Chapter 121: Not qualified to take a step forward, unwilling to take a step back

Xie Qin: "Depends on your performance."

After watching the movie, the two went to eat something.

Before the dormitory closed, Xie Qin sent her back.

In the dormitory, Zhao Zhouyuan looked at the message sent on her phone, which had turned into a red exclamation mark. Until the sound of the lock turning at the door came, she reacted quickly, wiped the wetness in her eyes with the back of her hand, got up, and went into the bathroom.

Shen Li walked in, and the bathroom door was just closed, so she didn't see what Zhao Zhouyuan looked like at this moment.

Now Shen Li's mind was full of the non-negotiable conditions Xie Qin had proposed to her. From the pile of books standing on the table, she found the past exam papers she hadn't finished writing.

She already knew how to do these problems; it was just that during the period when school started, she felt she had nothing to do, so she did some problems to kill time.

In the past, when she was in her first year of high school, Shen Li almost had no time to breathe. Only after coming here did her tense nerves have some relaxation.

Now that she was being urged by Xie Qin, Shen Li didn't seem as resistant as she had imagined.

She took her phone out of her bag and charged it for a few minutes. After the phone turned on, she saw the message sent by Zhang Zixin.

Zhang Zixin: Not coming back tonight.

Shen Li replied to her: Okay.

In the bathroom, Zhao Zhouyuan washed her face with cold water. After the redness and swelling of her eyes disappeared, she looked at herself in the mirror: her slightly puffy face, dry skin, and clearly visible pores. Her nose wasn't high enough, and her eyes weren't big enough. During this time, in order to prepare for the preliminary round of the mathematics competition, she not only had to attend evening self-study but also get up earlier than anyone else to grind through problems, and her complexion had visibly withered, with a patch of blue under her eyes.

The sourness and jealousy rising in her heart... these negative emotions were torturing her every moment, almost eroding her into something not human.

Clearly, she was the one who had him in her heart first, the one who secretly liked him first, the one who approached him cautiously first, but in the end, she could only stand in place, watching him run toward someone else again and again.

She once thought that as long as she came, there would be countless possibilities by his side, but later she realized that the inferiority in her heart made her feel ugly, not even qualified to get close to him.

She had a "secret" that no one knew.

Actually, she had liked Xie Qin a long time ago.

In her second year of middle school, because of taking medicine, she became a 180-pound fat girl. Her loose school uniform jacket couldn't even wrap around her slightly bloated figure. Because she was mocked and bullied, she could only hide in the corner of the playground and cry secretly.

At the time, it was still a cloudy day, and there was no one on the playground, only the dull sound of a basketball hitting the ground not far away.

She only cared about lowering her head and wiping her tears.

Until a basketball rolled to her feet and stopped.

Zhao Zhouyuan's body stiffened suddenly, and she subconsciously looked up. In the blur, she saw an upright figure standing not far away.

It was Xie Qin.

When he was in high school, he was a maverick; everyone else wore school uniforms, but only he didn't.

He was the school boss, and everyone in the class and school was afraid of him.

Xie Qin stood lazily and whistled at her: "Classmate, pick up the ball."

She was most afraid of being seen in her miserable and bloated state, especially by someone as dazzling as Xie Qin.

After her tears were dried by the wind, she stood up hesitantly, held the ball firmly, walked to his side, and gave it to him.

Xie Qin took the basketball, and his fingertips inadvertently caught a glimpse of her red-rimmed eyes and the tear stains on her face. His eyebrows raised slightly: "Why are you crying? If I didn't know better, I'd think I did something to you."

Because of her inferiority, Zhao Zhouyuan didn't dare to look into his eyes: "No... nothing."

Xie Qin tilted his head, his eyes puzzled, as if she looked familiar to him: "Are you... in our class?"

She nodded.

"Okay." Xie Qin nodded thoughtfully, and then took the ball from her hand.

Xu Zhouyuan: "Brother Qin, hurry over, I got something good."

Xie Qin looked at her one last time before turning to leave.

Zhao Zhouyuan still stood in place, not moving, looking at that unreachable, dazzling back. The casual question was like a small stone thrown into a calm, waveless lake, stirring up layers of ripples.

And after that day, the voices in the class became a little smaller.

Zhao Zhouyuan was no longer bullied.

Until after the second semester of her second year of high school, because of her father's job transfer, she had to transfer schools. That seed of secret love was quietly planted, but before it could sprout, it ended without a disease.

No one knew about this cautious liking except herself.

Later, she went to school in another city and had always been paying attention to his every move in Wuchuan. Sometimes, wanting to see him, she would buy a high-speed rail ticket, a distance of more than 600 kilometers from Sinan to Wuchuan, traveling back and forth.

In order to get close to him, she inquired about the games he liked, secretly registered an account, practiced desperately, and reached the first place on the national pharmacist ranking, finally having a legitimate reason to get close to him.

This was also the closest she had ever been to him.

After she went to school in Sinan City.

Over that year, she desperately lost weight and came to his city again.

Came to his school.

But she just wanted to be a little closer to him.

These four years of secret love became a secret she never dared to speak out.

She knew she was crazy.

But what could she do...

She just couldn't control her heart and fell in love with someone who was impossible forever.

Clearly knowing there would be no result, she still had to fly toward the fire like a moth.

Not qualified to take a step forward, unwilling to take a step back.

The back-and-forth pulling emotions controlled and tortured her.

Xie Qin being with Shen Li was never the last straw that broke her; it was... that even the closest way she had to get close to him was stripped away. This kind of peeling pain seemed to make her unable to breathe.

The cold water made her a bit more sober.

She suppressed the last bit of surging emotion in her heart.

She opened the bathroom door and looked at the slender figure sitting straight under the bed. Her heart felt like it was being gently gripped—not painful, but a dull ache came.

She wiped her face with a tissue, pretended to be indifferent, walked to Shen Li's side, and dropped a sentence: "Are you with Xie Qin?"

Shen Li moved away from the phone screen and responded softly while looking at her: "Yeah."

The words she originally wanted to ask somehow changed when they reached her lips: "Don't you hate him? How come you agreed to him again?"

By the time she realized it, it was already too late. Her hand at her side gripped her hem tightly.

When Shen Li thought of him, her mouth curled slightly: "He... is very good. Just looks a bit fierce."

"I don't hate him anymore."

Hearing this, it was like a thorn stuck in her chest. "So... did you let him delete me, right?" Zhao Zhouyuan's words carried a hint of imperceptible choking.

Shen Li raised her head and looked at her calmly.

Zhao Zhouyuan met that flawless, beautiful, and stunning face, and a sense of misery and inferiority surged into her heart.

Yes, she wasn't beautiful enough, and her grades weren't outstanding.

Besides hiding in a dark corner and coveting someone she knew didn't belong to her, what qualification did she have to say these things to her?

If she had to blame someone, she should blame herself for not being as beautiful as her.

Just for this point, she would never be able to compare.

"Don't misunderstand, I don't mean anything else. Today, you and Xie Qin skipped class, and the head teacher came to ask me. I sent him a message, but he didn't reply. In the future, if there's anything in class, he deleted me, and I won't be able to notify you in time."

So that's it.

Shen Li reacted and told her: "Call him..." ===== CHAPTER 122 =====