Chapter 21

Su Ci didn’t know what was wrong with her, or how she’d managed to pick that person’s voice out so precisely from among so many others.

Her laugh was bright and carefree; it crashed into her ears without warning, clawing at her heart and teasing her, drawing her in.

Her light brown eyes couldn’t help following the girl with the high ponytail and the exposed pale neck. So when the basketball came hurtling toward her, Su Ci noticed it at once, then dashed off as if she were running the hundred-meter sprint.

“Yan Can!”

“Who did that!”

The crowd instinctively split to either side and turned toward the boy standing frozen in place, who could only keep apologizing.

“Go get a teacher!”

The sudden accident sent panic rippling through the gym. A ring of people quickly gathered around Yan Can.

“She’s bleeding!”

Zhang Ru reacted first. She was closest to Yan Can; seeing blood gush from Yan Can’s forehead, she hurriedly pulled out some tissues and pressed them against the wound. In an instant, the pristine white wad was soaked through with blood. Tissues wouldn’t do; someone fetched a clean white towel.

Zhang Ru took it and replaced the tissues, anxiously calling Yan Can’s name.

It would take time for a teacher to get there, and the situation was urgent. The first priority was naturally to get her to the infirmary.

A lot of people crowded over, especially the boys, all eager to help.

For them, this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to play the hero and save a beauty. If they stepped in now, the goddess would surely be moved by their overflowing boyfriend material. Even if she didn’t like them, at least she’d remember they’d helped her before and look on them more favorably.

No one didn’t want to curry favor with Miss Yan.

With so many people thinking the same thing, it nearly turned into a fight over who would take Yan Can to the infirmary.

Yu Ting frowned. She had no intention of letting any of these schemers take Yan Can. She had Zhang Ru press down on Yan Can’s forehead to stop the bleeding, then bent over, about to scoop Yan Can into her arms.

But just as one arm slipped under Yan Can’s knees, the class sports commissioner stepped in front of her.

“Let me,” Zhou Yang said.

Zhou Yang was their class sports commissioner; he had good looks, a good personality, and was well liked. Both the boys and girls in the class got along with him.

Since he offered, Yu Ting hesitated, but there really wasn’t a better option right now.

The infirmary was quite a distance from the gymnasium; she couldn’t carry Yan Can there alone. She might run out of strength halfway, and that would only delay things.

After hesitating for two seconds, she nodded.

Since he was a boy, he lifted Yan Can almost effortlessly, even carrying her in a princess carry.

Zhou Yang carrying her, Zhang Ru pressing on the wound, Yu Ting following behind; the three of them ran out of the gymnasium.

From the moment Yan Can fell to the moment she was taken away, the whole thing took less than a minute.

Behind them, Su Ci stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly after their backs.

“The sports commissioner is pretty manly!”

“Does he like Yan Can too?”

“Whether he likes her or not, I think this is pretty shippable!”

The crowd started chattering about it.

“Su Ci?” Once the onlookers dispersed, Zhao Panpan spotted Su Ci standing in the middle at a glance.

The girl’s eyes were dull, her lips pressed tightly together, her whole body looking lost and dazed.

“What’s wrong?” Zhao Panpan thought her reaction was strange. Yan Can had already been sent to the infirmary; why wasn’t Su Ci following? “I heard it’s pretty serious. Should we go—”

Before she could finish, she was startled by the blood slowly trickling down Su Ci’s calf.

They wore PE uniforms: white T-shirts and shorts, with the shorts ending a little below the knees.

There was a scraped patch of fabric on her knee, as if it had snagged on something. Through that tear, one could vaguely see a raw, bleeding wound.

“How did you even do that? Hurry up and go to the infirmary!” Zhao Panpan frowned and pulled tissues from her pocket, fortunately having the good habit of carrying them with her.

Su Ci looked as if she had just woken up. She said nothing, took the tissues Zhao Panpan handed her, pressed them against her knee, and let Zhao Panpan help her to the infirmary.

Her knee was injured, so she couldn’t walk fast. By the time she arrived at the infirmary with Zhao Panpan’s support, a quarter of an hour had already passed.

