Time Passed Us By - Chapter 7

The late autumn rain had been falling for several days, so Song Jianan had no choice but to take the bus to school. It seemed as if all the people in the same school had agreed to take the bus together; the small bus was packed with high school students wearing the same school uniform.

People from the same school naturally talk a lot. The two girls standing next to Song Jianan talked about school gossip. One of them said, “Do you know that Xiao Fan from Class 12 has found a girl from another school? I heard that the girl has some connections, so she must be quite famous.”

“That kind of man is too philandering. By the way, did you know that Su Li from Class 8 seems to be dating Qin Yuanyuan? They are very obvious, and the teacher doesn’t care.”

“Ah, no way, Su Li? Are you sure you are talking about that Su Li–”

“Nonsense, who else could it be? I heard that all the girls in their class were heartbroken. If I had taken the initiative earlier, maybe I would have had a chance.”

The bus stopped at the station, which was still some distance away from school. People on the street were walking in a hurry, holding umbrellas. Water and mud splashed under the wheels, making it difficult to dodge. Everyone was moving forward on their own path, and no one noticed Song Jianan’s miserable appearance on the side of the road.

Song Jianan woodenly held up her umbrella and slowly walked towards the school. The raindrops suddenly fell heavily and the wind became stronger. In such a boisterous world, she could still clearly hear the sobbing in her heart.

Not far away, two figures were walking towards the school gate from the opposite direction. Su Li was wearing a suit school uniform and holding an umbrella while carrying a faint smile on his facial expression. The girl next to him, wearing a lilac cotton jacket over her sportswear, was gesturing something. The two walked together, but deliberately kept a distance from each other.

Looking more closely, the girl was the one who woke Su Li up at the award ceremony that day. Su Li’s bright and clear eyes and Qin Yuanyuan’s bright smile were shrouded in the vast rain and fog formed by the steaming and clamorous atmosphere. The sound of the busy traffic was abruptly cut off in Song Jianan’s mind. The distance returned to a soft blur, and she suddenly couldn’t think of anything.

As she had just been deceived, the once sweetest candy turned into a poison that made life worse than death. The clown performed laboriously on the brightly lit stage until tears flowed, but found that there was no audience.

It’s just a person’s dream and splendor. When it’s shattered, it’s a sadness that makes you unable to cry or laugh.

Song Jianan sat in her seat blankly, not hearing a word of the teacher’s lecture. A boy was reading a martial arts fantasy novel behind her, so she knocked on the table and said, “Lemme borrow one.”

The boy was very surprised. He looked at her suspiciously for a long time and took out a book that had been worn to pieces: “Be careful, don’t let the teacher see it.”

In Skulls and Bones, before his death, Xu Huiye told the woman he had let down his whole life: “Ah Xiu, I have let you down a lot in this life. Now I sincerely hope that in the next life, we can be a true couple. Maybe you don’t like to hear this, but these are my real thoughts.” Lian Xiuren replied: “I just hope that we will never see each other again in this life.”

Suddenly, tears flowed uncontrollably. Song Jianan hurriedly looked for tissues to wipe them away and pretended to have a cold to calm down. But then she realized that her Chinese teacher was just singing a monologue and she couldn’t help crying even more.

It’s nothing, but there are so many emotions that need to be vented.

After class, she was still buried in her book, unable to let go. The monitor came over and patted her on the shoulder, “Song Jianan, the head teacher asked you to go to the office now.”

She was startled and quickly stuffed the book into the desk: “Understood.”

To go to the office, she must pass Class 8. Usually, that is Song Jianan’s favorite path, but now she would rather go anywhere but there. She told herself not to look at Class 8, but her mind could not control the corner of her eyes– that girl was standing next to Su Li’s desk, smiling. Su Li happened to have his back to Song Jianan, so she couldn’t see his face clearly, but he must have been smiling too.

The scene was so dazzling. Jealousy and the inferiority buried deep in her heart were densely woven into a net, binding her tightly. The last bit of love in her heart was like a candle flame that was about to fall in a storm, which could be completely destroyed by a drop of rain or a gust of wind, leaving only a wisp of smoke and ashes.

Song Jianan didn’t hear a word the head teacher said to her. She only knew that the teacher was advising her to think carefully and not to insist on studying science, otherwise it would be counterproductive.

Song Jianan was a little dazed, with the shadows of Su Li and Qin Yuanyuan in front of her eyes. After the head teacher finished speaking for a long time, she bit her lip and said in a cold but very sure voice, “Teacher, I choose liberal arts.”

Yes, choose liberal arts, move to the liberal arts building, and never have any intersection with Su Li again, no longer having to see him smiling at another girl. Song Jianan smiled, her one-sided crush had dragged Su Li into her world, all of which have had nothing to do with Su Li, right?

