Fang Zhuo took the phone and, for no particular reason, slipped away to the empty balcony, crouched down in a corner, and after much deliberation sent Yan Lie a single character:

“Ding.”

Yan Lie was standing in the dreary, relentless rain, chilled to the bone, unable to get a full breath. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket but did not immediately take it out. He continued with his gaze lowered, watching people hurry through the rain below.

He assumed it was an advertisement message. But out of sheer boredom, after a while he fished it out and looked — and found, to his surprise, that it had come from Ye Yuncheng’s phone.

It did not even qualify as a question. Just that one character, and yet it seemed to have crossed several dozen li of distance and pressed a pause on his world.

Fang Zhuo must have a remote control for his emotions somewhere in her hands.

Yan Lie smiled, fingers moving quickly.

Yan Lie: That’s going to cost you a fen, you know.

Fang Zhuo’s expression darkened. She almost slammed the phone down and walked away.

This person and his words.

Yan Lie tapped his fingers, knowing that if he did not quickly send something with actual substance, the other party would likely vanish on the spot.

Yan Lie: So what question is worth a fen of preamble?

One minute later.

Fang Zhuo: Uncle is asking, when can you return the mattress?

Yan Lie: No need. They’re not staying there, and even if it’s gone they won’t know.

Fang Zhuo’s expression tangled. She was deliberating over whether to reply “oh” when another message popped up.

Yan Lie: That’s two fen now.

Fang Zhuo wanted to throw the phone directly at his face.

Why was he urging her along? It made her feel as though she were squandering money, which made her very anxious.

Fang Zhuo typed slowly and was not comfortable with the keyboard — she had to search for each letter of every syllable from start to finish. So whenever she typed, she always wore an expression of profound suffering and deep grudge.

But waiting for her replies was something Yan Lie found genuinely interesting. Because every single character was the result of her careful deliberation; she was even more focused when sending messages than she was when studying.

Yan Lie turned around, put his back to the window, and pressed his hand — red from the cold, already stiff and difficult to bend — against his face. With his other hand he kept scrolling the screen at intervals so the display would not dim.

This time the reply came unexpectedly fast.

Fang Zhuo: You’re unhappy.

She was too indifferent even to type a question mark.

Yan Lie: Why?

This time the wait was longer.

Fang Zhuo: ? How would I know why you’d be unhappy to see your father? But I’m also unhappy when I see Mr. Fang, for reasons you know. If you feel like telling me, I won’t mind, and I’ll delete the messages right away so no one else can see them. You can trust my integrity.

Yan Lie held his fingers suspended above the screen, deliberating for a long time without pressing anything.

What was there to say?

His life was comfortable; his family structure was intact. His parents were often away from home, but they had never left him wanting for money. The conflicts and unhappiness had stopped somewhere more than a decade ago, and even the adults had long since moved past them without a second thought, facing a new life ahead.

Compared to Fang Zhuo, his despondency seemed so weak.

He did not want Fang Zhuo to think he was the kind of person who clung to petty grievances.

As he lingered in indecision, Yan Lie’s mother pushed the door open and called his name, saying they were about to leave.

“What are you doing? You’ve been standing out here so long,” she said. “What time is your class this afternoon?”

Yan Lie finally typed a reply in the message box and said: “I have to head back to school now.”

Yan Lie’s mother said, half complaining: “Why did you run out here to play on your phone?”

The middle-aged man happened to walk out just then, and on hearing this teased: “Are you seeing someone? A good-looking young man like you must be very popular at school.”

Yan Lie’s father, standing behind him, seemed to recall something. His expression shifted, and he said with a laugh: “What does a Year Twelve student have time for romance? And with that brooding temperament of his — what girl would like someone as dull as him?”

Yan Lie pocketed his phone, walked toward them, and smiled without comment.

Fang Zhuo helped Ye Yuncheng tidy things up a bit, and once the rain stopped, she took the bus back to school.

By the time she reached the classroom, Yan Lie was already inside.

He appeared to be in low spirits. He was turning a pen in his fingers, sitting listlessly, and occasionally glancing back toward the classroom doorway.

When Fang Zhuo arrived, she had caught a glimpse in passing — Yan Lie’s father was in the office speaking with their homeroom teacher. Yan Lie was probably watching to see when he would leave.

Fang Zhuo set down her bag and asked: “Did you eat?”

Yan Lie turned back and said: “Not enough.”

See. Fang Zhuo thought. Even knowing full well that he had just come from a meal, “Did you eat?” was still a universally reliable topic.

“There were a few ingredients left over that we didn’t sell. I prepared them and brought them along.” Fang Zhuo pulled out two rice balls and held them up to try to tell them apart — and realized she could not. So she simply held them out in front of Yan Lie and let him choose first.

