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The graduation ceremony for this cohort of third-year senior students was scheduled for the twelfth of June. “Ceremony” was a generous term — in reality it was little more than going through the motions: the school administrators sat on the stage and said a few words of blessing; the students applauded from below; diplomas were handed out; a graduation photo was taken; and that was that.

This was a Sunday. Students in other year groups had no class, and only the graduating third-year students returned to campus. They put on their school uniforms one last time and lingered in every corner of the school grounds. The scenery they had grown so thoroughly tired of over three years now seemed fresh and vivid again; the sports field, the corridors — everywhere was filled with clusters of students taking photos together. Fang Zhixiao also dragged Li Kuiyi around for photo after photo, until Li Kuiyi’s fingers cramped from holding up “V” signs, and Fang Zhixiao still complained that she only knew how to do one pose.

After shooting outdoors, Fang Zhixiao pulled Li Kuiyi into the classroom to take more photos. They stood in front of the blackboard, each holding a red graduation certificate, looking into each other’s eyes with great solemnity, like a newlywed couple. When the photos were done, Fang Zhixiao posted one immediately with the caption: “We got our certificate!”

He Youyuan was in the school shop buying cold canned soda, head bowed lazily as he scrolled through his phone. He had just finished picking out a few bottles and was about to pay when he happened to scroll past Fang Zhixiao’s post. The corner of his mouth pulled down with unmistakable coolness.

Since when does someone just grab another man’s girlfriend and “get a certificate” with her?

He refreshed the page, and Li Kuiyi’s own post appeared. Just like when she had graduated from middle school, she had posted only two photos — one of the view from the classroom window, and one of herself and Fang Zhixiao.

No place for him whatsoever.

So he was the abandoned one, then. Li Kuiyi clearly didn’t care about him at all — they’d been on campus for several hours, and she’d seen him all of once, said all of two sentences to him, and then gone off to play with Fang Zhixiao. Fine, go play — play to your heart’s content. Best not think of him even once.

He Youyuan wore a cold expression as he took his drinks and walked out of the school shop. There was a girl apparently waiting for him at the door — by the look of it, she was probably about to either confess or ask for a photo together. But the girl took one look at his expression, hesitated for a long moment, and ultimately didn’t dare to approach.

He found the two of them in an empty classroom on the fifth floor of the third-year building, and they were still taking photos — now pretending to write things on the blackboard with chalk, now standing moodily at the window gazing into the distance. He found a desk to lean against, fixed them with his stare, and slowly sipped his soda.

Absorbed as they were in their photography, the two finally sensed something, and turned around. Seeing He Youyuan’s expression of gloomy suffering, Fang Zhixiao let out a knowing little laugh and gave Li Kuiyi an elbow: “Hey — do you smell vinegar in here?”

Why was he being jealous of Fang Zhixiao now? Li Kuiyi couldn’t fathom it — but then she thought, she probably used to be jealous of Zhou Ce in the same way.

“All right — I’ll go find someone else to take pictures with. You two carry on.” Fang Zhixiao was generous about giving He Youyuan a little room — but Li Kuiyi turned petty at once, and immediately said: “Fine for pictures, but you can’t go ‘get a certificate’ with anyone else.”

He Youyuan’s eye twitched.

How was it she had no possessiveness about him whatsoever?

“Relax,” Fang Zhixiao gave an “OK” sign and moved to leave — and seeing this, He Youyuan stood up from his spot and fished a bottle of fruit juice from his bag. He held it out to her without particular warmth.

Fang Zhixiao couldn’t quite hold back a snort of laughter, took the juice, and left.

The classroom fell quiet. He Youyuan held out a box of ice cream to Li Kuiyi. Li Kuiyi said “thank you,” took it, opened the box, and began eating with small, careful spoonfuls. She had only taken two bites when she glanced up and saw He Youyuan standing in front of her, eyes cast downward on her, his expression heavy.

“Are you upset again?” she asked.

“No.” He Youyuan shook his head in denial. “But I think you should go public with me.”

“I already have — Fang Zhixiao and Zhou Fanghua and the others all know.”

“That’s not enough. Look how you posted Fang Zhixiao in your social feed — everyone now knows she’s your best friend. But they don’t know I’m your boyfriend.”

Did this really bother him?

Li Kuiyi felt that telling people Fang Zhixiao was her best friend was perfectly natural, but telling people He Youyuan was her boyfriend was mortifyingly embarrassing. Her social media had so many classmates, teachers, and even Su Jianlin as contacts — how could she openly announce that she was in a relationship?

She scooped up a generous spoonful of ice cream and held it out to him, face flushed: “Do you want some?”

He Youyuan’s eyes moved back and forth between her face and the ice cream: “Is that all you’ve got for me?”

Li Kuiyi pressed her lips together, turned something over in her mind, and then rose onto her tiptoes and pressed her lips lightly against his cheek.

