Third floor. 669 School District.

Returning to the school he had stayed in in the past, Tang Xian didn't have much emotion, the biggest emotion was the wealth of the Li family, and from a distance, the school district seemed to have a few more teaching buildings donated by the Li family.

It is no wonder that Li Xiaoyu was able to transfer to the class of the sixth year at the age of twelve.

At this time, the school was empty. You can vaguely see the lights outside the student dormitory.

When Tang Xian brought Li Xiaoyu in, he didn't meet anyone and passed all the way.

Li Xiaoyu's identity card, in terms of the Thirty-Nine Fortresses, is equivalent to a master key.

They came to the artificial lake of the school.

It's a large lake district, and in this day and age there are no universities or high schools, and all school districts are the size of ancient universities.

Such a freshwater lake is not much different from a real lake, and there is an observation deck not far away.

Tang Xian took Li Xiaoyu to the observation deck.

Li Xiaoyu actually remembers some things here. When she was at school, she used to come here because she didn't have many friends.

Every time you come here, the people around you get far away.

She looked at Tang Xian's side face. For the first time, I felt that Tang Xian's eyes were not so indifferent, when he was staring at this lake.

"I heard from Dong Dye that the girl transferred to another school district in her third school year?"

Tang Xian didn't answer Li Xiaoyu's question, just stared into the distance.

Li Xiaoyu didn't continue to ask any more questions, and waited quietly, waiting for Tang Xian.

After a long time, Tang Xian said slowly, in a tone that traces his distant memory:

"I used to be a very obnoxious person. The personality is very bad. It's really bad. ”

"At the beginning of the first school year, when everyone first came to the school district, they were still eleven or twelve-year-olds, and the teacher would ask everyone to introduce themselves. Like Xiao Ke, the trade routes are far from what they are now. Xiao Ke still had snot bubbles at that time, and Shang Lu stammered shyly.

If you think about it carefully, childhood seems distant to us, but if we look back, it will always be a little bit before youth, and it has never changed.

When they introduced themselves, they also talked about what kind of person they wanted to be in the future and what kind of dreams they had in the future.

Some people really come true, but some people miss a thousand miles, such as Yu Xiaozhe, who lives a life that has nothing to do with his dreams. Some people start out very well, but in the end they go to the bottom and their lives are unknown, and some people seem stupid, but in the end they live better than anyone else.

I remember a kid who said he wanted to be Santa Claus when he grew up. I can't remember his name, but I was ...... I hate it, thinking how someone would be stupid enough to dream of something that doesn't exist.

I didn't refrain from it, I thought I heard the joke and laughed.

The teacher asked me what was funny, and I said,

There's no way there can be Santa Claus in this world. It's just a marketing ploy and self-gratifying behavior of stupid adults and toy manufacturers. The so-called Christmas gifts are nothing more than parents tiptoeing into their children while they are asleep. How stupid would it be to take such a fantasy as an ideal? ’

The child started crying, and I was reprimanded by the teacher.

Because of the bad first impression, I became a very annoying existence.

But I didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Maybe it's because I'm missing some emotions.

A lot of the behavior they exhibit is too stupid in my opinion.

The same is true academically, simple subjects have to be studied for a long, long time to learn.

Even the means of cheating are so clumsy.

The reasons for fights between male classmates are childish and ridiculous.

The reason for the secret exclusion of female classmates is also idiotic.

I have never made a secret of my contempt for them.

Academically, I would tell people who asked me questions the answers and ideas, but when I found that they still didn't understand, I would also bluntly call them stupid.

All in all, in the first year of school, even Xiao Ke and Shang Lu didn't have a good relationship with me.

Because I'm really a person who doesn't care about other people's emotions.

It was also at this time that I met Yan Xiaoling. ”

"Yan Xiaoling?" Li Xiaoyu feels that this is probably the other protagonist of this story.

She seemed to have some impression of the name, but she couldn't remember it for a while.

