Qin Yeyun turned around and whispered, "He actually gave you red shoes! Aren't those wedding shoes? Only brides wear red shoes when they get married."
Lin Qile was lying in bed, completely confused. The bedroom light was not on, only some moonlight came in through the window and shone on their faces.
"No, no," Lin Qile said hurriedly, "He probably likes red..."
Qin Yeyun's father went to Beijing to see a doctor for his leg injury, so Qin Yeyun stayed at Lin Qile's house for two nights. The two little girls huddled in the same bed and whispered in the dark.
Qin Yeyun muttered to Lin Qile: "If Yu Qiao also buys me a pair of little red shoes, I will run and marry him right now!"
Lin Qile listened and turned to look at her.
"Yu Qiao?" Lin Qile asked in embarrassment.
Qin Yeyun's eyebrows drooped, probably thinking that Yu Qiao would never do such a thing: "Forget it..."
The two little girls lay facing the ceiling for a while, each with their own thoughts.
"Lin Yingtao," Qin Yeyun said suddenly, "I hated you so much when I was little, but I didn't expect that I would sleep with you when I grew up."
Lin Qile nodded and agreed: "Actually, I didn't expect it."
"When you were a kid, you were so happy, but you were also so spoiled and lost your temper all the time," Qin Yeyun said disdainfully. She turned her head away, "Do you still remember that when you were a kid, you and Yu Qiao had a fight and you never forgave him. You kept the cold war on him for half a month, and you put on a sour face in the class and ignored everyone, causing Yu Qiao to follow you around every day to talk to you."
Lin Qile turned his head away and said in disbelief: "How is that possible?"
Qin Yeyun said: "You forgot everything! I remember everything!" Qin Yeyun was obviously indignant, "So I think Yu Qiao is not incapable of coaxing people, he just doesn't coax me!"
Lin Qile said: "No, no, no, no, he doesn't coax me, it's just that I am a more generous person—"
Qin Yeyun asked back: "Are you saying I'm stingy?"
“No, no, no…” Lin Qile shook his head hurriedly.
"Jiang Qiaoxi is indeed worthy of being a student of Mathematical Olympiad," Qin Yeyun said, with his hands under his head. "He gave you Chanel lipstick before, and now he gives you Salvatore Ferragamo high heels. You are so ignorant and unsophisticated, who can you fall in love with in the future?"
Lin Qile found himself being verbally attacked by her again when he wasn't paying attention.
"He's a bit mean," Qin Yeyun commented, "Even if you go to America, he'll make you stay single for him in China for the rest of your life!
Lin Qile hurriedly defended himself: "Why am I-"
Qin Yeyun suddenly turned around and opened his eyes wide: "Lin Yingtao, tell me the truth! Do you think you will forget Jiang Qiaoxi in the future?"
Lin Qile was stunned.
Qin Yeyun asked, "Are you really not worried? You may never see him again, and you will never meet a better man than Jiang Qiaoxi. You will only marry someone worse in the future!"
Lin Qile was stunned: "Will...will it be like this?"
Qin Yeyun said: "Nonsense, there is no other Jiang Qiaoxi who is so blind as to like you!"
Lin Qile said unhappily: "Why do you scold me when you live in my house?"
Qin Yeyun said: "Nonsense, I don't like you. Why do you have a man who gave you Ferragamo shoes?" Qin Yeyun stopped suddenly here. She tilted her eyes and saw a rose gold chain hanging around Lin Yingtao's neck.
"He also gave you a gem cherry. What's wrong with Jiang Qiaoxi? He wants you to wear it for the rest of your life and never forget him!"
As soon as the second semester of the second year of high school started, there were rumors in the school that Cen Xiaoman from Class 18 of the second year of high school would also go to the United States with Jiang Qiaoxi.
Lin Qile still went to school regularly. During the break, she either studied or laughed and joked with Yu Qiao, Cai Fangyuan, and Huang Zhanjie. There was a new basketball game in the second semester of the second year of high school, but Lin Qile withdrew from the basketball training. She said she really didn't have time because she was too busy with homework.