The school doctor looked up at her limping in and said in confusion, “What’s going on today? Two girls bleeding in half an hour.”

Su Ci didn’t say anything. Her gaze swept the room silently; aside from two classmates having abrasions treated, the infirmary was very quiet.

She turned her head toward the inner room. It was quiet too, and didn’t look like anyone was inside.

She’s gone?

Su Ci thought absently, not even hearing what Zhao Panpan was saying in her ear.

The doctor rolled up her pant leg to look at the wound, disinfecting it as she asked, “How did you do this? The wound’s this deep?”

“I got caught on an iron mesh by accident.” She had been running too fast, then someone bumped into her; in the stumble, her knee scraped against a protruding part of the volleyball net.

“Iron mesh?” The doctor frowned. “This wound isn’t shallow. You’ll need a tetanus shot too.”

Zhao Panpan had been standing to the side the whole time, watching the doctor work and hissing now and then in sympathy.

The doctor frowned and looked at her.

Zhao Panpan fell silent guiltily.

The doctor kept looking at her.

Zhao Panpan…

“What is it?”

The doctor tilted her chin toward the partition. “Help your classmate into the inner room for a butt shot.”

“Oh, oh, okay, okay.” Zhao Panpan carefully helped Su Ci into the inner room.

There was no one in the partition.

Su Ci’s gaze fell on a yellow trash can nearby. Inside were bloodstained tissues; faintly visible among a pile of miscellaneous items was a white towel smeared with blood.

Yan Can had been here to have her wound treated.

But where was she?

Had she been sent to the hospital because her injury was too serious?

Just as Su Ci finished the shot and was preparing to return to class, a girl ran in, drenched in sweat.

Su Ci recognized her at a glance. It was the same girl she’d met in the cafeteria before; her name was Xia Xia.

“Doctor, where’s the girl who got hit by the basketball just now?” the girl asked anxiously.

“Oh, it’s you, little classmate.” She hadn’t been here long ago and had even been carried in by a girl in a princess carry. The doctor remembered her and the other girl clearly, so the moment Yan Can was brought in, she recognized her. “You mean that pretty girl? The wound on her forehead split open and needed stitches again. I don’t have the equipment for that here, so she was sent to the hospital.”

“Huh? That serious?” Xia Xia looked tense. After thanking her, she left at once.

After she left, more classmates soon came running over one after another to ask.

The doctor said impatiently, “She’s not here. Stop running over.”

Zhao Panpan whispered in Su Ci’s ear, “Looks like Senior Yan Can was hurt pretty badly.”

Su Ci said nothing, not knowing what she was thinking.

The next day was Saturday, and Su Ci carried her schoolbag to campus for the math competition training class.

The teaching building on the weekend was especially quiet, making the chirping of insects and birds from the surrounding trees sound a little sharp. Dense greenery covered most of the campus; flowers bloomed in all colors across the flower beds, and a cool breeze occasionally drifted through, carrying a faint burst of fragrance.

It should have been the kind of day that brought peace and calm, but Su Ci couldn’t settle down.

She had never paid attention to the school forum. Yesterday, after treating her wound and returning to class, Zhao Panpan had opened a slightly blurry, out-of-focus photo for her to look at. It was a candid shot of Yan Can after being hit and bleeding, being carried by a boy from their class. In the photo, Yan Can’s head was weakly tilted back, her limbs hanging down, while the boy held her in his arms and looked nervously at the person in them.

Zhao Panpan zoomed in with two fingers. “Wow, honestly, this has pretty good chemistry.”

Then, just like the people at the scene who had been starry-eyed, she said, “Hey, does this boy like Senior Yan Can? They actually look pretty compatible, both in looks and family background.”

Zhao Panpan was different from her. She liked browsing the forum, and after that highly atmospheric photo was posted there, quite a few people in the comments started shipping the two of them. Very quickly, the boy’s family background was dug up.

“This boy’s family seems pretty rich; he’s apparently a third-generation rich kid, and I heard his family is in the clothing business…”

Su Ci didn’t listen any further. She pressed her lips together and deleted all the greetings she had originally prepared to send to Yan Can.

