The summer camp organized by the experiment was only five days long, starting on August 10 and returning on the 15th, but Jiang Qiaoxi had to take two weeks of classes at Tsinghua University starting on the 12th. He simply bought a train ticket for the same departure class as Lin Qile and even booked a hotel for two days in advance.
Cai Fangyuan walked into the sleeper car carrying a bowl of instant noodles.
Outside the window was a vast expanse of wheat fields, and the sky was pitch black. Cai Fangyuan muttered, "We already have bullet trains, why do we still take this kind of train?"
There were several sleeper cars in front and behind, all occupied by students from Experimental High School who had signed up for this summer camp. After a good night's sleep, we arrived in Beijing the next morning.
Duchamp was sitting on a small chair broken off from the corridor, watching Struggle on Yu Qiao's MP4 player.
Yu Qiao sat opposite him, flipping through the summer camp activity catalog and Beijing map in his hand.
Du Shang couldn't help but sigh: "Tell me, Mile is such a good girl, sunny, kind, tolerant, generous, why does Lu Tao always make her sad? Why are these men like this?"
Yu Qiao said leisurely: "Which men?"
Duchamp shook his head vigorously, very indignant.
Qin Yeyun sat on Yu Qiao's bunk bed, cross-legged and flipping through the latest episode of "easy". She poked Lin Qile with her elbow and asked her if she knew about the finals of the Good Man competition a few days ago: "Jing Boran won!"
Lin Qile was eating the red bean bread in her hand and reading the emotional question-and-answer section of "Girlfriend Campus" word by word. She asked, "Who is Jing Boran?"
Duchamp suddenly looked up: "I know who it is!"
Qin Yeyun and Lin Qile turned to look at him at the same time.
Duchamp said, "Doesn't he look a bit like me, with a bit of baby fat?"
Qin Yeyun threw the magazine over and said, "Shut up, you motherfucker."
Jiang Qiaoxi came in from the next carriage. His ticket was not purchased at the same time as the school, so it was a bit far away.
As soon as he came, Lin Qile looked up at him. Jiang Qiaoxi sat down on Cai Fangyuan's bed, opposite Yu Qiao's berth, and faced Lin Qile. He looked at her and seemed to smile.
Cai Fangyuan took two bites of instant noodles, then stood next to Lin Qile and suddenly read aloud the emotional question-and-answer section of the girl magazine in Lin Qile's hand.
"Refusing premarital sex has certain significance, especially for you who are on campus. You must know how to protect yourself--" Cai Fangyuan said halfway, choked badly, bent over and coughed, and Lin Qile kicked him from behind. Amid the laughter of the people around and Yu Qiao's whistle, Cai Fangyuan was kicked several times by her and almost broke the bowl of instant noodles.
Jiang Qiaoxi was sitting in the back, and when Lin Qile looked back at him, he found that he was also laughing. Lin Qile became even more unhappy.
The train arrived in Beijing at five in the morning.
Lin Qile woke up at around 4:00. She slept in the middle bunk, and through a thin partition, she could hear a boy from class 17 snoring. Lin Qile sat up and scratched her hair in annoyance, wanting to go crazy but unable to do so. She lowered her head and saw the text messages on her phone.
Lin Qile put on his clothes, took his water cup and MP3, climbed out of bed, and accidentally stepped on the calf of Yu Qiao, who was lying on the lower bunk.
"Can you please look carefully before you step on it?" Yu Qiao said in a muffled voice. He covered his face with a shirt and went to sleep. Obviously, he was annoyed by the snoring guy.
Instead, Cai Fangyuan was lying on his back, soundly sleeping.
Lin Qile lowered her head and put on her shoes. She walked to the next carriage. As she passed by, she did not forget to retaliate against Cai Fangyuan with another kick, which startled Cai Fangyuan so much that he woke up and sat up.
Jiang Qiaoxi was sitting on the lower bunk, reading a book. Most people around were sleeping, so there was no particular noise. Lin Qile came over following the bed number in the text message. Jiang Qiaoxi looked up and saw her, then stood up.
Lin Qile sat inside, and Jiang Qiaoxi sat next to her, quietly, for fear of disturbing the person sleeping opposite.
"What book are you reading?"
“Game theory.”
“How do you read English?”
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his eyes and looked at Lin Qile, seemingly stunned by her question.