Jiang Qiaoxi no longer came to school during the day. He was preparing to take the SAT exam in May. After communicating with the school, the school agreed to let him temporarily stop classes to prepare for the exam. Lin Qile could not see him during the day and only called him at night. Jiang Qiaoxi said that he left his TOEFL book with Cai Fangyuan: "If you want to use it, just go and get it."
Lin Qile recited her Little Red Book and didn't respond.
Jiang Qiaoxi said again: "You are not going to play basketball anymore, are you?"
“No.” Lin Qile said.
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "That's right, it's better to memorize some words."
In April 2007, Lin Qile was sitting on the bus on his way to school when he heard adults behind him discussing the news that a financial company in the United States had gone bankrupt.
Companies go bankrupt every day, and it doesn't seem to be anything unusual.
"My mp3 is out of battery," Lin Qile said to Duchamp, "Can I listen to you?"
Du Shang ate a pancake and smiled. He took out his MP3 player and said, "Don't you mind the difference between men and women?"
Lin Qile took it happily, because she knew there were always new songs in Duchamp's mp3.
"What is the name of Jay Chou's album?" she asked.
Duchamp said: "Still Fantasy."
"Yi Ran?" Lin Qile said happily. She kicked her legs unconsciously under the chair. She liked this name. "Yi Ran Fantasy..."
Yu Qiao was reading a sports newspaper in the front, Cai Fangyuan was addicted to playing games, and the background music was noisy.
Du Shang turned his head and looked at Lin Qile. He smiled and said, "In another six years, Jay Chou will release a new album, "Still Fantasy."
“Duchamp,” Lin Qile leaned back in his seat and suddenly called him, “Didn’t you delete “Lonely Northern Hemisphere” from your mp3? How come it’s back? It’s such an old song.”
A trace of embarrassment flashed across Duchamp's face for a moment.
"Um... well, our class councillor insisted on listening to it," Du Shang said disdainfully, "She didn't have her own MP3 player, so she insisted on borrowing mine."
Lin Qile turned his head and suddenly looked at Du Shang's face: "Is the student council member of your class a man or a woman?"
Yu Qiao was sitting in the back row, looking at the Air Force recruitment brochure given to him by his class teacher, and there was also a civil aviation brochure below. When he heard Lin Qile asking about Du Shang, he smiled suddenly.
"Didn't you notice that he didn't come out to play during the winter break?" Yu Qiao raised his eyes and said unhappily, "He only knew how to send text messages when he was asked to play. What a loser."
Lin Qile was shocked.
Cai Fangyuan said to Lin Qile: "Did you hear that? I'm talking about you, you've got a lot of potential!"
When they went to the canteen for lunch at noon, Lin Qile and Qin Yeyun hid outside the window and secretly saw Du Shang and a girl sitting at the same table. The girl looked very gentle and smiled sweetly. She kept talking to Du Shang and took out a cut apple from her schoolbag and shared it with Du Shang.
"What are you two doing?" Cai Fangyuan came over from behind, disdainful of the two sneaky people.
Dushan took a bite of the apple given to him by the girl and just smiled happily, but he choked and the food got stuck in his throat.
Qin Yeyun couldn't stand it anymore: "This idiot!"
Dushan coughed twice and was finally fine. He smiled awkwardly at the girl again, then noticed something, opened his schoolbag, took out a pack of tissues, and helped the girl wipe her dirty fingers on the plate.
"Wow..." Lin Qile said in surprise, "Duchamp is so considerate!"
Yu Qiao and a group of school team boys came up from behind. Yu Qiao kicked Lin Qile on the back and said, "Don't look at anything inappropriate, do you know that?"
Jiang Qiaoxi returned to school in mid-May. Felinger asked him how he did on the test, and he said he didn't feel anything, so he should have done OK. The principal also called him to the principal's office and showed some concern. Although Jiang Qiaoxi didn't continue to take math competitions and didn't get into Peking University or Tsinghua University, if he got a very high score on the SAT, and got into Harvard or Yale or other prestigious schools, the school would still be proud of him, and the principal would still be proud of him.
