It Seems There is Light

Inexplicable

On the first day of the New Year’s Day auditions, Shi An went to the auditorium with his homework.

School had just ended in the afternoon and the audition had not yet started, so the auditorium was very empty. There were a few students sitting in the first row of the judges’ table.

There was only one long mahogany table in front of the first row of seats, so Shi An had to go to the front row with his homework. There were only a dozen judges, mostly girls, and only a few boys, all of whom were bowing their heads doing their homework.

Shi An took a few steps forward with his books in his arms when he suddenly took a step back.

He saw Yan Liang sitting in the outermost seat on his right, his head down as if he was working on a question.

He walked over and bent his fingers, tapping on the corner of the table. Yan Liang looked up and saw Shi An standing in front of the table with his eyes down, looking at him. His expression seemed a little surprised.

“What a…coincidence? Why are you here too?” Shi An asked him.

“Sister Tong dragged me here, saying that there are too few boys in the department, so she asked me to help,” Yan Liang replied as he turned his pen with eyes lowered, “Are you sitting next to me?”

“…En.” Shi An gave him a suspicious look as he went around to the inside to sit next to Yan Liang’s left.

Yan Liang rarely lowered his eyes when talking to people. Most of the time he would look at the other person with his beautiful peach blossom eyes; his gaze was focused and gentle, which always made the person he was talking to feel close and familiar for no reason.

There were only two situations when he had his eyes down. One was that he really hated the other, and the other one was that he was lying.

Shi An couldn’t help but turn his head again to look at the side of Yan Liang’s droopy-eyed face.

His eyelashes were not long, but they were thick and black like raven feathers, glowing with the cold light of the auditorium.

He probably didn’t raise his eyes because he was working on a question. Shi An didn’t study his eyes anymore, instead he also lowered his head to start writing his homework.

After five minutes, when Shi An’s attention had been fully focused on the paper, Yan Liang’s fingers, which had been turning the pen, settled down. He quietly turned his eyes and quickly glanced at Shi An, and then glanced at Tong Zixin who was sitting on the side of the stage looking down at some materials.

This was certainly not a matter of coincidence.

Shi An probably didn’t know that the photo of him and Tong Zixin was posted on the Affiliated High School forum right after the morning reading.

The light in the photo was very dim. Tong Zixin’s face, who was close to the light source, could barely be seen and Shi An had only a tall and slightly thin silhouette.

Tong Zixin reached out and took Shi An’s wrist, tilting her head as if she was saying something. Shi An looked down at her, his expression was not in the dark, his eyelashes were long, and the arc of his eyelashes could be seen as he was lowering his eyes to look at the person in front of him.

Yan Liang immediately recognized the boy in the photo as Shi An.

He quickly connected Tong Zixin with the girl that Ling Yue said was chatting with Shi An on WeChat.

At the first moment of seeing the photo, Yan Liang unexpectedly felt a sharp blockage in his heart. This feeling made him uncomfortable.

He put his phone back on the desktop, trying to analyze this inexplicable discontent he felt.

Was this the legendary…the son was too old to stay?1

Yan Liang actually also knew Tong Zixin.

When he first enrolled, Yan Liang also received several letters of recommendation from the student council, and Tong Zixin, as a more active member, naturally had dealings with Yan Liang.

Tong Zixin was very attractive, beautiful, excellent, natural and graceful. Yan Liang had a very good impression on her.

But it didn’t mean she could just abduct the childhood friend2 he had raised for so many years before he was mature.

Therefore, Yan Liang took the initiative to contact Tong Zixin and asked her if she needed help with the screening of the show. Tong Zixin was probably ready to look for him, so when she saw that he had brought himself to the door, she was happy to agree.

That was why Yan Liang was sitting here.

He was too uncomfortable

Yan Liang propped his forehead with one hand and unknowingly started turning his pen again with the other.

From the time he entered the auditorium, Shi An did not say anything except for greeting him. He kept his head down to do the questions, looking as indifferent as ever.

Tong Zixin was even more so. She leaned on the edge of the stage, frowning slightly. Since Yan Liang entered the auditorium, she hadn’t seen her raise her head.

The order of audition was sorted according to class number. The first grade was sorted in ascending order, while the second grade in descending order.

Each performance basically took no more than five minutes. The classes participating in the audition came to perform at the right time. After the performance, they would go back to the class and continue the evening self-study. There would be no more than twenty people in the auditorium at a time. The order was very good and the audition went well.

In the evening, the auditions for first year were basically finished, and the audition ended on time at 9:30 pm.

“This time it’s so efficient. We should be able to finish watching all the performances in two days,” Tong Zixin said as she put on the pen cap and stood up, “Everyone has worked hard, ah. Is there anyone who wants to go back to the classroom to put the books? You can give me the books and our male compatriots in the literature and arts department will help run an errand.”

Shi An split up the homework that he had already finished, leaving only an exercise book that he still had to use at home before looking up at Tong Zixin.

