bookrebus Chapter 129 He'll probably like it.
Chapter 129 He'll probably like it.
When the midterm report cards were posted, the hallway was packed with people.
Song Huan didn't go to see it.
He leaned back in his chair, talking to Chen Xu.
Chen Xu held a piece of paper with a few lines of crooked writing on it. It was Song Huan's recipe for improving the seasoning.
Add more cumin, use coarse chili powder instead, and add a spoonful of sugar to the sauce.
Liu Wan has recovered from her illness and has returned to her stall at the school gate these past few days. Chen Xu often goes over to help her after school.
"You should try it," Song Huan said. "That's how the barbecue stall near the school gate is set up, and it does a great job."
Chen Xu nodded, folded the note, and stuffed it into his pocket.
Xiao Yunqing squeezed out of the crowd, her face flushed, and ran to Song Huan.
"Song Huan, you're number one!"
Song Huan turned and glanced at her. "What about you?"
She scratched her head, her voice lowered, "Tenth, I did poorly on this test."
Song Huan nodded without saying anything.
She also announced the rankings of the others: Chen Xu was eighth and Zhao Qihang was fifth.
After she finished reading, she stood there and scratched her finger on the edge of the table.
Okay, I'll just get the worst score on the test.
However, she quickly looked up again, seemingly not caring much.
As for grades, if you do poorly on a test, you can just take it again next time.
"I'm going to wash my face." She turned and walked towards the door.
Zhou Shan sat in front, watching her figure disappear around the corner of the corridor, then turned back to continue working on her problems.
The light was on in the restroom; I wonder who left it on in broad daylight.
Xiao Yunqing turned off the light, then pushed open the door to the cubicle, went inside, and closed the door.
Footsteps came from the doorway, and two people walked in, talking as they went.
The tap was turned on, and the water was gushing.
There weren't many people in the restroom, and although the two weren't talking loudly, every word they uttered reached Xiao Yunqing's ears.
"Don't you think Xiao Yunqing is quite strange?"
A voice said with a hint of a laugh, "She always wears a stiff high ponytail, never changes her hairstyle, and doesn't look like a girl at all."
"Yeah, right." Another voice chimed in, a bit shrill. "Her grades aren't top-notch, and she always acts so cold. I don't know what she's so arrogant about."
The tap was turned off, and there was a moment of silence.
"She keeps staring at Song Huan like she's possessive of her food. Song Huan is so outstanding, and she's always getting so close to her. Doesn't she even realize she's not good enough for her?"
"Her ponytail looks so tacky, nothing compares to our gentle and pretty style. Don't you think it's strange that she's standing next to Song Huan? It's like they're from two different worlds."
The two men chuckled and walked away.
The door closed, and the sound stopped.
The cubicle fell silent.
Xiao Yunqing leaned against the door panel; the wooden board was icy cold against her back.
She looked down at her hands, her fingers gripping the hem of her clothes tightly, her nails digging into her palms, leaving several white marks.
This wasn't the first time she'd heard people talking about her.
From childhood to adulthood, people have always said that she is aloof, unsociable, and arrogant because of her good grades.
She didn't care about any of that.
What she cared about was that sentence she just said.
She stood next to Song Huan, which looked strange.
It turns out that in other people's eyes, she was not good enough for him.
It's not that her grades or family background are unworthy; it's that she herself is unworthy.
Even her ponytail doesn't match it.
She raised her hand and touched the back of her head.
The hair tie was tied very tightly, and the ends of her hair hung down to her shoulders. She had been wearing her hair like this since kindergarten.
Song Huan never said it looked bad, and she never thought about changing it.
Every morning, I stand in front of the mirror, comb my hair, tie it up tightly, and flick it so that my ponytail sways.
She thought it was fine this way.
Clean, neat, won't obstruct the eyes, and won't droop onto the paper when writing.
Most importantly, Song Huan never said it wasn't good-looking.
But in other people's eyes, this is called being unsophisticated, rigid, and strange to stand next to.
She took her hand off her hair and clutched the hem of her clothes.
She doesn't think she's unsophisticated.
She was just used to it. She was used to her ponytail, used to zipping her school uniform all the way up, used to bringing him a bottle of milk every morning, used to standing next to him, and used to people saying she was aloof and unsociable, because she really didn't like talking to people she wasn't familiar with.
Her world was small, so small that it could only hold a few people, and the largest place in that world always belonged to him.
She doesn't care what others say about her.
But it can't be said that she doesn't deserve to stand next to him.
She couldn't stand those words.
After standing for a while, she loosened the hem of her dress and smoothed out the folds.
I pushed open the door and walked to the sink.
I turned on the tap, and the water splashed onto the back of my hand; it felt cool.
She bent down, washed her face, and dried it with a tissue.
When they returned to the classroom, Song Huan was talking to Chen Xu.
He was taken aback when he saw her come in with a bad expression.
"What's wrong?"
Xiao Yunqing sat down and opened her textbook.
"Nothing much."
Song Huan glanced at her.
She kept her head down, pen in hand, but didn't write a single word on the paper.
My inner thoughts drifted over, a jumbled mess, like a crumpled piece of paper.
