Chapter 8
That night, Huo Wan wore the pajamas she had brought with her and swiftly climbed onto Lin Dang’s bed, burrowing into the warm blankets. Very soon, only a fluffy head was left showing outside.
Lin Dang stood by the bed and watched this entire smooth, practiced series of movements, speechless for a long while.
For some reason, she always felt that compared with Huo Wan’s own little bed at home, the other girl might like her bed more.
With a soft click, Lin Dang reached out and turned off the light in the room. Now, only a small lamp above the headboard was left, giving off a faint warm glow.
Lin Dang knelt on the bed and slowly crawled from the foot of the bed toward the headboard.
Who knew that at this moment, Huo Wan would suddenly lift the blanket and throw it over Lin Dang’s body? Then the two of them rolled into a tangled heap on the bed, and the sound of their laughter and play instantly echoed through the room…
“Dangdang, will we always be together?”
After the two of them tired themselves out from playing, they lay face-up on the messy bed. Huo Wan’s leg was casually draped over Lin Dang’s calf, the girls’ bare skin touching.
“Mm, we will.”
Lin Dang answered the question without the slightest hesitation.
The fine, scattered strands of hair on her forehead had fallen down, making Lin Dang feel a little itchy. Her chest was still rising and falling a bit heavily because they had just been fooling around too wildly.
This side of her was something only Huo Wan could see.
Huo Wan suddenly turned over, going from lying on her back to lying on her side. She pillowed her head on her own arm and looked at Lin Dang. Her eyelashes fluttered, and the warm lamplight reflected in her pupils as if firelight were jumping there.
“Then… what if you get married in the future?”
Marriage.
This was the first time Huo Wan had touched on this word. She did not know why she had suddenly thought of it.
But as long as she imagined Dangdang being possessed by another man in the future, no longer belonging only to her alone, she felt a strange tightness in her chest.
It was as if something that belonged to her had suddenly been snatched away.
“Then we’ll buy houses next to each other. That way, even if we get married, we can still always be together!”
Lin Dang did not notice anything strange about Huo Wan. She answered the other girl’s question very casually.
In her eyes, always being good friends with Huo Wan and getting married were two things that did not conflict. They could coexist.
The conversation could not continue from there.
“Oh.”
Hearing Lin Dang say that, Huo Wan suddenly became irritated for no reason, though she had no idea what exactly she was irritated about…
In short, her mood was very bad now.
If their houses were bought next to each other, wasn’t that very good? They could open the door and visit each other. In the future, if they had children, they could even become each other’s godmothers.
Huo Wan tried to imagine such a harmonious scene in her mind, but somehow, the picture felt a little glaring.
So she climbed up from the blanket and silently crawled to the head of the bed to lie down properly. At this moment, she looked like an obedient little child.
“Are you sleepy?”
Lin Dang did not understand why. Seeing Huo Wan get under the blanket, she got under the blanket too.
The two of them were very close, so close they could even smell the fragrant scent of body wash on each other.
This question did not receive a response from Huo Wan. Lin Dang did not think anything of it and naturally assumed the other girl was sleepy.
So she reached out and turned off the final bedside lamp. The room instantly sank into darkness, and in the dark, one heart grew increasingly restless.
Seeing that Lin Dang was ignoring her, Huo Wan became even more unhappy. Yet she also did not stop to think that she was the one sitting here sulking for no reason.
And so, the unhappy Huo Wan turned her body back around again.
In the darkness, the girl carried thoughts she herself could not name and carefully asked in a probing voice,
“Dangdang, can we not get married in the future?”
The sentence that had been hovering in her heart came out just like that, as if by some strange impulse. After Huo Wan said it, even she herself was startled.
How could she have such a terrifying thought?
But then, thinking about it again, she felt that she was not wrong. It was just that Dangdang was too good to her, and she did not want to share Lin Dang’s kindness with anyone.
Even Lin Dang’s future boyfriend would not be allowed!
Asking herself honestly, she was very good to Lin Dang too. She only wanted to give all her own kindness to Lin Dang alone. Wouldn’t it be good for them to exchange equally?
“Not get married? Why?”
Lin Dang had originally thought Huo Wan had already fallen asleep. She had not expected the other girl to suddenly speak again, and to say something so nonsensical at that.
“But if everyone else gets married and we don’t, won’t that look very strange?”
Dad and Mom got married, and only then did they have her and Lin Ran. Adults all came in pairs, and even the Chinese textbook had phrases like a talented man and a beautiful woman, and a match made in heaven.
In Lin Dang’s way of thinking, marriage seemed to be something one had to experience in life.
Like a milestone, or an important exam.
“What’s strange about it!”
“Can’t the two of us live together? Why do we have to bring other people into it!”
Huo Wan was a little frantic. She kicked the blanket off her body, sat straight up on the bed, put her hands on her hips, and looked at Lin Dang with exasperation, as if disappointed that she failed to live up to expectations.
For some inexplicable reason, they once again began a mysterious staring contest.
“Okay… whatever you want, then.”
Lin Dang tugged at Huo Wan’s hand and fiddled with her little finger, gently circling the other girl’s pinky with her index finger.
Her voice softened as she coaxed her.
“Whatever you want is fine.”
After all, growing up was still very far away.
Wasn’t it a little like worrying about the sky falling to think about these things now?
In any case, the only thing she could be certain of was that no matter what happened in the future, the girl beside her would always have a unique place in her heart.
…..
Huo Wan fell into a strange loop.
A strange loop only she knew about, one that no one else could know. And this feeling was something she had no way to tell anyone about, not even Lin Dang, the person closest to her.
