Sycamore Avenue

Text/The east wind is blowing

2023.0706

—

On the last day of the New Year's holiday, it rained heavily.

In the empty classroom filled with bright incandescent lights, Tao Jingran washed another round of cards, beckoned to ask Li Cang and Lin Jiajia if they were playing.

"I don't play anymore, I've been playing all afternoon fighting the landlord, this rain is endless, it's so annoying."

Lin Jiajia shook her hand and stood by the window, looking at the rainy weather outside the window, and her mood was obviously not good.

If she had known it would rain so hard today, she thought, she wouldn't have gone out with them. On such a rainy day, it is much more comfortable to stay at home and watch TV on your mobile phone than to play cards in the classroom.

"What about you?" Tao Jingran turned his head to look at Li Cang again.

The girl sitting in the corner of the classroom, playing with her mobile phone intently, shook her head when she heard the words.

"I don't want to play."

"Ahh Tao Jingran was disappointed, took out his mobile phone and looked at the time.

Unknowingly, it was already more than four o'clock in the afternoon.

"That's it, three rounds, and then we play the last three games, and I'll take you to eat hot pot when it's over, a new hot pot restaurant has recently opened near our school, and it tastes good, I go there every time I don't know what to eat, how about it?"

"Eat hot pot every day? Don't you eat your mouth out of mouth sores? ”

"Go and go, don't say if you can't speak, don't curse me!"

Two girls don't play poker, so there are three boys left, and they can just make up a table to fight the landlord.

Lin Jiajia watched them start drawing cards again, and touched Li Cang's side boringly: "Let's go downstairs for a walk, it's been in Tao Jingran's classroom all afternoon, and I don't know what the rest of the experiment looks like." ”

A few of them originally listened to Tao Jingran's words this afternoon and wanted to come to his new school for a visit, but as soon as they arrived at their teaching building, it began to rain, and they had nowhere else to go except to nest in the classroom and play cards for an afternoon.

"I brought my camera with me, but I didn't take a single picture."

As an amateur photographer, Lin Jiajia often brings different cameras when she goes out to play.

When she went out today, she brought a lightweight Fujifilm XT4.

"Let's go downstairs and I'll see if I can take a few pictures of you."

As her best friend, Li Cang, who has a good face and delicate facial features that can hardly be faulted, is naturally the character who appears the most times under her lens.

Whenever the weather is better and the weather is sunny, Lin Jiajia looked at Li Cang's pure white coat and black and white checked scarf today, and thought that she could shoot another group of campus cold goddess blockbusters for her.

She pulled Li Cang on her back, and after saying hello to a few boys, she went downstairs first.

Today's Li Cang is actually in a bad mood.

Her parents haven't been home for more than a month, and a few days ago on New Year's Eve, they said they would come back, but after she postponed all the parties, they suddenly told her that the plane couldn't fly and that they were trapped in Hong Kong.

Stuck in Hong Kong, and then now, I haven't been back for two days.

Li Cang's expression was sad, and she couldn't be interested in doing anything, Lin Jiajia pulled her all the way from the international department of the experiment to the general grade department, and the cold expression on her face did not change.

Fortunately, Lin Jiajia has played with her since she was a child, and she knows that even if she is not angry, her face is like that, otherwise she is afraid that she will really think that she has made her unhappy.

"Look here!"

Lin Jiajia didn't know when to let go of Li Can's hand, and she didn't know when she took out the camera in her backpack, when Li Cang heard her voice, she only saw that she had already stood opposite her, set up the camera, and waited for her to raise her head, it was a wild shot.

Li Cang's face was expressionless, and he was no stranger to Lin Jiajia's behavior that he might take out his camera anytime and anywhere.

The dim light is not much stronger than that of the International Department before, and Li Cang doesn't know what is there to take pictures of in this environment.

"Let's keep a souvenir."

Lin Jiajia winked at her, smiled secretly, and showed her the photos she had just taken in the camera.

Li Cang looked at it and understood.

Where did she want to shoot her, she clearly took a fancy to the boy who walked behind her just now, and wanted to record it.

Li Cang in the photo, although her eyes are keenly capturing the camera, her whole body was placed on the side of the photo by Lin Jiajia, which does not belong to her other side, and the protagonist is a boy passing by with a schoolbag.

Although there is only one silhouette, the tall and thin figure, coupled with the atmosphere of the rainy day, makes it hard not to feel that this boy is good-looking.

"I've heard for a long time that the experimental scholars are not only good at studying, but also have a lot of good looks, and I haven't had the opportunity to meet them before, but when I see them today, they really live up to their reputation."

Lin Jiajia waited until the boy's back completely disappeared in the corridor, and then whispered to Li Cang to share her excitement.

“……”

Li Cang's silent silence was almost more deafening than the sound of rain hitting the umbrella surface of a passing passer.

"That's what you're here for?"

"How is that possible!"

Lin Jiajia put away the camera babysittingly, although she didn't admit that the purpose of her experiment today was to be a handsome scholar, but her body was still quite honest, and she pulled Li Cang to the student honor wall erected in front of the senior high school teaching building.

The Student Honor Wall, as the name suggests, is a glass display wall set up in front of the teaching building for each grade level. Every semester, a group of outstanding student representatives will be selected to present in front of everyone.

Experimental Middle School is the best public high school in the whole Cloud City.

