Just as Jin Zhao and Meng Yanxi were secretly bickering, Zhao Yu, the literary arts committee member, actually took a bad fall next door.

Zhao Yu was the only student in Class A who had prepared in both academics and the arts. She had been learning dance for years, and the piece she chose was the professional dance drama Luo Shen. This dance involved many high-difficulty movements. When Zhao Yu was doing a rapid spotting turn, she accidentally slipped, and her ankle fractured.

Although their choreography was a group dance, the other six girls had not received systematic dance training, so all the high-difficulty movements were concentrated on Zhao Yu alone. Now that the lead dancer was injured, this program could only be canceled.

The girls involved all felt some regret. After all, everyone had practiced together for many days, squeezing the time out of doing problem sets to rehearse. Jin Zhao also felt regret. Setting aside that gossip-heavy forum poll, the performance she personally looked forward to the most was Zhao Yu’s Luo Shen. She really liked this dance.

The next day was Saturday. There was no broadcast calisthenics during the long break. Chen Shu suddenly called Jin Zhao to the office and asked whether she would be willing to take Zhao Yu’s place and continue performing Luo Shen.

Jin Zhao was shocked that Chen Shu could even have such a terrifying idea and immediately refused. “No, teacher, that piece is too professional. I did learn dance when I was little, but it’s been many years since I trained systematically. I can’t dance it!”

Chen Shu was also a bit surprised. Looking at Jin Zhao, he said thoughtfully, “You can’t? But Meng Yanxi strongly recommended you. He said you could.”

Jin Zhao: “……”

Returning to the classroom, Jin Zhao was on the verge of going crazy.

Meng Yanxi was sitting in his chair, spinning a pen. By the aisle, Lu Jingyue was leaning back loosely against the desk opposite, speaking to him in a low voice. Meng Yanxi’s brows and eyes were relaxed; he didn’t respond.

But he noticed her return immediately. The originally distant look in his eyes was instantly infused with warmth. Seeing the irritation on her face, he was very self-aware—he stood up from far away to make room for her.

As Jin Zhao passed by him, she truly wanted to kick him.

Meng Yanxi lowered his gaze to look at her, lips hooked, smiling in a roguish, wicked way, like a total hooligan.

Lu Jingyue’s gaze shifted back and forth between the two. He hadn’t even finished speaking, but with great tact, he walked away. He didn’t even say a closing line—he figured no one would be listening to his ending anyway.

“Why did you go tell the teacher that I can dance Luo Shen?” The moment Jin Zhao sat down, she immediately questioned him in a lowered voice.

“Can’t you?” The culprit looked completely innocent.

“No.” Even a rabbit will bite when cornered. At this moment, Jin Zhao was that provoked rabbit, staring at him angrily, her eyes reddened like a rabbit’s. “I never said I was going to dance Luo Shen!”

Meng Yanxi turned his eyes to her, studying her. After a moment of quiet, he asked, “Why?”

Jin Zhao: “What?”

Meng Yanxi: “Why don’t you want to dance Luo Shen?”

Jin Zhao was stunned and shot back, “Isn’t this like saying I don’t want to get into Tsinghua or Peking University—is it that I don’t want to?”

Meng Yanxi: “……”

Jin Zhao’s emotions were actually very stable. Even at this point, she still hadn’t directly swung at him and was still trying to reason with him. “Do you know how professional a piece Luo Shen is? It’s true I started learning dance at a relatively young age, so you could say I have some childhood foundation, but I haven’t trained systematically for many years. Right now I can only dance some pop routines. For a professional piece like this, I can’t pull it off! No—if it weren’t for you tricking me into signing up, I wouldn’t even be dancing pop routines.”

The more she spoke, the more annoyed she became with him. “I don’t even know why you have such terrifying confidence in me when I don’t have it myself. Do you know what situation I’m in right now? I’m in that position where those who study well can’t dance like me, and those who can dance don’t study as well as me. I have a bit of both, but neither side is especially outstanding.”

Meng Yanxi listened quietly until she finished, then asked thoughtfully, “Not outstanding?”

Jin Zhao answered him firmly, “Not outstanding.”

Jin Zhao was so angry she saw red and directly exposed his sinister intentions. “I saw it long ago—you actually don’t like dancing at all. You don’t want to dance, and you even resist any kind of performance. When we rehearse, you insist on closing both the front and back doors. You won’t even let passersby glance at you! You just wanted to trick me into signing up, and now you want me to dance Luo Shen so that our program can be canceled perfectly—killing two birds with one stone. Meng Yanxi, you really, really…”

Jin Zhao was so angry that tears were about to spill out, yet even so, she couldn’t bring herself to say harsh words to him.

