SYLM Chapter 62

Chapter 62: What did she do wrong?

Chapter 62 What did she do wrong?

Fireworks bloomed brilliantly outside the window, and the sound of firecrackers filled the air.

The night of the first day of the Lunar New Year was destined to be anything but quiet.

In the bathroom, the shower faucet was deliberately turned towards the cold water side. The icy temperature made Gu Wan Jun, standing under the shower head, shiver involuntarily. She was trying to use this method to clear her chaotic brain.

She didn’t know how long she had been standing under the shower, but the sound of water finally stopped.

Gu Wan Jun simply wiped her body and casually wrapped herself in a bathrobe. She supported herself on the sink with both hands and remained silent for a long time. Her peach blossom eyes, filled with a slightly red watery look, stared intently at herself in the mirror.

Her already fair skin appeared even paler from the long cold shower. Dampened strands of hair curled and clung haphazardly to her smooth forehead, and droplets of water dripped from the ends of her hair, inadvertently tracing a cold, watery path down the delicate skin of her slightly open neckline.

Looking at herself in the mirror, unsure of what expression to make, complex and chaotic emotions were like a tangled mess, wrapped around Gu Wan Jun’s heart, suffocating her.

She hadn’t intentionally peeked at Chen Lu’s diary, and even less did she intend to pry into Chen Lu’s privacy.

But the diary she had accidentally knocked down happened to fall open to the day after the Fortress of Purity trip. The delicate handwriting penetrated the paper, stumbling into Gu Wan Jun’s eyes—

[Friday, April 6, 2018, Cloudy]

[Chen Lu and I are reconciled.]

[She said she was sad that I ignored her this week.]

[I really can’t bear to see Gu Wan Jun sad.]

[Does liking someone make you so twisted?]

[Want to kiss her.]

[…]

Her eyes stared blankly into the mirror, until the stinging became unbearable, and Gu Wan Jun finally closed her eyes. Her straight, slender shoulders trembled slightly with each sigh.

Chen Lu liked her.

That child liked her.

Not just the affection of a student for a teacher, but the desire and impulse of a girl for a woman.

How could she not have seen it? How could she not have noticed?

She should have seen it earlier, she should have noticed it earlier, then things wouldn’t have developed to this point.

Recalling the things between her and Chen Lu, Gu Wan Jun bit her lip, filled with unspeakable regret.

Those acts of intimacy and concern that she saw as a sister’s affection for her younger sister, might have turned into ambiguity and indulgence in Chen Lu’s eyes. Day after day of close contact had now become a hidden landmine between them, ready to explode at any moment.

How could there be love between a teacher and a student?

That’s not right.

How could there be love between a girl and a woman?

That’s wrong.

Especially at such a crucial moment on the eve of the college entrance exam.

That would be a terrible mistake, absolutely unacceptable.

Chen Lu was young, a child, a student. She was older, an adult, a teacher. She absolutely couldn’t let the little girl make a mistake.

She had to stop it in time.

——

The time of night seemed to be secretly broken apart, crushed, and quietly stretched out, making people feel a kind of unspeakable torment.

Chen Lu and Fu Yi Wen’s phone call lasted for nearly three hours. Even when both phones were showing low battery warnings, the call didn’t end.

“Chen Lu, do you think Gu Wan Jun knows you like her?”

The focus of the conversation shifted. When they talked about this topic in the bathroom of the cinema during the day, their closet doors had already been kicked open. In addition, Chen Lu had always been honest with her friends. She had never intended to hide her feelings for Gu Wan Jun. It was just that Fu Yi Wen and Jiang Zhen Zhen had never taken the initiative to ask her, so she had never had the opportunity to say anything.

The phone was plugged into the charger, and the screen, with only 15% battery remaining, had begun to heat up. Chen Lu held the phone, a misty look flickering in her dark, bright pupils:

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Don’t know?”

“Yeah, I don’t know what Gu Wan Jun thinks. Sometimes I think she really just sees me as a younger sister, but there are a few moments when I feel like she’s possessive of me. She gets jealous of the people around me. What is that? Is that liking someone?”

