O Luar lhe concede ternura

The school bell had rung a while ago. While the classrooms and hallways of the Qinxin Building were filled with a clamorous din, the classroom of Class 5, Grade 11 remained in an eerie silence. The physics teacher was still dragging out the lesson to go over the test papers.

Xu Xieyi sat in the third row, by the window. She glanced down at her watch; there were only ten minutes left until the next class. Her deskmate was busy copying notes from the board, but Xu was distracted. She caught a glimpse of the warm, white spring light outside and the vast expanse of green leaves swaying in the breeze. She didn't even notice the pencil marks from her test paper staining her forearm.

When the teacher finally left, the classroom erupted in sighs of relief, but for Xu Xieyi, the tension had only just begun. She bit her lip in hesitation, clutched her phone, and slipped out of the classroom to a deserted corner of the corridor.

Her finger hovered over the contact on the screen, but she couldn't bring herself to press the call button. After several attempts, her palms were cold with sweat. A group of boys from her class, heading to the restroom for a smoke, walked by and spotted her. Xu Xieyi turned away, hunching her shoulders instinctively. She could feel their intrigued gazes like thorns on her back. Since hitting puberty, her figure had developed noticeably, and she was often the subject of lewd whispers and prying eyes from the troublemakers in class. It was truly aggravating.

As if suddenly finding her courage, she held her breath, steeled he