Dazzling

Qing Ye rushed all the way to the boarding gate before finally finding a quiet corner. Her eyes were still red and swollen. She thought she must look utterly disheveled and embarrassed at this moment, yet when Xing Wu told her not to come back, her heart felt as if it had been brutally sliced open by countless knives—a raw, bleeding pain.

She had no idea where their destinies would lead after she boarded the plane. Even someone as confident as her felt, for the first time, a fearful uncertainty in the face of an unpredictable future.

It wasn't until a bottle of water was handed to her that she slowly looked up. The woman before her wore a sharp black suit dress, quietly watching her in high heels: "I saw you and Wu Zi outside earlier. You seemed to be talking, so I didn't interrupt."

Qing Ye stared at Shu Han, taken aback as she accepted the water: "You?"

Shu Han sat down beside her, taking off her sunglasses and perching them on her head: "I heard from Quan Ya yesterday that you were back. Leaving so soon?"

Qing Ye lowered her gaze and murmured "Mm." "What about you? Where are you going?"

Shu Han let out a long sigh, her gaze distant: "I've left Lao Jiang. Planning to try my luck in Shenzhen."

Qing Ye turned to stare at her in surprise. Shu Han gave a self-deprecating laugh, her voice languid: "Can't keep finding excuses to stay stuck. Gotta move forward."

She tilted her head and smiled at Qing Ye, who lowered her head and returned a faint smile.

"Will you come back?" Shu Han asked.

Qing Ye's eyes grew moist again without her realizing, but she remained silent.

The announcement for the flight to Shenzhen began boarding. Shu Han glanced up at the screen and said to Qing Ye: "I can't remember which year it was—we were just teenagers then. We went to the county fair to play the ring toss game. Quan Ya had his eye on an MP3 player, Wu Zi wanted a game controller. The prizes were really good, so the crowd was huge. The vendor had tampered with the packaging, so none of us won anything. We spent all our money and complained the whole way home."

"For a long time after that, Wu Zi would go watch people play the ring toss every day. Then one day, he came back with both the game controller and the MP3 player Quan Ya wanted. To this day, I still don't know how he managed to win them."

"But that's just how Wu Zi is—he's relentless about getting what he wants."

Qing Ye's eyelashes fluttered slightly. Shu Han had already stood up, putting her sunglasses back on as she said: "I'm off."

Qing Ye watched Shu Han's retreating figure and suddenly realized: The flowers haven't faded, time hasn't aged, moments are still blooming—so this isn't the end, but the true beginning.

...

After the long summer vacation, everyone's lives entered a new phase.

Fang Lei's college entrance exam score surprisingly exceeded her expectations—she got 473 points. She ultimately didn't choose Xiamen, but instead went to the provincial capital to study broadcasting, thinking she could be closer to home and return more easily.

After that, she never contacted Wei Dong again. But she heard he underperformed on the exams, missing his chance at Xiamen University. He didn't go to Xiamen either, but instead attended a university in the south. Eventually, Fang Lei stopped inquiring about him altogether.Due to their shared professional interests, Fang Lei and Pang Hu maintained frequent contact after entering university. They partnered to run a self-media venture, with Fang Lei serving as the host who regularly livestreamed to introduce Sunny Valley products, while Pang Hu handled operations. Their collaboration quickly gained traction, amassing a stable following within months and earning them some extra pocket money.

Shi Min scored six points lower than Fang Lei on the college entrance exam. When selecting universities, her goal was clear—unlike Fang Lei, she wanted to study far from home and major in hospitality management. She meticulously researched all tourism management programs within her second-tier score range and ultimately chose Beijing.

She couldn’t fully explain her decision, but the thought of Qing Ye remaining in Beijing made her want to be closer—just as in the past, whenever faced with daunting challenges, having Qing Ye by her side had always brought her profound reassurance. For Shi Min, leaving her familiar hometown for an unfamiliar city, she was subconsciously drawn to where Qing Ye was. Though living costs might be higher, she believed challenges and opportunities coexisted, and taking this bold step while young was worthwhile.

