After walking about halfway around, they reached a windy spot. The breeze lifted the hem of his shirt, and only then did Sheng Xia notice he was wearing light colors tonight.
The sleeves of his blue shirt were rolled up, revealing his firm, slender forearms.
A touch of pale blue stood out clearly in the night, as distinct as the lane dividers on the track.
So he looked good in light colors too.
"Cold?" Zhang Shu asked.
Sheng Xia was wearing her spring school uniform, zipped up all the way. "No."
Zhang Shu: "Hmm."
Sheng Xia: "..."
Never before had they had such a back-and-forth conversation without any tension.
The wind wove through the night.
"You..." Zhang Shu's voice came low, as if weighing his words, "Are you applying to the University of Pennsylvania?"
Sheng Xia startled, instinctively replying, "How did you know?"
Her steps faltered, leaving her two paces behind.
Zhang Shu also stopped and turned back. The night was thick, yet strangely, her face remained vividly clear to him.
Then again, he thought, why was that strange? Even if she weren’t standing right in front of him, the slightest recollection would imprint her every smile and frown clearly in his mind.
Zhang Shu let out a self-deprecating chuckle. "How did I know? I’d like to ask why I didn’t hear it from you?"
Sheng Xia froze, murmuring, "Because... because I didn’t want to go..."
She looked up at him, but the night was too dark to make out his expression. "So I thought I’d wait until it was confirmed I wouldn’t go before mentioning it."
"Wait until you’re not going? What’s the point of saying it then? Only sharing good news and hiding the bad—is that what you mean? Don’t you know hearing about this from someone else makes it even worse?"
His voice was restrained, but his words were sharp, like fine needles pricking at Sheng Xia’s heart.
Yet she had her own grievances.
She spoke up: "Is this why you didn’t go to the bookstore? You didn’t even ask me, just didn’t show up? Do you know how I was that day—"
That day, she had prepared carefully, thought everything through, and been full of anticipation...
Her voice was like a hook—entangling and piercing at once.
He couldn’t bear to meet her lake-like eyes.
Zhang Shu averted his gaze uncomfortably and said quietly, "I went."
"Huh?" Sheng Xia was stunned.
"I went," he repeated, sighing softly, as if helplessly defending himself or trying to console himself. "I saw everything about you that day... I was across the street, watching you arrive at the bookstore, leave, come back, sit down and put on a hair clip, then order food and read all afternoon... I left when you did."
Sheng Xia’s heart trembled faintly. "Then why... didn’t you come in?"
"Because I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"I’d been drinking that day. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to control myself, afraid I’d press you for answers, afraid you’d cry."
Even now, he was afraid she’d cry.
So he weighed every word, thinking twice before speaking.
But he was about to explode from holding back.
He wanted to grab her shoulders and demand: Why didn’t you tell me? Why did I have to hear this from Lu Youze? Why did you leave me so powerless? Why let me start this only to give me such an ending?
But he couldn’t.
It would scare her.
After speaking, Zhang Shu turned and walked ahead, as if unwilling to face her any longer.
Sheng Xia stood frozen. He had been there? Watching all her emotions through a pane of glass and across the street?
She didn’t know whether the ache in her chest now was for herself or for him.She jogged a few steps to catch up with him. "Did... Lu Youze tell you?"
That was the only possibility. The dinner he mentioned must have been the one with the Lu family.
"Yeah," he answered succinctly.
He slowed his pace slightly, as if waiting for her. She lingered a step behind, watching the hem of his clothes flutter in the wind.
The night was too quiet.
Footsteps on the rubber track made almost no sound.
A gust of wind passed by—not cold, yet it sent an involuntary shiver through her.
"And now? Have you decided?" he suddenly broke the silence, asking casually.
Sheng Xia's thoughts were tangled, unable to find clarity. His abrupt question only half-registered in her mind. "What?"
He stopped again and turned around. Caught off guard, Sheng Xia nearly collided with him and instinctively took a step back, looking up sharply.
Zhang Shu's gaze was direct, too close, towering over her with undeniable pressure. "Now, have you decided? Are you going or not?"
She didn't know.
