In less than two class periods, the news of Ban Sheng’s words on Liu Sijia’s behalf had spread to every corner of the school, with a growing tendency to spiral further out of control. For a time, rumors about the two of them erupted from all directions.
Things like: “So Ban Sheng has feelings for Liu Sijia all along — no surprise, their family backgrounds are comparable and they’re both good-looking, what a perfect match”; or: “I knew there was something between them — notice how Ban Sheng never looks at anyone else? Now we know it’s because of Liu Sijia.”
“I literally saw the two of them together off campus just the other day!”
The rumors grew more exaggerated with each retelling. Bystanders were practically trawling through both of their social accounts to find evidence of mutual contact, ready to treat even a single glance between them on campus as proof of a relationship.
Yet the people in question remained unmoved. Ban Sheng continued to spend time at the observatory or playing basketball, while Liu Sijia went about her days surrounded by her usual group of girls, smartly declining to issue a single statement about the matter.
But she also didn’t deny anything.
During the recess exercises, the school was at its liveliest. The corridors were filled with the sounds of students chasing and laughing, punctuated by the occasional sharp reprimand from a teacher.
Liu Sijia and Lin Weixia leaned against the railing for a breath of fresh air. Liu Sijia held a bottle of yogurt and sipped at it from time to time, looking at Lin Weixia standing beside her — reading a mystery novel, long hair falling to her waist, her profile still and serene.
Liu Sijia’s gaze moved to the name badge on the left side of Lin Weixia’s chest, and she remembered something: “Where did you finally find your name badge?”
“I didn’t find it. Ban Sheng sold it to me.” Lin Weixia kept her finger on the page she was reading and looked up to answer.
Liu Sijia’s expression was complicated for a moment, then smoothed back to normal: “Oh, him. Then it makes sense. Ban Sheng is extremely shrewd.”
“That person — he’s smart and calculating. He started figuring out how to use whatever resources he had to make money very early on. You’d think he needs the money — but he doesn’t need it at all. I genuinely can’t figure him out.”
The moment Ban Sheng came up, Liu Sijia’s habitual haughtiness eased down several notches, and something like admiration settled onto her face. Seeing this, Lin Weixia made a rare joke:
“The more mysterious someone is, the more captivating they become, right? Though I heard that this morning—”
“Don’t say it.” Liu Sijia immediately reached over to cover her mouth. A faint blush rose on her cheeks, barely visible.
The two leaned against the railing in the breeze for a while before going back inside. Once Lin Weixia returned to her seat, she discovered that the physics quiz from the previous week had been handed back.
Since Lin Weixia had transferred in mid-term, she hadn’t sat the quiz; a kind class representative had left a blank copy on her desk.
Before the teacher arrived, the classroom was as chaotic as ever — books being thrown, papers being handed around. She glanced sideways: Ning Chao’s physics score blazed in an eye-watering red that was difficult to look at, and the person himself was sound asleep without a care.
When Liu Sijia passed through the fourth column aisle, she gave him a withering look before continuing to her own seat, hands clasped behind her back. She had gone in through the back door on purpose, in truth — to walk past Ban Sheng’s desk.
Even if it was just to look at him for a moment.
Lin Weixia sat down and started working on the blank copy of the exam.
She was concentrating on the questions when a shadow fell across the edge of the paper — someone walked past and pulled out a chair, sitting down behind her.
Qiu Minghua immediately spun around and snatched Ban Sheng’s physics exam paper from his hands. He stared at it for three seconds, his mouth dropping into an O-shape, and burst out in an expletive: “What the — 98 points. Some of us are trying to live out here!”
Ban Sheng paid him no attention at all. He was pressing down the tab of a can of Seven-Up — click — then tipping it entirely into a cup filled with ice and sliced lemon. Tiny bubbles surged upward in a rush.
“Incredible,” Qiu Minghua was still marveling, when he glanced over and spotted what Ban Sheng was doing. “Since when do you drink salted lemon seven-up? Isn’t that stuff salty?”
Lin Weixia was in the middle of drawing a friction force diagram. The tip of her pen veered — a straight line went suddenly crooked.
Seeing that Ban Sheng was ignoring him, Qiu Minghua refused to put the physics paper down. “What kind of brain do you even have? The whole paper you only lost two points — and only because your handwriting is so messy and sprawling that your 2 looked like a 3. Otherwise you’d have had a perfect score!”
“Do you have any tricks you could share, my friend?”
“Drink more milk,” Ban Sheng replied.
Qiu Minghua stared at him in complete exasperation. How could someone deliver the most half-hearted answer in existence in the most deadpan tone imaginable?
Lin Weixia decided to stop listening and redirected her full attention to the exam paper in front of her. After finishing, she checked her answers and reviewed her mistakes. She found that Shengao’s tests were somewhat harder than she had expected — they were no longer the straightforward application of learned concepts, but designed instead to train students’ thinking and expand their perspectives.
And this, once again, confirmed that Ban Sheng’s mind was exceptional. Remarkably so.