Pang Hu performed surprisingly well on the exam. Initially aiming for a vocational college, he scored 498 after a final sprint—just two points shy of 500—and even made the school’s top 50 honor roll, delighting him immensely. Yet, his joy soon turned to anxiety. Human greed often escalates: when scoring just over 300, he’d have been content with vocational college; at 400, he eyed second-tier universities. Now, nearing 500, his restless ambitions grew uncontrollable.

After three days of internal struggle, he calmly discussed it with his family through the night. At dawn, he rushed to Xing Wu’s home. In a familiar scene, they stood on opposite sides of the door, but this time, Pang Wu stammered, "I—I’ll r-retake the year w-with you."

Thus, to everyone’s astonishment, Xing Wu and Pang Hu returned to An High School to repeat their senior year. Beyond the shock of Zhazha Pavilion’s troublemakers, the most incredulous were An High’s teachers. Having finally endured three years to graduate these headaches, with few troublesome freshmen in sight, school administrators anticipated smoother terms—only to find the duo had returned.

Director Gu of the academic office even summoned them for a talk, earnestly advising Pang Hu: "Your scores are decent—why repeat?" Under the teachers’ scrutiny, Pang Hu sheepishly explained he aimed to overcome his stutter and improve his grades. If successful, he planned to apply to the Central Academy of Drama next year. The teachers laughed at first, but seeing his earnest expression, they grew impressed by the determined young man.Then Director Gu changed the subject and asked Xing Wu why he wanted to repeat his final year of high school. After all, even Fan Tong was at least a class monitor—though not exactly well-behaved, he wasn’t entirely bad. But for someone like Xing Wu, a pure slacker who just muddled through school, to suddenly come back and ask to repeat his final year was something no teacher could understand.

Xing Wu simply replied with four words: "For my ideals."

If not for his position as the director of academic affairs, Director Gu would have really wanted to retort with four words of his own: "Pure nonsense."

In any case, the decision of the two to repeat their final year became a major event that shook the entire An High School.

Although Qing Ye did not stay at An High to take the college entrance exam and become the provincial top scorer as everyone had hoped, the students from the tutoring class she led produced several scores above 600 in the exam, along with a batch of scores in the 500s. The admission rate to top-tier universities directly surpassed that of Jin Zhong, making it the most outstanding graduating class in An High’s history.

The school even put up a large red announcement at the entrance. Huang Mao and the others later made a special trip back to An High to admire this celebratory notice. When they found Fan Tong’s name, they couldn’t help but gloat and whipped out their phones to take a flurry of photos.

After taking the photos, Huang Mao stood in front of the announcement and said, "If Qing Ye hadn’t left, she’d definitely be right at the top of that list."

Although Qing Ye didn’t stay to take the exam, her confidence, her conviction, and her determined smile had unconsciously influenced many people. Like a dazzling sun, as long as she appeared in everyone’s sight every day, her radiance could illuminate even more people.

Perhaps even at the moment she left, she hadn’t realized that because of her presence, many lost children at An High had gradually found direction and the determination to strive for something.

Thinking of this, Huang Mao suddenly sighed emotionally and said, "Qing Ye is truly a living Bodhisattva."

In truth, Huang Mao had intended to express his feelings poetically, but having read few books and memorized even fewer poems, he couldn’t come up with anything profound. As a result, his words stunned everyone around him, and they all turned to ask him if he had borrowed money from Qing Ye.

Speaking of Huang Mao, after graduating from high school, his grades were so abysmal that he had almost no prospects for further education. Some people around him suggested he go to Lanxiang to learn how to operate an excavator—those things were huge and would look incredibly cool driving around.