He couldn't hear the complete sentences clearly, only catching a few words that floated up intermittently.
[Unworthy...]
[Standing next to him...]
[Ponytail...]
What is that?
Song Huan frowned.
What do you mean by "good enough" or "not good enough"? Who said she's not good enough for anyone?
He felt something was off and gave Zhou Shan a look.
Zhou Shan immediately turned around and leaned on Xiao Yunqing's desk. "Yunqing, have you previewed the next math class?"
"Um."
"I don't quite understand that example problem, could you explain it to me?"
Xiao Yunqing looked up at her, then turned to that page in her textbook.
He spoke a couple of sentences, his voice flat and without much variation.
Zhou Shan listened, nodded, and then asked a few more questions.
Xiao Yunqing answered, but said very little, and then stopped talking.
Zhou Shan turned back and shook her head at Song Huan.
Song Huan looked at Xiao Yunqing's profile. She was writing with her head down, her ponytail hanging over her shoulder, the ends of her hair slightly split.
She writes very quickly, the pen tip making a scratching sound, one line after another.
I wrote on and off today, and I spent ages looking at the options for a multiple-choice question but still couldn't fill it in.
"Xiao Yunqing," he said.
"Um?"
"Is it because of your grades?"
"no."
"What happened?"
"Nothing much."
Song Huan paused for a moment.
He heard her inner voice resurface, this time more clearly. It wasn't a complete sentence, but fragments wrapped in emotion, like dandelion seeds scattered by the wind—you couldn't grasp them, but they clung to your skin, causing an itchy, painful sensation.
They said it looked strange of me standing next to him...
[What's strange about it? I've been standing here for so many years...]
[Song Huan never said it wasn't pretty...]
[But is what they're saying true...?]
Song Huan leaned back in his chair, looking at her profile.
He roughly guessed what had happened and what someone had said behind his back.
She wouldn't say, and he couldn't force her to.
But he couldn't do nothing; he couldn't just watch her swallow those words alone, unable to process them, letting them fester in her heart.
"Xiao Yunqing".
"Um?"
Do you know when I first noticed your hair?
Her pen stopped.
"On your first day of kindergarten, you tied your hair in a ponytail, and I thought it looked like a little tail, which was quite cute."
He leaned back in his chair and said, "What others say doesn't matter. What I think looks good is what truly matters."
Xiao Yunqing held the pen, but the multiple-choice questions on the paper were still blank.
But her lips twitched slightly, very lightly, like a breath on a window in winter, melting only a small patch of frost, but it did melt.
"When did you become so good at sweet-talking people?" The voice was muffled.
"I learned that from you; don't you always try to please me?"
She didn't reply.
But her inner voice drifted over again, this time not as fragments, but as a complete, soft sentence.
He said it looked good.
Song Huan looked away and said nothing more.
Xiao Yunqing hadn't said much all morning, but she was different from before.
I didn't want to talk about it before, but now I don't know how to say it.
The knot in her heart wasn't completely untied, but his words were like a hand gently resting on it, not pulling, just leaving it there, telling her: Here you are, you can't run away.
When get out of class ended, she drew a little pig on the draft paper, then crossed it out.
Zhao Qihang came over to talk to her, and she responded with a few words, saying a few more than before.
After evening self-study, the two walked home.
The streetlights were on, casting a dim yellow light on the road.
Xiao Yunqing walked ahead, her steps very slow.
Song Huan followed behind, and after walking for a while, she spoke.
"Still thinking about what happened during the day?"
"No." She paused. "I was thinking, maybe I should get a new hairstyle."
Song Huan watched her retreating figure.
Why?
"For no particular reason, I just want to change it."
"Do you like ponytails?"
She didn't say anything.
After a while, she said, "I like it, but it's been like this since kindergarten, and it hasn't changed. Maybe it would be better if it were different."
Song Huan walked to her side.
"You can change it if you want, but remember, you're changing your hairstyle because you want to, not because someone else made you. You look great with a ponytail, and you'll look good with other styles too. It doesn't matter what others say."
Xiao Yunqing walked with her head down, the streetlights casting long shadows of her.
She nodded slightly, a very small gesture, but he noticed it.
When she got to her building, she stopped.
"Go back now, don't bother seeing me off."
"Um."
She turned and went into the building.
The voice-activated light came on, and light leaked out from the door. The light went up floor by floor, until it reached the fourth floor, where it stopped.
Song Huan stood downstairs, not leaving immediately.
He knew she had heard some things she shouldn't have heard today.
But he also knew that there were some things she had to figure out for herself.
She wasn't insecure; she just cared too much.
When she was bothered by others saying that the two of them were not a good match, she wanted to change herself into a different person.
But he wanted her to know that she didn't need to change.
It was never surprising that she stood next to him.
The lights on the fourth floor went out.
Xiao Yunqing stood at her door, the key clutched in her hand, but didn't open it.
She leaned against the door and stood there for a few seconds.
My mind was a mess. The words from the bathroom during the day kept echoing in my head, and Song Huan's words were also ringing out. The two voices were mixed together, and I couldn't tell which one was louder.
