Journey, Departure

Chapter 133

In the living room, two suitcases lay wide open.

Ye Zhenzhen knelt on the floor, like a little hamster hoarding food, forcefully stuffing a neatly folded white T-shirt into the corner of the suitcase.

"Did you bring sunscreen? What about your charger? Don't try to mooch off mine later."

Gu Ran leaned against the sofa, spinning his phone in his hand, a smile playing on his lips. "I brought it, Dr. Ye. Your security checks are stricter than the airport's."

As soon as he finished speaking, the phone on the coffee table suddenly vibrated like it was having a seizure.

"Buzz—buzz—buzz—"

The two exchanged a glance, and Gu Ran swiped to unlock the screen.

The class group chat had exploded, with a bright red "99+" in the top right corner.

The class monitor took the lead in mourning: [Brothers, have you checked your scores yet? The Tier 1 cutoff is 530, and I'm more than twenty points away. I'm already looking at Tier 2 universities. Save me.]

A line of copycats followed below:

[Same here, Monitor! I only got 490, and my dad has already broken two belts whipping me.]

[Who's the first in our class? The Study Commisary or the Sports Commissary?]

Just then, Ye Jinliang (Screen name: Golden Spear Never Falls), who had been lurking for ten thousand years, suddenly sprang to life.

[Golden Spear Never Falls: Sigh, don't mention it. My bro totally bombed this time.]

The group instantly went dead silent.

His bro?

Gu Ran?

That Gu Ran who slept in class, never studied, was a local Brahmin in the county, and the famous "Demon King" of County A's First High School.

Wasn't it standard operation for him to bomb the exam?

Doing well would be the ninth wonder of the world, okay!

Someone sent a "patting head" emoji: [It's okay, Brother Ran has a good mindset. Getting into a junior college isn't bad either; anyway, he has connections at home.]

[Golden Spear Never Falls: No, the main thing is he was usually pretty steady in mock exams. I don't know what happened this time; he only got 697.]

The group was quiet for a full half-minute.

Immediately after, a screen full of question marks erupted like a virus.

[?]

[???]

[Fatty, did you drink fake alcohol? 697? Is the total score in your family a thousand?] [I'm reporting this immediately; this flex is too big!]

Ye Jinliang didn't waste words and directly threw out a screenshot.

Chinese: 138, Math: 149, English: 145, Comprehensive Science: 265.

Total score: 697.

Provincial ranking: 104.

At this moment, all the Class 6 seniors holding their phones felt like their skulls had been split open by a bolt of lightning, charred on the outside and tender on the inside.

Math 149?

That Gu Ran who couldn't even memorize trigonometric formulas and slept in the back row every day?!

[Homeroom Teacher - Hao Cuiyun: @AllMembers Congratulations to our class's Gu Ran for taking second place in science in the whole school with a score of 697! The outcome is not yet decided; you and I are both dark horses!]

Official certification, the most deadly.

The group completely went crazy, with emojis kneeling all over the floor.

[Holy crap!!!]

[Brother Ran! Accept my bow!]

[Einstein's coffin lid can't hold him down anymore! How did he solve that last derivative question in math?]

Gu Ran chuckled lightly and casually tossed the phone back onto the sofa.

If these people knew that he didn't even want to lose that one point deducted, they would probably crawl through the internet cable to strangle him.

"Gu 'Dog' Ran, you're famous." Ye Zhenzhen looked at the group messages, her tone sour, but the corners of her eyes curved into crescents.

"Keep a low profile." As Gu Ran waved his hand, Ye Zhenzhen's little PHS phone rang.

"Hello, is this student Ye Zhenzhen? I am from the admissions office of Huaqing University..."

The voice on the other end was as enthusiastic as an insurance salesman: "Congratulations on achieving an excellent score of 704! We sincerely invite you to apply to Huaqing. Combined bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs, choose any major, full scholarship..."

Gu Ran raised an eyebrow; this was the prestige of a study god.

Ye Zhenzhen's grip on the phone tightened.

She raised her eyes and glanced at the smiling boy on the sofa.

Hesitation?

Nonexistent.

"Thank you, teacher," the girl's voice was cold, like crushed ice in early summer, "but I already have a favorite school."

The admissions teacher grew anxious, his voice rising eight octaves: "Student, this is Huaqing! Is it because of the major? Everything is negotiable! Did Jinghua University promise you something? Whatever they can give, we'll double!"

"It's not a matter of the major, nor is it Jinghua." Ye Zhenzhen lowered her eyelids, her eyelashes trembling slightly. "It's because... there is a reason I must go there."

