“2017.09.22 Light Rain”
The feeling of liking someone was like a weather forecast: partly cloudy turning sunny one second, overcast the next.
—Excerpt from Tao Shuran’s Diary
Fang Shiyue’s sudden questioning left everyone dumbfounded.
Fang Qingyi reacted first. She rushed in front of Tao Shuran, shielding her like a mother hen protecting her chicks, her tone aggressive.
“Fang Shiyue, what do you mean? Our Ranran just happened to pick up this letter that day.”
“If you don’t believe me, look at the seal on the letter. She didn’t even open it.”
Fang Shiyue immediately lowered her head to look. This was a solemnly prepared love letter. Because she worried others might see it, she had specially bought sealing wax online to seal the envelope.
Now the sealing wax was perfectly intact. Did that also mean Liang Yuanjing had never opened it?
“How did you pick it up?”
Fang Qingyi said, “It fell out of Liang Yuanjing’s schoolbag.”
But Fang Shiyue clearly remembered that she had personally stuffed the love letter into Liang Yuanjing’s desk drawer. She had scouted his class schedule in advance and deliberately entered the empty classroom during PE class.
At that time, she had shyly and expectantly imagined him opening the letter.
Yet she never expected Liang Yuanjing to be even colder than she imagined, leaving not even a shred of hope.
Fang Shiyue wore a look of disbelief. “Impossible. Did you steal my letter and deliberately keep it from him?”
Tao Shuran said nothing more.
She saw through the fragility beneath Fang Shiyue’s forced bravado. Perhaps a self-deceptive lie could slightly ease the pain of rejection.
No longer intending to dwell on the matter, she prepared to leave.
But Fang Shiyue lost her reason and directly rushed into the Flight Class to drag Liang Yuanjing out for a confrontation.
The scene turned ugly in an instant. The already boiling morning reading was fully ignited, with open windows and gazes peering over from all directions.
At the same time, the door to the grade director’s office at the end of the corridor slammed open.
A vigorous, resounding voice rang out, quelling all the restless hearts that shirked study.
“What are you four doing standing here?”
“No morning reading?”
“Report your names and classes.” The grade director spoke in a practiced tone, his deafening shout instantly taking control of the scene.
He also “invited” all four of them into the office.
“Explain yourselves. Why are you four skipping morning reading first thing and wandering outside?”
The grade director, surnamed Yuan, was a middle-aged man—thin and sharp-looking, with piercing eyes. He was the most feared teacher among Affiliated Middle School students, and what he excelled at most was catching puppy love.
He once held the record for dismantling 18 couples in a single year and had even been invited onstage at a student’s wedding, earning the moniker “Heartbreaker Teacher.”
At that moment, this heartbreaker teacher eyed their group: three girls and one boy.
He asked Fang Shiyue directly, “Which class are you from?”
Fang Shiyue said softly, “Art Class.”
Yuan Xiangyang frowned. “How did an Art Class student end up in our building?”
Fang Shiyue lowered her head. Her eyes were still red from crying. She stammered incoherently. The more silent she grew, the sterner Yuan Xiangyang’s tone became—until he nearly slammed the table.
But Fang Shiyue still refused to speak. She probably felt a rejected confession was too humiliating. Everyone knew senior year cracked down hard on puppy love; once caught, it meant criticism announced to the entire grade—embarrassment known to the whole school.
Yuan Xiangyang said coldly, “If you won’t talk, no problem. The school corridors have HD cameras with clear audio. Everything’s recorded.”
Fang Shiyue flushed beet red with anxiety.
At this critical juncture, Liang Yuanjing spoke up lazily. “Teacher, Fang Shiyue has some Broadcast Station business to discuss with me.”
As an arts student, Fang Shiyue was a key member of the Broadcast Station—a fact Yuan Xiangyang knew.
He frowned. “What business wastes morning reading time?”
“Can’t wait until after class?”
Yuan Xiangyang nagged on. “And you, Liang Yuanjing—senior year now. Time to buckle down. Step down from that Broadcast Station spot early and let someone else have it.”
Liang Yuanjing listened inattentively, occasionally humming in agreement. His gaze drifted out the window now and then, where the morning training team—about to start—frantically signaled him with eye gestures.
After all, everyone knew their instructor was brutally strict.
What an undeserved disaster.
