Qingteng's Mind - Middle School Era

Chapter 1397 Enjoying It to the Fullest
Springtime in Xishan Park is like an overturned palette of colors.

The peach blossoms are like pink clouds, the crabapple blossoms like pale pink mist, and the golden rapeseed fields stretch to the horizon, dazzlingly bright. There are also some trees whose names I don't know, bearing unripe little fruits, like a young girl's secrets hidden among the leaves.

“Look! Little red berries!” Wang Xiaoxiao squatted by the roadside, pointing to the shrub covered with red berries the size of fingernails.

Wang Xinyi leaned over, picked one, and popped it into her mouth. The next second, her face scrunched up like a bun: "Sour!"

"Serves you right!" Ling Mengchu laughed so hard she bent over, then picked one herself and carefully licked it. "Huh? It seems... a little sweet?"

"That's because your sense of taste is ruined." Wang Xinyi blinked and walked over, already clutching a handful of wildflowers in her hand.

The girls laughed and joked as they scattered into the sea of ​​flowers.

Guo Wenwen walked at the back, the sunlight shining on her newly straightened hair—long, straight, and as black as satin. The effect of secretly spending ten yuan to straighten it last Sunday afternoon was on full display at this moment.

"Guo Wenwen!" Su Lei's loud voice suddenly exploded, "Your hair! How come it's so straight? And so long?"

Guo Wenwen blushed, smiled faintly, and remained silent. Some beauty needs a little secret, just as spring needs its first rain.

Under the crabapple tree, petals are falling softly.

Ling Mengchu, Wang Xinyi, and Wang Xiaoxiao were making a ruckus. Ling Mengchu jumped up to reach the high branches, Wang Xinyi shook the tree vigorously below, and Wang Xiaoxiao caught the petals at the bottom.

The pink and white petals, like a gentle snowfall, landed on their hair, shoulders, and outstretched hands.

"Ling Mengchu! Catch!" Wang Xinyi scooped up a handful of flower petals and threw them at Ling Mengchu.

Petals rained down. Ling Mengchu stood there, unusually not rolling her eyes, but simply reached out and caught a few petals, looking down at the soft pink petals in her palm.

Three meters away, He Shiling and Geng Xinyu watched this scene quietly.

Geng Xinyu leaned against the peach tree trunk, twirling a peach petal in her hand: "They really know how to make a fuss."

“Isn’t spring all about having fun?” He Shiling smiled.

Sunlight filtered through the flower branches, casting dappled shadows on her eyelashes. A breeze blew by, and a few crabapple petals drifted by, one of which landed perfectly in her hair.

She herself didn't realize it. But someone saw it.

Thirty meters away, under the willow tree.

Ling Chuyang leaned against the tree trunk, his gaze passing through the laughing crowd and landing on the hair tip where a crabapple petal lingered.

He ranked seventy-sixth this time. The day the list of the top 100 was posted, Tang Ji grabbed his arm and shook him: "Yangyang! You're really going to make a comeback! I can finally explain this to my aunt and uncle when I get home!"

Xu Renming muttered to himself, "How did Ling Chuyang manage to break into the top 100? I thought I'd be lucky to make it into the top 120..."

Ling Chuyang didn't speak. He just remembered those late nights spent doing practice problems, the neat handwriting on the notes she lent them to read, and the calm look in her eyes when she said, "You can ask me if you don't understand."

Some motivations are inexplicable. Like seeds sprouting in the darkness, like flowers quietly blooming in unseen corners.

"What are you looking at?" Tang Ji walked over, swinging a wet willow branch, splashing water droplets all over Ling Chuyang.

Ling Chuyang withdrew his gaze, pretending to look around aimlessly. Finally, his gaze swept around once more, but involuntarily returned to its original spot.

He Shiling was smiling. Geng Xinyu said something, and her eyes curved into a smile. The crabapple petal trembled gently in her hair, like a butterfly resting in spring.

Beside the fields of rapeseed, the student teachers were surrounded by students.

