Meng Taoyu came back to visit Feng Ning at school several times. Even after starting university, she was just the same as in high school—makeup-free, with a clean, fresh face.
Saturday night, they picked a hot pot restaurant.
The rich broth in the pot came to a boil, and Feng Ning watched Meng Taoyu’s small face turn red from the spice. She used the serving chopsticks to cook vegetables, drop in meatballs, and boil meat for Meng Taoyu.
“Ning Ning, why aren’t you eating?”
Feng Ning said, “I’m full. You eat, don’t worry about me.”
Meng Taoyu made a sound of surprise. “I haven’t seen you eat more than a few bites. Your appetite’s gotten so small.”
Feng Ning’s complexion was pale, her color not good, her features noticeably thinner. She had taken off her coat and was wearing a teal sweater—maybe the collar was too wide, but her collarbone formed a hollow line, and her whole frame looked thin and hollowed out.
Going on instinct, Meng Taoyu asked, “Ning Ning, are you not feeling well?”
“Hm?” She told a lie. “A little. My period started these past couple days.”
“Oh, I see. I thought maybe you were in a bad mood.”
The moment the words left her mouth, she immediately felt it was wrong. Meng Taoyu vaguely knew about the troubles in Feng Ning’s family, and afraid of touching a sore subject again, she quickly changed the topic. “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You’re so capable, I’m sure you’ll get into a good university.”
Feng Ning set down her chopsticks and said breezily, “Since when does this little friend of mine need to comfort me?”
University let out for break earlier than high school. A few days later, Shuang Yao and Zhao Weichen came together to visit as well. They arrived during a break between classes; Shuang Yao casually stopped a girl heading into the classroom to ask. The girl actually paused to think. “Feng Ning… is there someone by that name in our class?”
Shuang Yao was startled. “Isn’t this Class 13?”
She realized. “Oh, oh, you mean that repeat student.”
“Yes.”
After the girl went into the classroom, Zhao Weichen was still a bit puzzled. “Has Ning jie changed her whole personality? Keeping such a low profile? The semester’s almost over and there are still people in her class who don’t know her.”
Feng Ning took a class period off and walked around campus with them. When it was time to say goodbye, Zhao Weichen gave Feng Ning a hug. Shuang Yao squeezed her hand. “You still have us.”
Zhao Weichen said, “Ning jie, no matter how much time passes, you’ll always be my idol.”
Feng Ning smiled faintly.
No one could see the shackles beneath that smile.
To the students of senior class 13, Feng Ning was cold and detached, a woman of few words who kept to herself and didn’t like talking to others. No one connected this withdrawn ice beauty to the dazzling girl who had once shone so brightly at the opening ceremony.
Her homeroom teacher must have gotten briefed by the Iron Lady in advance about Feng Ning’s situation—knowing her grades before she’d taken leave from school had stayed near the top of the grade, that she was diligent and clever—and so was considerate toward her in every way. But Feng Ning had skipped straight from sophomore year to senior year, and at first she struggled badly to keep up with the pace of the coursework; her grades stayed outside the top hundred for a long while.
Under the crushing pressure of senior year, the girls still found time between classes to gossip about all sorts of things.
Occasionally, Feng Ning would hear Jiang Wen’s name come up among them.
His photo hung in the glass display case beside the honor roll, forever frozen at seventeen. Wearing a blue-and-white school uniform, black hair cut short, clean sharp features, quietly meeting the eyes of everyone who paused as they passed.
From the moment she opened her eyes each morning, Feng Ning operated like a machine wound tight by force, moving numbly through the day. Until night fell, and the spiraling screw turned to its final notch. Feng Ning lay in bed, her mind going very quiet, very blank. She’d close her eyes and feel herself sinking, sinking, slowly disappearing from this world.
The winter break of her senior year was, in Feng Ning’s memory, the coldest, slowest winter. It felt as though her whole self sank and froze along with the season.
