Chapter 190: Shakespeare’s Love Letters ⑦
Humans are gregarious animals, and boys, just like girls, like to stick together. Therefore, almost every boy has a few close buddies, and Li Kai is no exception.
Dating? To be honest, except for him and Zhang Haiyang, several of their good buddies had dated in junior high, or in their second or third year of junior high. Zhang Haiyang could now be considered someone with dating experience. The few of them discussed for a long time: pursuing girls, it’s all about care and concern, giving gifts… but these are all too outdated.
He naturally provided care and concern, and he had already given the gift of shoes, but Peng Yu Yang’s pencil case seemed to have pleased her more. He couldn’t think of a better way to pursue Nie Qiu. Impatient, he couldn’t help but seek help from netizens online, but… it was all the same advice, repeated over and over.
Just two days ago, while they were playing basketball on the sports field, he ran into the second-year girl who had written him a love letter. She already had a boyfriend and told him they were childhood sweethearts. She said she dated because she wanted to date, and she also dated because she liked him, because it was the boy who confessed.
She told him that when you like someone, you want to tell that person. If you’re too shy to say many things, you can write them down on paper, just like chatting online. Many people are not talkative in real life and can’t even speak when they meet someone, but online, that person can talk eloquently and has excellent speaking skills.
Giving love letters seemed to have always been the exclusive right of girls, but Li Kai, at his wit’s end, decided to write down his feelings one by one. He wanted to tell her that he liked her. If he was too shy to say it, then he should write it down! With this sentiment, Li Kai went to the Xinhua Bookstore after school to buy a notebook.
Already fond of drawing, he began to sketch her every smile and frown in the notebook, and then write down some of his own feelings. Day after day, he received different surprises.
Standing on the lectern lecturing, her face full of spirit as she shared her study insights; sitting in her seat, attending class, staring at the blackboard with a serious expression; after class, engrossed in an original book, completely absorbed; or, when playing and joking with Huang Yan, her face blooming with smiles; or, when she encountered a difficult problem, her brows furrowed… Every time, in every way, he found it beautiful and wanted to cherish it.
In just a week, half of the notebook was used up. Flipping through the pages, he saw a different her.
He thought that perhaps, after the exams, he could give her this notebook.
The final exam of the first semester of the third year of junior high school arrived quickly. Compared to the previous semester and the semester before that, everyone in Class 10 was filled with more excitement and anticipation for the exams. This anticipation was different from before. In the past, looking forward to the final exams simply meant thinking, “Ah, summer vacation is coming,” or “Ah, winter holiday is coming.” But now, they looked forward to the exams because they truly wanted to know how they had done after more than three months of effort. Was there hope of getting into high school? Or, more specifically… was there hope of getting into the high school they wanted to attend?
The day before the exams, the school also went on holiday.
The weather on this day was the best it had been in a long time. The sun hung brightly in the cloudless sky. Nie Aifang had specifically taken leave before this day. During the day, she took Nie Qiu to the Xinhua Bookstore to buy materials, paper and pens, and various stationery. She also bought Nie Qiu two beautiful notebooks. In the past, Nie Aifang would have looked down on these kinds of notebooks, thinking they were good-looking but not practical. They had animal avatars or heart shapes, and the notebooks even had colorful celebrity photos inside. Young people who were studying would often use such notebooks to copy lyrics.
But she thought that since Qiu Qiu was studying hard now, she should buy some small things to make Qiu Qiu happy, no matter what.
Seeing these notebooks being thrown into the small shopping basket, Nie Qiu didn’t object. She just pulled Nie Aifang to the pen section and said with a smile, “Mom, we’re filling out machine-readable cards for exams now, so we need 2B pencils.”
“Alright, alright, buy 2B pencils. How many do you want?” Nie Aifang agreed without a second thought and picked up two pens to throw into the shopping basket.
Nie Qiu took one pen out and put it in the pencil case, saying with a smile, “Mom, the final exam each semester only happens once, so one pen is enough.”
After buying the pens, they naturally bought a pencil sharpener as well. Nie Aifang was not stingy in this regard.
When Nie Aifang’s unset mobile phone ringtone sounded, Nie Qiu was engrossed in the area of best-selling books, both domestic and international. The call was from Huang Yan. Nie Aifang answered the phone, exchanged pleasantries with Huang Yan with a smile, and then handed the phone to Nie Qiu, saying with a smile, “It’s Huang Yan calling. She said she wants to meet you to relax before the exam.”
Like many children who feared their parents, Huang Yan thought Nie Aifang was the type of parent who would make Nie Qiu cram at the last minute before an exam. Fearing that Nie Aifang wouldn’t let her go, she had told Nie Aifang in advance that it was to relax before the exam, and that a relaxed mind leads to better exam performance. She believed Nie Aifang would allow it and wouldn’t scold Nie Qiu for playing around.
Nie Qiu suddenly remembered that Huang Yan had written down Nie Aifang’s phone number in that small notebook when she visited her house before. She smiled, put the book she was holding back on the bookshelf, and took the phone from Nie Aifang. “Hello, Huang Yan, where are you?”
“We’re at the school gate.” Huang Yan held Zhang Haiyang’s phone and said with a smile, “Hurry up and come over. Let’s go to the park together. If we have time, we can also go to the Xinhua Bookstore. I have a lot of stationery I want to buy!”
Nie Qiu glanced at the shopping basket Nie Aifang was carrying. She didn’t mention that she had already bought her own things, but simply said with a smile, “Okay! I’ll come find you now.”
After hanging up the phone, Nie Qiu and Nie Aifang went to the counter to pay. Nie Aifang went home, and Nie Qiu took the bus to school.
Since it was a holiday before the exams, there were no other students at the school gate. No one would want to have any contact with the school before an exam. Therefore, the three people standing at the school gate seemed very conspicuous.
Zhang Haiyang and Huang Yan were holding hands. As soon as Huang Yan saw Nie Qiu, she waved enthusiastically at her.
Li Kai stood to the side, letting out a slight gasp. Although the weather was nice today, the air of winter was still cold. He looked up and smiled at Nie Qiu, his smile brighter than the sun.
That smile stirred a softness in Nie Qiu’s heart. All the innocence and beauty she had once possessed seemed to return to her. It was as if she wasn’t thirty-eight years old, but truly a sixteen-year-old girl. School, youth, friends… everything seemed to have started anew, and she was still so young.
At that moment, something had already begun to change quietly.
A long, long time ago, perhaps because of her parents, Nie Qiu had never believed in love.
She had always believed that love was simply the attraction between opposite sexes, a hormonal attraction, meaning that like all animals in heat, their love was sex. Freud once said that happiness is physical pleasure, especially the satisfaction of sexual needs, which was the basis of his “pansexualism.”
For example, why are we mesmerized when we face a beautiful person of the opposite sex? It’s because sexual attraction plays an important role. Sexual attraction is like the Earth’s gravitational pull; precisely because it is ever-present and ubiquitous, you are always unaware of it!
And we like to dress it up with cloaks such as “love” and “appreciation.” In fact, if you trace it back to its roots, it’s all sexual attraction! And sexual attraction ultimately leads to sexual satisfaction. Therefore, when facing a beautiful person of the opposite sex, whether it’s appreciation, liking, or even love, the most fundamental hidden undercurrent is the desire to possess them!
However, after being reborn, everything reminded her that love truly existed. Nie Aiwen’s devotion to Nie Aifang, and Nie Aifang’s longing for Nie Qiu’s father. These were not just about sex, but about love.
