Chapter 34.2 - Rainy Days (2)
Luo Zhi was stunned, feeling like the meaning of things had been switched on her, but seeing her deskmate’s happy face, she was left speechless.
“You don’t talk much, and I always do weird things. I can’t control myself during self-study and always mess up your studying, and I drank strange stuff that made you feel disgusted... Later I stopped drinking it, and you were nicer to me and talked to me—I was really happy.”
Luo Zhi opened her mouth but couldn’t explain, totally lost in his train of thought.
“I kept guessing if what I did today made you mad, or if I did something else tomorrow, would you be happy... Haha, actually, you probably never really noticed me, right? I found out later that you forgot most of the things I told you.”
Her deskmate smiled foolishly and continued, “Anyway, you’re the best girl I’ve ever met. You have to keep working hard. I really believe in you—you’ll become the most amazing person.”
The most amazing person? How could you place such impossible expectations on me? Yet Luo Zhi said nothing. She smiled brightly at him and casually picked up a mechanical pencil she’d used for years from her pencil case.
“I’ve used this for a long time. It’s my favorite—my lucky pencil. I give it to you. Good luck on your exams and everything going well from now on.”
She lied. She always lied. But for giving her deskmate a memory he would always treasure and his happiest smile, Luo Zhi didn’t feel guilty.
Besides, unknowingly she made that boy worry and guess her feelings for so long.
Snapping back from the memory, Luo Zhi hesitated briefly, then dumped the seasoning packet into her hot water cup, stirred it, and took a big gulp.
It was weird, but honestly not bad.
Suddenly, it started raining outside. In early winter Beijing, rain was rare, so this one felt especially quiet and cold, as if the chill could seep into your bones.
Luo Zhi opened the window and watched people running below to dodge the rain, the earthy smell making her force a small smile.
But she couldn’t really smile.
She didn’t know how many times Sheng Huainan had vanished without a trace.
She had sent him a few texts asking how his cold was, but he never replied. On Saturday’s legal theory class, Luo Zhi sat struggling with her thoughts, and saw him enter from afar, but he didn’t even glance her way.
She didn’t know whether she felt sad or angry—she simply had no reaction.
What was worse was her uncontrollable hallucination of text messages—turning the phone off and on, no new messages, again and again...
Finally, her Nokia crashed.
“Luo Zhi, are you okay?”
Facing the restarting screen, she wanted to smile.
After resisting for a few seconds, she suddenly slammed the window shut and collapsed on her dorm bed. Her posture wasn’t as dramatic as Baili’s, but essentially the same.
No wailing. Just tears slowly leaking out as she gave up fighting it. When you care about someone, it doesn’t matter how much you pretend—you can’t stop those emotions you once despised from flooding back.
If Ding Shuijing really cared about her opinions and feelings, then Luo Zhi definitely hadn’t made her feel good lately. She felt guilty.
What people call karma.
Life isn’t a movie, where everything turns around magically when the protagonist awakens. Instead, the fickle heavens treated her harshly, and her “finally brave once” determination and pride collapsed instantly.
She could make decisions, but she really didn’t have the final say.
Eventually, crying exhausted her—just like when she once ran laps on the playground until she collapsed.
Wiping her tears, she stared blankly for a while, then opened the vocabulary book on her desk.
Is the first new word in every vocabulary book in the world “abandon”? So many people enthusiastically sign up for TOEFL or IELTS, swearing to memorize words well, yet the very first new word they see is “放弃” — “abandon.”
She smiled, a bit of black humor. Then she flipped to the page with a bookmark.
“Luo Zhi, Luo Zhi, you have to keep going.”
Suddenly, her phone vibrated on the desk—twice. Luo Zhi jumped.
Messages from Zhang Mingrui and Sheng Huainan: the same words.
“Where are you? Not stuck outside in the heavy rain, right?”
She replied to Zhang Mingrui, “Thanks for caring, I’m just staying in the dorm.”
Luo Zhi threw her bag onto the chair and noticed she was shaking a bit—maybe because of the cold. She squatted on the floor, clutching her arm, thoughts a mess.
She just came inside—warm air hit her face. She had just gone out.
She didn’t even realize she was gripping so tightly. When she finally relaxed, white marks appeared on her arm, slowly turning a little red and swollen.
