Confession to You in Early Summer (GL) - Chapter 4

It’s Friday, the 29th. Yan Wei woke up and stared at the dormitory ceiling, feeling a strange restlessness stirring within her.

Jiang Youyi continued to avoid Yan Wei. During class breaks, in order to avoid wandering thoughts, she actually started doing her homework seriously.

In math class, yesterday’s pop quiz was handed back, and the math teacher asked the students to check their mistakes first. Then he called out Yan Wei’s name: “Yan Wei, please come up here with your paper.”

Zhou Xiaoxiao was a bit worried. She watched Yan Wei hand in her paper yesterday, and there were many blank questions on it. Yan Wei was definitely going to be scolded.

But the person being worried about seemed very calm. Yan Wei glanced roughly at the paper, folded it in half, got up with it, and her heel hit the leg of the chair with a clatter.

Several students looked over, but quickly returned to checking their mistakes, but two pairs of eyes followed Yan Wei out of the classroom, witnessing the math teacher sternly criticizing the good student for her lax attitude towards learning in the corridor.

One of those pairs belonged to Zhou Xiaoxiao, and the other to a female student sitting in the back row by the window.

Jiang Youyi was sitting on the other side of the classroom and couldn’t hear the sounds in the corridor. She could only guess that Yan Wei was probably being criticized based on the expressions of the teacher and student as they interacted.

How strange.

After a while, Yan Wei bowed slightly, as if admitting her mistake, and the math teacher waved his hand. The two of them walked back to the classroom one after the other.

Jiang Youyi lowered her head at the right moment, pretending nothing had happened.

Yan Wei returned to her seat, and Zhou Xiaoxiao immediately leaned over and asked in a low voice, “Are you okay?”

Yan Wei chuckled. “It’s no big deal. I just handed in a blank paper and got called out by the teacher for a private lecture.”

As a student, if you don’t hand in a blank paper a few times, you might as well say you wasted your school years. Losing the carefree spirit of youth would be a real regret.

This was a realization Yan Wei had come to after attending university.

Now, being able to experience the feeling of youth again, Yan Wei thought it wasn’t bad, even though she hadn’t intentionally left the paper blank.

However, it seemed that Zhou Xiaoxiao thought it was a really big deal.

To prevent her deskmate from making a fuss, Yan Wei organized the mistakes on her test paper while saying to Zhou Xiaoxiao, “Things like this will happen often in the future. Get used to it.”

“Huh?” Zhou Xiaoxiao looked completely baffled.

Yan Wei didn’t explain further. She wasn’t joking with Zhou Xiaoxiao. These test papers were almost like ancient texts to her now. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to do them well, it was that she simply couldn’t.

She had graduated from high school six years ago. Her parents had insisted she study science in high school, but after Jiang Youyi’s incident, she became very rebellious overnight.

She failed the college entrance examination miserably, repeated her senior year, and despite her parents’ objections, switched to the liberal arts department. With the score of a city top student, she gave up on the prestigious university in the capital and instead attended the most famous law school in her hometown.

In university, she studied law and continued her studies in graduate school, completely transforming into a liberal arts student. She had forgotten most of the knowledge in her high school math, physics, chemistry, and biology textbooks, and it would take time to pick it up again.

Yan Wei began to compare the wrong answers and look for solutions in the textbook. Zhou Xiaoxiao turned her head in a daze and was out of it for the entire class, not knowing what she was thinking, and Yan Wei didn’t pay any attention to her.

After class, Yan Wei was called to the teacher’s office by the next class’s teacher. Jiang Youyi took a water cup to the front of the classroom to fill it with hot water, and when she passed Yan Wei’s desk on her way back, the blank paper was spread out on the desk. The familiar red crosses and low score, along with the familiar name, were quite a sight.

Yan Wei didn’t talk to Jiang Youyi at all on Friday. Jiang Youyi was a local, so she didn’t stay in the dormitory on weekends. After class in the afternoon, she packed her things and was about to go home when she was stopped at the classroom door.

“What?” Jiang Youyi looked at the female classmate blocking her way with no expression on her face.

