Su Yunluo hadn’t expected that the same opponent she had already labeled as “a terrible writer with outdated thinking” would, on the very day he sent the challenge, do something else that made her think—Yeah… he’s really nothing to worry about.
That noon, during the break, she went to the end of the hallway to get some water. Her finger had just pressed the button when a gust of wind swept up from the stairwell. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a tall figure suddenly stop nearby.
It was him.
She glanced at him briefly, then looked away as if he didn’t matter at all.
The corner was already cramped. With someone as tall as him stepping in so suddenly, even the air felt tighter. He probably noticed it too, because he quietly stepped back a couple of paces, holding his cup.
Su Yunluo filled her water, her pale fingers steady against the dispenser. Then she turned, planning to walk straight past him without even sparing a glance.
But the person who had been waiting finally spoke. “Can we talk?”
She stopped.
Xie Chen shifted slightly, turning to face her properly.
Class Five had just finished P.E., and it was obvious he had run back from the field. A faint warmth still clung to him, his white sports uniform lightly pressed against his frame by the breeze, outlining the lean build of a teenage boy.
“We’ve actually met before,” he said, his phoenix eyes curving slightly with a polite, almost gentle smile. “I don’t know if you remember.”
Su Yunluo didn’t respond.
So he remembered that brief, passing encounter too.
But so what? It had been nothing more than a fleeting moment—barely enough to count as knowing each other.
She hadn’t even properly taken in what he looked like back then.
“I came to ask you something,” he continued, his voice calm in a way that made people instinctively listen. “The challenge you proposed last night—was that something you truly wanted, or were you pushed into it by the atmosphere between the two classes?”
“What difference does it make?” she asked.
“If it’s the latter,” he said, looking at her with clear, steady eyes, “then putting a personal competition under the spotlight of so many people may not be a good thing—for you.”
Su Yunluo’s brows drew together slightly.
For her.
Seeing that she didn’t respond, Xie Chen softened his tone, as if choosing his words more carefully. “And if the opponent isn’t suitable, then the competition itself might not have much meaning.”
Su Yunluo lifted her eyes and looked at him—this top student from the neighboring class.
He was tall enough that he had to lower his gaze to meet hers. At that moment, her first impression was that he was the kind of person shaped entirely by expectations. The kind parents and teachers placed all their hopes on. The classic “model student”—the child everyone gets compared to while growing up. Even just standing there casually, he carried a kind of upright discipline, like a straight, unbending poplar tree that would never grow crooked.
His eyes were striking—long, reserved, with a faint crease at the outer corners. Cold, sharp. Paired with thin lips and a high nose bridge, his features gave off a distant, cutting impression. And yet, when he spoke, his tone wasn’t cold at all. It was calm, even refined.
Like a proper gentleman.
Well, of course he was raised that way. Boys like him usually were.
Still, something about him felt… off. A strange disconnect. A well-mannered “good son” like him had once actually talked back to his mother with a hint of sharpness in his words.
That memory flickered through her mind, and with it came a mischievous thought—what would those calm, gentlemanly eyes look like if they ever cried?
Of course, he would never cry in front of her. Right now, those eyes held nothing but composure and clarity, as if he were simply stating an obvious fact.
So pretentious.
Did he really think she couldn’t hear what he was implying?
She let out a soft scoff. “What do you mean ‘not suitable’? Why don’t you just say it directly—that I’m not worthy of competing with you?”
Xie Chen paused, clearly caught off guard by her sharp tone.
But he quickly recovered. That calm, controlled air of his smoothed over the surprise almost instantly. When he spoke again, his voice was steady as ever. “Please don’t misunderstand. I don’t mean to belittle you at all. I just think that if this decision wasn’t entirely yours, then even if the challenge has been made, there’s no need to go through with it.”
He looked at her sincerely. “So, if you agree, I can speak to both homeroom teachers and have the bet canceled.”
Su Yunluo let out a quiet snort.
Belittle?
Who’s belittling who?
Xie Chen seemed to be trying to ease the tension. He gave a small smile. “I understand why you’re hostile toward me—it’s because of that challenge letter, right? To be honest, that piece of writing really was…”
“Really terrible, right?”
