Winter break ended.

Spring came, and spring went.

Now it was a new summer, and the cicadas had started their hysterical shrieking once more.

Qi Lan’s breast cancer relapsed that spring, and the mahjong parlor in Yujiang Lane had been closed for a long while now.

Life, it seemed, wasn’t going to get better.

The bar closed around three in the morning. Tongtong was clearing the tables.

At the entrance, a drunk woman was crouched down. Feng Ning, well accustomed to the sight by now, set down her broom and went over to help the woman up into a chair. She fished the phone out of the woman’s pocket, propped her eyes open to unlock it with facial recognition, and opened up the contacts list to call one of the quick-dial numbers.

Zhao Huiyun was at the bar counter reconciling the day’s accounts. Feng Ning walked over. “Boss, I need to take a month off for now. My mom hasn’t been well lately and is in the hospital—I need to take care of her.”

There wasn’t a trace of anything unusual in her tone.

“Sure, no problem.” Zhao Huiyun understood her family’s situation reasonably well, and thought it over. “Let me know if you run into any difficulties.”

Feng Ning rode her little electric scooter home. The streets at this hour of the night were empty, hardly anyone left. She fumbled for her keys to open the door; no one was home either.

She turned on the light. The big yellow dog, curled up in the corner, gave her a lazy glance and went back to dozing. Feng Ning went to the kitchen and, while listening to an English listening exercise, cooked herself a bowl of noodles.

The next day at noon, Shuang Yao accompanied her to the hospital, carrying an insulated container packed with food Shuang Yao’s parents had helped prepare.

The one who’d stayed by the bedside the night before had been Zhao Weichen’s mother.

Qi Lan was eating inside. Feng Ning stood outside in the hallway, listening to the doctor go over her mother’s condition.

The doctor flipped through the chart. “There are many treatment options for breast cancer. With this relapse, the patient’s mental state needs to stay positive—she shouldn’t be excessively anxious or tense. That said, you as family members also need to prepare yourselves mentally. She’s already gone through cryotherapy, radiation, and chemo, and honestly, the test results aren’t very optimistic—there are signs of metastasis. Right now we’re in something of a delaying phase. We’ll do our best to try to reduce complications.”

Within a few short seconds, Feng Ning’s expression had already returned to normal. She nodded. “Thank you for the trouble.”

Before leaving, the doctor asked, “How old is the young lady?”

“In high school.”

“No other adults at home?”

“Mm.”

The doctor had a child of about the same age at home, and hearing her answer, the look in his eyes toward Feng Ning grew considerably more complicated. But in his line of work, he’d seen enough of life and death, enough of the ordinary hardships that everyday people carry each in their own way. He didn’t say anything more, and left.

Feng Ning sat on the bench outside, staring blankly into space. She gave herself three minutes. When the time was up, she stood, rubbed her face, put on a relaxed expression, and pushed open the door to the hospital room to go in.

Just as before, no matter what happened, she would never let any hint of vulnerability show in front of her mother.

Qi Lan forced herself to drink a bit of porridge, but not long after, she threw it up.

Feng Ning wet a towel with hot water, wrung it out, and carefully wiped her mouth. “Not much of an appetite today?”

Qi Lan said, “Feeling a bit off.”

“It’s fine, Mom.” Feng Ning cleared away the bowl and chopsticks. “If you can’t eat, don’t force it, we’ll try again later.”

Shuang Yao worked hard to keep the mood light. Feng Ning supported Qi Lan as she walked around a bit.

The sun was lovely today, and everything seemed full of vitality in the depths of summer. Qi Lan touched Feng Ning’s hair. “Don’t worry about me, don’t fret over me either. Just focus on studying well at school.”

“I know.” Feng Ning pressed her lips together in a smile. “Little Feng Ning made it through junior high alongside Ms. Qi Lan just fine, and now high-school Feng Ning has grown up—evolved into Big Feng Ning! You think this little bit of trouble is going to scare her?”

