Jiang Chen really had no idea how he ended up being entangled with the daughter of the family across their house, that girl's name was Chen Xiaoxi. When they were kids, his only impression of her was that she has a particularly loud voice. In his house, no matter how loud he'd play the piano, it would still be overpowered by her screaming when her mother would chase her around trying to give her a beating.
Later on, when they've grown up quite a bit, he would very seldom hear her voice again, it was as though the world has significantly quieted down. But every now and then, he'd caught sight of her idling in their living room from his window, always watching the TV. At times, he'd even caught sight of her on the couch, and then rolling down it from too much laughter.
In his house, there would often be an endless stream of people who were there to pay his dad a visit. He never really liked how those people would refer to him as 'your son'. Such honorific made him feel that they were acting like hypocrites. (T/N: The term used is gongzi, which is what people would call an official's son, or a son of someone with nobility/ importance.)
Every time someone would visit home, he'd quickly hide in his room where he would read, write calligraphy, or sleep. In other words, he would put in his utmost effort not to produce any sort of sound that would make people notice his existence. Later on, Chen Xiaoxi confessed to him. He then discovered another activity when he would hide away from their guests — hide behind the curtains of his window and watch Chen Xiaoxi from across.
He'd watch her walk around, watch her knock over things, watch her bite her pen then lean on her desk to draw something……..If the weather was hot, he'd also catch sight of her roll over on the ground like a sausage on a barbecue grill.
It was like watching a boring mime, but he thinks life was boring anyway, it would be better for one to just be bored then.
The day following Chen Xiaoxi’s confession, she appeared in the alley, with a slight tremor, and a desperation to sound nonchalant in her voice, she said, "Jiang Chen, what a coincidence, you're also on your way to school?"
Jiang Chen's response was a blank stare, then he asked her, "What time is it?"
Chen Xiaoxi looked at her digital watch, as she was a person who was incompetent in reading scales, she would generally wear a digital watch which would outrightly display the digits of the time, "7 o'clock."
He nodded his head, then muttered to himself, "I thought I was going to be late."
Chen Xiaoxi flushed red with shame, she would usually arrive in class right when the bell rings.
The two of them headed to school in such a manner where one was leading, the other was following.
Chen Xiaoxi kept on chattering, talking incessantly about TV dramas, manhwas, their teachers, their classmates…….basically, just doing the very essence of gossiping where the chicken feathers and garlic skins* are not even spared. (T/N: Both chicken feathers and garlic skins are the rubbish left when cooking chicken, hence it is used to express something trivial, unimportant or worthless.)
Jiang Chen hardly processed her words, and walked forward with a wooden expression on his face.
He didn't say anything in reply because he naturally doesn't talk much, or perhaps he finally got to realise how Chen Xiaoxi's inclination suddenly became cool, Chen Xiaoxi doesn't know, Jiang Chen doesn't know.
The most amazing thing about young minds is that most of the time, they also don't know what they are thinking.
They were the first ones to arrive in their classroom, Jiang Chen was in-charge of the classroom keys, Xiaoxi stood behind him as he unlocked the door. When the door was opened, Xiaoxi was suddenly assaulted by the smell of dirt. Xiaoxi thought that early in the morning, it turned out that the classroom smelled like the the paddy field that had just been plowed in preparation for the transplanting of the rice seedlings.
Jiang Chen sat down on his seat, took out a few of the thicker textbooks, stacked them up on his desk, then leaned forward to sleep on them.
Chen Xiaoxi was a little dumbfounded. How was it so different from what she had imagined? Tri-merit* student Jiang comes early in class to sleep?
(T/N: A 'three-good' student honour system in China was introduced in the 1950s to reward model tri-merit students who excel morally, academically, and physically, so basically a student who behaves well, tops in class, and is good in sports.)
Her seat was on the upper corner, diagonal to his. She was on the third column. He was on the fourth column. She was the third column's group leader. He was the class monitor.
She pulled out the English textbook from her books, opened it up and placed it upright, then buried her head in that book. She was angling her head to the side to peep at Jiang Chen, staring at his very dark hair, and the white hair whorl in the middle of his head.
She had no clue with regards to what it was that looked appealing for her that she just couldn't help herself from staring, and couldn't help but make her heart skip a beat. For a white scalp to make her heart skip a beat, the matter was truly unprecedented for her.
In every serene, beautiful moments, there would always be one or two mindless troublemaker who would break it. The troublemaker was Wang Da Zhuang, the assistant class monitor, a damn fatty. The first thing he did when he entered the door was to yell loudly, "Chen Xiaoxi, am I seeing things wrongly?"
Chen Xiaoxi asked dim-wittedly, "What seeing things wrongly?"
Wang Da Zhuang said, "You ah, unexpectedly so early."
Chen Xiaoxi forced out two hollow laughs, "I just remembered there were two paragraphs in English that I still haven't practised reciting aloud."
Wang Da Zhuang suddenly dissolved into heaps of laughter, "Haha……but you……you're holding your English book upside down."
She turned her head to glare at Wang Da Zhuang, right at that moment, Jiang Chen slightly lifted his head from his arms as such that Chen Xiaoxi stared right into Jiang Chen's somewhat curious and inquisitive gaze. Heat crawled up her face and broke into a million shades of red on her cheeks.
Jiang Chen looked at her outrageously red face a bit puzzled, she was someone who doesn't blush when confessing, what was she blushing for now?
