Chapter Thirty-Eight: Beset by Cutting Winds and Piercing Frost

Dong Yanyan followed everyone in moving the tables and chairs upstairs, wiped the sweat from her brow, and sat in the back row watching her classmates leap about joyfully like monkeys. Only Yang Lili lay on her desk, sobbing, while Lin Feng sat beside her, his actions unclear.

“Huh? Didn’t we win? Why is the beauty still crying?” she murmured in confusion.

“Isn’t it because Lin Feng got hurt? She’s just heartbroken,” Liu Ying replied with a dismissive smirk.

Dong Yanyan gaped in astonishment. “Her reaction time is way too slow, isn’t it? The match is already over, and she’s only just started crying?”

“She’s been crying the whole time, you just didn’t notice. She’s been glued to Lin Feng’s side, not letting anyone else near,” Liu Ying said with a laugh.

“That’s not fair. Someone has to tend to his wounds, right, Xiaohan?” Dong Yanyan retorted indifferently. Lin Feng didn’t like girls who cried easily, so even though she felt sorry for him herself, she couldn’t just burst into tears in front of him, could she? Besides, wasn’t this a bit much?

“Honestly, you’ve stolen all my jobs,” Gu Xiaohan complained. Then she bustled over to Lin Feng and said earnestly, “I think you’re pretty badly hurt. Now that the match is over, you should get to the hospital quickly!”

Her interruption disrupted the previous mood. Lin Feng had been seriously comforting Miss Yang, but he couldn’t help but laugh at Gu Xiaohan’s words.

“Classmate Xiaohan, are you saying that I’ve served my purpose and now I can go to the hospital?” he joked.

Gu Xiaohan was momentarily stunned, then hurried to explain, “No, no! Even if you’re not playing basketball, you should still go to the hospital. Otherwise, all that blood is really scary...”

“It’s fine now. Yanyan did a good job bandaging me,” Lin Feng replied with a smile.

“It’s not a big deal if you don’t go to the hospital, but you should at least have the school doctor check it and get some medicine,” Dong Yanyan added.

Hearing this, Yang Lili lifted her head, wiped her tears, supported Lin Feng’s arm, and, sobbing, said, “I’ll go with you.”

So she helped the limping Lin Feng away.

Only then did Dong Yanyan realize that she was no longer needed! She felt a bit let down. But then she thought, perhaps she was overly concerned about Lin Feng. Even if she had feelings for him, she couldn’t be too obvious, right? So she forced herself to calm down. As she was busy giving herself a pep talk, the back door of the classroom burst open with a loud bang, and in stormed someone entirely unrestrained, cursing as he entered: “Damn! What’s the point of a homeroom teacher like that? They’re bullying us and he doesn’t even dare say a word!”

Dong Yanyan was so startled by his shout that her face turned pale. “Leng Haoyang, you didn’t go argue with Teacher Chen, did you?!”

“What’s the use in arguing with him? I went straight to Director Tang! You should’ve seen the way he acted—chewed me out, and Teacher Chen just stood by and watched, didn’t say a word in my defense!” Leng Haoyang fumed.

“Man, you’re tough!” Dong Yanyan said, laughing and crying at the same time. “But why did you go to argue with him? Our class already won. Did you want him to change the result?!”

“Exactly! Are you stupid or something? Did you get your head stuck in a door?” Yang Ruining, sitting on a desk, teased, giving him a playful flick on the forehead.

“Just you wait, showing off in front of your boyfriend—let’s see how I deal with you!” Leng Haoyang pulled her down from the desk, and Yang Ruining shrieked and ran out the door, with Leng Haoyang dashing after her like lightning.

A scream echoed from the corridor. Dong Yanyan hurried out to see what was happening, only to find that Jiang Fan’s glasses had been knocked off by the pair, and the three of them were scrambling to pick them up.

Poor Jiang Fan—he came through the whole match unscathed, only to get a black eye from his own classmates. How undignified for such a refined fellow!

*

November brought a chill to the air, and the sun rose late. Every morning, Dong Yanyan rode her bike to deliver newspapers under the stars and moon, the wind and frost biting at her relentlessly. She looked at her hands—dry, thin, and weathered by the elements. Worse still, with the change of season, she had caught her usual cold: her tonsils were swollen like ping-pong balls, even swallowing water hurt, and just as she began to recover, she started coughing and sniffling nonstop, looking utterly miserable every day.

This frail body—I can’t take it anymore! During evening study hall, she lay on her desk, stifling coughs and sighing in self-pity. The thought of getting up early again tomorrow to deliver newspapers made her feel like giving up altogether.

Her deskmate, Song Mingcheng, glanced at her sympathetically and asked, “You still have to deliver newspapers tomorrow?”

Dong Yanyan, teary-eyed, nodded as she coughed into her hand.

“Give me your bike keys; I’ll help you out for a few days,” Song Mingcheng said, his tone neither warm nor cold.

“Are you sure you can handle it?” Dong Yanyan hesitated. Delivering newspapers was both simple and not so simple—he’d never done it before; what if he messed up the deliveries?

Song Mingcheng glared at her and said, “Can you?” Then, without waiting for her response, he rummaged through her pencil case for the keys and attached them to his own keychain.

A wave of warmth swept over Dong Yanyan. This quiet, reserved classmate reaffirmed her belief that true friendship could exist between men and women. Looking back over the past decade or so, even though their friendship was understated and they rarely kept in touch, whenever one needed help, the other would always show up without hesitation.

“You’d better get some shots tomorrow—don’t let your fever fry your brain,” Song Mingcheng added.

*

Good people shouldn’t talk too much. That very night, Dong Yanyan developed a high fever. Half-conscious, she realized she was burning up, utterly weak. Her dorm mates were all asleep. Not wanting to disturb anyone yet afraid she might really harm herself, she softly woke Liu Ying, who slept opposite her.

Liu Ying reached out from under her quilt to touch Dong Yanyan’s forehead, gasped in alarm, and jumped up to turn on a flashlight.

“Fourth, do we have any fever medicine? Fifth is running a high fever!” she called out, waking the others.

Leng Yue quickly got up, lit a candle, and dampened a towel to place on Dong Yanyan’s forehead.

“Does anyone have fever medicine? Hurry and look around. She can’t keep burning like this!” she said anxiously.

Her urgency spurred even the slowest, Xinran, into fumbling about for medicine.

“We don’t have any in our dorm. I’ll check the others,” Lu Tian said, pulling on her clothes and running out to knock on doors.

Dong Yanyan’s head throbbed terribly, her throat was hoarse, and the girls around her, not knowing how to care for her, kept alternately covering her with blankets to keep her warm or pulling them off for fear she’d overheat. The discomfort overwhelmed her, and sadness crept into her heart.