We ordinary people also need to fall in love.

The most nerve-wracking part is waiting; it's like opening a blind box—you never know what's inside until you lift the lid.

How embarrassing would it be if no one was standing behind you, or only one or two people?

So it wasn't just Li Mubai who was nervous; all the boys unconsciously slowed their breathing, secretly glancing back out of the corner of their eyes, too embarrassed to openly look back.

The PE teacher walked around in front of the line of boys, finally stopping in front of Li Mubai. He glanced at the number of people behind him and said loudly:

"Your group has too many people. Some of you should go to groups with fewer people."

The number of people exceeded the limit? Li Mubai was stunned for a moment. A group can only have a maximum of six people, not counting the group leader. That means there are more than six girls on his side?

He heard the girls whispering behind him, a soft murmur, but he didn't hear Xie Shu speak. A few seconds later, footsteps sounded, as if someone had walked away.

"Two more," the PE teacher said, then looked at the other groups. "The same goes for the other groups. If you have more than the limit, adjust accordingly. Including the group leader, there can't be more than seven people."

"Teacher, can we not participate?" Three girls stepped forward and asked in a low voice.

The PE teacher hesitated for a moment, then finally nodded:

"Sure, but you'll have to help write the task cards and then hide them around the gymnasium."

"Okay, teacher!"

The girls responded, took the paper cards, and ran off to the side laughing.

Once all the girls were in place, Li Mubai and his group turned around to see who their group members were.

At the very front of the line was Xie Shu. She stood there quietly, as if she had chosen her spot long ago and hadn't moved.

Following them are Chen Qiuhe, Deng Yi, a girl named Zhang Chun, a girl Li Mubai doesn't recognize, and the last one is Lin Xinle.

Li Mubai glanced at the other groups again. The number of people in each group was about the same. Although it was nominally a voluntary choice, the teacher would eventually intervene to make the number of people in each group more even.

The three girls who were assigned to write task cards quickly got into the swing of things, standing together and discussing something.

"Hey, Wang Xiaoyan, what are you going to write?"

"I don't know, what about you guys?"

"I'm going to write this." Another girl showed off her completed card.

"Wow, that's ruthless?"

"This is more fun!" The girl smiled, then lowered her head and continued writing.

While waiting, Li Mubai looked around his group. Apart from him and Lin Xinle, the other five seemed to be from Class 3.

"Should we shout 'We are a family'?" Chen Qiuhe suddenly blurted out.

"Qiuhe, have you been watching too much Running Man?" Deng Yi glanced at her.

"Life should always have a little ritual."

Li Mubai and Xie Shu exchanged a glance, and the latter nodded slightly. This was what she meant by always being behind him.

Zhang Chun glanced at Li Mubai and Xie Shu, but didn't step forward. She silently looked away, and the girl next to her, whom Li Mubai didn't recognize, patted her on the shoulder.

Lin Xinle reached into her pocket and felt around; she should have her phone with her.

The three girls who were writing task cards returned, and the game officially began.

"You can only move around in the gymnasium. You are not allowed to go anywhere else. Gather on the playground five minutes before get out of class ends." The PE teacher's voice rose. "Remember, if you can't complete a task, put the card back where it is and do another one. I hope everyone will consciously abide by the rules."

Without much opening remarks, as soon as the teacher finished speaking, the students rushed towards the gymnasium.

"Go go go, let's go."

Yang Kun, beaming with excitement, led his group and was the first to arrive at the stadium.

"Li Mubai, should we search together or split up?" Lin Xinle asked.

The other girls all looked at Li Mubai.

He thought about it for a moment.

"Let's work together. If there's a task that requires us to work together, it will be harder to stay in touch if we're separated."

"I hope there won't be any really weird missions?" Chen Qiuhe muttered.

Probably not... Li Mubai wasn't too sure either.

The gymnasium has two floors. The first floor is about the size of a dozen classrooms, which isn't particularly large, but the twenty small cards were hidden in the nooks and crannies and were actually quite hard to find.

The group slowly searched the first floor, their eyes carefully scanning every corner, under the seats, in the gaps of the window sills, and behind the fire extinguisher boxes.

"Wait, isn't there one over there?"

Xie Shu suddenly spoke up, pointing to a dark corner.

"It seems there really is!" Chen Qiuhe squinted slightly; she had left her glasses in the classroom. "Xie Shu, your eyesight is amazing!"

Good eyesight? Xie Shu took off her glasses, and the distance suddenly became blurry. She silently put her glasses back on.

Li Mubai walked to that corner, bent down, and picked up the paper card.

"What's the mission?" Chen Qiuhe asked impatiently.

Li Mubai frowned and read from the task card:

"High knees for the whole group: 30 for girls and 40 for boys."

"Let me see." Chen Qiuhe didn't believe it, snatched the card, glanced at it, and her face immediately fell. "What? Isn't this just training?"

"Go ahead and do it. Maybe it'll only be this one. The next one will be different." Deng Yi shrugged helplessly.

Seeing that the others had already started moving, Li Mubai and Xie Shu also lifted their legs.

One, two, three... Halfway through, Yang Kun and his team came over upon hearing the sound.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"Do the task." Li Mubai stopped after finishing, took a breath, and said, "High knees."

Yang Kun's eyes darted around, and he leaned closer, lowering his voice:

"Hey, I just found a card over there."

He pointed in the direction they came from.

"Why aren't you doing it?" Li Mubai frowned.

