CH 2

“Zhang Man, wake up, it’s the first day of school today, don’t be late for report.”

Zhang Man heard her mother Zhang Huifang’s voice and opened her eyes in a trance.

Her brain still needed a half-minute buffer to remind itself that she’d been reborn, nineteen years back.

She sat up in her bed and rolled up the curtains somewhat unskillfully. The warm summer sun outside had been bright in the morning, hitting her warmly and bringing every cell in her body to life.

This day was the fourth day of her rebirth and the first day of her high school admission. On this day, she would meet Li Wei who was still a teenager and become classmates with him.

Zhang Man rubbed her eyes and stared out the window at the scenery that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

She really came back, back to N City, back to the place where he was.

In her previous life since Li Wei’s death, it was as if she had become a different person. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep at night, and her entire body lost weight as if she was suffering from rapid dehydration.

The insomnia and nightmares that lasted for two whole months were so severe that she couldn’t go to class the next day.

So, she quit her job, carried a small suitcase, and traveled around by herself to try to change her mood. She didn’t expect to encounter a mudslide on the way back, and when she woke up, she found herself back at 16 years old, back in N-town, that small town full of camphor, nineteen years ago.

—

Zhang Man picked out the white dress in her closet and changed into it, fixing her hair slightly in front of the mirror. Blunt bangs and long straight black hair was a very common hairstyle for high school students in this era. The young girl in the mirror was slightly pale, her face was only palm-sized, and her eyes were large and a little awkward.

Her looks were perfectly inherited from her mother, Zhang Huifang, with a small white face and two dimples. This look was actually very sweet, but because Zhang Man didn’t like to smile, she always looked a bit gloomy.

Opening the door, Zhang Huifang is sitting on the sofa playing with her phone, and seeing her come out, she raised her eyes somewhat surprised.

“Oh Zhang Man, look at you ah! Didn’t you say you wouldn’t wear it to death when I bought it for you back then?”

Zhang Huifang looked enchanting in a beige knit wrap dress with delicate pearl earrings. This year she was thirty-five years old, exactly the same age as Zhang Man in her previous life. At this point in time, she has not yet experienced the painful and heartbreaking life that followed, and she is still the same bright and beautiful woman who loves to dress up.

In her youth, Zhang Huifang was a little-known resident bar singer in N City. She was bold, willful and in pursuit of the ultimate romance. She lived her life for love and had never thought about the simple necessities of life.

Frankly speaking, Zhang Man didn’t know who her father was, because Zhang Huifang never mentioned it. But ever since she can remember, Zhang Huifang has been changing boyfriends one after another, and has never married even at this age.

Zhang Man ignored her and went to the bathroom to wash up.

If you want to know a mother and daughter with the most opposite personalities in this world, she and Zhang Huifang must be on the list.

When Zhang Huifang was young, she was known as one of the city’s most beautiful and brightest. She is pretty, smart, and smiles at everyone she meets. She told Zhang Man that the people who used to chase her were lined up all along the street.

However, as soon as the feeling of love disappears, she will break up with them cleanly, without any compromise.

Zhang Man, however, is a person who has been introverted and reserved since childhood. She coldly watched Zhang Huifang bring back one boyfriend after another, and even worse, she did not believe as much in love.

Love is nothing but a front for lonely men and women.

She has always felt this way.

But it wasn’t until Li Wei’s death in her previous life that she realized that she and Zhang Huifang were essentially the same kind of people and she couldn’t accept it. Unfortunately, she showed that kind of passion and infatuation so quietly that even she herself didn’t notice it.

N City First High School was only ten minutes away from their home, Zhang Man took her breakfast and hurried downstairs, walking towards the school from her memories.

Many new students and parents have gathered under the freshman building, looking for their names or their children’s names against the class placement chart on the bulletin board.

Zhang Man didn’t need to look at the class placement chart and went straight up to the third floor, to the first class above. Her results in the High school exams were not bad, and she had gotten into the Science experiment class at the end of the crane, whereas Li Wei was the top student in the High school exams in N City this year.

Before she entered the door, she met several high school classmates she was familiar with from her previous life, and habitually wanted to greet them, but took her hand back.

Like him, none of them knew each other yet.

She stood in the doorway, took a deep breath, and walked in, looking straight into the corner at the back of the classroom where the window was.

The beige curtains fluttered with the morning breeze, and the sixteen-year-old, dressed in a simple, clean white T with a short, crisp haircut, was sitting in his regular seat, reading a book.

