"Yes, I have."
"Can we go out for dinner together?"
"Why?"
Ying Yunsheng paused for a few seconds: "Thank you for the dessert."
Hearing this bizarre reason, and seeing the other person's determined attitude, Ji Li ultimately didn't expose him. He glanced at the time on his phone and asked, "Now?"
It's only eleven o'clock.
Ying Yunsheng found a suitable reason this time: "There will be more people after the exam, and there will be queues."
Ji Li originally thought that when the other person said they wanted to eat together, they meant sharing a table in the school cafeteria. It wasn't until he followed the other person out of the teaching building and stopped in front of the school's brick-red wall that he realized he was wrong: "You didn't tell me that we had to walk along the wall."
“The school gates are not open yet,” Ying Yunsheng said. “But if we go out now, we can come back before they finish their exams.”
The school has very strict student management. Except for Saturday afternoons after school when students can come and go freely, at other times they must present a day student card or a leave slip approved by a teacher to leave the school.
Therefore, it is clear that the consequences of sneaking out will definitely not be light.
But people keep committing crimes one after another; it's unclear what the strange attraction of climbing walls is.
Ji Li looked at the wall: "What if we get discovered?"
"At this time, security guards are stationed at the main gate, in case some students staying overnight sneak out among the candidates from other schools."
"What if the teacher sees us?"
"Unless observed up close, teachers will most likely find their own reasons for misreading."
"If it were someone else..."
"It's too late to say all this now that we're here."
After saying this, Ying Yunsheng stepped onto the recessed gap in the wall, grabbed the edge with both hands, and with a swift and resilient movement, flipped himself over. He sat down on the edge of the wall, even waving at him, "Do you need me to help you?"
“Uh…” Ji Li didn’t reply, but first put down his schoolbag and threw it over the wall. He had no prior experience with this, and it took him a while to land on top of the red brick wall.
There's a gap to climb up, but there's absolutely no way to go down.
Before Ji Li could figure out how to land, a loud shout suddenly rang out behind him: "Who's over there? Get down here, all of you!!"
His feet suddenly lost their footing, and the scenery before him abruptly turned upside down.
In that split second, he didn't have time to figure out what was happening. As he fell, it felt like something caught him, and when he came to his senses, his feet were already on solid ground.
"Run quickly!" Ying Yunsheng pulled him across the street. "Fat Ball will chase after us."
Ji Li subconsciously turned around and saw his own headmaster, dragging his round body, jump down from the wall. He landed quickly and got up, proving himself to be a nimble fat man.
The person on the other end was running wildly while shouting, "Don't run! You two in the Changqiao school uniform! I see you! Come back here! Otherwise, if I catch you, it won't be a small matter! Stop!!"
The two sides of the wall seem like two different worlds. Inside, it is quiet, but as soon as you step out, you can hear the unreal noise of the bustling traffic.
They were lucky enough to reach the side of the road when there were no cars, so they crossed the pedestrian crossing from one end to the other.
Ying Yunsheng's school uniform jacket was unzipped, the hem fluttering as it led him into the long street diagonally opposite, where cooking smoke and firelight transformed into a cacophony of voices that rushed towards him.
Behind them, vehicles roared and whizzed along the asphalt road, their noise piercing their veins and causing their hearts to pound wildly.
I don't know how many turns I made along the way, and only when I had left the hawkers' cries far behind did I finally loosen the grip on my wrist.
Ji Li rarely ran this fast, and when he stopped, he felt his limbs go weak.
Ying Yunsheng turned around and grabbed his arm again: "Don't squat down right after you've finished running."
Ji Li leaned against the wall with one hand, the sudden strenuous exercise rapidly depleting his energy, his heart almost overloaded.
Seeing that his lips were pale, Ying Yunsheng reached out to support his body and frowned, asking, "Are you in a lot of pain?"
Ji Li leaned against him to calm her breathing: "You used up all my exercise from the past semester in one day."
"So how do you usually spend your time doing physical education?"
"I don't run in sports."
Ying Yunsheng paused for a moment before remembering the time he had seen him in the infirmary a few days ago, and unconsciously tightened his grip on his shoulder.
Ji Li didn't notice the change in his strength, but then remembered what he had just done: "This isn't the first time, is it?"
Ying Yunsheng did not deny it: "I had looked it up before."
The midday sun was blazing, and both of them were sweating. He waited until the other person's breathing calmed down and they were steady before letting go of his hand and leading the way into the depths of the alley.
Ji Li followed him for a couple of steps, then inexplicably felt as if something was missing from her body.
A second or two later, he suddenly spoke up: "Did Director Qiu just come out to chase after us?"
Their head of student affairs, surnamed Qiu, was affectionately nicknamed "Fat Ball" by the students.
Ying Yunsheng assumed he was worried about being seen by the teacher: "He's nearsighted; he can't see anything beyond five meters."