After the incident over tying hair at morning assembly, Liu Sijia and Li Shengran entered into a cold war and quickly drew their lines. Friendships among girls worked in that peculiar way — some defected to one side, others continued to stand with Liu Sijia.
On the whole, the Liu Sijia faction clearly had the upper hand; more people supported her. Li Shengran no longer held sway in the class the way she once had, and was beginning to experience what it felt like to be cold-shouldered. Gone was her former ability to command people at will — now some were quietly targeting her, giving her the cold shoulder, or letting their displeasure show openly.
Liu Sijia began bringing Lin Weixia’s lunch every day, and the two of them appeared in the cafeteria together punctually at noon. The others already had private grievances about Liu Sijia lowering herself to spend time with an F-student, and these were growing.
The two went to and from school together, ate meals together, inseparable.
Liu Sijia was vivid and bold — like a proud black swan. Lin Weixia had a cool, quiet quality — like a small cluster of flowers opening on a cactus: white, soft.
Because of the two of them, the model of an A-student and an F-student becoming genuine friends was, for the first time, demonstrated to exist. But within Shengao, beyond these two, the A-students and F-students in that fiercely competitive environment still lived entirely separate lives, never touching.
Lin Weixia was beginning to adjust to life at Shengao, though not yet fully — she still only half understood the ecology of the place. During a break period, Lin Weixia took an armful of papers to the teachers’ office and returned to the noisy classroom.
She spotted Liu Sijia immediately, sitting at Lin Weixia’s own desk, her expression quietly forlorn. Someone who walked past had wanted to come over and check on her, but was waved away by Liu Sijia’s eyes.
She was letting no one close.
Lin Weixia quickened her steps and asked softly: “What’s wrong?”
Liu Sijia lifted her face from where it had been buried in the crook of her arm. Her eyes were unmistakably red-rimmed: “He—”
Lin Weixia understood without being told. The only person who could trouble Liu Sijia like this was Ban Sheng. And yet just two days ago she had been riding high on the tide of rumors, chatting with Lin Weixia about what brand of lighter Ban Sheng used — Dunhill or Zorro — and saying she’d get one for herself too.
But within the span of a single class period, something had shifted.
Lin Weixia followed Liu Sijia’s gaze and looked out the window. Ban Sheng was leaning against the corridor railing with unhurried ease, one hand in his pocket. From somewhere, he had produced a remote-controlled drone, and his other hand held the controller.
Ban Sheng’s drone swept on his behalf through every corner of the school grounds, while Qiu Minghua beat the railing excitedly beside him: “Ban Sheng, fly it farther — see if it can find my basketball in some ditch somewhere.”
Lin Weixia shifted her gaze slightly. Standing beside the boy was a girl — judging by her appearance, a senior student. She wore the school uniform, her skin very fair, her figure notable.
Most significantly: the girl reached out, caught his sleeve, and with a raised eyebrow, dangled a can of cola in front of him.
Liu Sijia watched the two of them with absolute fixation, bracing herself for what Ban Sheng would do next.
Ban Sheng simply shoved the remote into Qiu Minghua’s arms, reached out with his right hand to take the cola, his articulate fingers closing over the silver tab, and bent his long neck to listen to what the girl was saying — his posture entirely relaxed.
The girl rose higher and higher on her tiptoes, until her lips were nearly grazing his ear—
Click. A rush of bubbles raced upward.
Ban Sheng had opened the cold can of cola.
The girl stumbled back in startled retreat. But something in Liu Sijia had snapped too.
A moment later, Qiu Minghua shouted “the dean is coming!” The glass window reflected the shadows of several people bolting for their lives. Students throughout the class gathered in small groups and filed out for physical education.
Gradually, the classroom was left with only two people.
Liu Sijia blew her nose and began to speak: “I’ve had feelings for him for a long time.”
Lin Weixia’s expression shifted, surprised by Liu Sijia’s directness. Because a girl as proud and exceptional as Liu Sijia would not lightly use the word “feelings” out loud.
The word “feelings” — secret, one-sided — implied being the humble side, the one who had conceded defeat.
“Ban Sheng — his looks, his family background, all first-rate. His mind moves faster than anyone else his age, and whatever he does he does to the fullest. He’s composed, never impulsive — whether with people or with situations, he handles everything thoughtfully. He’s nothing like other boys who crack crude jokes and go through that tiresome phase of teenage posturing.
“He has an expansive view of the world. He’s passionate about astronomy and has taught himself a great deal about astrophysics. One summer, I heard he went alone to an observatory in the northwestern desert to observe the stars — stayed two months in that parched, dust-blown climate just to find one particular star. Incredible, right? Meanwhile I can’t even read a star coordinate chart, let alone any of those physics formulas. He swims regularly, so I started learning too — and the first time I got in the water, I nearly choked to death…”
“I feel like I’ll never be able to keep up with him.”
Lin Weixia took Liu Sijia’s hand in hers: “Sijia, I’m not very good at comforting people, but—”
The four words “don’t force it” hadn’t made it out yet when Liu Sijia suddenly cut her off:
“Weixia — could you help me pursue him?”
Liu Sijia’s eyes were full of hope and longing.