“Uh…”

Chen Lu’s question stumped Fu Yi Wen, who also had zero experience in love. Two hums came from the earpiece, followed by Fu Yi Wen’s wry smile:

“I read online that teachers can tell when students like them. Do you think Tang Ying can tell that I like her?”

“I don’t know if Tang Ying can tell, but I can tell. Every time you look at Tang Ying, your eyes are always smiling.”

“No way, is it that obvious?”

“What do you think?”

“You’re one to talk. Aren’t you the same when you look at Gu Wan Jun? I sit behind you and I can see everything. As soon as Gu Wan Jun enters the classroom, your head is like a 360-degree surveillance camera, just following Gu Wan Jun around!”

On the other end of the phone, Fu Yi Wen excitedly listed the evidence of Chen Lu’s crush on Gu Wan Jun. Chen Lu couldn’t help but laugh at her unyielding attitude, interrupting:

“Okay, is that the point right now? Isn’t the point that man who’s possibly your love rival?”

“Oh, right.”

A loud sound of slapping a forehead came from the earpiece. When she spoke again, Fu Yi Wen was like a deflated balloon:

“Chen Lu, we don’t even know if we like girls, and we’re already secretly in love. Your Gu Wan Jun looks a bit better, doesn’t seem like the type to like men. But that Tang Ying…”

Fu Yi Wen clicked her tongue a couple of times. Chen Lu, who still hadn’t heard the rest of the sentence, interjected appropriately:

“What about Tang Ying? Does she look like a straight woman who would like men?”

“Kind of feels like it…”

In the earpiece, Fu Yi Wen tsked twice, her tone somewhat frantic:

“But what’s even more frustrating is that I always feel like Tang Ying is the kind of person who won’t fall in love with anyone… No, Chen Lu, if she’s really asexual, what am I going to do? How am I supposed to pursue her?”

“What we can do at this stage is study. It’s useless to talk about anything before the future is set. And think about it another way, if Tang Ying really won’t fall in love with anyone, then you don’t have to worry about love rivals. It’s the same result for everyone.”

“Hey, you’re right…”

It had to be said that Chen Lu was good at comforting people. Her words hit the mark, and Fu Yi Wen, who had been given a reassurance pill, suddenly wasn’t as nervous about the so-called love rival on the phone.

That’s right, she didn’t understand that man, but didn’t she understand Tang Ying? How many people in Ningcheng were there that Tang Ying would take a liking to?

Wait, now that she thought about it, Gu Wan Jun did count as one…

Tang Ying shouldn’t like Gu Wan Jun, right…

…

The two people who had crushes on their teachers chatted for a long time, and in the end, they just sighed with emotion. After all, for two high school students who hadn’t graduated yet, it was too early to talk about anything else.

After ending the call, Chen Lu lay on the bed and looked at the ceiling, glancing at the time. It was almost midnight.

After thinking it over, her fingers repeatedly typed on the keyboard, typing and deleting, and finally managed to type a line in the chat box with Gu Wan Jun—

[Teacher, are you asleep? Is Wanrong-jiejie okay? Is there anything I can do to help?]

Chen Lu looked at the short sentence over and over again, paused for a long time, and then pressed the send button.

While waiting for Gu Wan Jun to reply, Chen Lu went to the desk on the balcony of the living room and pulled out a chair to sit down.

Alcohol wipes, White Rabbit candies, gloves, coffee candies, Kindle, scarf… Chen Lu treasured everything Gu Wan Jun gave her, even a candy wrapper, which she carefully preserved in her diary.

Opening the diary, the White Rabbit candy wrapper was pressed flat. It no longer had Gu Wan Jun’s temperature, but whenever she had something on her mind late at night, Chen Lu would still reach out and trace the outline of the little rabbit on the candy wrapper.

The straight curve of her lips bent into a slight arc. Chen Lu, who was about to look back at her diary, clipped the candy wrapper back, but in the next second, she fixed her eyes and noticed something was wrong.

The White Rabbit candy wrapper had always been clipped to the diary page from the day she first realized she liked Gu Wan Jun, so how did it end up on the page from the day after the Fortress of Purity trip? Could it be that she took it out and clipped it in the wrong place when she was writing in her diary last time?

