Chapter 232: Chapter 152: I Want to Be the First to Rush to You
Shen Yuan staggered forward a short distance before finally coming to a stop.
"Holy shit, dude, you..."
The PE student was panting heavily, but before he could say anything more, he saw a girl walk up and stand before Shen Yuan.
"You..."
She pressed her lips together and pushed the bottle forward another inch, but the rest of her sentence was swallowed by the cheers as the crowd hoisted Shen Yuan onto their shoulders.
"Shen Yuan! Shen Yuan!"
"Li Bao, save me!"
A brilliant smile spread across Li Zhi’s face as she watched the flustered Shen Yuan.
As for the PE student, a look of defeat washed over his face.
’Damn it...’
In the stands, the photo He Zhiyu snapped on her phone perfectly captured the look Shen Yuan gave Li Zhi the moment he crossed the finish line—
—like a meteor, having traversed the atmosphere, finally finding the sea it was always meant to crash into.
In the rest area behind the track, several tables had been pushed together in the small section claimed by Class 15.
Seeing Shen Yuan carried back on his classmates’ shoulders, the class president, Xu Ziqiong, who was sitting behind the tables, looked utterly stunned.
"What happened?"
"Shen Yuan got first in his 3000-meter heat! He beat Zhang Kai! He beat the school’s 3000-meter record holder!"
Chen Mingyu explained in a rush.
Hearing this, the class president immediately covered her mouth. "He’s that strong?"
"Put me down, put me down! Let me rest!" Shen Yuan said, struggling.
At his words, Ah Jie and the others set him down.
Shen Yuan quickly found a chair and sat down. "Water?"
Ah Jie was about to grab some when a hand extended a bottle toward Shen Yuan. "Here."
Seeing Li Zhi in front of Shen Yuan, Ah Jie discreetly gave his buddies a look, and they all quickly and tactfully made themselves scarce.
Li Zhi placed the water bottle on the edge of the table, then pulled a chair over and sat down beside Shen Yuan.
The girl’s peach-scented fragrance and the boy’s post-workout sweat mingled in the stuffy air.
In the distance, the starting gun fired for the second heat of the men’s 3000-meter race.
She tapped her fingers on the tabletop, her gaze landing on the damp wisps of hair sticking to the collar at the nape of his neck.
The girl offered a rare compliment. "That was amazing. Your final sprint was really powerful, you know."
Shen Yuan twisted the cap open and drank slowly. As his Adam’s apple bobbed, a trickle of water escaped and slid down his jawline.
All of a sudden, the chair beneath Shen Yuan let out a harsh scrape as his entire body tilted thirty degrees to the left.
"Ouch, I think I pulled something in my back during that last sprint."
Li Zhi lowered her gaze, watching his fluffy-haired head tentatively lean toward her shoulder. The heat radiating from his hair tickled her ear.
Just as his temple was about to touch the fabric of her school uniform, he saw Li Zhi pick up a piece of blank paper and place it on her shoulder.
Shen Yuan saw this and understood. She was giving him permission.
Now that Li Zhi had consented, however, Shen Yuan was the one who started to feel nervous.
The boy’s body tensed like a fully drawn bow, the muscles in his neck trembling faintly as he deliberately held himself back.
He slid down the back of his chair, vertebra by vertebra, only to brake suddenly just before his head could touch the paper on her shoulder, his entire body held in a delicate balance.
"Didn’t you say you hurt your back?"
Li Zhi’s voice sounded beside his ear. "I’m just showing concern for an injured person."
Hearing that, Shen Yuan finally let himself gently rest his head on Li Zhi’s shoulder.
The peach fragrance from the girl’s hair washed over him, making his heart pound in his chest.
Shen Yuan licked his lips, his voice dry. "Do you know why I ran so fast at the end?"
"I don’t know. A sudden burst of class pride?"
Shen Yuan snorted softly. "Nope."
"It’s because I wanted to be the first one to reach you."
Fifteen meters away, behind a wall, He Zhiyu and Zhuo Peipei were desperately clamping their hands over each other’s mouths, their shoulders shaking from suppressed laughter.
Beside them, the class president, the academic representative, and the sports representative simply stared at one another in dismay.
’Are we just here to be the audience for their romance?’
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