Jiang Yumo and Duan Ye met in junior high school. Both of them were particularly cared for by their teachers. Each class had two very special seats, located on both sides of the podium. The reason why Jiang Yumo had the honor to sit in this position… was mainly because her homeroom teacher was her uncle. Since she was young, she had a good personality and could get along with everyone no matter where she sat. Some classmates would pass her notes during class, and some would talk to her. Her uncle had the foresight to let her sit on the left side of the podium, where she had no desk mate and no one would dare to pass notes to her during class, as she was right under the teacher’s watchful eye.
Duan Ye sat on the right side of the podium. He was a “bad student” who had been sent to the teacher’s office for punishment, and his family had specially come to the school to arrange things. Jiang Yumo’s uncle was a responsible teacher who did not neglect Duan Ye like other teachers did. Instead, he arranged for him to sit in the seat next to the podium, just to keep an eye on him…
Jiang Yumo and Duan Ye were separated by the podium, with the teacher standing on the podium.
But if Uncle Jiang knew that this arrangement had created a “fateful bond”, he would definitely regret it.
From the first year of junior high school to the third year, Duan Ye developed a crush on Jiang Yumo. This didn’t seem like a big deal, at least in the eyes of their classmates. Jiang Yumo had a good personality and got along well with everyone. Just by looking at her, one could tell that she must have come from a warm and happy family. She was outgoing and cheerful, and had a contagious laugh with a low sense of humor. When Duan Ye napped on his desk, he could always hear her laughter. Unconsciously, her laughter pierced through his ears and penetrated into his heart.
Pretty girls are very popular, and girls who are both beautiful and have good personalities are almost invincible.
Boys liked her, and so did girls.
So, Duan Ye also liked her.
After the high school entrance examination, Duan Ye confessed his love to Jiang Yumo, but of course she didn’t accept it.
This kind of girl had received too many people’s attentions and Duan Ye’s liking for her wasn’t something that would really shock her.
Jiang Yumo went to Fifth High School, and Duan Ye followed suit, but they were not in the same class. However, from the first day of their military training in their first year of high school, everyone knew that Duan Ye who looked so fierce had a crush on Jiang Yumo. Duan Ye never concealed his affection for her, and he still fought fiercely. The students in their second and third years of high school disliked him and challenged him to a one-on-one fight. He beat them up, and before the military training was over, most of the students at Fifth High remembered his name—Duan Ye.
Duan Ye became famous in Fifth High, and Jiang Yumo became famous with him.
Jiang Yumo gets along well with everyone, so naturally she has a good relationship with her old classmate Duan Ye as well.
After being rejected once, Duan Ye didn’t say anything more, but he still liked Jiang Yumo. Their relationship remained like this, and no one had pierced through this thin layer of window paper.
Some well-meaning people asked Duan Ye if he wanted to arrange a grand confession.
After much hesitation, Duan Ye refused.
After the middle school entrance examination, he confessed because he really liked her.
But now, he liked her even more than at that time.
While liking her more, he felt increasingly constrained and unable to say to her as he did at the beginning, ‘Jiang Yumo, I like you.’
At that time, he could say it openly and honestly.
Now, his liking had grown, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it again.
Jiang Yumo stared at the Häagen-Dazs in the thermos and was taken aback.
Seeing that she was still in a daze, Duan Ye smiled at her, “Go ahead and eat it. I’m afraid it will melt when I come to pick you up in the afternoon.”
She didn’t move, and he took the ice cream out and opened the lid, handing her a wooden spoon. “Try it and see how it compares to Luxue1.”
He paused for a moment. “I was going to buy more, but the store clerk said some had been reserved and only a few were left. The others weren’t the flavors you like.”
At seventeen, Jiang Yumo wasn’t that mature, and her mind wasn’t that sharp.
She only knew that her future was uncertain, and she hadn’t thought about anything.
However, when she heard Duan Ye’s voice, she blinked and felt a sour feeling, wanting to cry but not being able to. She wanted to tell him, ‘Duan Ye, do you know, our future…?’
What will their future be like?
Actually, students of this age don’t know how to judge what is a good future and what is a bad future.
“What’s wrong?” Duan Ye noticed that her expression was a bit off.
Jiang Yumo shook her head. “I had a nightmare and didn’t sleep well.”
Duan Ye smiled.
Actually, he didn’t like to smile.
He didn’t ask what the dream was about, just looked up at the sky subconsciously and squinted his eyes. “You haven’t eaten yet, have you? I think your dad will be back soon.”
Duan Ye remembered Father Jiang’s work schedule well, and only came over when he was sure Father Jiang wasn’t home.
“En.”
Duan Ye looked at her. He didn’t know if it was because of the weather, but his palms were a little warm. “When should I come to pick you up?”
Jiang Yumo’s birthday was something Duan Ye cared about more than anyone else, he would plan for it as early as the Lunar New Year.
But no matter how high school students arrange and plan, it won’t be too grand.
“Maybe around four or five o’clock,” Jiang Yumo said. “Yan Qing and the others are coming over.”
Duan Ye hummed as acknowledgement.
The sun was shining brightly, and Jiang Yumo had gotten a tan. So she ran back home while holding the ice cream.
After standing outside for a while, Duan Ye rode his motorcycle and left.
His ID showed that he was born in July, and as soon as he turned eighteen, he quickly got his motorcycle license.
The sound of the motorcycle was loud, and the wind made Duan Ye’s clothes flutter. A shallow scar at the corner of his eye made him look fierce and mean, but his slightly upturned lips diluted that sense of ferocity.
