Vol 1 Chapter 32 (1/2)

2 My Friendshi+ps

Fe froirls

Male friendshi+ps are generally like playing soccer, the rules and baselines are clear, co-operation is based on strength and battle cries are mixed with sweat

Fe, There is no set way, no rules, sour, sweet, bitter, spicy are all acceptable, the flavor can be so complicated that apart from the chef, no oone else knohat exactly she put in it

Guan He, Zhang Jun and I were assigned to different classes I was in Class (1) and I could only thank heavens that there were no primary classmates in my class

Thehad a total of three floors, the first floor was Year 1 second floor was Year 2 and the third floor was Year 3

The shape of the building had a silish letter ‘Z’, but the middle of the ‘Z’ is vertical Classes (1) to (3) are in a corridor, which is the top line of the ‘Z’, followed by the teachers’ offices after a turn of the corner Then, after another turn, there are five classrooms joined to each other, the classes (4) to (8) Each corner has its own exit corridor Guan He was in Class (5) and Zhang Jun in Class (8) They were both in the same corridor, I was in the other corridor soour chances ofshould be very slim

The corridor exit closest to Class (1) leads to an iarden with a pavilion and a s Jun’s corridor, the front one also lead to the classical garden and the back on lead to a sht ce it was an aspen forest Beyond the aspen forest were the volleyball courts, science and technology building, laboratory, dor hall, and so on

—

I was looking forward to the start of a new life, hoping that this new start would give me a completely different experience to primary

Our holish teacher, a raduated froned to our school The school principals entrusted hi a homeroom teacher so he was very serious and none of our small tricks in class escaped past his eyes

Before we had even finished learning all the phonetic symbols, the class had already made a nicknaht bea name, ‘Treasure Bowl’

This Treasure Bowl had a big influence onof my quick and fierce personality, but I’ll talk about the story regarding him later

The first teacher who I hadShe looked very manly, had short hair and liked to smoke, she was the only female teacher I kneho smoked

Every September when the new students started school, there would always be a general student assembly The Principal will speak to announce the start of a new school year, then there will be a representative ill speak on behalf of graduating Year 3 classes and express their deterh school entrance exams There will also be a student from Year 1 to speak on behalf of the new students Lastly, the top student froo up to receive their award No e, it was a great honor and ood students

[‘three good student’: top academics, attitude and physical education]

That year, the school leader gave the honor of choosing the new student representative speaker to Teacher Ceng She didn’t thinka self revision ti to the eye to read the text out loud and then, without even raising her head, chose me

At the time, I seriously suspected the teacher had her head hit on the door After the lesson, I went to find her She was s, relaxed

I said, “Teacher Ceng, I can’t be the new student representative speaker”

She asked, “why can’t you?”

I said, “because ood”

She blew out a puff of s with her, “does the school have a rule that only the top student in the year can be the new student representative speaker?”

The male teacher smiled, “nope”

Teacher Ceng shrugged her shoulders, “heard that? They don’t have this rule”

I had an urge to roll my eyes and patiently said, “I’ve never spoken in front of people before”

She replied, “everyone has a first ti you start your first ti, she io and use your energy in writing the draft, don’t bother us preparing our lessons ”

I really rolled !

Meeting a teacher who had so back write lanced at it, casually corrected a few errors and said that it was fine Seeing ain, “don’t be nervous, it’s no big deal You can just stand on the stage and laugh foolishly at the audience When you’re tired fro, you’re also finished”

My h!