She only stared at him—stared at him in anger—and in the end said nothing, turning her head away and no longer looking at him. She tilted her head slightly, gazing out the window.

But even so, she inevitably still saw him. Reflected in the window glass was the quiet figure of the boy beside her.

He turned his head to look at her. After a while, he leaned toward her, as if wanting to say something.

At that moment, the class bell rang. The English teacher and the English class representative, Si Tian, came in one after the other, holding the exam papers from the last test. Meng Yanxi paused, then leaned back again.

During this class, the two of them ignored each other. More precisely, it was Jin Zhao unilaterally ignoring Meng Yanxi. She sat far away from him, wishing she could turn herself into an exam paper and stick herself onto the window.

Not even scoring 143 on the English test could make her happy.

On Meng Yanxi’s paper was a big 138—five points less than hers. Perhaps afraid she wouldn’t see it and wouldn’t gain that extra bit of joy from comparison, even when the English teacher had moved on, he still didn’t turn the page, brazenly spreading the side with the score face up on the desk, even nudging it a little in her direction.

That bright, flamboyant red 138—really did look like a flower outlined on his paper.

Unfortunately, those mere five points couldn’t make Jin Zhao happy.

Later, she happened to glance over and noticed only that Meng Yanxi had a white earbud in the ear closest to her, and the phone under the desk was playing a video.

The teacher was up front explaining cloze tests; he was down below watching videos.

She couldn’t help but take a quick look. It was a Luo Shen dance video.

He still dared to watch!

Jin Zhao completely didn’t want to deal with him anymore.

Meng Yanxi watched for half the class.

Dance wasn’t like a cloze test, where each sentence had only one answer. The same piece of music could have countless choreographies, and each dancer had a different interpretation.

Meng Yanxi didn’t understand dance, but during this English class, he watched through all the popular choreographies for this piece.

As the class was about to end, a sheet of paper suddenly appeared in Jin Zhao’s line of sight, slender fingers pushing it in front of her.

Black characters on white paper, iron strokes and silver hooks concealing a vivid ease of motion.

—If I go on stage alone to dance Lanting Preface, would you go dance Luo Shen?

Jin Zhao lifted her eyes to look at him.

The boy’s brows and eyes were dark, and there was a conciliatory intent in his gaze.

Seeing that she didn’t react, Meng Yanxi leaned over and wrote beneath it with his pen:

—I’ll invite Teacher Yuyu to come choreograph for you.

—Only once.

Jin Zhao didn’t know whether Meng Yanxi’s final line, “only once,” meant that he would only trick her this one time and never again, or that in all three years of high school, there would only be this one time.

Her temperament was gentle and slow; she indeed wouldn’t take the initiative to sign up for something like this. And by this time next year, it would already be approaching the college entrance examination. Her grades weren’t outstanding, she had no competition awards, and she couldn’t obtain a guaranteed admission. Even if she cried and begged to participate then, the school probably wouldn’t allow it. The best years of youth—there truly was only this one chance, just as Chen Shu had said, to leave herself a shining moment.

Jin Zhao ultimately nodded.

Perhaps it was because she softened at Meng Yanxi’s attempt to make peace, or perhaps it was because, deep down, she herself was also longing for it.

Who hasn’t secretly imagined what it would be like to shine under everyone’s gaze? Even the most ordinary girl.

Weekends were the busiest time for training schools. As far as Jin Zhao knew, Teacher Yuyu had large group classes every Sunday. She didn’t know how Meng Yanxi managed to get her there, but the very next day, Teacher Yuyu appeared in the affiliated school’s activity room.

Unlike Jin Zhao, who had long since completely given up the path of becoming an arts student, Zhao Yu’s family had prepared both the academic and arts tracks for her, and Zhao Yu had always persisted in practicing dance. Jin Zhao’s judgment was correct—Zhao Yu’s choreography was simply too difficult for her, who had been lax in training for the past few years, to pull off, at least not within the short three days remaining. Fortunately, Meng Yanxi had invited Teacher Yuyu over. Teacher Yuyu had taught Jin Zhao dance for many years and knew her strengths and weaknesses best. With slight modifications to several of the lead dancer’s movements, tailoring them closely to Jin Zhao’s characteristics to play to her strengths and avoid her weaknesses, the changes weren’t big, yet the effect was strikingly impressive.

The arts festival was on Wednesday, and in the blink of an eye, it arrived.

During the day there were garden-style exhibitions, but classes still had to proceed as usual. Taking advantage of noon break, Jin Zhao went to take a look at the calligraphy exhibition area, but unfortunately didn’t see Meng Yanxi’s work.

Back in the classroom, she pretended to ask casually why he ultimately hadn’t signed up for calligraphy after all.