Jiang Yumo had not returned home for long before her father came back from work.
Father Jiang was a driver for the bus company and mainly operated the route from Ningcheng to the provincial capital. He had been driving buses for ten years and usually bought a lunch box at the bus station for lunch. However, today was a special occasion: his beloved daughter’s seventeenth birthday, so he had to come back no matter what. Mother Jiang had ordered a cake a few days ago, and Father Jiang brought it back. It was a common fruit cake with “Happy Birthday, My Baby” written with jam.
There was a table full of delicious food, all of which were Jiang Yumo’s favorite food.
Mother Jiang had been busy since morning until now. Jiang Yumo was born into a very ordinary family. Her father was a bus driver, and her mother worked in a pharmacy. Their family was not well-off, but in Ningcheng, they were not considered poor either. Just being “non-left-behind children” already made her fortunate, as half of Jiang Yumo’s classmates’ parents worked outside the city.
The family of three substituted wine with ice-cold Coca-Cola and toasted each other with a cup.
Father Jiang said cheerfully, “Momo is seventeen now, and I’m getting old.”
It seems like it was just yesterday when he held his newborn daughter in his arms, and now she’s already seventeen.
Next year, she will be a true adult.
Jiang Yuma put a piece of spare rib on Father Jiang’s plate and said, “No way, I think you and Mom are still very young.”
“She’s already seventeen but still acts like a child,” Mother Jiang nagged, “this morning she was wandering around like she lost her soul, and even cried, saying she had a nightmare.”
Father Jiang asked with interest, “What nightmare?”
Jiang Yumo hesitated for a moment and said, “I dreamt that I didn’t get into a good university.”
In the original plot, her grades were not particularly outstanding, and after graduation, she became a flight attendant for a provincial airline because of her good looks and demeanor. Actually, such a future is not bad in the eyes of the public, but she always felt that she did not want to be a stewardess.
In the original plot, she wasn’t mentioned a lot.
It’s just in the novel’s extra chapter, the male and female leads came to Ningcheng to reminisce about the past and bumped into Duan Ye on the street.
The female lead sighed while talking about Duan Ye’s current situation and mentioned that he had traveled around and made some money after graduating from high school, and then returned to Ningcheng to open a car repair shop with a partner. The male lead vaguely remembered some things about this former opponent and asked about his girlfriend.
The female lead smiled and said she didn’t know, only heard that they had broken up and gotten back together multiple times. The male lead had liked the female lead since he was 18, and now they were both 30, which meant he had loved her for 12 years.
It was said that Duan Ye had liked a classmate surnamed Jiang since he was 14, his first love.
Now, they were all 30, so Duan Ye had loved his first love for 16 years, even longer.
A sentence from Mother Jiang brought Jiang Yumo back to reality, “This is not a dream, it’s real.”
Father Jiang disapproved and glared at her, “Nonsense.”
“Don’t you know your daughter’s grades?” Mother Jiang also felt worried. “Teacher Wang told me that Yumo is in a dangerous situation and needs to work harder in her senior year.”
The couple then discussed how to handle the situation.
While Jiang Yumo… couldn’t even get a word in.
She always felt that even though she couldn’t tell whether the future according to the original plot was good or bad, she didn’t want to become a flight attendant now. After thinking for a while, she didn’t know where the courage came from, and she gripped her chopsticks and said seriously, “I will definitely do well on the exam!”
Father and Mother Jiang glanced at each other and didn’t take her words to heart, and continued their discussion.
Jiang Yumo : “…”
She was at a loss.
It was before 2 o’clock when Jiang Yumo’s good friends arrived.
Father Jiang had already gone back to work, and Mother Jiang had gone to the pharmacy. Only the three girls were left at home, and they felt very free. Jiang Yumo shared the cake with them, and the three girls were in the room, with one sitting in front of the desk reading a novel, one playing Tetris on her phone with a tense expression, and only Jiang Yumo was lost in thought.
“What do you want to do in the future?” Jiang Yumo suddenly asked.
Yan Qing was reading the male lead’s “bullying” of the female lead in the novel word by word, her face turning red. Suddenly she heard this sentence and turned her head to look. “You scared me. I thought it was my mom asking me.”
Sun Mengting’s screen was filled with Tetris blocks indicating game over, so she looked at Jiang Yumo and said, “What’s the point of asking this? I want to be an actress, but my mom wants me to follow in her footsteps and become a nurse… It’s so annoying. I have no autonomy in choosing my major for the college entrance exam.”
Jiang Yumo didn’t respond.
“What about you? What do you want to do?”
Jiang Yumo : “What do you think about being a flight attendant?”
Yan Qing looked Jiang Yumo up and down.
The three of them were friends who had known each other since primary school. They had a deep bond and understood each other well. They had even taken showers together.
“Great! Flying every day must be so cool and fun!”
Jiang Yumo was at a loss for words, “You guys aren’t my good friends after all. You don’t even remember that I’m afraid of heights!”
It was quite interesting that someone who was afraid of even riding a Ferris wheel ended up becoming a flight attendant.
“Well…why did you even ask us then?”
Jiang Yumo : “…”
“Then don’t do it,” Yan Qing turned a page and said, “It’s not a big deal.”
Jiang Yumo : “I can no longer communicate with you guys soul-to-soul.”
Yan Qing chuckled and exchanged a glance with Sun Mengting, “That’s for sure. Only Brother Duan can communicate with you soul-to-soul.”
- possibly a fictive ice cream brand in reference to Mixue, a popular Chinese ice cream chain store ↩︎