Boundless – Chapter 16

Wen Qianshu walked down a road in her dream.

A very long and endless road.

The four walls were deathly white, the light cold and silent.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor, and shadows of people appeared on the walls.

One after another, they formed a dark, oppressive mountain range.

A shadow poked its head out and said: “I heard her mom just said a few words to her, and she immediately opened the window and jumped out. Luckily, a clothes drying rack broke her fall, so she didn’t die—but she scared her mom half to death, oh, the poor thing.”

The remaining shadows chimed in: “Kids these days are too fragile. They just haven’t suffered enough.”

“What a sin, oh, what a sin.”

The shadows shouted in unison, like actors in an opera and also like spectators at a play, “What a sin—”

They multiplied, merging into an inky blackness, crowding the walls, bustling and undulating. One human figure after another, with no eyes, no ears, only mouths opening and closing.

Opening and closing.

One singing, the other echoing.

“Something’s not right with her family either. With her having such an illness, you’d think the family would want to have another child.”

“The policy was strict back then, wasn’t it?”

“Strict is strict, but her family wasn’t willing. Didn’t a few of us talk to Huai’ai? Huai’ai refused, saying it was the daughter she gave birth to, and she’d be happy to support her through a lifetime of illness.”

“Pfft, happy to support her for a lifetime?” a shadow shrieked in a high-pitched voice. “Is her husband happy about it too?”

The shadows grew taller, creeping up to the ceiling.

The mouths still opened and closed, linking together like pair after pair of eyes.

High above, under the deathly white light, they scrutinized Wen Qianshu.

“Yeah—I don’t know what’s wrong with Zhengde. His wife refuses to have more kids, and he has such a sickly daughter, yet he still won’t divorce.”

“Something’s wrong with him—the whole family has something wrong with them—”

Wen Qianshu always wore a smile. She had slightly upturned corners of her eyes and thin lips, which made her smile seem a little mischievous. But she often kept her eyelids lowered, leaning lazily against a desk, a chair—anything, really. So this hint of roguishness faded, becoming a casual indifference.

Wen Qianshu leaned against the wall, listening as the voices grew louder. She suddenly raised her arm and slammed her elbow hard against the wall. The shadows in the wall scattered like startled birds, leaving a blank space.

“What are you doing?”

The shadows panicked, “What are you doing!”

“You’re a young girl, how can you be so rough?”

Wen Qianshu’s eyes held a fierce hostility, yet she smiled sweetly, silently, and continued to strike with her elbow, again and again.

The black shadows were broken apart, scattering in all directions with shrieks.

The corridor shook violently and suddenly tilted vertically. Wen Qianshu’s feet slipped, and she fell backward, plummeting down. The wind rushed past her ears as the black shadows and the wall rose up and away.

Wen Qianshu sneered, but then someone suddenly appeared before her—the doctor from back then. The wind whipped up the person’s white coat, like a pair of snow-white wings unfurling. She was still wearing a mask, but her eyes were closed, falling together with Wen Qianshu.

Wen Qianshu stared at her for a moment, then suddenly raised her hand and yanked off her mask—

The other person also opened her eyes, revealing a pair of light-colored pupils.

Jiang Mingyue?

Startled, Wen Qianshu shot up into a sitting position.

She was covered in a cold sweat, gasping for breath.

2333: “What’s wrong with you?”

Wen Qianshu bent her knees, rested her forehead in her hand, and propped her elbows on her knees, panting.

Someone pushed open the door: “Time to get up—you’re awake?”

Wen Qianshu nodded.

“Then hurry up and get ready for breakfast. Don’t be late on the first day of school.”

Wen Qianshu: “Mm.”

But her legs were numb and her heart was racing. She remained propped up on the bed, unmoving. The woman frowned: “I said get up, so get up. Don’t dawdle.”

Wen Qianshu pushed herself up, got out of bed, and started dressing.

Once the long vacation was over, the students showed off their various “talents” with their homework. Some had meticulously copied the entire answer key, while others had just closed their eyes and guessed ABC randomly; some had torn out half the pages of their notebooks, while others submitted 400-word essays as 800-word ones.

For calligraphy practice, they’d do wild cursive; for book reports, they’d just copy excerpts; for math, five consecutive problems would share the same answer; for chemistry, they’d milk a single equation for all it was worth.

Finally, there was the start-of-term exam. Nine subjects hand-in-hand, and the scores were truly mind-boggling.

