On the night they returned from university, Pei Chuan’s severed limb was red and swollen, already rubbed raw.
He stared at his gruesome wound for a long time without speaking.
Bei Yao had a petite frame and was very light—it was simply his own uselessness. A severed limb was never meant to bear weight, yet after gritting his teeth and carrying her for less than ten meters, the sensitive stump had become grotesquely swollen.
Such an ugly body…
Pei Chuan curled his lips coldly.
The winter break of their senior year was short. After the Lunar New Year celebrations ended, senior high school students had to return to class on the seventh day of the new year.
As soon as Pei Chuan got home, he received an email. He clicked it open—a man named "K" had sent him a message.
"Satan, this is your final chance. Finish that program!" —K.
Pei Chuan lowered his gaze, tapped his finger on the screen, and deleted the email.
After a long silence with no reply from Pei Chuan, the people on the other end discussed at length.
"What if he refuses to continue?"
K sneered, "Does he have a choice? Doesn’t he want a normal life, to take the college entrance exam and go to university? He’s just an eighteen-year-old kid. Let him realize he can never be normal in this lifetime. Only we can accept a monster like him."
In the spring breeze of March, willow branches swayed gently.
With only three months left until the college entrance exam, not only were the third-year high school students at Sixth High School more self-disciplined, but even the first-year and second-year high school students had become somewhat more subdued.
In 2009, before the college expansion policy, universities were categorized into Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and vocational colleges.
Li Fangqun often took students aside during evening self-study sessions for heart-to-heart talks, offering them psychological guidance. For instance, she encouraged those hovering around the Tier 2 cutoff to aim for Tier 1, and those near the vocational college line to strive for undergraduate programs.
For a small city like C City, getting into University B was no easy feat.
Afraid of underperforming in the exam, Bei Yao studied especially hard.
Since childhood, her reflexes had been slower than her peers’, so she developed a resilient mindset: anticipate the worst outcomes. That way, success would bring joy, and failure would not lead to discouragement.
Pei Chuan was exceptionally talented—his scores were sure to get him into University B. She could only push herself harder, ensuring that even if she underperformed, she could still make it into that university.
This semester, the school abolished nap time. Sixth High School, once lax, suddenly tightened its management during the third year of high school. Teachers and the principal took turns patrolling outside the windows, keeping students on edge and forcing them to behave.
Class Six of the second year of high school, where Bei Yao was, even implemented a phone confiscation system: students handed in their phones to Li Fangqun every Monday and retrieved them on weekends.
It felt as though the school was trying to press the students’ heads against their desks, urging them to study hard in the less than one hundred days remaining.
The countdown written in chalk at the front of the classroom dwindled day by day.
Finally, on the 75th day, a forum post began circulating wildly.
Wu Mo was the first to see it.
She was stunned when she opened the post, her expression growing increasingly grave. The more she read, the paler she became, until by the end, she seemed dazed and disoriented.
How could this be? It’s impossible!
She stood up from her seat, walked over to Bei Yao’s desk, and demanded, "Tell me! This is fake, right? You know him—he can’t be… disa…" Wu Mo gritted her teeth, unable to finish the word.
Bei Yao, who had been working on a math problem, looked up and let her gaze fall on Wu Mo’s phone.It was an exposé article.
It all began in 1996, the year of a torrential downpour.
Narcotics officers had achieved great success, rescuing numerous innocent families. However, two officers' children became targets of vicious retaliation.
The drug-addled criminals kidnapped both children—one had his hands severed, the other both legs.
These deranged offenders placed the severed limbs at the victims' doorsteps, forcing their mothers to witness their children's mutilated body parts.
The children were eventually rescued.
The child whose hands were severed couldn't be saved due to excessive blood loss.
The child who lost both legs survived with remarkable resilience.
Suddenly, media spotlights turned toward the child and his family. Lying on a hospital bed, the pale-faced, disabled boy occupied only a small corner in 1996's aging newspapers.
