That Nameless Summer Chapter 14

final exam

The ringing of the final exam bell broke through the tranquility of the early morning. The campus was no longer noisy in the past, except for the hurried footsteps of candidates and the soft sound of paper turning.Song Li held the document bag sent by Ling Qingye and stood at the door of the examination room on the third floor. His fingertips unconsciously rubbed the zipper of the bag – inside were a brand-new answer pen, an eraser with a star pattern, and a note that said “Don’t panic.” These made him feel less anxious and more confident.

“Song Li.”

A cold voice sounded behind him, and Song Li turned around. Ling Qingye was standing at the top of the stairs, wearing a clean white shirt, with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms, revealing his clear wrists.His examination room was on the second floor, one floor away from Song Li. He was walking against the light at the moment, and his figure looked particularly tall and straight in the morning light.

Ling Qingye walked up to him quickly, took out a mint candy from his pocket and stuffed it into Song Li’s palm. His movements were as natural as if he had done it thousands of times: “Hold it, refresh yourself.”

Song Li’s fingertips touched his warm palm, and her heart moved slightly. She clenched the candy tightly and whispered “Thank you.”The coolness of the mint seeped out through the candy wrapper, just like Ling Qingye’s eyes, calm but warm.

“The last big question in the physics exercise book, remember to use the isolation method to analyze it.” Ling Qingye’s voice was low, just loud enough for the two of them to hear, “Don’t miss the friction force, follow what we practiced before.”

Song Li nodded and watched Ling Qingye turn around and walk towards the examination room on the second floor, his back firm and steady.He peeled off the candy wrapper and put the mint into his mouth. The cool taste spread on the tip of his tongue, instantly dispelling all the tension, leaving only a sense of peace in his heart.

During the physics test, the last big question was indeed as Ling Qingye said, quite difficult.Song Li stared at the question, and the idea of ​​solving the problem that Ling Qingye deduced for him in the classroom flashed through his mind – “first draw a force diagram, and then split the motion state”, and his fingertips quickly calculated on the draft paper.Encountering a bottleneck midway, he stopped writing and looked at the sunshine outside the window. He suddenly remembered the way Ling Qingye lowered his head to mark the easy-to-make mistakes for him, his eyelashes casting a faint shadow on the page.

When the bell rang for handing in the paper, Song Li breathed a long sigh of relief. Looking at the complete steps to solve the problem on the paper, the corners of his mouth couldn’t help but raise slightly.

After walking out of the examination room, he subconsciously looked towards the second floor. Ling Qingye’s examination room had not ended yet, and the corridor was empty.He leaned against the railing and waited for a while until Ling Qingye’s figure appeared at the top of the stairs. Their eyes met and they didn’t say much. They just looked at each other and smiled in a tacit understanding. All the care and peace of mind were hidden in this look.

During the English test in the afternoon, Song Li got the paper and saw the essay question at a glance – it was indeed an environmental theme.He remembered the universal sentence pattern given by Ling Qingye, and wrote smoothly on the answer sheet with the tip of his pen.

Halfway through the exam, he raised his head to rest and saw Xu Jiangyou diagonally in front of her, lowering her head to answer the questions seriously. The sunlight fell on her hair, as bright as a blooming flower.Qin Jiangwen, who was not far away, seemed to be aware of his gaze. He raised his eyes and looked over, then lowered his head and continued to work on the questions.

Song Li withdrew his gaze, thinking to himself that the atmosphere between the two of them was getting more and more subtle.After the mock exam a few days ago, he accidentally saw Xu Jiangyou’s wrong answer book. Qin Jiangwen used a red pen to annotate the sentence “Essay arguments can supplement garbage classification examples”, while Xu Jiangyou drew a small sun next to it with brisk handwriting.

On the evening when all the subjects were tested, the sunset was particularly bright, dyeing the sky a warm orange-red color.

Song Li and Ling Qingye met at the school gate and walked home side by side. The shadows under their feet were stretched very long and they were close together.

“How do you feel?” Ling Qingye spoke first, his tone still calm, but with hidden concern.

“It’s not bad. I should be able to improve from last time.” Song Li kicked the pebbles on the roadside with a little bit of excitement in his voice. “The last question in physics was solved very quickly according to the isolation method you mentioned.”

“It’s your own hard work.” Ling Qingye turned to look at him, a smile flashed in his eyes, “Let’s go have something to eat together tonight?”

