"There is a grove of thousands of flowers at Huang Si Niang’s house. Free-spirited little warblers sing, and the butterflies dance there all the time."
The early spring of April came stepping on the end of late March.
Peach blossoms bloomed all over the branches, and spring willow branches were delicate and verdant. The blowing wind gently swayed them, and the peach blossoms and buds bloomed all the way down the path. The petals kept falling, and as Bei Yao tilted up her little face, the petals fell in her hair.
Bei Yao had washed her hair before leaving the house in the morning. Now her soft hair was still scattered. She stood in front of the classmates, raising her hand to tie up the dried hair.
The sixth-grade class was divided into two queues, one for the boys and another for the girls.
Hua Ting was unhappy all the way. She was short, so she had to stand at the front in the girls' queue, followed by Fang Minjun, and then Bei Yao stood in the third position.
Fang Minjun and Bei Yao were the two youngest children in the sixth grade, so it was understandable that they were shorter. However, Hua Ting was not young anymore. She went to school at an average age but had never grown taller. The child didn’t grow in height but grew elsewhere. She developed a little earlier than the other children and now had a girlish curve on her chest.
Early development was not good, and Hua Ting felt ashamed of the occasional curious glances she received from boys and girls in her class. She tried to slightly hunch her back and keep her chest hidden under her arms so as not to draw attention to her full chest.
Hua Ting walked with her head down, feeling particularly depressed.
In 2002, a comedy film by Hong Kong actress Chang Xue became a hit all over the country. The beauty sculpted in ice and snow became a household name, which also brought the fame of Fang Minjun, a "little jade girl", to its climax.
Eleven-year-old Fang Minjun, with the face of a little jade girl, proudly stood there in a white dress. Many students from the boy’s queue were peeking at her.
Hua Ting uncomfortably stood next to Fang Minjun. She always felt that the admiring and astonished eyes that were peeking at Fang Minjun, now had turned to curiosity about her premature developed chest. Hua Ting plucked up her courage and asked, "Fang Minjun, can I switch places with you?" She wanted to talk to her best friend, Bei Yao.
"No, the teacher arranged to stand according to the height." Fang Minjun flatly refused. She didn't want to stand at the front.
So Hua Ting had a very hard time walking all the way to the Peach Blossom Forest. Reaching there, the students were free to eat their lunch boxes. Finally, Hua Ting was relieved, and she sat down next to Bei Yao.
"I don't like Fang Minjun at all." Hua Ting sighed, "What 'little jade girl'! In the end, it’s not Chang Xue herself."
Bei Yao nodded with a comforting smile while giving her some candy.
Bei Yao was now eleven and had a white lingerie strap tied behind her neck. However, she hadn't developed as early as Hua Ting and now had only a slightly different curvature.
"You should walk with your back straight." Bei Yao whispered in Hua Ting's ear, "My mother said hunching your back does not look good. It's normal for girls to develop there, don't feel ashamed."
Hua Ting nodded with a red face, her mood finally relaxed. The two girls shared their food with each other and finished their meal. Hua Ting was very close to Bei Yao, she suddenly said in surprise, "Huh! Bei Yao."
Hua Ting reached out and gently pinched Bei Yao's cheeks, "I just realized that your facial features are very beautiful, ah."
Bei Yao was stunned.
Hua Ting squinted her eyes and scrutinized her. The eleven-year-old Bei Yao had bright eyes, a straight and upturned nose, and pink and round pouty lips, which gave off a flavor of a certain goofiness.
Bei Yao still had a little baby fat on her cheeks. Her beauty was not astonishing at first glance, but she rather had a kind of cuteness that made people want to rub her. However, because their class had a famous "Little Jade Girl", no matter how cute and well-behaved other girls were, they wouldn’t shine.
Hua Ting's eyes were bright: "Look closely, you're even better looking than Fang Minjun, ah! Could it be that you'll be even better looking than Chang Xue when you grow up?"
Bei Yao's heart thudded. In a way, what Hua Ting said was the truth.
The older Bei Yao grew, the more her memories slowly returned, and now her memories expanded to the third year of Junior high school. Bei Yao knew that Fang Minjun would gradually lose her shine in the second year. Then Fang Minjun wouldn’t resemble Chang Xue much. Instead, she would grow up more like her mother, Zhao Xiu, with overly thin cheeks and high cheekbones.
It's amazing to grow up.
In the summer of her second year of junior high, Bei Yao would suddenly lose her weight, making her look very beautiful. Like a pearl, after a few years of dust, suddenly burst out a dazzling brilliance, she would also become bright and attractive.
However, this could not be said to Hua Ting, and Bei Yao could only vaguely respond, "Thank you for your compliments."
Bei Yao looked into the distance.
There the teenager was sitting alone on a stone bench. Pei Chuan had brought a black lunch box and was reading a book after finishing his meal.
Everyone carried a school bag, but Pei Chuan was probably the only one with books in it. It was almost the end of elementary school, and this lonely teenager still didn't have any friends.
His walking speed was pretty normal now. However, if looked closely, people would notice that his posture was slightly different from that of a normal person.
He didn't like to smile, his expressions were few and far between, and he used to talk even less.
They came home from school together every day, and Pei Chuan seldom took the initiative to talk to Bei Yao.
