In just a few minutes, Zhang Xiaoqiang came over, looking around as she walked.

Jiang Du felt even more awkward when she saw her. The key was that she was still holding a boy's piece of clothing in her arms, and the smell wasn't very pleasant. As Zhang Xiaoqiang approached, Jiang Du automatically took a few steps back to create some distance.

Sometimes, it was hard to refuse someone's kindness. Jiang Du felt particularly passive when facing a girl like Zhang Xiaoqiang. She didn't want to explain her embarrassment, but she had to explain a little.

Going to the infirmary, buying sanitary napkins, and being sent back to the dormitory—after this whole process, Jiang Du said thank you many times. Zhang Xiaoqiang naturally stroked her soft, long hair and said with a smile:

"We're classmates, why are you always so polite?"

Her gesture was like she was talking to her own little sister.

Originally, Jiang Du didn't like others sitting on the edge of her bed. She would also never casually sit on someone else's bed. Do not do to others what you would not have them do to you—she understood this principle.

But Zhang Xiaoqiang had been running around under the bright sun, her face even redder from the exposure. When Jiang Du invited her to sit, she discreetly removed an old yellow bath towel from the edge of the bed.

When she had placed it there, she had felt a bit guilty and deliberately told Wang Jingjing, "Washing bedsheets is a hassle. If I put something here, I won't have to wash them so often." Beside them, their roommates were all tidying up their own things, so no one really paid attention to what Jiang Du was saying.

However, Wang Jingjing had no tact at all and mindlessly raised her voice, "Are you afraid of other people sitting on your bed?"

Jiang Du wanted to die. She blushed and, feeling even more guilty, repeatedly denied it.

However, it was a blessing in disguise. Someone half-jokingly took the opportunity to say that they actually didn't like others sitting on their bed either, and praised Jiang Du's method as a good one to learn from.

Jiang Du envied how others could so easily express their true thoughts without any awkwardness, and how they could seize the opportunity so naturally and seamlessly. This was something Jiang Du could never learn.

At this moment, she was afraid Zhang Xiaoqiang would overthink it, especially since she had just helped her so enthusiastically.

Zhang Xiaoqiang seemed not to have noticed this scene at all. She sat down naturally and found a topic of conversation: "Hey? Jiang Du, I saw that you got an almost perfect score in Chinese on the high school entrance exam. Your Chinese grades must have always been great, right? Are you interested in doing a small research project with me?"

Jiang Du's junior high school was of an average level in the city. Every year, it would send about seventy to eighty students to Mei Zhong through general and directed admissions. Directed admission spots were quotas given to each junior high, with scores twenty to thirty points lower than general admission students. Jiang Du had a slight imbalance in her subjects, and both she and Wang Jingjing were admitted through directed admission, which was considered lucky. Therefore, in Mei Zhong, which was full of top students, she wasn't very competitive.

Being excellent in just one subject, Chinese, didn't prove much.

Zhang Xiaoqiang, however, had come from the best junior high in the city. Her Chinese score was, in fact, only two points lower than Jiang Du's.

The two chatted for a while. Zhang Xiaoqiang's thoughts were very quick, and she spoke rapidly. However, Jiang Du was aware of the gap between herself and a top student from a leading junior high. Zhang Xiaoqiang's Chinese was also very good, but all her subjects were very good. It was completely different from Jiang Du's good grades, which were obtained simply because she was good at and enjoyed studying Chinese.

"Oh my, look at me, I've just been chatting with you. Later, the drill instructor might think I'm slacking off. I'll go first, we can continue later." Zhang Xiaoqiang suddenly slapped her forehead lightly and smiled at Jiang Du.

Soon, Jiang Du was the only one left in the dormitory. She was dozing off, slumped over her quilt, when she suddenly jolted awake. She quickly soaked the dirty jacket in some hot water and secretly pushed it under the bed.

Less than half a minute later, Jiang Du got up again and pulled the basin out.

The girl forced herself to endure the discomfort and went to the laundry room to wash the clothes. The jacket was quite heavy after soaking up water. All her life, she had only ever washed things like underwear and socks. After just a few scrubs, she felt like she couldn't straighten her back.

Not only that, but Jiang Du remembered Wang Jingjing's advice about her period, adding a little hot water with each rinse. In the end, after half an hour, the girl's face was deathly pale, her forehead covered in a cold sweat.

Finally, like a thief, Jiang Du hung the piece of clothing to dry on a honeysuckle bush in the small garden near the dormitory building.

