Tang Yancheng met Ah Ruan when he was thirteen years old.
On the first day of school, under the kapok tree of Huihuan Middle School, he held a pile of newly issued textbooks while she squatted on the ground to pick up scattered notebooks. He passed by and bent down to help her pick up the top one - the word "Ruan Qing" was written on the cover in blue pen. The strokes were very light, just like her almost non-existent presence every time she appeared in his sight.
He didn't say anything, handed the notebook to her, turned around and left.
That was the closest he had been to her in his life.
For the next six years, they were in the same school but in different classes. He was by the window on the third floor, and she was at the end of the corridor on the second floor. He only knew that she liked to wear floral skirts, had a pear-shaped smile, had poor physics scores, and would cry on the table after every monthly exam. And he is the one who always ranks first in exams, his school uniforms are always neat, and his life plans are accurate to every detail.
He never spoke to her.
In physics class, he used a pencil to trace the profile of her face very lightly in the corner of the test paper, and then used an eraser to erase it until it was almost invisible. Just when she was moving the books, he silently helped her hold the crumbling bookshelf, but walked away before she turned around to thank her. But on graduation day, he wrote the four words "Ningbo Polytechnic" on the application form so hard that he scratched the paper, and her name was swallowed back into his stomach, and together with the words "I like you", it was locked into the roots of the old banyan tree in Huihuan Middle School.
Later, he took over a rental house in Zhongkai District and became the Chen Xubai who was "always on the way back to Huizhou" in his sister's novel. He would go back every autumn and stand under the old banyan tree for ten minutes. Then he would go to the entrance of Ah Ruan's bookstore and buy the thickest "Fora". He never went in, never looked up, never said a superfluous word.
When he was thirteen, he helped her pick up a notebook. At the age of thirty-two, he finally understood - he would never know what was written in that notebook in his lifetime.
As for the bowl of pickled noodles with double chopped peanuts, he never dared to eat it again.
Concept: Some people have a secret love, so even disturbing them is offensive.