Chapter 14

The photo had been around for some years.

Although it had been framed, yellowing was still inevitable. The woman in the photo had long curly hair popular in that era, wore a white dress, and with her clear eyes and soft facial features, looked like the stars in early movies.

The little boy in her arms was also very cute, but it seemed that he had just cried before taking the picture. His eyes were red with water, neck tight, and he looked at the camera pitifully.

Wu Yinghua looked at it for a long time and didn’t recognize who they were and looked inside the envelope. There was nothing except the photo. Yu Yue finished washing his hands and came out. When he saw what she was holding, he suddenly yelled, “What are you doing, Mom! Don’t mess with my stuff!”

Wu Yinghua was accustomed to her son’s irritability and asked, “Who is in this picture?”

Yu Yue rushed over to grab the photos and envelope in two or three steps. He was unhappy: “Other people!” He shoved the photos back into the envelopes and became furious: “Don’t flip through my schoolbag!”

Wu Yinghua was also outraged by his attitude: “Who flipped through your schoolbag? You didn’t close it and it fell out! And even if I flipped through it, what about it? I’m your mother! You fell from my stomach. Came out, what things do you have that I didn’t give you?”

Yu Yue shouted: “Then you put me back!”

Yu Cheng returned from work, opened the door and entered the house to interrupt the quarrel: “I heard your voice outside, what are you doing? Whose voice is louder?”

He walked over and slapped him on the back of the head. “No matter how big, no matter how small, still an old-fashioned mother.” Wu Yinghua also said, “How grown up can he be, still quarreling.”

Wu Yinghua sneered: “He is grown up now, his wings are rigid, it doesn’t matter if I am his mother.”

Yu Yue grew more and more angry and felt that the middle-aged women near menopause were simply unreasonable. Obviously, she had made the mistake first. A single sentence, “I am your mother” can occupy the high ground. Do children have no human rights?!?!?

Yu Yue burst into his bedroom, slammed the door, and locked it.

This time Wu Yinghua was enraged, “Do you dare to lose your temper? Yu Yue! You give me a reason! See if I don’t clean you up today, where’s the key?! Unlock the door for me!”

Yu Cheng pulled and persuaded in the room for a while. Qi Ying, who had set up the dinnerware came out of the kitchen and realized her aunt was angry.

Yu Yue was at the age of rebellion, and it was not the first or second time he had offended his parents.

Yu Cheng eloquently persuaded for a long time before Wu Yinghua finally stopped cursing and began to sit on the sofa and wipe her tears. Sons grow up and stop listening to their mothers. Mothers drew the bad lot and dealt with everything and before they can even enjoy their children’s blessings, they are already abandoned. In this way, wouldn’t the sons get rid of their mothers after getting married.

Besides, she never opened that schoolbag!

Although Yu Yue locked the door, he could still hear Wu Yinghua crying and he was so angry that he struck the bed. He glanced at the envelope he threw on the bed and wanted to tear it apart.

He thought about it so hard, ah, blame it all on Ji Rang!

However, he was entrusted with the envelope and did not damage it, instead he stuffed it back into his bag.

By eight o’clock, the door was knocked softly and he knew it was Qi Ying. Yu Yue opened the door a crack, and Qi Ying stoof outside with hot food and handed it to him.

“My mom?”

Qi Ying said silently, “Sleeping.”

Actually, she wasn’t sleeping. The meals were still freshly heated by Wu Yinghua, Qi Ying had just brought them over.

Yu Yue’s stomach had long been singing over its emptiness, and he took the bowl and started eating madly. Yu Cheng slipped out and inquired a few things, returned to the house and said to Wu Yinghua: “What do you think of growing boys? They are changing and doing a lot of things.”

Qu Yinghua had been contemplating in bed. After a few hours, her anger was already gone, she only snorted and said nothing.

The next morning, Wu Yinghua went to wake up Yu Yue as usual.

Breakfast was ready.

Yu Yue was a little awkward. He ate the tomato and egg noodles that his mother had made in the morning and greeted before leaving: “Mom, I’m leaving.”

