c1 (1/2)

ch 1 I'm a Good Girl

With God as irl

I get good grades I’ I respectto bed at 10 PM each night, and getting up at 6 AM the nextI do when I wake up is pull open the curtains and look out theThe sky is always just starting to light up at that time Even in the summertime, the sun has only started to peek above the horizon Then I will sit in front of theand read in English, with a loud and sweet voice My ulp down

Myat ly

It’s a pity though, I aht defect My heart, and ery on y There weren’t any scars left onin ood If you stood to my left and spoke toyou said

So when I’ out loud, I’m especially loud

Although that’s hoas, I never felt that it was a bad thing Before age 17, I naively loved ood-hearted people in the world, naively loving me

But what’s cornier than that is that one day, when I was 17 years old, I suddenly fell in love for the first time I don’t remember what the weather was like that day All I re on a railing across the street fro a faded backpack His face was very handsome That was the first time I’d seen hi non-stop

His name was Xu Yi

I once hated that name a lot, because the second character was very difficult to type with Wubi I practiced for several days before I could successfully type it over and over

(t/n: Wubi is aChinese, which is based on the shapes used in words/characters, versus phonetically-based systems, like Pinyin I don’t kno to use it, but supposedly once you learn it and all the shortcuts, it’sphonetic systems In any case, apparently the character for his na Wubi Which is a bit ironic, because it’s a very easy character to write: 弋 (yì))

The white screen was filled with this na and lively Just like hi in front of me

After learning of Xu Yi,

And I doof Xu Yi

The fact is, we don’t know each other, we’ve never met, and there’s no chance for us to raduate, and he gets good grades I also know that there’s a girl fro after him

I’ve seen her before The way she dresses is very strange Sometimes I think that she really seems like a plant, especially that one tireen dress She had painted on green eyeshadow, and her face had so there all by herself

And there was another time when she painted four words onto her white dress: I love Xu Yi

A lot of girls would scream when they walked past her

She’d become a fixture in front of our school

Theis, that in the end, Xu Yi actually fell in love with her

He fell in love with her

One day, after school ended, he walked up to her and said, “Let’s go see the cat that you feed”

The girl cheered out and julider Then she stopped in front of Xu Yi, and said, “Handsoht for! Hahaha, I’m so happy, I could die!”

The girl that liked to reen… I later learned that her name was Bala

I finally met Bala, at the noodle shop behind the school

Later I thought, this was so I’d always expected to happen

I still re, so the shop was very noisy After ry, so I went to the noodle shop She was sitting at a table near the wall, with her back to rabbed your attention When I got closer, I realized there was a 555 dangling froarettes She sucked on it like it was very enjoyable, like the way a little girl would eat chocolates The s a drama series on mute I watched her, but her eyes never left the TV

I sat across from her

And then she gave lance

Then she extended her hand, and took so bowl and placed it into her own She silently spit out her cigarette butt, and then started eating her noodles It was the first time I’d seen her so clearly Her hair was pulled into a bun behind her head She had an oval face, no sign of pi I felt that she was very pretty It was that kind of pretty that got prettier the longer you looked, that startles you a bit She wasn’t wearing green eyeshadow

At the tiht to myself, “No wonder Xu Yi…”

“Are you also fro on my chest

“Mm,” I said

“Oh,” she said “Do you recognize me?”

I shook my head

“All the bad kids at your school know hed, her face so refined

When we finished ourheavily The water flowed down the eaves We couldn’t leave, and just stood close to the wall

I couldn’t hold back, so I asked, “Do you also like eating cilantro?”

“Not especially, but I like to steal other people’s things”

I was a bit surprised She reached out and touched hed Her eyes bent into crescent ood Little girl, you’ll understand”

I didn’t kno to respond to that, so I only said, “I don’t like when it rains” She looked up to the sky, and said, seely to herself, “…won’t come” Then she rushed into the rain

I shouted to her, “Hey!”

She turned around

I pulled out an uet a cold if you’re drenched in the rain”

“What about you?” she asked me

“It’s okay, I live nearby”

“Thanks!” She took the u She turned around and shouted, “I’m Bala! I’ll be back here next Saturday I’ll return your umbrella then”

They say that Bala and Xu Yi broke up He fought because of her, and became a bad kid

Saturday caain Before class was over, I asked the teacher if I could leave early, saying that my stomach hurt She easily believed irl like me would lie But I did lie My stomach didn’t hurt I went to the noodle shop

I was shocked, when I first entered the shop Bala was sitting very close to a boy, her face right next to his She laughed, charly

That boy was obviously not Xu Yi His nanized him, he was a senior at our school too

When Zhang Yang saw me enter in my uniform, he seemed a bit uncomfortable, and pushed Bala away

Bala greeted me, “Hi!”

I sat down, and responded lightly, “Hi”

Zhang Yang quickly payed, and left Bala’s gaze followed his back

After awhile, Bala stepped in front of me “Do you have a smoke? I’m out”

I shook my head

“Oh, right,” Bala said “You’re a good kid, you don’t smoke! But, why did you skip school?”

As she spoke, she fluttered her big eyes at me

Goodness, she had on green eyeshadow again

“My stomach hurts today”

“Your stohed, “Is it hurting because you’re hungry?”

“Bala,” I looked at her green eyeshadow as I spoke “Why did you break up with Xu Yi?”

Bala looked at hed out loud so hard that tears came out from her eyes She said confidently, “I know! You like Xu Yi, don’t you?”

I stubbornly stayed silent