The First Place He Gave Me - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

In the end, I still went to the Provincial Chemistry Winter Camp.

Before I left, Qiao Shuheng handed me his competition notes. The cover was just ordinary grey kraft paper, and the corners were already worn white from being flipped through so many times.

“I’ve organized the questions I got wrong inside,” he said. “If there’s anything you don’t understand, take a photo and ask me.”

As I took them from him, my fingers accidentally brushed against his fingertips.

He paused, and I paused too.

Neither of us was the first to pull away.

It wasn’t until Teacher Zhou cleared his throat behind us that I retracted my hand as if I’d been burned.

During that week at the winter camp, I worked harder than I had ever imagined.

During the day, I attended lectures, did experiments, and ground through comprehensive exam papers. At night, I returned to the dormitory to continue studying the notes Qiao Shuheng had given me. His handwriting was as excessively steady as ever. Every point where I was prone to making mistakes had been marked by him in red ink, accompanied by many remarks that seemed cold on the surface but were actually very much like him.

“Don’t be stupid here.”

“You were stuck on this question for ten minutes last time. How embarrassing.”

“If you get the balancing wrong again, I’ll write your name backward.”

Whenever I saw these notes, I couldn’t help but smile.

One night, after my roommates had all fallen asleep, I leaned against the bed railing and flipped to the last few pages. Suddenly, a small slip of paper fell out.

On the front was a chemical equation he had written, but on the back was a line of text.

“Meng Wantang, don’t just think about beating me. Win for yourself for once.”

I stared at that line for a long time before finally tucking the paper gently back into the notebook.

The day the winter camp ended, I won a comprehensive silver award and secured my Provincial Team Selection Qualification.

Teacher Zhou’s voice was cracking with excitement on the other end of the phone, but the first thing I did was send a message to Qiao Shuheng.

“I didn’t embarrass you this time.”

A long time passed before he replied.

“Yeah, pretty impressive.”

Even through the screen, I could tell he was feigning composure.

My mood suddenly turned exceptionally bright, and I added another line: “Let’s keep competing when the new semester starts.”

This time, he replied quickly.

“Deal.”

After the semester began, Qiao Shuheng proved to be a man of his word.

His mother was recovering well after her surgery. Although she was still adjusting to the cochlear implant, she could already hear some simple sounds. On the day the noodle shop reopened, Yu Nanzhi and I went to show our support. Auntie Qiao looked at me and slowly, word by word, spoke her first complete sentence.

“Wantang, thank you for taking care of Shuheng.”

The chopsticks in my hand almost dropped.

Standing to the side, Qiao Shuheng looked uncharacteristically awkward. “Mom, don’t talk nonsense.”

Auntie Qiao smiled and gave him a playful pat before turning back to me. “Ever since tenth grade, he’s always been writing your name on his scratch paper.”

I looked up at Qiao Shuheng abruptly.

The tips of his ears turned red instantly, and he reached out to stop her. “Mom!”

It was the first time I had seen him like this, and I was completely stunned.

Later, on the way back to school, I deliberately walked very slowly.

“What did your mom mean by that?” I asked, pretending it was a casual question.

Qiao Shuheng looked at the road ahead and remained silent for a long time. “When I solve problems, I like to list all the given conditions completely.”

“And?”

“And so, your name often appeared next to me.”

I was so thrown by his roundabout logic that I almost couldn’t follow. It took two seconds for me to react, and I reached out to swat him in annoyance. “Qiao Shuheng, can’t you just speak like a normal person?”

He didn’t dodge when I hit him. He just tilted his head to look at me, a faint smile gradually surfacing in his eyes.

“In plain English,” he said, his voice dropping very low, “I’m used to having you by my side.”

The evening breeze that day was very soft, making the leaves rustle continuously.

I stood by the roadside, my heart racing as if it were about to burst out of my chest, yet I still retorted stubbornly, “Then you’d better stay used to it.”

From then on, the relationship between Qiao Shuheng and me became even more subtle in the eyes of the whole class.

We still fought for first place.

We would still look at each other the moment the grades came out.

We would still refuse to yield to one another over who could solve an organic deduction problem faster.

But only we knew that the competition was no longer a life-or-death struggle.

It was more like running side-by-side, where neither was willing to let the other fall behind.

My father was very opposed to it at first.

He viewed Qiao Shuheng almost as the sole source of all my emotional fluctuations. Later, after a parent-teacher meeting, he cornered Qiao Shuheng at the stairwell, his tone as cold as ever.

“You should understand that now is not the time for feelings.”

I happened to hear this just as I rushed over.

Before I could speak, Qiao Shuheng spoke first.

