Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 158: Chapter 67: The Most Troublesome Timeline

The first class of the afternoon was math.

The snow was still falling.

Zhang Shutong got a cup of water and returned to his seat.

It was a sad state of affairs. Graduation was approaching, yet their class didn’t even have its own water dispenser. They still had to run to the hot water room in the hallway and wait in line.

That’s just how it was in a small town. If it weren’t for Gu Qiuyan’s father donating a rubberized sports field, they wouldn’t even have a good place to play ball in the winter.

He glanced toward the front of the classroom, to his side. Lu Qinglian was back, though he didn’t know when she’d returned. She had probably spent the entire lunch break sitting on the rooftop.

Zhang Shutong’s feelings about her were complicated now. Before—back when he first heard the news of her death—he’d thought of her as just a cold, distant background character. Then, while they were fishing, he discovered she was a bit of a ditz. When she was eating Oreos, she’d seemed just like a young girl. He had pieced these images together, believing he’d found the real Lu Qinglian. But the clues from eight years in the future had overturned all those impressions. To be honest, Zhang Shutong now felt she was a little dangerous.

He was being influenced by his experiences from eight years in the future, viewing her through a preconceived filter, and that wasn’t a good thing.

Ruoping had said he’d turned on Lu Qinglian and callously dumped her.

He himself also believed that even if they weren’t a couple, he had indeed used some tricks to keep her on the island.

The aggressor and the victim—the dynamic was clear at a glance.

But Zhang Shutong was thinking, ’Isn’t something missing here?’

For example, Lu Qinglian’s own thoughts on the matter.

’Was she really willing, with no complaints or regrets?’

One thing was very strange: Ruoping and the others had never mentioned Lu Qinglian’s reaction at all.

In the original timeline, he and Du Kang had exchanged a few words outside the funeral home. Du Kang had mentioned that Lu Qinglian had been busy restoring the temple statues and would sometimes come down the mountain to spend time with the children at the school.

Right up until the day before she died, when she had called him.

’What on earth did she want to say then?’

’Could it be that in the "cold-blooded" timeline, that phone call never happened because I "betrayed" her?’

And then there was what she’d said on the rooftop:

"If you don’t want any accidents to happen, you’d best not pry into my affairs again."

The statement could be taken as a veiled warning, or as an order to leave her alone. He wasn’t going to give up because of it, but he decided not to approach her again until he heard back from his mom.

Zhang Shutong could once again confirm that the feng shui of his seat was truly terrible.

But class had to go on.

It was snowing outside, and he only had a bicycle, which made it difficult to get out and investigate.

He seemed to be constantly bumming rides off people lately—Song, Qingyi, Ruoping. Zhang Shutong had originally thought learning to drive would be useless for someone like him, but now he was realizing the importance of having transportation. ’Besides,’ he thought, ’no one on the island checks for unlicensed drivers. What if I practice a bit with Song’s Fox?’

Whenever he had a spare moment, his mind would start to wander.

He needed something to do. Zhang Shutong took out his monthly exam papers. He only looked at the last few problems for each question type. His memory was a bit hazy, and it would take some time to catch up to the ninth-grade curriculum. This sparked a strange thought—

’They had all agreed to go to high school together, but what if the other three all passed the entrance exams and he was the only one who failed?’

Okay, he was just kidding. He might not get back his old rank, but this middle school material was child’s play for him. Of course, he still needed to pay attention in class.

It was now the break between classes. A lazy mood filled the winter afternoon, and the air had grown a bit stale. According to class rules, the students by the windows were supposed to open them for ventilation after the lunch nap. Gu Qiuyan, naturally, hadn’t moved. She was currently staring into space with her eyes half-closed. Based on Zhang Shutong’s observations over the past few days, she usually stayed like that until the bell for the first period rang.

Besides, she couldn’t be exposed to the cold wind today, so if the window stayed shut, so be it. The air near them wasn’t too stuffy anyway, and he was gradually getting used to her faint scent.

So the two of them sat there, one looking at exam papers, the other staring into space. He’d long ago mastered the art of multitasking back in his high school days—saving the world without letting his studies suffer.

Zhang Shutong looked at his previous answers, analyzing the problem statement and scribbling notes on the paper. As he thought, he glanced over at Gu Qiuyan.

She took her warmed milk from the top of the radiator. ’Pretty smart,’ he thought.

He figured out that problem and moved on to the next one. Zhang Shutong glanced at Gu Qiuyan again.

’Mm, got this one too. Next.’

Another glance.

This time, however, he was caught.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" she asked, her face cold.

Zhang Shutong opened his mouth, then stopped.

He wanted to say that he wasn’t actually looking at her, but at the scarf she had draped over her chair.

While mulling over the math problems, he’d suddenly had an idea: he could borrow the scarf, tie it around his face, find a dimly lit place to take a picture, and compare it to the attacker’s appearance.

That would prove his guess was right—that the attacker was indeed wearing a scarf.

So Zhang Shutong pointed at the scarf.

"I was looking at it."

"Weirdo."

She turned her face away.

Zhang Shutong didn’t have the nerve to say he wanted to use her scarf for an experiment. He would have been more than happy to, but the problem was that Gu Qiuyan would not.

"Do you remember that time your scarf got stepped on?" Zhang Shutong asked.

That was the incident that had plunged their relationship to a freezing point. It was after gym class one day. Gu Qiuyan discovered her beloved scarf had been stepped on. Zhou Ziheng had told her who did it, and an angry, disappointed Gu Qiuyan had come over to confront him. At the time, Zhang Shutong felt guilty because he thought he really might have brushed it with the tip of his shoe, so her questions left him speechless.

As she spoke, Gu Qiuyan grew more and more upset, her questions becoming relentless. Back then, he was the type who responded to kindness but bristled at aggression. Growing annoyed, he’d retorted sharply to everything she said. His words made her cry, and she had stormed out of the classroom, red-eyed, without a single look back.

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