Lin Qile immediately realized that this question exposed how poor her English was and that she underestimated the gap between herself and Jiang Qiaoxi.
Jiang Qiaoxi said: "Why didn't you bring your vocabulary book?"
Lin Qile muttered: "I'm just out here to have fun, why would I bring a vocabulary book..."
Jiang Qiaoxi pursed his lips. This time he was the one who felt unhappy.
Lin Qile raised her face again and asked, "Are you okay before the 12th?"
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at her expression and asked, "What are you doing?"
Lin Qile said expectantly: "I want to go shopping in Wangfujing tomorrow, are you coming?"
Jiang Qiaoxi smiled: "Aren't you going to visit Peking University and Tsinghua University?"
"We can't spend the whole day visiting Peking University and Tsinghua University." Lin Qile said softly and looked out the window again.
The train ran on the track, swaying like a mother's hands patting her baby.
Lin Qile had earphones in her ears and at first just stayed beside Jiang Qiaoxi and stared out the window in a daze. She didn't want to learn English anymore. She had really tried hard, and this was all she knew.
Her eyelids slowly began to droop, because Jiang Qiaoxi was flipping the pages of a book beside her, and the pages rustled like feathers, a sound that could only be heard in the mountains or beside a small bed.
She fell asleep with her forehead against the cold, hard window frame, and then someone moved her over to lean on someone's shoulder.
Cai Fangyuan was sleeping soundly, but Lin Qile kicked him awake. He was so angry that he had no place to vent. It was midnight and there were few people around, so he ran to the toilet. When he came out, he saw a thin and beautiful figure standing outside the corridor of the next carriage.
Cai Fangyuan walked over, holding his breath, he looked over Cen Xiaoman's shoulder and saw that in the lower bunk of the opposite carriage, Jiang Qiaoxi was holding the sleeping Lin Yingtao in his arms and reading a book with his head down.
Cen Xiaoman turned around and was surprised to see Cai Fangyuan, and she covered her mouth in fear.
Cai Fangyuan stepped back quickly, waved his hand and said with a smile: "I just happened to pass by, I was just curious so I took a look!"
Cen Xiaoman swallowed, her face pale, and she looked at Cai Fangyuan.
Cai Fangyuan has always known that Cen Xiaoman has a crush on Jiang Qiaoxi. From the Experimental Middle School to high school, it has been so many years, how could anyone not know about it.
Such a beautiful girl, but now she is forced to peek here.
Cai Fangyuan said: "I lived with them in elementary school."
The corridor was narrow, with beds on both sides and the sound of the sleeping breathing of travelers heading to Beijing.
Cen Xiaoman had never spoken to Cai Fangyuan before. She was a very quiet girl with strict family education and high standards for herself. She would not easily talk to boys. She asked, "Are you talking about when Jiang Qiaoxi transferred to Qunshan?"
Cai Fangyuan realized that Jiang Qiaoxi was a transfer student. He nodded and said, "Yes, when Jiang Qiaoxi transferred to our school, every time we wanted to find him, we had to go to Lin Yingtao's house."
Cen Xiaoman was surprised and asked, "What does this mean?"
Cai Fangyuan pointed randomly in the direction of Jiang Qiaoxi: "What do you mean? Go back to sleep."
In August, Beijing was hit by a heat wave. The streets were filled with signs showing the countdown to the Olympics, the swaying Fuwa dolls, and the words "Beijing Welcomes You."
The students of the Experimental High School left Beijing West Railway Station and took the same bus to a hotel near Zhongguancun. On the way, Lin Qile was thinking about buying Olympic souvenirs, old cloth shoes, and snacks from Beijing Daoxiangcun for her parents. She called her aunt on the bus: "Aunt, I'm in Beijing!"
Yu Qiao didn't sleep well the whole night before. Now he was sitting in front of her and had to listen to her mumbling. He wanted to cover his face with his schoolbag.
Lin Qile said, "I'll go to your house in the evening! I'm going to the hotel with my classmates first... I brought you sausage stuffing and jujube buns made by my parents, as well as pickled bamboo shoots from my classmates' house... I want to eat... I want to eat Peking roast duck, pork elbow in rock sugar, and can you still sell donkey rolls and sugar-coated steamed buns?"
