Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 14: Chapter 4: The Goal Is to Become a Pokémon Master

Just as I was thinking this, a girl with short hair walked over quickly. She tapped on my desk, and I could see her pale pink manicure.

Before I could speak, Feng Ruoping whispered:

"Are you not thinking straight?"

"What?"

"What possessed you to sit next to the ’Young Miss’?"

She covered her mouth to stifle a laugh. Before she left, she even gave me a look of grave concern, almost the same one I’d had a few hours ago while looking at Lu Qinglian’s photo.

’Young Miss?’

’Next to her?’

Just like that, it was as if a memory hidden for years was reawakened.

I glanced into the desk cubby next to me. There were still a few books left inside. I instantly understood.

The seat next to me belonged to none other than Gu Qiuyan. Although I’d glanced over a few times during the last class, it wasn’t enough to immediately remember where she sat.

Plus, she had a strange quirk—or rather, a strong sense of territory, like a young lioness. Ever since she moved to the window seat after the first monthly exam following her transfer, she had never budged from that spot.

It wasn’t like a scene from a drama where "the young miss slaps a few bills on the table, scoffs, and says, ’This is my spot. Get lost if you know what’s good for you. If that’s not enough, I can add more.’"

Most people, as if following some unspoken agreement, figured it was just a seat. It wasn’t worth getting on her bad side.

This brings us to Gu Qiuyan’s strange ecological niche in our class.

For kids on a small island, being classmates was just the beginning. If you got together outside of school, most everyone was related in some way or another: someone’s father was cousins with someone else’s, someone’s grandfather was old army buddies with another’s... It couldn’t have been more normal.

So, all the students had their own established social circles.

For example, you might have just finished a basketball game on Friday, and then over the weekend, an auntie comes to visit, and it turns out her son is the guy who made that dunk on Friday.

These relationships extended beyond the school gates, often involving entire families—an experience kids from the city never had.

It was for this very reason that Gu Qiuyan never made any real friends in class. To get by in these small circles, the most important thing was to "fit in."

This was especially true for the girls’ cliques, where the lines were drawn even more clearly.

But if you made an effort, it wasn’t that hard to blend in. Take me, for example. When I first arrived, I didn’t have any friends either, but I tried hard... Okay, maybe I didn’t try that hard. I just suddenly made a few new friends, and then we became best buds.

As for Gu Qiuyan, she wasn’t the type of girl who fit in, yet no one dared to deliberately exclude her. What I’m about to say might sound a bit arrogant, but in reality—

—she single-handedly isolated everyone else in the class.

You could look down on her friend-making skills, but you could never look down on her pride or her wallet.

The Young Miss clearly understood the theory of relativity. After being rebuffed during the "chocolate incident"—regardless of who was right or wrong—she absolutely refused to offer kindness only to be met with a cold shoulder. So, she decided to expand her social circle outside the class.

’Can’t fit into your circle? Fine, I’ll just build my own.’

Gu Qiuyan’s followers were all from outside our class.

Across all four grades of the middle school, she had captured Pokémon everywhere.

Sometimes you’d see her taking her Pokémon off the island for fun.

At ten o’clock sharp on a Saturday, they’d gather at the pier. Her crowd of followers would have already propped up their bicycles on their kickstands, lined up neatly on both sides.

Then, a black Audi would pull into the center of the formation. A slender, fair leg would emerge from the car, and everyone would follow its owner onto the ferry.

—You could actually ride your bike onto the ferry. The boat that went back and forth from the island didn’t have a cabin, just a giant deck. Pedestrians were three yuan, bicycles five yuan, and cars ten yuan.

But the Young Miss didn’t have a bike, nor did she know how to ride one. And she didn’t want her family’s driver tagging along. If everyone else was riding a bike while she was the only one walking, wouldn’t that be a total loss of face?

So, they all just went on foot.

Anyway, as soon as the ferry docked, she could just wave her hand and summon a few taxis. She’d direct who should get into which car;

Then, with a tilt of her chin, the fleet of red and silver cars would proceed majestically toward the nearest gym... no, wait, shopping mall. It was as dramatic as a scene from a TV show.

The fares, of course, were all covered by Gu Qiuyan.

One time, when I went off the island to buy books, I ran into this group. At that moment, I had just spit out my gum and was wrapping it in a piece of paper, wondering why there were so many students out today.

Someone lowered their voice and asked me:

"Dude, how come you brought your bike on board? You’ve got some nerve."

All the while, he was frantically gesturing with his eyes toward the bicycle in my hands.

It took me a while of talking to him to figure out the reason, and I was left speechless.

I was so dumbfounded that I completely forgot I had already spit out my gum. I chomped down, only to bite the inside of my cheek. It hurt like hell, and I picked up a new nervous habit from it.

Then, when the ferry docked, Gu Qiuyan somehow made her way over to me. She stood with her arms crossed, strands of her hair brushing against her lips in the wind, looking for all the world like a victor. After a long moment, she asked:

"Zhang... Shutong?"

Her tone was a lot like Xiaozhi saying "Char...izard?"

’Well, thank you so much for remembering a Pokémon like me.’

Actually, back then, I didn’t have so much inner drama. I just gave her a lukewarm nod, treating it as a chance encounter with a classmate, then got on my bike and left, leaving the great Young Miss standing there, flustered in the lake breeze.

And so, another heavy mark was added next to my name under the title of "Traitor."

In any case, Gu Qiuyan wasn’t short on playmates. Sometimes she’d even invite a few close girlfriends over for karaoke—no need to leave the island, they could just do it at her four-story standalone villa.

Back in those days, in the dictionary of me and my best friends, that place was known as "the Castle." Of course, we only ever looked at it from behind its imposing iron fence.

An entire floor of the basement inside was converted into a home theater.

She didn’t have any real friends in class, but that was just friends. It didn’t mean there weren’t boys who had a crush on her.

’What do fifteen- and sixteen-year-old boys usually talk about?’

My answer would be the fish in the lake, the perfectly straight branches found on the way to school, and the manga in magazines. But unfortunately, everyone else was talking about the prettiest girls.