In the afternoon, Jiang Du didn't go back to the training ground. Instead, she waited until four o'clock, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and her military training pants, pretending she was collecting her own washed top. She forced herself to remain calm as she collected the clothing, put it into a plastic bag, and placed it back under the honeysuckle bush.

Fortunately, there was hardly anyone on campus. The second and third years were in class, and the first years were on the training ground. Jiang Du let out a long sigh of relief.

But how to return it to Wei Qingyue was a problem.

Jiang Du didn't want to be the subject of any gossip. She knew that if she gave the clothes to Wei Qingyue in public, people would definitely start rumors. She understood this from junior high; classmates loved to jeer and spread so-called scandals about who liked whom and who was secretly dating.

She didn't let Wang Jingjing know about this because Wang Jingjing was a walking loudspeaker.

There were no formal classes during military training, but there was evening self-study.

Many people had already studied high school material during the summer vacation, and Jiang Du was no exception. She discovered a very serious problem: high school math seemed to have suddenly become extremely difficult, a completely different world from junior high, like something out of a fantasy.

Mei Zhong was Mei Zhong, after all. They only let loose for one evening on the day of new student registration. Once military training started, everyone showed the self-discipline of a top high school. During evening self-study, even without a teacher present, it was completely quiet.

The evening breeze blew gently through the window. Jiang Du would occasionally lift her eyes from the baffling, unsolvable math problems. She sat by the window and could see the ink-blue sky and the pitch-black shadows of the trees through the wide-open windows of the corridor outside.

Beside her, Wang Jingjing was secretly eating snacks while flipping through a girls' magazine with her oily fingers. She wasn't worried at all, having decided to start studying hard only after military training was over.

A figure walked past the window outside. Jiang Du froze for a moment.

She recognized him at a glance. It was Wei Qingyue.

Jiang Du quickly took a sanitary napkin from her drawer and asked Wang Jingjing to move. Her deskmate had a knowing look on her face, leaning forward and pressing against the desk, allowing Jiang Du to squeeze out past her back.

She wanted to call out, but she was afraid someone might suddenly come out of Class Three or Class Four. Jiang Du quickened her pace to follow. Wei Qingyue's back was tall, his legs were long, and he walked quickly. If Jiang Du wasn't mistaken, he was heading towards the restroom.

"Hey!" she suddenly called out to him as she exited the teaching building. After shouting, she felt a bit embarrassed, but also inexplicably happy.

Wei Qingyue didn't turn around at all, as if he were deaf.

"Wei Qingyue." Jiang Du had no choice but to say his name. Her voice was very soft, as if she were afraid of disturbing others.

The boy stopped and turned around.

He stood outside the brightly lit teaching building where the light was dimmer, as if some dazzling little mechanism had been activated.

Jiang Du clutched a book to her chest. She was so shy that she needed something in her hands to lean on. Even so, her rapid heartbeat seemed to stick to the book, one beat after another.

Wei Qingyue was much more composed and calm than her. From beginning to end, he never showed any awkwardness or unnaturalness for having been seen by her at his most embarrassing moment.

"For you." Jiang Du felt her breath catch. As she approached him, she handed him the note she had prepared.

'Take it quickly, take it quickly, don't let anyone see,' she thought.

Wei Qingyue first frowned, then smiled as if this were a common occurrence. He didn't move at all, instead pushing her hand away. "You need to return my washed clothes, not a confession note."

Jiang Du froze, staring at him stiffly, her mind roaring, "No, I'm not confessing to you."

Wei Qingyue glanced at her and said, "Oh." His face didn't flush, his heart didn't race. He didn't think he was narcissistic, nor did he feel even the slightest bit of embarrassment for his misunderstanding.

That single "Oh" contained a habitual absent-mindedness and an infinite indifference towards others.

All her emotions eventually turned into her arms tightening their hold. Jiang Du, clutching her book with a beet-red face, took a step towards the restroom first.

On the note, the handwriting was elegant, accompanied by a route map that looked terrible yet overly detailed.

Wei Qingyue suddenly laughed, a faint mockery in his smile. He glanced at it cursorily, then took two steps forward, bent down, and picked up something that had fallen from the girl's book.

A pink-packaged sanitary napkin.

He observed it for a few seconds. When he realized what it was, an indescribable expression appeared on his face.

Wei Qingyue casually placed it on the corridor windowsill. If the girl wasn't a fool, she would definitely come back to look for it.

He went to the girls' dormitory building. Nearby, he accurately found a bag under the honeysuckle bush. The clothes were neatly folded. The moment he opened it, a strong smell of laundry detergent wafted out.

After returning to his dorm, Wei Qingyue discovered clear, touching traces of laundry detergent on the clothes. It hadn't been rinsed properly, leaving white streaks that looked like dried sweat stains.

