14、
The fact that Qiangwei advanced past the preliminaries was both expected and unexpected. Her singing itself wasn’t bad, but her style definitely wasn’t considered “orthodox.” Under banners proclaiming love for the Party and love for X University, contestants like her were technically supposed to get eliminated. But one of the judges had said:
“I like cats, so your singing was pretty good.”
Amid the enthusiastic applause—
sixty percent of the audience not understanding what he meant,
thirty percent shouting “So cool!”,
and the remaining ten percent sighing, “As expected of the head of the Foreign Affairs Department… so profound and unfathomable”—
Qiangwei descended from the stage.
The first thing she did backstage was smile faintly at one of the contestants who hadn’t gone on yet…Miss B.
“Strength,” Qiangwei declared, “is the sole criterion for testing truth.”
Miss B snapped, “Fu Qiangwei, is this fun for you?”
“It is,” Qiangwei replied cheerfully. “Now I’m waiting for you to go up there and verify the other half.”
Then she burst out laughing and swaggered out through the curtain.
According to Miss Fu’s later description, the feeling had been:
like ascending to heaven.
According to Shen Chaoyang’s description of Qiangwei’s description:
like seeing someone who sold sex yesterday go buying it today.
In short, Qiangwei was unbearably smug.
And what made her even smugger was that she’d once suspected there was something suspicious going on between Anning and a certain someone.
Turns out—
there really was something suspicious going on!!
The moment she floated back into the graduate department territory, she was greeted warmly.
“Qiangwei, not bad at all!”
Qiangwei waved modestly. “Nah nah, just strength.”
“But Qiangwei,” one neglected classmate protested, “why didn’t you mention me? Why only Ah Miao?! Why?!”
Laughing, Qiangwei wrapped an arm around a certain someone who was helping Chaoyang adjust the camera settings.
“Because classmate Ah Miao is lovable!”
At that moment, Miss B was onstage singing One Person’s Splendor, while Mao Mao, who had been staring at the judges’ table, suddenly let out a startled noise.
“Huh? He’s leaving?!”
They watched as the man nodded slightly to the teacher beside him, rose from his seat, slipped one hand into his pocket while dialing his phone with the other, and walked out through the front exit.
Chaoyang grinned.
“Probably replying to his girlfriend’s texts.”
Qiangwei murmured, “Why’d he leave? Isn’t—” She instinctively glanced at someone nearby.
Meanwhile, after adjusting the camera focus, Anning lifted her head just as her phone rang.
“Something came up suddenly. I’ll come tomorrow.”
“Anning, the camera.” Chaoyang waited and got no response. “Ah Miao? Why are you spacing out?”
For some reason, Anning’s cheeks were a little red.
“Uh… I need to take leave tomorrow and go home.”
….
Out of more than two hundred contestants, fifty advanced from the preliminary round.
Including Qiangwei.
Including Miss B.
And the next day, Anning really did take “personal leave” to go home.
To be fair, she genuinely did have something to do. Her mother had mentioned recently that she’d been feeling unwell occasionally, and Anning had been thinking about accompanying her to the hospital for a checkup anyway.
So… better now than later.
Wednesday it was.
While Mrs. Li chatted with the attending physician, Anning sat idly browsing information about Ancient Egypt on her phone. She had just reached the 27th century BC when someone called her name.
Meeting a high school classmate in a place like this felt oddly surreal.
“Li Anning?!”
The other person’s excitement was impossible to hide.
“You’ve gotten even prettier!”
Anning smiled politely.
“We used to be deskmates!”
“Mhm…”
“You lent me fifty yuan back then and I still never paid you back! Hahaha!”
“… ”
She’d forgotten completely.
After a round of small talk, the classmate asked for her phone number.
“We should keep in touch more often!”
“Sure.”
Though Anning privately thought they probably wouldn’t actually contact each other much in the future.
Unexpectedly, the very next day after she returned to school, that classmate called her and said they were holding a high school reunion dinner at a restaurant over the weekend.
Apparently it had been planned for a long time.
Now that was beyond unexpected.
