Later I learned that the English teaching assistant sitting next to the podium in my senior year of high school was Zhou Yian.
At that time, I didn't even see what he looked like. I only remember him sitting quietly, occasionally raising his head to glance at the people below who were doing the questions. I was sitting in the third row, and I didn't know half of the words on the paper. I turned the pen around and around in my hand, but it just couldn't land on the paper.
He didn't talk to me and I didn't talk to him.
Later, in the freshman English class, the teacher called "Chen Mai". I stood up and read "development", and my mouth was one step faster than my brain - "Di Waile Pument". The whole crowd laughed. The teacher recommended a teaching assistant to me, saying he was a senior in the School of Engineering named Zhou Yian.
The name is okay. None of my business.
In the corridor, he handed me an application form. When I took it, my fingers felt cold when they touched the edge of the folder. He stood next to Holly, he was very tall, glanced at me, and said, "You can contact me directly if you need anything."
The seniors are so busy that it's not my turn.
But later, after taking extra classes and supplementing my studies, I discovered that he lived across the street. We could meet each other while drying clothes on the balcony, but in the middle of the night I was listening to music and it disturbed him. He knocked on the door and asked me to turn down the volume. He drew a list of root words for me, which I tucked into my textbook and haven't thrown away for four years. Tang Xiaowen said, "Is he too kind to you?" Before I had time to figure it out, my mother looked through my phone first.
Red exclamation mark. He sent the last message: "Let's stop for a while."
Eight years. He was promoted to engineer at a remote substation, and he has eight photos saved in his phone - the same tree, taken every year on his birthday. Half of the wool pendant is in my pocket and has not been lost for a day. I took the teaching qualification certificate and worked my way from substitute teacher to backbone. The other half hung on the desk lamp, and the edges were whitened.
No one has forgotten anyone.
During an electricity science lecture, he stood on the podium at the Song Auditorium and saw me. The page-turning pen fell to the floor. I ran away before the lecture ended. He chased me out and called my name from the end of the corridor. "I've been looking for you for eight years." Dozens of ticket stubs, three full notebooks, each page has my name on it.
He took half of the pendant out of his pocket and put it together.
He said, let me provide you with the rest of your life.
Twelve years of secret love, eight years of searching, gentleness and restraint, and finally consummation.
Concept: Secret love is not a single arrow, it is a two-way silent pursuit