He laughed again.

He took a basin himself and went to the laundry room to rinse it several times with a splash.

Military training was only a week long, not long, but this autumn was not going well. It was unknown who started it, but pink eye began to spread. The germs traveled very fast, and by the fourth day of training, twenty people in the class had pink eye.

Xiao Xu emphasized the precautions to everyone. The cancellation of training that everyone was hoping for didn't happen, so they had no choice but to pull each other's eyelids open and apply eye drops for one another.

Jiang Du didn't get it, and neither did Wang Jingjing, but the girl in front of them did, which made them uneasy.

"Class rep," Chen Huiming in front turned her face and grinned at Jiang Du. She never used her name, always calling her class rep. While picking up Jiang Du's pencil case, she rubbed her own eyes and then wiped them on it. "Your resistance is strange. You can't do military training, but you don't get pink eye. We all thought you had a weak constitution and would definitely get it! I'm going to infect you, then we'll all be the same."

Chen Huiming said it half-jokingly, smiling the whole time, looking as if she were just playing a prank. Jiang Du felt very anxious but was too embarrassed to say anything. She could only force a stiff, dry smile and watch helplessly as Chen Huiming deliberately rubbed her hands all over the pencil case.

After she finished and turned back with a satisfied look, Jiang Du opened her mouth, but in the end, said nothing. 'How could a new classmate be like this?' She was just secretly disappointed for a moment.

The early autumn evening breeze flowed outside the window, as if letting out a sigh.

Thanks to Chen Huiming's efforts, Jiang Du finally caught the eye infection. Her eyes were full of gunk, and she always felt like crying. Wang Jingjing held her down on the bed to put in eye drops. Wang Jingjing wasn't afraid of being infected and administered the drops for her three times a day.

Moreover, she turned around and gave Chen Huiming a scolding. Wang Jingjing was serious, saying Chen Huiming was short but full of petty tricks. Chen Huiming started to cry.

"What the hell are you crying for? You get pink eye and then you want to infect others. How malicious can you be!" Wang Jingjing rolled her eyes.

Jiang Du carefully tugged on the corner of Wang Jingjing's shirt, telling her to stop arguing. Wang Jingjing looked disdainful and said, "Chen Huiming, if you dare to stir up trouble again, believe it or not, I'll throw your mattress into the boys' dormitory building opposite us!"

The onlookers burst into laughter again. The boys jeered, "Wang Jingjing, you have to do what you say! You must throw it! You're not Chinese if you don't!"

Only Zhang Xiaoqiang was seriously trying to mediate.

The classroom was in a chaotic uproar. The noise was so loud that it disturbed the neighboring Class One. Their temporary acting class president came over, knocked on the back window, and said, "Hey, keep it down. If you're not going to study, some of us want to."

Although they were parallel classes, everyone tacitly agreed that Class One had the best grades. Being reminded like this, a boy in the back felt a bit defiant. "It's not class time right now, are you saying we can't even talk?"

The class president then showed an expression that said, 'So this is the quality of Class Two,' shrugged, and left.

At fifteen or sixteen, it was the most rebellious age. Faced with such blatant contempt from Class One, everyone's rebellious spirit flared up. Since it was still military training and no new lessons had started, the boys began to deliberately bang on their desks and loudly sing military training songs.

Soon, a face that everyone recognized appeared at the back window.

"Your class is really noisy. Please be mindful." Wei Qingyue happened to be standing at the window by Jiang Du's desk. He spoke coolly, his slightly impatient look carrying an inexplicable sense of pressure in everyone's eyes.

The classroom fell silent instantly.

Hearing this voice, a dense wave of emotion suddenly rose in Jiang Du's heart. She couldn't describe it precisely, and her heartbeat spun out of control again.

Suddenly, a warm liquid gushed from her nose, slowly trickling down. Jiang Du was prone to nosebleeds during the dry autumn season.

She was familiar with this feeling and could only tilt her head back, fumbling for tissues in her drawer.

What Wei Qingyue saw was a string of red decorating the girl's pale face. Adolescence was just that unpredictable, that bizarre. His mind immediately recalled that pink, personal item belonging to a girl.

Jiang Du sensed a gaze on her face—it was Wei Qingyue. All of a sudden, her head was roaring. She just wanted to escape this very moment. So, grabbing a pack of facial tissues, she rushed out of the classroom almost instinctively.

The corridor was spotless, without a single scrap of paper. Each time a drop of blood fell, it splattered into a small red flower. Wei Qingyue watched as Jiang Du ran past him.