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 Just as Xiang Ran adjusted the navigation, Liu Shuyao suddenly spoke up.

"Shall we take a stroll around our high school?"

"Sure."

Xiang Ran naturally wouldn’t refuse, so he made a right turn at the next intersection and soon arrived at their high school’s entrance.

When Xiang Ran and Liu Shuyao graduated, they were considered prominent figures, and their photos were displayed in the excellent graduates' showcase by the school gate. After a brief chat with the security guard, they easily entered the school.

The sun was setting, painting the sky in hues of orange and red.

Holding Liu Shuyao's hand, they stood in front of the bulletin board.

“It’s a bit regrettable that our photos aren’t displayed together,” Liu Shuyao said, pointing to their pictures in the excellent graduates' section, which were separated by a row. Her photo showed her bright eyes, a high ponytail, and a gentle smile, looking very pure.

“I was a science student, and you were an art student, so of course, we wouldn’t be together,” Xiang Ran missed the implication in her words, thinking only of the current regret.

“But now we have a photo together!”

As she spoke, Liu Shuyao waved her phone, showing a picture of the two of them looking affectionate by the sea.

“We’ll have many more photos in the future.” Xiang Ran quietly clenched his other fist, replying lightly, which instantly lifted Liu Shuyao’s earlier gloom.

“‘In the future’ and ‘we’—those words together hold so much promise.”

They continued walking further into the campus.

The tall oak trees swayed gently in the breeze, casting dappled shadows, while the main building's red brick walls glowed with a deep red hue in the sunset’s afterglow, resembling a warm embrace from the architecture. The windows of the teaching building sparkled with golden light, reflecting the sun's warmth.

Since it was vacation time, only the lights were still on in the senior classrooms.

A wide staircase wound upward, connecting different floors. The soft sunlight spilled over it, occasionally revealing clusters of students passing by.

They climbed the stairs and stopped on the fourth floor.

Next to them was the classroom they had in their first year, now locked with only the sunset’s reflection shining on the glass.

“You seemed to particularly like sitting by the window; every time seating arrangements were made, you’d want that spot.”

Liu Shuyao casually pointed to the third seat in the last row.

“Because watching what happens outside is far more interesting than what the teacher is lecturing,” he replied.

“Haha, really?”

Liu Shuyao couldn’t believe that the top student, who was seen as a model pupil by teachers, had such thoughts.

“Yeah.”

Xiang Ran wasn’t as innocent as he seemed; he had skipped classes and played basketball instead of doing homework. Back then, teachers mainly focused on grades, so he often got away with it.

“My only interest back then was choosing my seat after exams.”

“I thought you were the type to carve ‘Early’ on your desk.”

“I might have carved ‘Jujube’ instead,” Xiang Ran pondered seriously.

“After the class division, your teaching building is over there, right?” He pointed to a distant building based on his memory.

“Yeah, over there,” Liu Shuyao confirmed.

She nodded.

“It’s quite far.”

Xiang Ran remarked. After their classes were divided, most of the science students stayed in the same classrooms they used in their first year, while the others were placed farther away. The building where Liu Shuyao's class was located was the farthest.

“Shall we go and have a look?”

“Sure, let’s go and give my artistically challenged brain some exposure.”

As they got closer to that building, the nearer they were, the tighter the school beauty held his hand, as if she was a bit nervous.

The two soon arrived at Liu Shuyao’s former classroom.

Compared to the rigid formulas in their own classes, this side was clearly more colorful.

All around, they could see little creations drawn by the students.

“Do you have anything here?” Xiang Ran looked at the various doodles and symbols on the walls with interest.

“No, this is what we call the couples' wall. Only those in relationships can paint here.” Liu Shuyao carefully examined the wall, a trace of sentiment in her voice.

“I knew it! Everything here is in pairs.”

Xiang Ran looked around for a paintbrush or something similar, then asked, “Can we still paint something now?”

“What?”

Liu Shuyao, clearly surprised, turned to see her boyfriend holding a pen. Her eyes suddenly sparkled, and her lips curved upward.

“You want to draw something?”

“Let’s do it.”

Xiang Ran’s hand moved smoothly across the wall, as if he already knew what he wanted to draw.

Liu Shuyao, surprised, stepped back to watch, and soon, she saw him draw a polar coordinate system. On the horizontal axis, he labeled the equation r = a(1 - cosθ), and on the vertical, r = a(1 + sinθ).

“Happy with it?” Xiang Ran asked after finishing his drawing.

Liu Shuyao looked at the wall filled with various colorful and loving expressions—there were two little people, two cats, and even symbols of love. Among them, Xiang Ran’s strange equations stood out the most.

“It’s great.”

“I’m very satisfied~” She was truly impressed by her boyfriend’s unique way of thinking.

“Feeling a little better now?”

“Huh?”

Liu Shuyao stopped and looked at Xiang Ran.

“So, you were comforting me just now?”

“Yep.”

Xiang Ran answered candidly.

“But you didn’t even ask me why I was upset!”

“That’s okay. You can tell me if you want to, or not if you don’t.”

Liu Shuyao was unexpectedly moved by his words. She rested her head on her boyfriend’s shoulder, her hand playing with the buttons on his shirt as she mumbled:

“With you like this, I don’t feel as sad anymore.”

“Well, isn’t that just perfect?”

Xiang Ran gently patted her back.

By this point, even if Liu Shuyao had been oblivious before, she could tell that from the moment they entered the school gates, taking pictures and drawing Descartes’ equations, everything Xiang Ran did had been intentional.

Who said science guys aren’t good at romance?

How is her boyfriend so good at it!

Liu Shuyao’s frustration eased considerably, and the two continued walking forward.

Xiang Ran stood in the hallway, looking out into the distance.

“You can see our classroom from here?”

“Yeah.”

Liu Shuyao didn’t hesitate to answer the first half of the question but kept the second part in her heart.

After all, today, within the long three years of her high school life, those hidden feelings finally reached a happy conclusion.

Xiang Ran, watching Liu Shuyao as she talked along the way, originally thought today was just about accompanying her to unwind. But now, countless questions arose in his mind.

The biggest of them was how Liu Shuyao had come to like him in the first place. After all, from his memory, their interactions hadn’t been that many.

But their current relationship didn’t allow him to ask that directly because he felt that, in the tangled memories of Liu Shuyao’s past, he should have already known how it all started.

Perhaps, during those three years of high school, her gaze had fallen on him countless times, while he had been completely oblivious.

Thinking of this, Xiang Ran felt like hitting himself. If Liu Shuyao had really been silently in love with him for so many years, and it took a car accident to blur the line between imagination and reality, how deeply she must have liked him.

A girl’s years of waiting—this thought made Xiang Ran fall even deeper.

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