Lin Qile was called by the math teacher to the blackboard to do exercises.
She walked up to the stage, picked up the chalk and read the questions. She calculated quietly beside him, tapping the pen on the blackboard, writing very seriously.
The math teacher walked down from the stage and looked at the students below. She was surprised to find that Jiang Qiaoxi, a student sitting in the last row who usually didn't listen to her lectures, suddenly raised his head and looked at the blackboard.
"Jiang Qiaoxi," she said with a smile, "Come on, our math genius, go up and write your algorithm! Write it next to Lin Qile!"
Some students were talking to each other with their heads down. Felinger looked up from the side and saw Jiang Qiaoxi put down the math problem in his hand and stood up.
He walked up to the podium and stood beside Lin Qile, more than ten centimeters taller than Lin Qile. He took a yellow chalk from the groove under the blackboard and began to write numbers on the blackboard.
Lin Qile was writing the answer well, but suddenly the chalk slipped on the blackboard and the chalk tip broke. Lin Qile quickly looked for the blackboard eraser, but found that it was a little far away from her, and there was a person between them. Lin Qile didn't even look at the boy next to her, she used her finger to erase the bad number.
Jiang Qiaoxi finished writing his answers. He lowered his head and took the blackboard eraser from the side, placing it between him and Lin Qile. He put down the chalk and walked away.
Cen Xiaoman raised her head from below, smoothed her long hair by her ears, looked at Lin Qile's back, and then looked at Jiang Qiaoxi who was walking towards his seat.
The math teacher came up and looked over Jiang Qiaoxi's answer. She smiled and watched Lin Qile hurriedly write the last few steps and figure out the answer. Lin Qile put down the chalk, wiped his hands, and went downstairs.
Lin Qile still made some mistakes in the calculation. When the get out of class was over, she ran to the podium to ask the teacher questions, and then returned to her seat to discuss with Yu Qiao. Yu Qiao sat in the row behind her. He didn't look like a hard-working student, but his grades were always in the top ten in the class. Except for his poor Chinese, his science scores were all OK.
He took the pen from Lin Qile's hand, not bothering to take Lin Qile's notebook, and started writing the process on the edge of the sports newspaper on his desk. "Do you understand?" he asked, looking up. Lin Qile wanted to tear off that corner to read, but accidentally tore the whole newspaper in half. Yu Qiao hadn't finished reading the newspaper yet, and the boys who were reading the newspaper next to him started laughing.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat in the last row without saying a word.
Felinger came over quietly and said, "The girl on the blackboard just now is the one who came to school to look for you in junior high school. Did you recognize her?"
Jiang Qiaoxi turned a page of the Olympiad mathematics book in his hand. He seemed to be in a bad mood and ignored him.
At this time, Felinger was a little puzzled.
Jiang Qiaoxi came to school. Feilinger had been by his side for years, and had long been accustomed to the occasional glances from girls, and to the one, two, and three times approach and "chance encounter".
Lin Qile, the girl from Qunshan, had been sitting in her seat. Feilinger stared at her back, expecting her to show her true colors. But he found that apart from talking to Yu Qiao and the other boys, she was studying with headphones on. Even after class, when she went out to get water, Lin Qile no longer went through the back door. She walked under the first row of the podium, as if she was deliberately bypassing something.
"Who are you looking at, Feilinger?" someone nearby asked with a smile, "Your eyes are fixed on him."
Felinger picked up a red-covered copy of "Piao Miao Lu" on the table and threw it over.
Lin Qile was not a nasty girl. The first people to discover this were the group of burly basketball-loving buddies around Yu Qiao.
Earlier, they only heard that a girl from the countryside came here to chase the top student Jiang Qiaoxi. Later, Yu Qiao told them that it was not a countryside, but just a project department of Power Construction Group in another place. The girl grew up with Yu Qiao, Cai Fangyuan and Du Shang. She was just an ordinary little girl who was a little naughty.
After school at noon, Lin Qile followed Yu Qiao and the others to the canteen to eat. There were many people from the school team sitting inside. When they saw her, they asked Yu Qiao, "What's your name, Lin?"
Cai Fangyuan looked down at the menu and said, "Lin Qincai!"
The next second, Lin Qile's palms were on his face.
For the first time, Lin Qile discovered that she could say hello to the students here, even though most of them were boys with whom she had little in common.
