Yao Yi in language arts class, ignored the death glares shot by the language arts teacher from time to time. He lowered his head and hooked his lips, and sent another message:

[Compete it well. ]

Yao Yi put on the coat before boarding the plane, and Qin Li, who was next to her, looked at her strangely: “It’s not cold, what are you doing so tightly wrapped up?”

The weather in Yan City has been fine these days, much better than the days when it was surrounded by dense fog, and the sun was shining.

“It will be very cold after arriving in the capital.” After Yao Yi finished speaking, she lowered her head and buttoned her coat tightly.

“Haven’t you heard that heating is installed everywhere in the capital?” Qin Li shook his head mockingly.

It was indeed not cold on the plane. Yao Yi sat in the seat for more than an hour, sweating profusely, while Qin Li was still watching the fun.

“Take off the coat, I can see that you are hot.” Qin Li laughed happily, “It was already enough to wear a sweater and a light coat, but you had to add on such a thick coat.”

Yao Yi didn’t take it off, Fu Chuan said that the airport was some distance away from the exit, and it was going to be very cold.

Sure enough, after getting off the plane, Qin Li was dumbfounded by the cold. Wrapping his arms tremblingly around himself, he looked pitifully at Yao Yi’s thick coat.