We ordinary people also need to fall in love.

It doesn't snow in Pingyang City in winter, but it snowed heavily during the winter of Li Mubai's first semester of high school.

Because it snowed, physical education class could only be held in the gymnasium. After warming up, students were dismissed for free time.

Li Mubai doesn't have much athletic talent, except for playing a little billiards.

But the boys in his class all played basketball in PE class, and no one played table tennis with him, so during free time he could only find a place to sit and read extracurricular books.

Sometimes he's afraid of being told behind his back that he's pretentious, so he'll find a secluded place.

During class, the rooftop of the teaching building was empty. Sometimes he would read there, move a chair to sit on, and look at the distant mountains and the blue sky. White birds flew freely against the backdrop of the green mountains.

Sometimes I would take out my notebook and try to create poems by imitating the poetry collections I had read.

Although Xie Shu was rather aloof, she would bring some snacks from home every week to share with her classmates.

So during PE class, girls would often invite her to play badminton together, or watch boys play basketball together. She was very good at badminton and often swept her opponents, but in order to make her classmates feel involved, she would sometimes deliberately lose.

During the snowy PE class, she was leaving the homeroom teacher's office to head to the gymnasium when she saw a boy from her class walking towards the top floor of the teaching building.

She didn't care at first, but too many boys tried various methods to attract her attention.

But when he heard the cheers of the boys scoring a goal suddenly erupt in the gymnasium, a hint of curiosity arose in his heart, so he followed them.

She saw him come to the rooftop of the teaching building, which had only one door to enter.

She went back upstairs and waited quietly. What was he doing up there? Smoking? Some boys in the class often ran to secluded places during breaks and came back smelling of smoke, which was unpleasant and she didn't like it.

A few minutes later, the sound of people coming downstairs was heard. Xie Shu then came out and went to the rooftop. There was no smell of smoke and no cigarette butts.

Snowflakes were still falling, landing on her dark hair. She spotted a small snowman on the edge of the rooftop.

"So ugly."

Xie Shu commented that she took off her gloves and reshaped the snowman, giving it a round head and body.

"This looks much better."

She felt a little cold, so she dried her hands with a tissue and put her gloves back on. Her temperature gradually rose.

Xie Shu returned to the gymnasium and looked around, but did not see the boy.

After that day, Xie Shu would sometimes observe what he was doing. He would also go to that rooftop after lunch, and he would often space out.

He didn't sign up for any performances at the class's New Year's Eve party. He sat in an inconspicuous place, eating snacks with his head down. When everyone clapped, he would symbolically clap his hands twice.

He excelled in Chinese and history, but he never raised his hand when the teacher asked him questions in class.

During the second semester of her first year of high school, Xie Shu and her deskmate Deng Yi were eating in the cafeteria when a sudden clap of thunder was heard outside, followed by rain.

"That scared me to death! Luckily I brought an umbrella. Xie Shu, did you bring an umbrella?"

"I brought it."

As Xie Shu and Deng Yi finished their meal and were about to return to their dormitory from the cafeteria entrance, Deng Yi patted her arm.

"Hey, look, isn't that boy in our class?"

Following Deng Yi's gesture, Xie Shu looked and saw Li Mubai standing at the cafeteria entrance, staring blankly at the rain. Did he not bring an umbrella either? Should he lend him his umbrella?

"Yes."

"He doesn't seem to have brought an umbrella. Should we lend him one?" Deng Yi asked.

"Okay, lend him mine." Xie Shu paused and then added, "Your umbrella is big enough for both of us to shelter under."

Deng Yi took the umbrella and walked towards Li Mubai.

A little while later, Deng Yi returned the umbrella to Xie Shu. "He said he didn't need it. Never mind, Xie Shu. Maybe a friend will bring him an umbrella."

Will it happen? This question arose in Xie Shu's mind.

……

Night slowly crept in, until it had dyed the entire sky black before finally stopping.

Li Mubai lay on the bed, pinched his cheek, and a sudden pain shot into his brain.

It wasn't a dream! This day felt like a dream. He inexplicably became a class committee member, and even the vice class monitor—a position he never dared to dream of. And then there was Xie Shu…

She cheered herself up, "Is this really not a dream?" Li Mubai pinched his face hard; it hurt quite a bit.

During evening self-study, he taught Chen Qiuhe some Chinese reading comprehension techniques, but Chen Qiuhe saw that he was not paying attention and said she would learn them next time.

Indeed, that was the case. Even after returning to his dormitory from evening self-study, his emotions remained a tangled mess.

He repeatedly told himself not to be deceived by Xie Shu, not to have any thoughts of getting close to her based on just one sentence, and not to have any of the three great illusions of life...

"Hey, did you make a deal with Lao Wu?" Zhao Feng's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Come on, if you actually became the vice class monitor, you wouldn't be happy, and then there would be a lot of trouble." Yang Kun immediately teased his friend.

"No, he was our class's politics teacher when I was in the first year of high school, so he probably knows me well."

Li Mubai didn't mention anything about Xie Shu, so it's best not to get involved with Xie Shu. If they find out, they might spread rumors.

I was teased like this when I was in junior high school. A girl from another class asked him to borrow a pen during an exam. Later, the girl asked one of his classmates to give her a carton of AD calcium milk as a token of her gratitude.

The students in the class immediately started making a fuss, and Li Mubai offered an explanation.

However, no one believed him, saying that his explanation was just a cover-up. So much so that later when he ran into that girl, the guys around him would always steer the conversation toward her, making both of them feel awkward.

"By the way, Lao Bai, your deskmate is quite good-looking, what's her name?" Yang Kun's voice came from behind.

"Chen Qiuhe".

"Are you a dog? You said you were going to pursue Xie Shu yesterday, and today you've fallen for someone else," Zhao Feng mocked.

"You don't understand, I have my own rhythm. Sunny girlfriends like Chen Qiuhe are the most attractive to a gloomy guy like me."

"You filthy man, you should just stay in the sewers."

……

Ignoring the bickering between Zhao Feng and Yang Kun on the upper bunk, perhaps the only fun in the monotonous high school life, besides secretly bringing a cell phone to play, was bickering with one's best friend.

Li Mu Bai had no good friends; if "book" were a person, it would be his good friend.

He continued to open the collection of essays. Pingyang No. 6 Middle School did not allow students to read extracurricular books, and if caught, they would be confiscated. Therefore, he usually did not openly read books in the classroom.

"Originally there is nothing. To your left is impermanence, to your right is non-abiding. There is nothing you can carry with you, and nothing you can possess."