Hello, Old Times Chapter 89

Chapter 89: Youth

Yu Zhou Zhou had to admit that basketball games really had to be watched in person.

In the anime, Kiminobu Kogure could hit a three-pointer four or five times and every time, it would intersect with a recollection which removed the feeling of tension. It couldn’t compare to the present moment, the sharp sound made by the sneakers on the floor as they ran, their pants and fights and the thumping sound of the basketball which was similar to the ‘dong dong’ of a heartbeat when they dribbled the ball.

Whenever the boys roared as they ran past Yu Zhou Zhou, she would feel a kind of exuberant vitality beating vigorously beside her.

The shouts of the cheerleaders on both sides made her want to shout a few times too. Owever, she opened her mouth and discovered that she lacked some passion.

Back then, the football match that Wen Miao and the others had against Class 5 on the concrete ground was not intense at all and their skills were also average. However, it could make the boys and girls, including her, shout until they were hoarse and even become so sensitive and petty that they couldn’t stand any of the small movements the other party made so the two sides had quickly escalated from cheering to sarcastic accusations and finally, it turned into a full debate between Class 5 and 6’s overall strength. The battlefield was transferred from the football field to the auditorium and in the end, both teachers had to come forward to remediate.

It was because of having a sense of identity with the people on the field, because of a sense of belonging and a natural heart to defend.

The Yu Zhou Zhou now really couldn’t shout anything out.

To her surprise though, she saw Xin Rui in the crowd. The students in Class 1 all thought that Yu Zhou Zhou and Xin Rui had specially returned to Class 1 to help cheer on their original class. Thus, they were naturally arranged into the Class 1 camp.

After being surprised, Yu Zhou Zhou cast her eyes onto the court and suddenly understood the reason why Xin Rui gave up her lunchbreak and self study time to watch a basketball game that she never had any interest in.

Chu Tian Kuo raised his hand and called timeout to the referee. The sweat on his flushed cheeks made him more like an ordinary boy full of passion and vitality.

Yu Zhou Zhou suddenly really wanted to know what Chen An would be like if he played basketball.

Standing on the other side of the court was Class 2’s camp all lined up in a row. The empty water canister on the water dispenser had been moved over as well. Two students used the pole of the mop to bang vigorously on the water cannister, creating a huge banging sound. The momentum was like imposing but the shape was off. The person in the middle of the group who was shouting “Class 2 must win” in a high voice was Ling Xiang Qian.

 When Yu Zhou Zhou arrived at the basketball court, she didn’t know how long the game had gone on for. She asked the students around her what the score was but everyone gave four or five different answers.

She shook her head, the score wasn’t important since there was only two outcomes of the game, win or lose.

Class 2 was leading but as to how much by, Yu Zhou Zhou didn’t care.

Lin Yang was indeed very eye catching on the court. Yu Zhou Zhou felt that his skills were much better than what he had boasted to her. When she had just arrived at the sidelines, she didn’t even have time to distinguish between the team uniforms. The moment she looked up, she saw the boy in a light blue uniform jump backwards in her direction. The beautiful back figure slowly came back down after reaching the highest point in the air. The basketball spun in the air then with a “swish”, fell into the hoops. It was done in one go but it gave people an illusion of slow motion that could be endlessly replayed.

The by turned around after scoring the goal and smiled brightly amidst the cheers.

It was at that moment that Yu Zhou Zhou discovered Lin Yang shone all over on the basketball court. Or to say, he had always been shining but he was usually restrained and left enough space for both himself and others.

What a great boy.

Yu Zhou Zhou finally admitted in that moment that she once did have a trace of pushing the responsibility to make herself feel better but it evaporated under the gushing noon sunlight.

Lin Yang should always smile brightly like this. He shouldn’t have to bow his head and clench his teeth as his mum scolded him and hit the back of his head, nor should he have to be red-faced and silent under her out of control accusations.

Yu Zhou Zhou’s line of sight gradually moved away from the stalemate on the court to the distant September blue sky that was like a huge screen that played a silent film called the past. The shouts turned into a distant hissing noise. She recalled everything about the boy, Lin Yang. She suddenly discovered that as long as there was a part of Lin Yang’s life that she participated in, there would always be changes. Either he’d become unlucky or she’d become unlucky.

Yu Zhou Zhou looked at the court as if she was startled awake.

I’ve come to watch the match, you won’t lose right?

—

Chu Tian Kuo had already did his best on the court but Class 1 was indeed a class that was too quiet and the male students all generally lacked athletic talent. In terms of the balance between grades and athletics, Class 1 and 2 proved that the heavens was fair.