“Teacher, I know.”

“I won’t affect her.”

“I will only make her want to win even more.”

My father probably hadn’t expected such a response, as he was momentarily stunned.

I stood there, looking at Qiao Shuheng’s straight back, and suddenly my nose stung.

One hundred days before the Gaokao, the school held a mobilization rally.

In previous years, such occasions were always my father’s favorite stage. He would stand on the podium and talk about hard work, grades, and the turning points of fate, speaking with such intensity that everyone was afraid to breathe.
But when it was time for the student representative to speak that day, Teacher Zhou handed the microphone to me.

Standing on the rostrum, I looked down at the sea of school uniforms and saw Qiao Shuheng standing at the very back of the line.

The wind was strong, making my speech papers rustle loudly.

I had originally prepared a standard, high-energy motivational speech, but when I actually opened my mouth, I suddenly didn’t want to read from the script anymore.

“I used to think the most important thing in high school was winning,” I said, gripping the microphone. My voice trembled slightly at first but grew steadier. “Winning against others, winning in the rankings, winning against everything that scares you.”

“But later I realized that true competition isn’t about pushing someone else down. It’s because of their existence that you finally see you can take one more step forward.”

The crowd below was silent.

I paused for a moment, my gaze drifting over the crowd to land on Qiao Shuheng.

“So today, I want to thank the person who has always stood in front of me, and who has always been waiting for me to catch up.”

“Thank you for letting me know that being first isn’t the finish line. Having someone to fight alongside you is.”

When I finished that part, applause finally erupted from the audience.

I didn’t look down again.

But I knew Qiao Shuheng must have heard me.

After the pep rally ended, Yu Nanzhi grabbed me and shrieked, “Meng Wantang, that part you just said was basically a confession!”

My ears burned, and I argued stubbornly, “That was just being lyrical.”

As soon as I turned around, I saw Qiao Shuheng waiting for me at the entrance of the teaching building.

He was holding a carton of milk-the same kind he had given me back in tenth grade when I beat him for the first time.

“Meng Wantang,” he called out.

“What?”

“That part just now-I received it.”

My heart skipped a beat. “What did you receive?”

He looked at me, his eyes holding a hint of tenderness he had never bothered to hide.

“Your favoritism.”

In that moment, I almost blurted out the words “I like you.”

But with the Gaokao looming over us, we both knew all too well that once any word was spoken, it would stir up even greater waves in our hearts. In the end, I simply took the carton of milk and said softly, “Let’s talk after the exams.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

And so, with a silent understanding, we both saved those most important words for after the college entrance exams.

The two days of the actual exams were unexpectedly calmer than I had imagined.

Qiao Shuheng and I weren’t in the same classroom. Before entering the school gates, he handed me a black gel pen.

“A spare.”

“You think I’d forget to bring a pen?”

“No,” he said. “But I want to give you a reason to win for sure.”

I smiled and tucked the pen into my transparent stationery bag. “Then don’t you lose either.”

When the two days of testing ended, the school gates were swarming with noisy crowds.

Some people were crying, some were laughing, and some were tearing up their books and throwing them into the air like confetti.

I stood at the school gate watching Qiao Shuheng walk toward me through the crowd, suddenly feeling a strange, surreal sense of daze.

It felt as if these three years had been compressed into this single moment.

He stopped in front of me and looked down, asking, “Want to make a bet?”

“On what?”

“After the scores come out, whoever has the higher score gets to ask the other a question. The other person has to tell the truth.”

My heart was pounding fiercely, but I feigned composure and raised an eyebrow. “Qiao Shuheng, are you that eager to lose?”

“Not necessarily,” he said. “I just feel like there are some things I can start preparing to say.”

That night after going home, for the first time, I didn’t check my answers immediately.

I sat by the window and flipped through the competition notebook I had carried with me all through spring. I suddenly discovered that at some point, someone had added a line of tiny characters on the very last page.

“If you win, I’ll admit that I’ve liked you for a long time.”

The handwriting was unmistakably Qiao Shuheng’s.

I stared at that line, my whole body flushing hot.

Then I suddenly began to regret it.

I regretted why I hadn’t flipped to this page sooner, and why I hadn’t given those same words back to him earlier.

On the day the Gaokao results were released, I woke up very early.

My dad was even more nervous than I was, pacing back and forth in the living room. I, on the other hand, was calm to the point of numbness. The moment the results page loaded, I stared at the total score on the screen, frozen for a good ten seconds.

I really was higher than Qiao Shuheng.

By two points.

For the first time, in the most formal and important ranking of all, I had placed ahead of him.