And in this public high school with the most competition and the most reading, it must not be easy to display it on the Wall of Honor.

With such an idea, Lin Jiajia has always had a great interest in the group of top students who are the best at studying in Cloud City.

Because of their family, Lin Jiajia and Li Cang, as well as a few friends who came to the experimental middle school to play together, have been in international schools since childhood.

Including Tao Jingran, although he left Cloud City for a few years and just transferred back this year, whether he is in Cloud City or in other cities, there is no exception, and what he is learning is different from the ordinary college entrance examination model.

Therefore, Lin Jiajia has always had a special curiosity about the legendary general high school student.

They start at the very end of the Wall of Fame.

The top students in the experimental middle school, regardless of men and women, just have a unified standard two-inch photo with a blue background, coupled with a unified blue and white school uniform, which gives people the feeling of being very good at reading.

Looking at the dense string of award-winning achievements that followed immediately below each photo, this feeling quickly turned into a down-to-earth inevitability.

"2017 Provincial Outstanding Student"

"2017 National Mathematical Olympiad First Prize ......"

Lin Jiajia finished reading everyone on this list one step ahead of Li Cang, and when she saw the first boy in the first row, she didn't hold back, and took out her camera to take a picture of him.

"I want to say it again, the experiment is the paradise of the male high school, this kind of appearance, this kind of brain, if you don't record it, it's just a tyrannical thing!"

She scrambled her thoughts as she pressed the shutter with her hand as fast as she could, sealing the boy's silhouette in her camera.

Li Cang heard her movements, and his eyes couldn't help but move from behind.

That was the first time Li Cang saw Shao Qingyan.

Oh no, there was one more time before.

It's just that this time, her impression was so vague that she wasn't even sure if it was him.

This is the first time she remembers Shao Qingyan's face completely and seriously.

The teenager who was posted in the first place on the honor roll has clear eyebrows and clear facial features.

is obviously wearing an ordinary school uniform, but the calmness that is clearly visible in his eyes sharpens a lot of youthfulness and adds a bit of calm and reliable temperament to him.

He seems to be very different from the other classmates on the list.

But it doesn't seem to be any different.

Li Cang looked at him twice, and felt that if he really wanted to pick someone on this list who wanted to record it, he was indeed the best choice.

But she doesn't have to worry about this list.

She quickly looked away again, aimlessly continuing to search for something she was interested in.

Tao Jingran and the three finally arrived at this time.

"What are you looking at?"

"I was looking at our school's top students."

"How's that, it's pretty, isn't it? Isn't it completely inferior to Siming? I heard that the person has been escorted to Tsinghua University, and there is nothing wrong with him except that he is a little poor. ”

"Already delivered?"

Lin Jiajia's filter for such a handsome guy became heavier for a while.

"yes."

Tao Jingran raised his head.

Although he has only been transferred to the city of Yuncheng for less than a few months, and he is still staying in the international department that is not good for others, he still feels honored when he says the word "Tsinghua" inexplicably.

"Our school is the best high school in Cloud City, and there are a few early guarantees every year, isn't it normal?"

"Okay, okay, let's go, don't look at this, I invite you to eat hot pot, it's just across the school, and it's just two steps from the road."

"Really eat hot pot? I just washed my hair yesterday. ”

"Oh, let's wash it again."

Boys never understand the hassle of girls washing their hair.

Lin Jiajia muttered as she went to grab Li Cang's hand.

The two of them hold an umbrella together.

"You say, if I find a handsome guy who is an experimental school bully to be my boyfriend, will I be able to Emily to death?"

Lin Jiajia usually deals with the most difficult person in school is Emily in the same class.

For so many years, Emily has been obsessed with finding a handsome guy to be her boyfriend, and every one she has dated is either experimental or from the middle school attached to the Normal University.

"If I look for the one just now, the most powerful one, who has been escorted to Tsinghua University, do you think Emily will dare to show off her boyfriend's grades in the future?"

The most powerful one just now?

The appearance of Shao Qingyan gradually appeared in Li Cang's mind.

"You want to be in love?"

She didn't answer Lin Jiajia's question, but directly changed the topic for her.

"It's not, the college applications have all been handed over, and we will be idle next, find a handsome guy to talk about love, and touch the little tail of adolescence, I think it's still good."

The process of international schools is different from that of ordinary high schools in China, and Li Cang and Lin Jiajia's plans are to study in the UK, so they have submitted all the applications before New Year's Day.

Now, they just have to wait at home for news.

Li Cang pondered for a moment and looked at the three boys walking in front of them.

"It's okay to fall in love, but I think it's better not to look for someone who is too poor." She suggested.

"Why?"

Li Cang looked back at her again.

Her top today is the latest autumn and winter style of the Xiang family this year, the skirt is a niche brand in Italy, and the Martin boots on her feet are soft sheepskin hand-made by the master who opened the store in the center of Cloud City.

But even so, she still doesn't worry about whether her shoes will be damaged if it rains today.

Anyway, in her opinion, it would be nice to change a pair if it is broken.

Lin Jiajia was stared at by her inexplicably.

"Oh, but Tao Jingran said, except for being poor, there really is nothing wrong with it."

Isn't poverty the biggest problem?

Li Cang chuckled noncommittally and didn't say anything superfluous.

Some time ago, the two of them made sheepskin boots together, both of them stepped on the muddy puddle carelessly, and continued to walk slowly and methodically towards the outside of the school.