TL: Hua
“Hey, did you guys hear that there’s a new transfer student in Class 3 of the second year?”
“Nonsense; of course a transfer student is a new student.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Before morning reading started, the classroom was clustered in groups of three or two, with one of the better-informed boys in the class crowding in on his best friend to talk about the latest gossip.
“No, let me tell you. I heard that the new transfer student is very handsome and good-looking. He has already reserved the title of school hunk before he comes. And I heard that he is a young master from a wealthy family.”
“Why would a young master from a rich family come to our little place?”
“Who knows? He might come here to relieve his boredom. Nowadays, it’s all about the rich returning to rural life.”
“Go away! Who’re you calling a rural person!”
The boys were laughing and joking, but the girls were discussing with great interest. Their obviously excited voices could be heard from far away.
“I heard he’s a top student.”
“Very handsome and polite.”
“Just like a prince.”
The boy sitting in the last row by the window was so bothered by the noise that he had a headache. He frowned with a bit of anger. His face resting on his arms changed direction, and he covered his head with his school uniform.
The morning reading was followed by the flag-raising ceremony, and there was a few minutes’ break after the flag-raising. Many students went to the canteen in groups to buy breakfast that they had not had time to eat in the morning. Shen Boyan was tall and stood out among the crowd. He was relatively withdrawn and didn’t mingle with others. He just walked forward lazily with his head slightly lowered.
Suddenly, his ears exploded again, like in the morning, and several girls next to him screamed with uncontrollable excitement: “Look, look, that’s the new transfer student! He’s really handsome!!”
“Where, where, where?!”
Everyone turned their heads and looked in the direction the girl pointed. Shen Boyan also subconsciously turned his head. The next moment, he was slightly stunned.
There is a huge camphor tree on the side of the lake near the supermarket. Under the tree, a young man who Shen Boyan has never seen before, as beautiful as a piece of jade, is standing there, talking and laughing with two other boys.
The morning sunlight leapt through the dense foliage above his head, and the teenager’s face was shrouded in a light golden glow, his body slender and his skin so white it was almost reflective. His entire being shone under the trees, so beautiful that he looked like he was not in the same space as the others.
Sensing that someone was looking at him, the young man turned his eyes. The light in his pupils was like the light coming from the curtains that opened a crack in the morning as he inadvertently glanced at Shen Boyan. After the surprise passed, Shen Boyan subconsciously averted his gaze.
After finishing this series of actions, he felt strange.
Although he is withdrawn, he does not have low self-esteem. He is even accustomed to disguising himself as strong because of family reasons. There is no way he would evade the gaze of a seemingly weak teenager.
Shen Boyan couldn’t understand, but class was about to begin soon, so he followed the crowd back to the classroom.
He thought that such a simple “meeting” would be the end, but he didn’t expect that their class and the transfer student’s class would be in the same physical education class on Wednesday morning.
“Oh, look, that’s the transfer student.”
“Can you please respectfully refer to him as ‘school grass1The most handsome guy in school.’?”
“You’re joking. There’s this guy in Class 1 who pretended not to care about the title ‘school grass’ because it was his classmates who pinned this title on him. But as soon as the transfer student came, he said the transfer student stole his title. I heard that he was cursing him countless times.”
“Why doesn’t the transfer student go out and run laps?”
“I heard that he’s not in good health.” A boy replied casually. The classmates all looked sideways: “How did you find out all of these?” Could it be that there has been a gay man beside me all along?
The boy’s expression twisted for a moment: “How do I find out? It’s my girlfriend who wants to know everything!!”
Shen Boyan looked over and saw the boy standing under the shade, with several girls who also didn’t run laps surrounding him. He was obviously very popular, and the girls talking to him had eager smiles on their faces. Faced with the girls’ overly enthusiastic questioning, the boy didn’t get angry. He just smiled good-naturedly, his eyebrows curving like a stream of autumn water.
“Shen Boyan, do you want to play ball?”
Shen Boyan’s deskmate politely invited him.
“No.”
“Okay.” Knowing this answer, the deskmate ran away, unsurprisingly.
Shen Boyan continued to see the transfer students occasionally, a few times a week. Because his classroom was right next to the aisle by the lake and he was sitting by the window, when he looked down, he could see the boy standing under the flower corridor, laughing and joking with his newfound friends.
Shen Boyan has mostly figured out his routine. He will go to the supermarket to buy breakfast every Monday and Thursday morning. It may be because school starts early on Monday and he has to be on duty on Thursday. On Wednesday, they would have classes on the same playground. With the crowd coming and going, they would always bump into each other inadvertently.
But they haven’t had any exchanges yet.
Once, when class was over, the students were running too fast. The boy was pushed by someone and bumped shoulders with Shen Boyan. Afterwards, the boy quickly said, “Sorry,” and Shen Boyan replied, “It’s okay.”.
This is the only time they meet.
The time passed quickly. A month later, after the flag-raising ceremony on Monday, it was time for the outstanding student representative to speak on stage. Shen Boyan had been looking down at the ground all along, but suddenly a noisy sound came to his ear. He looked up and saw the beautiful teenager on stage.
The morning light was just right, and he had a slight smile on his face. Even the tip of his straight nose and thick, fluttering eyelashes seemed to be covered with a layer of gold powder, making his dark pupils a little distorted under the light. He walked to the center of the stage, pointed at the microphone, and quickly began to speak calmly and confidently.
