"Any friends willing to step in and defend our lives?" Wan Da gestured furiously. "Yu-ge, will you help?"
Xie Yu said, "We're not friends and I'm busy."
Wan Da: "......"
Cold. As cold as always.
Wan Da watched as Xie Yu, after saying all that, still proceeded to get up and sit down next to the window facing the corridor. He couldn't tell what on earth this cold big bro really intended.
Was he willing to keep watch or unwilling?
He Zhao smiled and said, "You all keep playing. He's on the lookout."
Wan Da was genuinely shocked. He said, not quite believing it, "How do you know? How can you tell?"
Xie Yu was a loner, prideful, very antisocial, and had a hair-trigger temper.
The words, 'Don't bother me,' were just about written on his face.
Last year when their class year had been split into the East and West Buildings, the Big Bro of the West Building had been Xie Yu. Just the rumor of his black nail polish had scared away countless people. He sounded like a dark, twisted character.
He Zhao didn't answer Wan Da's question.
He jumped in through the window, feet landing on a chair, and thought, I just know.
Xie Yu was still on his phone. From time to time, he'd glance up and outside then look back down after finding nothing out of the ordinary.
He Zhao sat down at the desk in front of Xie Yu, his back to the blackboard as he watched the group play Dou Dizhu. Then he glanced up at the latest homeroom assignment Class 3 had been given: My dreams.
Class 3's homeroom reports were especially terrible. In the whole class of 30-odd people, no one had any talent for drawing. Since they wouldn't win any contests, they might as well not waste their effort on it.
But they were very creative. Every student wrote a wish on their paper and stuck it to the board with tape in the shape of a rather untidy heart.
It was just something they had put together on the fly, but Tang Sen took many photographs of it as if it were a great treasure.
He Zhao glanced back at the person in front of him.
The Big Bro of the West wore his school uniform—the weather had grown cooler lately—and, perhaps because he didn't like the cold, had put on a jacket on top of his uniform. His hands were partly hidden in his sleeves, half his fingers peeking out as he concentrated on tapping at his phone screen.
Xie Yu's movements were occasionally very gentle. For instance, when he woke up during morning self-study and blearily opened his eyes. Or when he said, 'none of my business,' then, after a pause, added a question mark at the end.
Or now, with his slender and pale fingers curled, his pinky lightly hooked on the edge of his sleeve.
He Zhao rapped on the desk. "Little friend, what dreams did you write about?"
Xie Yu's fingers stilled on the phone screen. He had been chatting with Aunt Mei—asking how business was going at Guang Mao and telling her not to scrimp and save. If she didn't have enough help, she should hire several more people. The sudden change of topic surprised him. "Ah?"
Then he followed He Zhao's gaze and turned around to look at the homeroom assignment on the blackboard.
He had scribbled down whatever came to mind. What dreams? To genuinely lay them out in this 'heart of love' for the whole world to see would have been too dramatic, would it not? Besides, a second-year high school student's entire world consisted only of 'the high school exams.' Wan Da and the others had only laughed when they collected their papers to fill in and didn't take it seriously. "Dreams! Fudan is my dream!"
