Daydreaming about Me

Chapter 34

Wen Zihui indeed started to dislike Lin Yujing. Both were the beauties of their class, and among beautiful girls, it’s always been the same since ancient times: either they become good friends or class enemies.

Initially, Wen Zihui admired the new classmate who managed to sit with Shen Juan on the first day of school. Yet, this admiration was tinged with subtle jealousy. At sixteen or seventeen, although they don’t say it aloud, girls often feel a bit envious of someone who gets to sit next to a handsome guy. Despite Shen Juan’s somewhat dark past, most girls at this age tend to like bad boys. The school grass’s dark history had transformed him into a school bully, making him even more attractive.

Wen Zihui was always very active in various events. She was elected as the literary committee member at the beginning of the term. She had participated in last year’s singing competition, performed a solo dance at the Christmas party, and been the sign holder for the sports meet. So when Liu Fujian mentioned the sports meet this year, her friends assumed it would be her again. However, Liu Fujian chose Lin Yujing instead.

Wen Zihui felt embarrassed and humiliated. Lin Yujing initially declined but later accepted without knowing why. If she wanted to participate, she should have accepted

from the start, Wen Zihui thought. Now, every time she saw Lin Yujing, she found her increasingly unpleasant, but she only intended to block her path and say a few words, not cause her to fall.

Everyone was moving up, while Lin Yujing was the only one going down. Wen Zihui didn’t notice the bottle lying beside them and didn’t expect Lin Yujing to fall down the steps after just a light bump.

Wen Zihui panicked a bit, hearing a solid “thud” as Lin Yujing fell, which even sounded painful. Before she could react, Shen Juan pulled her aside by the arm and squatted in front of Lin Yujing. His grip was strong, and her arm hurt, but Wen Zihui could only stand aside, dumbfounded, looking at Lin Yujing on the ground. She saw a long scratch on Lin Yujing’s calf, bleeding and looking quite alarming.

Wen Zihui turned pale with fear. Liu Fujian rushed over from the other side, asking, “What’s going on? Why is everyone gathered here?” He approached, “Shen Juan, what are you doing squatting there? Where’s your uniform?”

Without looking back, a classmate replied, “Brother Jiang! Lin Yujing fell.”

Liu Fujian hurried over, asking, “Where did she fall? Is she hurt? Oh no, quickly, go to the school infirmary.”

Usually, both the class teacher and assistant teacher are present during the sports meet, but the assistant teacher hadn’t arrived yet, leaving Liu Fujian alone. He looked around the playground, not seeing Wang Konglong, and instructed, “Don’t go by yourself. Shen Juan, carry her down.”

Lin Yujing looked up at him, with all her classmates watching. She didn’t want to seem overly delicate. “No need,” she said. “I can go down by myself.”

Shen Juan paused, looking down, and asked, “Can you stand?”

He held the ends of the uniform, appearing as if he were embracing her from the front.

“I can,” she said, pressing her lips together, placing her hand on his arm, and leaning forward to whisper in his ear, “Just help me a bit.”

Shen Juan was wearing a white shirt under his uniform. Lin Yujing’s hand left a patch of blood on his arm, looking quite frightening. Liu Fujian sighed again upon seeing the blood on her leg.

Shen Juan zipped up her uniform from the back, helped her stand, and glanced down. “So many steps. Are you planning to hop down on one foot?”

Lin Yujing leaned her forehead against his collarbone, her voice faint with pain, but she still smiled. “You can be my crutch.”

“I could be your wheelchair,” Shen Juan replied, “but you don’t want that.”

They slowly descended step by step, speaking in low voices, unclear to those around them. Meanwhile, the 100-meter men’s race was starting its registration on the track.

Short-distance runners from various classes watched as Lin Yujing and Shen Juan walked away, exiting the stadium through Gate 3.

The school infirmary was a short walk from the stadium. Once out of sight, Shen Juan hooked her arm around his neck and carried her in his arms. “At your speed, the sports meet will be over by the time we get there.”