The training class ended in the afternoon, and Lin Tong came over after packing her bag.

“Su Ci, let’s go together.”

“I’m not on the same route as you.” She had come by bus; Lin Tong had been picked up by car.

“How are we not on the same route?” Lin Tong said. “We might as well walk together from the classroom to the school gate, even if it’s not far. Since it’s just the two of us from our class in the training group, it’d be nice to leave school together and chat.”

—The classroom to the school gate is a long way off.

—Come on, now that we’re friends, isn’t it normal to go to and from school together?

—For people with a really good relationship, they even hold hands going to the bathroom.

…

In an instant, many scenes about her flashed through Su Ci’s mind.

A delicate, beautiful girl looking at her with curved, smiling eyes, pestering her to go home with her after school, asking her to do homework with her…

Suddenly, the image flipped. That beautiful, lovely girl was covered in blood, weakly crying that it hurt in her arms…

She was already faint at the sight of blood; last time, this time…

Her lashes trembled. Su Ci’s throat tightened as she looked up at Lin Tong. “Sorry, I still have something to do. You go on ahead.”

After saying that, she set down her backpack and sat down, as if she really did have something to handle. Seeing her like that, Lin Tong had no choice but to leave first.

Once she left, Su Ci took out her phone, found Yan Can’s profile picture, and typed: What time?

Yan Can: ?

Su Ci: Birthday

Over there, Yan Can was playing match-three. When she saw the message, she was still a little dazed; after a moment she replied: Tomorrow at 7 p.m., at my place.

Su Ci: Okay

After sending the message, Su Ci put her phone away. When she shouldered her backpack and walked out of the classroom, the cicadas and birdsong sounded less piercing this time; it even felt a little pleasant.

Sitting on the bus, she took out her phone and was about to listen to some listening practice when several new messages came in.

She opened them.

Yan Can: I told Zhang Ru. She’ll pick you up tomorrow.

Yan Can: Add her

Yan Can: [card]

The bus rolled steadily along the tree-lined avenue; the curtains weren’t drawn, and light and shadow kept shifting across Su Ci’s face.

The girl by the window showed no expression, only her slender white fingertips tapping again and again in the input box, deleting and rewriting, revealing the restless heart hidden beneath, just like the insects chirping in the trees outside.

After a long while, she asked: You’re not going?

Her network was lagging.

The message kept spinning and hadn’t gone through.

On the other side, though, Yan Can seemed to be getting anxious, sending message after message.

Yan Can: Why is it still typing? Do you want to send it by voice instead?

Yan Can: Why is it taking so long? What kind of message takes this long to send?

Yan Can: I’ve finished my medicine and you still haven’t sent it?

Su Ci…

After the bus passed one stop, the network recovered, and the message finally went through.

By the time Yan Can had played until she broke past the one-thousand-point mark, Su Ci’s message finally came in.

She ignored the round and, curious about what could possibly take this person so long to send, clicked in and saw four words: You’re not going?

That was it?!

She’d thought it was something else. Yan Can replied: Can’t go. I’m hospitalized.

Su Ci’s breathing tightened: That serious?

Is this concern for her? To be honest, being cared about felt really nice, especially being cared about by an ice cube.

Yan Can smiled and immediately typed back, exaggerating dramatically: Of course. You don’t know how much blood I lost; I was practically bled dry [crying]

Su Ci…

Yan Can: Okay, I’m not talking anymore. I need another shot! Sigh, being hospitalized alone is so boring! There isn’t even anyone to talk to, and eating fruit is inconvenient too. This time my forehead got stitched up several more times, and I don’t know when it’ll heal. My hair’s gotten oily too, but I don’t dare wash it because I’m afraid it’ll hurt, waaaah waaaah waaaah! The most important thing is I’ve already fallen way behind in class. I was already a little behind in math and physics, and now I’m going to get left even farther behind. Let me cry by myself for a while, waaaah waaaah waaaah [Minion crying]

After sending that, she felt very pleased with herself and threw the phone aside, picking up her tablet to listen to her private tutor’s lesson.

Not long after, the phone she’d left aside vibrated once——

Su Ci: Where?