Yan Wei hesitated, then asked dryly, “Going home?”

Jiang Youyi: “…”

She shrugged, her single-shoulder backpack dangling loosely. Wasn’t it obvious?

The top student seemed a bit dim these days.

“You should go to the cafeteria for dinner,” Jiang Youyi said.

The rejection was too clear, and Yan Wei only persisted for five seconds before backing away due to the awkward atmosphere. Jiang Youyi walked past her quickly and went downstairs.

Another failure.

Yan Wei felt a little discouraged and down.

The Friday evening self-study sessions were loosely monitored, and many students skipped out to go online off-school, leaving a lot of empty seats in the classroom.

After dinner, Zhou Xiaoxiao passed by the small shop downstairs from the teaching building and bought an extra yogurt to take into the classroom. To her surprise, she found that her studious deskmate wasn’t studying at this time.

She turned around and asked the female student behind her, “Yan Wei isn’t here?”

The female student looked up and glanced at the empty seat next to Zhou Xiaoxiao, “I didn’t pay attention, but I don’t think I saw her.”

The top student had been acting really strange these past few days.

Zhou Xiaoxiao leaned back on her desk, twirling her pen thoughtfully, and soon finished the yogurt.

She threw the empty box into the plastic bag used as a temporary trash can next to her desk, sighed at the extra box on the corner of the desk, and then buried herself in two problems.

She was so restless and couldn’t focus.

Unable to continue her homework, Zhou Xiaoxiao simply put down her pen, picked up the yogurt box, and went back to the dormitory.

The female student behind her saw Zhou Xiaoxiao get up and leave, blinked in confusion, and thought, “Are the top students not studying today?”

Yan Wei didn’t go to the classroom or the dormitory, and no one knew where she had gone. When she returned, it was almost time to turn off the lights. She didn’t interact with anyone and went straight to bed after showering.

Zhou Xiaoxiao, who slept on the lower bunk, threw away another yogurt box before bed, brushed her teeth, and lay in bed, staring at the upper bunk, deep in thought.

Jiang Youyi returned to school on Monday morning. Among the crowd of people going to morning self-study, she walked towards the dormitory alone.

When she went upstairs, the dormitory was basically empty. As usual, she planned to sleep for two classes before going to the classroom, but unexpectedly met Yan Wei who was just leaving.

Jiang Youyi: “…”

She turned to leave, but Yan Wei ran over and stopped her.

“What happened to your face?” Yan Wei asked anxiously, speaking faster than usual without giving herself time to hesitate.

Jiang Youyi didn’t answer but asked instead, “Why are you still in the dormitory?”

“Tell me first.” Yan Wei stared intently at the bruise on the corner of Jiang Youyi’s mouth, a large patch, and her lower lip was also chapped and crusted.

Jiang Youyi was uncomfortable being stared at and her eyebrows furrowed slightly. Her tone was cold and hard, “It’s none of your business. If you don’t leave, you’ll be late for morning reading.”

Yan Wei still didn’t leave, looking determined to get an answer.

It was a look she had never seen before, and she was a little moved.

No, don’t be moved.

“What difference does it make if you know? Are you going to represent your classmates and express your sympathy?” Jiang Youyi’s patience was wearing thin, and her tone was clearly irritated.

But Yan Wei didn’t back down this time. She said in one breath, “No matter what, as long as you’re willing to tell me, I’ll always be on your side.”

It was the longest sentence she had said to Jiang Youyi since they reunited.

Jiang Youyi was stunned for a moment, then the corner of her mouth curled up in a sneer. The smile was full of sarcasm, making Yan Wei very uncomfortable, as if she was silently asking, “What do you know?”

But Jiang Youyi didn’t ask that question out loud. Instead, she said, “As a friend, you want to help me? To stand up for me?”

Yan Wei: “…Hmm.”

Actually, she wanted to say that it wasn’t entirely true, but she didn’t have the standing to.

Jiang Youyi’s smile gradually faded, and she said word by word, “I don’t need it.”