Lin Yujing didn’t act coy anymore. She raised her arms to encircle his neck. After walking for a while, she asked, “Hey, does this count as a wheelchair? I think it’s not quite accurate.”

“What would be accurate?” Shen Juan asked, holding the hem of the uniform jacket over her thighs.

Lin Yujing thought for a moment. “A crane?”

“…”

Shen Juan glanced down at her.

The girl nestled in his arms, trying to maintain a nonchalant demeanor, but she looked rather dejected, like an injured little fox.

“Alright,” Shen Juan said. “A crane it is.”

The school infirmary, located near the dormitory, was a small, standalone house. The door was unlocked, but no one was inside. There were four beds, each separated by white curtains.

Shen Juan placed her on the bed in the corner. Lin Yujing looked around and said, “Shall we wait a bit?”

Shen Juan had already pushed the medical cart by the window over. Glancing at her leg, he suddenly recalled a phrase from a few months ago by He Songnan.

— “Those legs could last you a year, Master Juan.”

Lin Yujing’s legs were indeed beautiful, white like delicate cream cheese, straight and slender, so perfect they seemed artificial, without a single flaw. The scratch on the side of her calf made it even more striking. Shen Juan sat at the end of the bed, holding her ankle in one hand and lifting it slightly, while using the other hand to remove her shoe. She must have scraped the step when she slipped. The concrete steps were sharp-edged, and there was a wound a palm’s length from her ankle bone to the lower half of her calf. The wound was mixed with fine dust and gravel, the blood semi-coagulated, and the blood had soaked her sock. Shen Juan took off her sock, revealing her white, tender foot. Lin Yujing felt an indescribable discomfort and reflexively pulled her foot, but it didn’t move.

Shen Juan opened a glass bottle containing alcohol-soaked cotton and didn’t look back, saying, “Don’t move.” She stopped moving. Lin Yujing felt her ears heat up, supporting herself with her hands on the infirmary bed, she scooted her upper body back, only to press against a sore spot on her palm, causing a sharp pain.

Shen Juan was holding tweezers, using the alcohol cotton to clean the dust and gravel from the wound on her leg. The double pain made her hiss, her toes curling, and her arms went weak, causing her upper body to collapse onto the pillow in the school infirmary.

He looked up slightly, “Does it hurt?”

“Not at all, I don’t feel a thing.” Lin Yujing turned her head sideways, her face buried in the pillow, her voice muffled, “You’re quite skilled at this.”

She looked like a stubborn female warrior who would rather break than bend. Shen Juan nodded, wiping away a larger piece of gravel with the alcohol cotton.

Lin Yujing was in so much pain that she kept clutching the edge of the pillow, even her instep was tense. Shen Juan chuckled, “Little liar.”

She retorted, “This is called bravery. During the war of resistance, I would definitely be a heroine who wouldn’t fear any torture.”

“If all the heroines during the war were like you, we’d be doomed. You almost tripped walking on flat ground,” Shen Juan pulled the trash can closer with his foot, threw the blood-stained alcohol cotton into it, and replaced it with a clean one, “I only looked away for a second.”

“You talk like I’m always in your sight, Shen classmate, we only met at the start of the semester.” Lin Yujing reminded him, “For the past sixteen years, I didn’t even know your name.”

Shen Juan placed the tweezers into the tray, “Now you know.”

He suddenly looked up at her, “Remember it from now on too.”

When he said this, his voice was deep, calm, and prolonged.

Lin Yujing’s heartbeat inexplicably skipped a beat. She steadied herself, turned her head to look at him, and asked with a smile, “Hello, classmate. May I know your name?”

Shen Juan smirked, “Already forgot? Who begged me to be her ‘daddy’ at the start of the semester?”

Lin Yujing: “…”

Lin Yujing only had minor abrasions on her palms and calves. She initially thought she had sprained her ankle, but it turned out she hadn’t. After a while, the pain in her wrist and ankle subsided. Shen Juan was indeed skilled in handling wounds, and by the time the school doctor returned, he had almost finished. Lin Yujing lay there for a while, wearing Shen Juan’s school uniform as a dress, and went back to her dorm to change clothes.