Cai Fangyuan couldn't stand it anymore: "You slept well, can you let others take a nap too?"
After arriving at the hotel in the morning and taking a short break, the high school students followed their teacher to the first stop of the trip in the afternoon. Standing at the gate of Renmin University of China, Lin Qile looked out at the streets of Beijing and found slogans everywhere.
New Beijing, New Olympics. And, see you in 2008.
Two thousand and eight... Lin Qile muttered to herself, and suddenly she felt as if she was standing on a gust of wind.
Even during the summer vacation, there are still many students on the Renmin University campus who have not returned home. They are adults, but it is hard to get rid of their student spirit. Lin Qile walked beside her high school classmates and saw pairs of college lovers coming towards her from time to time. No matter how she looked at them, she felt that they were not much older than her.
So this is what college is like. Lin Qile stood at the entrance of Mingde Building and took photos of tourists. She took photos with Cai Fangyuan and Du Shang happily beside Yishao Pond. When she passed by the poster board, she saw that it was covered with posters of many clubs, as well as advertisements for postgraduate entrance examinations and lecture notices. She heard Du Shang say that he planned to join a street dance club after college.
Lin Qile stood on the Mingfa steps and looked towards the setting sun.
She suddenly wondered, what was Berkeley, California, like
After walking around Renmin University for an hour, the monitor of the next-door class 17 suggested that everyone go to Haidian Book City together. However, Lin Qile was not in the mood to go. She went to buy iced juice and heard Du Shang shouting from a roadside shop: "Hey, there is Chinese Paladin IV here!"
Lin Yingtao was sitting on the steps by the roadside, with her schoolbag drooping down on her back, drinking juice like this.
Opposite was the High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China. Lin Qile saw that the school gate was closed, but there were still middle school-aged children coming in and out.
A boy and a girl were chatting and laughing. At first they were walking arm in arm. Suddenly the boy hugged the girl, and they walked out together laughing.
Lin Qile turned his head to look at them, and it was hard to say that he was not envious.
Suddenly, something in the schoolbag started buzzing, and Lin Qile put down the juice cup.
"Where did you go?" Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
"We've finished visiting Renmin University," Lin Qile said, "Duchamp and the others are buying games."
"What game is that?"
"Chinese Paladin IV," Lin Qile said, adding, "It's an authentic game!"
"cherry."
"Um?"
"Do you still have that old computer in your house?"
"It's not too shabby..."
Jiang Qiaoxi asked, "Can it still be used?"
Lin Yingtao suddenly remembered that when Jiang Qiaoxi left the mountains, she didn't like studying and had nothing to do every day. She turned on the computer and wanted to play the game installed by Cai Fangyuan, but it was full of records and names left by Jiang Qiaoxi before he left.
Whenever Lin Yingtao tried to forget him, she could always see him. Even if she couldn't see him, like now, she would think of him every second.
But he hasn't left yet.
Lin Yingtao stood up from the roadside. She looked back and found that Dushan and the others were still in the shop.
Perhaps because she hadn't spoken, Jiang Qiaoxi asked, "Cherry?"
Lin Yingtao walked towards the street corner. She didn't see any subway station nearby, so she ran after a bus passing by on the road.
"Jiang Qiaoxi," Lin Yingtao ran on the streets of a strange city, surrounded by people she didn't know. It was like the first time she came to the provincial capital many years ago. "Do you want to go to my aunt's house with me now?"
The author has something to say: －－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
Notes to this chapter:
*On April 18, 2007, China's sixth railway speed-up took place. Based on years of running fast trains and introducing foreign EMUs as high-speed trains, the Chinese brand high-speed train CRH, namely the Harmony EMU, appeared.
* "Struggle": A TV series directed by Zhao Baogang and starring Tong Dawei and others, it tells the story of the youth emotions and struggles of the post-80s generation in Beijing. It premiered on Shanghai TV Drama Channel on May 16, 2007.
* "easy": Founded in 2002, it expanded into a fashion, entertainment and leisure magazine in 2007.
＊On the evening of July 21, 2007, the 2007 "Come on! Good Man" finals hosted by Dragon TV came to an end, and Jing Boran was the champion.
*On August 1, 2007, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy IV" was released.
*In 2007, Beijing Metro Line 4 and Line 10 had not yet been completed and opened to traffic.