“Shi An wants to put the books away?” Tong Zixin was stared at by his amber eyes for a moment, and immediately curled up the corners of her mouth to give him a smile, “Come, come, give it to xue jie, xue jie will take it back for you.”

Tong Zixin took Shi An’s homework and threw it in front of another boy: “Send the books back for our xuedi, take it properly ah. I’m really asking you.”

Shi An tore a sticky note and wrote “Class 3, row 1 from the right seat, row 3 from backwards” on it. He slowly and carefully put the cap on it, and then raised his eyes to look at Tong Zixin.

Tong Zixin immediately came over to take the note again, flung the note to the boy’s desk, and turned her head to Shi An with a flattering smile: “Okay, I promise to deliver it for you.”

Shi An slowly closed the exercise book: “…Thank you. Don’t look at me with that expression.”

Tonight’s audition went well, and Tong Zixin was in an extraordinarily good mood. She and Shi An usually never had any communication other than work, but she couldn’t help but smile at anyone she looked at now, including this student who had always been cool.

So Tong Zixin could not control the corners of her mouth. She turned around and hummed as she cleaned up the materials on the table.

Shi An put the exercise book in his arms, got up and thought of leaving when he saw Yan Liang sitting on the outer side, not moving, still sitting in his seat and in dazed.

“Go back, you make way, I want to go out.” Shi An reached out and gently knocked on his desk.

Only then did Yan Liang come back to his senses; he got up and gave up his place. He stuffed the books into his school bag carelessly before pulling Shi An’s sleeve with another hand: “Let’s go.”

Shi An watched him stuffing the book, and couldn’t help but frown again: “You put it like this, it’s messy inside the schoolbag.”

Yan Liang seemed particularly rushed to go back and pulled him again: “It’s okay, let’s go.”

Shi An had to follow him out of the auditorium.

It had been a long time since they had walked home together at night since they had started high school.

It was a quiet night in the dead of winter. Although it was still early, there were few pedestrians on the road, and the road looked somewhat empty.

The light signs hanging on the side of the street were softly flashing with various colors of neon, intertwined with the warm light of the street lamps. The numbers on the traffic lights jumped and counted down, and the black and white crosswalks looked very lonely.

Yan Liang carried his bag on one shoulder, with earphones in his ears, but no song was playing.

Shi An and Tong Zixin seemed to know each other very well.

He was a bit annoyed for no reason. He reached out and jerked his hand on the earphone cable a few times.

Shi An turned his head to the side and saw that his headphone cable was tied in a knot, but when he pulled it, the knot got tighter.

Shi An reached out and naturally took off his headphones, slowly and carefully touching the knot. The thin white earphone cable fluttered around his long fingers and was untied in no time.

He put the headphones back into Yan Liang’s ears.

Yan Liang barely said anything, as if he was thinking about something.

On the way back to Qingjiu Alley, you had to pass the Nanxing River. The ring-shaped Nanxing Bridge was long and it took about an hour to walk all the way around.

They walked along one side for less than ten minutes, and then they could turn into the alleyway entrance of Qingjiu Alley on the side.

In summer, there were always many people walking on the bridge, but in late winter, there were very few people on the bridge, and they were the only two people there.

There was a small temple at the loop of Nanxing Bridge and a warm candle flame could be seen from a distance.

There were lamps hanging along the side of the bridge and the cool lights spread out on the river surface, looking a bit like moonlight at first glance.

Neither of them spoke; they walked forward unhurriedly. When they turned out of Nanxing Bridge and entered Qingjiu Alley, Yan Liang stopped Shi An.

Shi An tilted his head and raised his face to look at him.

Suddenly, Yan Liang didn’t know what to say. He stretched out his hand and rubbed his hair casually, only to realize that he seemed to care a little too much about this matter.

What was he doing?

He actually dwelled on it for so long because of Ling Yue’s WeChat message, and in the end he still couldn’t figure out what he was dwelling on?

In other words, did it matter to him whether Shi An was in love or not?

So startled, the original chaos of the brain suddenly blanked out.

Shi An waited for him for a while and tilted his head in confusion.

Yan Liang turned his head and noticed that they were standing in front of Zhou Yuan’s noodle shop. Suddenly he felt so blessed and said, “…It’s okay, you go first. I have something to ask Zhou Yuan for. Good night.”

Shi An nodded, said goodnight, and turned to leave.

Yan Liang raised his hand and rang the doorbell by the store door a few times. Soon, he heard the sound of Zhou Yuan shuffling down the stairs with his slippers.

“What?” Zhou Yuan had just finished washing his hair; his hair was wet. As soon as the door was opened, the cold wind poured into the door. It was so cold that he sneezed.

“Looking for you to talk about life,” Yan Liang leaned over and stepped into the door, then closed the door again, “Go to your room and talk about serious matters.”

the original idiom is 女大不中留 – a grown up daughter couldn’t be kept unmarried for long. But the author write 儿大不中留, changed the daughter to son. Baidu said the meaning of it is when the son is older, he will always have his own career and will not stay with parents anymore.

this 发小 can also mean a couple who grew up as childhood friends lol