Ji Li: "Can you see things clearly within five meters?"
Ying Yunsheng: "?"
Did I put my backpack down when I climbed the wall?
"Well……"
Is the schoolbag still by the wall?
"Well……"
Chapter 9
Chapter 9
letter of self-criticism
Most of the shops on both sides of the street have living rooms. The building near the corner was originally a garage. The roller shutter door was raised, and a metal tricycle was pushed out.
The person pushing the cart was an old man wearing a white vest. His left leg was slightly slouched. He didn't notice when he went out, and the metal wheel suddenly hit the threshold with a loud "bang".
The birds on the branches suddenly took flight in fright, and Zhu Yi's pen abruptly left a long mark on the exam paper. Unable to contain himself, he rushed out from the inner room: "Didn't I tell you to keep your voice down!"
The old man finally managed to push his tricycle out, but he was also startled by the shout: "It's just a little noise, why are you making such a big reaction?"
"I already told you I was doing my homework, and now my train of thought has been completely interrupted. What are we going to do?!"
"Something bumped into the doorway, didn't it? I didn't mean to. Besides, I came out to close the door for you. I didn't know it would disturb you."
"When you said you wanted to set up a stall, didn't I remind you to be careful of the threshold? Didn't you agree to it yourself?!"
"But I just couldn't remember for a moment. Besides, who am I setting up this stall for? Isn't it for you? If it weren't for supporting your studies, would your old man be out here in this sweltering heat?"
"Ugh..." The hot air made people dizzy and made their tempers even more flammable and explosive.
Seeing that the argument was about to spiral out of control, Zhu Yi took a deep breath, threw down his pen, and ran out the door like the wind.
However, they almost bumped into people passing by outside.
He recognized the person's face and suddenly froze: "Class...class monitor?"
Ji Li was also taken aback for a moment, but he wasn't as uncomfortable as the other man. He greeted him in a normal tone, "Hello."
An old man not far away pushed his tricycle this way while calling out Zhu Yi's name.
Zhu Yi hurriedly lowered his head and ran back in a panic, quickly disappearing at the garage entrance.
Ji Li withdrew his gaze: "Let's go."
.
Ying Yunsheng brought him to a Cantonese restaurant not far ahead. The restaurant's name, "Tangju," was printed on an A4 sheet of paper at the entrance, blending perfectly into the small advertisements on the surrounding telephone poles, as if afraid of being discovered.
The air conditioning inside was set to 20 degrees Celsius. The proprietress, wearing a shirt and a knitted vest, put down her embroidery needle and looked at the newcomer's face with obvious surprise: "Yunsheng? You... brought your classmate to eat?"
Ying Yunsheng grunted in agreement and took the menu.
The shop is not large, but it is very clean. Several square tables are placed against the walls on both sides, and the walls are covered with bright yellow wallpaper with framed embroidery hanging on them.
As Ji Li walked, looking at the embroidery on the wall, she unknowingly arrived at the window of the kitchen and heard faint conversation coming from behind the green curtain that connected to the kitchen.
"Yun Sheng? What brings you here?"
"I'll pay."
"Come whenever you want, no money required."
"I've left the money here. If it's not enough, just come back to me."
"We are family after all, you don't need to be so clear about it."
Ying Yunsheng didn't respond to that, but lifted the curtain and walked out, where he saw Ji Li standing at the door.
How much did the meal cost?
Ying Yunsheng paused for two seconds, then answered truthfully: "Seventy-two."
If the two of them split the cost, it would just exceed the price of the box of daifuku he gave him a few days ago.
Ji Li remained silent.
Ying Yunsheng knew he must have wanted to know this, and he also knew that his meticulous calculations were actually pushing their relationship further apart. But if he could, he would have preferred that there was no financial connection between them in the first place.
The proprietress had just come out when she saw this scene: "The food is ready, what are you two doing here...?"
Ji Li withdrew his gaze and returned to his seat.
Ying Yunsheng breathed a sigh of relief when the other party did not suggest splitting the bill.
The proprietress noticed his reaction and introduced me to Ji Li when serving the food: "I am Yun Sheng's aunt. You can call me whatever he wants if you don't mind."
Ji Li smiled and said, "Hello."
There were no other customers in the restaurant besides them, and the food was served quickly.
Ji Li rarely eats out when he goes out with others, but Cantonese cuisine is known for its freshness and light flavor, with very little oil, salt, and chili, which unexpectedly suits his taste.
The two finished their meal peacefully. During the meal, the proprietress hesitated several times before saying something, but she didn't say anything until she saw them to the door.
.
Students at the school don't have weekends off; since they enrolled, they only have Sundays off. Now, in their second year of high school, students in regular classes can still enjoy a day off, but the rest time for students in the experimental classes has been reduced to a crazy half-day—they must return to school every Sunday afternoon to take a weekly test.