March 2, 2014 17:30 Class 3 (7), Nancheng No. 2 Middle School
When Zeng Yi peeked to the right rear with his peripheral vision for the 23rd time, the chalk tip accurately hit his desk.
"Zeng Yi, please explain the third solution to this final question." The math teacher tapped on the blackboard, and the trigonometric function graphs cast distorted shadows in the sunset. His fingers holding the mechanical pencil suddenly tightened, and the pen tip poked a deep hole on the draft paper - Jiang Changxing's seat was on the edge of the shadow.
The air conditioner vents buzzed, and cold sweat slid down the spine and into the collar of the school uniform. When he glanced at the densely packed "jiang" characters in his draft book, he suddenly understood why his hands were shaking when he dissected the frog in the biology class yesterday - at this moment, his heart was spasming like the disembowelled frog.
"Use the cosine theorem to transform the coordinate system..." His voice was stiff. From the corner of his eye, Jiang Changxing's slender fingers were turning the carbon pen. The light reflected by the metal pen cap fell on the back of his neck, like a burning brand.
"The steps are correct, but the calculation is wrong by three decimal points." Jiang Changxing's voice came mixed with the chirping of cicadas in early summer. Zeng Yi looked at the arc of the hem of the school uniform that swayed when the man stood up, and finally understood why he always held his breath every time the other person passed by - as if a slightly heavier breath would dissipate the faint scent of cedar in the air.
There was a sudden commotion in the classroom. Jiang Changxing's fingers holding the chalk were clearly knuckled, and he drew a parabola next to an erroneous step in solving the problem: "When θ approaches the critical value, the sine wave function will undergo a phase mutation." The chalk collided with the blackboard and produced tiny sparks, just like the raindrops illuminated by the streetlights on the shoulders of this man when he held an umbrella to send him home on a rainy day last week.
Zeng Yi stared at his corrected formula and suddenly found that all the wrong numbers fell on the peaks of the function curve, just like the heartbeat rate every time he looked at Jiang Changxing.
Intention: Love can overcome all difficulties