Still few girls experience her.
Du Shang flipped through the tattered copy of Zhu Xian in his hand while eating, and complained to Yu Qiao: "Qin Yeyun has borrowed my second copy for two months. When will she give it back to me?"
Yu Qiao said, "Go ask her for it, why are you asking me?"
Qin Yeyun finished her get out of class soon and ran over to eat with them. She sat between Lin Qile and Yu Qiao.
Everyone here knows that Qin Yeyun is Yu Qiao's "sister" and needs everyone's care.
Du Shang fell silent when he saw Qin Yeyun and didn't dare to ask any more questions.
During the lunch break, Yu Qiao went to play basketball again. Du Shang accompanied Lin Qile to walk around the campus of our school and visit various places.
"Cherry," Dushan said, "are those people from Class 18 bullying you again?"
Lin Qile shook his head.
At noon, the sun was shining, and they walked under the trees. There was a statue of Confucius in front of the square. Duchamp said that the principal loved the statue so much that he wiped the dust off it with his own hands with a cloth all day long: "Let's stay away from it."
There were many students walking around the campus after dinner. Duchamp introduced each place to Lin Qile: the library, the tennis court, the piano classroom... When they reached the entrance of the white building facing the square, Duchamp said, "This is the school's small white building."
"The top students and students who compete in competitions often come here to study," Du Shang said. He turned around and squinted his eyes at Lin Qile. "Cherry, where else do you want to go? I'll take you there."
"Duchamp," Lin Yingtao pointed at his face and said in surprise, "You have a beard."
Dushan was stunned and touched his lips.
"Of course! I'm already that old!" Du Shang said hurriedly, "I already had it, but I forgot to shave it today..."
Lin Yingtao observed him: "Now you don't need to put on the Band-Aid, and there is no scar on your face!"
Dushan said happily: "Has he become more handsome?"
Lin Yingtao hummed for a while.
"It's okay," she said.
Lin Qile went to the school supermarket to buy snacks. She had just come to school and her mother had given her a lot of pocket money. She invited Dushan to drink Coke and eat flower cones together.
When walking past the basketball court, Lin Qile stood on the sidelines and watched the basketball game that she couldn't understand for a while. Yu Qiao saw her on the court, dropped the ball and walked over.
"Are you going to eat it all by yourself?" Yu Qiao asked her, "Go, buy another one."
Lin Qile said: "It's expensive, four dollars!"
Yu Qiao said disdainfully: "Are you stingy?"
Du Shang raised his half, with chocolate still on his lips: "Come here, Yu Qiaoer, I'll give you a bite!"
Yu Qiao took the basketball passed by his teammate and smashed it directly into the net in front of Du Shang and Lin Qile. The ball bounced back and shook the net three times. Du Shang and Lin Qile stood outside and made several "Pooh" sounds. Their faces, ice cream, and clothes were all covered with dirt.
The ball was immediately unplayable. Yu Qiao laughed so hard that he couldn't even stand up straight on the court, and Lin Qile hit him hard.
Lin Qile was standing under the faucet on the first floor of the teaching building, washing her hair. She had a bitter face and her hair was covered with dirt, looking irritatingly dirty. Yu Qiao, wearing school uniform pants and a basketball vest on his upper body, stood next to her, and he smiled so tiredly.
Teacher Chen, our homeroom teacher, passed by and raised her voice to say, "Yu Qiaoer, where's your school uniform? Put it on!"
Yu Qiao pointed at Lin Qile innocently. Lin Qile was wearing an old school uniform.
"What's this for?" Teacher Chen suddenly became more nervous, "Lin Qile, where is your school uniform?"
Lin Qile was still trying to wring the water out of his hair and had no time to talk to Teacher Chen. Yu Qiao raised his hand from the side, holding a gray school uniform, oh, a girl's.
"I'm warning you, don't fall in love too early!" Teacher Chen said sternly, "Studying is important! You must abide by school rules and regulations! Falling in love too early is not allowed!"
When Yu Qiao heard this, he kicked Lin Qile and said, "Did you hear that?"
Lin Qile stretched out his hand to hold his hair, turned back and angrily cursed: "You are crazy!"
Lin Qile walked upstairs with wet hair. She passed many people. Suddenly, a faint smell of tobacco passed by her.
Lin Qile raised his head unconsciously.