Class 2 was in the lead by a large margin. Before the match came to an end, both parties became a little restless. Class 2 felt that Class 1 had turned jealous from losing while Class 1 had won disgracefully. Several referee judgements about hand hitting and steps caused disputes. When the referee signalled for Class 2 to make two free throws again, the students from Class 1 on the sidelines went crazy. A large group of people shouted, “Let’s not play anymore, let’s not play anymore, just give it to them” then left the sidelines and walked back to the teaching building.

“If you can’t afford to lose then don’t play!”

“Is it us who can’t afford to lose or is it because your class is playing tricks? You’re making so many small moves in the game and the referee is blind but are we blind too? Look at what has become of our class monitor?”

The girls in Class 1 pointed at the wound that had just been treated on Chu Tian Kuo’s forehead with agitation.

Lin Yang was a bit embarrassed. Chu Tian Kuo’s forehead had indeed been injured by his elbow when he had landed.

“Calm down everyone, there’s still a referee on the court. It’s a proper match so what are you getting agitated for!” Chu Tian Kuo tried to control the scene but there were too many people on the courts and his voice was hoarse. The spectators on both ides had been quarrelling since long ago. The boys rolled up their sleeves and the girls had their hands on hips. The scene was extremely primitive.

They were like elementary students. Yu Zhou Zhou stepped aside to avoid accidental injury. She knew that the root cause wasn’t from the basketball match at all. The relationship between Class 1 and Class 2 was like that of Class 3 and 7 in the humanities stream. For immature children like them, any unfavourable situation in a competition had a great chance of evolving into mutual hatred and slander.

She didn’t know who was the first to hit someone.

Or perhaps it wasn’t important. Everyone was ready and just waiting for that first move.

Yu Zhou Zhou watched the scruffle with her mouth agape. Her Class 1 classmates who had always been a bit ‘pretentious’ in her impression fought with all their heart with no airs at all.

Something like this would make headlines, not to mention that it was Class 1 and 2.

No matter how mature and sensible and how excellent their grades were, in the end, they were still a group of youths with their adolescence spent locked up in a class room studying from morning to night. Their hormones could only pitifully vent out as pimples. Finally, they had an opportunity to fight, irrespective of whether or not it was the right thing to do and whether or not it lacked consideration.

Young people had the qualifications to lack consideration.

Yu Zhou Zhou froze for a moment before hurriedly squeezing into the crowd. She had always hated crowded scenes, hated having physical contact with others, smelling body odour, being stepped on and pushed… but at that moment, she rushed in without thinking.

She had to drag Lin Yang out.

Although Class 2 didn’t lose, but the situation still became like this. If Lin Yang was hit, Yu Zhou Zhou felt that she should carefully consider transferring schools.

Someone pulled her ponytail hard. Yu Zhou Zhou whimpered in pain then frowning in dissatisfaction, turned around and glared at the person. A girl she didn’t recognize slanted her eyes and shouted back, “Why are you pushing me?”

Yu Zhou Zhou paused, “Oh, sorry.”

The girl was already prepare for a big argument or fight but was suddenly discouraged by Yu Zhou Zhou’s response. She widened her eyes as if looking at a monster as she watched Yu Zhou Zhou turn around and squeeze back into the crowd.

Yu Zhou Zhou recognized Lin Yang’s uniform, No.7. From afar, she saw a No.7 so she pulled the other party by the shirt and pulled him to the sidelines however when she looked up, she realised that the person in front of her was Chu Tian Kuo.

“Uh,” Chu Tian Kuo forced a smile, “Zhou Zhou, thank you.”

“No need,” Yu Zhou Zhou waved her hand, “I pulled out the wrong person.”

After she said that, she continued to look around to search for where Lin Yang could be.

She couldn’t find him, no matter what, she wasn’t able to find him. Yu Zhou Zhou stretched her hand behind her head and straightened her crooked ponytail then simply pulled off the hair band to let her hair loose before retying it into a low ponytail to prevent someone from puling her hair again.

Just as she looped the hair band around her hair the second time, she suddenly felt a pair of hands cover the end of her ponytail, take over the hair band and tie the last loop, gently smoothing her hair as well.

“Were you looking for me just now?”

Yu Zhou Zhou turned around, Lin Yang seemed to have dropped from the sky to appear in front of her – but it was clear that when he handed, he had landed face first onto the ground.

The corners of his eyes were black and blue and his cheekbones were red and swollen but his smile was brighter than when he scored a goal.

—

Ling Xiang Qian could only see Chu Tian Kuo being overwhelmed by the other male students in the scuffle. The fists that were being waved around were intimidating and she could even imagine what the effect would be if she was hit in the face by the fists.