She does like ponytails; she's liked them since she was little.
Every morning when she ties her hair up, she flicks it in front of the mirror, and her ponytail sways. She thinks it's nice that way.
But other people say it doesn't look good.
People said it was strange that she was standing next to him.
Perhaps if I changed my hairstyle, it wouldn't look strange.
Perhaps if I changed my appearance, no one would gossip.
It's not that she lacks self-confidence.
She just didn't want people to say she wasn't worthy to stand next to him.
She turned and went downstairs, her footsteps echoing in the stairwell, the motion-activated lights turning on one floor at a time.
There's a barbershop at the entrance of the residential area, its lightbox still on, and its red, blue, and white pillars spinning around.
A sign on the glass door reads: "Haircut 3 yuan, wash, cut and blow-dry."
She pushed the door open and went in.
The owner was a middle-aged man wearing an apron, sweeping the floor.
Hearing the door open, I looked up. "A haircut?"
"Okay." She put her schoolbag on the chair. "Shorten it."
The shop owner looked at her hair. "You've had this ponytail for a long time, haven't you? Your hair is in great condition."
Xiao Yunqing sat down in the chair and looked at herself in the mirror.
A ponytail, a school uniform, and a touch of coolness still clinging to her eyelashes from outside.
She reached out and untied the hair tie, letting her hair fall down to her shoulders. It was black and shiny, with the ends curled inwards slightly.
She rarely lets her hair down, only looking at herself in the mirror a few times after showering and drying it.
Song Huan met you once and said, "You look pretty good with your hair down."
Just once.
But she remembered it for a long time.
"How much should I cut?"
"Right to the ear." She gestured with her hand to indicate the position below her ear.
The shop owner was taken aback. "So short? You've been growing your hair for a long time, it's a shame to cut it."
"Go ahead and cut it."
The boss didn't say anything more.
Wrap the apron around your head, pick up the scissors, comb your hair and separate it into sections.
When the first cut was made, the hair broke off and fell to the ground, floating lightly.
She watched the hair fall out of her head in the mirror.
Bundles of them were piled on the ground, black, with a dark brown sheen under the light.
She remembered her first day of kindergarten, when her mother tied her hair into two little buns and said, "Our little cloud is so pretty."
She recalled her first day of elementary school when she learned to tie her hair into a ponytail by herself. Her ponytail was crooked and messy, and Song Huan said, "You have a little tail on your head."
She remembered her first day of junior high school. She walked into the classroom with her hair in a high ponytail and immediately looked for him.
Thinking back to today, someone said that her ponytail looked so outdated and that it looked strange standing next to him.
I also remember him leaning back in his chair and saying, "What I think looks good is what truly looks good."
The scissors made a snip-snip sound.
The hair was cut from the shoulders to the ears, and from the ears to the chin.
She didn't cry.
She just felt it was a little light, as if something was missing.
The boss blew away the stray hairs and untied the apron.
"Okay, take a look."
Xiao Yunqing stood up and looked in the mirror.
Short hair, ear-length, with bangs just reaching her eyebrows.
The face is visible, and so are the ears.
Her neck felt cool; without the weight of the ponytail, she raised her hand to touch it, her fingertips brushing against the ends of her hair—it was empty.
She tilted her head slightly, and her hair moved gently, as if she were taking off a suit of armor she had worn for many years.
But the person in the mirror hasn't changed.
The face was still the same face, the white school uniform, the short black hair, and the eyes were still the same eyes.
She thought, maybe it wasn't the ponytail that was the problem.
Perhaps she doesn't need to become someone else.
But since it's already been cut, let's just keep cutting it.
I'll show it to him tomorrow.
If he says it looks good, then it truly looks good.
"How much?"
Three pieces.
She took the money out of her pocket and placed it on the table.
I put on my backpack, pushed open the door, and went out.
The moment the door closed, her shadow was reflected in the glass.
Short hair, school uniform, backpack strap digging into her shoulders.
She stood at the doorway, a gust of wind blew, lifting her hair slightly and brushing against her ears, making them tickle.
She reached out and brushed her hair aside, her fingers running through her short hair to the back of her neck. She no longer had a ponytail, but when she walked, she still seemed to habitually want to flick it.
My neck twitched slightly, and then I realized I didn't need to shake it anymore.
She quickened her pace, entered the building, went upstairs, opened the door, went inside, and closed the door.
Standing in the entryway, the lights were off, and it was pitch black. My parents probably hadn't come home yet.
She put her schoolbag on the ground, went to the bathroom, and turned on the light.
The reflection in the mirror shows me with short, ear-length hair and bangs that reach my eyebrows.
She stared at it for a long time, then brushed her bangs to the side and then brushed them back.
Tomorrow, Song Huan will probably be stunned for a moment.
Then he would say it looks good.
He'll definitely say it looks good!
Even if the whole world says it's ugly, he'll still say it's beautiful!
Because that's just the kind of person he is.
She turned off the light, went back to her room, lay down on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.
My hand unconsciously touched the back of my neck again.
empty.
But she didn't seem as upset as before.
I'll show it to him tomorrow.