On New Year’s Day, the air was thick with festival spirit. After sweeping Qi Lan’s grave, Feng Ning didn’t want to go home, and instead took a bus to the liveliest square in South City.
Two children of six or seven were fighting over a toy. Feng Ning walked two laps around the square, then sat down off to the side. She listened to a street musician playing guitar, and after he finished a few love songs, she dropped a coin into his bowl.
Feng Ning stood at the bus stop, looking at every fork in every route on the signboard, every destination listed. She didn’t know where to go. She had no destination.
The next bus to pull in was the 425, the most common route in the city.
Feng Ning boarded, holding a candied hawthorn skewer in one hand, freeing the other to feel for coins in her pocket. There weren’t many people on the bus; scattered seats sat empty.
Walking a few steps down the aisle, for some reason, Feng Ning’s steps suddenly slowed.
The person sitting by the window turned their gaze at the same moment, eyes fixed unblinking in her direction.
Many years later, Feng Ning’s memory of Jiang Wen would always stop right here.
It felt like only a few dozen seconds, and yet she remembered this scene—every single detail of it.
The heater was running inside the bus, and the windows had fogged up. He sat alone, in the second-to-last row. Melted snow had wet the ground beneath his feet; outside, the shops were playing New Year songs. Jiang Wen’s hair had grown out a little, the ends fine and scattered, covering his brows. He was still wearing the same dark blue coat.
Such a cold color.
Their eyes met. She froze for a moment, her steps stopping. She opened her mouth, but her throat felt stuffed with cotton.
No sound… would come out at all.
Jiang Wen’s lashes lowered.
In the end, Feng Ning said nothing. She lowered her head, turned slowly, and found a seat.
The two of them, one in front of the other, on the same bus, separated by several rows, sat in silence.
The bus reached a fork in the road; the light turned green, it took the turn, arrived at the next stop. Quickly, many people got on—adults leading children by the hand, the crowd swaying, filling every empty seat.
People stood in the aisle too.
Two more stops passed, and Feng Ning stood, threading through the crowd, and got off.
Her foot landed on a manhole cover, producing a soft clang. Under the gray, dusty clouds, a gust of wind rose from nowhere, lifting the few strands of hair hanging at her waist.
Not long after, another sound echoed behind her. Feng Ning kept walking straight down the wide street, without looking back.
The new year passed, and one day in April, Feng Ning got a call from Zhao Binlin. He asked, “Feng Ning, are… are you doing okay lately?”
The pen in her hand stopped. “I’m doing fine.”
“Oh, good, that’s good.”
“What about Jiang Wen, how’s he doing.”
“Jiang Wen…” Zhao Binlin hesitated for a moment. “He’s doing fine too. He just got offers from a few Ivy League schools, already withdrew from school here, getting ready to go abroad.”
Hearing this news, Feng Ning went blank for a moment. She stayed dazed briefly, but quickly recovered. “Is that so. So sudden.”
Zhao Binlin sounded a bit surprised. “He didn’t tell you?”
“He changed his phone number. We haven’t been in touch in a long time,” Feng Ning said frankly.
Zhao Binlin faltered, then said, “I thought he’d at least come say goodbye to you or something.”
Feng Ning froze.
A certain scene rose to the tip of her mind, almost breaking the surface.
She suddenly thought of that day. New Year’s Day, when she and Jiang Wen crossed paths on the 425 bus.
She hadn’t asked. She hadn’t looked back either.
She didn’t know how long he’d already been riding before that, and she didn’t know whether he’d followed her off the bus afterward.
Maybe… that had been his unspoken goodbye.
“Well, I’ll leave it at that. I need to get back to studying.”
“Goodbye. Do your best.”
“Okay.”
Feng Ning propped her chin up with one hand, absentmindedly doodling on her scratch paper. When her attention refocused, an outline had already taken shape on the page.
A drunken peacock.
