Don't underestimate the poor and elderly; I was thrilled to refuse the class beauty's adva

The provincial joint examination is scheduled for Thursday and Friday. The questions are set uniformly throughout the city, simulating the college entrance examination. Examination rooms are allocated according to the ranking of scores.

Zhang Yifan was in the first examination room, and Shen Zhiyi was also in the first examination room.

However, one was in the third position in the row by the window, and the other was in the fifth position in the row by the door, with a full four columns in between.

When Zhang Yifan entered the examination room, she was already sitting in her seat, looking down at her stationery: two black ballpoint pens, a 2B pencil, an eraser, and her admission ticket neatly placed in the upper right corner of the table.

As he walked past her, she glanced up at him, their eyes met briefly in the air, and then she lowered her head to continue fiddling with her pen, as if she hadn't seen anyone pass by.

The first exam was in Chinese.

The essay prompt was about the dialectical relationship between "fast and slow." After finishing it, Zhang Yifan felt that his writing was alright, but he didn't think much about it.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the exam, he packed up his stationery and walked out of the exam room. The corridor was full of examinees. Some were staring blankly at the tiles on the wall, some were comparing answers with their classmates, and some were covering their ears and shouting, "Don't tell me the answers, I need to keep my composure."

Zong Wen ran downstairs, clutching a bottle of mineral water, the cap still unscrewed. He rushed up to Zhang Yifan and demanded, "What's the topic of the essay? Did I go off-topic?"

"A composition based on given material, about fast and slow."

"Fast and slow?" Zong Wen paused for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "I wrote 'slow and steady wins the race'! That should be related, right?"

"Closely related".

"That's good, that's good. What did the school beauty write?"

"have no idea."

"Didn't you ask her?"

"Let's talk about it after the exam."

"Didn't you two make a bet? Aren't you concerned about how she did on the exam?"

"Let's talk about it after the exam."

Zhang Yifan unscrewed the thermos and took a sip of water.

"You—"

Zongwen slammed the mineral water bottle against the railing, unscrewed the cap, took two big gulps, and then wiped the water from the corner of his mouth.

"Okay, if you don't want to ask me, I'll ask for you. Anyway, I know people in their class, I'll ask around later."

Zhang Yifan ignored him.

We ate lunch in the cafeteria. The new cafeteria's food has completely gotten rid of steel wool and insects. The lion's head meatballs are still solid, and the vegetables are still green.

Zong Wen sat down opposite Zhang Yifan with his plate, shoveling rice into his mouth while rambling on about whether to choose B or C for the reading comprehension question from that morning.

Guo Hao sat next to him, chopsticks holding braised pork, and after listening for a while, he interjected, "How come you two are more clingy than when you're dating, even when you're taking an exam?"

Zong Wen almost choked on his food, coughing several times before recovering. Then he pointed at Guo Hao with his chopsticks and said, "It's not that the two of us are clingy, it's that Yifan is clingy with the school beauty. I'm just a bystander."

Guo Hao glanced at Zhang Yifan, adjusted his glasses, and wisely refrained from replying.

I have a math exam this afternoon.

The only sounds in the exam room were the scratching of pens on answer sheets and the rustling of papers being turned.

When Zhang Yifan finished the last big question, he had fifteen minutes left. He checked his answer from beginning to end, then put down his pen and stretched his wrists.

He glanced towards the door and saw Shen Zhiyi with her head down, rapidly calculating something on a draft paper, her brows slightly furrowed, the tip of her pen almost tearing the paper.

She has this habit: when she encounters a difficult problem, she will fill up the draft paper with notes and push it to the bottom step by step, never skipping steps.

He beat her by three points in the monthly exam during their first year of high school. Later, he heard from her classmates that she locked herself in the classroom and spent the entire self-study period correcting her mistakes on the test.

From that moment on, he knew that this girl wouldn't leave herself any way out once she got serious.

The bell rang for the papers to be handed in.

Shen Zhiyi put down her pen, rubbed her wrist, and stood up to pack her things.

Zhang Yifan hesitated for a moment, but still didn't go over.

He walked out of the examination room, leaned against the wall in the corridor, and took out his phone.

Sure enough, the text message arrived in less than two minutes.

"Did you solve the second part of the last big question?"

Zhang Yifan typed with his head down: "It's done. The auxiliary line is drawn on the AC side using the vector method."

"Me too."

Shen Zhiyi replied instantly.

What did you choose for question 12 in the multiple-choice section?

"D".

"Me too."

Zhang Yifan couldn't help but smile when he saw two consecutive "Me too" messages on the screen.

These two words are probably Shen Zhiyi's gentlest way of expressing herself.

He beat her that time in the first year of high school. The next day, they bumped into each other in the hallway. She gave him the same look, said, "I'll win next time," and left.

He didn't understand at the time, but it wasn't until the system announced that she had waited for decades that he realized what had happened.

When she says "next time," she's never just referring to exams.

"Could you two add each other on WeChat?"

Zong Wen's voice exploded behind him like a depth charge.

Zhang Yifan's hand trembled and he almost threw his phone away. He turned around and saw that Zong Wen had come out of the examination room at some point and was standing behind him, his neck stretched longer than a giraffe's, his eyes staring straight at his phone screen.

"Sending text messages every day, isn't that a waste of phone credit? Who still uses text messaging these days? My mom and I both use WeChat! Are you two living in the flip phone era? You send one and she sends one, how much will your phone bill be in a month? Your phone plan costs 10 cents per text message, do the math yourself, sending several a day, how many tea eggs could you buy in a month?"

"She sent the text message first."

"You just go along with her when she texts you? Why don't you add her on WeChat? You're a grown man, what's wrong with adding someone on WeChat? It's a simple matter of a couple of taps, is it harder than solving a difficult math problem?"

"Short messages are fine."

"What's so great about it? You can't send emojis in text messages."

Zong Wen took out his phone, opened WeChat, and shoved the screen into Zhang Yifan's face.

"Look, a chat without emojis is soulless! Your chat history with the school beauty looks like two old cadres discussing work!"

Zhang Yifan pushed his hand away.

While Zongwen went to the restroom, he leaned against the wall, took out his phone, opened WeChat, and entered Shen Zhiyi's phone number in the search bar.

The search result displays an avatar.

The sky was a pure blue, clean and clear. There were no selfies, no scenery, just a vast expanse of blue.

Her WeChat name is simply "Shen Zhiyi," without any extra embellishments, just like the person she is.

He stared at the profile picture for two seconds, then clicked "add".

The verification message is blank.

After sending the message, he put his phone in his pocket.

My heart seems to be beating a little faster than before, but I can't quite put my finger on why.

When he was pursuing Lin Wanqing before, he never felt this way when he added her on WeChat. Back then, he just felt that he had to add her so that they could chat and he could ask her out.

But things are different now.

He knew perfectly well that the girl liked him, but he was still nervous.

It's not that I'm afraid she won't approve, it's that I'm afraid things will change once she does.

My phone vibrated.

Shen Zhiyi has accepted your friend request. You can start chatting now.