After all, Jiang Qiaoxi's TOEFL score has come out, with a full score of 120 and he scored 116. How could the principal not love such a student
The final exams were approaching. Lin Qile was busy studying every day and had no time to play around with others. Sometimes Jiang Qiaoxi came to see her, either to ask her for a water card or to buy her some snacks and put them on her desk. Lin Qile and Huang Zhanjie sat together, begging Jiang Qiaoxi to explain the questions to them. Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at the math questions for the second year of high school and smiled softly.
He took Huang Zhanjie's pen and used an eraser to erase the messy lines Huang Zhanjie had drawn. The math genius seemed to have a bit of a cleanliness freak when it came to the papers. Huang Zhanjie hurriedly took out the ruler from Lin Qile's pencil case: "Xueba Jiang, here's the ruler!"
Jiang Qiaoxi drew a straight line out of thin air with just a flick of his hand.
"This is the auxiliary line..." he said, and continued.
"Wow..." Lin Qile couldn't help but exclaimed as he sat inside Huang Zhanjie.
Huang Zhanjie's face also flushed and he clapped his hands gently.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood condescendingly beside Huang Zhanjie's table, as if enduring their fuss and smiled.
"Do you understand?" He finished speaking, threw away Huang Zhanjie's pen, and looked up at Lin Yingtao.
Lin Yingtao kept looking up at him, was stunned for a moment, and nodded quickly.
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his eyes and looked at her, his expression was quite intriguing.
"Let me tell you again," he said, reaching up to pick up the pen again. "Don't look at me. Look at the question."
Lin Qile watched Jiang Qiaoxi's writing process carefully.
It happened that the class monitor Feng Letian was reading the new notice of the school, which was to organize high school sophomores to go to Beijing to participate in the summer camp of famous schools. The notice was passed to Huang Zhanjie, and the back was blank. Jiang Qiaoxi saw that Lin Qile still had only a vague understanding, so he took Huang Zhanjie's notice and began to write the topic on the back.
He wrote one, two, three. He wrote so quickly that his handwriting was inevitably sloppy.
Huang Zhanjie took a look and found that they were all questions about the knowledge point they had just asked.
Jiang Qiaoxi threw down his pen and handed the notice to Lin Qile: "Do it, I'll show it to you after school."
When he was nine years old, Jiang Qiaoxi wrote a math problem to shut up Lin Yingtao. He said, "If you can answer it, I will chat with you."
And now, Lin Qile was busy solving the math problems given by Jiang Qiaoxi throughout the entire self-study class, and he didn't even have time to reply to his text messages.
Class monitor Yu and Manager Cai decided to let all the children participate in the summer camp for prestigious schools organized by the Experimental High School. The Olympics will be held next year, and they can walk around the campuses of Tsinghua University and Peking University this year to boost their morale for their senior year.
Lin Qile called Jiang Qiaoxi and told him about this matter. She asked Jiang Qiaoxi what he wanted to do during the summer vacation.
It just so happened that Jiang Qiaoxi was also thinking about this matter. He originally wanted to go to Berkeley summer school for a few weeks. His parents asked him again, saying that a teacher from Tsinghua University called and asked Jiang Qiaoxi if he wanted to go to Tsinghua Mathematics Summer Camp this summer vacation. Anyway, he would go to Berkeley sooner or later.
Jiang Qiaoxi heard Lin Yingtao's expectant look on the phone, so he asked, "Have you memorized the TOEFL words?"
Lin Qile was packing her luggage at home, holding a red book for the college entrance examination and a book of TOEFL vocabulary that she had secretly bought. She was squatting on the floor in her slippers, her lips pressed against her knees, hesitating silently.
Suddenly her cell phone vibrated. It was a text message from her junior high school classmate Geng Xiaoqing.
"Cherry! Our school also organized a summer camp for Beijing's famous schools! I looked at the list today, and it's the same one you're experimenting with!"
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
* "A financial company in the United States went bankrupt": On April 2, 2007, New Century Financial, the second largest subprime loan provider in the United States, declared bankruptcy. The subprime loan company, which had assets of more than $1.7 billion at the beginning of 2007, shrank to less than $55 million in just three months.
* "Lonely Northern Hemisphere": Sung and written by Ou Deyang. Released on November 5, 2003. A popular online song in China.