The people arrived in the classroom one by one, almost everyone who came in expressed varying levels of surprise at the strange sight that was Chen Xiaoxi arriving in class even before the bell rang. Chen Xiaoxi has now found out that she was actually very eye-catching.
The next day, Chen Xiaoxi got up ten minutes later than yesterday, she hurriedly rushed to the alley and just caught sight of the fleeing view of Jiang Chen with his backpack. She paused for a few seconds, inhaled deeply to steady her breathing, then strode over in big steps to catch up, "Morning!"
Jiang Chen's heart jumped out of his chest from her roar, he couldn't help but admit that Chen Xiaoxi was indeed a very energetic person, her deafening "morning" has sufficiently shown him the veracity of this claim.
This time, they were not the first ones to arrive in class, Wang Da Zhuang was already leaning on the railings, smiling at them as he said, "Chen Xiaoxi, do you still have to recite something in English today?"
Chen Xiaoxi was thinking this guy was being so annoying, and answered him irritably, "What's it got to do with you?"
Wang Da Zhuang didn't take offense, and said with all smiles, "I show friendly affection to my fellow students every now and then." Â
The classroom still exuded the smell of dirt, Jiang Chen was sleeping on his desk, Wang Da Zhuang was drumming something on his desk drawer, Chen Xiaoxi took out her English textbook. She read aloud a line, what are you doing, and felt that her throat was hoarse. She immediately swapped it with her language & literature textbook, and started reciting, “Mountains need not always be high, they’re famed if therein immortals abide*.“
When Chen Xiaoxi reached the part of the poem,  “The moss creeping onto the doorsteps, turns them a greenish hue; the color of the grasses reflected through the window blinds, with verdant glow." she furtively sighed. Her English wasn't any good…..she was ashamed to recite aloud in front of Jiang Chen, always thinking that her pronunciation was not only subpar but also unsophisticated.
(T/N: The poem is the famous “Inscription On A Humble Dwelling” by Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty which proclaims the nobility of rustic living, I hope I didn’t butcher it)
Jiang Chen felt a little irritated, she kept on stuttering when reciting aloud the text which gravely affected his early morning sleep.
On the third day, Chen Xiaoxi especially got up very early in the morning, she waited for Jiang Chen in the alley for quite a long time. When she was about to be late, only then did she quickly darted to school, worrying the entire way whether Jiang Chen has gotten ill.
When she arrived at the door of their classroom, the morning reading already started. Chen Xiaoxi bowed her head and made a sound to report attendance to the teacher who was on the podium.
The teacher crossly told her to come in.
Right when Chen Xiaoxi lifted her head, she saw Jiang Chen sitting by the window, his head was hung low as he was reading his book. A ballpoint pen was casually twirling on his hand, its metal cap glared faintly under the morning light as it spun and jumped between his long, slender fingers.
Being separated by a good distance, Chen Xiaoxi however, felt that the sting from that bit of reflected light was slightly making her eyes hurt.
On the fourth day, Chen Xiaoxi got up even earlier, it was still dark when she got up. She groggily leaned against a still lighted lamppost in the alley, and dozed off.
Jiang Chen caught sight of the figure under the lamppost from a distance, he was torn between being entangled with her, or to turn on his heels and return to his house. In the end, he walked forward.
She didn't notice him when he passed by her as she has fallen deep in sleep, he already walked a long way, and didn't wait for her to follow him.
Arriving in the classroom, he leaned on his desk to sleep, but right when he closed his eyes, the image of Chen Xiaoxi's drooping head as she dozed off actually grazed his mind — the hair that was supposedly tucked behind her ears hung limply along her cheeks, a few strands of her rogue hair was all over the place on the crown of her head, with some sticking up defiantly, her entire figure under the lamppost was bathed in a dim yellow light, making her glow in a warm yellow colour.
Jiang Chen thought in a daze before sleep overtook him — her hair could get really messy.
Chen Xiaoxi's plan of getting up early was completely abandoned on the fifth day, it was a very cold day, so cold that her throbbing little sweet heart was rendered motionless. From inside the blanket that was wrapped around her like a burrito, she stretched her hand out to press off the alarm clock, and told herself again and again, "Forget it, love depends on fate, if you force it, it will not come, if you force it, it will not come."
Hence Chen Xiaoxi went back to sleep with a great peace of mind till her mum yelled at her to get up, she hastily bolted for the door to go outside, and to her greatest surprise, towards Jiang Chen. That kind of happiness was akin to doing badly in an examination, then wholeheartedly comforting oneself that examinations were an insignificant part in one's life, and that scores were fleeting things, but when the test papers were then handed out, one ranked first in the entire class.
So, Chen Xiaoxi tailed behind Jiang Chen all the way to school wearing a "finally earned something" smile.
Her smile caused chills to run down his spine, so he furtively touched his face several times to check if a grain of rice was sticking on it, and also furtively looked down several times to check if the zipper of his pants wasn't pulled up.
Before entering the classroom, Chen Xiaoxi finally couldn't help it and tugged on his school uniform, fixing it about, "Wrinkled."
Jiang Chen furrowed his brows, but didn't say anything, could it be that just for this, she was happy all the way?
Translator's Corner:
1 down 26 to go! Hope you’ll still stick around for the side stories, they are not one to be missed!