From the midday sun to the setting sun dipping westward.
Lin Wanxing sat in the equipment room, even catching the scent of the grilled squid stall outside the school's back gate.
But the boy who called himself "Qin Ao" never came to return the soccer ball.
Around five-thirty, it was time for her to get off work. A ponytailed intern teacher was waiting for her at the door.
"Lin Wanxing, you were really assigned to watch over the sports equipment?"
The intern teacher looked up at the department sign, exclaiming in astonishment.
Her surname was Xu, and she had started her internship in the same batch as Lin Wanxing. She was warm-hearted, so they had grown relatively close.
Earlier that day, Teacher Xu had learned about Lin Wanxing's new position in their intern WeChat group and had insisted on coming to see her.
Lin Wanxing glanced at the empty "Return Signature" column in the borrowing ledger, closed the book, and said, "Yes, this place is under my care now."
"Aren't you from Yongchuan University? Why would the school assign a top-five master's graduate to watch equipment?" Teacher Xu stepped into the equipment room, coughing from the dust. "What's that smell in here? This is just too pitiful."
"It's alright, pretty laid-back," Lin Wanxing replied, putting her things into her backpack. She locked the door and walked out with Teacher Xu.
Students were leaving school one after another, but surprisingly few actually exited the campus.
Lights gradually lit up in the classrooms. Even in a school that didn't rank highly in the city, high school students were kept under tight supervision.
"Have you found a place to live yet?"
After walking a few steps, Lin Wanxing heard Teacher Xu's question.
Lin Wanxing paused.
Actually, if she remembered correctly, Teacher Xu had mentioned going apartment hunting together after work that evening.
Now Teacher Xu was suddenly pretending not to remember—there must be new developments.
"Not yet," Lin Wanxing answered.
Teacher Xu tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in the sunset light, lowering her head slightly with some embarrassment. "It's just that Teacher Chen said she rented a three-bedroom apartment for only thirty-five hundred. There's still a spare bedroom available, and she's offering it to me for six hundred. Since several of us were assigned to the tenth-grade teaching group, we thought living together would be more convenient."
"Oh, that sounds great," Lin Wanxing said.
"They're waiting for me at the school gate, so I'll head over now."
"Okay."
Teacher Xu ran toward the school gate, her ponytail swaying left and right in the sunset.
Lin Wanxing adjusted her backpack strap just as her phone rang in her pocket.
"Miss Lin, when will you be arriving?"
"Sorry, I won't be coming today. My friend said she found a place," Lin Wanxing said.
"So I don't need to play the conscientious intermediary and rent you and your friend a place at a low price anymore?"
"No."
"Well, that works out. A tenant came today asking if they could switch rooms. They want to rent the south-facing apartment—the one with a view of the sports field that you were planning to share with your friend."
"Let's leave it for now. The internship school's dorm only allows me to stay for two weeks, so I'll still need to move in eventually," Lin Wanxing said.
After hanging up, the evening stretched out with nothing to do.
Lin Wanxing thought for a moment, then turned and walked toward the teaching building.
She had been given a tour of the teaching building by a school staff member earlier and remembered that the twelfth-grade classes were on the upper floors of Building No. 2.
After climbing four flights of stairs, she finally reached the door of Class 5, Grade 12.
Clearly, twelfth-grade teachers never dismissed classes on time.
The math teacher and someone who looked like the homeroom teacher stood inside the classroom while students were distributing test papers.Lin Wanxing sat on the stairwell landing leading to the rooftop, waiting another ten minutes or so before the classroom finally filled with the noisy chatter of students.
The teacher had already left, and the students were packing up their homework to take home.
Standing at the back door, she tapped the shoulder of a student sitting near the entrance. "Hey, classmate."
The student, who had been playing on his phone, jumped in surprise.
He whipped his head around, and Lin Wanxing’s first glimpse caught the narrow, long scar beneath the corner of his eye.
The boy’s mouth fell open, ready to curse, but the moment he saw her, his face broke into a wide smile, his tone shifting instantly. "What’s up, beautiful?"
His change in expression was lightning-fast. Lin Wanxing said, "I’m looking for someone."
"Who?"
"Qin Ao."
The boy’s smile vanished immediately. He eyed her suspiciously, looking her up and down several times before plastering on a fake smile again. "Do we know each other? Why are you looking for me?"
Lin Wanxing smiled too. What a coincidence.
She pulled out the chair next to him and, under his stunned gaze, sat down. She briefly explained the situation, describing the height and appearance of the boy who had come to borrow the soccer ball, then asked, "Do you know who it is?"
"Damn it, Chen Jianghe, you idiot!" The real Qin Ao almost instantly figured it out. His expression darkened as he cursed angrily.
