Chapter 118: The Darkening Sky Beneath the First Snow [Third Watch]

She belonged to Class 7 of the second year in middle school, and her classroom was upstairs. Yet during breaks, when fetching plain boiled water, the little girl preferred to run downstairs.

Whenever she passed by Class 5 of the same grade, if luck was on her side, she could catch a glimpse of the buzz-cut boy at the back of the room acting wildly; if not, she wouldn’t see him at all.

Whether she saw him or not, she would only cast a quick glance before hurrying to fill her cup outside the restroom, then climb back up to her class via the stairway at the other end of the hall.

Every time she fetched water during breaks, she had to take this long detour.

She had slowly developed this habit since the beginning of her second year.

But this time, she heard raised voices coming from Class 5—it was an argument. Amid the quarrel, she distinctly caught the familiar name “Lu Yuanqiu,” as well as an angry boy’s voice.

Rarely seen, the little girl shrank her body and stood frozen in the corridor, clutching the plastic cup.

“Damn it, are they all targeting me? Damn!”

The boy stormed out of the classroom, glanced up briefly at the little girl by the door, and she immediately lowered her gaze and walked on. The boy turned and headed toward the office, not recognizing who she was.

After filling her cup, she went back to Class 7 and quietly sat down at her usual seat in the back row. She placed the plastic cup on the desk and covered it with her two small hands, which were blackened and cracked from the cold.

She glanced up at her only close friend in the class, a bespectacled girl named Liu Xian.

But Liu Xian had more than one friend in the class, so most of the time, the little girl wouldn’t initiate conversation with her. If Liu Xian spoke to her first, she would respond warmly and keep the conversation going.

“Bai Qingxia, have you fetched water? Let’s go together!”

Liu Xian called out from a distance, holding her thermos.

The little girl was about to answer when another of Liu Xian’s friends spoke up, “Liu Xian, don’t bother fetching water. Let’s go outside the school gate to the shop across the street and buy some hot water!”

Liu Xian turned around with a troubled expression, “Ah... I don’t dare to go. There’s a crazy person sitting by the gate. I’m a little scared.”

Hearing this, the little girl quietly sat back down, took a deep breath, and silently wrapped her small hands around the steaming plastic cup. Beneath her long, messy hair, her eyes fixed quietly on the water inside the cup, though her eyes slowly reddened.

In the biting winter cold, it seemed only the cup before her held any warmth.

After school, when most students had left, the little girl, clutching her lunchbox, came outside the school.

While others wore thick socks, she wore short, thin socks and canvas shoes with only a single layer of fabric. Though her uniform pants were pulled down as much as possible, her ankles still remained exposed.

Her canvas shoes crunched softly on a thin layer of snow. The girl looked up and saw the buzz-cut boy sitting next to her father by the gate.

She froze for a moment, then quietly lowered her head, hiding her face beneath her long, tangled hair.

From a distance, the little girl took a detour along a small path to the opposite side of the gate. She brushed away the thin snow with her small hands and slowly sat down.

The buzz-cut boy and her father were sitting about five meters behind her, chatting.

Though the boy called it chatting, it was really just him venting alone.

“Uncle, do you think these people are assholes? I’m so damn pissed off.”

“I’ve just gotten a little closer to you, and they start gossiping behind my back. I don’t know what I did wrong. And I’m not the only one helping you, right? There’s that other person... was it a girl or a boy? Anyway, there are others helping you too!”

“That means I’m not the only one doing this, right? Are they wrong too?”

“I’m so angry I could spit blood. They’re all against me. They won’t even let me sign up for the New Year’s Day show.”

“How am I the bad student? Just because I got into a few fights? They want to slap the ‘bad student’ label on me?”

He rattled on, but the “crazy uncle” next to him just happily swung his legs, staring toward the school gate as if waiting for someone, completely ignoring the boy’s words.

The little girl sat quietly behind them, glanced at her lunchbox, unzipped it, and silently tucked the still-warm box into her arms.

She waited for the buzz-cut boy to leave but also wished he would stay a little longer. After a long silence, the boy muttered, “I don’t want to be a bad student. I’m really not...”

“I prepared my act for New Year’s Day for a long time, sigh...”

“But what good is it telling you all this?”

“But if I don’t tell you, I don’t know who else to talk to.”

“Tomorrow’s New Year’s Day. I just want someone to watch.”

After this rambling, he seemed to think of something and brightened up, “Right, Uncle!”

“Aren’t you my audience?!”

“Those bastards don’t like me. Why should I perform for them?!”

“You’re my friend. I should perform for you!”

“Heh, I’m so clever.”

“Why should I try to please those who don’t like me?”

With that, the buzz-cut boy bounced off, silly and carefree. Passing by a tree, he excitedly jumped up, reaching for a branch.

The little girl turned her head, watching his retreating figure quietly for a while. Then she hurried over to her father, placed the lunchbox in his arms, and sat down beside him.

“Xia Xia!”

...

The next afternoon, the New Year’s Eve party.

In Class 7 of the second year, all the desks and chairs were pushed to the sides, leaving a large open space in the center for students to perform.

The little girl sat in a corner of the classroom, watching her classmates dance and sing. Even her only close friend Liu Xian had a performance.

But the little girl had no heart to wait for her friend’s act.

While others were playing and laughing, she slipped out during a bathroom break and went to the school gate.

The girl in canvas shoes walked slowly toward the gate, her footsteps growing slower on the thin snow.

By the gate sat the “crazy uncle,” happily swinging his legs and watching excitedly the boy standing before him.

The buzz-cut boy cradled a guitar, the strap around his neck, as snowflakes drifted down. Alone in the swirling snow, he sang a song he had carefully prepared for New Year’s Day, performing just for the uncle.

The girl gripped the iron gate railing with both small hands. She didn’t know the song’s name, only that it was beautiful—so beautiful it brought hot tears streaming down her face as she quietly watched from behind the gate.

The buzz-cut boy sang joyfully, holding the guitar, his image gradually etched in the girl’s eyes as something eternal.

“I fell in love with someone who makes me reckless~”

“I thought this was the world I was chasing~”

...

Later, the little girl learned from Sister Li that the song she had quietly been learning to sing for so long was called “Darkening Sky.”

Sorry, today I’m really busy, so this is just the first part. Many thanks to the generous donor for the 100,000 points on Qidian. As the leader, I’ll add another update. Along with the two previous missed updates, the remaining three will be posted on the 12th, 14th, and 16th.

(End of chapter)