It was the first time she had initiated a kiss. It came with a cool sensation and the clean, sweet fragrance of cream. He Youyuan held his expression rigid for a moment — then the rigidity failed him, and a quiet, restrained satisfaction spread across his face in a shallow smile. He reached out and took hold of her wrist, guiding that spoonful of ice cream into his own mouth.

Having eaten it, he still felt the need to perform indifference, and gave a mild sigh: “Anyway, just settle for me with whatever you’ve got.”

When the time came for the graduation photo, the two finally came out of the classroom and headed to the sports field. After the class group photo was taken, Li Kuiyi asked He Youyuan to wait a moment, and stretched her neck to scan around the field. After a full circuit, she spotted Liu Xinzhao in one corner, talking to a few students. She jogged over, waited for the others to finish speaking, and then stepped forward, slightly shy: “Teacher Liu — could I take a photo with you?”

“Of course,” Liu Xinzhao said in her soft voice.

The two of them stood close together. Liu Xinzhao’s hand settled on Li Kuiyi’s shoulder — as if she were gently holding her — and Li Kuiyi’s own head tilted naturally toward Liu Xinzhao, her face breaking into a bright, open smile.

“When I get to university, may I write to you?” Li Kuiyi asked.

“Of course — haven’t we been pen friends for a very long time already?”

Thinking of three years of companionship, Li Kuiyi felt a warmth sting behind her eyes, and a sudden, powerful urge to cry. She did her best to hold it back, and said with full sincerity: “Goodbye, Teacher Liu.”

“Happy graduation, Li Kuiyi.” Liu Xinzhao reached out and gently touched the top of her head. “May you always walk forward with courage.”

The moment Li Kuiyi turned around, the tears fell freely.

She asked: I am what I am, and so the future will be — right?

She said: Yes. You are the future.

After the graduation ceremony, the class went to a restaurant for a meal together. Meng Ran, the class president, had reserved a private dining room. All thirty classmates, plus Jiang Jianbin, gathered around an enormous round turntable table. With the diplomas already in hand, everyone let themselves go — a few braver boys straight-up filled Jiang Jianbin’s cup with two measures of strong liquor. Jiang Jianbin, apparently a little drunk, became quite unlike himself — he borrowed a microphone from the server and began rambling on in an incoherent stream about the dreams he’d had in his youth, leaving everyone caught between the urge to laugh and the urge to roll their eyes. But talking about himself wasn’t enough: Jiang Jianbin then had everyone share their own dreams, going around the table one by one like an in-class “train,” starting with the student to his left. After each person finished speaking, Jiang Jianbin would call out “Good!” and clap his hands with great enthusiasm.

Most people treated the whole thing as a bit of fun, and said nonsense things like “making friends with the richest man in the world.” When it was Li Kuiyi’s turn, she accepted the microphone, stood, cleared her throat, and with complete seriousness announced that she intended to make the world a better place. The room burst into laughter, because it sounded exactly like a joke — the kind of declaration made by a melodramatic teenager in a passionate anime, proclaiming they would save the world.

The microphone was passed along, eventually reaching Yan You. Yan You, unable to stand easily, spoke from her seat. She said that in the future she hoped to help fill the gaps in China’s social security system for people with disabilities — and then, pausing, she added word by word: “Li Kuiyi — you have already made my world a better place.”

Everyone turned to look at Li Kuiyi. Compared to most people’s joking responses, Yan You’s words were strikingly sincere, and no one in the room knew what had passed between the two of them. The atmosphere in the private room went a little still. Sensing a potential cold silence, He Youyuan — sitting to Yan You’s left — took the microphone and, in a perfect mirror of her words, said: “Li Kuiyi — you have already made my world a better place.”

The classmates: “……”

Was that a joke, or did he mean it seriously?

The private room went quiet for three seconds, then erupted — everyone buzzing with excited speculation, starting a chorus of “oooh.”

Jiang Jianbin, hearing Li Kuiyi’s name, sobered up a little, and summoned some of his usual authority, his expression sharpening: “And how exactly has she made your world better?”

He Youyuan said innocently: “She comes to the blackboard every week to walk us through problems — it’s really improved my math grades.”

Another collective sound of disdain rippled through the room.

At this point, most people were half-convinced, half-skeptical — they thought there might be something there between the two of them, and yet when they thought about it carefully, surely there couldn’t be. But a few days later, when the class graduation photo was distributed, everyone saw He Youyuan standing behind Li Kuiyi, and quite matter-of-factly holding two fingers over her head, like two little ears.

The provincial college entrance exam scores were to be released at noon on the twenty-fourth of June. As that date drew closer, the anxiety among students steadily rose. Fang Zhixiao messaged Li Kuiyi to say she had no appetite for food or drink these days, and even romance novels had lost their appeal.