“One is savory-spicy sauce flavor, one is chili-spicy flavor. It’s down to your luck.”

Yan Lie randomly grabbed one and grinned: “I’ve always been lucky.”

Yan Lie’s father — with that height and presence of his — was imposing even seated.

He relaxed his posture, straightened his jacket, and introduced himself: “Hello, Teacher. My name is Yan Chengli.”

The homeroom teacher responded warmly: “Hello, hello. My surname is Gao.”

Yan Chengli said: “I’m sorry — we’re usually too busy and don’t live in City A. I’ll have to trouble you to look after Yan Lie.”

The homeroom teacher poured him a cup of hot tea and said politely: “Yan Lie is exceptionally well-behaved — there’s no need for the teachers to worry about him at all. On the contrary, he has helped us a great deal. With him around, the boys in our class have become much easier to manage.”

Yan Chengli accepted the cup with both hands and set it at the corner of the desk. He asked: “He’s in Year Twelve now — how are his grades? Is his state of mind holding up?”

“Very well,” said the homeroom teacher, smiling. “I’m not exaggerating when I say: as long as he maintains his current performance, he can apply to whichever major or university he likes. He already has a very clear plan for the future.”

Yan Chengli nodded: “So the prerequisite is that he maintains his performance.”

The homeroom teacher rifled through a transcript tucked inside a folder, intending to show it to him. She said reassuringly: “Please don’t worry. Yan Lie knows what matters. He is considerably more mature than most of his peers. With half a year to go, I don’t foresee any problems.”

Yan Chengli shifted his posture, clasping both hands together on his lap. His tone became somewhat more serious as he asked: “Is his current seatmate a girl?”

The homeroom teacher paused in her movements, withdrew her hand, and sat back down. Her expression remained unchanged. “You mean Fang Zhuo? She is the most hardworking student in our class.”

Yan Chengli considered for a moment, then said tactfully: “I understand that A High School naturally hopes as many students as possible will achieve good results. But, as a parent, I am being rather selfish in hoping that my own child can keep his attention focused on a single goal.”

The homeroom teacher said: “Yan Lie’s father, I think perhaps you are being a bit strict. They’re Year Twelve students — most of them are already eighteen years old. They are not children who don’t know anything. Whether they sit fifty centimeters, one meter, or three meters apart, that won’t be what causes anyone to go astray.”

“It is only a suggestion,” Yan Chengli said slowly, with a hesitancy that suggested even he was not entirely certain. “They are seatmates — sitting together in class, boarding at school together. That kind of proximity is a little too close.”

He had seen the brightness in Yan Lie’s face as he came out of the cafeteria. He had also seen the droop of his spirits as he watched his classmate get out of the car.

As a father who was not particularly qualified for the role, he sometimes found Yan Lie a complete stranger to him, and at other times could read his thoughts with a single glance. Perhaps that was simply the marvel of genetics.

Fang Zhuo told Yan Lie to break open the rice ball first to see what flavor it was. He bit into it without hesitation.

With a fifty-fifty chance, he had picked the chili-spicy one — the one he could not eat.

Yan Lie’s expression curdled. He felt his bad luck pressing in.

He reached forward and tugged on the hood of the person sitting in front of him, saying: “Cake, it’s spicy — yours.”

Shen Musi turned around, took it from his hand, and sighed with an expression of great suffering: “Alright, alright. Is it not a father’s destiny to polish off everything his children don’t like eating?”

Yan Lie said: “In that case give it back — I’ll take it to my eldest son, Youyou.”

Shen Musi loudly refused: “No!”

Fang Zhuo placed the other, still-unopened rice ball on his desk. Generously, she said: “Eat this one.”

Yan Lie was about to say there was no need — he was not actually that hungry — when he heard Fang Zhuo say: “Isn’t a seatmate there precisely to return you the good luck you missed out on? Stop moping. Eat.”

Yan Lie swallowed back everything he had been about to say and silently opened the wrapper. When he was halfway through it, he came back to Fang Zhuo: “No, wait — that’s not really what a seatmate is for.”

Fang Zhuo set down the problem she was working on and shrugged: “Whoever it comes from — does it matter?”

The homeroom teacher walked in with papers tucked under her arm and said: “Yan Lie, swap seats with Shen Musi.”

Shen Musi and Fang Zhuo both looked up in startled confusion. Yan Lie flatly refused: “No.”

His tone was firm. The homeroom teacher did not press the matter; she acted as though nothing had happened and had the papers distributed.

This was the outcome of a back-and-forth between a student and a parent. She was only a homeroom teacher with no real authority.

Yan Lie pressed his pen hard against the paper with a sharp stroke, and his expression remained tight for the rest of the time.

Straight-and-narrow boy, Fang Zhuo thought privately. Really not easy to comfort.