Tang Xian continued:

"Yan Xiaoling is probably the most idiot among these idiots. She has a deficit in intelligence. When I laughed, I looked stupid.

She belongs to the Chosen Trial, she has no talent to show, and she will inevitably be relegated to the bottom, if she really goes to the bottom, with her mind, it will be difficult to live. On weekdays, people don't like to play with her very much.

I often use very vicious words to describe Yan Xiaoling's IQ, the difference is that if you are someone else, you will be glared at by a group of people, and if Yan Xiaoling is scolded by me, some of them will follow and ridicule her.

Yan Xiaoling watched everyone laugh, and often laughed. Those who laughed at her laughed at her even more wantonly.

I once couldn't stand it, and scolded Yan Xiaoling angrily, 'They are laughing at you, what are you laughing at?' ’

Yan Xiaoling saw that I was a little angry, so she also showed me her signature idiotic smile.

I couldn't understand it, so I kept scolding her, and she was still laughing at first, but then slowly, seeing that I had been angry, she couldn't laugh and began to look at me uneasily. ”

Li Xiaoyu also hates stupid people.

But the story sounds a little weird.

"I don't understand, what does her behavior mean?" Li Xiaoyu asked.

Tang Xian shook his head lightly and said:

"This idiot, every time she laughs, she sees the ridicule of others, she can't distinguish those emotions at all, it seems that all laughter is one kind, and all crying is also one kind. Laughter means joy, crying means sadness, and anger means being unhappy. The world is as simple as there are only three emotions. She thought that when she smiled, the people around her would be happy. ”

Li Xiaoyu's eyes widened.

"Yan Xiaoling is very stupid. The homework that the teacher taught her basically didn't know how to do.

No one knows what Yan Xiaoling's family background is, anyway, the pyramid stipulates that children who have reached the age of twelve, regardless of their merits or whether they are mentally sound or not, will be sent to the third layer to study for six years.

For most people, these six years are the most comfortable six years of their lives.

Yan Xiaoling is a person who is destined to be eliminated, her brain can't keep up with the learning progress in the school district, and she probably won't be able to adapt to the pyramid social system in the future.

But there are a lot of fools in this world who like to work on their own right. In private, Yan Xiaoling would always ask me questions that she might not be able to understand in a few years, and she would naturally be humiliated by me. and the ridicule that many people are accustomed to.

In the middle of the first school year, when it came time to test, she was unsurprisingly at the bottom of the school year.

In the face of everyone's ridicule, Yan Xiaoling still laughed like an idiot.

It's not that bitter smile, and it's not a smile with tears. Her emotions were as pure as a freshly built white wall.

Yan Xiaoling and I are probably the two people who want to be humiliated the most.

But whoever tries to do this to me will be humiliated by me in a meaner way before they can do so.

It didn't take long for no one to bother me anymore.

Naturally, everyone went to bully Yan Xiaoling. On one occasion her face was swollen by a stone. Half of his face bulged, and the whole look was funny, and he was laughed at wherever he went.

She wanted to laugh, but found that the muscles in her face twitched, and it hurt abnormally.

In fact, the people in the school discovered such a law, as long as she smiled at Yan Xiaoling, she would definitely smile back.

So they came up with this idea. I want to see if Yan Xiaoling will still laugh like a fool when she can't laugh.

Yan Xiaoling really lived up to everyone's expectations. Enduring the pain, the smile is unusually ugly and distorted, like our moldy souls.

Naturally, there are also people who are good to Yan Xiaoling.

Most of the people who bullied her came from the bottom and had a bad personality. Most of the people who tried to help her were children from second- and third-tier families.

But when they found out that Yan Xiaoling always liked to come to me, they slowly distanced themselves from her.

That's how the little kids rule. If you are found to be in contact with someone you hate, you will also be hated.

Although even I hate Yan Xiaoling, she loves to follow me.

Because I was convinced that I couldn't teach her even if I taught her, I didn't want to waste my time on connections that I couldn't get paid for.

One afternoon in the second semester of the school year, Yan Xiaoling was holding a box full of food and wanted to give it to me.

