Ever since breakfast, after saying just one sentence, “Disheveled clothes,” Ke Wu had been hounded by Lin Xirun the entire morning, pressed relentlessly about what impression Jing Sicun had left on her.
Ke Ni, feeling unsettled, stared at the notice about the audition competition’s schedule, and replied offhandedly:
“For a man wearing a bathrobe who can’t even bother to tie it properly, and only meeting for a brief ten seconds—what kind of impression could I possibly have?”
Lin Xirun wouldn’t let it go: “How is that the same? Did you only notice his bathrobe? Only notice he’s a guy? That’s Jing Sicun, you know!”
Ke Ni said, “We’re all carbon-based lifeforms.”
The subtext: What difference could there be? It’s not like he has an antenna growing out of his head.
Lin Xirun harbored a kind of reverent curiosity about Jing Sicun, wishing he could have been the one to meet him himself.
Lin Xirun’s voice was full of excitement as he repeatedly brought up Jing Sicun’s outstanding performances in past competitions right by Ke Ni’s ear, trying to spark any other memories she might have from that brief glance at Jing Sicun.
Everything Lin Xirun said, Ke Ni already knew—
Jing Sicun had participated in a knowledge quiz show back in elementary school and took second place.
A few years later, Jing Sicun appeared again on a televised memory and observation competition, and with his calm, collected presence and a runaway lead in points, he became famous in a single night.
He shone brightly for several consecutive episodes on that show, eventually making it to the finals.
The match before the finals was, in the eyes of the audience, extremely difficult and complex in its process.
Preparation, observation, verification, and other rounds added up to nearly seven hours.
Right after passing the preliminary, Jing Sicun went straight into the grand finals.
His opponent in the finals was five years older than him at the time, so Jing Sicun was at a disadvantage in both age and experience.
What’s more, he’d just spent seven hours in a competition that drained both his focus and stamina, so he was in poor shape.
The audience watching on TV were all sweating bullets for him.
The finals were a calculation-based event.
At first, Jing Sicun lagged behind his opponent by almost thirty seconds, but in the end, he made a comeback against all odds, winning by a margin of just 0.19 seconds…
Ke Ni had watched all those TV shows at home on her television.
Even when Jing Sicun won, despite her own grudges and indignant bias, she still leapt up from the sofa in excitement.
She couldn’t be more familiar.
So, when Lin Xirun kept going on and on about Jing Sicun’s finals, Ke Ni just made a “stop” gesture.
“Ke Ni, did you see the finals?”
What Lin Xirun couldn’t understand was:
If Ke Ni could recognize Jing Sicun all these years later, it meant Jing Sicun’s performance back then had made a deep impression on her.
If that’s the case…
Why wasn’t Ke Ni excited to see Jing Sicun?
Why didn’t she have any desire to get to know or approach him?
Not only was Ke Ni hounded with questions by Lin Xirun, she was also dragged up seven flights of stairs.
Lin Xirun expressed her excitement at being able to participate in the same show’s audition as Jing Sicun, and couldn’t help but ask Ke Ni again about her impression of him.
Ke Ni glanced at Lin Xirun’s determined, fitness-focused stair-climbing posture, and decided to just say whatever came to mind.
Ke Ni said, “Well, he’s got a nice figure.”
She had just finished speaking when, as fate would have it, she ran into Jing Sicun himself on the stairs.
Thankfully, she hadn’t mentioned his name.
As soon as she brought up his physique, Lin Xirun immediately became wary.
Even though she was staying on the fifth floor of the hotel, Lin Xirun insisted on following Ke Ni all the way up to the seventh floor for exercise, declaring that she’d climb up to the fifteenth floor and then order a light salad for lunch.
When they parted on the seventh floor, Lin Xirun was still grumbling as she asked Ke Ni:
“Facing a contestant like Jing Sicun, who’s done god-level plays in mental competitions, didn’t you ever get the impression of ‘wisdom,’ ‘intelligence,’ or ‘there’s something different about him’?”
Ke Ni retorted, “What can you tell from just a glance?”
Lin Xirun said, “Of course you can!”
“Why didn’t you notice just now?”
Ke Ni suppressed a laugh and replied, “Didn’t I just meet him in person?”
Lin Xirun froze, then asked in dismay, “Really?”
“For sure.”
“When?”
“When you were lecturing me about muscle gain and fat loss.”
After saying that, Ke Ni mischievously closed the stairwell door, shutting Lin Xirun’s self-doubting voice behind her.
The heavy door was soon pushed open again, and Lin Xirun reminded her, “Don’t oversleep at noon. See you downstairs at one-thirty, we’ll go to the competition venue with Zhu and the others.”
Ke Ni replied with a faint “okay.”
***
~ Barbecue Restaurant ~
Jing Sicun’s way of encouraging people was rather effective—He Zhi’s nerves had indeed eased up quite a bit.
With his confidence up, his appetite followed; within ten minutes of sitting down, He Zhi had already wolfed down more than a dozen skewers.
His appetite was almost catching up to Dai Jize.
After eating two more beef skewers, He Zhi was teased by the sloth-like Dai surname, who said lazily, “Ah Zhi, you win a round against Brother Jing and you get this happy?”
He Zhi’s smile froze on his face. He chuckled twice, then suddenly realized something was off, stiffened, and his face instantly flushed red.
He Zhi awkwardly turned to look at Jing Sicun: “Brother Jing, I didn’t mean it like that…”
Jing Sicun, who had gone to the hospital after his shower last night, had caught a chill in the cool spring night after the rain, and his cold had gotten worse.
His voice was even more nasal than it was in the morning: “I know.”
He Zhi, holding half a skewer of beef, hesitantly asked, “Brother Jing, will your condition affect the auditions this afternoon?”