“What Big Feng Ning.” Knowing her daughter was cracking jokes, Qi Lan still felt a wave of sadness wash over her. “Other kids your age still get spoiled by their dad, loved by their mom, still children.”

“Then I’m your child.” Feng Ning pouted. “Your little princess, spoiled by her mom, forever.”

Feng Ning applied to the school for a half-boarding arrangement, coming to the hospital to stay by the bedside on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, with Shuang Yao and Zhao Weichen’s parents taking shifts the remaining days.

The adults in Yujiang Lane had originally discussed having Feng Ning continue boarding at school, but she refused. “I’m not afraid of the exhaustion. I just want to spend more time with my mom.”

Once she’d made up her mind, nothing anyone else said could change it.

At night in the hospital, Feng Ning would set up a small table at the foot of the bed and do her homework by desk lamp. Draped in a coat, wearing pajamas, she’d do her assignments while saying, “Ms. Qi Lan, you’d better hurry up and get better.”

“Why’s that?”

“I’ve only got two more years until I graduate.” Feng Ning put down her pen, counting on her fingers, chattering on. “Once I graduate, I’ll have made it through, and I’ll be able to earn big money. By then, I’ll send you ten thousand yuan in allowance every month, and I’ll buy a huge, huge house for us to live in together, and open up a whole chain of mahjong parlors for you.”

“Ha ha.” Qi Lan was delighted to hear it. “Other people’s kids dream of becoming scientists, becoming police officers—why is my daughter so vulgar, wanting to buy big houses and make big money?”

“Heh heh heh, you know how much I love money.” Feng Ning grinned. “I buy a lottery ticket every Wednesday now, hoping my sincerity will move God, and then I’ll hit the jackpot.”

“Then I must have moved God before, in my time.”

Feng Ning was curious. “What prize have you won that you’ve kept hidden from me?”

“You. Being able to have a daughter as obedient and capable as you—that’s the biggest prize I’ve ever won in my life.” Qi Lan showed a hint of a smile. “It means I can go find your father with a peaceful heart too.”

“No, no, I don’t want to hear it, don’t say that.” Feng Ning covered her ears, her little face scrunching up. “Why do you have to go find Dad, I don’t want that, I want you to stay with me.”

Qi Lan sighed. “Hurry up and do your homework.”

“I’m not doing it anymore.” Feng Ning kicked off her slippers and carefully climbed onto the bed, wrapping her arms around her mother’s waist. The particular smell of disinfectant mixed with the bitterness of herbal medicine that was characteristic of the hospital room didn’t bother her in the least. “Mom, I want to sleep with you tonight.”

“You’re so grown up already, and still so clingy.” Qi Lan raised her arm and pulled her into an embrace. “You go to school in the day, no need to come at night—Mom’s fine on her own, don’t wear yourself out.”

“I’m not tired, I really am not, not tired at all.” Feng Ning said, “Get better soon. Shuang Yao’s mom is still waiting for you to come back and play mahjong together.”

Qi Lan gave a soft “mm.”

Feng Ning,

Feng Ning?

Feng Ning!

Before the fourth call of her name, Feng Ning’s gaze finally came into focus.

Tie Niangzi stood beside her, somewhat displeased, lowering her voice with restraint. “This is the third time you’ve zoned out in class.”

The rest of the class was reading the text aloud; a few noticed the teacher standing by Feng Ning’s desk, but couldn’t hear what they were saying. Such was the treatment good students received. Even Tie Niangzi’s criticism turned remarkably gentle when dealing with her prize student.

“Come by my office after class.”

The oncology hospital was diagonally across from Qide, requiring several transfers even by subway alone. Feng Ning would go stay by the bedside at the hospital at night, and sometimes when Qi Lan needed injections that went until midnight, she’d have to get up at five or six the next morning.

Feng Ning had long since braced herself mentally, shuttling endlessly between hospital and school for days on end, trying her best to balance the demands of school and everyday life. But her energy was limited, and exhaustion inevitably crept in.