I asked Yan Xiaoling, 'What's wrong with you, you have to follow me, do you think that if my two IQs are neutralized, you will be able to have a normal person's IQ?' ’

Then another group of people laughed.

Yan Xiaoling also laughed and said, "Because there is no one around Tang Xian."

It dawned on me that the girl was probably delusional.

In fact, she can vaguely understand in her heart that everyone hates her. I also vaguely understand that everyone hates me, so I feel that I am the same kind of person.

This ridiculous association makes her always like to lean towards me.

She smiled and gave me the food box.

Because I hated the unpalatable nutritious meals at school, I often sneaked out of the school in search of food, so I was reprimanded by the teachers many times.

It's not a secret, and in the third year, Xiao Ke and Shanglu often followed me out to find food.

In Yan Xiaoling's understanding, it is probably because I always can't eat enough. He brought food and wanted to give it to me.

I did not accept this self-righteous behavior.

Yan Xiaoling doesn't care, she will bring a food box every day, or she can't understand it at all, she still comes to me when she is free, I occasionally taunt her, and I still don't bother to answer the questions she has asked countless times.

Strange to say, I don't bother her that much. She began to think about letting her go, and she would eventually realize that she was wasting her time.

She is still doing useless efforts, often looking through books that record the knowledge of the mining area by herself.

When I pass by, I sometimes see the page numbers. A whole school year has passed, and others have finished the whole book, and her progress is only about ten pages.

In the test at the end of the first year, naturally, she was still at the bottom.

It's something that won't change anything, and until she left in her third year, she was always at the bottom.

At the beginning of the second year, she was still the same as in the first year. When people are laughed at, they also smile.

The people who used to like to bully her don't like to bully her so much. Probably because of the greasy taste. It doesn't matter, people's interests always change slowly.

But the number of people who bullied her has never decreased.

It's no secret that School District 669 has a mentally handicapped person.

New students still bully her, especially if she is a second-year senior. This identity made the junior school year even more excited when they bullied her.

Yan Xiaoling would still smile at this group of people, confirming the rumors of this school district.

This is an emotionally crippled person, just like me.

I accepted Yan Xiaoling a little, and when she followed me, I would occasionally say a few words to her.

It doesn't matter if she can understand it or not, her reaction is the same anyway.

But I still don't have much patience with others.

Don't look at Shanglu Xiaoke, they have a good relationship with me, but in fact, they have all been scolded by me, and they are red-faced.

It was something in the second year that eased my relationship with them.

There was still no one else around me, just a fool who kept coming to me.

Another time, a group of children surrounded Yan Xiaoling, slapping her and watching her smirk.

I didn't help Yan Xiaoling, she leaned towards me, and I regarded it as her wishful thinking.

But that time, I saw Yan Xiaoling covering her red and swollen face and smiling like an idiot. I find it a little annoying.

When she swollen her face and routinely brought me a food box, I said:

If the next time someone bullies you, you stop giggling, I'll accept your gift. ’

I will always remember Yan Xiaoling's expression, when I thought she would smile and promise me or shake her head with a smile, but she cried.

She cried and nodded earnestly.

Since then, I have accepted Yan Xiaoling's food. Even I thought it was ridiculous. I sometimes feel like a different person.

It was also after that that that Yan Xiaoling really didn't laugh anymore when others bullied her.

I gradually understood that she probably knew, and as the year changed, because she was always unable to fit into other people's circles, she probably also knew that smiles and smiles had different meanings.

I thought that when Yan Xiaoling was no longer the same as before, she would giggle when she was bullied, and no one would bully her anymore.

It's no fun after all, is it?

But this is not the case, Yan Xiaoling was bullied even worse.

On the fourth day, she was taken to the school infirmary.

That day I noticed an unexpected silence around me. Jing is a little uncomfortable.

This kind of discomfort is like a white and flawless wall, with an extra touch of mosquito blood.