At the tiht classes per year level and over 40 students per class In the big auditoriuht over

At the start, I still re’s words, I just had to smile at them Afterwards, my head dropped lower and lower until it was almost inside my clothes,about

During the speech, I was very, very, extre because I heard that everyone could hearvoice, every time I trembled, I would skip a feords My voice started off loud then became soft, in the middle, they could only see

However, I only found out about this h ot off, I was pretty pleased inside, since this was the first ti also sood With her assurance,Jun and Guan He had seenwas but it was alwaysme The more I pondered, the happier I was, my vanity erupted If the , I would definitely headbutt Ceng Hong, two dead corpses are better than such an embarrassment

After the new student speech,likedhad a special position in the middle school department because her personality was quick and fierce and she was also some school leader’s relative Even the head of Chinese let her have her way so under her attention, I could count as a popular figure in the class

I becairl in our class, Li Shen, her grades were also pretty good One as not only pretty but also had the best grades out of the girls in our class and could also sing and dance, Lin Lan, and a girl have good grades but her fa

I had experienced a lonely pried for friends Actually, my personality wasn’t in step with theirs but I hid roup with theuy was the most cool, and lead the class opinions It can be said that the boys in the class all helped us and none of the girls dared to offend us

There are school shohich are currently very popular on teenage channels in Aht nohich are about the story of the so called popular girl I often watch thehed at why I watch such shallos but she didn’t know that froirls who scheainst each other in clothes and guys who chased theant and shallow youth I once had

Treasure Bowl chose a slightly fat girl to be the class ood as Lin Lan’s but she was very responsible and had been the class monitor before in primary However, Lin Lan couldn’t accept it so she always found all kinds of excuses to suppress her

For instance, when the class h and say to us, “red and purplepoo!”

For instance, when the class monitor wore a horizontally striped shi+rt, Lin Lan would sarcastically say, “zebras can wear horizontal stripes because they’re skinny, when did elephants dare to wear horizontal stripes? Or do you think that your large size isn’t visible enough?”

The three of the I actually didn’t know anything but I laughed along with them

The classbut later, she finally becae of her authority as a class ain us four plus with the guys in the class who liked Lin Lan and Li Shen so she ended up huirls in the class alienated her, thinking that she was fat, stupid and ugly so they were ashamed to play with her

She gradually beca attention to the four of us, even if ere talking during self revision or passing notes during class, she’d pretend she didn’t see Li Shen and Ni Qing turned evenfamiliar in the silent and sorrowful eyes of the class monitor

I don’t knohat happened but the entire city of 6 year old girls to 60 year old grannies all started wearing fitness pants, the girls in the school were no exception, everyone all wore leggings The class ht her a pair

[健美裤- Tight, stretchy fitness pants, als]

Everyone were all wearing the to it However, Li Shen s that are the sa others in wearing fitness pants, why don’t you properly go look at yourself in the mirror”

Under everyone’s laughter, I see under the class monitor’s quickly lowered eyes In an instant, I suddenly felt that it wasn’t the class ly, it was us Li Shen wanted to continue iven in, don’t keep unrelentingly chasing her Leaving her so a way of retreat for yourself”

Li Shen was discontent with me, Lin Lan however, looked deeply at me, and said to Li Shen, “in the future, if she doesn’t provoke us, then we should stop giving her a hard time”

Our battle with the class irls in the class became more in awe and wanted to be friendlier with us

Although ere children, perhaps our minds and battle methods weren’t as cruel as in the adult world, but the cruel results weren’t any inferior I believe that our class inally a confident and happy child, perhaps when she was younger, her parents and teachers would praise her for being dedicated and earnest but due to our heartless attacks and the classradually became self inferior Perhaps everyday when she looks at thewhat the classmates will say about her today She will feel self inferior and humiliated about her body Because of her self inferiority, she started having no confidence towards anything she did and started beco over cautions This kind of ee a person’s life orbit, to the extent that it can destroy a person and in smaller cases, it can leave a period of youth that you can’t bear to look back on

When I understood to have a sense of sha river of tiain say I’m sorry to her, it could only become a remorse in my memory that will never disappear

—-

In pretty ure In our circle, although this wasn’t said, but everyone ell aware that the pretty, sure Li Shen and Ni Qing both listened to her to the point where Li Shen wanted to curry favor with her see that Lin Lan wouldn’t play with her

Ni Qing wasn’t pretty and her grades weren’t good but she had money She would often treat us to ice creaht that she was rather stupid inside but on the outside, she treated her very well However, I had very little to give to Li Shen so I beca to push me out of this little circle but because Lin Lan always treated me well, so she was helpless and could only be even better to Lin Lan, hoping that Lin Lan would alienate me