“Sophomore year is a watershed. The academic workload will get heavier too. For most people, these two years are the most important of their entire lives, and there’s no second chance at them. You used to be the student I felt most at ease about, but I’ve clearly noticed your attention has been quite scattered lately. Your state of mind these days has me a bit concerned. Look at your ranking in this monthly exam—why has it dropped so far all of a sudden? Are you struggling with something in your studies?”

No matter how earnestly Tie Niangzi tried to counsel her, Feng Ning kept to the same line: “Sorry, teacher, I’ll adjust as soon as I can.” Pressed further, at most she’d add, “There’s something going on at home,” and say nothing else beyond that.

Tie Niangzi had no choice but to let her go back to class.

That afternoon Qi Lan needed to undergo chemotherapy, so Feng Ning took a day and a half off to accompany her at the hospital. She didn’t return to school until the following evening. Arriving at the classroom, she’d just sat down and was bent over sorting through her things.

A voice came from nearby:

“—Your comprehensive science test paper.”

She looked up—it was Jiang Wen. He’d just finished playing basketball, holding a bottle of mineral water in his hand, still sweating, his sleeves rolled up past his forearms.

“Thanks.” Feng Ning answered offhandedly.

Though they were in the same class, she could barely remember when she’d last seen him.

Feng Ning thought back briefly—actually, it hadn’t been that long ago.

It seemed like it was just a few days ago—she’d finished eating in the cafeteria and run into Jiang Wen talking with Pei Shurou outside the supermarket entrance, a hint of a smile still on the corner of his mouth. She’d pretended not to see them, deliberately steering around them.

“I got first place this time,” Jiang Wen suddenly said.

“What?” She was momentarily stunned, still a little confused.

“First in the class, first in the grade.”

Feng Ning realized he was talking about the monthly exam results. She nodded, commenting, “Not bad, congratulations.”

Young Master Jiang gave a nasal “mm,” his usual arrogance unchanged.

For the sake of one careless remark, he’d been quietly competing against her ever since.

She didn’t know which words had loosened some nerve in her brain. Feng Ning’s mood turned rather good; she took a couple of breaths of fresh air and grinned, showing her teeth, then flipped open her comprehensive science exam paper and started going through the questions she’d gotten wrong.

On the final physics question, she’d only gotten the first sub-question right.

She hadn’t been in class to hear the lecture that morning, and didn’t know whether she’d simply made a calculation error, or whether her entire process had been wrong. With two days of homework piled up unfinished, she had no time to work through it all over again.

With no one else around to ask right now, Feng Ning called out to Jiang Wen, who’d just sat down. “Let me borrow your exam paper for a look.”

Their seats were only separated by an aisle. Same row—Feng Ning sat by the wall in group four, he sat by the aisle in group three.

“Why did you write out the process for the last physics question so briefly? I can’t quite follow it.”

Jiang Wen thought it over. “The teacher said this question was beyond the syllabus, that you’re meant to use limits to solve it—if you can’t do it, just leave it blank.”

“That won’t do.” Feng Ning said this with easy confidence, waving him over. “If you can write out this question, why can’t I?”

“I placed in a physics competition.” Even as he said this, Jiang Wen still got up and came over, sitting down beside her.

Feng Ning handed over a piece of scratch paper. “Begin your performance.”

Seeing Jiang Wen’s hand resting on the edge of the desk without moving, she asked, “What, putting on airs?”

“You just…” Jiang Wen’s obsessive streak flared up. “Don’t you have any clean paper?”

“Aside from the few formulas I just wrote, where’s this paper not clean?” Feng Ning was baffled.

He answered rather reluctantly, “Nowhere on it is very clean.”

This was the first time she’d met someone who needed pristine white paper just to walk through a problem. Feng Ning gave a soft laugh. “Young Master, you really need to fix this fussy habit of yours.”

Jiang Wen propped his left hand on the stool, holding the pen in his right, explaining as he wrote out the process on the paper.

His handwriting and his looks were two complete opposites.