The girl began to have her own secret.
Her secret was about one person’s name.
Ever since that night, she felt that Lin Dang seemed to have become a little different in her eyes. As for exactly how she was different, Huo Wan could not say.
She seemed to care even more about this person’s affairs. Although she had cared very much before too, Huo Wan herself knew that this was different.
Zhao Yangyang was thoroughly banished to the cold palace again.
Even the most interesting and fun things could no longer attract Huo Wan’s attention this time.
Because Lin Dang had said that she had to study properly. In the future, they still had to get into the best high school in the city together. If she did not work hard, then she would no longer be able to go to and from school with her.
They would not be able to be together anymore.
What a cruel thing that was. Just thinking about it felt terrifying.
So Huo Wan, who did not like studying, began her path of study. Only, during the ten minutes between classes every day, she would still appear in Class One’s classroom without fail.
Huo Wan’s grades rose in a straight line as if they had been strapped to a rocket. Before long, her name was once again pressed right up beside Lin Dang’s, and the two of them together occupied the first and second places in the grade.
The red honor roll ranking list was posted on the bulletin board outside the classroom. When school let out, the corridor was packed with people, and the bulletin board was surrounded so tightly that not even water could pass through.
Huo Wan pulled Lin Dang along and insisted on squeezing into the crowd, even though she had already heard her ranking from their classmates earlier.
Lin Dang did not understand what there was to see.
Weren’t first and second place just placed right there?
If someone else had dragged her into doing this kind of nonsensical foolish thing, she would have slapped them on the forehead long ago.
Only Huo Wan could get away with it.
After great difficulty, they finally squeezed in…
“How nice.”
The girl looked at the two names pressed tightly together on the red honor roll and murmured softly. For some reason, her mood suddenly leaped with joy, happier than if she had eaten a hundred little cakes!
She really wanted to pry this red honor roll off and secretly take it home!
“What?”
Lin Dang casually glanced at the two names on the red honor roll. The surrounding voices were a little noisy, and she had not clearly heard what the person beside her said.
She had already said it… there was nothing worth looking at.
Classmate Lin, who had occupied the top of the rankings year-round, had long since grown numb to this kind of ranking and did not feel anything.
But seeing Huo Wan’s face full of excitement, her eyes curved in delight, Lin Dang could not help curving her own lips too.
Mm… getting first place did seem pretty happy after all!
The feeling was still quite nice.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
Huo Wan worked hard to suppress the wildly rising corners of her mouth, grabbed Lin Dang’s wrist, and pulled her out of the crowd.
Just as they left the crowd, they saw Zhao Yangyang walking toward them. He shouted noisily, wanting to express his excitement and admiration for Huo Wan.
“Huo Wan! I saw it!”
Huo Wan pretended to look very casual and indifferent, unaware that the curve of her lips had already betrayed her mood.
“Did you? Our Dangdang has always been this amazing. Don’t make such a fuss.”
The slow-to-react Huo Wan did not realize that Zhao Yangyang had actually wanted to praise her. Her words instead made the other person feel very awkward.
“I wasn’t… Fine, actually, you’re super amazing too.”
Zhao Yangyang glanced at Lin Dang and found that although the other girl’s wrist was being held by Huo Wan, her gaze had already turned elsewhere at this moment.
For some reason, he always felt that Lin Dang seemed somewhat dissatisfied with him… or even a little hostile.
Clearly… they had all graduated from the same kindergarten!
“Xiao Wan, we should go. Auntie Xiao is still waiting for us to go back and eat.”
Huo Wan’s mother’s surname was Xiao. They had already agreed earlier that after the results came out today, Lin Dang and Huo Wan would go home together to eat.
“Oh, okay. Then let’s hurry!”
Zhao Yangyang wanted to speak but stopped himself. The words he had not yet finished were forcibly cut off again.
During this period, he could not even find a chance to say a few words to Huo Wan alone, because the other girl was always stuck together with Lin Dang.
To be honest, with Lin Dang’s somewhat dull and serious personality, he really could not understand why Huo Wan could get along so well with someone like her.
In the pocket of his school uniform, he had originally prepared a small gift, wanting to congratulate Huo Wan on happily getting second place.
But now, he could only stand in place and watch helplessly as the two girls’ figures gradually disappeared into the distance…
Huo Wan’s mother bought each of the two children a phone as a reward for their improvement on the exam.
At first, Lin Dang refused to accept it no matter what. Only after Huo Wan’s mother let slip that she had already spoken with Lin Dang’s family and gotten their agreement did Lin Dang reluctantly accept it.
Riding the excitement of having gotten new phones, Huo Wan could not wait after dinner to pull Lin Dang out with her so the two of them could go onto the street and get phone cards.
“Now that we have phones, we can call each other every day and say goodnight!”
“When we don’t have class, we can also text and chat…”
“Tomorrow, let’s have Zhao Yangyang teach us how to apply for a QQ account! This phone seems like it can even do video!”
Huo Wan held Lin Dang’s hand and skipped along the street, chattering nonstop. Clearly, she was happy to the extreme.
The two phones her mother had chosen were matte models, one black and one white. They were very pretty… More importantly, they looked just like couple phones.
Every use Huo Wan thought of for the phone was bubbling with pink bubbles, full of a young girl’s romantic thoughts.
But one sentence from Lin Dang popped each of those pink bubbles one by one.
“Mm. In the future, I won’t have to use the landline to teach you how to solve problems.”
Huo Wan, who did not like studying: ?
We just finished exams and you’re already bringing up studying again. What kind of study monster crawled out from where?
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