"Your wheelchair can't move?"
I looked down at the dilapidated wheelchair, which seemed to have been made in an unknown year and month, and could only say, "Please wait a moment."
Slowly, I rolled the wheelchair into the yard. It was already December, and the north wind blew the early-blooming winter plum blossoms to the ground under the winter sun.
The wooden wheelchair creaked and groaned as it rolled over the plum blossoms, stopping by the door. Qu Ling hung up the phone, squatted down, and softly said to me through the fence, "Yuanyuan, I'm sorry."
"Ah... Dean..." My face flushed instantly, and my fingers twitched slightly as I gripped the door lock.
Actually, all of this was just Grandpa Qu's idea. What does it have to do with Qu Ling? How could he possibly like an ignorant little girl like me? Perhaps his next words would be, "Yuanyuan, it's all a misunderstanding! Forget about it."
Isn't this wonderful? Let everything go back to square one. But why is it that just thinking about this makes my eyes sting and my heart feel like a punctured balloon, deflated and plummeting to the bottom?
"Yuanyuan," Qu Ling reached her hand through the fence, as if to pat my head, but didn't actually touch it, "You haven't been resting well these past few days, have you? Your eyes are all dark."
I pouted and lowered my eyelids to quietly watch his hand outstretched in front of me.
Qu Ling's fingers were long, and her skin had a white, jade-like sheen, but when her hand touched my face, I could feel its temperature.
His fingers were warm.
"Yuanyuan, can we talk?"
I nodded. Whatever Qu Ling wanted to say, I should listen carefully.
It's just a misunderstanding by the elders. I would say something like that to avoid putting myself in an awkward position.
Originally, I never imagined that Qu Ling and I would have such an intersection.
I just... just like watching his back from afar, with admiration in my eyes. Occasionally, he turns around and smiles at me, and that makes me happy.
I've thought about it carefully these past few days, and I finally realized that Qu Ling is the same as the Little Tigers band that I hung by my bedside in junior high and Roberto Baggio that I kept under the glass table in high school—idols who are beautiful from afar.
"Would you like to take a walk on the riverbank?" He pushed open the courtyard gate that I had already opened, turned around behind me, and grasped the wooden wheelchair.
"Okay." The book "The Wind in the Willows" was still on my lap.
The weeping willows on both sides of the riverbank have long since withered, and the riverbed is covered with reeds that look like rosy clouds.
After walking silently for a while, Qu Ling suddenly stopped and said, "The October yellow flowers are blooming."
October Yellow is an early-blooming wintersweet with pure yellow petals and a strong fragrance.
“When I was a child, we had a plum tree in our family. Every year when it bloomed, I would sit under the flower and smell its fragrance. Once, when the flowers were in full bloom, it was also a full moon. I moved a small stool and sat under the plum tree until late at night. The next day, I had a high fever that wouldn’t go down and I got very sick. My father then cut down that plum tree.”
"Why? The flower did nothing wrong!" I asked, turning around in confusion.
Qu Ling glanced at me, still just smiling without answering, and continued, "When I was in the third grade of elementary school, some classmates played a prank and smashed the classroom window with stones. After they smashed it, they scattered like birds. Since I didn't smash anything, I thought I had nothing to be afraid of, so I stood still. As a result, the homeroom teacher dragged me to the office and said that I had broken the classroom window."
"Ah! That would be a mistake! You're so stupid! How would the teacher know if you smashed it or not? You were the only one there, so of course they would catch you! And then? What happened next?" I never expected Qu Ling to be so clueless when he was little. I was much smarter than him back then.
"Later, I insisted that I hadn't smashed it, but the teacher still didn't believe me. I got so anxious that I grabbed a small stick and held it to his chest, determined to make him believe me no matter what. The teacher was stunned; he hadn't expected a ten-year-old to be so stubborn. He gave in and let me go home first. But I still wouldn't give in and insisted that he apologize to me. Wherever the teacher went, I followed him with the stick. When the teacher went to the cafeteria, I sat next to him, and he even offered to buy me a meal too. When the teacher went to the restroom, I stood next to him and stared at him. Finally, the teacher couldn't take it anymore and apologized to me. I still remember the look on his face when he apologized." Qu Ling pushed me onto a patch of grass and sat cross-legged in the golden hay.
"Pfft—poor teacher! How did I get on your good side?" I covered my mouth and looked at Qu Ling. It was really unexpected. The seemingly gentle and polite Dean Qu was so wicked when he was a child.
"You wouldn't believe it? I'm actually this stubborn. Once I've made up my mind about something, I'll never let go, no matter what." Qu Ling looked up at me with a smile, her eyes crinkling and sparkling.
"Yuanyuan, were you good at writing essays when you were little?" Qu Ling suddenly asked.
"Uh? It's alright..." My grandfather always gave me extra help with my essays, afraid that my writing would be too bad and make him lose face.
“When I was little, I was terrible at writing. I would often stare at a blank sheet of paper for ages without writing a single sentence. Once, the teacher gave us an essay titled ‘My Sense of Responsibility.’ I thought about the title for a long time but didn’t know where to begin. My mom couldn’t stand it and came over to give me some guidance. She said, ‘Just write that I am a very responsible person, and then give a few examples to illustrate.’ I immediately retorted, ‘Didn’t you say last time that I lacked a sense of responsibility and was prone to acting on my own?’”
"Aunt Lin was just giving you guidance on writing your essay, and you're taking it so seriously again~" I laughed, pointing to the gauze on Qu Ling's head, my mind filled with the image of him as a child, following his teacher around with a small stick, relentlessly nagging.
"My mom then said, 'Since that's the case, then write that I'm a person who lacks a sense of responsibility, and then explain how I'll improve.' I got even angrier and argued, 'How am I a person who lacks a sense of responsibility? I'm always very careful when I look after the house!'"
"Pfft! And then? What did Aunt Lin say then?"
Qu Ling plucked a blade of grass with half a green stem still attached, twirled it between her fingers, and said with a smile, "Later she went to sleep, and I sat alone in front of my composition book, staring at a blank page, until dawn."
I covered my face, which was almost cramping from laughing, and looked at Qu Ling, who was sitting innocently on the golden haystack.
"Dean! You're not just strong, you're incredibly strong!"
"This is me before I was fourteen, the real me." Qu Ling tilted his head back, a slightly chilly wind brushed across his face, lifting the hair on his forehead, making his face look like that of a young boy.
"Dean..." I suddenly seemed to understand something, my heart ached, and my smile vanished.
“So, I’m not actually a truly gentle person,” Qu Ling said, looking into my eyes. “My gentleness and softness are just superficial.”
"When I was a child, I was famous for being invincible in the military region. No one ever dared to bully me. My nickname back then was 'Crab with a Curved Leg' because I always walked sideways."
"Curved crab?" My face twitched again; I wanted to laugh, but I didn't dare.
"Yes! The famous 'Crab' of the military region, roaming freely without fear." Qu Ling couldn't help but laugh. "You never thought I'd have such a nickname, did you?"
"Hehe, I have thought about it..."
"Um?"
"I used to wonder what nickname you would have in school, and after thinking about it, I thought 'cricket' was the most likely. I never expected you to be called 'crab.'" I blurted out my long-held thought without realizing it.
"Cricket?" Qu Ling laughed loudly, "That was my dad's nickname when he was a child! Yuanyuan, you're amazing!"
"Huh? Mayor Qu... Mayor Qu's nickname?" I almost fell off my wheelchair. Mayor Cricket, I burst out laughing.
Suddenly, I felt a warmth on my shoulder; I didn't realize that Qu Ling's coat had been draped over my shoulders.