To Covet (GL) - Chapter 63

The opening of the school semester on the Qizhong High School academic calendar coincided with other schools in Linzhou. However, in order to push this year’s senior students, the school gates were opened early, nominally for voluntary study, but in reality, it was mandatory attendance for all grades, just like weekend extra classes.

Xu Lanlan hadn’t recovered from the New Year festivities. She enthusiastically talked about her trip to the grasslands during the Spring Festival, emptying all the local specialties from her backpack onto the desk, her eyes sparkling with anticipation for me to compliment the delicious food.

Chewing the only packet of milk skin rolls in the pile of snacks, I told her I was severely allergic to beef and couldn’t share the delicacies with her.

Xu Lanlan rested her chin on her hand, looking suspiciously left and right, clearly doubtful of my excuse.

Fortunately, Gao Rui came over with a stack of test papers and vouched for me not lying, so Xu Lanlan disappointedly uttered, “Alright then.”

Seeing me pull out a thick competition book from my bag, Xu Lanlan, who was trying to find a topic for conversation, immediately deflated. She turned and dove into a discussion about games with others, instructing me to distribute the snacks on the table to everyone else.

Hands reached out one after another from the back and side seats. Even when Old Man Gao was on the podium emphasizing the importance of subject selection for arts and sciences, I could still catch a glimpse of two people diagonally behind me fighting under the table for the air-dried beef.

The subject selection intention form was distributed. I didn’t hesitate to check the first three options on the science table. Glancing at Xu Lanlan next to me, she chewed on her pen, quietly asking me which subject, Politics or Geography, was easier.

Just as I was about to answer, Old Man Gao instantly noticed us whispering and glared at us ferociously.

After the lunch break was the parents’ meeting. At the same time, we had a basic math proficiency quiz in the classroom.

I hadn’t expected Yu Hanyang to care about me, let alone attend the parents’ meeting. But fate would have it that I looked up and saw him standing by the window, hands in his pockets, talking eloquently with the homeroom teacher.

I vaguely heard phrases like “Chemistry is a difficult choice” and “many options in the humanities direction.” It was advice about subject selection after all.

Yu Hanyang gave a whole analysis of my study situation. I perked up my ears and sneered inwardly; he barely saw me, what could he possibly know?

Yet, he genuinely kept chatting endlessly with the homeroom teacher and even other parents. When he noticed me looking at him through the window, he remained immersed in his “good father” role, his gaze not lingering on me at all.

I rolled my eyes, which the homeroom teacher happened to see, so I quickly buried my head and continued answering the questions.

Fortunately, there were still two hours between the end of the parents’ meeting and school closing, meaning I didn’t have to go home with him. I instantly felt relieved about the current situation.

When I pulled out supplementary materials from my desk drawer, a wrinkled notebook fell out of the crack.

That night, after talking with my aunt, I opened the black plastic bag in the cookie box. It didn’t contain any shocking secret, just some ordinary small items—a blue-and-white notebook with many pages torn out, a passbook, a cracked old mobile phone, a bottle of long-expired coenzyme, and a few boxes of medicine whose names I didn’t recognize.

I opened the notebook. It was a diary recording scattered events.

I had looked through the first few pages repeatedly after getting it. This was the first time I had plucked up the courage to flip through the later sections.

The beginning of the first page was violently torn off—about a third of the whole book. The story started with how she and Yu Hanyang met through a blind date and then hastily married under the urging of relatives.

From the sparse pages, I could tell that the most frequent content she wrote about was her hope for the future. But in less than a year, she quickly grew tired and helpless over trivial matters, saying that she wasn’t educated and couldn’t help her husband, which made him unhappy.

Fortunately, after becoming pregnant with a daughter, her tone brightened considerably, recording many details of the baby learning to speak.

Following that were torn pages, and then two or three pages further back were the only parts I hadn’t read yet. They were stuck tightly together and all wrinkled, presumably soaked in water.

I struggled for a while and finally managed to separate them, painstakingly deciphering the water-damaged, yellowed handwriting.

These few pages recorded only one thing: she said she was wasting a lot of money on medication, complaining that her body was too weak, and that she hadn’t improved at all after taking the expensive drugs he bought for her.

