The apartment building was constructed in 1990, a very precise year.

Because that year, Lin Wanxing’s grandfather had just retired, and her grandparents used their savings of many years to buy this five-story public housing building.

Because there were many schools and cultural centers nearby, they opened an after-school program and a small shop on the ground floor. The upper four floors were residential, and the top floor had a huge rooftop terrace.

Lin Wanxing still remembered how as a child she would trick her way into getting bubble gum from the shop downstairs, then run up to the rooftop to compete with other children over who could blow the biggest bubble.

All these scenes had become blurry, yet seemed clear when recalled.

Later events, she seemed to only understand from fragments of occasional conversations between her parents.

Her father resigned from the school her grandfather had arranged for him, insisting on working in another city. Her grandfather was indignant about this, feeling he had lost face, and the father-son relationship remained poor for more than a decade.

Some years, her mother would bring her back to see her grandfather, but most of the time she wasn’t able to return.

Later, when she went to university, she could come back to play for a few days during winter and summer breaks. On summer evenings, she and her grandparents would eat watermelon on the rooftop terrace.

Mosquito coil smoke curled around their feet, with scattered stars in the sky.

The ending of the story was her grandparents’ passing.

The elderly couple donated their bodies and there wasn’t even a memorial service for family members to attend.

She finally chose to return to her hometown, commissioning an agency to handle the rental, but never came back to this building again.

Now, on an ordinary night.

She walked with a man she didn’t seem to know very well to the building where she once lived. The scent of camphor trees wafted in the evening breeze, like a deep green, strange dreamscape.

After a long while, Lin Wanxing looked at the young man and slowly asked — “You live here?”

“Top floor, just moved in.”

It seemed like many unrelated clues had a small connection, yet it all seemed irrelevant.

Lin Wanxing recalled their first meeting when the young man acted somewhat familiar with her. According to rental contract signing rules, tenants would check the landlord’s ID, so the young man knew who she was all along.

And herself… Lin Wanxing remembered the rental contract signed by the agency on her behalf, and could only pretend to have a sudden realization — “Oh, you’re…”

Her tone dragged on a bit, waiting for the young man to continue.

There was a long silence in the air, apart from the fragrance of osmanthus trees in the old community, and the young man’s slightly smiling gaze.

Lin Wanxing’s voice had been drawn out for quite some time, and just when she really couldn’t extend it any longer and awkwardness was about to spread,

The young man graciously extended his hand — “Wang Fa, your tenant.”

That’s what he said.

Later, Lin Wanxing walked back to school alone.

In the quiet of the night, with few passersby, Lin Wanxing calmed down and reflected on her reaction. After being shocked, she uttered a single shocked syllable.

The young man also seemed accustomed to people’s reactions upon hearing his name, explaining that “Wang Fa” meant “state law,” and that his parents hoped he would be law-abiding.

Though he spoke calmly, Lin Wanxing felt this name seemed to have another meaning. But after mulling it over twice, she only said — “Pretty cool.”

Later, she said goodbye to her new tenant.

In the night breeze, Lin Wanxing found it incredible.

She neither knew why the young man, no, why Comrade Wang Fa had rented her house, nor did she understand how they had such a strange encounter at that field.

However, when thinking about it, people meeting each other, except for a few deliberate arrangements, are naturally occurring coincidences.

But Lin Wanxing also recalled the cigarette box Qin Ao had slapped onto her desk. Perhaps she had recently encountered so many man-made coincidences that she always had many inexplicable thoughts.

In the night, Lin Wanxing looked back at her grandparents’ building. The old advertising sign was just a steel skeleton in the darkness. What words it had written in her memory weren’t very clear anymore.

The announcement of the preliminary results came at noon the next day.

The entire morning and midday were packed with school physical education classes.

At noon, the equipment room was filled with sit-up mats and unsorted jump ropes returned by students after finishing PE class.

Lin Wanxing bought half a pre-cut watermelon at the fruit store outside the school’s back gate and returned to the equipment room to slowly reorganize everything.

No familiar faces visited at noon—familiar faces specifically referring to those classmates who often visited—so Lin Wanxing spent a very leisurely midday.

When the phone rang, Lin Wanxing was eating watermelon on a lounge chair in the equipment room. So when she heard the unfamiliar questioning voice on the other end, she didn’t immediately react.

The caller very carefully confirmed her identity, informing her of the Youth Super League preliminary results and the playoff decision.

Lin Wanxing’s heart began to race a bit. She immediately sat up from the lounge chair, walked to the desk, and wrote down the time, place, and teams for the additional match as notified by the call.

After hanging up, Lin Wanxing put down her pen. The early autumn hot wind blew in from the window, and the school bell rang for class.

Lin Wanxing didn’t immediately notify the students about the playoff news.

Her afternoon passed quickly, with the aroma from snack stalls outside the school and the hustle and bustle rising together.

She clocked out from work as usual. When locking the door, she saw two boys squatting under the shade of trees outside the equipment room. It was none other than student Qin Ao and his designated follower, student Yu Ming.

Seeing her come out, Qin Ao walked over with his bag slung over one shoulder, saying impatiently — “Can’t you take a bit more responsibility?”

Lin Wanxing was confused by this lecturing — “What did I do?”

“Aren’t you going to notify us about today’s training time and meeting place? Just trying to slip away after work?”

Lin Wanxing was stunned for a moment, then continued locking the door. Although Qin Ao was very self-righteous, she was even more so — “You already know the training location anyway, if you want to practice, you’ll come.”

“I’m not—!” Qin Ao widened his eyes and said half a sentence but could only be at a loss for words.

Though verbally tough, when Lin Wanxing walked toward the school’s back gate, Qin Ao still silently followed behind her.

At the school’s back gate, Lin Wanxing “picked up” two more students.

The goalkeeper, Feng Suo, seemed to have been waiting there for a while and waved to them from a distance. Upon seeing Qin Ao, he shouted — “Old Qin, you turned in your exam early too?”

“Who’s like you?” Qin Ao said as he walked out of school, “I didn’t take the exam at all.”

Both Lin Wanxing and Feng Suo fell silent at the same time.

Lin Wanxing then realized that there were fewer students in school that evening than usual.

“Did you all have exams today?” Lin Wanxing asked.

“Today our senior year had standardized tests,” Feng Suo said.

Lin Wanxing nodded, no wonder there were so few students gathering at this time. She walked out the school gate and greeted student Zheng Feiyang who was squatting outside, casually asking, “You all finished your papers?”

“Of course, the student sitting in front of me is our class academic representative, we’re brothers,” Feng Suo said.

“I see,” Lin Wanxing asked with a smile.

“To do well in exams, you can’t avoid cheating a bit,” Lin Wanxing said smiling.

“Teacher, did you copy from others too?” Yu Ming looked up with curious eyes.

“I was okay, generally if I did it myself, it would be a bit faster than copying from others,” Lin Wanxing said.

Qin Ao — “…”

Regarding the students who either didn’t take the exam or who turned in their papers early through “special means,” Lin Wanxing didn’t say anything more. She also didn’t linger at the school gate, just walked with the few students who came first toward the old gymnasium field.

In the evening, the red glow of the sunset grew increasingly dense.

Lin Wanxing stood at the entrance looking up. On the stands, the familiar figure of the young man appeared.

Oh, right, his name was Wang Fa.