Ficorpio
Chapter 1
Before the Gaokao, the National College Entrance Exam, I made plans to go hiking with my childhood sweetheart.
He canceled at the last minute.
The next day, the new transfer student’s social media post went viral across the school.
A night hike. Waiting for the sunrise. Then, at dawn, cycling all the way to Fairmont for soup dumplings.
Adrian Sterling was in the photos, his smile brighter than the morning sun.
The classroom buzzed with our classmates’ envy.
Adrian pressed a hand over my workbook. “Emma, want to walk home together today?”
I didn’t look up. “No. I already have plans with someone else.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “Why? I thought you only ever walked home with me.”
The new transfer student, Vanessa Hayes, was bright and outgoing.
Nothing like the rest of us bookworms.
That was how Adrian described her.
One day, Adrian suddenly turned to me with a grin. “Come on, Emma. Let’s do something crazy for once. I’ll take you to watch the sunrise.”
I blinked at him in surprise.
“But I was planning to catch up on sleep over the weekend…”
He frowned. “Youth is priceless. Don’t you even understand that?”
Youth is priceless.
It was something Vanessa always said.
Adrian sat behind her in class, and whenever she spoke, his eyes would light up.
I didn’t respond.
He simply clapped his hands together. “Then it’s settled. We leave Saturday!”
Thrilled, Adrian immediately started searching for hiking routes.
Vanessa suddenly leaned over. “A spontaneous trip? I want to come too!”
I raised my head.
Adrian smiled at her.
“Sure.”
I didn’t know why, but my heart gave a sudden lurch.
An inexplicable bitterness slowly spread through my chest.
That evening, I received a message from Adrian Sterling.
“Something came up. Our plans are off.”
Without thinking, I replied, “What happened? Do you need help?”
No answer came.
I waited and waited, but my message might as well have vanished into a void.
Adrian’s bright, eager eyes flashed through my mind. I glanced down at the hiking jacket I had just picked up for our trip, then quietly put it away.
When I walked into Homeroom 3 on Monday morning, the classroom was already buzzing.
“Adrian, you actually went? That’s bold!”
“Were the Fairmont soup dumplings good? They’re always showing up in my feed. I’m so jealous!”
“Now that’s how you live. Youth is priceless!”
“Wait, why did you go with Vanessa? Didn’t you say you were taking your childhood sweetheart?”
Someone immediately hissed, “Shh. Stop talking. She’s here.”
Every eye in the room turned toward me.
The classroom fell silent.
Adrian looked over with everyone else, a trace of awkwardness crossing his face.
“I didn’t see you this morning, so I took a shortcut to school.”
Right.
A shortcut.
Chapter 2
There was only one road from our apartment complex to school.
I had gotten up early and waited for him until I was ten minutes late. I’d had to plead with the security guard at the entrance before he finally let me in.
I wondered how early Adrian must have left to somehow miss me.
What a joke.
I set down my school bag.
My seatmate leaned over. “Emma, didn’t Adrian say he was going with you? How did Vanessa end up going instead? Did you two have a fight?”
As she spoke, she pulled up WeChat Moments and handed me her phone.
She enlarged one of the photos. “Look how close they are. Don’t they have any sense of personal boundaries?”
My gaze flicked across the screen.
It was Vanessa Hayes’s nine-photo post.
The center picture showed the sunrise. Vanessa’s head rested on Adrian’s shoulder, their bodies pressed close together.
My seatmate swiped to the next photo.
This one was warm and cozy, full of everyday intimacy. The two of them sat in the same breakfast place, a basket of steaming Fairmont soup dumplings on the table between them.
Vanessa’s caption read:
Youth Has No Price. Conquered the summit overnight and caught the sunrise~
Nearly all our mutual friends had liked the post.
I looked away.
“Yeah,” I said. “Impressive.”
Vanessa Hayes hurried over and pushed a takeout container onto my desk.
“Here. You didn’t make it on the hike, but I still brought you something good.”
A layer of congealed yellow-brown broth coated the inside of the plastic bag.
Vanessa beamed at me. “Fairmont soup dumplings. I brought them back especially for you. Go on, try one!”
I lowered my eyes.
“Thanks, but no.”
She fell silent at once.
Then she glanced back at Adrian Sterling as if appealing for help.
Sure enough, he came over immediately, frowning. “Emma, Vanessa went out of her way to bring those back for you. She carried them all this way. The least you can do is try one. Everyone’s watching. Do you have to embarrass her like this?”
Our classmates turned to watch, pointing and whispering.
“What’s Emma’s problem?”
“She’s jealous. Before Vanessa transferred here, everyone knew Emma was Adrian’s little princess.”
The more they talked, the darker Adrian’s expression grew.
My eyes burned despite myself. “Adrian, she gets to keep her dignity, but I don’t?”
Vanessa caught his arm, looking wounded. “Forget it, Adrian. Emma obviously doesn’t want them. I’ll take them home later and give them to Dottie.”
Dottie.
The long-haired dog Vanessa was constantly posting on social media.
Chapter 3
My anger finally boiled over. “Are you two done with this performance? I haven’t said a single word to either of you since I walked into this classroom. You came over here looking for trouble for no reason. When are you going to stop?”
Vanessa’s face went white.
Adrian pulled her behind him, placing himself between us. His patience had clearly run out.
“Vanessa was trying to be nice. Since when is bringing you a local specialty some kind of crime?”
He snatched the cold takeout container off my desk. More broth spilled from it, dripping onto the floor.
Vanessa’s eyes filled with tears. With a choked sob, she covered her face and ran out of the classroom.
Adrian glared at me. “All this because I didn’t go with you? Well, you made Vanessa cry. Happy now?”
His voice was loud enough to startle the entire class into silence.
The bell rang just as our homeroom teacher entered the room.
Adrian glanced back, clenched his jaw, and rushed out through the rear door after Vanessa.
Class ended, but neither of them came back.
Everyone whispered about it. By our final year of high school, hardly anyone skipped class without a serious reason. We were all counting on this year’s hard work to earn us a better future.
What Adrian had done was beyond reckless.
When my deskmate returned, she leaned over and quietly told me that everyone thought Vanessa had somehow replaced Adrian with a different person and dragged the new one into her antics.
By lunch, the classroom had emptied.
I was on cleaning duty, so I stayed behind. The grease on the floor had already congealed, and it took forever to scrub away.
Footsteps suddenly sounded behind me. I turned, and our eyes met.
Vanessa took half a step back as if she were afraid of me.
I ignored her and continued mopping.
After a long silence, she finally spoke, sounding aggrieved. “Emma, I… I wasn’t trying to steal anyone from you.
“I didn’t know you weren’t coming until I got to the foot of the mountain. How… how was I supposed to know Adrian would leave you behind as soon as he saw me?”
Her voice grew softer with every word, deliberately fragile.
I drew a deep breath. “And what exactly are you trying to say?”
“Well…” She looked at me pitifully. “Could you ask everyone to stop talking about me? My family went through so much trouble to arrange my transfer. I just want a chance to get along with everyone.”
The way she said it made it sound as if I had turned the entire class against her.