Dai Jize interjected, “Brother Jing nearly topped the entrance exams while running a fever, you know.”
Jing Sicun smiled, “Wait until I take you to the finals.”
He Zhi chuckled again and brought the beef skewer to his mouth.
Dai Jize was also eating enthusiastically.
Song Yi was acting odd the whole time—ever since they entered the barbecue restaurant, he’d been fiddling with his phone.
Even the aroma of the hot barbecue didn’t get him to look up, and the freshly grilled meat was sizzling with oil, but Song Yi remained unmoved.
Ever since he’d seen that girl in the hotel stairwell, Song Yi had been like a man possessed, pestering the three of them to ask if they knew her, insisting that it was impossible for them not to know her, and getting upset when they denied it.
Jing Sicun, feeling sick and lazy, didn’t have the energy to ask what Song Yi was up to.
He picked up his phone, tilted his head toward Dai Fanze and He Zhi, gesturing that he was going outside to make a call and that they should keep eating.
Just as Dai Jize picked up his fifth fish tofu skewer, Song Yi suddenly exclaimed, “Ah!”
He Zhi was so startled he dropped his skewer.
Song Yi said, “I found it!”
Jing Sicun’s call was to his family to check in.
After hanging up and returning to the barbecue restaurant, he found Song Yi, Dai Fanze, and He Zhi all huddled together, staring at something.
Song Yi noticed Jing Sicun coming in and waved him over.
Their phone was playing a clip from some TV show—a few years old, by the look of it.
Back then, there were one or two mental challenge shows with massive national popularity, including the ones Jing Sicun had participated in and the ones people hoped he would join.
These shows had large audiences and high ratings, so naturally, other stations tried to make similar programs.
That was probably what Song Yi and the others were watching.
Song Yi said excitedly, “It’s coming, it’s coming!”
The camera cut to a smiling female contestant.
Her basic information flashed on the screen—
Name: Ke Ni
Age: 16
School: Affiliated Experimental High School of Normal University
Jing Sicun recognized the person on the screen and silently raised his eyebrows.
Wasn’t this the girl who bumped into him at the café entrance last night—the one who’d trained her headbutt?
The host’s voice was gentle as she asked the girl what result she hoped to achieve by participating in the competition.
The girl gripped the microphone, clearly a bit hesitant, but still managed a quick smile and answered, “I don’t know, but I’ll do my best.”
The video had been edited.
To increase the effect, one second the girl was smiling shyly on the screen, and the next, she suddenly rushed offstage at the competition, covering her face and crying.
Ke Ni had given up on the competition.
The girl was especially upset. The host went onstage to comfort her, and after much effort, managed to pull her hands away from her eyes, revealing a pair of reddened eyes.
The host said, “Contestant Ke Ni missed a digit while inputting the command. Because of this operational error, she created an irreparable gap in her score.”
The male host continued, “Contestant Ke Ni also knew her mistake couldn’t be fixed, so she chose to quit the competition.”
Saying she “choked up” was putting it mildly—Ke Ni cried so hard she was nearly sobbing uncontrollably.
Dai Jize couldn’t bear to watch any longer, “How did it end up like that?”
Jing Sicun didn’t know Ke Ni, but he did know her opponent in that competition.
That contestant was even called a mental arithmetic prodigy.
Jing Sicun glanced at Song Yi.
Song Yi clearly wasn’t making fun of or looking down on anyone; in fact, he was tugging on Dai Fanze, saying, “Hey, Lao Dai, stop eating your grilled fish tofu for a second. No one’s going to steal it. Come watch, it’s almost at the key part.”
The video was spliced together with post-match interviews.
By then, Ke Ni had already calmed down.
She seemed to be in good spirits, “Well, Shen Min is a very strong opponent. Congratulations to her for winning the match. I regret not being able to finish the competition.”
The video quality wasn’t great, but you could still see that Ke Ni had been crying.
Her eyelids were a bit puffy and pink, like the flesh of a freshly cut peach, or like the faint blush at the tip of a lotus bud.
Jing Sicun suddenly remembered last night, when Ke Wu had crashed into his chest and looked up at him with those round eyes, ready to scold him, only to be caught off guard by surprise.
The show’s producers clearly didn’t want to miss out on the drama of a contestant who had an emotional outburst on stage, so they focused on her, giving her plenty of screen time.
The interview continued in the video:
Ke Ni showed her iPad screen to the camera, which had a drawing on it.
She said, “Actually, making it this far is already lucky for me. Next, my good friends will be facing Shen Min in the competition. I want to wish both of them good luck, that they’ll break their limits and achieve great results.”
On the iPad was a drawing by Ke Ni—
A little girl with a braided ponytail riding a koi fish, raising her tiny fist in a gesture of charging forward.
He Zhi suddenly shouted, “I’ve seen this drawing before! My high school deskmate uses it as their WeChat profile picture!”
Dai Fanze said, “I think I’ve seen something like it, too.”
Song Yi was particularly smug, “See, I knew at least one of you would know Ke Wu! This drawing was super famous back then—everyone used it as a lucky avatar!”
Song Yi said that back then, he’d watched that competition at home with his parents.
When Ke Ni finished crying and gave her blessing, his mom especially liked her, said she was adorable, and that left a deep impression on Song Yi too.
Song Yi turned around, holding up his phone, “Aren’t you friends with Shen Min? Don’t you know Ke Ni?”
Jing Sicun said, “No.”
Song Yi acted as if Ke Ni was some beloved family member, beaming as he held up his phone and asked each of them in turn if they thought Ke Ni was cute.
Dai Fanze and He Zhi both said she was.
Finally, he asked Jing Sicun, “What about you—don’t you think she’s cute?”
Jing Sicun looked at the teary, misty-eyed girl on the screen and gave a short reply, “Very tearful.”
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