Chapter 99: Sincerity
“Everyone, don’t run around. Let’s take a group photo first!”
In front of a monument to a certain historical event, the grade group leader shouted loudly with a small megaphone. Each class had to take a photo in front of the monument in turn. Afterwards, it would not only be on the school’s official website homepage, but might also be reported by some media—
City No. 1 High organizes students to visit revolutionary holy sites, pursuing the red spirit. Vice Principal Lou Yu expresses her firm support…
Well, another wave of political achievements.
“Class 1, where is Class 1?”
“Coming, coming!” Tong Yao was distracted and had forgotten that her class was the first to take a photo. She quickly called the students to line up. The girls stood in the front, and the boys in the back, arranged from shortest to tallest—at times like these, the boys would engage in a fierce, secret battle, secretly standing on their tiptoes. No one wanted to be the shortest.
“Haha, Du Tao, I can’t even see your head!”
“Idiot, stop standing on your tiptoes.”
“Alright, alright, everyone be quiet,” Tong Yao clapped her hands. As the homeroom teacher, she had to stand at the far right of the girls’ line. She stood there and found that the girls next to her suddenly started to change positions, competing to get away from her—am I being disliked? Or are these students just being awkward?
“What, you don’t want to stand with the teacher that much?” she teased, pretending not to care.
A few of the girls looked at each other, quickly waved their hands, and explained, “Standing with Teacher Tong will make us look ugly in comparison.”
“Right, right, especially our skin.”
Tong Yao: “…”
It seemed that it wasn’t just the boys who had to fight secretly when taking pictures; the girls also had their ways.
She was indeed a fake girl.
After the Class 1 photo was taken, they could rest on the spot. Although they couldn’t run around, watching the other classes take their group photos was also a kind of fun, especially since they could openly stare at the handsome guys from the class next door whom they usually didn’t dare to greet—as for the beauties, they just had to look at their own homeroom teacher.
“Teacher Li, it’s your Class 7’s turn!”
The students of Class 7 were tired of waiting. They squatted on the ground one by one and slowly lined up, which made Labor Reform furious. This made him lose so much face in front of the other teachers.
“Are you ready?”
“Wait!” Ji Chen suddenly shouted. “Teacher Tong, come take a picture with us!”
Tong Yao, who had been called out, was startled and said in a daze, “Huh?”
“Yes, Teacher Tong, come over!” The number of people jeering suddenly increased. “Teacher Tong, stand here with me!”
Fortunately, there were no other subject teachers around, otherwise, they would have been so jealous they would have beaten these ungrateful little ones to death.
And the students of Class 1 were really not happy—why should our homeroom teacher take a picture with you? A few boys shouted “don’t go” to build momentum, but the voices from the other side were clearly louder.
Tong Yao covered her face. The whole grade was here, all looking at her. What was this?
Ye Wei, who was directing on the side, smiled. “Teacher Tong, just come over.”
Tong Yao felt helpless yet warm in her heart. She walked to the side of the Class 7 line, rolled her eyes at these jeering children, and began to think about where to stand.
She saw the far right of the second row of girls. Ruan Xi was standing there, and their gazes met. The young girl’s face was flushed red. She wanted to speak, but the boy behind her had already shouted for her, “Teacher Tong, Ruan Xi is here!”
Tong Yao smiled, walked over, and stood next to Ruan Ruan. She found that the young girl’s body was trembling slightly, her cheeks as red as cherry blossoms in March. They had never had a photo together. This seemed to be the first time.
Thinking of this, she moved a little closer to the young girl. The photographer adjusted the camera and began to capture the details of the students’ expressions. This expression was too stiff, that expression was too arrogant. Tong Yao had been posing for a long time when she suddenly felt something touch her fingertips.
She turned her head in surprise, and then her hand was held by a pair of equally soft hands. The young girl’s flushed face was looking at the photographer, clearly trying to get away with it. Tong Yao secretly tried to pull her hand away, but she couldn’t.
She didn’t dare to make too big of a movement, otherwise, the people behind her would see. But she despairingly found that the people behind her seemed to have already seen. A few boys were laughing in a low voice, and for a moment, her face also exploded with redness.
Fortunately, she was not much older, and the students all thought it was just a sign of best friendship or sisterhood. As for yuri, it was all a joke. Many girls would boldly promote BL, but in reality, few boys would dare to say they liked yuri.
“What is one plus six?” the photographer shouted.
“Seven!”
The corners of everyone’s mouths subconsciously curled up. Tong Yao felt her hand was burning hot. As soon as the photo was taken, the crowd dispersed. She immediately “pulled” her hand out, lowered her head, and walked towards Class 1. Ruan Xi, knowing she had done something bad, obediently followed her, all the way to Class 1, drawing a group of suspicious gazes.
—You’re from Class 7, what are you doing here?
Tong Yao was mortified. “Don’t follow me.”
Ruan Xi was taken aback for a moment and said in a small voice, “Oh,” and then took a small step back.
“No, I’m not chasing you away either,” Tong Yao was also confused. She smoothed the hair on her forehead and said shyly, “Just, next time… don’t do that.”
The young girl lowered her head and gave a “mhm.” When she looked up again, she said in a voice that only the two of them could hear, “Then… what if I want to hold Teacher Tong’s hand?”
Tong Yao was dazed. How is this child’s train of thought different from what I thought? Shouldn’t she have answered “I was wrong, I definitely won’t do it again” at this time?
After a while, she said mercilessly, “Then you’ll have to bear it. No holding hands.”
She couldn’t be tricked by this child all the time. The little one was young, but she had a lot of tricks, as cunning as a little fox, and as cute as a little fox.