However, she still didn’t give up. She stood on the outside and stretched her neck out to look and find that person. Just as she leaned closer to the centre of the fight, someone grabbed her arm.

“Stay further away, what if you get accidentally hurt?” It was Jiang Chuan.

Ling Xiang Qian was a little annoyed. She pushed Jiang Chuan’s hand away and continued to circle around, observing the situation. She inadvertently caught a glimpse of Xin Rui standing very, very far away from the crowd. She was leaning against the basketball hoop with her hands in her pockets and a smile on her lips.

She seemed to be very happy watching the scene.

Abnormal. Ling Xiang Qian cursed in her heart although she had to admit herself that when she watched the match, she had complicated feelings. She cheered loudly for Class 2 and tried her best to attract Chu Tian Kuo’s attention, even hoping that the he would pay attention to her and become angry as a ‘rival’ – even though she herself knew how childish and naïve that was.

She even hoped that he would lose miserably. She really hoped it.

Ling Xiang Qian suddenly saw that the white No.7 she was looking for was pulled out of the centre of a fight by a girl. It was actually Yu Zhou Zhou.

The two looked at each other, both taken aback. Yu Zhou Zhou said something before hurriedly turning back to search in the crowd. Ling Xiang Qian suddenly felt that Yu Zhou Zhou’s gaze seemed very remorseful, like a little woman who was looking for her missing husband everywhere during a shipwreck, she was weak but resolute – even though she had found the wrong person.

She had no need to continue monitoring the situation of the fight. Her eyes were locked on Chu Tian Kuo who was discouraging the other students from returning to class. Ling Xiang Qian had persuaded herself many times that it was just because she finally met someone more dazzling than Lin Yang so she had fallen for his dazzle, mistaking it for actual attraction. However, just then, when Class 1 was behind Class 2 by a large margin, Chu Tian Kuo was like a tragic hero, leading a group of inept team members in vain pursuit and still refused to give up which moved her greatly.

She even felt distressed. On one side, she hoped that failure would bruise his perfect surface but on the other side, she didn’t want to see his pride be damaged. Towards Chu Tian Kuo’s failure, even if it was just a small basketball game, she would probably care even more than him himself.

She finally got up the courage to walk over and taking advantage of having no one around to notice, softly asked him, “You didn’t accidentally get hurt right? …Is the would on your forehead okay? Were you bumped into?”

Chu Tian Kuo didn’t seem to have the time to talk to her so he hastily smiled, “I’m fine, don’t worry. Quickly go back to class, it’s dangerous here.”

Then, he turned around and devoted himself to stopping the fight.

Ling Xiang Qian stood there in a daze for a while, then feeling a little down, she walked back towards the teaching building.

In that moment, she suddenly hoped that someone could give Chu Tian Kuo a hard punch on her behalf.

On the way back to class, she heard footsteps behind her. She hesitated a little then turned around and voluntarily called out, “Xin Rui!”

Then she slowed down and waited for the other party with a smile, “Let’s go together.”

Showing kindness and pulling an alliance along the way.

“Your class doesn’t seem to be in the right state today.” Ling Xiang Qian made an excuse for Class 1’s defeat.

“Mhm, actually, their skills are really bad to begin with. Chu Tian Kuo was leading a bunch of nerds, they were definitely going to lose.”

Ling Xiang Qian was stunned, “Don’t say that.”

Xin Rui had a calm expression when she said those words. For a moment, Ling Xiang Qian didn’t know if she was just making an objective evaluation or if she really had a prejudice against Chu Tian Kuo.

She was speechless for a moment.

When they knocked on the classroom door then walked in, the whole class looked at them both. Wu Wen Lu asked with a dark expression, “Where did you go?”

Actually, the form teacher’s history class had already started for half an hour but Ling Xiang Qian still had some confidence that the teachers were usually more tolerant towards top students to be able to blatantly skip class.

“We… there were some things that our original classes wanted to discuss with us…” Ling Xiang Qian became a little flustered by the questioning look in Wu Wen Lu’s eyes and purposely spoke slowly to give herself some buffer time.

“It was just a basketball game,” Xin Rui suddenly took over, “It was supposed to have ended earlier but they started fighting and we were stopping the fight until now. Sorry teacher.”

“Fighting?” Wen Wu Lu frowned then nodded towards Xin Rui, “Go back to your seats first. Remember to ask for leave next time. You’re all monitors and need to set an example… even if there were really matters to discuss.”

After he finished, he gave a deep look towards Ling Xiang Qian.

Ling Xian Qian looked helplessly at Xin Rui who had torn down her excuse without a sound and didn’t know how to respond.