“Do you have your bus card? Keys? Wait a moment, your collar is turned inside out.”

She lingered as usual, unchanged.

Mothers and their children can’t have a feud longer than a night.

After getting on the bus, Yu Yue had already forgotten last night’s farce, and he began to think about how to transfer the envelope to Ji Rang.

The easiest way was of course to let Qi Ying give it to hhim, but how can he let his sister take the initiative to contact Ji Rang?!

Dangerous things must be dealt with by himself.

Alas, if he knew it was going to be this troublesome, he wouldn’t have accepted the letter the day before.

It really made him feel faint.

Thinking about it all the way to school, Yu Yue felt that the safest way was to secretly place it and avoid contact with Ji Rang. After all, he had just clashed with Qu Dazhuang’s group the day before.

Yu Yue immediately sent a message to Yang Xinyuan to ask him if there were any PE classes for class 2 and 9 today. And threatened that if the information was wrong again, while Yang Xinyuan was sleeping, Yu Yue would hack him and disband all his QQ groups.

Yang Xinyuan was so frightened that he sent Ji Rang’s class schedule directly.

There really was a physical education class, for the third period in the morning.

Yu Yue was full of confidence.

After arriving at school, Qi Ying separated from him. After entering her classroom, most of the other classmates had arrived. There were those chatting and also some rushing to finish homework. She took off her schoolbad and was putting books in her desk when she felt something blocking it.

Qi Ying reached and touched, feeling two cool boxes.

Taking them out curiously, it was a piece of mango mousse and a piece of matcha cake.

She didn’t know when they were put in her desk, but the surface of the box was slightly condensed with water and was still cool to the touch.

She blinked as she held the box and smiled sweetly at the corner of her lips.

After the second less, Yu Yue pretended to go to the bathroom and ran to the second floor. After passing through the ninth class, he saw that the class was almost empty. There were still a few students packing who seemed to be leaving soon.

He knew Ji Rang sat in the last row by the window.

When the last students left, he slid in through the back door and went straight to Ji Rang’s seat.

There was nothing on the desk or inside the desk. He pulled the envelope out of his trouser pocket and shoved it carefully into the desk.

Done, he had a relieved smile on his face and turned to leave.

Looking up, two girls stood hand in hand at the back door of the classroom, staring at him dumbfounded.

Yu Yue ran and ran, but did not forget to cover his face with his hands as he ran.

In the morning, news spread all of Haicheng First High School. There was a boy who wrote Ji Rang a love letter, still a freshman in high school.

Yu Yue: …

In the ninth classroom, Ji Rang, who was sweating after taking a PE class. sat in his seat, leaning on the chair legs, and looked at the letter on his desk with complicated eyes.

A few people around stared and Qu Dazhuang begged, “Let me open it! I haven’t received a love letter from a boy yet. What is it like?”

Liu Haiyang retorted: “You haven’t even received a girl’s love letter!”

Ji Rang laughed and picked up the enveloped, wanting to tear it immediately. It felt strange when he touched it though, not like a letter.

He opened it casually and squinted inside.

After seeing what it was, the careless expression suddenly changed.

The surrounding people shivered.

Ji Rang’s face was somber and he stretched his thin lips into a line. He squeezed the envelope and left the classroom without saying a word.

As soon as Qi Ying reached the corridor, she saw Ji Rang stepping out from the back door of the classroom, heading upstairs. His long-legged steps were large, and one of his steps could go up two steps, but Qi Ying couldn’t do that. She had to trot to keep up.

Climbing three flights of stairs, she was breathless.

Ji Rang didn’t know there was someone behind him. At first he thought they were also going upstairs and he was too lazy to look back. Along the way to the rooftop, the slightly panting voice followed and he turned impatiently, seeing Qi Ying, who was walking a few steps behind, holding onto the railing.

His pupils opened, his fingers holding the envelope trembled, and he asked coldly, “What are you doing?”

Qi Ying looked at him eagerly.