Class reunions like that were bound to feel awkwardly distant…
Anning originally wanted to decline politely by saying she probably wouldn’t have time—which was true. The academic research project she’d recently applied for had just been approved, and her group had assigned her to gather materials, meaning she needed to take the lead immediately.
But just as she was about to refuse, the other person suddenly threw out:
“Li Anning, you’ve disappeared for five or six years already. No matter what, you have to come at least once, right?”
“… ”
“Ah Miao, come look at the photos.” Chaoyang called from her seat. “Didn’t expect Qiangwei to photograph so well. Not bad, not bad.”
Mao Mao added, “Too bad we only got a shot of the handsome guy’s back.”
After hanging up, Anning walked over and glanced at the picture.
“Mhm…”
“Pretty good, right?” Chaoyang asked.
“…Too bad.”
“… ”
Chaoyang narrowed her eyes.
“Who were you talking to on the phone just now? You looked super conflicted.”
“A high school classmate,” Anning answered. “They said there’s a reunion on Saturday…”
“Reunion?” Mao Mao perked up immediately. “Go! Free food is free food!”
Anning blacklined.
“I already agreed… it’s just…”
She’d never really liked revisiting the past.
High school had been the hardest period during her parents’ divorce.
….
On Saturday, Anning still showed up at the hotel entrance as promised.
Two male classmates stood outside welcoming guests. They looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t remember their names anymore. They looked completely different from how they had in her memories…
Dyed hair. Jackets. One of them even had a cigarette between his fingers.
Anning couldn’t help sighing inwardly.
The boys from back then had all become adults now.
The two of them looked surprised to see her. One of them—Classmate W—personally led her toward the private room.
Along the way, he said shyly,
“You probably don’t remember me anymore, huh?”
Anning felt awkward.
Indeed, she didn’t.
“…Sorry.”
He laughed.
“You really haven’t changed much at all.”
There were already more than ten people inside the room. The moment someone saw her enter, they exclaimed:
“Huh? Li Anning?!”
The classmate she’d met at the hospital stood up smiling and walked over.
“I’m amazing, right? I actually managed to invite our class’s good girl!”
The male classmate still standing near the doorway chimed in:
“Amazing indeed.”
That earned another wave of laughter.
This reunion had been organized jointly with the neighboring class. Anning remembered that each class in high school had only around thirty-something students. Twenty-five people showing up today was actually pretty good.
Still, everyone felt rather restrained.
They occasionally exchanged a few polite words, but mostly whispered quietly to the people beside them.
“Hey, wasn’t that so-and-so just now? I totally couldn’t recognize them.”
Once everyone officially sat down to eat, though, people gradually loosened up.
They laughed, greeted each other, exchanged updates.
Who was in graduate school.
Who had started working.
Who had gone abroad.
Who had gotten married.
“Li Anning, why are you so quiet?” someone toasted her.
Anning raised her fruit juice in return.
“Our classmate Li has always been this gentle and refined.”
Anning smiled obediently.
Her lady-like image was indestructible…
The vice class monitor sitting beside her sighed dramatically.
“Back then, every male student who chased you—including me—got handed a good-person card. Sigh.”
Huh?
Did that happen…?
She had absolutely no memory of it.
At that moment, a classmate from the neighboring class came over to toast the vice class monitor. Since he was currently studying in Japan, the classmate immediately asked with a shameless pervert grin:
“Can you bring back some DVDs for me?”
The vice class monitor answered seriously:
“Sure, but they’re pretty expensive. One or two hundred yuan each.”
“Aiya, then I have to buy them quickly! Look—Mutou Ran died, Iijima Ai died too, and Matsushima Kaede finally made a comeback…”
Anning suddenly spoke up.
“Uh… Mutou Ran didn’t die.”
The boy waved dismissively.
“She did, she did!”
“That was just an online rumor. Later, her agency officially denied it.”
The world froze instantly.
The boy stared at her in horror.
“How do you know this stuff?!”
Anning: “… ”
Qiangwei had told her…
Right then, someone pushed open the door and entered.
Anning heard the vice class monitor call out:
“Xu Moting.”