The Moon is Coming to Me

Tao Xi and Lin Qinhe dawdled all the way to the first classroom and it just happened that the first bell of night study just rang.

 

The two returned to their seats with the same expression as usual, but unexpectedly they were closely observed and questioned by Bi Chengfei.

 

Bi Chengfei first took a close look at Tao Xi’s face and found that not only he was not as angry and sad as when the parent meeting was over before, but he was a little bit happy?

 

He glanced at Lin Qinhe quietly again, xueshen still looked cold, but there seemed to be something different that he couldn’t tell.

 

When he saw Tao Xi turn around and leave after asking Luo Zhengyin two questions before, he hurriedly sent a Wechat messages to Lin Qinhe, thinking that the two had some kind of conflict.

 

“You quarreled and made up?” Bi Chengfei asked Tao Xi in a whisper, covering his mouth with his hand.

 

Tao Xi thought that Bi Chengfei’s brain was very unique. He laughed and joked: “Yeah, just went out to finish a fight, no win or loss, so we made up.”

 

Lin Qinhe turned his head and glanced at Tao Xi, his gaze unclear.

 

Tao Xi inexplicably felt that Lin Qinhe was looking at his lips, he subconsciously pursed his lips. Recalling the kiss in the concert hall just now, his cheeks and lips immediately began to burn.

 

He realized afterwards, why did you kiss so many times while in a daze?

 

It must be Lin Qinhe’s fault.

 

Of course Bi Chengfei did not believe Tao Xi’s words, after all, there was no trace of a fight between the two, but he accidentally discovered that Tao Xi’s lips were a little swollen and joked with a cheap mouth:

 

“Could it be that you fight with your mouth.”

 

“……Scram!”

 

Tao Xi slapped Bi Chengfei back.

 

Then he heard a very light laughter from Lin Qinhe on the side, and immediately turned his head and glared at the culprit.

 

Bi Chengfei didn’t come to talk again, bowed his head and said to Taoxi on WeChat: “It’s fine if you’re alright. I sent a WeChat message to xueshen before. He went to see you as soon as he came back. It seems that xueshen still cares about you very much.”

 

Tao Xi looked at the message sent by Bi Chengfei on his phone, and a faint light appeared in his brain, as if he remembered something that he had overlooked.

 

He typed quickly on the screen: “You have Lin Qinhe’s WeChat?”

 

Bi Chengfei: “Of course. I have been xueshen’s classmate from junior high school to now, and our parents know each other too.  It’s not difficult to have a WeChat.

 

Tao Xi typed again: “Does he usually post to Moments?”

 

Bi Chengfei: “Don’t you also have him on WeChat? I never saw him post to Moments anyway.”

 

He also screenshotted Lin Qinhe’s moment.

 

Tao Xi clicked to open the picture, and it was indeed blank.

 

He turned his head to look at Lin Qinhe, this person was looking down at the book calmly. Noticing his gaze, he looked at him sideways, the eyes meant “?”.

 

Tao Xi ignored him. He lowered his head and clicked on Lin Qinhe’s Moments on his mobile phone. Counting one by one, he found that starting from the photos of Japanese vacation scenery a long time ago, and including the koi pictures before the midterm exam, there were a total of 28 posts.

 

Each one was a photo, no text.

 

During Lin Qinhe’s training camp two weeks ago, Tao Xi saw that Lin Qinhe posted one or two Moments every day, and those Lin Qinhe shots of life had soothed his restless heart.

 

Tao Xi took a deep breath and couldn’t say what he felt in his heart.

 

He took out the book of paintings that he had spent nearly a month from his school bag. The original plan was to give it to him after confessing to Lin Qinhe tomorrow, but everything was just right now.

 

“This is the painting I promised to give you.” Tao Xi put the painting collection on Lin Qinhe’s desk as he said to Lin Qinhe.

 

Lin Qinhe looked at the collection of paintings in front of him, his eyes could not hide his surprise. He thought Tao Xi painted a painting for him, but he didn’t expect it to be a collection of paintings.

 

The cover of the collection was very simple. On the embossed paper was the entire blue night sky, only a small golden moon in the upper right corner, like a golden copper coin sinking at the bottom of a blue lake.

 

He opened the album and looked at it carefully one by one.

 

Each painting showed the moon,  from the beginning of the new moon to the end of the new moon, a full thirty-days cycle. Each painting had a different landscape, mountains and valleys, vast rivers, neon cities… It was the scenery and the moon all over the world.

 

Lin Qinhe’s finger flipping through one of the paintings paused. In the painting was the last quarter moon on the 23rd, and the scenery was the streets of Tokyo under the moonlight. It was the same as the photos he posted in his Moments after vacationing in Japan with Luo Zhengyin and Yang Duole, except that the sky turned from dusk to night, and the streets were full of neon lights and there was a moon.

 

At that time, many people in the class were on vacation, and only one person stayed in the school dormitory.

