Chapter 16.2

After a short rest, Qi Qiao took her home on bicycle. There was still a match going on in the sports field, and the shouting was getting louder and louder. When she got home, the burst of energy from earlier had eased down a lot, but her stomach was still aching. Sheng Dian knew what had happened but she couldn’t bear to criticize her too much, so she only reprimanded her a few words, and Meng Shengnan obediently accepted it.

The result was a high fever that night.

For several days in a row, she took leave to get an intravenous drip and she ate a liquid diet for all three meals. Even the long-distance running award ceremony was attended by the class monitor in her stead. She had won honor for her Humanities (4) class. Meng Shengnan had not expected this to happen at all. Qi Qiao still wanted to find out the culprit who had caused all this trouble, but was stopped by Meng Shengnan. It was already in the past, forget it.

Later on, Qi Qiao said this phrase frequently: “There is a spirit called Meng Shengnan.”

In the end, it wasn’t like she hadn’t gotten anything out of it. Even after a long time, some close classmates would still talk about this incident enthusiastically.

Xue Lin asked her one day, “How did you win first place?”

She rested her chin with her palm at the time, thought about it and said, “I forgot, I just wanted to finish running quickly.”

After the sports meet, everything slowly returned to a lull again, and nothing had changed. Meng Shengnan was still engrossed in the pile of practice questions, going through the textbook with the mock exam sfrom the past five years at three times speed. When she encountered problems, she would still find Fusong, although his responses were always so philosophical.

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Xdl eyu y qlo olljp zyvla, pbl oyp eskdt xyvb.

Ebld pbl oyp eskdt vbl ryaycszy qwdnvksd iwlpvksd, Yldt Fbldtdyd bye y blyeynbl. Lkl Kkdt byrrldle vs cl eskdt vbl pyxl iwlpvksd, ps vbl vos ypjle Wwpsdt vstlvbla.

Mbl csu vbswtbv qsa vld xkdwvlp clqsal bl nyxl wr okvb vbl ydpola.

“Rv’p vss ekqqknwzv.” Lkl Kkdt pyke.

Ww psdt’p hsknl oyp zktbv: “Mbkp iwlpvksd kp clusde vbl pnsrl sq vbl puzzycwp, fwpv vau yde wdelapvyde kv.”

Yldt Fbldtdyd dseele.

Lkl Kkdt ypjle, “Ekzz vblal cl pwnb y iwlpvksd kd vbl lmyx?”

Wwpsdt aykple bkp lulp: “R nyd’v awzl swv vbl rsppkckzkvu.”

“How do you know?” Meng Shengnan asked.

Fusong smiled lightly and looked at him: “Do you know the Goldbach conjecture?”

Meng Shengnan shook her head.

“Anything is possible,” Fusong said.

Nie Jing pursed her lips and glanced at the boy.

Xue Lin next to her stopped writing and added a sentence: “Deskmate, it will be a pity if you don’t become a philosopher in the future.”

Meng Shengnan laughed.

Fusong didn’t speak any more, and lowered his head to do his questions again.

Xue Lin stuck out her tongue at him, and then handed Meng Shengnan a book she had written in, “Help me think about it, what’s the next sentence?”

Meng Shengnan didn’t know what to say and took a look.

“What’s this?”

“My lyrics book.”

She couldn’t help but turn through a few pages, they were full of lyrics.

“Do you remember the next line?”

In 2000, Ren Xianqi’s song The End of the World was a big hit, it went something like: A dream within a dream, in the dream of the dreamer. I can’t dream of being blown away, the past is like the wind – the next sentence should be, Meng Shengnan thought about it and said, “There is no room for laughter in an empty sky, I am sad, too sad, it hurts me.”

“I think that’s the next sentence?” After speaking, she asked Xue Lin.

“That’s right.” The girl took the book and wrote it down immediately.

At that time it was always like this, they had so many books such as lyric books. Some classmates even had novels and hid it inside their desk drawer, holding onto it before and after class to read. At that time, they held all sorts of novel exchanges, and the whole classroom would pass on a novel to each other so that everyone could read it. What’s more, some people even dug a small hole on the table, and would pretend to be reading their textbook during class but would actually be reading their ghost-genre novel underneath the hole.