Jiang Qiaoxi passed by her and went into the classroom.
Lin Qile was standing at the bus stop eating ice cream after school. She turned her head and saw boys wearing the same school uniform as her huddled together under a tree smoking.
"Can boys smoke in our school?" she asked casually.
"Just don't let the teachers and parents see it." Cai Fangyuan said while playing the game console.
Lin Qile asked: "Do you smoke too?"
Cai Fangyuan looked nonchalant: "I'm not used to smoking, but I smoked in junior high school. Cigarettes, hey, who hasn't smoked before?"
"Junior high school?" Lin Qile asked in surprise.
Cai Fangyuan finished a game and looked up at her, just as the car arrived.
"We were in the same competition class in junior high school," Cai Fangyuan got on the bus and found a seat to sit down. "With Jiang Qiaoxi taking the lead, all the boys in the competition class could do it."
Lin Qile sat in the empty seat in front of him, and for a long time she didn't believe what she heard.
When the bus arrived at the door of her home, Lin Qile got off the bus and said, "You... your parents don't care?"
Cai Fangyuan said: "Yes, of course."
He added: "Jiang Qiaoxi's parents don't care. It doesn't affect his studies anyway."
At the end of September, the Provincial Mathematics Association announced the list of the provincial team for the 2006 National High School Mathematics League. Eight students from Experimental High School were selected for the provincial team, among which Jiang Qiaoxi from Class 18 of Grade 12 ranked first in the province with a total score of 209 points.
In November, Jiang Qiaoxi and eight other students will go to the mathematics competition winter camp to participate in the national finals.
When the list of students on the provincial team was posted on the commendation board, it was during the afternoon break, and many students went downstairs to see it. Lin Qile was queuing up to get water, and the water dispenser was next to the back door of the classroom.
Lin Qile stood with her head down, waiting for the hot water to fill the cup. She raised her head and inadvertently saw the last row through the crack of the back door.
Jiang Qiaoxi was sleeping in his seat.
Lin Qile lowered his head again.
Lin Qile took one cup, screwed the lid on, and then opened Cai Fangyuan's cup and put it on top.
More and more students lined up behind her.
A figure came out of the door and stopped beside her, as if trying to cut in line.
Lin Qile looked up and found that Jiang Qiaoxi had woken up at some point. He was standing in front of her, looking down at her.
The corridor was noisy, and laughter could be heard from the team behind from time to time. Jiang Qiaoxi had made it to the provincial team, and he would probably be praised again in the next class meeting. The principal would probably come to their class again and praise him passionately for half an hour.
Jiang Qiaoxi's hair in the front was all sticking up when he slept, and there was a very shallow scar on his forehead, which could only be seen clearly if you stood close.
"Can you get me a glass of water too?" he asked Lin Qile.
Lin Qile looked at him.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his eyes, looked at Lin Qile's face, and then glanced at Lin Qile's water card with the little rabbit sticker on it.
“I didn’t bring my card,” he added.
The water in Cai Fangyuan's cup was overflowing, so Lin Qile quickly turned off the water. Jiang Qiaoxi placed the black cup with Eisenhower's quote printed on it on the water dispenser.
"Jiang Qiaoxi, can't you queue up by yourself?" someone behind asked with a smile, "Why do you cut in line with Lin Qile?"
"Why are you using a girl's water card?"
"Jiang Qiaoxi, do you know Lin Qile? Are you two familiar with each other?"
After reading the commendation list from below, Felinger took a photo with his mobile phone and ran upstairs frantically.
Jiang Qiaoxi didn't answer either. He stood beside Lin Qile, his hands in his pockets, and watched the numbers on Lin Qile's water card drop one by one.
Lin Qile pursed his lips and stood there amid the discussions around him, motionless and looking very quiet.
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly said, "I got into the provincial team."
Lin Qile looked at him.
"Congratulations," she whispered.
Jiang Qiaoxi nodded, as if this was what he wanted to hear.
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
＊ "Piao Miao Lu": Jiuzhou Piao Miao Lu, a fantasy novel written by writer Jiang Nan with Jiuzhou as the background. It was first published in June 2005, with volumes 1, 3, 4 and 5 in red cover.
＊ "Zhu Xian": A novel written by Xiao Ding between 2003 and 2007. The first six volumes were published by Chaohua Publishing House in mainland China in April 2005.