 

Tao Xi explained on the sidelines, “Many of the landscapes inside are found on the Internet. I haven’t been there, so the paintings may not be the same as the actual scenes.”

 

For more than ten years, he had been isolated in that seemingly paradise place.

 

If he hadn’t seen Lin Qinhe, he might have wasted his life in the mountain village or a corner of nowhere.

 

Tao Xi looked at the side of Lin Qinhe’s face with a calm smile.

 

At this time, the class bell rang, and as Bi Aoxue walked into the classroom with her laptop, the class erupted in enthusiastic cheers.

 

Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe say something, but the sudden noise couldn’t make him hear clearly.

 

“What did you say?” Tao Xi asked, raising his voice.

 

The lights in the classroom were suddenly extinguished, and suddenly it fell into dim darkness. Some people were cheering because of watching a movie during the night study and some were urging loudly, “How come the movie hasn’t been tuned out yet! Can you do it, Bi Chengfei?”

 

Tao Xi’s eyes turned dark. his hand was held by one hand, and then was pulled to his side, and crashed into Lin Qinhe’s arms. Amidst the bustling noise, he heard Lin Qinhe whisper in his ear:

 

“I will take you to many places in the future.”

 

To see the moon all over the world.

 

Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe in the dim, and a smile spread at the corners of his mouth.

 

He looked around and suddenly flew closer to Lin Qinhe, intending to sneak a kiss on Lin Qinhe’s face. However, because he couldn’t see and didn’t control the force well, he hit his forehead first, as if hitting Lin Qinhe’s forehead.

 

“…”

 

“…”

 

Tao Xi covered his forehead and withdrew quickly, turning his face away in embarrassment.

 

But Lin Qinhe held his hand and suddenly increased his strength. Tao Xi looked at Lin Qinhe with a guilty conscience. He couldn’t see clearly, but he seemed to have noticed this person’s deep dissatisfaction.

 

He gently scratched Lin Qinhe’s palm with his finger to express his apologies, and Lin Qinhe instantly let go of his hand.

 

Bi Aoxue played an action film with foreign language original sound and no subtitles. The special effects were flying around and the sound was loud. Both boys and girls watched attentively.

 

Tao Xi didn’t care about it, he was still a little embarrassed that he failed his sneak attack.

 

He quietly glanced at Lin Qinhe on the side, Lin Qinhe leaned back in his chair to watch the movie in a leisurely manner, only the light leaping on the screen narrowed into his pupils, and he seemed to be watching it very seriously.

 

Tao Xi then forced himself to watch the movie seriously, listening to the original lines while watching it to exercise his English listening skills.

 

The plot developed to its climax. The decent villain fought fiercely in a dark tunnel, and the entire classroom was filled with darkness and noisy sound effects.

 

Tao Xi had already immersed in it and was watching with gusto. Suddenly the back of his neck was clasped by a hand to embrace him, and then a kiss was gently dropped on his forehead where he had just hit Lin Qinhe.

 

“Learned it?”

 

He heard Lin Qinhe whisper.

 

Tao Xi heard his heartbeat in the dark more intense than the gunshots in the movie.

 

He wanted to sneak back, but the movie screen suddenly lit up, so he had to give up.

 

When the movie was over and the class was over, Tao Xi found that he hadn’t watched the second half of the movie at all, and his head was filled with only the sound of gunfire and the heart was very excited.

 

The classroom lights were turned on again, and the people in the class quickly rushed out of the classroom carrying their school bags. Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe take out a large handful of materials from a drawer and put them on his desk, saying to him.

 

“This is some information for you about universities in the States, and TOEFL textbooks.” Lin Qinhe paused and looked at Tao Xi before continuing, “It’s the perfect time to start preparing now.”

 

Tao Xi looked at the detailed information in front of him in a daze, and he realized that Lin Qinhe had long been seriously fulfilling his promise to go to university with him, and had long been planning for their future.

 

And he was so angry because he scolded Lin Qinhe.

 

Tao Xi eagerly looked at Lin Qinhe, stretched out his hand and pinched Lin Qinhe’s sleeve. He silently expressed “I was wrong”.

 

Lin Qinhe glanced at Tao Xi’s hand holding his sleeve. He held that hand and put it in his jacket pocket and said, “Send me to the school gate.”

 

Tao Xi nodded heavily.

 

The two of them walked towards the gate along Xiangzhang Road in the dark. It was the same as the night before the training camp, but the atmosphere seemed to be different. When they looked at each other, they no longer collided and then carefully staggered.

 

Tao Xi walked closely next to Lin Qinhe and listened carefully to Lin Qinhe’s introduction of the TOEFL test.

 

“My spoken English is too bad, is it hard to improve my speaking?”

 

The spoken English of Qingshui County English teachers was very plastic. Reading, listening and writing could be improved through a lot of training, but speaking was different.

 

“It’s not difficult, I’m here,” Lin Qinhe said.