Is it this one… I scrutinized the letters on the medicine box. They didn’t look like English. I planned to look them up when I got back.

With this new question on my mind, I couldn’t concentrate on solving practice problems during the last class. Taking advantage of the teachers being in a meeting, I openly skipped class.

Twirling the keychain in my hand, I leaned against the chain-link fence of the basketball court, watching a large group of students from the neighboring university haphazardly fighting for the ball, completely unaware that someone was standing behind me.

I hadn’t seen Gao Rui during the last two classes of the afternoon. I sat down on the spectator stands and saw a flash of black near the lounge in the distance. Thinking it was her who had also skipped class and wandered over, I brushed the dust off my clothes and chased after her.

“Yu Zhouwan.”

Yu Zhouwan was looking around for something, and she was startled by my sudden appearance.

“How did you get in?”

I saw a parent with a child by the flower bed and suddenly realized the access control was lifted today due to the parents’ meeting.

“I saw many people walking in and out freely, so I came in to have a look,” she bent down and picked up the keychain I had dropped on the ground. “Aren’t you going to class?”

“It’s a self-study session. I don’t want to go,” I shrugged, putting on a careless demeanor. “When have you ever seen me attend class properly?”

“Why didn’t you reply to my messages?”

“I was in the classroom. I couldn’t look at my phone.”

“I sent them last night.”

“Oh? I didn’t see them,” I pouted. After getting back yesterday, I rushed to organize my materials for school, then immediately crashed, not touching my phone at all. “What did you send?”

“Nothing. It’s fine if you don’t look.”

A seemingly indifferent tone about a small matter, yet I could sense a hint of sulkiness.

I lifted her sweater and scarf, revealing the bite marks left a few days ago. I grabbed Yu Zhouwan’s sleeve and pulled her, without explanation, into the hallway on the first floor of the gymnasium.

Yu Zhouwan smoothed her wind-blown hair, curiously examining the dark corridor. Before she could ask “What’s wrong?”, I pressed her against the wall.

“There’s a surveillance camera.” She tried to push me away.

“It’s been broken for a long time.”

Seeing her eyes filled with panic and unease, I couldn’t hide the smile on my face, which could only be described as mischievous.

The surveillance camera in this hallway broke when the gymnasium was being renovated. Since the wiring was inside the wall, it was never fixed.

Of course, I heard all this from other students in the class. They often used this spot to pick up takeout or circulate school-banned magazines and novels, giving it the feeling of an underground trading spot.

“Someone will come… What if we get seen…”

When I leaned my face close to hers, Yu Zhouwan subtly turned her face away, avoiding eye contact, quietly complaining about my impulsive recklessness. But the hands she tried to use to push me away weren’t exerting any force, betraying the hidden anticipation in her heart.

Resting my forehead against hers, nose to nose, I heard her breathing gradually deepen. Although she had always been so poised during foreplay and sex before, now she was like someone facing a first kiss. Her constantly dodging eyes held an innocence that invited mischief.

I kissed her lips, then immediately let go.

Yu Zhouwan belatedly realized she had been teased and tried to hug me for a reciprocal kiss, but she was interrupted by voices outside the gymnasium door. She reached her hand under her sleeve and squeezed my fingers.

It seemed class was over. Yu Zhouwan said she wanted to see the teaching building. I led her to slowly walk across the sports field. By the time we returned to the classroom, most people had left.

Gao Rui was working on competition problems. She only briefly looked up when she saw Yu Zhouwan and me enter at the same time.

“Lanlan, you haven’t left yet?” I was surprised that Xu Lanlan, who was usually the first to run out, was still slumped over her desk.

Xu Lanlan held up her battered quiz paper for me to see. When I tried to lean in for a closer look, she immediately folded it up and tucked it into her book to hide it.

“This is…” She noticed the “stranger” beside me.

“This is my… sister.” I glanced at the desk, not seeing my own quiz paper. “What’s wrong? Did you not do well on the quiz?”

Xu Lanlan leaned in conspiratorially: “Anyone who didn’t get their paper back has a problem. You all have to go to Old Man Gao to collect it yourselves.”

My vision went black.