Shen Boyan’s location was the farthest away from the stands and had always been a “lawless place.” A few boys were muttering there: “The principal is too biased. He allowed the transfer student to give a speech just a short time after he arrived. I suspect there is some kind of deal involved. For example, the principal wants to curry favor with the young master and take the opportunity to leave the countryside and go to the big city.”
Someone rolled their eyes: “Seeing his good look and good background, he probably just wants to train him to be a hotshot so the school can get more enrollment next year.”
“Hey, this is also possible.”
“Isn’t it right? The school is so wicked, taking advantage of other people’s beauty?”
“What do you know? This is called rational use of resources.”
A few of them laughed too arrogantly in the back, and the head teacher, who was maintaining discipline, glared at them hard, so they had to calm down.
The boy’s voice was very nice. Unlike most male voices that sounded like a quacking duck, it had an extraordinarily crisp sound quality, like pearls falling on a plate, making it easy for Shen Boyan to listen to his voice attentively.
The “ebb and flow of tides” Shen Boyan knew a little about the relationship between the moon and the tides but didn’t understand it and never felt he needed to understand it. But as he looked at the sparkling eyes of the teenager on the stage, he couldn’t help but be interested in this natural phenomenon.
After school that day, he didn’t go home immediately. Instead, he went to an old bookstore near the school and walked to the science column, which he had never paid attention to before.
“Xia Shu’an, let me tell you, this bookstore occasionally carries some interesting old books; just like Taobao, it’s very fun.” Amidst the slightly noisy shouts of his classmates, the boy named Xia Shu’an walked into the bookstore.
Shen Boyan felt that the light in the store became a little brighter after he came in. The corners of the boy’s mouth were curved upward, his eyes were bright, and his chubby face looked a little bit cute. He was a little more reserved than ordinary people of his age, making him look proud and dignified.
He walked to one of the bookshelves and quickly flipped through the pages with his slender white fingers, his expression focused. Suddenly, he took out another book and read it with gusto. His expression when he was attracted was even brighter than usual, and his whole body showed pleasure from the tip of his hair. Shen Boyan took advantage of the gap to look at the cover of the book he was holding.
The boy didn’t stay in the bookstore for long and took out a few more books, but in the end, he chose the first one. He bought the book and left in less than half an hour. After they left, Shen Boyan walked to the shelf where the boy had stayed and took out a book from his memory.
“Joe’s Mysterious Journey: A Space Adventure”
It seems to be an adventure novel.
……
Shen Boyan opened it and took a few glances, frowning tightly.
I can’t read it.
What is this?
……
……
“Thank you, guest.”
Following the sweet smile of the clerk, Shen Boyan stuffed the two books into his schoolbag, threw them behind his back, and walked to the nearest bus stop.
He couldn’t wait to return home. After taking a bath in his bathroom, which had no hot water today, he threw all the books in his school bag on the bed.
The boy was wearing shorts, leaning against the wall, and taking out the book with unprecedented enthusiasm and speed.
Five minutes later,.
What on earth is this? Isn’t it a novel? Why is it so difficult to understand?
Shen Boyan suspected that there was something wrong with his definition of a novel. He put down the book and randomly found a novel on the Internet. This time, he had no difficulty reading it. He could even think of the plot of the next chapter and the reactions of the characters in advance.
Shouldn’t novels be something that is easy and fun to read?
The boy held his phone and read an online novel for a while. Ten minutes later, he put the phone down and picked up the book he had thrown aside.
The text in the book was still boring and had nothing to do with its concise and easy-to-understand title. Shen Boyan had to stop several times and took out his mobile phone to look up some vocabulary, but he didn’t know why he was patient while reading it and even felt a kind of pleasure and satisfaction.
He imagined that the boy might have finished taking a shower like him at this moment, sitting on the bed in his pajamas and reading the same book, and he felt indescribable happiness in his heart.
That feeling was as if that young man was right next to him.
Is he laughing because of this plot now? Is he also obsessed with the protagonist’s adventure?
Is he feeling the same as him?
Shen Boyan was addicted to the book like never before, and he forgot about time. He kept reading until very late and did not turn off the lights until the early morning.
Before falling into an unconscious dream, a thought flashed through his mind:
I can see him again tomorrow.
Tomorrow is another beautiful day.
There is no difference between Shen Boyan’s new week and last week. He looked down from the window to see a boy named Xia Shu’an passing by, laughing and talking with his friends. On Wednesday, the physical education class was occupied, and he could not go to the playground. Shen Boyan was a little unhappy. But in the revolutionary noise of the whole class, it flickered like an inconspicuous splash and then went out.
After the cleaning on Thursday, he went to the canteen early to queue up. He could stand two seats behind the boy and vaguely hear the conversation between him and his friends. It was all boring content. His friend was complaining about the homework assigned by the teacher. He was smiling; his eyes were gentle and tolerant.
When he looked back, he would sometimes glance at Shen Boyan. Shen Boyan turned sideways and lowered his head to hide behind his classmates. When he raised his head again, the boy had already withdrawn his gaze.
On Friday, he only glanced at the boy from a distance in the classroom.
On Saturday afternoon, school was over.
Shen Boyan pondered for a few seconds, followed the teenager, who was not far away, and got on the same bus as him. He was squeezed to one side of the crowd and could almost see the teenager who was pushed to the other side. When the bus arrived at the stop, more people came up again, but many people also got off the bus. Shen Boyan saw the young boy getting off the bus, and he quickly followed him.
Then the boy and his friends entered a shopping mall, but Shen Boyan did not go in.
He looked at the sky, took a breath, and walked back slowly.
Two days without Xia Shu’an are about to begin.