 

Tao Xi smiled. He remembered the first time he saw Lin Qinhe on the live screen, it was when Bi Aoxue asked Lin Qinhe to give an English speech. At that time he did not understand much, but he also knew how natural and standard Lin Qinhe’s spoken language was.

 

At that time, he would never have thought that later Lin Qinhe would teach him speaking language.

 

“Then I will communicate with you in English!” Tao Xi clenched his fist at Lin Qinhe, his eyes sparkling and he was full of confidence in his speaking training.

 

“……Okay.”

 

Then there was silence as a result. Tao Xi thought in his mind for a long time, translating while trying to say something, but after thinking for a long time, he didn’t have any suitable sentence. He always found it strange to say it.

 

Finally, when the two of them walked to the school gate, Tao Xi was relieved. He waved to Lin Qinhe, and said with a smile:

 

“Goodbye. See you tomorrow!” 1

 

“…”

 

After returning to his dorm room, Tao Xi first took a shower, then put the school information and TOEFL textbook that Lin Qinhe gave him on his desk, sat down and began to look up the school materials on the table.

 

He used his cell phone to find out that these schools were ranked very high, and most of them were world-renowned art colleges, but the specific application matters and scholarship rules were not available on the domestic internet, and he couldn’t find the official website of the school.

 

Tao Xi thought for a while, and asked Pan Yan who majored in art.

 

“I don’t know this very well. After all, my grandfather asked me to study at the Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts or the Central Academy of Fine Arts, so I was not allowed to study abroad.” Pan Yan said, and asked Tao Xi why he suddenly wanted to study art abroad.

 

“I plan to continue to learn painting in the future, mainly oil painting, foreign schools should be better.” Tao Xi said.

 

When he saw Fang Sui’s painting in the exhibition, when Lin Qinhe said he wanted to see his exhibition, he decided to do it.

 

This was also a gift that his mother left to him that would not be taken away; the gift of painting.

 

Pan Yan nodded and said, “That’s true. It’s better to study oil painting or go abroad. For example, if my grandfather only wants me to study Chinese painting, there is no need to go abroad.”

 

Xu Ziqi, who was writing the paper opposite, said coldly and gloomily, “Foreign art colleges are not affordable for ordinary families, and art is a useless major that burns money.”

 

Pan Yan exploded in an instant, and began a fierce word battle with Xu Ziqi.

 

Tao Xi ignored it. He stared at the information in front of him for a while, and suddenly thought of someone.

 

Previously, he met a member of the Qinghua Association at the charity exhibition, a girl named Ding Yanan from the Academy of Fine Arts. At that time, he was forced to add her WeChat because of the enthusiasm of the other party, and he also learned during the conversation that she planned to study in the United States.

 

Tao Xi opened his WeChat address book, found the person he had never chatted with since he added her, and sent her a message after he had worded it for half a day to make sure he was polite enough not to be abrupt.

 

Unexpectedly, Ding Yanan responded quickly and answered his questions very enthusiastically.

 

Ding Yanan: “These prestigious schools you mentioned can indeed apply for scholarships, and there are also very high full scholarships, but the application is quite difficult. There are not many people in China who can apply for the full scholarship.”

 

Tao Xi was not surprised to see this message, he knew that Lin Qinhe said “can definitely apply” may be to encourage him.

 

But he was willing to try his best for this not-so-easy opportunity.

 

He suddenly realized that his life trajectory had already changed. He had never thought that he could study in Wenhua No. 1 High School. He never thought that his goal would be Tsinghua University and Peking University, and he never thought that he would eventually want to apply to a prestigious foreign school.

 

Those worlds that were dreamlike to his past self, he seemed to be approaching step by step.

 

Tao Xi received another pile of information and links from Ding Yannan.

 

Ding Yannan:  “If you want to apply, an excellent portfolio is essential. From now on, you must accumulate works, participate in some well-known competitions and art exhibitions, get to know some seniors in the art world, and strive to get their letters of recommendation. I still suggest you join our association. There are many young painters who have studied in famous foreign schools. They must know more than me.”

 

Tao Xi solemnly thanked her, saved all the information and links, then asked Ding Yanan for a copy of the application form for the Qinghua Painting Association. He filled it out carefully and sent it to the association’s email address.

 

He wrote down the matters and main points Ding Yanan said one by one in his notebook. He planned to ask the elder for advice when he went to Qiao Henian’s place to learn painting at the weekend.

 

The lights were turned off soon after all this was done. Tao Xi climbed into bed and buried himself in the soft quilt. He opened his WeChat on his phone to send Lin Qinhe a good night message, but found that Lin Qinhe’s avatar had changed.

 

From a blank picture to the cover of the album he gave to Lin Qinhe.

 

The golden moon in the dark blue night sky.

 

The corner of Tao Xi’s mouth turned up and he looked at his own avatar again, the deep blue planet that he had painted with gouache.

 

He typed in the dialog: “Good night, Mr. Moon.”

 

Moon: Good night.2

 

 

__________________

 

T/N: I love them so much 

 

 

 

1

In English

2

Both good night are in English