After handing in her test paper, Wen Qianshu was lazing on her desk when someone poked her shoulder. Wen Qianshu turned around and saw it was Shen Ting.

Shen Ting: “I finished it, it was super good!”

Wen Qianshu raised an eyebrow and smiled: “I’m glad you liked it.”

Zhang Zisheng asked curiously: “Liked what?”

Shen Ting: “It was my birthday the day before yesterday, and Qianqian gave me a book.”

Zhang Zisheng: “Wow, it was your birthday?”

She scratched her head and pulled a large bag of pork jerky from her drawer: “I didn’t even know. Here, have some snacks.”

Shen Ting: “Thanks—oh no, you don’t have to give me so much—”

Wen Qianshu lay back down on her desk. Her head hurt a little. She asked 2333: “Tell me, why would Little Moonlight make a wish like that?”

2333: “…”

“You’ve been asking this since the first day of the Lunar New Year. Are you still hung up on it?”

“It’s not that I’m hung up on it,” Wen Qianshu said. “I’m just curious—do I not look happy?”

After saying that, she even made a point of smiling.

2333: “I don’t think so.”

It thought Wen Qianshu was as happy as a fool every day.

Wen Qianshu: “Then why would she say that?”

2333 had had enough: “School has already started, just go and ask her.”

Wen Qianshu: “No, I won’t ask.”

2333: “…”

2333 forcefully changed the subject: “Do you have any plans for the new semester?”

Wen Qianshu: “What plans? Oh—I plan to pass the average score in Chinese this semester.”

2333: “Wake up! Do you still remember about repairing the world line?”

Wen Qianshu stood up: “Aiya, I remember, I’m working on it—”

“Don’t worry about these details.”

That phrase again.

2333 was about to die of anger from her.

Wen Qianshu went out, walked two laps in the corridor, and then went to the restroom. The restroom was always crowded during the break between classes, with a long line forming.

Wen Qianshu stood by the sink to wash her hands. As she washed, she looked up at the mirror, curled the corners of her lips into a smile, then flattened them again, pressing her lips together.

She knew how to smile, and she knew how she looked best when she smiled.

In the past, she was never happy. Later, after reading many books, she learned that if a person smiled at themselves in the mirror, it could, to some extent, make them feel happier【1】.

It would make her feel happier.

Wen Qianshu looked in the mirror and felt that the girl in it had a pair of detestable, deep, and cold eyes. When her lips were pressed into a flat line, she looked both defensive and vigilant. Wen Qianshu smiled and told herself.

You look very happy.

You are very happy.

You are very happy, Wen Qianshu.

Wen Qianshu thought this over and over, finally turned off the faucet, and turned to go back to the classroom. Who knew that the head teacher was also there, standing in the classroom doorway with her back to the corridor. When Wen Qianshu tried to enter from the left, the teacher happened to move left. When Wen Qianshu wanted to go right, she happened to shift two steps to the right.

Everyone in the classroom saw this and started snickering.

The head teacher frowned: “What are you laughing at?”

Wen Qianshu: “Teacher, could you please let me pass?”

The head teacher turned to look at her and placed a stack of papers in her hands: “Here, here, hand these out.”

Wen Qianshu held up her hands in a gesture of surrender and smiled: “Teacher, my hands are wet.”

The head teacher pulled a sheet from the top of the stack and handed it to Wen Qianshu: “Wipe them and then hand them out.”

Wen Qianshu had no choice but to take it, and began counting the students row by row to distribute the papers.

The head teacher stood at the podium: “This is the subject selection survey form from the school. Take a look.”

“The science stream will have an additional 40-point math section, with physics as a compulsory subject, and you can choose chemistry, biology, or geography. The liberal arts stream will have an additional 40-point Chinese section, with history as a compulsory subject, and you can choose politics or geography.” The head teacher held another sheet and said while looking at it, “This subject selection is a very important matter. As you know, the final Gaokao score depends on the total of the three main subjects, bonus points from the ‘Little Gaokao,’ and the grades of your elective subjects. The top 5% in the province get an A+. Um, you can see the remaining percentages on this paper yourselves. Go home and discuss it with your parents. You must choose your subjects carefully…”

After Wen Qianshu finished handing out the papers and returned to her seat, the head teacher was still talking, repeatedly emphasizing the importance of subject selection.

