Two years later...
Xu Lai was hiding in his room at the orphanage.
The person he had waited two years for had never returned to school, contrary to what Grandma had said.
Outside the door, Xu Minghui knocked anxiously. "Xiaolai, open the door. Grandma made your favorite pork ribs."
Crouched on the bed, Xu Lai felt a wave of dizziness from the hunger in his stomach. Yet his mind was entirely filled with that little girl who had once pulled him out of the shadows.
*Could something have happened to her? Is that why Grandma lied to me?*
Listening to Xu Minghui's knocks at the door while thinking of the little girl, Xu Lai drifted into an exhausted sleep without realizing it.
After who knows how long, Xu Lai felt a flash of light streak across his mind. When he opened his eyes again, he instinctively surveyed his surroundings. He raised his hands to look at them, then bolted upright in shock.
"I've been reborn?"
...
February 24, 2015. Monday.
"President Xu, we found her."
Inside a villa in Jinling, a slender, handsome youth of seventeen or eighteen was on the phone. Hearing those five words from the other end of the line, a flash of subtle joy and excitement crossed his eyes, and his grip on the phone involuntarily tightened.
"Where is she?" the youth asked the person on the other end, his voice trembling with excitement.
"Jiangcheng. Jiangcheng No. 1 High School." Hearing the reply again, the youth fell into a brief silence. Try as he might, he never could have imagined that the person he had spent nearly ten years searching for was in a place both familiar and foreign to him.
"Good," the youth replied flatly before hanging up. He turned and sat down on the sofa. In the sprawling villa, devoid of any warmth of life, the solitary youth radiated an aura that seemed entirely unsuited for his age.
After pondering for a long time, the youth stood up and made another call. "Uncle Fang, please go to the school and handle my transfer."
"Jiangcheng."
"Jiangcheng No. 1 High School."
With the call ended, a trace of resolve flashed in the youth's eyes. "This time, we will never miss each other again."
No one knew what the youth was thinking; beneath his far-from-ordinary grit and composure lay a depth of devotion that did not belong to his years.
March 1, 2015. The winter break officially ended, and it was the first day of the new term for Class 27 of Senior Three at Jiangcheng No. 1 High School. After being separated for the winter break, the students could hardly contain their excitement as they chatted about their holiday experiences and amusing anecdotes.
The class bell rang, interrupting the chatter. Shortly after, Fan Wenyi, the homeroom teacher of Class 27, walked in.
Instead of focusing on Fan Wenyi, the students' gazes shifted to the exceptionally handsome boy following behind him. The girls in the class began to whisper among themselves.
"Wow, he's so handsome."
"Yeah, I wonder if he has a girlfriend."
"What are you thinking about? The college entrance exams are right around the corner. Can you not be so lovesick?"
At the same time, the boys in the class were discussing him as well.
"Damn, there's only one semester left, and someone's coming to steal my title as the class hunk."
"You? The class hunk? I haven't even said anything yet."
Hearing the whispering and murmuring in the classroom, Fan Wenyi raised a hand to stop the discussion, then said, "Let me introduce a new student who has transferred to our class."
He turned to the boy and said gently, "Ahem, well, Student Xu, why don't you introduce yourself?"
"Hello everyone, my name is Xu Lai. Xu Lai, like the gentle breeze—it's very nice to meet you all." Xu Lai kept his self-introduction brief, omitting any mention of where he came from.However, from the very moment he stepped into the classroom, his gaze kept searching the room until it landed on a figure seated at the third row from the back on the right side.
Even though that figure was keeping her head slightly bowed, he recognized the girl at a single glance.
"Student Xu, find a seat and sit down." After gesturing to Xu Lai, head teacher Fan Wenyi turned to the rest of the class and said, "Student Xu is joining us from Jinling, where he was the top scorer in the high school entrance examination. For all three years of senior high school, he has consistently ranked first in the municipal joint exams. Now that he is in our class, all of you should make an effort to learn from him."
Hearing Fan Wenyi's words, the students in the class were utterly astonished.
"He's from Jinling."
"With grades that good, why would he come to our class?"
"Yeah, why didn't he go to the elite sprint class?"
Amidst everyone's bewilderment, there was one student in the class who had not raised her head the entire time. Buried behind a mountain of books at her desk, this girl's eyes seemed to ripple with a faint trace of emotion when Xu Lai stated his name, yet she still did not look up.
To be precise, throughout their three years of high school, even the other students treated this girl like a complete invisible person. She had no close friends in class, always rushed out of the classroom the very second school let out, and walked home in a great hurry.
The person in class who spoke to her the most was the study commissioner Li Lili, but that was only ever to remind her to hand in her assignments.
"Teacher Fan, may I sit in this seat?"
With that, Xu Lai pointed to the empty seat in the third row from the back on the right side of the classroom.
"Certainly, go ahead and sit down." Fan Wenyi nodded in agreement.
"Ruoruo, I've finally found you. Five years early—I've found you five years early." A torrent of thoughts rushed through Xu Lai's mind, and the excitement in his eyes was already hard to suppress.When he received the phone call a few days ago and heard the news about Lin Ruoruo, he had managed to keep his emotions in check. But at this very moment, with the person he had been searching for for nearly ten years right before his eyes, he could no longer control his surging emotions.
From the podium to the third row from the back of the classroom, those few short steps felt to Xu Lai as though they spanned ten years.
In the classroom, the other students looked at Xu Lai's expression with total bewilderment, wondering what on earth was wrong with this guy.
Xu Lai walked to the empty seat in the third row from the back on the far right of the classroom, put down his schoolbag, and then turned to the girl sitting by the wall—Lin Ruoruo. Extending his right hand, he said softly and gently, "Hello, my name is Xu Lai. I'm very glad to be your deskmate."
Hearing Xu Lai's voice, Lin Ruoruo's slender body started slightly, her lowered head remaining down as she stole a glance out of the corner of her eye at Xu Lai, who was smiling at her.
She had often heard that name called out in her dreams, yet they had not seen each other for more than ten years.
Even so, though her longing gushed like a spring, Lin Ruoruo held herself back, because the person she had become was no longer worthy of this bright and handsome young man.
"Hello," Lin Ruoruo replied with just two soft words, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, and she did not even reach out her hand to accept Xu Lai's gesture.
Seeing Lin Ruoruo's reaction, Xu Lai's body involuntarily flinched, the heartache in his eyes impossible to conceal.
Because he could not imagine what the girl before him had endured to transform from the lively, adorable child of the past into what she was now.
To turn a girl who was once cherished in the palms of her parents' hands into someone so timid she could barely speak to others.
In fact, as far as Lin Ruoruo was concerned, leave aside strangers; even among her classmates, some of whom had shared a classroom for two or three years, very few could even remember what Lin Ruoruo looked like, because she always kept her head down.