Having obtained the crew-cut student’s real name, Lin Wanxing pressed further, "Do you know which grade and class Chen Jianghe is in?"
"Teacher, Chen Jianghe is trash from Class 1," Qin Ao said with a laugh, but then, as if remembering something, he frowned. "He came to borrow a ball from you?" he asked.
Though a smile still lingered at the corners of Qin Ao’s lips, the scar under his eye made his gaze cold and fierce, giving him an oddly dissonant aura.
"Yes," Lin Wanxing replied.
"Teacher, Chen Jianghe’s got a few screws loose. Don’t lend him anything next time."
"What do you mean? Tell me more." Lin Wanxing pulled a box of Pocky from her backpack, opened it, and offered one to him.
Qin Ao was taken aback, staring at the chocolate stick she held out. "Teacher, snacks aren’t allowed in the classroom."
"Oh… sorry." Lin Wanxing quickly finished chewing the chocolate stick.
"Are you really a teacher?"
"You and Chen Jianghe must be pretty close," Lin Wanxing said, dusting off her hands. "The way you asked that question sounded a lot like him."
Sure enough, Qin Ao wore a tsundere expression that screamed, "Who’s like him?" clearly displeased.
"Since you’re so familiar, could you help me ask where he is now?" Lin Wanxing added.
—
It took some effort to find out Chen Jianghe’s current whereabouts.
According to his classmates from Senior Year Class 1, Chen Jianghe hadn’t attended classes that afternoon. He was also notoriously difficult, getting along with almost no one. In the end, it was the class belle who stepped in, making several calls to Chen Jianghe before finally learning his exact location.
Lin Wanxing exited through the back gate of No. 8 High School and walked north for five minutes until she came across an old sports complex.
The architecture had a distinct 1980s or 90s style, with gray-white concrete walls that seemed to pull time back decades.
The outdoor swimming pool was covered with a black dust sheet. Circling past the pool, she found a bare soccer field.
Under the brilliant evening sunset, the concrete bleachers on either side of the field were split diagonally by the fading light—one side glowing orange-red, the other shrouded in dark gray.
A few young people and one middle-aged man were on the field.
Standing in the shadows, Lin Wanxing quickly picked out Chen Jianghe’s face among them.The young man looked up at the middle-aged man standing before him with brimming excitement. Lin Wanxing vaguely caught words like "you have great potential" and "trust me" from the middle-aged man’s speech.
She circled around Chen Jianghe and climbed up the bleachers, only then noticing another person sitting there.
The iron-gray bleachers rose in layered tiers. The young man had long legs and wore a black baseball cap pulled so low that, from Lin Wanxing’s angle, his face was almost entirely hidden.
The light was dim, as if veiled by fog, yet the white lines dividing the sections of the bleachers stood out sharply.
She walked up the steps and sat down beside him.
At first, neither of them spoke.
From where they sat, she couldn’t make out what the people below were saying.
All she could tell was that it seemed to be a long and complicated conversation.
The middle-aged man was encouraging Chen Jianghe, and soon the young players on the field were divided into two groups for a simple scrimmage. It didn’t look like it would end anytime soon.
She pulled out the half-eaten box of Pocky from her bag and crunched through two sticks.
“Is that the coach?” she asked, turning to the person beside her.
The evening glow had grown dimmer than before. Two lamps at the top of the bleachers flickered on, though more remained broken.
The young man turned his head slightly, his gaze lifting just a fraction.
His eyes were a light color, his lips thin. His jacket lay lazily across his knees, and his entire demeanor seemed detached and indifferent.
Lin Wanxing held the box, squeezed out one chocolate stick, and offered it to him.
The young man was still watching her, unmoving.
“Want some? Don’t be shy,” Lin Wanxing added, thinking he might be hesitant.
At that, he finally raised his hand.
His shirt sleeves were rolled up, revealing a section of his evenly toned, strong wrist. In the last faint glow of the sunset, his well-defined fingers reached out…
And then…
He took the entire box.
For a few seconds, Lin Wanxing was at a loss.
It wasn’t until the soft sound of crunching reached her ears that she snapped back to reality.
She stared at her empty palm, then looked incredulously at the Pocky box in the young man’s hand.
“I…”
He cast her a faint glance.
Lin Wanxing thought for a moment, then said pitifully, “I’m a little hungry. Could you give it back?”
“‘Don’t be shy’?”
“I meant for you to take one stick,” she emphasized, “just one.”
But the young man made no move to return the box. Instead, he pulled out another chocolate stick, held it lightly between his lips, and said lazily, “Do you want to know?”
“Huh? Know what? Your phone number? Young people these days just add each other on WeChat.”
“Do you want to know what they’re doing?” He paused, took a bite of the chocolate, and added, “But if I were you, I’d just run down there.”
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