Less than ten seconds after hanging up, the ringtone sounded again.

This time it was Jinghua University.

Ye Zhenzhen followed the same pattern, politely declining, and the other party almost came through the phone line to snatch her!

Right after, Gu Ran's phone also exploded.

Fudan, Jiaotong, Renmin... bombing him in turns.

In this obscure little county town, 697 and 704 were two walking golden signboards; whoever snatched them would be the KPI king of the year.

The last call to come in was from their homeroom teacher, Hao Cuiyun.

Old Hao's voice was hoarse; her breakdown could be felt through the screen: "Gu Ran! Are you crazy? The admissions offices of Tsinghua and Peking University called me! They said they couldn't get through to you! You can't joke about your future! That's Tsinghua and Peking!"

Gu Ran answered the phone, watching Ye Zhenzhen stuffing their toothbrushes into the same toiletry bag.

Sunlight spilled over her, as beautiful as a painting.

"Teacher Hao," Gu Ran's voice was gentle, "actually, Qinglin University is also good. It's close to home, has beautiful scenery, and... the major I want to study is also top-notch there."

"You..."

"Teacher, you taught us that the most important thing in life is to have no regrets."

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, finally followed by a long sigh of disappointment.

"...You brat!"

Hung up, turned off the phone, and the world was quiet.

Gu Ran walked up behind Ye Zhenzhen and rubbed her head. "No regrets?"

"Regret what?" Ye Zhenzhen zipped up the bag, stood up, and clapped her hands. "Regret not going to Tsinghua or Peking to be the king of involution, or regret being dragged down by a smelly dog like you?"

Gu Ran laughed, dragging the pink suitcase with one hand, and naturally taking her hand with the other, striding into the passionate sunlight of early summer.

The old men in the neighborhood were still discussing whose kid got into a Tier 2 university.

No one knew that these two teenagers in white T-shirts had just rejected the top universities in the country and were heading for an "elopement."

...

Subway Line 2, the tail end of the morning rush hour.

"Excuse me, excuse me."

Gu Ran protected Ye Zhenzhen, struggling to squeeze into the dead corner at the connection of the train cars.

With a sudden brake, the crowd fell like dominoes.

Gu Ran propped one hand against the wall of the car, forcefully holding open a vacuum zone in the sea of people that belonged only to the two of them.

Ye Zhenzhen's back was pressed against the cold metal, and in front of her was the boy's warm and broad chest.

Too close...

So close she could smell the faint lemon scent of laundry detergent on his clothes, which she had washed by hand yesterday.

To hell with Tsinghua and Peking.

To hell with a bright future.

At this moment, she just wanted to be Gu Ran's little tail.

Driven by some inexplicable impulse, she quietly reached out her pinky and hooked it around Gu Ran's pinky hanging by his side.

Gu Ran was slightly stunned, then looked down.

The girl's cheeks were flushed, her body slightly stiff, but her eyes stubbornly stared elsewhere as she muttered softly, "There are too many people... I'm afraid you'll get lost."

Amusement overflowed in Gu Ran's eyes.

He didn't expose this clumsy excuse; instead, he turned his hand over and gripped it, wrapping that soft, boneless little hand entirely in his palm, their fingers interlaced tightly.

"Yeah, hold on tight."

The boy leaned close to her ear. "After all, this journey is going to be very long."

The train roared through the dark tunnel, the window reflecting their overlapping silhouettes.

Next stop, Jiangnan.

Next stop, the future.

Meanwhile, on an island hundreds of kilometers away, Gu Xiangcheng and Ye Shulian were enjoying a sunbath, completely unaware that their precious daughter had just eloped—lock, stock, and barrel.

...

At the same time, inside Ye Jinliang's ostentatious, nouveau-riche-style villa.

Ye Jinliang stared at the class group chat that was still blowing up with messages, grinning from ear to ear.

"So satisfying! This feels too damn good!"

He clacked away on his phone to continue his humblebragging: [Actually, I also think he underperformed... sigh, what a pity. He could have been the top scorer of the province.]

After sending that, he habitually called Gu Ran to fish for compliments.

"Sorry, the subscriber you dialed is powered off..."

Ye Jinliang: "???"

Refusing to accept it, he dialed Ye Zhenzhen's number instead.

"Sorry, the subscriber you dialed..."

Ye Jinliang stared at his phone screen. His chubby face gradually contorted, revealing a bleak sense of being abandoned by the entire world.

Am I the real clown here?