Su Yunluo cut him off. “Honestly, I’m curious too—where did you get the confidence to use such bad writing to compete with others? Even if the monthly exam isn’t only Chinese, your overall ranking is still more than ten places below mine. Don’t you have any self-awareness?”
“Why is being watched a bad thing? The one who wins won’t be afraid. Only those who can’t afford to lose would be. And as for belittling—yes, I do look down on you. Getting scared before the fight even starts, then trying to shake your opponent with some ‘I’m doing this for your own good’ speech. Too bad—it’s already too late to act friendly, and it won’t work.”
She smiled faintly. “Whether this has meaning or not is my decision. If you want to admit defeat early, I won’t stop you. But if you think I’ll back out with you, forget it.”
With that, Su Yunluo turned and walked away, leaving him behind without another word.
At this point, this boy had already become the living example of Teacher Sun’s “men are superior to women” argument.
Whether they competed or not was one thing. Right now, just firing back at him and venting the frustration in her chest felt enough.
Honestly, once she calmed down, she knew he wasn’t entirely wrong. Her decision to issue the challenge had indeed been partly influenced by the atmosphere between the two classes—and by all the excited voices that loved stirring things up.
But only partly.
The other half was her own choice.
In the past, she had never been too attached to rankings or scores. Even when she had conflicts with Shi Ranran over it, she let it pass. She never felt the need to prove herself.
But this time… it was different.
Something deep inside her—something that had been quietly buried for years—suddenly stirred. It wasn’t loud, but it was stubborn. For the first time, she felt a strong urge to defeat someone, as if winning this one match was the only way to extinguish a fire that had been burning inside her for years.
No amount of soft words would change that.
Especially not when those “kind” words sounded more like quiet condescension.
Xie Chen stood where he was, watching her slender figure disappear around the corner of the hallway.
He had barely gotten halfway through his sentence before being shut down completely. With a faint, self-mocking thought, he figured this might be the biggest social failure he had had in years.
He hadn’t been trying to get close to her. Coming to talk today was simply out of a rigid sense of fairness—he didn’t want to win in a way that felt undeserved.
Classes had only just started, and the students from both classes weren’t even familiar with each other yet. He hadn’t taken this competition seriously at all. He hadn’t even paid attention to his opponent’s name—until that morning, when he read the reply and realized that the girl he had briefly met at a wedding banquet was also in Class Six.
Ranked twentieth in the entire city—naturally first in her class.
That surprised him.
More than he expected.
He still remembered that brief encounter—so short it could almost be ignored.
That day, when his mother called him over to greet another table, he noticed that among the group of chatting adults and noisy children, there was only one person his age—a girl who kept her head lowered the entire time.
The adults laughed, the children made noise, but she just sat there quietly, eyes down, like a cluster of lilacs forgotten in a corner. It wasn’t until someone mentioned academic results that she finally lifted her head.
In that moment, he had looked at her.
Her features were soft, almost faint. There was a distant emptiness in her eyes, like mist over faraway mountains, giving her a quiet, detached air.
For some reason, two lines of poetry drifted into his mind back then—
A slight frown soft as spring hills.
A reflection cold as autumn water.
There wasn’t much logic connecting those lines, but somehow the feeling matched the girl in front of him.
She probably hadn’t been happy either. At their age, being pulled around by parents and shown off like a trophy—who wouldn’t feel resistance?
So when he saw her that morning, standing on Class Five’s platform with that reply in hand, he had still assumed it was the result of collective emotion. Maybe Class Six’s homeroom teacher wanted the competition, or the classmates had pushed it forward, and she, as the top student, was simply placed at the front.
After all, it was hard to connect that quiet girl from before with someone so openly sharp and confrontational.
But just now, the moment she spoke, that image no longer fit.
The contrast was striking. Someone who looked so gentle and reserved, yet the moment she spoke, it was like a hedgehog suddenly bristling with spikes. At this point, he had no doubt the reply letter had truly been written by her.
It seemed his earlier judgment had been wrong. That distant, detached air he remembered might have just been fatigue. Now it was clear—this opponent not only had real writing talent, but her sharpness was just as real.
And since she was this serious about it, the small hesitation he once felt because of that brief encounter… he could finally let go of it.