After school, she deliberately stayed late before leaving. On the way to the station, Song Jianan held an umbrella. The dim street lights paved the way, and the puddles on the ground reflected the shiny light. She walked slowly, unconsciously turned around, and looked in the direction where she saw Su Li in the morning, but her eyes darkened in an instant. She bit her lip and hesitated for a while, then she turned around resolutely, straightforwardly, and steadfastly.

She took a long breath, and continued to walk slowly towards the bus stop with her schoolbag on, secretly laughing at herself in her heart: What else should I do?

The buses passed by one after another, sploshing against the puddles. Raindrops weaved diagonally under the headlights, and it was so hazy that one could not help but stretch out one’s hand to catch a jumping elf. Someone called her name from behind, and she turned around and saw that it was Duan Jiachen.

Duan Jiachen stood beside her, his school uniform trousers were already mostly wet. Crystal-clear water droplets dripped gently along his hair on his forehead. He said nothing, just silently looked at the bus stop sign.

The atmosphere suddenly became awkward, and Song Jianan had no intention of talking. It was not until the bus slowly pulled into the station that Duan Jiachen asked softly, “I heard you chose liberal arts?”

Song Jianan lowered her head in a panic, leaned out to look at the bus, and hurriedly took out the ticket: “Yeah. Let’s go first, the bus is here.”

A tide of people crowded onto the bus. She managed to stand firmly. Duan Jiachen squeezed next to her and asked in a low but cold voice, “Why didn’t you choose science? Why did you change it suddenly?”

She pulled the corners of her mouth and forced a smile. How should she answer such a question? How should she answer it? Song Jianan could only smile and shake her head, “No reason, I just think that studying liberal arts should be good.”

Duan Jiachen did not reply but turned to look out the window. The lights along the way were diffused in the mist and rain curtain, which seemed so unreal, just like the answers Song Jianan gave him, which always seemed perfunctory.

A strong sense of loss gripped him tightly, not only because she was about to leave, but also because she would never tell him any decision. The more he wanted to understand her, the farther he was to her. She seemed to be a mystery forever. The more he wanted to guess, the more he could not figure it out. 

When she got home, she was in a bad mood and talked back to her mother. Mother Song got angry and started nagging incessantly, but Song Jianan only felt a tightness in her chest, struggling to breathe.

Shutting the seemingly unstoppable nagging outside the door, she looked at the table piled with papers and reference books. She suddenly harshly brushed them to the ground, then bent down to pick them up one by one, slowly smoothing out the wrinkles on them, and then sat on the ground in a daze, not moving at all.

The sky was dark, the rain seemed to have stopped, and there were only scattered lights. The night was really scary, the earth and the sky were connected, endless, and without boundaries, it was a darkness that swallowed everything.

She suddenly began to miss Su Li, the pale and gloomy boy. She missed him more than ever before. As soon as she closed her eyes, his image would appear clearly in front of her.

She turned on the computer and looked at his shiny profile picture, which quietly stayed in the softest place in her heart. She suddenly hoped that he could always be there waiting for her.

However, he gave her the most direct and cruel answer, strangling her humble joy.

She swore that she had never done anything so crazy in her life.

Song Jianan grabbed the phone and impulsively dialed Su Li’s home phone number which she knew by heart. She knew exactly what she was doing. Every time a lonely beep sounded, her mind turned over a thousand thoughts– how should she answer if it was his father or mother answering? She was so nervous that even her hands were shaking. She held her breath and waited quietly for the beeping sound to end. 

She even thought that if it was a stranger’s voice, she would only have two choices– for a moment, she suddenly hoped that there was no one on the other end of the phone.

But Su Li’s voice came out, the usual cold but polite “Hello”.

Song Jianan didn’t know what to say, but the other party seemed to sense it and didn’t hang up the phone. For a moment, she felt the world was silent. She opened her mouth to breathe, but her mind was still blank.

Only Su Li’s face and the seldom-shown smile killed her beautiful and sweet little happiness.

It turns out that she already loved this man so deeply.

Tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes, flowing along the gaps between her fingers and rolling to her chin and neck. She bit her lips, unable to speak, crying silently, and then hung up the phone.

She tore up the address book with the number on it, hiding the last bit of love and self-esteem she had left in her youth forever. In this world, there is no fairy tale, but only a Cinderella who lives in her own world. She suddenly realized that having a crush is just a one-person game.

Under the dim light outside the window, snowflakes, accompanied by raindrops, fell quietly.

The last sorrow in the world was swallowed up by the coming winter. Eventually, tears and sorrow would be assimilated into the colorless paleness by life, including her, who was also pale. The love in the memory also left with the early autumn, and even the traces of the past couldn’t be seen.