I became more and more bored, and finally went to the school infirmary and saw Yan Xiaoling covered in injuries.

When Yan Xiaoling saw me, she was still smiling.

After some inquiry, I pieced together the answer from Yan Xiaoling's vague and intermittent answers.

It turned out that the students of the first school year came to bully her again.

Only this time, Yan Xiaoling didn't look at them with a smile. It's like the prey that should be wailing is stubborn, and they go crazy to make Yan Xiaoling laugh.

But the fool was stubborn, and he really couldn't pull the nine cows. No matter how she bullied Yan Xiaoling, she always had a face.

She smiled and said to me: Tang Xian, when I was bullied, I didn't laugh or cry.

I realized that when I accepted Yan Xiaoling's gift that day, it was the first time she cried.

In the past, no matter how others bullied her, she didn't cry.

I understand the reason why Yan Xiaoling did this, but I was afraid that if I violated the agreement with me, I would refuse her kindness again.

For the first time in my life, I lost my temper with this fool for some other reason.

But when she wanted to scold Yan Xiaoling, she couldn't open her mouth and found that she couldn't find the words.

She's so stupid that there's no point in getting angry at her, probably.

In the war of the little ones, there is a default childish and ridiculous rule.

That is, you are not allowed to tell adults.

I used to scoff at this principle of inefficiency, but this time, I found it more interesting to do some things myself.

I contacted Shang Lu and his friends, promising to help them improve their grades, and asked him to contact others to help me punish the children who bullied Yan Xiaoling in the first school year.

Originally, they didn't have any expectations, but they didn't have the will to help Yan Xiaoling.

What's more, I'm a nuisance.

Unexpectedly, they agreed.

There are quite a few people who are ready to pick things together, and most of them have been scolded by me. For a moment I thought they had Stockholm syndrome.

Later, I found out that it was just this group of people who had bullied Yan Xiaoling. It's just guilty.

It was probably a riot, from a small group of people at the beginning, to half of the boys in the next two school years.

There was no point in such a fight, the behavior was ridiculous and retarded, and for the first time I felt a little more enjoyable.

After Yan Xiaoling came back, everyone didn't say anything.

She still can't fit in with other people's circles, and she can only follow me, like a shadow of me.

What annoyed me was that I didn't even have the disgust I had left. Looking at her smirk, it seems that she has seen something that she has long been accustomed to.

Others found that Yan Xiaoling had gradually changed.

It's not that she's smart, it's just that she doesn't try to get close to anyone else. And I don't smile at anyone.

Only when you look at me will you still smile like an idiot.

I asked her later why.

She said a little sluggishly:

Because only Tang Xian allowed me to follow behind. I can't walk around anyone else. ’

I thought to myself, even if I was surrounded by a burdensome, an out-and-out idiot, it wasn't that unusual, just two annoying guys getting together.

Let her follow.

It's true, in the eyes of the big guy, Yan Xiaoling likes me, it's just like mosquito blood on the wall, even if I hate her, I can't wipe it clean, just let her follow.

No one will say anything.

Only Shang Lu and a few of his friends knew that the reason for the rebellion in the second and first school years was that I made a fuss for Yan Xiaoling.

So in the second school year, Yan Xiaoling became my follower, and it became something that everyone gradually became accustomed to.

There are also a lot fewer people who bully Yan Xiaoling.

Yan Xiaoling didn't change her style, she still only smiled at me alone.

She is a little sensible, and she can already see that there are some things that are not hung on people's faces, but hidden in people's eyes.

Some of the eyes that seemed to be sympathetic, superior, and disdainful, she had gradually recognized them, and her smile became less and less.

But every time I looked at her, she still laughed like a fool.

I asked Yan Xiaoling, what if I don't have talent in the sixth year? If you don't have talent, you'll be demoted to the bottom.

She said: I can follow Tang Xian, I will go wherever you go.

I said, what if I don't let you follow? I don't know what my talent is, but I will definitely have talent, and where I will go in the future, you can't go at all, in this pyramid, what is further apart than the mountains is the class gap between people.

