Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Thanks to Uncle Lin, our after-school tutoring finally got on the right track.
After half a month straight of Aunt Li’s special dinners, both Yuan Lina and I had put on weight. Yuan Lina kept muttering that she needed to diet, but studying burned a lot of brainpower. If she didn’t eat enough at dinner, an entire night of problem sets would only make her hungrier. So after tutoring ended, Yuan Lina often couldn’t resist eating another shredded potato pancake. Not only did she fail to slim down, even her formerly pointed chin had turned into a small, rounded curve.
Her foundation actually wasn’t bad. Up until the first semester of tenth grade, she had still been a good kid who studied properly. Then, in the second semester, Feng Wendong transferred to our school. Influenced by him, she gradually became what she was now.
Pan Li once told me that Feng Wendong had transferred to Baimu because he’d beaten up a classmate at an international school and had no choice but to leave. Otherwise, some rich heir like him would never have come to a school like ours.
Dating this young was unhealthy enough already, let alone dating someone like him.
Aside from tutoring at night from Monday through Saturday, I didn’t even let go of my one free daytime break on the weekend. I charged Yuan Lina double the “study buddy” fee and tutored her then too.
Zhao Linfeng thought there was no need to tutor on weekends as well. Studying required a balance of work and rest.
I said, “No way. I just love studying too much!”
To prevent Yuan Lina from quitting my lessons once she’d saved enough money to buy Feng Wendong a gift, I even specially recommended a luxury item that would take her at least three months to afford. And since Feng Wendong’s birthday was coming up soon, Yuan Lina’s stress shot through the roof. She even started cutting back on her daily expenses. If she could tag along with me for free meals, she did, and she stopped attending any of those activities in Feng Wendong’s circle that required spending money.
But in the end, she and Feng Wendong were still in a relationship. The two of them were bound to cross paths.
On a crisp, clear Sunday in autumn, we agreed to go to the city library to work on practice papers. It wasn’t even four in the afternoon when Feng Wendong called Yuan Lina, saying he was waiting for her outside the library.
The moment Yuan Lina hung up, she took a small mirror out of her bag and checked her face. “What do I do, what do I do? I didn’t put on makeup today. I look so haggard!”
She hurriedly rummaged through her bag. “I only brought lipstick. I didn’t bring BB cream. Oh my god!”
Zhao Linfeng looked at her in confusion, as if she couldn’t understand what difference BB cream would make on Yuan Lina’s already pale face.
What I hadn’t expected was that Yuan Lina would actually take the initiative to borrow makeup from a staff member not far away.
Seeing her charm that very stern-looking older woman into smiles with just a few words and get her to go back to the service desk to fetch a compact, Zhao Linfeng and I exchanged a glance. I said, “She really is a social beast.”
“What’s a social beast?”
“A socializing beast. It means someone who’s unbelievably good at talking to people.”
“You always come up with these strange words.”
Yuan Lina’s phone rang again. She rushed off to the restroom to touch up her makeup and even forgot to take her phone with her.
The screen showed that Feng Wendong was calling. I knew Zhao Linfeng especially hated him, so I answered it myself.
“Hello, this is Xu Woruo. Yuan Lina just went to the restroom. When she comes back, I’ll have her call you back.”
Feng Wendong answered quickly, as if afraid I would hang up right away. “I have something to do and need to leave. Come downstairs and take what I brought her.”
“Can’t you come up?”
“I didn’t bring my ID.”
I had forgotten that you needed to swipe your ID to enter the city library. Electronic IDs didn’t exist yet.
I really didn’t want to go downstairs to find him. “Can you wait another-”
As if Feng Wendong had anticipated what I was going to say, he cut me off before I could finish. “I’m in a hurry.”
“All right. I got it.”
Zhao Linfeng saw my reluctance. “I’ll go for you.”
“No need. It’s not like I’m scared of him.”
I went downstairs with my head held high, full of heroic spirit, and saw Feng Wendong under the old banyan tree, still sitting astride his motorcycle. This time, he was wearing a black shirt and khaki cargo pants, with another pair of sneakers in a rare colorway on his feet. He had dyed his highlighted silver hair black. His slightly long black hair fell over the bridge of his nose, covering part of his eyes, and somehow made him look a little delicate and bookish.
If I hadn’t seen him kick the PE teacher, I might have been fooled by that appearance.
When he saw me arrive, he took a bouquet of purple-pink hydrangeas from his backpack. “Xu Woruo, help me give these to Lina.”