After a moment, Feng Ning quietly finished filling in the details.
Beneath it, she wrote a line in English.
—Apologize to my little prince
For some reason, tears suddenly fell. They landed on the paper, spreading quickly.
Her last memory of senior year froze at this exact moment, caught in that single teardrop.
Shuang Yao was the first person to learn that Feng Ning was ill.
—While helping Feng Ning clean up, she found a half-empty bottle of fluoxetine in a drawer.
On the way to the hospital, Shuang Yao gripped her hand and said firmly, “Feng Ning, there’s no way you can be unlucky your whole life. Things can’t possibly get worse than this. As long as you get through it, everything will be fine. All your good luck is saved up for the second half of your life.”
Things really did get better and better.
East Street was cracked down on a second time, and many people ended up behind bars. Meng Hanmo had gotten out early, took over a few storefronts, and opened a barbecue restaurant along with an auto repair shop.
Feng Ning did reasonably well on the college entrance exam. Once her scores came back, the Iron Lady chose the hottest major for her at the Capital Foreign Studies University. In the fall of her sophomore year, Zhao Huiyun helped Feng Ning make a small investment, and she was finally able to pay off the debts she owed outside, no longer needing to work around the clock to earn money.
After starting university, Feng Ning switched her WeChat. Zhao Binlin was also going to university in the capital, and their schools were close by, so occasionally he’d come find her for a meal.
Neither of them, though, ever brought up Jiang Wen.
Late one night in her junior year, just before falling asleep, Feng Ning got a call from an unknown number.
“Hello,” she said.
No sound from the other end.
Wrong number?
Feng Ning, unprepared, checked the number again. “Hello? Is anyone there?”
Still no response.
Her roommate, gaming below, glanced back at her. “What’s wrong? Whose call is it?”
Feng Ning shook her head, saying quietly, “I don’t know.”
The silence went on, but Feng Ning didn’t hang up, her breath held tight.
She didn’t know how long passed—maybe two minutes, maybe ten—before the other side hung up.
From start to finish, no one had said a single word. She lay in bed, staring blankly at the pattern on the bed curtain.
After a while, Feng Ning got out of bed, put on her shoes, went downstairs, and bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter at the nearby convenience store.
She walked to the deserted artificial lake, chose an empty bench, and sat down.
She’d quit smoking a long time ago. As the nicotine traveled down her windpipe into her lungs, her head spun briefly.
It was very dark here, distant lights floating in the distance. Feng Ning sat in the darkness, smoking one cigarette after another, until the pack went from full to nearly empty.
She lifted her phone to her eyes, opened WeChat, found Zhao Binlin’s moments feed, and went in.
He hadn’t set any privacy restrictions, so Feng Ning scrolled back casually.
At the end of last month, he’d posted a photo, tagged in New Haven.
The phone screen cast a faint glow.
She paused, then tapped the photo open, zoomed in.
The sunlight in the photo was lovely, resting on the grass. In front of an old Gothic-style bell tower, Jiang Wen had Zhao Binlin’s arm hooked around his neck. His hands were in his pockets, wearing a blue-and-white Yale T-shirt, his eyes gazing indifferently at the camera.
The lighter clicked, a small flame flickering to life.
Feng Ning lit another cigarette.
Blue-gray smoke drifted apart before her eyes.
She opened her call log, looked once more at that unfamiliar number from earlier, then deleted it.
Feng Ning stood, tossed the remaining cigarettes and the lighter into the trash can, and walked along the cobblestone path. She’d left in such a hurry that she hadn’t put on foundation.
On her arms, much thinner than before, the scars looked jagged and severe.
This artificial lake was small; a few steps and you’d be back where you started.
But no matter how she walked, she could never get back to the place she wanted to return to.
Feng Ning suddenly thought, actually, things were fine now.
Time had passed. She was tired.
But what Jiang Wen would remember, forever, was her at her proudest. That was enough.