On the evening of the twenty-third, Li Kuiyi accepted Fang Zhixiao’s invitation and went to spend the night at her house, with plans to check results together the following noon. Fang Zhixiao clung to Li Kuiyi with both hands and feet wrapped around her like a koala bear, trembling as she said: “I can’t take it — I’m so nervous. There’s no way I’ll sleep tonight.”

Ten minutes later, Li Kuiyi heard the sound of Fang Zhixiao’s steady, peaceful breathing beside her ear.

“……”

This is what you call nervous?

Li Kuiyi herself ended up tossing and turning in the dark room, unable to sleep, with the sensation that her dreams were close at hand and yet impossibly far away. She had no idea when she finally fell asleep. The next morning at six, she was awake again, eyes aching slightly from the lack of sleep — but when she closed them, sleep wouldn’t come back.

Fang Zhixiao’s hands and feet had shifted back onto her body. She gently moved them aside and climbed carefully out of bed to go to the bathroom. Just then, the phone she had left on the headboard lit up — a call coming in, with no name displayed. Li Kuiyi wasn’t in the habit of answering calls from unknown numbers, but this number had a Beijing area code, and her heart seized. With trembling hands, she picked up the phone.

“Hello……”

At a little past eight, Fang Zhixiao finally stretched herself awake, bleary and dazed from sleep — and the first thing she saw upon opening her eyes was Li Kuiyi sitting cross-legged on the bed, completely still, staring at her. She was so startled that she shot upright, shouting: “What are you doing just staring at me first thing in the morning?”

Li Kuiyi just smiled at her: “Peking University called me.”

Fang Zhixiao blinked, and then it hit her all at once. She couldn’t hold it in — she let out a scream: “AHHHH——”

That one scream successfully summoned Fang Zhixiao’s entire family. Her mother and father came crashing through the door, bursting into her bedroom in a panic: “What happened? What happened?” Her grandmother poked her head in more slowly: “What’s wrong with my darling?”

Fang Zhixiao pointed at Li Kuiyi and shouted: “Peking University called her!”

“AHHHH——” The whole family erupted at once, voices overlapping: “Peking University called? Then she must be the provincial top scorer, right? I remember — Peking University and Tsinghua only ever call top scorers…”

Li Kuiyi shook her head with a smile: “The admissions office teacher didn’t say my ranking outright — only that I was in the top thirty, and that they’d like to meet with me this morning at ten to talk about programs.”

“Oh my goodness!” Fang Zhixiao’s mother slapped her thigh. “If they’re asking to meet, it means it’s settled! A meeting like this is definitely to discuss scholarships and things. Come on — up you get, wash your face and brush your teeth, and let Auntie do your makeup, get you looking beautiful.”

“Hmm.” Fang Zhixiao’s father disagreed. “Why makeup? The admissions office definitely prefers simple, unpretentious students. Don’t get carried away.”

After some spirited debating, Li Kuiyi walked out the door looking exactly as she always did — though Fang Zhixiao’s mother had combed every strand of her hair into perfect order, and the hair tie around her ponytail had been fastened with impeccable neatness.

Walking her into the meeting with the admissions teachers were Chen Guoming and Jiang Jianbin, both with faces practically cracked from smiling. Truthfully, it was mostly the two teachers who spoke — it was only when the conversation turned to programs and future direction that Li Kuiyi said a few things.

They even stayed to eat together at midday. Watching the time reach noon, Li Kuiyi excused herself to the bathroom and leaned against the sink, phone in hand, messaging Fang Zhixiao: “Any luck — scores up yet?”

After sending it, she opened her conversation with He Youyuan: “Scores up yet?”

She wasn’t playing favorites with Fang Zhixiao — it was just that He Youyuan already had his letter of admission from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and his ranking there was quite high. The pressure of the academic exams wasn’t as heavy on him. He Youyuan had pushed himself hard in the final stretch before the exams — it was probably because he didn’t want the gap between their scores to be too wide. The truth was, she already knew.

Neither of them replied for a while. Li Kuiyi was beside herself with impatience.

After a little while.

He Youyuan: Guess.

Li Kuiyi: …Stop being mysterious.

He Youyuan: Not bad — 3,856th in the province.

Li Kuiyi let out a breath of relief, and sent him several “fireworks” emoticons.

He Youyuan: What about you? What place are you actually?

Li Kuiyi: Guess.

He Youyuan: …Petty.

Li Kuiyi: My ranking has been withheld from the public display.

He Youyuan: Did the admissions teacher tell you privately?

Li Kuiyi: Yes — first in the province.

He Youyuan was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly called her, his voice shaking with excitement: “You got first in the province? Wait — you actually got first in the province? What was your score? Li Kuiyi, you’re actually this incredible? So now that you’ve gotten first in the province — will you still like me?”