The decorated narcotics officer was named Pei Haobin.
The legless child was named Pei Chuan.
With time's passage, their tragedy had gradually faded from memory.
In the photograph, the little boy appeared small and fragile. Bei Yao's finger absently traced his dark, hollow eyes resembling black grapes.
Yang Jia turned, stammering, "Yao Yao, are you crying?"
Was she? Bei Yao touched her cheek and found it wet with tears.
Seeing her reaction, Wu Mo snatched back her phone, gritting her teeth. She still couldn't accept it! Her first crush had been a fraud, and the second boy she'd admired turned out to be... incomplete.
The name Pei Chuan no longer represented the carefree youth from Third High School.
He was now the undisputed top student in Class 136.
Bei Yao stood up and ran toward Third High School.
The post had been circulating for half a day—she'd learned this news far too late.
～
When Jin Ziyang and others stumbled upon the post, their initial reaction was disbelief. How could this be true?
For nearly three years, Brother Chuan had played basketball and gone running with them. After all this time together, how could this be? The headline read: "Former Legless Boy Poses as Rich Second Generation."
But when Jin Ziyang saw the photograph of the frail boy, his expression shifted dramatically: "Goddamn it! Which bastard did this!"
He raged like a madman: "Zheng Hang, track this IP! Find the scum so I can end him today!"
Zheng Hang looked equally grim, glancing toward Pei Chuan.
Pei Chuan remained eerily calm.
He continued working on his calculations, pencil in hand: Since the satellite orbits near Earth's surface, its orbital radius can be considered equivalent to Earth's radius R...
Zheng Hang clenched his teeth: "I'll have the post deleted immediately."
But when he located the post, he found it had multiplied like spawning fish—deleting one only prompted another to surface.
Pei Chuan lowered his gaze, continuing to write: The gravitational force provides the centripetal force for the satellite's circular motion...
Ji Wei also saw the post and stood frozen for several minutes. For the first time in years, he abandoned his studies, spending the entire class period with Zheng Hang trying to delete posts.
But there were too many... an endless flood.
No matter how many people they enlisted to help delete, new posts kept emerging.
Ji Wei's eyes reddened.
Staring at his phone screen, he felt more powerless than ever failing an exam.
Pei Chuan maintained his composure throughout. After completing all assignments, he packed his belongings and headed toward his apartment.He was quite well-known at school. After all, he had started off as a troublemaker, skipping classes every other day, and later went through the "cheating" scandal, so most people in the school recognized him.
As he walked from the classroom to the school gate, countless people secretly glanced at his leg.
Jin Ziyang ran over and caught up with him: "Brother Chuan." The usually carefree rich kid was on the verge of tears, "Don’t worry, it must be someone playing a prank. By tonight... by tonight we’ll have deleted all the posts, then we’ll find that bastard and beat the crap out of him."
Only then did Pei Chuan glance at him: "No need. Go back."
"What about you?"
Pei Chuan fell silent for a moment before replying calmly, "Preparing for the college entrance exam." He wanted to get into B University.
The young man’s silhouette was stretched long by the March sunset.
Jin Ziyang let out a furious roar, nearly bursting into tears.
~
Bei Yao crouched outside Pei Chuan’s small apartment. He had brought her here once, and she had remembered the way.
The gentle spring breeze of March whispered softly, turning the branches emerald green. A bird hopped onto a branch, tilting its head to observe the girl who kept wiping her tears.
Bei Yao plucked a green stem from the weeds, weaving it back and forth.
Before he returned, Bei Yao had already dried her tears.
Pei Chuan slung his backpack casually over his shoulder. As he passed the small flowerbed near the apartment, a soft figure rushed to hug him.
"Pei Chuan!"
He smiled. "Mm. Yaoyao, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be studying?"
She lowered her gaze. "I was too tired and fell asleep at my desk. When I woke up, I realized I missed you."