She didn’t want to follow him in climbing such a tall building and she couldn’t catch up with him.

The bell rang sharply, and Ji Rang frowned, “Go back to class.”

Qi Ying slowed down for a while and finally didn’t pant as hard, she let go of the railing and went up.

Ji Rang gritted his teeth: “Go back to class, didn’t you hear me?”

Qi Ying reached the steps in front of him and looked up slightly. She was panting and her lips were red. He didn’t know if it was because she was sweating but Ji Rang felt that the light strawberry fragrance on her was more intense.

It annoyed him.

Qi Ying reached out her hand.

In the palm of her hand lied a strawberry-flavored fudge.

His heart beat twice, as if a drum was being hit, the feeling echoed back and forth in his body.

It took him a long time to get his voice back, “You followed me, just to give me this?”

She tilted her head and smiled sweetly at him, and her eyes seemed to be saying: Yeah.

Ji Rang stared at the strawberry candy.

Because her palms were sot hot, the sugar had melted and the sweet strawberry flavor had evaporated into the air.

He whispered, “I don’t like sugar.”

Her white palm revealed a light pink, her fingers were thin and while, the soft swirls of her fingertips could be seen.

After a long while, he reached his hand out, took the candy, ripped of wrapper, and put it in his mouth.

It was too sweet.

But somehow calmed his violent mood.

Qi Ying saw that he ate the sugar and her eyes were bent happily. She looked at her watch again and found that it was already class time. She opened her mouth, waved her hand, and turned around.

Ji Rang shouted, “Slow down!”

The clatter of footsteps quickly disappeared into the corridor and the surrounding sound was so quiet, that he only heard the sound of eating candy.

The door to the rooftop was locked but he had already made himself a key. He unlocked the door and the cool wind rushed by.

Ji Rang finished eating strawberry candy, rolled his tongue around in his mouth, then took out his phone calmly and called Ji Ran.

It soon connected, Ji Rang had not spoken yet when he asked, “What do you mean by this?”

Ji Ran was silent for a while and then said, “That photo has been kept in Uncle’s wallet.”

Ji Rang laughed wryly, sarcastically, “So? What do you want to prove? He misses the old days? Or is he just guilty?”

Ji Ran: “Don’t get angry at me, do you think I want to run this errand and tell you this? It’s just that none of the family can contact you. If you don’t want to come back, just let me tell them.”

Ji Rang said lightly, “I’m dead to the family.”

Ji Ran paused, but still couldn’t hold back, “A Rang, grandpa was unconscious again yesterday and he was calling your name when he woke up.”

There was a long silence on the phone, and Ji Ran thought he was gone. She tentatively said, “A Rang?”

After a long time, she heard a sneer on the phone, “Did you forget? He doesn’t recognize me.” He smiled lowly, “It’s your Ji family that doesn’t recognize me as a murderer.”

The breathing on the phone became thick. Ji Ran took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, “No one thinks you are…”

She didn’t finish talking but was interrupted by Ji Rang’s impatient cold voice, “Okay, don’t bother me with these things anymore.”

He hung up.

The strawberry taste in his mouth had already faded a lot, and the violent emotion that had been surpressed had surfaced again. Like a barbed hook, tearing his internal organs from the bottom up.

He squatted down slowly while holding the railing, and the wind on the rooftop blew at his loose school uniform. His voice was low, like he was speaking to himself, “I’ll slow down, just slow down.”

After a long time, he stood up.

Covering the pain and suffocation in his eyes, they only held indifference.

The teaching building was no empty. After 20 minutes of class had started, he didn’t shout a greeting and went straight through the back door of the classroom. The teacher who stood on the podium was furious, “Ji Rang! Don’t come in if you don’t want to go to class. You’re just affecting the other students who are listening to class.”

He turned a deaf ear and walked back to his seat without a word, and took out the high school math book from his bag.

The corners of the photo that had been pinched were flattened and clipped into the pages.

On that page, there was a girl with a ponytail and small strawberry.