Su Qingyi was surrounded by a group of girls, and the questions jumped from "Is it difficult to get a master's degree?" to "Which window in the university cafeteria has the best food?"

Yan Xu's group consisted of boys asking how to get high scores on Chinese essays, what jobs a Chinese language and literature major could get, and—of course, they didn't dare ask directly—"Teacher Yan, are you and Teacher Su...?"

"Is it something?" Yan Xu raised an eyebrow.

The boys chuckled, not daring to say anything. The sensitive pulse of adolescence was palpable; some things were unspoken, like knowing that spring would surely come, knowing that cherry blossoms would surely bloom, knowing that the stirrings of young hearts could not be hidden.

Su Qingyi glanced in their direction and met Yan Xu's gaze. She quickly turned her face away, but her ears secretly turned red.

The secrets of spring don't belong only to boys and girls.

"Hey." Wang Xinyi suddenly tugged at Ling Mengchu's sleeve and lowered her voice, "The midterm exams are over, are you still sending your letters...?"

Ling Mengchu's body stiffened.

Wang Xiaoxiao, who was behind her, suddenly turned around, her eyes wide open: "What? You want to go into the principal's office again?"

The incident before the midterm exams, in which several of them were invited to the principal's office for "tea" because of a "letter issue," remains one of the unsolved mysteries of Class 5. The parties involved remain silent, while onlookers speculate wildly.

Wang Xinyi clicked her tongue and stepped aside: "I was just asking..."

Some questions have no answers. Just like not knowing why petals fall, not knowing why a boy's heart flutters, not knowing where those letters secretly slipped into someone's bag ultimately end up.

The spring breeze knows all the secrets, but it just blows gently and says nothing.

The sun slowly rose, gradually moving to its zenith.

Golden light cascaded down, giving the petals a fuzzy edge. The rapeseed fields rippled in the sunlight, the fragrance of peach blossoms was warmed by the sun, and a thick layer of fallen petals accumulated under the crabapple trees.

It's time to go back.

When the assembly whistle blew, everyone had something extra in their hands—Wang Xinyi held up a large bunch of rapeseed flowers, their bright yellow color like a small sun; Wang Xiaoxiao had braided willow branches and wore them on her head, the tender green leaves making her eyes stand out; Ling Mengchu's pockets were stuffed full of small red berries, saying she wanted to take them back to the dormitory to see if they were edible.

The group regrouped, counted the number of people, and headed towards the park exit.

The journey home always seems shorter than the journey there. Perhaps it's because we're tired, perhaps it's because our hearts are filled with fragments of spring, or perhaps it's simply because we came full of anticipation and returned with a full heart.

Ling Chuyang walked in the middle of the group, his gaze once again drifting forward.

He Shiling and Geng Xinyu walked side by side, talking to each other. Suddenly the wind picked up, blowing their hair and knocking away the crabapple petal that had been lingering in He Shiling's hair all morning.

The petals twirled and fell, pink and tiny, shining brightly in the afternoon sunlight.

Ling Chuyang paused in his steps.

He tried to reach out and catch it, but the petal fell too quickly, lightly touching the ground and mingling with the fallen blossoms, making it impossible to distinguish which one it was.

Like many moments in youth—you see them, your heart flutters, and you miss them. Too late to grasp them, you can only remember how they once danced in the sunlight.

"Let's go, Yangyang!" Tang Ji called from behind.

Ling Chuyang withdrew his gaze and followed the group.

Xishan Park gradually receded into the distance behind us. Peach blossoms, crabapple trees, rapeseed fields, shrubs bearing small red fruits, and that gentle rain of petals were all left behind.

But it's okay.

Spring continues. The petals will bloom again, the sun will shine again, and the laughter of youth will echo on every windy day.

When he returned, he opened his physics notebook and, in the corner of the latest page, lightly drew a petal with a pencil.

It was very small and light, like that unknown secret about spring.

The petal shower at Xishan Park has stopped.

But the spring in my heart has only just begun.