She turned sideways to bypass Yan Wei, and at the same time threw out a sentence, “Mind your own business. Don’t go around being compassionate. Not everyone is like a stray cat or dog that needs pity.”

Jiang Youyi had run out of patience, and her words were harsh and hurtful. In the past, Yan Wei would definitely have been stung into silence.

But this is Yan Wei seven years later.

She wanted to change everything.

Jiang Youyi failed to get away because Yan Wei grabbed her wrist, “What if I agree? Then I wouldn’t be just anyone.”

For a moment, Jiang Youyi thought she had heard wrong.

Yan Wei’s focused and serious gaze was very attractive, just like when they first became deskmates last semester. Once, when she had skipped class and was caught by Yan Wei, Yan Wei had stopped her in the hallway and told her that skipping class was wrong, with a serious and slightly stubborn expression that was also a bit cute.

But soon Jiang Youyi realized it, blinked hard, and blinked away the sour wetness in her eyes. Her tone was colder and more distant than before, “Today is April Fool’s Day, and your joke isn’t funny at all.”

With that, she shook off Yan Wei’s hand and walked towards the stairs, not returning to the dormitory but going straight to the classroom.

She probably understood that Yan Wei wasn’t joking with her, but if Yan Wei was just pitying her, she felt it was unnecessary, and she even wanted to get angry.

Yan Wei wasn’t a living Bodhisattva who saved all suffering beings, nor was she a poor person who needed to be saved.

Watching Jiang Youyi’s figure disappear around the corner, Yan Wei’s sudden courage deflated like a punctured balloon.

She seemed to know why Jiang Youyi was angry, but when she thought about it carefully, she didn’t really understand.

Perhaps she didn’t really understand Jiang Youyi, so her self-righteous understanding and care had not had the intended effect, but had instead severely hurt Jiang Youyi’s self-esteem.

Yan Wei was unsurprisingly late for morning reading class. The Chinese teacher made her stand at the door and recite an ancient text. Yan Wei couldn’t remember the science knowledge, but she remembered the humanities quite well and didn’t make a fool of herself in public.

Zhou Xiaoxiao was very worried about her top student deskmate’s abnormality.

During the break, Yan Wei got up to go to the bathroom and glanced at Jiang Youyi’s seat. She wasn’t there, she had gone out just now.

Jiang Youyi had a wound on her face, which was too eye-catching, so she definitely wouldn’t go to crowded places.

Yan Wei climbed to the top floor of the teaching building. This floor was all laboratories, with few people, and there was a bathroom with a broken faucet in a corner.

The person she was looking for was indeed here.

Jiang Youyi was leaning against the white ceramic tile wall smoking, and when she saw Yan Wei come, she was a little surprised, but not that surprised.

They often came to this place last semester.

Jiang Youyi didn’t hide, raised the cigarette butt in her hand that was smoking, shook off the ashes, and said half-jokingly and half-sarcastically, “You caught me. Should a good student tell the teacher?”

Yan Wei had taken a deep breath beforehand and was mentally prepared. She walked over to Jiang Youyi without changing her expression, snatched the cigarette butt out of her hand, and then put it in her mouth and took a puff.

The spark lit up and then went out, burning to the end. Yan Wei exhaled a smoke ring and sprayed it on Jiang Youyi’s face.

Jiang Youyi watched Yan Wei casually put out the cigarette butt and throw it into the nearby trash can.

The series of actions was smooth and fluid, and then she turned around and patted her shoulder. “This brand of cigarettes is not good, it has a strong smell, and it’s too harsh.”

Yan Wei took an unopened, delicate cigarette case from her school uniform pocket and handed it to Jiang Youyi. It was a brand that had recently come out and was not very well-known, and it was also a brand that Yan Wei herself had come to love later.

“This one is more delicate, the aftertaste is not obvious, and it’s not easy to be discovered by the teacher.” After saying that, Yan Wei patted her hand and turned to leave.

Jiang Youyi was stunned.

T/N: From a good student to a bad student real quick. How to win your wife back? Learn from Yan Wei. 🤫