I don't know if Yan Xiaoling can understand it.

Only for the first time, the idiot looked scared.

It seems that the sand that is carefully held in the hand is still slowly sliding out of the palm of the hand.

I looked at Yan Xiaoling's scared look, and felt irritable again, so I said: If you work harder, I may let you follow.

She started laughing again. It's as simple as it first seems.

I didn't bother to calculate what was going to happen in the future, thinking that even if I brought a drag oil bottle, I would be able to live well.

Yan Xiaoling is indeed working hard. Sometimes they don't even follow me anymore, but lie alone in the stacks of books in the classroom.

But it didn't work. Her grades have always been at the bottom, and even those juniors in the new school year are no more stupid than her.

In this way, the second school year also slowly ended. Yan Xiaoling ushered in the third school year with no improved results.

The third year of the school year is not so long, at least for Yan Xiaoling, it is very short.

This year, I started to try to reconcile with other people, and I started to get better with everyone. Of course, there are still a lot of people who hate me. Even after I reconciled with Xiao Ke Shanglu and them, they hated me even more.

But it's still very strange, obviously in the first year, I thought it was impossible to change, so somehow, it began to change slowly.

It was as if another personality had been born in my soul.

This year, my relationship with Xiao Ke Shanglu began to get better.

I tried to start looking at other people less causticly.

But I still don't believe in Santa Claus.

It was still this year that Yan Xiaoling followed behind me, which attracted more and more people's attention.

This is probably still a bit of a gimmick. Like the smartest person after the dumbest person. There are also a lot more people talking.

Yan Xiaoling's eyes gradually became more emotional. It's the fear of some broken locks. I didn't care, I thought it was just her mediocrity.

But soon after, she did something very stupid and stupid......"

When some lengthy stories came to this, Tang Xian stopped.

Li Xiaoyu suddenly came back to his senses after a long pause.

She remembered that she knew the name Yan Xiaoling.

It was a name she overlooked.

It's just that when I was investigating the list of students who transferred to the third year, I saw it.

Because of the bottom grades and stupidity, she subconsciously judged that Tang Xian couldn't like such a person.

But things were completely unexpected by Li Xiaoyu, the smartest person always carries the stupidest person by his side.

"What's going on...... Why did she change schools? ”

"She didn't change schools, she just left."

Tang Xian's tone was flat, and he always maintained this bland mood throughout the story.

Li Xiaoyu didn't understand.

"Where did she go?"

"Yan Xiaoling is very stupid. She believes what others say, and it has never changed.

She wants to be smarter, because only smarter can she stay with me.

I don't know where I heard it, someone told Yan Xiaoling that there is a fish in the center of the lake, and as long as you find this fish, you can become smarter.

This was obviously a deception to her, but she didn't have the ability to tell. Especially a group of people scared her with the fact that I didn't want her.

So Yan Xiaoling swam to the center of the lake.

After swimming in the center of the lake, she looked at the group of people in the distance and shouted:

'What about the fish?' Where are the fish? I can't find it......

The laughter was getting louder and louder, and the people on the shore couldn't wait to see Yan Xiaoling climb ashore in embarrassment.

But it didn't take long for them to stop laughing.

Because Yan Xiaoling never had the intention of swimming back to the lakeshore.

She kept looking, and people from afar could vaguely see her physical strength draining little by little.

How can there be fish in artificial lakes, in pyramids?

It's just that where would Yan Xiaoling know?

She began to lose her hold and began to drown, until when she drowned, the sound she made was not a cry for help.

Instead, he shouted:

'What about the fish?' What about fish? ’

She kept screaming, her voice getting more and more poignant, and she became more and more angry.

But she just didn't want to swim back.

The group of bullies who bullied her were terrified, and after Yan Xiaoling choked on water several times, they began to shout for help.

When I arrived, I could only vaguely see Yan Xiaoling struggling in the water.

I rushed into the lake like crazy, shouting her name.

After Yan Xiaoling heard my voice, she tried her best to surface for a while.