This whole thing was a real headache. Grades were assigned based on percentages, so the exams became increasingly difficult. The school also liked to make them harder than the Gaokao, resulting in everyone being unable to solve the problems. Wen Qianshu’s misfortune was being too good at physics and chemistry. In the second monthly exam last year, Wen Qianshu’s physics score of 108 and Shen Ting’s score of 68 actually ended up in the same grade bracket, which almost gave her a heart attack.

What was even worse was when someone’s elective subjects couldn’t keep up with their main subjects. The math class representative had stable and high scores in his main subjects, but his physics was terrible, hovering around a C. So even if his math and chemistry were excellent, he had to avoid the science stream and choose liberal arts. Otherwise, it was highly likely he’d get scores worthy of Tsinghua or Peking University but grades equivalent to a second-tier university, and end up heartbrokenly repeating the year.

How to ensure that those who deserved an A got an A, and those who deserved a B got a B, was an age-old problem.

Wen Qianshu’s physics, chemistry, and biology had always been blindingly strong. For elective subjects with a full score of 120, she scored higher than she did in Chinese, which had a full score of 160. This often angered her Chinese teacher enough to drag her to the office for a lecture. And since No. 1 High School’s ace was its physics-chemistry combination—out of twenty classes in the second year, fourteen were physics-chemistry classes—Wen Qianshu checked off physics-chemistry without a second thought.

Beside her, Jiang Mingyue suddenly asked: “Physics-chemistry?”

Wen Qianshu nodded and smiled: “What about you?”

2333: “In the second year, she’s still in the same class as you, Shen Ting, and Fang Wenyuan. So she’s also—”

Jiang Mingyue: “Physics-biology.”

2333: “?”

Jiang Mingyue: “I like both biology and chemistry, but I’m more interested in biology. It’s a pity there’s no biology-chemistry combination.”

Wen Qianshu smiled: “Then choose physics-biology. It’s just that we won’t see each other in the second year.”

Jiang Mingyue was silent for a moment, then took a piece of paper and wrote down a series of numbers—her mobile number, phone number, and chat app account. Jiang Mingyue handed the paper to her. Wen Qianshu took it and smiled: “The classes haven’t been divided yet.”

Jiang Mingyue: “I’m giving it to you first.”

Wen Qianshu smiled, took the paper, and also took out a pen to write a string of numbers for her: “My home phone number.”

2333 was dizzy with this immense joy: “That’s great! She’s not choosing physics-chemistry, so the male and female leads will be in the same class later. There’ll be more opportunities to set them up!”

“You’re overthinking it.”

Wen Qianshu was really a bit tired today. She leaned forward, rested her head on her arms, and said sullenly: “She’ll still end up in physics-chemistry.”

2333: “Huh? Didn’t she say—”

Wen Qianshu laughed: “What are you thinking? Do you think the teacher’s words, ‘go home and discuss with your parents,’ were just nonsense? This form needs a parent’s signature, and it will be verified again at the parent-teacher conference. No. 1 High School’s physics-chemistry program is so strong, and Little Moonlight’s chemistry isn’t bad either. Her family would never agree to her choosing physics-biology.”

2333: “What? Then she—”

Wen Qianshu: “In the original book, she probably wanted to choose physics-biology too, she just didn’t tell her classmates.”

2333 was a bit unwilling to accept this: “Then won’t she discuss it with her family?”

Wen Qianshu smiled: “Oh, my dear 2333, some things are very hard to change.”

Jiang Mingyue’s parents were very firm and clearly valued her grades more than her personal feelings. No matter which subject Jiang Mingyue was interested in, she would ultimately end up in a physics-chemistry class.

2333 sighed, feeling a bit worried.

It kept sighing long and short sighs, making Wen Qianshu’s head hurt even more. So Wen Qianshu suddenly spoke up, comforting it with a smile: “But don’t lose heart, there are still some things that can be changed.”

2333: “Like what?”

“Like—” Wen Qianshu pushed herself up, leaned back against the seat behind her, and turned her head to ask: “Shen Ting, which one do you want to choose?”

A bad premonition rose in 2333’s heart.

Shen Ting: “History-politics, I guess.”

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Author’s Notes:

Wen Qianshu: I’m here to comfort you, 2333

And then in the blink of an eye, she makes the system cry.

Wen “Big-Tailed Wolf” Qianshu is a bit annoyed today, so she finally revealed a little of her true self.

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Note【1】: This is actually somewhat useful. Smiling at yourself in the mirror really can improve your mood a lot. But if you can’t feel happy no matter what, you should still see a psychologist~