By the time Gu Qiao was sixteen years old, her family had become the most prosperous in the entire village. They had the finest tile-roofed house in the village, but Lou Deyu was still not satisfied — he dreamed of building a proper multi-story house. He pointed to a castle in a picture book and told his daughters: someday our family will live in a house like this, just like the kind princesses live in in fairy tales.

Gu Qiao’s younger little sister was content with what they had. She tapped her little head with one finger, thought carefully, and told her father: a house as big as a castle would be such a bother to clean for Mama and Dad — let’s just stay in the house we have now.

After Lou Deyu made his fortune, the other people in the village suddenly discovered his existence. Gu Qiao’s great-great-uncle wanted to restore the Gu family ancestral hall and kept coming to find Lou Deyu, asking him to contribute funds. If not for Gu Qiao’s grandmother holding him back, Lou Deyu would have thrown the great-great-uncle out: “You’re redoing the family genealogy and my children’s names aren’t even in it — and now you want me to fund your ancestral hall?”

The great-great-uncle stroked his beard leisurely and said slowly: “It is the old ancestral rule that women may not be entered into the family genealogy. However, now that we live in a new era, if the girls were to be admitted to university, an exception to the genealogy is not out of the question — only at present…”

Lou Deyu replied: let’s wait until the exception happens, then.

The previous year, Gu Qiao had taken the middle school entrance examination. Her grades ordinarily weren’t at the very top, but during the exam, by some stroke of luck she scored well enough to be admitted to a provincial technical secondary school. At that time, the admission cutoff for technical secondary schools was actually higher than for regular high schools — to say nothing of a provincial-level one. Gu Qiao was tempted. After all, technical secondary school graduates were assigned jobs directly. There was even a living stipend during the studies. Three years of high school, on the other hand — if you didn’t get into a university afterward, the outcome would be far inferior to the technical school route.

Gu Qiao’s grandmother very much wanted Gu Qiao to attend the technical secondary school. She felt Gu Qiao had worked so hard already. If she didn’t take this path and chose high school instead, she’d have to endure three more years of hardship — and still might not get into a university. Why bother? Good fortune doesn’t come knocking every day. This chance had to be seized.

But Lou Deyu was dead set on having Gu Qiao go to university — both for his own and for Gu Jingshu’s pride. Of course they were capable of raising a child who could get into university. He had money; he didn’t need his daughter to rely on a school stipend. He believed in her future even more than she did herself.

Lou Deyu persuaded his mother-in-law: “Good grades on an ordinary day don’t prove anything — a big exam shows what you’re really made of. That Da’Qiao scored this well on the middle school entrance exam shows not only that she has real ability, but also good fortune. To accomplish great things, hard work and good luck are both essential. I can see she has the timing on her side — getting into university is absolutely within reach.”

After so much discussion at home, the decision was ultimately left to Gu Qiao herself. She chose high school in the end. While a direct job placement after technical secondary school was appealing, those particular jobs were not what she wanted. She was filled with curiosity about the world and longed to go and see a bigger city.

Ever since returning from her little auntie’s home, the only contact between Gu Qiao’s family and her little auntie was at the New Year. Each year, her little auntie would mail a sum of holiday money to Grandmother, and the family would send her little auntie a package of local specialties in return, along with a brief letter — something simple, just noting that life at home was getting better and better.

In the first two years, Gu Qiao had insisted on writing letters to her older cousin as well. Each letter exhausted every single character she knew. For the ones she wanted to write but didn’t know yet, she substituted with phonetic spelling. Using the colored pencils her mother had bought her, she carefully and neatly filled three whole pages of letter paper — every character she had learned at school alongside the phonetic transcriptions, all packed densely onto the pages. The letters were full of the happy life she had in the countryside. Between the characters and phonetic spelling, joy radiated from every line. She invited her older cousin to come to the countryside and play with her: fishing, mountain climbing, swimming…

Gu Qiao extended the invitation for three years. Over those years, the phonetic spelling in her letters grew fewer and fewer, and the characters she knew grew more each day, and her handwriting grew more beautiful. But in those three years her older cousin never came, not even once. He didn’t even write back a single letter. The only thing that came was a toy with each year’s holiday money from her little auntie: a toy train with tracks, a castle puzzle…

In the fourth year after meeting her older cousin, Gu Qiao stopped writing to him. She supposed her older cousin simply didn’t want to come to her home. She also stopped mentioning this older cousin to her family. Slowly, he faded from her memory.

Lou Deyu had originally wanted to take his two daughters to the capital to see it, but in those two years, Gu Qiao’s grandfather’s health had been failing steadily. By the time her grandfather passed away at the beginning of the year, the trip had still not been made.

