Chapter 10: 9. I Want to Grow Beyond the Wall
When his aunt asked him whether he was the school hunk, that was honestly a bit of an exaggeration.
He was handsome enough, sure, but he wasn’t the fair, slender type, which didn’t quite match the current tastes of middle school girls.
Jiang Xiaoyu was different.
The moment she entered school, everyone regarded her as a strong contender for campus belle.
Of course, there wasn’t actually any organization in the school that formally held a proper selection for such a thing.
It was all passed around by word of mouth.
Still, to be recognized by word of mouth as a strong contender for campus belle was enough to show just how good Jiang Xiaoyu’s looks were.
Naturally, the fact that she later got into Jingyi on the strength of her image, and even went viral online because of a single photo from her art exam, proved even more that she was far more than merely “good-looking.”
In this school, there were plenty of boys who liked Jiang Xiaoyu.
Far more than just one or two.
However, though the boys who liked Jiang Xiaoyu were as numerous as fish in a river, Jiang Xiaoyu herself had never once lifted the fishing rod.
Throughout all three years of high school, Jiang Xiaoyu never accepted a single confession from anyone.
“Zhang Luo!”
Zhou Hengyu suddenly slapped him on the shoulder from behind.
Zhang Luo snapped back to himself.
“Damn, are you a ghost? You’re always popping up behind me!” Zhang Luo complained.
Zhou Hengyu looked at him in surprise. “In broad daylight like this, you’re afraid of ghosts?”
Zhang Luo said, “Afraid my ass. I’m just commenting on your habit of constantly appearing behind me.”
Zhou Hengyu laughed.
“Fine, next time I’ll circle around to the front before greeting you, okay?”
“What are you two standing there for? Why aren’t you in line yet?” Their homeroom teacher Xu Shuiyun’s gaze came killing over along with her voice.
Before Zhang Luo could even react, Zhou Hengyu had already slipped neatly into the formation.
Though he was fat, his movements were extremely nimble.
Zhang Luo hurriedly followed him in.
Then, when the music started, he realized he had completely forgotten the movements for the exercise routine. The result was that he looked even more like he was phoning it in than those widely circulated clips of certain girl group members half-assing their choreography years later.
So half-hearted it was unbearable to watch.
Xu Shuiyun shot him several stern, warning looks.
Zhang Luo had no way to explain himself.
It really wasn’t that he had an attitude problem. It was that his ability was lacking.
Trying to copy the movements by imitation—wasn’t that just the very definition of half-assing it?
After the break-time exercises ended, when Zhang Luo walked past Xu Shuiyun, she warned him, “If you still do it like this tomorrow, you’ll come here by yourself after school and practice.”
Come here by himself after school to practice?
So many students had to pass through this square after school.
Wouldn’t that be social death?
Zhang Luo’s expression changed drastically.
Immediately after, he heard a soft laugh.
He looked toward the sound.
It was actually Jiang Xiaoyu.
She wasn’t looking his way, but was walking together with another girl, chatting and laughing, as if the two of them were in the middle of a conversation.
She probably wasn’t laughing at him.
Zhang Luo secretly let out a breath of relief.
……
“What are you laughing at?” Yuan Sixing asked Jiang Xiaoyu in some confusion.
Jiang Xiaoyu shook her head with a brilliant smile. Only after the corner of her eye caught sight of Zhang Luo walking away did she turn her head and glance over.
Yuan Sixing followed Jiang Xiaoyu’s gaze.
“Who are you looking at?”
Jiang Xiaoyu had already withdrawn her gaze.
“No one.” Jiang Xiaoyu linked arms with Yuan Sixing. “Sixing, are you free this Saturday?”
“My mom signed me up for a training class. It doesn’t end until eleven in the morning.”
“Then can you go with me to an interview in the afternoon?”
“What interview?”
“For a magazine cover model.” Jiang Xiaoyu said, “If I pass the interview, I can get paid 1,000 for one shoot. I want to give it a try.”
Yuan Sixing nodded.
“Sure, I’ll go with you. Where is it?”
“At the Arts and Sports Center here in Xuyang City.”
-
At noon, after Zhang Luo finished lunch in the cafeteria, he wandered around the school by himself.