In the beginning, we had a feles could only subtly exist and everyone pretended everything was fine

Without the female homeroom teacher,our internal conflicts quickly escalated Li Shen so and the despise the two of thereater In their words contained obvious taunts but because I wasn’t an eloquent speaker, I could only pretend to not understand their taunts Lin Lan saw everything but she was high up, overlooking us three, pretending not to be aware of anything Only when Li Shen and Ni Qing went too overboard would she helpthe balance

In the eyes of outsiders, the four of us were super close friends, passing notes during class, playing together during break, even when going to the bathroo together, bicker with the ether, when one person was bullied, four would fight back together Many girls envied our little circle, longing to play with us However, only we knew in our hearts what appeared to be a splendid friendshi+p hid

I worked hard and carefully to maintain my ‘friendshi+ps’ With them, I was very exhausted but without them, I will be very lonely

I looked forward to the co and I did indeed achieve it Nowadays, I could count as one of the irls The Chinese teacher liked ood to me but I didn’t feel that I was very happy

—-

The top student in our class was a boy called Chen Song Qing We were only classmates for two years even up to now, I still remember him, only because the words he had said to me

Once, there was a boy with a birthave Li Shen a love letter She read it while giggling then gave it to Lin Lan Li Lan looked at it while reading it out in a loud voice The whole class rocked back and forth with laughter The boy’s face turned from red to white, then from write back to red His head dropped so loas al the table

Looking at hihed with everyone else on the outside but inside, I felt frustrated, is this the result of liking someone better than you!?

Chen Song Qing suddenly asked me, “do you think that this is really fun?”

I froze, he sat behind me but we pretty rades were very good

He askedyou and Lin Lan, Li Shen and the others do to others and show your superiority is very interesting? Does a person need to step on other peoples dignity in order to establish their own brilliance? Don’t you think you’re very childish and shallow?”

I couldn’t answer, he continued, “use your cleverness and energy on things that matter” After he finished, he lowered his head to read as if nothing had just happened

Lin Lan was still reading out the love letter, the whole class was still laughing, but he was only concentrated on looking at his textbook, silently lish words

Right up to when the bell ran for self study, his words kept playing over and over inself study, I suddenly turned back and asked his that matter?”

He said, “if you don’t know the answer, then go to the school’s library to search”

We have a library in the school? It looks like I sure anorant and ill informed

—

The next day during break, for the first time, I didn’t play with Lin Lan and the others, instead, I went to the library According to the introduction, our school’s library is the best middle school library in the province It had first class coht, the tables and chairs were co Song was in a corner reading I didn’t go disturb hi up at the rows of tall book stands full of books, it wasas called a sea of books I didn’t read or issue any books, I only walked around the library once then left

—

Perhaps I was already tired of feeling left out because of Li Shen, perhaps I understood that this wasn’t what I wanted, perhaps it was because of the words that Chen Song Qing said but I started to distancebreak, I would often go to the library to read however after a while, I still couldn’t coh My vanity ht when being together with the break, I would sometimes still play with them

Li Shen really liked to tell us which boy was chasing her and would show us the love letter the boy wrote Lin Lan had scorn in her eyes but her tone was very war Li Shen to say more

I don’t knohat kind of irls had, perhaps they looked up to authority and power by nature They weren’t really interested in boys of the saher year levels Li Shen liked to talk her year asked others to send her ato treat her to shaved ice and ask her out to sing karaoke

That day, the four of us were eating ice creauys when a boy in a white shi+rt and white pants rode in on a bicycle Li Shen immediately turned quiet

That boy parked his bicycle and laughed and greeted a class He was very tall, his jet black hair was slightly wavy, he had deep eyes, a straight nose, wore a pair of golden glasses and his sht and sunny

If I had to use a feords to describe hi’ in shoujo a I know that this is quite funny but it really was my first impression

The three of them all stared at him, I couldn’t resist but ask, “who is he?”