——However refined his looks, that’s how sloppy his handwriting was.

Feng Ning thought to herself she should get Jiang Wen a copybook sometime. Scatter a handful of rice onto paper, and the chicken-scratch marks it left would look neater than his handwriting.

She said, with utmost sincerity, “Jiang Wen, with handwriting like this, you really don’t deserve to be so particular about your scratch paper—isn’t that a waste?”

His pen paused, and he was left speechless. He glared at her. “Do you want to keep listening or not.”

“Yes, yes, I do.”

“Suppose the circle is tangent to the right boundary of the magnetic field at point D. The particle’s trajectory radius within the field satisfies this.” As he spoke, he dashed off a formula with a flourish. “Then based on the geometric relationship, use limits to take the derivative.”

Jiang Wen’s thinking was clear, and he explained the problem quickly. When lecturing, he liked to look at the person he was talking to, and his eyes, naturally slanted upward, carried no particular emotion in them, yet still somehow looked full of tender feeling.

She was a little distracted and hadn’t quite caught his last step, letting out a confused “ah.” “How did you work out the time the ball moves within the magnetic field?”

“By combining a few equations.” Jiang Wen held back his impatience. “Are you actually listening?”

“Ugh, I’m tired, my reactions are a bit slow.” Feng Ning rubbed her eyes and patted her own face. “Alright, keep going.”

In the height of summer, her fingers were unusually cold, cold enough that she shivered involuntarily.

Jiang Wen noticed the dark circles under her eyes, and his brow furrowed unconsciously. “What have you been so busy with lately.”

He asked it very casually, very restrained, keeping his distance from her within reasonable bounds.

“There’s a lot going on, which one do you want to hear first.” Feng Ning deliberately kept her tone light. A strand of hair fell across her cheek; she kept looking at the question, wearily sorting through the steps of the solution in her mind.

He had a few words on the tip of his tongue, but in the end didn’t say them.

The little ball on the arc seemed to genuinely begin moving along its trajectory. Feng Ning shook her head, forcing herself to stay alert.

Jiang Wen glanced at his watch—exactly seven o’clock. He set down his pen. “Get some sleep.”

“Hm?”

“Sleep until seven-thirty, and I’ll go over it again then.”

“Oh… alright then.” Feng Ning was both sleepy and tired, and stopped forcing herself to stay awake. She pulled her school jacket out of the drawer, rolled it up haphazardly, set it on the desk, and lay down.

Zhao Binlin came noisily into the classroom, calling out “Jiang—” only to be met with a cool glance, and he froze at the sight, swallowing the rest of what he was about to say.

Turning around, he spread his arms and pushed the group of people who’d been about to walk in straight back out. “Go, go, go, all of you.”

“What’s going on?” Xi Gaoyuan complained. “Where’s Jiang Wen? Not in the classroom?”

“Just consider him dead.”

Summer school uniforms were thin. Her slender arm was folded, her face turned toward the wall as she slept, her ponytail brushing against his wrist.

Jiang Wen glanced at this cluster of black hair, didn’t move, sank into his thoughts.

After a long while, a cool, refreshing night breeze blew across his face, and he withdrew his gaze from where it had lingered.

Feng Ning had already fallen asleep, her breathing light and even, steady. Outside the window there was a tree, and in the tree an evening cicada, calling out on and off.

Downstairs, some students passed by; the wind carried the sound of their conversation off into the distance.

Jiang Wen felt very much at peace.

He put on his earphones, focusing his attention on the clock hanging in the center of the classroom.

Insects circled the light overhead. The second hand completed a full circle, the minute hand shifted one notch.

The moon, blurred through the window, was still beautiful. A male voice sang in his earphones.

“He’s a hypocrite and”

He is a hypocrite and

“She should be locked up in a cage”

She should be locked up in a cage

If only time could slow down a little more.

A little more.

Stop at seven twenty-nine.

The minute hand would never reach its destination.

She would go on sleeping this obediently beside him, forever.