Running away from the Love-Brain

0:3:39

Q: Why did Cui Muhuo not like you first?

A: One day, on a dark and windy night, she and I were wearing really ugly summer uniforms, dancing to the then-popular song "Trouble Maker" at the school's opening night party. I guess it all started from the one minute and fifty-nine seconds mark of that song.

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"She made me dance in front of the whole school, for a full three minutes and thirty-nine seconds."

Cui Xijin said this expressionlessly.

At that time, she and Chen Wenran were standing halfway down Love Maze Street.

The thin layer of snow that had fallen last night was already on the verge of melting tonight. She was holding a bag of fresh mangoes she had just bought from the Truth or Dare Mango store when she stepped into the partially melted snow, and the soles of her shoes instantly got caked in muddy slush.

Frowning, she glanced at her brown snow boots that had been splashed with snowmelt.

The next second, she heard Chen Wenran, who was unwrapping a small pudding beside her, laughing so hard she was clutching her stomach, saying, "Honestly, even if I've heard this a hundred times, I'd still be rolling on the floor laughing."

Once she finished laughing, she took a bite of the newly unwrapped pudding, puffing out white breath as she asked, "Do you have a video of it?"

Cui Xijin cast her a glance, unbothered. "Do you think I would let anyone film that?"

"Fine, I was hoping to admire your youthful dance moves," Chen Wenran said regretfully, stuffing the pudding back into her mouth and taking a bite.

After thinking for half a second, she asked somewhat doubtfully, "So this is what made you and Chi Buyu not get along? Just because she made you dance to 'Trouble Maker'?"

Cui Xijin shook the bag of mangoes. "Isn't that enough?"

Chen Wenran blinked keenly. "Is there something you haven't told me and Ran Yan?"

Hidden secrets?

For a moment, her thoughts drifted away with that phrase. Just then, a road bike whizzed by, its heart-shaped taillight blinking, stirring up a gust of wind that carried the tropical fruit aroma from the nearby fruit store into the air.

Standing on Love Maze Street, with her feet in the snow, Cui Xijin looked down at the heavy mangoes in her hands and suddenly caught a strong whiff of sweetness.

She felt as if this place were an isolated summer.

—The summer of 2013.

For most high school students living on campus, it was just that kind of summer. The summer hadn't ended, and neither had military training; it was the time for class committee elections.

Chi Buyu was the first to be nominated for the Physical Education Committee because she had remained calm during the recent earthquake and the incident where Cui Xijin had fainted, and she ran the fastest.

Cui Xijin had no interest in the class committee or who was on it; she was still recovering from a severe cold, merely glancing at Chi Buyu on the podium with her thin arms and legs.

At that time, no one else wanted to be on the committee, and very few volunteered, so Chi Buyu was pushed up by others. They were all young, barely familiar with one another, hardly remembering each other's names. Whenever someone shouted a name, the others clapped and cheered along.