He looked down at the small head resting against his chest. "Mm, I missed you too."
She asked, "How much?"
Pei Chuan silently stroked her hair and gently kissed the top of her head. "On my way back, I saw the magnolia flowers blooming. When I saw them, I thought you’d like them."
He opened his hand, revealing a white magnolia he had bought.
"What if I hadn’t come?"
He didn’t answer.
Because it didn’t matter whether she came or not—he had simply grown accustomed to doing this every day.
She accepted the flower. "I have a gift for you too."
He looked at her.
"Pei Chuan, hold out your hand," she said. "No, the other one."
He obediently switched hands.
Bei Yao opened her tightly clenched palms and slipped the tender green stem onto his ring finger.
It was a ring.
It fit perfectly.
She asked him, "Do you like it?"
Pei Chuan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. "Mm."
She smiled, standing on her tiptoes to stroke the corner of his lips with her thumb. "Pei Chuan, you should smile when you’re happy and cry when you’re sad. You can’t live like a machine and bottle everything up until it hurts you."
He lowered his gaze, looking at the "ring" on his ring finger.
No matter how hard he tried to steel his heart, he couldn’t bring himself to return it to her. He clenched his fist.
Her real ring would one day be given to someone else. But he had this... and this was more than enough.
Bei Yao said, "I’m really greedy. I’m giving this to you now, but in a few years, you have to give me a real one, understand?"
She was utterly serious, her glistening eyes reflecting his silent figure.
Pei Chuan said, "Okay."
She nodded happily, stepping back to tilt her head and study him. "Oh, whose boyfriend is this? So generous and handsome."
The corners of his lips curved almost imperceptibly.
~
When he returned to school on Monday, Pei Chuan noticed that many people no longer glanced secretly or curiously at his leg.
Ji Wei stood nervously at the classroom door, mouthing the words: "Brother Chuan, he’s here, he’s here!"Jin Ziyang made an "OK" gesture and pulled out an autograph book from his desk.
Pei Chuan walked into the classroom. Unlike before, his classmates no longer looked at him with strange expressions. Everything was just as it used to be—those focused on practicing problems buried their heads in their work, while those joking around continued to laugh and chat.
No one looked at him with odd glances.
Pei Chuan lifted his gaze.
Jin Ziyang ran over and shoved a small booklet into his hand. Clearing his throat with exaggerated seriousness, he said, "Brother Chuan, we couldn’t give you any gifts for your birthday last time, so we’re making up for it today."
It was a notebook with a black cover.
Pei Chuan glanced at him. Jin Ziyang coughed again, clearly uncomfortable—this was the first time the group of second-generation rich kids had done something so sentimental.
Pei Chuan opened to the first page.
Scrawled in messy, oversized handwriting were the words: "Brother Chuan is the coolest in the world! — Jin Ziyang"
Below it was Zheng Hang’s message: "Brother Chuan is awesome, always number one."
Flipping further, he saw childish, elementary-school-style handwriting.
"Brother Chuan, aim for Cambridge in the gaokao! Cambridge! — Ji Wei"
In Ji Wei’s mind, Cambridge was the most prestigious goal.
Pei Chuan lowered his gaze and continued flipping.
There were countless messages, filling thousands of lines. Some from people he knew, others from strangers. From boys and girls alike. From freshman year to senior year, every sentence was filled with encouragement. Even Wei Wan had written a line: "Just keep moving forward."
Jin Ziyang, Zheng Hang, and Ji Wei had spent the entire day running around with this notebook, collecting messages until it was completely filled.
All these words eventually converged into one sentence:
"Pei Chuan, you can do it!"
Pei Chuan remained silent, his fingers tightening around the notebook.
So, the world wasn’t just filled with malice and loneliness. Not a single person mentioned his imperfection.
Being a good person—even if it just meant not doing bad things—wasn’t such a bad thing after all, was it?
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