Chapter 60: See Each Other

Qiao Lan's sophomore year had just ended the day she was finally able to walk without crutches.

Qiao Lan told Tan Mo that she had won another first class scholarship for her sophomore year, that she had found a sweet shop with particularly good strawberry mousse cups, and that she was quite confident that even if you came back now, Tan Mo would not be able to take away her first place.

Tan Mo's right hand is gripping the mounting bracket of the leg muscle rehab machine, and his left hand is holding the phone close to his ear, panting a little more sharply than usual after the intense rehab exercises, with a chuckle in his voice that he doesn't even notice.

"Is that so?"

"Of course", Qiao Lan said, "I'm very good at biology, I always get close to full marks, you haven't been studying lately, you must not be able to beat me."

Tan Mo chuckled wordlessly, "That's awesome."

Qiao Lan almost heard a bit of doting in these words, and in a trance even thought it was an illusion, " Tan Mo", Qiao Lan called out to Tan Mo, "Is there something happy today, you are in such a good mood."

"Well," Tan Mo lets go of the mounting bracket without holding on to anything, stands firm, moves forward and walks from here back to the ward with a light smile in her eyes and Qiao Lan's heavenly words in her ears.

She asks him what happened today that made him so happy, and Tan Mo says secret, not to tell you.

For more than six months, Tan Mo was not sure whether the trip would be a surprise or a disappointment, until now, when the doctor finally told him for sure that it must be a surprise.

He has been able to stand and walk without any assistance, and now that he does not have to continue his previous rehab, his daily rehabilitation tasks have become mainly exercise, starting with a lot of nutrition and then beginning to exercise and strengthen his body.

Slowly he can not only walk normally, go up and down stairs, but he can also run and jump.

After more than a year of accumulated illness and weakness, and three months of rehabilitation that was like a geographical walk, the body was at its weakest.

Uncle Chan hired the most professional rehabilitators to calculate the maximum amount of exercise that Tan Mo's body can handle now, using the most professional data.

A newly recovered patient starting such intense exercise training now is not something that can be done by the average person. It is like someone who has never worked out before and is trained at the highest intensity from the start, not many people can keep it up, let alone a patient who has just recovered from a serious illness.

The rehabilitator looked at the tall, thin but visibly sickly young man and didn't think he would last more than a few days, but he did, day after day.

He does not overdo it, it must be within acceptable limits, but whenever a plan is made, it must be completed that day.

In this way, Tan Mo's progress has been remarkable.

The rehabilitator was amazed and was more motivated to help Tan Mo recover, sometimes talking to him and recommending him to keep exercising every day after his recovery is complete, preferably learning some specialized exercises to strengthen his body.

Tan Mo Dao Sheng knows, without saying that he had this in mind long ago.

He always remembered the pain he felt when Luo Nian came to harass Qiao Lan in front of the school and he was confined to a wheelchair and could not do anything. If he could have, he would have been the first to rush up and remove the dirty hand that had touched Qiao Lan.

Tan Mo took the phone and picked it up to listen to the call. The rehabilitator looked at the cold, expressionless teenager who had just picked up the phone, but his cold features melted instantly and even his voice softened unconsciously.

Tan Mo speaks in Chinese, which the rehabber does not understand, but from Tan Mo's short answers, it is clear that it is all about the family talk, which is not very nutritious.

It's true that there's nothing nutritious about it, like how the weather is today, what you ate today, etc.

It was eleven o'clock in the morning in New York and eleven o'clock at night in China when Qiao Lan called Tan Mo before going to bed.

When she dialed, she realized she didn't really seem to have anything to say. She had been on vacation recently, she had been reading and not hanging out, and she didn't have anything interesting to share with Tan Mo.

But it still hit.

Tan Mo left for the US during the winter holidays and now, halfway through the summer, Qiao Lan has not seen Tan Mo for six months.

The more time that passed between them, the more Qiao Lan realised that Tan Mo meant more to her than she had ever imagined.

It has been two years since she first came to this strange world, with no friends and no family, and Tan Mo is the only person who has really come close to her heart. When Tan Mo was here, Qiao Lan just loved her life with Tan Mo, but after Tan Mo left, Qiao Lan realised that she had lost a home.

Qiao Lan was clearly and unambiguously aware that she missed Tan Mo.

She missed the teenager who was always expressionless, but did his best to smile.

Qiao Lan didn't know what she had said, but it was just a lot of nonsense, but Tan Mo wasn't impatient at all and continued to listen attentively, until Qiao Lan suddenly fell silent and Tan Mo was at a loss as to what to say...

"When are you coming back."

Qiao Lan speaks softly.

When are you coming back.

Will you be back.

I miss you a little.

No, it's actually missing you a lot.

The girl's slightly hesitant, soft voice, hazy with the moonlight, made Tan Mo think she was hearing things.

"Soon," the fondness and longing hidden in his heart, impatiently stuck in the back of his throat, Tan Mo's voice was raspy and contained a slight tremor.

It's almost there, it's really fast.

Finally hanging up the phone, the rehabber next to him snickered ambiguously on one side, "Girlfriend?"

Tan Mo squeezed the phone in his hand, no, Tan Mo subconsciously wanted to say, but the words came out of his mouth with a sudden, uncontrollable greed.

When the rehabilitation was completely over, he would never see the rehabilitator again, and even if he had lied, he would not reveal it he would not tell anyone else, let alone Qiao Lan.

He just, just wanted to try and not refute the phrase, to put into words what it was like to say that Qiao Lan really was his girlfriend.

After a long silence, as if he had been struggling with his mind for a long time, he spoke, "Yes."

The moment he said "yes", Tan Mo felt himself overwhelmed by shame and reproach, only to be overwhelmed by a joy and intimacy that made his heart palpitate and tremble even more.