Li Kuiyi: “……”

When the results were officially confirmed, the night sky above Yizhong blazed with fireworks in celebration — the top provincial scorer had come from their school. Fireworks were technically prohibited, but on an occasion like this, everyone tacitly chose to look the other way. Even the property management at the Yuying Yuan residential complex had strung up a banner at the front gate, reading: Warm Congratulations to Yuying Yuan Resident Li Kuiyi on Achieving Top Score in the 2016 Provincial Humanities Examinations. The complex residents’ group chat erupted into a cascade of messages: Joy! Waiting for property values to soar!

Two days later, Li Kuiyi was invited back to school to share her study experience with younger students. As it happened, the school computer lab had also opened the university application filing system during these two days. After He Youyuan submitted his application, he turned and headed straight to the school’s main auditorium. He had just slipped in through the back door when he saw Qi Yu walking off the stage while Li Kuiyi walked on — the two of them passing each other. He was overjoyed, because Li Kuiyi was wearing the little white dress he had bought her on his birthday.

She had a kind of serene, unaffected beauty.

Her familiar voice came through the sound system — clear and clean — and He Youyuan was suddenly carried back in time. That was the opening ceremony of his first year at Yizhong. She had been wearing her military training uniform, perfectly upright, her hair gathered in a short, neat little ponytail at the back of her head. Now, that ponytail had grown so long.

From fifteen to eighteen — it felt like they had barely changed, and yet somehow they had genuinely grown up.

Just as he was watching her, her gaze too crossed the shifting sea of heads and found him.

He Youyuan couldn’t help smiling at her — and then a small mischief took hold of him. He kept blinking at her in an exaggerated, ridiculous way, pulling faces and making funny expressions to mess with her — and he watched the girl on stage fighting with everything she had to keep her face straight, her voice steady, as she resolutely looked away and refused to look at him again.

Alright — he’d stop. If he actually made her laugh, that would be a problem.

At this moment, Qi Yu — who had come down from the stage — walked over and stood with him in the corner of the auditorium, both of them looking at the girl on stage.

“She’s someone who shines, isn’t she?” He Youyuan said.

Qi Yu said nothing. After a moment, he quietly looked down.

Near the end of the sharing session, Qi Yu left first. Afterward, Li Kuiyi came down from the stage, and the two of them walked side by side toward the school gate. She was carrying a bag in her hand — it looked like there was a gift inside.

“What’s that?” He Youyuan asked.

“Today is Zhou Fanghua’s birthday, and this is her gift. She came in to file her application, so this is a good chance to give it to her.”

“Ah.” He Youyuan paused. “Qi Yu came to share as well?”

“Yes — twenty-second in the province, which is also a very good result.” Li Kuiyi looked at him. “You’re not going to be jealous of that too, are you?”

“Who’s jealous? I was just asking.”

Li Kuiyi lifted her skirt hem slightly: “Didn’t you buy this dress because you were jealous?”

He Youyuan broke into a slow, lazy smile: “When I bought it for you, I wasn’t thinking of him at all — I was only thinking of you.”

Oh.

Li Kuiyi’s face went faintly pink.

“So you won’t go around being jealous for no reason anymore?”

“Of course not.” He Youyuan had both hands in his pockets, perfectly at ease.

Li Kuiyi blinked: “I just found out that Qi Yu’s first-choice school is also Peking University.”

He Youyuan: “……”

Well. His vinegar jar had tipped over again.

Li Kuiyi looked at his expression settling into displeasure, and sighed with resignation.

She looked up and saw Zhou Fanghua standing under a tree not far away, waiting for her. She said to He Youyuan: “Wait for me by the stone bridge, will you? I’ll give Zhou Fanghua her gift and then come find you.”

“Fine.” He said, unhappily.

Li Kuiyi walked quickly to Zhou Fanghua and held out the gift with both hands: “Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.” Zhou Fanghua gave a small, quiet smile.

“Did you put in your first choice for Jiaotong University?”

“Yes.” Zhou Fanghua nodded. “The eight-year medical program.”

“So if I ever go to Shanghai to visit, I can come find you.”

Zhou Fanghua pressed her lips into a smile: “I might not even get in.”

“Your ranking is very safe.”

The two held hands and talked for a little while, then shared a light embrace.

“Until next time.”

“Until next time.”

After waving goodbye to Zhou Fanghua, Li Kuiyi glanced toward He Youyuan at the stone bridge.

Ah. One more sulking dog left to coax.

She ran toward him, and Zhou Fanghua stood behind her, watching quietly.

The skirt of youth billowed in flight — like a gust of wind untethered from age.

And her not-particularly-dazzling, seventeen-year-old self — in the ever-shifting, blurred silhouette of a tree seen through a classroom window, day after day — had quietly, and at last, come to its end.