Chen Lu tried hard to recall, but she couldn’t remember if she had clipped it in the wrong place. People’s energy was limited. After school from evening self-study, there was still a lot of homework. She usually wrote in her diary in the middle of the night or late at night. Sometimes she was so sleepy that she couldn’t open her eyes. It should be normal to occasionally clip it in the wrong place.

Thinking this way, Chen Lu then picked up a pen and recorded everything that happened today in her diary. Until she finished writing, the chat page was still quiet. Gu Wan Jun didn’t reply to her.

It was a long day today, and she was very tired. At this time, Gu Wan Jun should be asleep.

Chen Lu told herself this.

Perhaps her innate sensitivity was already frantically hinting to Chen Lu something, but her subconscious, unwilling to make bad assumptions, desperately covered Chen Lu’s eyes and ears, stopping her soaring thoughts, and telling her that what she had to do now was to get a good night’s sleep, and she would be able to see Gu Wan Jun again tomorrow. If there were any problems, she could ask her face to face at that time.

Night will always pass, and dawn will eventually come. Days are just cyclical.

At eight o’clock in the morning, Chen Lu woke up. The first thing she did when she opened her eyes was to grab the phone from the bedside to check Gu Wan Jun’s smile. Fortunately, the other party had replied—

[Nothing, it’s just that my sister and brother-in-law came to Ningcheng today.]

Gu Wan Jun sent this message at 5 o’clock in the morning, which was three hours ago. And Gu Wan Jun only replied with this one message.

Gu Wan Jun’s sister and brother-in-law suddenly came to Ningcheng? Was there something wrong? It was so early, did they drive all night? Can a pregnant woman be tossed like this?

The only reply on the screen was about to be stared at and become a hole. Chen Lu couldn’t help but worry about Gu Wan Jun’s sister, but after thinking about it, this was Gu Wan Jun’s family matter after all, and outsiders shouldn’t inquire too much.

Chen Lu bit her lip and deliberated again and again. In the end, she only replied to Gu Wan Jun with a [Little Rabbit Salute Received] emoticon.

After sending the emoticon, Chen Lu stared at the screen for a while. Gu Wan Jun still didn’t reply, not even “the other party is typing”.

She’s probably with her sister.

Chen Lu thought this way.

Originally, the two of them had discussed watching a movie on New Year’s Eve and buying vegetables to eat oden at home on the second day of the New Year, but now it seemed that it wouldn’t work.

Chen Lu let out a long breath, messed up her hair, then put down her phone and got out of bed to wash up.

Without Gu Wan Jun, Chen Lu didn’t feel like eating oden alone. She read and did questions in the morning, simply cooked noodles for lunch, and then continued to do questions after lunch. It wasn’t until almost 4:30 in the afternoon that she rubbed her stiff neck and went back to her bedroom to change clothes, preparing to go to school for evening self-study.

Ningcheng No. 1 High School.

Those who came to school on the second day of the Lunar New Year were either the miserable seniors in high school or the equally miserable homeroom teachers of the senior classes.

After entering the classroom, some of the students who had arrived early were frantically copying homework at their seats.

This also included Fu Yi Wen, who hadn’t been copying homework for a while.

When she saw Chen Lu coming, Fu Yi Wen’s face changed drastically. She quickly stopped writing and hid her homework, while flipping through a book and reciting knowledge points with conviction.

However, when she realized that Chen Lu had come alone in the next second, her tense expression immediately relaxed. Fu Yi Wen breathed a sigh of relief, as if she had caught a life-saving straw. Before Chen Lu could sit down, the small schoolbag containing the homework was snatched away.

“Tang Ying doesn’t allow you to copy homework.”

“Don’t even mention it, it’s all because of that annoying person!”

The title “annoying person” reappeared, but its meaning was very different from before.

Fu Yi Wen glanced around furtively. She took out the homework she had just hidden in her desk, put Chen Lu’s paper next to it, and muttered in a low voice while desperately copying:

“I had planned everything well. Watch a movie on the first day of the New Year and do homework on the second day of the New Year. But after that mess last night, I kept thinking about that annoying person after I finished talking to you. I couldn’t fall asleep. I didn’t doze off until dawn this morning. As a result, I was out of luck. I didn’t hear any of the alarms I set. When I opened my eyes in the afternoon, it was already four o’clock. Look at my swollen eyes, like two big lanterns!”

