Chapter 34: Volleyball

The last class in the afternoon was physical education.
Today, Class 3 and Class 7 had the class together.
After the physical education teacher gave a few brief remarks, he blew the whistle and announced free practice of volleyball passing, in groups of two.
The girls in the class immediately gathered together in groups of three or four.
Xiahou Ming stood alone at the edge of the court, holding a volleyball.
Her eyes passed through the noisy venue and subconsciously searched the crowd.
Then, she saw her.
In the team of Class 7, a thin figure, like her, was holding the ball, standing there at a loss.
The classmates around her all found their companions while chatting and laughing, but she was the only one left alone.
Xiahou Ming’s heart began to beat uncontrollably.
She knew this was an opportunity.
Should she go? How should she start?
Just as she was struggling fiercely in her heart, a familiar figure walked up to her.
“Xiao Ming, let’s be a team, okay?”
Xiahou Ming raised her head and saw Ling Yicai’s smiling face.
Behind her, there were a few girls who always surrounded her, looking at this side with a sense of loss as if they were rejected.
If it were in the past, or if there was no “game,” she might have nodded.
But now…
She took a deep breath and made her choice.
“No,” she said in a calm voice, “I… I already have a companion.”
After saying that, in front of Ling Yicai’s incredulous gaze, Xiahou Ming, holding the ball, walked quickly toward the girl from Class 7.
She could feel the gaze behind her almost burning through her back.
But she didn’t look back.
Ling Yicai stood there, watching Xiahou Ming walk up to the timid girl, gesture something awkwardly, and then the two of them formed a pair.
The expression on her face grew colder by the second.
“Hey! That one over there! Ling Yicai!” the PE teacher’s impatient voice came from a distance, “Didn’t you find a team? Then go with that… Yu Yuhui, you two can be a team!”
Ling Yicai slowly turned her head and caught a glimpse of a figure standing at the other end of the playground, looking down and studying something.
She took a deep breath and put that sweet but hypocritical smile back on her face.
“Miss Yu,” she walked up to Yu Yuhui, “Please guide me, okay?”
“Just leave me alone.” Yu Yuhui didn’t even raise her head.
Ling Yicai took a step forward, leaned down slightly, put her face close to Yu Yuhui, and said softly:
“…The teacher put us in a group.”
“Don’t you have an opinion?”
The smile on Ling Yicai’s face froze in an instant.
Yu Yuhui stood up expressionlessly and took the volleyball from her.
Their practice was normal at the beginning.
But soon, the atmosphere changed.
“Miss Yu,” Ling Yicai smiled, accurately passing the ball to Yu Yuhui’s left, forcing her to take a small step. “Didn’t you get enough rest? You have dark circles under your eyes.”
“It’s okay,” Yu Yuhui just turned her body slightly and easily returned the ball. “At least I can sleep in my own bed.”
“I’m worried about Xiao Ming. Her current situation makes it very easy for some unscrupulous people to take advantage of her.”
“Worried?” Yu Yuhui chuckled as she passed the ball. “So forcing something someone doesn’t want on them is actually a form of concern.”
“Whether it’s necessary or not is not up to you to decide.” Ling Yicai’s smile turned cold. “I’ve known her for seventeen years. What about you? Less than seventeen days, right?”
“Sometimes, all it takes is a gust of wind to clean away the dust of seventeen years.”
Hearing this, Ling Yicai’s blood rushed up, she took a few steps back, and hit the volleyball hard toward Yu Yuhui’s chest.
“What on earth did you do to her!? She won’t even look at me now!”
Instead of dodging, Yu Yuhui used the same force to send the volleyball back more fiercely.
“I didn’t do anything.”
Bang!
“I just asked her to look in the mirror.”
“What mirror!?” Ling Yicai gritted her teeth and sent the ball back fiercely, “You’ll only twist her into the disgusting shape you desire!”
“At least,” Yu Yuhui casually returned the ball with a contemptuous tone, “the person in the mirror is alive.”
Bang!
“Unlike some people who always like to talk to the portrait.”
“You…!” Ling Yicai was trembling all over at the pain of these words.
“That night, when you were talking to the air, did she respond to you?”
“You… how could you…”
“That’s my guess.” Yu Yuhui took the ball. “After all, talking to oneself is the only way for mediocre people to relieve loneliness.”
Just then, there was a small commotion in the distance.
Xiahou Ming and Wen Xuelan, due to poor coordination, bumped into each other awkwardly and both fell to the ground.
Ling Yicai and Yu Yuhui stopped what they were doing almost at the same time.
Ling Yicai immediately frowned, a protective and blaming expression on her face, and she subconsciously wanted to rush over.
Yu Yuhui tilted her head slightly, her eyes filled with observation and evaluation.
“Did you see that?!” Ling Yicai turned around abruptly and growled angrily at Yu Yuhui, “She fell down! Why didn’t you react at all?!”
“I see.” Yu Yuhui retracted her gaze and looked at Ling Yicai calmly, “It seems that if you want your wings to get used to your new body, you need more practice.”
“Madwoman… you’ll destroy her sooner or later!”
“That’s better than being ‘loved’ to death by you.”
Bang!!
This sentence became the last straw that broke the camel’s back.
Ling Yicai used all her strength to hit the volleyball hard and sent it flying.
Perhaps because she used too much force, or perhaps because she lost control of her emotions, the angle of her smash was seriously off.
The volleyball whizzed past Yu Yuhui’s ear like a cannonball, flew to the court next to it, and hit the back of the head of Lin Xiaomei, who was slacking off with her friends.
“Ouch!”
The moment they saw the volleyball fly out, Ling Yicai and Yu Yuhui had extremely similar expressions on their faces at the same time.
“…It’s not me.”
“Well, the ball flew over by itself.”
“Ling Yicai! Yu Yuhui! You two! What are you doing!?” The physical education teacher’s angry voice came.
The teacher came over and glared at Yu Yuhui sternly.
Then he said to Ling Yicai in a relatively gentle tone:
“Ling Yicai, why are you fooling around with her?”
Amid the teacher’s chattering in the background, Ling Yicai turned her head and whispered to Yu Yuhui in a voice that only the two of them could hear:
“I really hate you.”
After saying that, she didn’t look at Yu Yuhui again, turned around, and merged into the crowd.
Yu Yuhui stood there, watching Ling Yicai’s departing back.
The calm expression on her face, which had remained unchanged for years, seemed to show a hint of interest.
She lowered her head and glanced at her wrist, which was slightly red from the force of the ball just now.
Then she raised her head and turned her gaze back to Xiahou Ming, who was standing up with Wen Xuelan supporting each other in the distance.