At the same time, at Jinfeng High School, Jiang Yu, as a senior, was already sitting in the classroom, buried in a sea of exam questions.
Suddenly, a bookmark made of a wutong leaf caught his eye, and the image of a face that was always extremely gentle appeared before him.
A smile involuntarily rose on his still youthful and immature face.
He didn’t stop writing, continuing to solve problems, only briefly allowing his thoughts to drift away.
That was a month ago. Sang Tian knew he was about to enter the 360-day countdown to the Gaokao, so she specially climbed a wutong tree and picked a leaf from the highest branch to give him.
The meaning was good—it was a wish for him to take top honors.
Recalling how that mature and beautiful older sister disregarded danger, climbed the tree, and bravely picked the leaf for him, remembering the speed of his own heartbeat when she jumped down from a lower branch with the leaf in hand, he couldn’t help but catch his breath and solve the problems even faster.
He wouldn’t let Sang Tian down.
He would become next year’s Gaokao top scorer, and then… tell her the words he had hidden in his heart for four years, face to face.
Thinking of this, he paused in his work, turned his head to look out the window, his eyes full of longing and determination for the future.
Outside, a dry summer wind rolled up fallen leaves, spiraling higher and higher.
That year, summer was very long—longer than in previous years. It wasn’t until the end of October that there was a hint of autumn.
The Indian Summer came late but left quickly. In mid-December, Jinfeng City had a huge snowfall. Every time Jiang Yu went home, he could see children building snowmen and having snowball fights in the nearby park.
Thinking about balancing work and rest, he sometimes couldn’t resist joining the kids. After playing enough, he’d go home and immediately bury himself in his studies again.
Today, however, he just watched. He took out his phone, snapped a picture of the snowman the kids had made, and opened someone’s chat page to send it to her.
But he saw that she had sent a chat record first.
“Huh?”
Jiang Yu was stunned.
A little puzzled, he opened the chat record.
It turned out that an anonymous netizen had posted the class monitor voting link online, planning to prank his own brother.
Many netizens had already actively shown their helpful nature.
Sang Tian was among them.
Jiang Yu needed less than a second to guess that this chat record had probably already passed through his elder brother and sister-in-law’s hands—maybe even his sister-in-law was the one who forwarded it to everyone.
Thinking of this, he sighed helplessly, looked at the chat record Sang Tian had sent him, couldn’t help but smirk, and shook his head gently, muttering softly with tender eyes, “So even Sister Sang Tian has this side.”
With a ding, Sang Tian sent a new message: “Xiao Yu, I hope I’m not disturbing you?”
Seeing this, Jiang Yu’s smile deepened. In front of everyone, he was always a good kid, so faced with such a question, he could only answer that she wasn’t.
Then he immediately cast a vote for Li Hao as well.
The vote was exactly two hundred thousand—not a single one more or less.
This generation of netizens was really kind.
After voting, he wanted to chat a few more words with Sang Tian, but then he saw her send a very panicked emoji.
‘What happened?’
He panicked a little, quickly tapping on his phone screen to ask her.
Sang Tian quickly replied: “Nothing, it’s just that the Physics Department accidentally blew up a furnace. The sound was a bit loud. It scared me.”
Jiang Yu finally relaxed.
After some conversation with no substance, full of artificial sweetness, Jiang Yu ended the text chat with Sang Tian and returned home.
As soon as he walked into the living room, his gaze was caught by a figure dressed in new clothes.
“Oh my, there’s still a month until Jiang Xiao marries that child from the Song family. Tell me, does this look good on me for their wedding?”
Grandma Jiang was wearing a warm red greatcoat, asking the other Jiang family members in the living room for their opinions.
“It looks good, it looks good! Mom, you look good in everything!”
Mother Jiang nodded and said affirmatively.
The other Jiang family members chimed in.
“I don’t believe you. Your words are completely unreliable. Even if I walked out in a rag, you’d all say I look good.”
Grandma Jiang gave a light snort.
Then she looked at Jiang Yu, who had just returned, smiled kindly, and waved him over. “Jiang Yu, come here. Help your grandmother see how this outfit looks on me.”
Jiang Yu smiled but didn’t answer immediately. He just walked up quickly.
Grandpa Jiang seemed unhappy, secretly jealous of his grandson, and let out a chuckle while gripping his walking stick, speaking sarcastically: “Ah, love changes, doesn’t it? How many years have we been together, and you don’t even trust me.”
At those words, several Jiang family members in the living room couldn’t hold back their laughter. Grandma Jiang, the one involved, shot Grandpa Jiang a coy glare, smiled without a word, and continued to look at her grandson, waiting for his evaluation.
“Grandma looks very beautiful today. If you wore a flower in your hair, you’d look even better!”
Jiang Yu casually picked a peony from a potted plant, walked up to his grandmother, and gently tucked it into her pure white hair.
Even though her hair was gray, she was still just a little girl who loved beauty.
She liked pretty clothes, so of course she liked pretty flowers.
“Oh my, Jiang Yu really has a sweet tongue! I love it!”
Grandma Jiang looked at a mirror he had somehow produced, saw herself with the peony in her hair, and her dark eyes gradually lit up. The wrinkles at the corners of her eyes smoothed away, and she seemed to have suddenly become fifty or sixty years younger, returning to her most beautiful age.
With that, she excitedly hugged her little grandson and gave him a big kiss on his left cheek. “Come here, give Grandma a kiss!”
Jiang Yu put the mirror away.
Mother Jiang smiled and sighed, giving Jiang Yu a thumbs-up. This child had never let them down; he was the most worry-free of the three.
“Grandma, I still need to go to my room to keep studying. Let me help you to the sofa first, okay?”
Jiang Yu reached out to support Grandma Jiang and lead her to the sofa.
“You child, isn’t it enough that you spent the whole day at school doing problems? You still want to study when you get home.”
Grandma Jiang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Her eyes were full of pride, and she couldn’t help but stroke her little grandson’s head.
Now the happiness of the other two children was settled. Even that rebellious Jiang Zhi had come back.
She really hoped she could live to see this child bring back a good girl too.
Just as she thought this, her expression suddenly changed. Her mind went dizzy, and then her vision went black.
“Grandma!!”
Jiang Yu reacted quickly and caught Grandma Jiang as she collapsed.
Seeing this, all the Jiang family members in the living room were shocked. Their pupils sharply contracted, and they rose from the sofa, crowding around Grandma Jiang.