But Huang Mao didn’t want to leave Zhazha Pavilion. When he heard that Xing Wu and Pang Hu were repeating their final year, he was quite happy, thinking he could still hang out with them every day like in high school. Little did he know that Xing Wu and Pang Hu would later find him too noisy and worry that he would disrupt their studies, so they outright refused to let him tag along.

This left the bored Huang Mao with no choice but to follow in his father’s footsteps and start hauling goods.

At first, he endured six months of grueling work. The hardships were self-evident—when things got busy, he had to act as both driver and mover, leaving him tanned and rough-skinned.

The shipments for Sunny Valley were always handled by Huang Mao. Later, as Sunny Valley expanded its production capacity and the volume of shipments increased, Huang Mao took the money his father had saved for him to get married and started his own small transport company. He even formally assembled a transport team. With Xing Wu’s help, he not only established long-term business relations with Sunny Valley but also with the target factory. Of course, all of this came later.Xing Wu actually scored 401 points on the college entrance exam, which completely shocked Old Yang, Zhu Fen, and the others. After all, throughout his three years of high school, no one had ever seen him seriously attend a single class. Scoring 401 points in the end could already be considered genius-level. If not for the strictness of the exam system, some even suspected he might have threatened his classmates to help him cheat.

But in reality, he had only seriously written the essay.

Everyone said that with his intelligence, if he had just applied himself over the past year, he could definitely have scored over 500 points the following year and gotten into a 211 university. But he knew clearly that his goal wasn’t just an extra hundred or so points.

Only Pang Hu could probably guess where he intended to go, but this guess was so far-fetched that even he only dared to speculate, not confirm.

Many things in life are like this—seemingly out of reach. Only when you truly decide to go for it and dive in headfirst do you eventually find out whether you can actually do it.

So after that summer break, everyone went their separate ways, yet they all threw themselves into new lives.

Every person living in this world is constantly moving forward, and Qing Ye was no exception. In fact, right after finishing her exams, she had already estimated her score—around 712 points. Even before the official results were released, she received calls from both Q University and B University, which surprised her. However, leaning more toward science subjects, she chose the School of Economics and Management at Q University.

Her final college entrance exam score was one point lower than her estimate—711—making her the second-highest scorer in science in the city that year. Qing Ye even took special note of the top science scorer: a girl named Xie Qianqian from a public school, who scored 713, two points higher than her.

On registration day, most students were accompanied by their parents. Qing Hongzhi even brought a female assistant along to help Qing Ye settle in. Q University’s modern student apartments were quite famous nationwide, and stepping into the dormitory made her feel that all those years of hard work in high school were worth it.

The room was bright and clean, with a private balcony, bathroom, and shower. Even the color scheme of the desks and beds was harmonious and comfortable.

Qing Ye arrived relatively late. By the time she got there, two of her roommates had already settled in. One, named Sun Wanjing, whose parents had just left, wore glasses and had her hair in a ponytail—a girl with a distinct scholarly vibe. The other, Qu Bing, had both her parents there. They even exchanged business cards with Qing Hongzhi; her family was also in business, but they weren’t locals—they had traveled all the way from Shaanxi.

When Qing Ye introduced herself, both girls looked up and stared at her. Though neither said anything, it was clear they had heard about her college entrance exam score.

However, the School of Economics and Management at Q University was known for attracting top students, and everyone there was among the best from their respective provinces. After their initial surprise, the two went back to their own tasks.

After Qing Hongzhi left, the three of them discussed whether they should go scout out the campus.

Just as they were talking, the dorm room door suddenly swung open. A lively-looking girl with short hair rushed in, wearing a tank top and shorts and carrying a relatively small backpack. She didn’t look like she was there to register—more like she was just stopping by for a break.

Soon, the three of them realized that this sweet-looking, short-haired girl was their fourth roommate. She had come alone, without any parents, traveling light and without much fuss.She set down her bag, turned around, and said to everyone, "Hello, my name is Xie Qianqian."

At that, the three girls all looked up and stared at her in astonishment.