Chapter 2: A Confession That Absolutely Cannot Be Accepted
The Teacher Appreciation Banquet was very lively.
More than forty classmates and six teachers gathered in a large private room, filling three round tables. One table was all boys, one table was all girls, and the other table was the teachers, class cadres, and some students who liked to be active in front of the teachers.
The usually stern-faced teachers let go of their seriousness, and the students also shed their burden. Although the final admission results hadn’t come out yet, everyone had at least relaxed.
However, in Wang Heng’s view, the real test had just begun.
He usually had decent grades but was quite quiet, so he sat quietly at the boys’ table, with his best friend Xiao Renjian beside him. This guy had a very distinctive look, with extremely bushy and thick eyebrows that couldn’t help but remind people of Little Li from Naruto. However, his gaze was always a bit shifty, and his eyebrow-raising expression often looked sleazy, so compared to that hot-blooded youth, Xiao Renjian was more like an grown-up Shinchan from Crayon Shinchan.
Seeing that Wang Heng seemed even quieter than usual today, Xiao Renjian picked up a bite of food, turned his head and asked, “Xiao Heng, what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing.”
“I feel like you’re a bit off today…”
“How am I off?”
Xiao Renjian rubbed his chin and said seriously, “You used to call me ‘jerk’ whenever you saw me, but today you actually just called me by name.”
Wang Heng: “…Okay, Xiao the jerk. By the way, which school did you apply to?”
Xiao Renjian chuckled, “Finally remembered to ask me? But I can’t say for sure. First choice in Huadu, second choice in Magic City, third choice in the provincial capital. Where I’ll end up, who knows. Right, speaking of applications, Telecommunications Science and Technology University’s past cutoff scores aren’t low. Are you sure you can get in?”
“Certain,” Wang Heng said without hesitation, “I accepted allocation, and this year’s cutoff there won’t be too high.”
“How are you so confident…” Xiao Renjian was about to continue complaining when his gaze suddenly shifted, “Hey, who’s that staring at you?”
“You mean Han Yixuan?”
“Yeah, look behind—”
Before Xiao Renjian could finish, Wang Heng cut him off cleanly: “Not looking, eat your food.”
“Huh?”
Refuse the cleaver, starting from avoiding eye contact with girls. Wang Heng was of course well aware that Han Yixuan was sitting at the table right next to him, only a few steps away. But he simply didn’t turn his head, pretending not to notice at all.
The food on the table was quite abundant, but the talkative classmates were still a minority. Xiao Renjian noticed that after just chatting a few sentences and looking around, the plate of sizzling beef steak that had just been served was gone. Especially when it rotated to him, the last two pieces were snatched away by Wang Heng with his chopsticks.
“Can you leave some for me?” Xiao Renjian said with a face full of indignation.
Wang Heng chewed and said, “Sorry, can’t.”
At that moment, a girl’s soft voice sounded from behind: “Classmate Wang Heng, can you come out for a moment?”
The surroundings suddenly quieted down, and then this inexplicable atmosphere continued to spread, making the entire private room quiet.
The nearby classmates all turned their gazes toward Wang Heng and Han Yixuan, while the others who hadn’t heard the words, though puzzled, also followed suit and looked at the two.
Xiao Renjian reacted first, letting out an “oh” with deep meaning, breaking the silence.
Wang Heng sighed and put down his chopsticks. Now, even if he wanted to ignore it, he couldn’t.
The guys around started cheering:
“Han Yixuan, what are you calling him out for?”
“Do you two have some whisper that can’t be said in front of everyone?”
“No worries, you two just talk, we won’t eavesdrop…”
Whenever there was potential gossip, these students got excited. There were boys cheering and girls too. So Han Yixuan’s face turned completely red, but she still stared intently at the boy in front of her.
Wang Heng stood up and looked straight at the young girl, replying, “Okay, let’s talk outside.”
The two walked out of the private room amid the surrounding cheers rising and falling.
Wang Heng walked ahead, Han Yixuan lowering her small face and following behind. They kept going until they reached the sidewalk outside the restaurant.
Outside was naturally much quieter than inside the private room. Wang Heng looked at the young girl in front of him. Although she was looking down, making her expression hard to see, even her earlobes were red, so her face was probably even redder.
He sighed and said, “I can probably guess what you want to say. If it’s not my ego being too good… is it a confession?”
Han Yixuan’s voice was very soft: “Your feeling is correct.”
“Understood,” Wang Heng swallowed, “but sorry.”
The young girl lifted her face, her wide eyes full of shock: “You… dislike me?”
“Don’t dislike you. Strictly speaking, I actually have a good feeling about you.” He knew that in the past two years, the image of himself she’d seen must have shown quite a few signs of his crush, so he had to find a reasonable excuse.
“Then why apologize?”
“Because I don’t plan to date.”
Han Yixuan was stunned for a moment, then unwillingly pressed, “The Gaokao is already over. Why not?”
Wang Heng threw out the reason he’d prepared, that most suitable excuse: “Because after summer vacation ends, we’ll be apart. I don’t like that. And as for dating, I’m not ready yet…”
“What do you, a big boy, need to prepare for!” Han Yixuan clenched her fists, “And apart is apart. What era is this? What’s the big deal about a long-distance relationship!”
The other party was more persistent than imagined, so Wang Heng could only come up with another excuse on the spot. Suddenly, he had a sudden inspiration and got an idea.
“I want to ask a question first,” Wang Heng said, “Why do you like me?”
Han Yixuan hesitated for less than a second before immediately countering, “Like? Does it need a reason?”
Wang Heng tapped his temple with his index finger: “Every emotion has a reason. Generally speaking, teenage likes are very superficial, mostly because of a good-looking face. Of course, for people over twenty or even forty, the reasons for liking the opposite sex are usually just as superficial. So-called love at first sight is just lust at first sight; and so-called feelings growing over time are just weighing pros and cons, which is even more realistic…”
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
“I want to say that the core of love is instinctual reproductive desire, plus fear of loneliness, wrapped in a layer of cultural shell. That’s all it is. So-called love is an absurd thing, a beautiful illusion people fantasize about. Dating is equivalent to placing the center of your life on an illusion, like building a building on a swamp—it won’t stand steady. So, even if we won’t be apart in two months, you and I definitely wouldn’t get along.”
Looking at the girl who was dumbfounded, Wang Heng felt that his impromptu empty talk had probably worked… right?
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