After chewing out the two in front of him, Yuan Xiangyang turned to the other two girls.
“What about you two?”
Tao Shuran kept her head lowered as low as possible. Suddenly, Fang Qingyi had a brainstorm and blurted out, “We heard about it and want to join the Broadcast Station, so we came for the station chief’s approval.”
Yuan Xiangyang was speechless.
He slammed the desk and tossed over a stack of paper.
“All four of you—write self-criticisms. Not a full page, no going back to class!”
The bells for end-of-break and class-start rang on schedule. The office held only the four of them now, and the sudden silence amplified the awkwardness.
Tao Shuran kept her head down and said softly, “Sorry. Fang Qingyi and I just happened to pass by.”
“But we shouldn’t have stopped there. Don’t worry—we won’t tell anyone what we saw today.”
Liang Yuanjing said nothing. He sat alone at the farthest desk, pen moving nonstop in somewhat absent-minded writing.
Fang Shiyue, seated across from her, glanced up now and then. After a while, she couldn’t hold back anymore. Sobs suddenly filled the air.
As she wrote her self-criticism, Fang Shiyue choked out, “Liang Yuanjing, why didn’t you tell the teacher I was the one bothering you?”
“Then you wouldn’t have to write this. You were already annoyed with me anyway, right?”
Liang Yuanjing glanced over indifferently. “No need for that.”
The instant she heard it, Tao Shuran subconsciously looked up—and met his narrow, pitch-black eyes.
Sunlight filtered through the window cracks. In her eyes, Liang Yuanjing stood amid brilliant light. Even his sharply angular face seemed exceptionally aloof, but those dark, bright eyes couldn’t conceal his youthful edge.
Fang Shiyue suddenly wailed loudly. “I like you, but you don’t like me.”
“But it hurts so much. You rejected me, and now I like you even more.”
Tao Shuran’s mood suddenly turned sorrowful with hers.
Liking Liang Yuanjing had nothing to do with affection’s rose-tinted filter.
It was because he shone on his own.
He was a very, very good person.
Less than an hour later, Liang Yuanjing turned in his self-criticism and left early—without a word or goodbye, cold to the point of inhumanity.
Fang Shiyue’s mood hadn’t recovered. The paper before her was a tear-stained mess; she couldn’t write a single character.
Tao Shuran handed her one of her own.
“Consider it an apology gift,” she said.
Fang Shiyue turned to glance at her. The earlier events replayed in her mind, stirring some embarrassment. Pride kept her from apologizing, but she awkwardly accepted the paper.
After turning in the self-criticisms, Tao Shuran prepared to head back to class.
As they brushed shoulders, Fang Shiyue suddenly grabbed her sleeve.
“Can we be friends?”
The invitation came abruptly yet earnestly. Tao Shuran stood frozen, unreacting for a moment.
Seeing this, Fang Shiyue tiptoed and whispered in her ear, “Because we like the same person.”
“I’ll keep your secret.”
The look in one’s eyes when crushing on someone couldn’t be hidden. It was the secret admirer’s unspoken bond.
Tao Shuran’s heart fluttered in panic for an instant. The moment her greatest secret was pierced, fear engulfed her—then happiness buried her.
Girls’ friendships sometimes arrived so unexpectedly.
That morning, Tao Shuran and Fang Shiyue became friends over liking the same person.
Before parting, Fang Shiyue said, “I’ll keep liking Liang Yuanjing.”
The undying true flame in her eyes and her unyielding courage rang firm. “Tao Shuran, liking someone means being brave.”
Tao Shuran softly hummed in response. Her gaze drifted to the distance. At the corridor’s end, on many past evenings, she had stood there searching for Liang Yuanjing’s basketball silhouette.
For her, simply liking Liang Yuanjing had already exhausted all her courage.
On the way back to class, Fang Qingyi said casually, “Fang Shiyue’s just like that. Don’t take it to heart.”
“Does she think Liang Yuanjing is RMB? Everyone likes RMB?”
Tao Shuran felt a twinge of guilt and stayed silent.
But the chatter beside her stopped. She looked up to find the “RMB” himself standing right before them.
Liang Yuanjing stood at their classroom door, arms crossed. Next period was English; as usual, Flight Class came to audit.
Unclear if he had overheard the apology.