The rehabber couldn't tell what emotional turmoil lay beneath this expressionless face, and gossiped with Tan Mo about whether his girlfriend was good or pretty.

"When Tan Mo heard the word "girlfriend" from the rehabber's mouth, her heart felt like it was suddenly clenched again, a sweetness that was indescribably sour.

"Beautiful, exceptionally beautiful."

"Really?"

The rehabber was excited and asked Tan Mo if he had any photos, and looked down at Tan Mo's phone.

Tan Mo snapped his phone screen to the floor and his tone turned abruptly cold.

"No."

Rehabilitator: ......

Continue training.

The summer break in sophomore year is much shorter than freshman year, and because we are entering our senior year soon, we have to start catching up with classes earlier.

Qiao Lan returned to the dormitory, happy to see Bai Yu, whom she had not seen for half a summer, and the prospective seniors.

Bai Yu's hometown is far away in the northwest of China. After a trip to the northwest, he brought the dormitory a large pile of specialties, such as sultanas and lavender, and the fragrance of lavender spread throughout the dormitory.

After the dormitories were finished, Bai Yu divided up several more copies to take to some of the boys in the class who were playing well during the official make-up session the next day.

Bai Yu has a boyish personality and apart from Qiao Lan, almost all of his best friends are boys.

Although Hao Ying started out by intentionally approaching Qiao Lan's close friends in order to chase after her, over time we did get to know each other and, regardless of whether we liked each other or not, we were just friends with good personalities.

When she had finished, her mobile phone rang and she picked it up to see that it was a text message from Hao Ying, asking her to sneak down to the dormitory building.

Bai Yu glanced over at Qiao Lan, shook his head helplessly and went downstairs, where he saw a tanned Hao Ying at the bottom.

Hao Ying said that he had gone to Hawaii during the summer holidays, so he had a tan. He handed the bag to Bai Yu, saying that it was a souvenir he had bought on his way to Hawaii, and asked Bai Yu to share one with each of the girls he was close to.

Bai Yu looked down and saw a beautiful string of pearls and small shells strung together to form a bracelet, not the cheap kind.

"I think she might not take it", Bai Yu said, not wanting to discourage Hao Ying, but giving her a heads up.

Hao Ying scratched his head, revealing a mouthful of large white teeth made whiter by his tanned skin, "Let's say we don't take it."

Bai Yu took his things upstairs and gave the bracelet to Qiao Lan after delivering the gifts.

As luck would have it, Qiao Lan didn't take it.

It would have been fine if it had been the same shell string as the others, but looking at the pearls on it, Qiao Lan could never take it, so she put the bracelet back together and prepared to return it to Hao Ying in class tomorrow.

Bai Yu sighed, "I know Hao Ying made a big deal out of it, but he regretted it afterwards, and it's been half a year.

Qiao Lan shook his head honestly, "No."

"Why!"

Qiao Lan laughed, "What's the reason for that, I just don't like it."

Qiao Lan took the small apple jade pendant off her neck and took out a new intact red cord, replacing the original one that was a little frayed.

Bai Yu watched as the jade pendant was carefully and thoughtfully put on, flopping down on the bed and asking her casually, "I remember you've been wearing this pendant for a long time, haven't you?"

"Hmm."

"Did you buy it yourself?"

Having seen Qiao Lan's disgusting family, Bai Yu didn't think the Qiao Family could buy something like this for Qiao Lan, whose jade pendant she had seen and which was of exceptional quality and definitely not cheap.

"No," Qiao Lan put on the jade pendant and put it back on, the cold pendant against her collarbone, Qiao Lan's eyes curled up, " Tan Mo gave it to her."

Bai Yu froze.

She looked down at Qiao Lan, remembering Hao Ying's bracelet that Qiao Lan had rejected, and then thinking about the jade pendant that Qiao Lan treasured so much, she suddenly called out to Qiao Lan.

"LanLan ."

"Hmm?"

"You wouldn't..."

Qiao Lan waited for a long time for Bai Yu's next sentence, so she looked up and asked her what she wanted to say.

"You didn't finish your summer homework, did you."

Qiao Lan: ......

Only when Qiao Lan had left the dormitory did Bai Yu lie down on his bed and breathe a sigh of relief.

Tan Mo has been gone for more than half a year, and both Bai Yu and the others in the class have gradually forgotten the name of that unfamiliar boy in the past two hundred days, until Qiao Lan mentioned it just now.

Are you still waiting for him to come back.

Do you...actually like Tan Mo...

Thinking of the young man in the wheelchair, who was fading from memory, Bai Yu felt it was too unbelievable to ask.

It doesn't seem to make sense to ask this question, as Tan Mo is gone.

The next day, when the make-up classes officially started, the seating at the beginning of the school year was once again a big mess, and this time everyone always took the time to adjust their seats themselves.

Not to mention their good relationship, Qiao Lan's grades are the best in her age, and who wouldn't want to sit at the same table with the top student in senior year.

"LanLan, how about we both sit together..."

Before the words were out of his mouth, the student who suddenly came in from outside with a shocked and excited look on his face, said "Crap" several times in a row.

"Crap, crap, crap, crap, guess who I just saw!"

There was a clamour outside the building and many students leaned out of the windows to look in, shrieks and screams coming in through the thin classroom doors.

"What's wrong?"

Qiao Lan looks back out of the classroom in surprise.

The lime green classroom door was thrown open and the noise was instantly amplified many times over as, amidst the gasps and huffs, the young man, unseen for two hundred days, entered the classroom with his long, slender legs treading in the early morning sunlight.

Qiao Lan stared in awe at Tan Mo, who was standing like everyone else, and suddenly tears blurred her eyes.