Resisting Winter

How many people have crossed each other just by one point? How dare you say it’s just twenty points!”

Bai Lu was speechless.

The result of her exam was indeed bad.
She knew this was because she couldn’t study properly for the past few months.
Going to and fro from school to meet Xu Hui had affected her study.
And the phone call that came yesterday in the middle of night had affected her sleep, too.
Her head hurt a bit throughout the exam and she couldn’t concentrate enough because of sleepiness.

Wu Hanwen slowly quieted down, his eyes fixed on Bai Lu.
Bai Lu also looked back at him without flinching.
Seeing her still so calm without any regrets he felt that he got excited for nothing, he looked away to look at his desk.

Everything became quite suddenly, Bai Lu knew that the conversation did not end.

It had just begun.

Wu Hanwen was holding a black pen in one hand, and the cap which was taken off was on the other hand.
He was scratching on the table with the cap.

“You are under the influence, I guess.” He said after a while.

“Don’t say what you don’t know.”

Scratch, scratch.
Wu Hanwen kept scratching on the table and huffed.
He turned his head to look at Bai Lu who was smiling, “Just kidding.”

Wu Hanwen gave her a deadpan look: “I’m not kidding with you.”

Bai Lu’s smile faded away as Wu Hanwen’s expression also became serious.

“It’s because of him, right?”

“No.” Bai Lu firmly denied.

“No way.” Wu Hanwen also said firmly.

Bai Lu looked at him, and then nodded, “Then it’s right.”

“What?”

“What the president says is true.”

“……” Wu Hanwen couldn’t help but twitch the corner of his mouth.
He looked at Bai Lu fiercely as he said in a calm tone, “Don’t bullshit with me, it’s useless!” Then he slowed down as he rubbed his face.

“After I went home that day, I thought about it again, I always felt …… felt ……”

Bai Lu looked at him.

She was waiting for him to speak, looking extraordinarily focused, so focused that Wu Hanwen felt he had to review the sentences in his mind before saying.

Wu Hanwen pursed his lips and finished in one breath.

“I still don’t think it’s quite right.”

“What’s not right?”

“The thing about you and….him.”

Bai Lu lowered her head and Wu Hanwen said sincerely, “Bai Lu, it’s impossible to have no influence, you are now in your senior year.
You have to stay focused.”

His look was so sincere that it made the words extra convincing as well.

“You have to divide your time for study.
Everyone has limited energy, you can’t really do two things at a time.”

Bai Lu gently looked at her hands on the table, although she wasn’t giving any reaction, Wu Hanwen knew she had listened to his words.

“You can tell me what is on your mind, I’m not your enemy.”

Wu Hanwen waited for her to speak.
He knew she was in confusion and stress, and couldn’t understand where should she start explaining.
But it’s not a problem for him.
As long as she is willing to explain, even if he had to wait a long time for that, he would wait.

After a long time, Bai Lu finally whispered, “I don’t have much thought ……”

Wu Hanwen was a little anxious: “Then why are you close to him? This time is important–“

Bai Lu raised her head and just met Wu Hanwen’s eyes head straight.

“I don’t know.” She said.

Wu Hanwen was dumbfounded: “What?”

“Believe it or not, I don’t know.” Bai Lu whispered in puzzlement, as if she herself didn’t know what she was saying “I really don’t know……”

Seeing that she was so unsure, Wu Hanwen had some relief and said, “There must have been a reason …… you said before, you did it for Jiang Ru, right?”

Bai Lu nodded slowly, and he could see that she was caught up in her memories, and was thinking.

After a while, Bai Lu said softly, “I have been with Jiang Ru for the last years.”

Wu Hanwen nodded understandingly, “I know.”

Bai Lu continued: “I have told her a lot of things, all my secrets.
I don’t really think, there’s anything I haven’t told her.”

Wu Hanwen agreed: “You’ve been with her always.”

Bai Lu gazed at Wu Hanwen and said emphatically, “Everything I knew, I had told her.”

Wu Hanwen: “Yes-“

“But she still made such decision so hastily, just for a simple reason.”

There was a rare determination in Bai Lu’s eyes at the moment.
Wu Hanwen was dumbfounded seeing such look on her face.
It was the first time he saw this kind of look on her, and it didn’t match her soft personality.

“She left me unhappy …… you know, as if the ending had been set, all their perceptions were right.
This ending of hers was too stupid, I don’t like it.”

Wu Hanwen kept staring at her with a stupid look on his face.

Bai Lu quickly returned to her original state and spoke naturally.

“Actually, it didn’t matter, it’s just that it was a coincidence that I met him.”

That humid and boring rainy night with no one with him, it was too much of a coincidence.

That day, they met.

And after that, they kept talking on unreasonable things.

In that instant, the God made a move and rattled her heart.
There was no time to think about it.
She felt like she was given a math problem to solve and she had to solve it, anyhow.

Wu Hanwen asked, “Is this what you had in mind at the beginning?”

Bai Lu: “At the beginning there was nothing…… I didn’t think when would I start advancing or how would I advance.
Everything was slowly made up later.”

“What about now?”

Bai Lu had a moment of bewilderment.

Now ……

She was a rigorous person and had to filter through her mind to decide what to do now.

But for some reason, Bai Lu did not want to think.

“Forget it, I don’t want to think about it.”

“Does he know?”

Bai Lu looked at him without answering.
Wu Hanwen asked again, “Are you friends now?”

Bai Lu still didn’t say anything.

Wu Hanwen reflexively gripped his pen tightly.

“It could be called as a friendship, right?” Bai Lu said, sounding unsure.

Wu Hanwen stared at her, “Bai Lu, you can…… forget it.
Don’t you think it’s not worth it? Why do you want to waste your time on him?”

Bai Lu: “Not for long.”

“How long then? You haven’t been on the evening study for several days.”

Bai Lu was silent.

“Listen to me, he has nothing to do with you, you just think him as a random thought and forget about him.”

Bai Lu softly murmured: “it’s just……”

“I know.” Wu Hanwen wanted to speak but suddenly stopped, Bai Lu looked at him, “What?”

Wu Hanwen stammered, and so Bai Lu asked again “What?”

Wu Hanwen’s voice was extremely low as he stumbled on his words and said, “Aren’t you afraid, aren’t you afraid that you too ……”

Bai Lu kept staring at him.

“What ‘you too’?”

Wu Hanwen hesitated for a while before finally saying the whole thing.

“You are not afraid that you would also like him, like Jiang Ru?”

He is smart – thought Bai Lu who looked at Wu Hanwen and heard his thoughts.
The answer of this question, he needs it in negative, that’s why he added Jiang Ru to it.

In this inequality, both sides are positive, and Jiang Ru is like the only negative sign.

If you want to win, you can’t take her path – you can’t be like her.
Bai Lu understood the hidden meaning of his question well.
And she also had a suitable answer.

Bai Lu shook her head and whispered, “No way.”

She said it firmly, but the worry in Wu Hanwen’s eyes didn’t fade away.

“Bai Lu, Xu Hui, this person ……”

The bell rang abruptly.
Mr.
Bao who went outside for a while came in like a wind and went to the podium to turn over the study materials.

Bai Lu and Wu Hanwen turned their head at the same time and returned to do their own work.

When Mr.
Bao finally left, they didn’t look up to continue their conversation, because the atmosphere of the conversation was gone.

Bai Lu couldn’t help but remember the last sentence before the conversation was cut off.

Xu Hui, this person ……

How in the end ……