This question—she didn’t know the answer either.
Originally, she had planned to feign compliance while secretly doing otherwise. But now, it seemed she didn’t have the luxury. She understood her foundation wasn’t strong. No matter how hard she pushed herself—burning the midnight oil, driving herself to exhaustion—there was a limit. Maintaining her current grades was already a struggle. How much further could she go?
Without the alternative path of independent enrollment, she truly lacked confidence.
Her future wasn’t a joke.
She knew that unless she got into Heqing University or Haiyan University, any other school wouldn’t suffice.
Other first-tier universities in Heyan? In Wang Lianhua’s eyes, they weren’t as good as staying in Nanli. To Sheng Mingfeng, they weren’t as good as studying abroad.
At first, Sheng Xia hadn’t wanted to go abroad simply because she didn’t want to.
But now, she wasn’t so sure. Was her stubbornness partly because of the person standing before her?
In this moment, when words failed her, she finally realized—yes, and perhaps the weight of that reason far exceeded what she had imagined.
A scene from that night when they watched the video flashed through her mind—their fingers intertwined, him asking if she wanted to go to Heyan together.
That one question had already pulled her heart toward Heyan.
Because of him, she wanted even more to stay on this land.
Because of him, she had begun to yearn for that city.
But the reality was, she couldn’t reach it.
In the silence, Zhang Shu already knew the answer.
Truthfully, he had known the moment they left the hotel.
Faced with the slim chances of the college entrance exam, who would choose to turn down an Ivy League school?
With Sheng Xia’s qualifications, even if it wasn’t the University of Pennsylvania, she could easily get into a university ranked higher than Heqing or Haiyan.
That much was certain.
Even if she wanted to give it up, he wouldn’t allow it.
"I..." she hesitated.
"Time’s running out. If you keep dragging your feet, you’ll end up with nothing," he interrupted, voicing the words she couldn’t bring herself to say.
A double meaning.
Time was running out for her to work hard—and time was running out for goodbyes, too.
"I know," she murmured.
She knew everything. That was why, when she learned today that independent enrollment was no longer an option, it wasn’t just her hopes that collapsed—it felt like her entire world had crumbled.
The world she had built in her mind, the one that included him.
Zhang Shu tilted his head back, exhaling a sigh toward the sky before looking down at her again. "When did you start preparing?"
Sheng Xia weighed her words. "My family suggested it. I haven’t started preparing yet."
"When did they suggest it?"
"After the second monthly exam."
Zhang Shu fell silent.The second monthly exam was over—how early. The situation was even worse than he had imagined.
And what had he done during this time?
Afraid she might be upset about her grades, he took her to the riverbank to unwind, spouting a bunch of self-righteous, grassroots wisdom. He spent days and nights digging up exam papers from the affiliated high school, using every spare moment to drill her on problems.
What was he doing?
Self-indulgence?
Lu Youze was right. She could have better options—she deserved better options. They were from two entirely different worlds.
What he thought she needed was, in essence, only what was necessary in his world. But she didn’t need any of it.
Zhang Shu: "When did you start preparing?"
His tone was so cold.
Though they stood barely an arm’s length apart, it felt like endless fields stretched between them.
Sheng Xia’s heart clenched violently.
Zhang Shu: "I looked it up—you need to take exams to go to the U.S. too. Shouldn’t you be taking related courses by now?"
The course schedule sent by the institution’s teacher still lay unopened in her phone. Sheng Xia kept her head down and answered softly, "Yeah."
The wind carried another laugh from him, slamming straight into her chest.
A dull ache.
Hands in his pockets, he kicked at nonexistent gravel, as if thinking, restraining, weighing his words. After a long pause, he finally looked up, unable to hold back any longer. "So what am I to you, Sheng Xia?"
What was he?
What was someone who didn’t even have the right to know?
A beggar? A tagalong? Or a lapdog?
Before she could answer, he muttered self-deprecatingly, "That was presumptuous of me. I was the one who confessed, not you. You never said anything, never promised anything. I have no right to ask what I am to you. You said we were just classmates. Right."
That dull ache was pierced through, replaced by sharp, overwhelming pain.