The edge of her red dress was slightly torn. After changing, she jumped twice in the dorm to make sure there was no other discomfort, then slowly went downstairs towards the sports field.

She used to get beaten up frequently, so she didn’t care much about minor scrapes. Her skin healed quickly and would scab over in a few days.

When she returned to the gym at 10:30 AM, there was still over an hour before lunch break. Class 20 of the second year was fervently cheering, and the boys’ 200-meter runner, Wang Yiyang, was sprinting down the track.

Wang Yiyang had once bragged to Lin Yujing that in his 200-meter races, if he came in second, no one dared to claim first.

Lin Yujing remembered the scene of him charging into a group fight, shouting “Come hit me! Kill me!” and believed him, because not everyone had that kind of terrifying explosiveness.

But seeing Wang Yiyang run today, she almost laughed out loud.

He looked like a wild horse, taking big strides with his two hooves, leaping every few steps, staying airborne as if there were invisible obstacles in front of him.

It was a very standard and professional 110-meter hurdles running form.

Lin Yujing counted and found that he still managed to come in third.

It seemed there weren’t many fast runners at No. 8 High.

She laughed while walking towards Class 10’s area. Song Zhiming was beating the drum, stopped, and ran over, “Hey, Lin Yujing, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just scraped some skin, looks scary,” Lin Yujing waved her hand, looking around but didn’t see Shen Juan or Wen Zihui.

She hadn’t planned to ask, but as she turned her head, Song Zhiming leaned in with a knowing look, “Shen Juan just called Wen Zihui away.”

Lin Yujing paused.

Song Zhiming continued, “Judging by the look on the big guy’s face, Wen classmate is in for a bad time and is about to become the second oil painting hung on the wall by the big guy.”

Lin Yujing: “…”

Shen Juan was actually quite helpless at the moment.

He thought he had a pretty accurate self-assessment. He saw himself as a very easy- going, laid-back high school student. But because of an incident where he almost beat his foolish deskmate to death, he had been rumored to be violent and bloody, which was frustrating.

In reality, he was very reasonable and did not advocate solving problems with violence, especially when the person standing in front of him was a girl.

Normally, he wouldn’t want to interfere in matters between girls. Lin Yujing wasn’t the type to get bullied; no one knew better than Shen Juan about her combat prowess and her tough, unyielding nature. He knew she could handle things herself.

However, he couldn’t forget the sight of her gritting her teeth, claiming it didn’t hurt, her pale face buried in the pillow in the infirmary, her toes curled and gripping the edge of the pillow tightly.

That made it a bit hard for him to bear.

Shen Juan initially wanted to reason things out. But as soon as Wen Zihui followed him into the gymnasium, she started crying at the doorway.

The girl started with sobs and sniffles, which soon escalated into a loud, unrestrained wail, all the while apologizing, “Shen classmate, I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean it. I just wanted to bump into her. I didn’t expect her to fall… Waaah!”

She cried so miserably, seemingly sincere, making it hard to know how to respond “…”

Shen Juan stood leaning against the wall, hands in his pockets, looking at her indifferently, “Why did you bump into her?”

Wen Zihui wiped her tears with the sleeve of her school uniform, sniffed, and honestly said, “I was jealous because she’s pretty. I was supposed to hold the sign, but when she came, it became her job.” “…?”

Just because of that. Shen Juan suspected these girls might have some kind of mental issue.

He nodded, took out a cigarette from his pocket, bit down on it, and said lightly, “I don’t want to get involved in conflicts between you girls, but I can’t stand to see my deskmate suffer or be in pain. Go apologize to her. Whatever she decides, you follow. Once she forgives you, it’s over for me.”

Author’s Note:

Years later, Lin Yujing, lying in bed: “Weren’t you the one who couldn’t stand to see me in pain??????”

Shen Juan: “How many times do I have to say it, I’m a considerate and polite guy.” (blows smoke ring)