Her voice was already weak, weak. Far away, no one could hear it.

But I just can hear it.

She was saying to me, Tang Xian, I can't find the fish.

Her hands were losing strength.

The last time I saw her, she was crying in fear, that was the second time Yan Xiaoling cried. She realized she couldn't swim back. I thought I had to find the fish.

But probably because they saw me panicked, they wanted to laugh out and comfort me.

It's not just laughter, it's many, many complex emotions. It's like she's unwilling to find the fish that doesn't exist.

It was the first time that so many emotions appeared on a face that had never had one emotion.

What kind of expression is that? It's really strange, we hide so many emotions in our own skin every day, I should have seen it a long time ago, but I just feel that I have never encountered such a face.

Never had ......"

When Li Xiaoyu heard this, he finally understood where Yan Xiaoling went.

She looked at Tang Xian, Tang Xian's tone was always flat, just looking at the lake in the distance.

In Li Xiaoyu's opinion, people like himself and Tang Xian have long been accustomed to living alone.

But looking at Tang Xian's side face, she felt for the first time that this man was unprecedentedly lonely.

She didn't ask about the ending, because if Yan Xiaoling was still alive, there would probably be such a follower next to him now.

I didn't ask those who deceived Yan Xiaoling if they were punished, because everything was meaningless.

But the story doesn't end here.

Tang Xian smiled silently and said:

"But I don't love Yan Xiaoling."

Li Xiaoyu was stunned.

"I was sick for a long time, and in this process, I figured out a lot of things, if Yan Xiaoling was still alive, I would treat her like a relative. But I don't love her. ”

Later, everyone gradually forgot about her. Because of this incident, my reaction after that was also very weak, when it comes to Yan Xiaoling, most people just think that she has become my friend from a nasty follower. ”

"She just came from a lowly family at the bottom of the Thirty-Nine Fortresses, and the matter quickly subsided, and the children were duly punished. And I'm living my life as always. I didn't show any sadness or sadness, because it didn't make sense. ”

"It was only later, when I got along with Xiao Ke, Shang Lu, Yu Xiaozhe, and those I met at the bottom, such as Liu Lang, Luo Liuyan, or some old miners, that I understood who Yan Xiaoling was."

Li Xiaoyu didn't understand.

Tang Xian raised his head and said:

"Who is Yan Xiaoling? No one cared about her, no one remembered her, she always smiled at me and followed me like my shadow.

For a long time, I thought that she was probably my shadow, after all, I was the only one who remembered her. ”

Tang Xian shook his head again and said:

"I later found out that she wasn't my shadow. It turns out that there is Santa Claus in this world. He brought my crippled emotions to me through another emotionally crippled girl. ”

For some reason, Li Xiaoyu's chest suddenly became panicked when he heard this.

Tang Xian's gaze fell on Li Xiaoyu again:

"Because of Yan Xiaoling's existence, I was able to become less bad, and then I had a lot of friends who were willing to help me."

Tang Xian smiled:

"It's also because someone like her has liked me that I dare to believe that even a person like me will be liked."

Li Xiaoyu looked at Tang Xian, and for the first time found that his eyes were so clear.

She suddenly remembered that it was the first time she had looked at Tang Xian at such a close distance.

That smear of mosquito blood finally became a cinnabar mole in Tang Xian's heart. But Li Xiaoyu couldn't get sour at all.

In this story, she hears how two emotionally crippled people slowly change each other.

If it weren't for that poor girl, maybe the current Tang Xian would be a different character entirely, right?

"The story is over, it's late, you should go back."

"I'll sit down for a while......" Li Xiaoyu didn't want to leave.

Tang Xian was not reluctant, nodded, and said:

"By the way, I haven't told anyone else this story."

"I'm not going to say it."

"I didn't mean that."

"What does that mean?"

"The distance between mountains and rivers, the distance between classes, can be reached. There is only the separation of life and death, and it is difficult to communicate. So, it's better to live longer. ”