"It’s not like that…" she murmured, almost to herself.
Zhang Shu: "Even if we were just classmates, if you knew from the start it would go nowhere, why couldn’t you just reject me outright?"
Sheng Xia retorted, "I was trying. I was fighting. I thought I could do it, but I failed."
Outright rejection? That night—who could have done that?
She couldn’t even refuse the evening breeze.
"It’s my fault. I was too reckless. I’m sorry…" Her voice trembled with unshed tears, though she didn’t realize it.
The moment he heard "I’m sorry," an inexplicable fury flared up in Zhang Shu. But the sound of her choked-up voice instantly panicked him. He cupped her face and found it streaked with tears.
Flustered, he wiped them away with both hands, instinctively soothing her. "It’s not your fault. Don’t cry. It’s me—it’s all my fault. Stop crying, please…"
The more he comforted her, the harder she cried, tears flooding like a broken dam.
"I really didn’t… I didn’t…" Sheng Xia hiccuped, her voice fractured. "I tried so hard. I—I stayed up every night, wrote so many drafts, but…"
Between sobs, her words fragmented. "But I just… failed. I’m hurting too. How could you say such harsh things? Do you think… I’m not in pain? Wuwu…"Zhang Shu's heart felt as if it were being tightly bound by a thin string, making it hard to breathe. "I said the wrong thing, don't cry, don't cry anymore. I didn't mean to be harsh with you. If you keep crying, I won't be able to take it..."
His heart ached so fiercely it was suffocating.
Watching as wiping her tears with his hands proved futile, her small face was nearly rubbed red in his palms.
In his mind, he cursed, "To hell with restraint," and pulled her into his embrace with one arm. One hand firmly held her shoulder while the other gently stroked the back of her head. "It's all my fault. Don't cry, don't cry anymore..."
A futile repetition.
The sudden closeness made their young bodies tremble slightly, an unfamiliar sense of satisfaction washing over him.
The person in his arms was soft as a foam doll, her shoulders quivering slightly from her sobs.
His chest was already soaked, as if a hole had been torn through it.
Threads of warmth scorched his heart, leaving it in ruins.
Sheng Xia was also on the verge of suffocating. She didn’t know when the overwhelming emotions had burst forth—perhaps they had been building since the moment she heard there was no hope for the independent recruitment, slowly rising like a tide.
By the time she realized it, she could no longer hold them back.
And now, feeling herself held in his embrace, she was at a complete loss, letting her tears flow freely.
His embrace carried the scent of sun-baked warmth, the heat of a blazing fire.
His hands—large, warm, gentle.
What should I do? Dark clouds and wind, tell me, how am I supposed to say goodbye to someone like him?
With a sudden "click,"
The lights blazed to life, illuminating everything in clarity.
The high lampposts around the sports field lit up simultaneously, turning the grounds as bright as day.
The power was back.
From the distant teaching area came shouts, mixed with all kinds of emotions—some jubilant, some regretful, some just caught up in the excitement.
They cared about when the lights would come back on. They didn’t care whether the night was beautiful or the evening breeze was cool.
All of this—only the two nestled on the field knew.
Sheng Xia slowly pushed away from Zhang Shu, withdrawing from his embrace.
Suddenly seeing his face clearly, she froze for a moment.
And Zhang Shu, gazing into her teary eyes, found himself unable to move.
Silence stretched between them. Zhang Shu hesitated before finally letting go, the softness of her no longer in his arms. His Adam’s apple bobbed unnaturally.
"We should go back," she said softly, her tears finally stopping.
Zhang Shu remembered the purpose of tonight's "talk" and steadied himself before calling her name: "Sheng Xia."
She looked up.
"You should prepare well. The University of Pennsylvania is a great opportunity—don’t miss your chance."
She said nothing, sensing he wasn’t finished.
Zhang Shu forced a faint smile, as if steeling himself for something. His gaze was weary and unfocused as he spoke heavily, "I’m the one who should apologize. At a time like this, I shouldn’t have gotten involved with you. You should cut your losses in time. We... should end things here."
He seemed to choke up, pausing briefly before continuing, "Wishing you a bright future."
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