Song Li was stunned for a moment, then nodded: “Okay, let’s go to that noodle shop in the alley?”

Ling Qingye responded “Okay”, and the two of them slowed down unconsciously, enjoying the rare tranquility.

There were not many people in the noodle shop, and it was very quiet. There were only the sounds of the boss cooking noodles and the gentle clatter of bowls and chopsticks.Song Li ate quickly, and the soup splashed into the corner of his mouth. Ling Qingye handed him a tissue, and his fingertips inadvertently touched the corner of his mouth. They both paused, and the atmosphere instantly became ambiguous.

Song Li’s ears felt slightly hot. He quickly took the tissue and wiped them. He lowered his head and continued eating noodles, not daring to look at Ling Qingye again.Ling Qingye didn’t say anything, he just silently made him jealous, his movements were natural, as if he was used to it.

After eating, the two of them walked back.When passing by a park, Song Li suddenly stopped: “Would you like to go in for a walk?”

Ling Qingye nodded and followed him into the park.The park was quiet, with only the occasional chirping of insects and the rustling of the leaves in the evening breeze.The two of them walked slowly along the path by the lake, the moonlight shining on the lake with a faint silver light.

“Ling Qingye,” Song Li suddenly spoke in a very soft voice, “Are your dad and the others… okay?”

He remembered that when he was a child, the two men in Ling Qingye’s family were always very gentle, but after so many years, he had never heard Ling Qingye mention his family, and he rarely even saw him answering the phone at home.

Ling Qingye’s steps paused, and his eyes instantly became a little dim, as if the light was blocked by something, and then he quickly regained his composure: “It’s pretty good.”

He spoke very softly, but with an inexplicable sense of alienation.Song Li realized that he didn’t want to talk more, so he didn’t ask any more questions, but he felt vaguely that there must be some secret hidden in Ling Qingye’s home that he didn’t know about.Just like the last time Ling Qingye had a wild day, he wanted to ask her out for dinner, but Ling Qingye just shook her head and said “I have something at home.” His eyes that day were as cold as ice.

The two walked for a while, and Ling Qingye’s cell phone suddenly rang.He glanced at the caller ID, his face instantly darkened, and the knuckles holding the phone turned white.He walked aside and answered the phone, his voice as cold as ice: “What’s the matter?”

I don’t know what was said on the other end of the phone. Ling Qingye’s brows furrowed more and more tightly, and his eyes were filled with emotions that Song Li had never seen before – anger, disappointment, and a trace of imperceptible pain.

“I understand, you don’t have to worry about it.” After he said that, he hung up the phone and stuffed the phone into his pocket.

“What’s wrong?” Song Li asked with concern.

“It’s nothing.” Ling Qingye’s voice was deep, with a hint of unnoticeable annoyance, “There’s something going on at home, I’ll take you back first.”

Song Li nodded and didn’t ask any more questions.He could feel that Ling Qingye’s mood had become very low, as if something heavy was weighing on his heart, making him breathless.

Back downstairs of Song Li’s house, the two said goodbye.Song Li turned around and walked into the corridor. He looked back and saw that Ling Qingye was still standing under the street lamp, his figure stretched very long and he looked particularly lonely.He wanted to step forward and say something, but he didn’t know how to speak, so he could only turn around and go upstairs silently.

Ling Qingye was looking in the direction of his home, his eyes full of complicated emotions.The call was from Ling’s father, saying that he was taking a “new friend” home and asked him to go back for dinner.Ling Qingye clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms. The hatred and pain in his heart almost swallowed him up.

He remembered that on his seventeenth birthday, Zhou Yanan was lying on the cold floor, blood stained the white carpet, but Ling’s father, when he needed company most, chose another person.

On the other side, Xu Jiangyou received a WeChat message from Qin Jiangwen: “Did you do well in the exam? I know a dessert shop with delicious new products.”

Xu Jiangyou looked at the phone screen, raised the corners of his mouth slightly, and replied with an address.She knew what Qin Jiangwen was thinking, but deliberately didn’t reveal it. This extreme ambiguity made her feel both exciting and at ease.Qin Jiangwen’s concern was not as straightforward as Song Li’s, nor as introverted as Ling Qingye’s, but with a little cautious probing, like spring rain, moistening things silently.