"I can't do it; only you can." Yang Kun said without further explanation and left with his men.

"Where to next?" Xie Shu asked.

"Let's go check it out." Although she felt something was amiss, she figured it should be alright to go and take a look.

"Let's get going. We've only completed one task so far, while some groups might have already completed several," Chen Qiuhe urged.

The group followed the direction Yang Kun pointed and searched every corner carefully. Finally, at the end of the corridor, under a tightly closed door, they found a piece of paper with a corner sticking out.

"Let me see what it is!" Chen Qiuhe couldn't wait to squat down and pull out the card.

"What is it?" Li Mubai asked.

"Uh—" Chen Qiuhe didn't answer immediately. She glanced at Li Mubai, then at Xie Shu, her expression somewhat subtle. "See for yourself."

Li Mubai took the card, glanced at it, paused for a moment, then bent down, preparing to stuff it back under the door.

"What is it?" Zhang Chun couldn't contain her curiosity and took it before Li Mubai could put it back. After reading it, she didn't say anything and silently put the card back in its place.

"No, what exactly is this mission?" Deng Yi asked anxiously. "Why are you all silent after reading it?"

"Yes..." Zhang Chun hesitated for a moment, but still said it, "Choose a person of the opposite sex and do this action."

She pointed to her lips.

"Huh?! Who wrote this? Who could possibly finish this?!"

Zhang Chun nodded, glanced at Li Mubai, then looked at Xie Shu, his gaze lingering between them.

"Never mind, let's find the next one." Li Mubai took the mission card and prepared to put it back.

"Kiss? Maybe I can," Xie Shu suddenly said.

Li Mubai's heart skipped a beat; this wouldn't do.

"Forget it, Shu Bao, there's no rule that it has to be completed anyway," Deng Yi advised.

"Yes, yes." Lin Xinle, who had been silent all along, nodded in agreement.

"Okay, let's go find the next mission."

Li Mubai breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this, fearing that Xie Shu would be stubborn in this place... that would be too embarrassing.

After searching the first floor, they headed to the second floor, encountering other groups along the way.

"Zhang Hao, if you can't finish it, then forget it."

"Yes, we can just find the next one."

As soon as I arrived at the entrance to the basketball court in the stadium, I heard arguing.

Li Mubai walked in and found Zhang Hao and his group standing near the basketball hoop by the door.

"How about we give it a try?" Zhang Hao looked at a girl.

"Forget it, forget it, we can't do this task, let's move on to the next one." A girl quickly waved her hand.

"Hiss—" Zhang Hao turned to another girl, "Han Dandan, what do you think?"

"No." Han Dandan took a step back, refusing decisively.

Zhang Hao asked several girls in a row, but none of them were willing. He glanced at Li Mubai out of the corner of his eye and saw him standing to the side watching. He looked a little embarrassed.

But what could he do? After hesitating for a moment, he finally put the card down.

However, they did not leave. Instead, they walked to the other side of the basketball hoop, separated from Li Mubai and his group by more than half a court.

Chen Qiuhe walked over, bent down to pick up the abandoned mission card, and turned back.

"This..." She held up the card and looked at Li Mubai, "Do you think you can make this?"

Li Mubai took it.

"Choose a member of the opposite sex in your group for a princess carry."

"A princess carry?" Xie Shu had already come closer and seen.

"Um."

"Do you want a hug?" Xie Shu asked.

The other girls in the group all looked at the two of them.

A hug should be fine... they've hugged each other so many times already.

Li Mubai folded the task card and put it in his pocket. He looked at Xie Shu, but she turned her head away, the tips of her ears turning slightly red.

He took a deep breath, bent down slightly, put one hand under Xie Shu's legs, and put the other hand around her back.

Xie Shu was very light, and although he didn't exercise much, it wasn't difficult for him to lift her up.

Seemingly startled by Li Mubai's sudden movement, she gave a soft "hmm" and unconsciously leaned her body against his shoulder to prevent herself from falling backward.

"oh--"

A sudden commotion erupted on the basketball court, drawing the attention of all the other groups around.

"Is it... all done?" Xie Shu's face flushed, and her voice was much lower than usual.

Lin Xinle quietly took out her phone from her pocket and opened the camera.

"What are you filming? Send me a copy too." Chen Qiuhe's voice suddenly came from the side.

Lin Xinle's hand trembled, and the phone almost slipped from her fingers.

"Uh—okay."

……

May 30th (attached)

I will be taking a break from updating for a while.

Actually, I don't want to stop updating either. Stopping updating is not a good thing for either readers or authors.

From the author's perspective, stopping updates means that traffic will gradually decrease, directly affecting revenue.

But I still choose to stop updating.

I don't know when it started, but I always feel like updating two chapters a day is just writing for the sake of writing. It's like I'm letting down the readers' expectations at 5:30 every day if I don't write. At the same time, I'm worried about the impact on traffic.

But I seem to have lost the initial drive. I used to be able to write four chapters a day, but now it's difficult to write even two. This month, readers have often seen me taking leave, and this is partly the reason.

Of course, I think this is not just my personal subjective factor, but also reflects that my initial outline was not detailed enough and the plot needs to be refined and improved.

So in the past few days, some plot points seem to have been poorly written.

I am grateful to everyone who has supported me, whether they have given me a reward or not, and this also reminds me not to write nonsense.

I would also like to apologize to those who tipped me and those who hoped I would update more chapters.

In short, slow and steady wins the race; I'll resume updates as soon as possible.