Meng Shengnan’s life was peaceful.

Sometimes when she ate in the cafeteria, she would always see that tall and thin figure. She would pretend to bow her head down, then look around again after a while. Time passed by quickly, and the exam preparations were also tense. There were exam materials copied from all sorts of schools, and they had mock exams one after the other.

In early June, Qi Qiao celebrated her birthday.

Meng Shengnan went to the gift shop to buy her a present and bumped into him and a girl face to face. She was so nervous that she quickly lowered her head and pretended to be picking out something. The girl was Zhao Yourong, her voice was sweet and soft, “I like that little bear, buy it for me.”

He hummed: “Is it not childish.”

“I don’t care, I want it.”

“Okay, let’s buy it, okay?”

The girl snuggled up to him and smiled cutely.

Meng Shengnan didn’t turn her head to look and walked out of the gift shop. It was hot and dry outside, and she wandered the streets alone. Later, she bought a gift and went to Qi Qiao’s house. Qi Qiao had just washed her hair and changed into a white knee-length skirt.

“Why are you looking so pretty?”

Qi Qiao smiled, “Of course to seduce someone.”

“Che.”

Qi Qiao did a simple hairstyle and showed her, “How is it?”

“It’s alright.”

“What do you mean by alright?”

Meng Shengnan smiled, “You are beautiful in Song Jiashu’s eyes anyway.”

“Thank you, my sister, I love hearing this sentence.”

“Good on you.”

Qi Qiao was busy laughing, “By the way, where’s my gift?”

Meng Shengnan took it out of her pocket.

“Why is your face so thick-skinned, who asks for their gift?”

“I’m sorry, I haven’t gone out today, I don’t have makeup on so I don’t have any face at all.”

“Che.”

Qi Qiao smirked: “Hurry up, you.”

Meng Shengnan also smiled, “Here, sister, happy birthday.”

“Wow, when did you become so girlish?” Qi Qiao took the two navy blue earrings and smiled: “It’s so suitable, it matches my dress just right. Meng Shengnan, when will you give yourself some of this aesthetic?”

Meng Shengnan shrugged: “One day in my life.”

“I’m preaching to deaf ears.”

That night, Qi Qiao and Song Jiashu went to the movies. In middle school, they all longed to be loved. They were all in the state of having enough familial love but not enough romantic love. Every 16 or 17 year old girl would yearn for it after habitually listening to the same old fairytale stories, there were very few who didn’t. Later that day, Meng Shengnan went to the Plaza Bookstore alone and stayed there until it was dark. Sheng Dian had already finished preparing dinner and was waiting for her. At that time, the sky was already full of stars.

 While eating, Sheng Dian remembered something and said, “You had a call in the afternoon from Nanjing.”

Meng Shengnan said “oh”.

After eating and going onto QQ, Meng Shengnan turned on her Walkman and put on her headphones.

Zhou Ningzhi sent a message to ask her how she was doing.

Meng Shengnan said that the seniors were going to have their college entrance examinations on the 7th and that she was all well.

Zhou Ningzhi was not online, so she logged off.

On the 7th and 8th, the first and second year high schoolers had holidays to give the third year high schoolers space for their exams. Meng Shengnan went to her grandmother’s house in Hangzhou, where she practiced calligraphy with her grandfather and went for a walk every day . Maybe it was because her body’s immune system was not good, and she was not used to the new surroundings added on to the fact that she was stressed out from her studies, but after arriving in Hangzhou, she started to get pimples.

That year was the second year of high school, and it was fleeting.

Throughout the summer vacation, Meng Shengnan didn’t go out much, and kept drinking traditional Chinese medicine at home to improve her health. Zhou Ningzhi was admitted to Fudan University¹in Shanghai in the Economics course, and Zhang Yiyan was also admitted into an university in Shanghai. They called her to go out and play, Meng Shengnan tried everything she could to give excuses to not go.

Qi Qiao comforted her: “It’s called beautiful youthful acne, you know.”

Meng Shengnan rolled her eyes.

Qi Qiao added: “There is a spirit called Meng Shengnan, you know that, right?”

This was when Meng Shengnan finally smiled.