But before I could even feel happy, my phone vibrated.

It was a message from Qiao Shuheng.

“Meng Wantang, this time you’re finally first.”

I stared at those words, and my palms suddenly went cold.

It was too calm.

Too calm to be him.

I immediately called him, but no one picked up. I tried again, and still no one answered. Yu Nanzhi sent me a screenshot, saying someone in Qiao Shuheng’s class group chat mentioned he had accompanied his mother to the hospital for post-operative adjustments.

The hospital.
My heart sank instantly.

For some reason, my mind flashed back to that payment slip, the recommendation letter, and the way he had sat with his head bowed outside the operating room.

I didn’t even have time to change out of my slippers. I grabbed that competition notebook and ran out the door.

By the time I rushed to the hospital, my back was drenched in sweat.

I ran all the way to the ENT department. From a distance, I saw Qiao Shuheng leaning against the window in the corridor, holding a registration slip. He looked up when he heard footsteps, and the moment he saw me, he froze.

“Why are you here?”

I was panting heavily, but my eyes remained fixed on him, unblinking.

“I was afraid you’d step aside for me again behind my back.”

He froze for two seconds, then suddenly laughed.

It was soft, but it was the most relaxed smile I had ever seen on him.

“Not this time,” he said. “This time, you beat me on your own.”

My nose suddenly stung.

“Really?”

“Really.” He raised his hand and tapped the notebook in my arms. “I couldn’t exactly leave my answers blank for the National College Entrance Exam.”

I almost laughed at his joke, but my tears fell faster.

I wiped my eyes and glared at him. “Then why did you send that kind of message to scare me?”

“I wanted to see if you would come looking for me.”

“Qiao Shuheng!”

He reached out and took hold of my wrist; his palm was slightly cool.

“And you really did come.”

In the corridor, it was so quiet that only the distant hum of machinery could be heard.

I looked at him, finally tired of pretending.

“Qiao Shuheng.” I sniffled. “That first-place finish you let me have in our second year-I still don’t acknowledge it.”

He was slightly taken aback.

“But today’s result, I accept.” I stared into his eyes, enunciating every word. “Because I fought for this, and you fought alongside me.”

“So now, I’m going to ask you that question.”

He looked at me as if he had already guessed, but he still asked softly, “What question?”

I shoved the notebook into his arms. It happened to fall open to the last page, revealing the small line of text he had secretly written there.

“What you said… does it still count?”

Qiao Shuheng looked down at the words and remained silent for a few seconds.

Then he looked up, his eyes dark and bright.

“It counts.”

“Then say it.”

He looked at me for a long time-so long that I thought my heartbeat was loud enough for the entire floor to hear.

Finally, he spoke.

“Meng Wantang, I’ve liked you for a long time.”

“Ever since the first time you stood in front of the rankings wall, eyes red, saying you were going to drag me down.”

“Ever since you were clearly suffering from low blood sugar, yet you kept shaking and refused to admit defeat.”

“Ever since you chased me into the hospital and called me crazy.”

“Until now.”

My tears came crashing down.

This time, it wasn’t because of a sense of grievance or lingering fear.

It was because I suddenly felt that those most difficult, twisted days of high school-the days when I refused to bow my head-had actually been quietly kept in someone’s heart and truly cherished.

I sniffled and said in a small voice, “Then listen closely.”

“I like you too.”

“And not just starting from now.”

“It started when you asked me in the rain if I was particularly afraid of losing.”

“It started when you put that warm milk on my desk.”

“And it started when you let me have first place, and I was so angry I wanted to punch you.”

A smile gradually bloomed in Qiao Shuheng’s eyes.

Then he reached out and gently pulled me into his arms.

The hospital corridor was bright, and outside the window, it was the height of summer. A breeze blew in through the half-open window, making the registration slip rustle softly.

Leaning against his shoulder, I heard him say:

“Meng Wantang, don’t just think about beating me from now on.”

I closed my eyes and asked, “Then what should I think about?”

“Think about how to tie with me for first place.”

I finally laughed.

Later on, neither of us dwelled on whether that first-place finish he yielded in our second year truly counted.

Because in the life that followed, we both had a very long road ahead of us.

There would be new exams, new cities, new rankings, and new victories and defeats.

But I think I’ll probably never be afraid of losing in isolation like I was before.

Because I finally have someone I can move forward with.

The person who used to always stand in front of me eventually came to stand by my side.

And the “first place” I most want to claim in this life has never been that top line on the rankings wall.

It is the certainty I’ve felt since that spring in our second year-that no matter how fast I run, I can still see Qiao Shuheng when I look back.

That is what he truly gave to me.