It was an extremely familiar campus, yet it had been blurred in his memory for a very long time.
Now, walking once more through these familiar corners one by one, Zhang Luo inexplicably felt a sense of “the things remained, but the people had changed.”
Even though right now, the things remained, and the people were still here too.
He had actually been reborn.
Now, Zhang Luo was becoming more and more certain of this.
Because the details were too real.
Every place was clear.
“Zhang Luo, what are you doing?” Suddenly, a voice asked him.
Zhang Luo looked up.
Up in the laboratory building, his classmate Liu Song poked out half his head and looked down at him.
Zhang Luo asked back, “What are you doing?”
Liu Song scratched his head.
For some reason, he seemed a little evasive, not even showing his entire head.
“I—can you help me pick up that ball?”
He pointed at the shrubbery beside Zhang Luo and asked.
Zhang Luo turned around and looked, then found a tennis ball in the bushes.
Zhang Luo picked it up.
“Just throw it up to me,” Liu Song said.
Zhang Luo looked at Liu Song with a face full of confusion.
“You’re not playing tennis in the laboratory building, are you?” he asked.
Liu Song: “……No.”
“I’ll bring it up to you.”
“Ah, no need, no need—”
“I’m already coming up.”
Zhang Luo took the ball and went upstairs.
-
Every school had a laboratory building.
It was just that, back when Zhang Luo was in school, laboratory buildings were often nothing more than decoration.
Over the course of a year, they would have at most two or three lab classes, with no real practical significance.
Most of the time, they were left empty.
There were even a few classrooms that had been turned into club activity rooms.
The classroom at the end of the third-floor corridor was one such club activity room.
Liu Song looked at Zhang Luo awkwardly.
Zhang Luo, meanwhile, looked at him in surprise, as well as at the other people in the activity room.
There were actually several people in this activity room.
But these people all looked rather “out of the ordinary.”
They wore strange costumes, put on wigs, and even had very exaggerated makeup.
If the dean of academic affairs came over and saw this scene, he would definitely be shocked, then half-dead with anger.
Of course, Zhang Luo knew what they were doing. This thing became very popular later on, not like now, when it was viewed as “weird.”
“We… we’re—”
“I know.”
Seeing Liu Song stammering, Zhang Luo understood that he probably didn’t know how to explain it either.
“Cosplay, right?”
Liu Song, along with the others, revealed looks of surprise.
“You actually know about it!”
Zhang Luo nodded. “I know. I’ve seen it before. But if you’re doing cosplay, how did you manage to throw a tennis ball downstairs?”
“We’re taking photos,” Liu Song said. “We want to sign up for a competition.”
Zhang Luo’s gaze landed on the person holding a tennis racket, and realization dawned on him.
In later years, many comic conventions had competitions like this.
He said, “All right.”
Zhang Luo pointed at Liu Song’s hair. “They’re all wearing wigs of different colors. Why aren’t you wearing one?”
Before Liu Song could answer, Zhang Luo understood on his own.
“Oh, you took it off. No wonder you asked me to help you pick up the ball.”
Liu Song was wearing an outfit that looked like a mage’s robe. If he went downstairs dressed like this to pick up the ball and someone saw him, it would probably become school news.
A mage plus tennis… fine, only anime could make that combination seem reasonable.
Liu Song’s expression became even more awkward.
Zhang Luo shrugged.
“You guys keep going. I won’t bother you.”
“Zhang Luo!”
Liu Song called out to stop him, still looking somewhat nervous and uneasy.
“About this… can you help us keep it a secret?” he asked.
Zhang Luo nodded.
“Sure.” He agreed readily.
“Thanks!”
Zhang Luo smiled, then left.
-
Liu Song really was pretty good at keeping secrets. At least before this, Zhang Luo had never known that Liu Song was also a cosplay enthusiast.
Zhang Luo only remembered that Liu Song later chose the liberal arts track, got pretty good grades, and was admitted into a very good university.
After the college entrance exam, they never contacted each other again.
Mm. This was the high school he knew.
In a closed-off, seemingly monotonous life of studying, there were always people trying to grow their branches beyond the wall.