Tao Shuran sighed and said honestly, “Sorry.”
She had yet to explain the cause when Liang Yuanjing stirred lazily and approached.
He bent down to look at her, his broad back blocking the glaring sunlight.
In Tao Shuran’s view, only he remained.
Liang Yuanjing flicked up his eyelids and teased, “Now you’ve learned to say sorry to me, besides thank you.”
“Progress. Looks like Old Fu’s tutoring
is pretty effective.”
Tao Shuran’s heart quickened. She knew his closeness likely stemmed only from his tie to Fu Changpei—an incidental courtesy.
Yet she still felt secretly happy from this slight contact.
Happy enough to grow clumsy, forgetting even speech rhythm.
Luckily, Fang Qingyi obliviously intervened.
She spoke up boldly for Fang Shiyue. “But Liang Yuanjing, you went too far today. Even rejecting her—no need to make a girl cry, right?”
“Better she cries now than regrets later.”
Liang Yuanjing turned back. His dark eyes held no emotion, his metallic voice intoning.
In this age of reckless impulses, he was rare in keeping his head.
“I don’t like giving others false hopes. Senior year—save time for the future.”
Fang Qingyi suddenly fell silent.
Objectively, Liang Yuanjing was right. Senior year marked a pivotal node—not just fate-altering, but life’s first major turning point.
His coldness held no fault.
But neither did Fang Shiyue’s feelings.
A failed crush ended too tragically—not even friends possible. Fang Qingyi’s mood sank.
At that moment, Tao Shuran raised a hand and gently draped her arm over Fang Qingyi’s shoulder.
She said nothing, but her clear, limpid eyes seemed to comprehend all pains.
Such wordless solace.
Watching Liang Yuanjing—storm’s eye—depart dashingly, Fang Qingyi stomped a foot and sighed. “No idea what kind of girl this guy would even like.”
Tao Shuran gazed at his retreating back and murmured softly, “Must be a very excellent girl.”
The forecast called for rain, but that evening, it refused to fall.
The sky piled heavy clouds one after another—like pre-storm sentinels, trapping all the muggy heat.
Fresh off a day of grueling theory classes, Liang Yuanjing led his crew, craving an intense basketball match to sweat it out.
Amid passes, his bros teased him. “Heard you rejected Art Class’s Fang Shiyue?”
“Quit spreading rumors.”
Liang Yuanjing scoffed. “She never confessed to me.”
“That fools others maybe. She went back and bawled through a whole class—Art Class already knows.”
“You probably shot her down before she even spoke?”
The bro spoke knowingly. “A Jing, you’re too nice. Look at Li Zhu next door—a girl from Art Class chased him, and he yapped about it eight hundred times without tiring.”
Boys that age thrilled most at romance gossip.
Liang Yuanjing listened with waning interest, idly shooting hoops. Seizing an opponent’s daze, he leaped high and arced a flawless three-pointer.
One-shot win.
“Holy crap, awesome, Liang Yuanjing!”
During halftime break, Liang Yuanjing brushed off the gossip, toweled sweat from his face, tone casual.
“Romance? No need.”
His friend pressed curiously. “Then what kind do you like?”
Liang Yuanjing really hadn’t thought about this question. His life was simple. From the moment his fingertips touched the spinning globe as a child, the gears of fate had begun to turn.
The blue sky and aviation were what he pursued his entire life.
As for the person he liked, he blew a whistle and replied somewhat perfunctorily, “Do you see any girls around me?”
His friend frantically signaled to him with his eyes. “Isn’t there one right over there?”
Following the direction of his finger, Liang Yuanjing saw the girl standing at the traffic light on the opposite street.
She had changed out of her school uniform and was wearing a light green checkered jacket instead. Her high ponytail made her look particularly spirited under the sky, and her bright eyes were now slightly lowered as she intently studied a vocabulary book in her hands.
Liang Yuanjing couldn’t help but chuckle.
She really was the bookworm that old Fu had mentioned. She was even memorizing words during the wait at the traffic light.
“This is the new transfer student in the Liberal Arts Class, right?”
“Really pretty.” His friend bumped his shoulder and teased, “A Jing, what do you think?”
Liang Yuanjing’s gaze lingered for an instant before he quickly withdrew it.
He tossed out carelessly, “Too well-behaved.”