And at this moment, Ruan Xi was thinking in her heart, when that hour comes, more than a year from now, I will definitely, definitely, hold this hand, and hold it tight. No matter what happens, I will not let go.
What she wanted to get would be realized on that day.
**
Although the destination of the outing was the Martyrs’ Park, after years of development, the park had long been operated as a comprehensive amusement park. After commemorating the martyrs, as soon as they were dismissed, they could go to the amusement park to play. It was also very large, and you wouldn’t see the same thing twice even if you wandered around for a whole day.
“Everyone, you’re free to go,” Tong Yao said after the procedures were over. “We’ll gather at the park entrance at five in the afternoon, and we’ll take the bus back at 5:30.”
“Oh!” Everyone cheered. The girls formed their own small groups, and the boys were divided into two factions. One group went to the amusement park, and the other took out a black paper box and shouted, “Anyone who wants to play Three Kingdoms Kill, come over,” and took away a bunch of people.
Tong Yao looked around, didn’t see the other classes, and didn’t know where Labor Reform had taken Class 7. She walked on the stone path in the woods, bored and lost. There was a pavilion ahead, and a group of boys were gathered there. It was the group from Class 7. The same Three Kingdoms Kill was spread out on the stone bench.
“Teacher Tong!” a boy discovered her, his expression nervous.
“Are you afraid I’ll confiscate your cards?” she smiled.
The boy touched his head. Since Teacher Tong had become a homeroom teacher, their reverence had increased. “Hehe, Teacher Li doesn’t allow us to bring them… Does Teacher Tong want to play with us?”
The boys started to clamor. Playing cards with a pretty older sister was much more interesting than with a group of rough guys!
“Never mind, I don’t know how to play,” Tong Yao waved her hand. “By the way, are all your classmates nearby?”
“Teacher, I saw Ruan Xi go to the lake,” a boy shouted.
Tong Yao was embarrassed and glared at the boy.
“Don’t talk nonsense. I have something to talk to her about.”
Why didn’t she just ask the young girl where she was on WeChat?
Because that would make her seem too proactive, as if she needed someone to accompany her.
So, she chose to “run into her by chance.”
**
The lake in the park was not very clear. Cans and plastic bags floated on the surface, but the surrounding area was all woods, and the scenery was very good. The rising lake water had wet the mud on the shore. Walking on the bridge, you could vaguely see small red fish.
Ruan Xi found a stone pier, put down a newspaper, sat down, and then took out a sketchbook and a pencil from her bag to practice sketching. She was facing the lake, not because she wanted to draw, but because she felt it was very quiet. She liked the flying birds, the boats, the ripples on the water. The rustling of the wind and grass behind her could no longer disturb her.
One stroke after another, she sharpened her pencil several times. The gentle breeze blew through her braid. She patted the pencil shavings and finally let out a long sigh of relief.
“Finished drawing?”
Like a cat in a stress reaction, the young girl was so scared that she threw her sketchbook out. It landed at the junction of the mud and the lake water. Tong Yao quickly ran over to pick it up, but it was too late. More than half of the sketchbook was soaked, and not being able to use it was secondary. The important thing was that this was the young girl’s manga diary. Those little bits of life were finally soaked and ruined by the lake water, becoming wrinkled and fragile.
Tong Yao held the sketchbook and said drily, “I’m… I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
The young girl pursed her lips, took the sketchbook, and carefully flipped through it, but some pages were already stuck together and couldn’t be separated. And the pictures that could still be seen, the traces were scattered, the characters were deformed, and the paper scraps were like the dirt rubbed off in the shower.
“Sorry, I was trying to scare you…” Tong Yao was extremely guilty. “Can it be restored a little if we dry it?”
The young girl held the sketchbook, shook her head, and responded with a brilliant smile.
“Teacher Tong, don’t blame yourself. They were all very bad drawings from before. If they’re gone, they’re gone.”
“But… that’s also your important memory,” Tong Yao knew that the young girl was comforting her, but she knew very well how sad Ruan Ruan was to lose this sketchbook. She herself was a person who valued memories. She was strong-willed when she was a child. In the first grade, there was only one spot for the whole class, and she was the first to join the Young Pioneers. That red scarf looked shameful now, but she would never be willing to throw it away.
“That’s not important,” Ruan Xi said seriously. “Before I met Teacher Tong, drawing was a struggle for me, a confusion. I didn’t know what to do in the future. But since I met Teacher Tong…”
She had stood up at some point, staring at Tong Yao’s eyes. They had rarely had a heart-to-heart conversation. They would often express themselves through intimate actions like hugging, but that was not enough. She wanted to say it out loud, to let Teacher Tong know her true feelings.
“After meeting Teacher Tong, drawing became my dream. Teacher Tong is my motivation.”
Those past full of hardships, those past that had made her sink—
She did not miss them.
Yu Hua said that suffering is not worth pursuing. The will is tempered because suffering cannot be avoided.
If one could choose happiness, then there would be no sadness in the world.
“Being with Teacher Tong, I am very happy. I only want to keep these memories, because… this is my most important memory.”
“I want this memory to last forever.”
Sincere words, a burning heart, and fiery eyes.
As if a firework had bloomed in her heart, Tong Yao was like a fallen wild goose, landing in the palm of a beauty.
She couldn’t handle such sincere emotions. Seeing the young girl standing in front of her, she actually…
…wanted to kiss her a little.
Although their road was still long, although the waiting still had to continue, but facing such a Ruan Ruan, she felt… she could also give some response.
Maybe she could indulge once in a while.
“Ruan Ruan…
“Close your eyes for a second.”