As Fu Yi Wen spoke, she raised her hand to gesture at her eyes. Chen Lu held back her laughter. She told Fu Yi Wen not to gesture first and copy quickly, or the teacher would come later.

“Oh, right, why didn’t you come with Gu Wan Jun today? When I saw you from the back door just now, I thought Gu Wan Jun had come too. I was so scared that I almost bit my tongue!”

“She went out early this morning. Her sister came.”

“Her sister? I remember you said her sister was pregnant, right? What did she come to our little county for?”

“…”

This question stumped Chen Lu. She also wanted to ask this question.

Yes, Gu Wanrong was pregnant. Why did she travel all the way to Ningcheng?

Her fingers tangled together anxiously. Chen Lu truthfully replied to Fu Yi Wen: “Maybe there’s something wrong, I’m not sure.”

“Didn’t Gu Wan Jun tell you?”

“No, this is her family matter after all.”

“What’s wrong with family matters? Doesn’t she tell you everything?”

Chen Lu choked, and explained softly: “It’s not that exaggerated.”

“How is it not? Wasn’t it she who told you that her sister was pregnant?”

“…That’s true…”

“That’s it. She’s willing to tell you about this kind of thing. What else can’t she tell you?”

“…”

Fu Yi Wen’s matter-of-fact attitude made Chen Lu feel a little dazed.

Yes, Gu Wan Jun hadn’t sent her a message all day today. What was going on?

Time always passed especially quickly when catching up on homework in a hurry.

As soon as the homeroom teacher Gu Wan Jun entered the classroom, the pens that had been desperately trying to make sparks in the classroom the second before collectively slammed on the brakes, finally having a chance to catch their breath.

Chen Lu had been worried about Gu Wan Jun all day. From the moment Gu Wan Jun entered the classroom, she immediately noticed that Gu Wan Jun’s complexion was not good, and she looked like she hadn’t rested well.

Besides Chen Lu, whose heart and eyes were full of Gu Wan Jun, other students also noticed that Gu Wan Jun’s complexion was not good.

Of course, compared to whether Gu Wan Jun hadn’t rested well, those students who hadn’t finished their homework and were worried were more concerned about how their dear homeroom teacher was feeling and whether she would explode in the next second and tell those who hadn’t finished their homework to get out and stand.

Twenty minutes later, the homework for each subject was collected.

Gu Wan Jun asked the representatives of each subject to take the homework to the corridor to check the list to see who hadn’t handed it in.

The representatives of each subject successively left their seats with the list to check the homework. Chen Lu also got up from her seat with the list, but in the next second, she was stopped by Gu Wan Jun’s voice:

“Give me the list, you sit down and study.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Chen Lu met Gu Wan Jun’s gaze, who was walking over to take the list.

How should she describe Gu Wan Jun’s look?

Calm, gentle, seemingly no different from Gu Wan Jun’s past gentle looks towards her.

But if you looked closely, you would find that in those beautiful peach blossom eyes, besides gentleness, there was a hazy layer of emotion that made people unable to see clearly.

What was this emotion? What was wrong?

“Chen Lu?”

The gentle voice vibrated her eardrums, and her drifting thoughts were instantly pulled back. When she came back to her senses, Chen Lu found that Gu Wan Jun was looking at her.

“I’ll take the list. Hand out the Chinese papers on the podium later as tonight’s homework.”

“Okay.”

“Sit down and study.”

“Okay.”

Simple conversations like this often happened between teachers and representatives.

Wait, teachers and representatives…

The moment she sat down, Chen Lu suddenly understood something.

The emotion that Gu Wan Jun’s eyes held when she looked at her was official, polite, and bland, as if there was a layer of clean, transparent plastic wrap covering her eyes, isolating everything on the surface, that kind of indifference that people outside couldn’t see in, and people inside couldn’t see out…

There was a touch of alienation in Gu Wan Jun’s gaze towards her…?

Why? What happened? Did she do something wrong?

Chen Lu felt that tonight’s evening self-study was particularly difficult, perhaps because she still had to stay at school on the second day of the Lunar New Year.