She remembered the "secret admonition" in the workbook and felt a little worried.
In her last life, she had never paid attention to the adolescent Pei Chuan, who was an insignificant figure in her life. Bei Yao only vaguely remembered that she started to become pretty in her second year of junior high. While in the third year of junior high, Pei Chuan became a completely different person.
He became a downright bad student, and all the kids in the neighborhood were warned not to get too close to him, including Chen Hu, who was also afraid of him. Pei Chuan, at that time, began hanging out with the gangsters, and he had many, many more vicious friends.
‘Why was that so?’ Bei Yao looked at his silent appearance while reading a book. She thought he was obviously a good student now.
Bei Yao wanted to know the truth.
Pei Chuan raised his head and met her eyes. His gaze faded away in the slightly darker peach-colored spot of the ground, and he narrowed his eyes.
Suddenly, a girl began to scream.
All the students looked over, and the screaming girl was pale, "There's a snake!" She was standing on tiptoe to see the flowers, but a snake that had come out of hibernation to feed was coiled in the soft grass.
The little girl freaked out and ran towards her classmates.
The two-finger thick snake was also startled by the disturbance and slithered all over the forest.
All the while, the girls in the class were running around, incessantly screaming all over the place. Hua Ting held Bei Yao tightly and was scared to cry from the chaos, "Bei Yao, let’s go, go away! It's coming over here!"
The class teacher, Cai Qingyu, also had her heart beating rapidly. She was an elegant female teacher, and naturally, she was also afraid of this cold and horrible creature. However, in order to protect the children, she shouldn't run, so holding back her panic, she yelled, "Bei Yao, Hua Ting! you guys quickly go away."
She neither knew that kind of snake nor whether it was poisonous.' Cai Qingyu already regretted that she shouldn't have brought her students to the spring outing.
The boys in the class numbly looked at the chaos. They didn't dare to catch it due to the fear of the poison.
Bei Yao was a little weak in the knees. She had been afraid of such writhing creatures for two lifetimes. Screaming Hua Ting dragged her, and her little face looked quite pale.
They ran until Hua Ting pulled her to run to Pei Chuan in panic.
Pei Chuan pursed his lips and bent down to pinch the seven inches below the snake’s head so hard that it seemed to have no strength to struggle all of a sudden. Pei Chuan picked up a stone and smashed the snake's head a few times, and it stopped moving.
Blood flowed out, he paused and threw it away. The snake was still alive and just passed out.
Just that instant, the whole class looking over at him made Pei Chuan stop in his tracks. They watched him handle the snake with astonished and terrifying eyes. Pei Chuan keenly noticed that they were looking at him and the snake in the same way.
Perhaps, if another boy had handled this all then he might have been a hero by now, an object of their adoration.
But everything was different because he was Pei Chuan.
He was withdrawn and silent. But his hands were crueler than anything else. The students, as if they'd known him on the first day, dared not come over in suspicion and fear. Even Teacher Cai frowned while looking at the snake on the ground.
The next second Teacher Cai reacted and smiled to ease the atmosphere, "Pei Chuan student is really brave. He helped everyone avert the crisis. Everyone has to thank him, ah."
The peach forest was quiet, and no one spoke.
Pei Chuan somewhat wanted to sneer.
Hua Ting held Pei Yao in a death grip with her hesitant face.
Bei Yao looked at the lonely back of the teenager, who was staying with an unconscious snake in a radius, and no one dared to go over there.
After removing her hand from Hua Ting's grip, Bei Yao fished for cold water and tissues in her bag. After moistening the tissues with water, she walked over to the boy. The young girl was shorter than him, who was fitted with prosthetic legs. She raised her small face, "Thank you, Pei Chuan."
Pei Chuan lowered his eyes to look at her. She had grown up, her voice was as gentle as the spring breeze in March, "We were all afraid just now, thank you for catching it. Wipe your hands."
Hua Ting also plucked up courage and said loudly, "Thank you, Pei Chuan!"
The spring breeze brushed through the black hair, bringing her unique light fragrance of clove.
Pei Chuan took the tissue and wiped away that cold, slippery touch.
The students suddenly applauded as if awakening from a dream.
A girl said, "He's amazing, he even dared to catch a snake."
Pei Chuan lowered his eyes. His black eyelashes were concealing his bright gaze.
Chen Hu was very dissatisfied when he heard them. This Humpty Dumpty hadn't lost any weight over the years, he grunted, "What is so special about it, ah? I also dare to catch it ah!"
"Chen Hu, you just brag. Before, I saw you ducking back in fear too!"
"I didn't!"
"You did!"
Chen Hu was flushed red with anger. He argued with the girls whether he was brave or not.
Pei Chuan's stiff body gradually relaxed. Bei Yao curled her almond eyes to smile at him. Compared to Fang Minjun, she was more like a naive and young girl because of the soft yellow dress she wore for the spring outing. She looked very pretty when she tilted her head to look up at him.
Pei Chuan didn't look away and said faintly, "Stand away, it's not dead."
She stiffened, and her almond eyes helplessly looked over at him.
Pei Chuan was silent for two seconds. Then, he picked up a branch and took the initiative to pick the snake away.
(T/N: Hey guys, I couldn’t decide on this chapter’s name, whether it should be “Quiet Perverse”, “As Good As Gold” or “Good Boy”)