He looked too different in a group of jumpy and excited freshmen.

So quietly, with his head down, he exuded an overwhelming feeling of being alive, to the point that the one-meter area centered around him seemed to be in another world.

The side of his face was gilded with a warm yellow light from the soft sunrise, with a high forehead, a straight nose, pursed lips, and a hard Adam’s apple.

From top to bottom it’s like the lines were crafted to perfection.

Zhang Man stood in the doorway and watched for a full minute as she raised her hand to trace his backlit outline and grinned, her throat suddenly choking a little.

She actually saw him alive once again, not the cold corpse covered with a white cloth on the Weibo picture.

Remembering this day in her previous life, she came early and just happened to be sitting next to him. The teenager walked into the classroom and seemed to have already had a good look at that window seat, so she came over and asked if she could sit next to her.

At the thought of this, Zhang Man took a deep breath and walked towards him with a firm gaze.

It was the same opening statement from the first meeting, but this time she took the initiative: “Hello, classmate, may I sit next to you?”

Her voice shook a little and the smile on her lips was a little hard to read.

The young man looked up at her.

He had extremely good looking eyes that looked as if they hid the sea and stars, they were so dazzling despite being in such bright sunlight.

His gaze lingered briefly on her face, nodding gently and moving the spread out book in his direction, freeing the entire tabletop for her.

His fingers were clean and long, and the book he held in his hand was wrapped in a dark green paper cover with neat edges and corners.

Zhang Man was relieved to see him nodding his head in agreement and fought with all her strength to resist the urge to immediately go forward and hug him. She put down her bag and hung it on the back of the chair and sat down beside him.

“Classmate, my name is Zhang Man, what is your …… name?”

He was probably too engrossed in his reading to pay attention to her.

So Zhang Man took it upon herself to take the book he was holding and turned it to the first page. It was a textbook of “Quantum Mechanics”. Underneath the title of the book, he wrote his name in a dark blue ink.

Zhang Man stretched out her index finger, dabbed at his neat and beautiful handwriting, and read out with a slight pause,

“Li... Wei.”

She said and repeated her words, “Li Wei, your name is nice to hear.”

Li Wei, Li Wei. This name that had been recited a thousand times in her dreams and hidden in her heart for more than ten years, she could finally say it righteously.

The young man frowned because of her abrupt behavior, but returned to his previous expressionless face after a moment, nodded slightly at her, and continued to read the book.

It was written all over his face that he didn’t want to talk to her anymore.

Zhang Man let out a soft sigh of relief, she had expected this situation.

He had always been a reclusive and difficult person, making a world of his own, alienating himself from all his peers around him.

Although she and Li Wei were also at the same table in her previous life, they were both dull and used to being quiet, so the first semester was so estranged that they were like two strangers, so much so that she really didn’t know when exactly he had fallen in love with her.

But it didn’t matter, this could be done slowly, she had plenty of time and energy.

……

In N City, The First High School is quite unique in that there is no military training for freshmen, and military training is before the start of the sophomore year. So after reporting, school officially started.

After 9 o’clock, class teacher Liu Zhijun came in, and he ordered a few random boys to go downstairs to carry out the books in the textbook department, including Li Wei.

“The tall boy in his white clothes over there by the window, go downstairs and bring the English books and listening materials.”

The young man put down the book in his hand, nodded his head and stood up, looking at Zhang Man.

Zhang Man immediately understood and moved her chair forward to give him easy access to get out.

After about ten minutes, the students who had gotten the teaching materials came back one after another, but Li Wei never came back.

Zhang Man stared at the back door of the classroom for several minutes without seeing anyone. Then she remembered something in her mind, like this time when he went to bring the books, Li Wei came back with a grim face, and then took more than a week’s leave.

She had even forgotten about it before, what had happened to him downstairs at this time in his previous life? Something very bad must have happened that caused him to take a week off. At that time she didn’t know him well enough to pay too much attention to his whereabouts.

Zhang Man was somewhat panicked when she thought of this, and stood up abruptly.

The moment she stood up, she felt a little dizzy. She pressed her eyebrows to suppress the anxiety in her heart and strode towards the classroom door.

Perhaps the shadow left by Li Wei in her previous life was too heavy, so much so that as long as he was in a small situation, she would not be able to stop herself from imagining things.

Zhang Man ran down the stairs and saw the person in her heart as soon as she reached the stairs.

However, the scene in front of her made her heart thump in an instant.

The thing that made her uneasy has happened.