During the summer holiday of Gu Qiao’s first year of high school, Lou Deyu not only added a large speaker system to the household and replaced the sofa with a bigger one, but also bought a splendid new motorcycle — larger and more impressive than the secondhand one he had owned before.

One day in August, Gu Qiao rode on Lou Deyu’s motorcycle to the county town, along with their neighbor Cuicui, who was a few years older than her. Cuicui had been raised by her grandmother. The year she finished middle school, she didn’t pass the entrance exam for the tuition-free teachers’ school, and there was no money to continue on to high school. Then her grandmother fell ill, so she stayed home to care for her and helped with some farming and needlework on the side.

Gu Qiao’s whole family — from Grandmother all the way to her little sister — were very happy to help this pair of neighbors. When they made dumplings or braised ribs at home, they would often send some over. The neighbors were unwilling to simply accept the Gu family’s kindness without reciprocating: when the toon tree in the yard grew fresh shoots, or when the apricot tree bore apricots, they would bring some to the Gu family. In summer, Cuicui made sachets for repelling heat and insects and gave one to each member of the Gu family.

When Gu Qiao saw those sachets, she couldn’t help but admire them, and a business idea immediately sprang into her mind. She suggested that Cuicui make some and go sell them at the county town train station. In the future, if business grew, she might even open a factory. Gu Qiao often read news stories about rural entrepreneurs in the newspapers and readily set about daydreaming on Cuicui’s behalf about the road to prosperity. When Gu Qiao painted pictures of the future for someone, she did so with absolute conviction. Cuicui believed her, bought a great deal of materials, and worked from before dawn to after dark making sachets.

A great many mosquito- and heat-repelling sachets were made — but selling them turned out to be the problem. Cuicui was a very gentle and refined person who spoke in a permanently soft voice. Hawking goods out in public was entirely beyond her. Gu Qiao felt that since the idea had been hers, she might as well see it through. She had nothing to do over the summer holiday in any case — she might as well help Cuicui, and pick up some knowledge of doing business along the way. She had been fascinated by earning money and doing business since childhood.

These days, the most admired path in the area was to study your way into a government job. As for businesspeople like Lou Deyu, though his television, refrigerator, and washing machine made the villagers green with envy, behind his back they dismissed him as “speculating and profiteering.” Lou Deyu spent his days cursing those who looked down on his trading as people suffering from red-eyed envy, and as for those who had more formal education than he did, he called them all “useless bookworms” — every one of them far beneath him.

He said these things, yet in his heart he was wholly determined to raise Gu Qiao into precisely that “useless bookworm” — not a businessperson like himself. When he heard that Gu Qiao wanted to go to the train station to peddle small goods, he was absolutely opposed: “In this blazing heat, instead of staying home, you want to run around outside doing what exactly? We’ve got a refrigerator and an electric fan at home — why not sit inside with your sister, eat popsicles and enjoy the fan? If you have spare time, reading a few more books is the sensible thing to do. The family doesn’t need you to earn money. Getting into a university beats everything!”

Gu Qiao argued back: you hate Great-Great-Uncle the most — how come you’re saying the exact same things he says? I don’t see it that way. Running a business is a great field of learning in its own right. I think you’re not the least bit inferior to people who went to school and graduated from university. Studying is learning — and isn’t selling things also a form of learning?

Though Lou Deyu had been argued down, he was argued down in a way that satisfied him completely. Not bad at all — he ran a business and was absolutely no worse than a certain someone who had gone to university. Since Gu Qiao saw it that way, he might as well reluctantly agree to take her.

On the motorcycle ride to the county town, Gu Qiao kept asking Lou Deyu about the secrets of doing business. Lou Deyu didn’t actually care whether she earned much or little — what mattered most was safety. He had business to see to himself and couldn’t accompany Gu Qiao to the train station. Train stations had all kinds of people and all kinds of trouble. He told Gu Qiao: if you run into any troublemakers, avoid them. Whatever you do, don’t get into a confrontation with them. If anything happens, wait until he got to the train station to meet up with her and they’d deal with it together.

At the train station entrance, Gu Qiao enthusiastically promoted Cuicui’s sachets, sweating so much that her bangs were soaked flat. Cuicui started out soft-spoken, but was gradually caught up in Gu Qiao’s energy, and her own voice grew louder and louder. In nearly a full afternoon, with Gu Qiao’s help, Cuicui earned ten yuan — a figure that already satisfied her. The sun was close to setting. Lou Deyu would soon be coming to the train station to bring them home. Cuicui was planning to wait for Lou Deyu to arrive and then take two jiao out of the earnings to treat Gu Qiao and her father to a red bean popsicle each.

But Gu Qiao felt it was far from enough. She was determined to sell every last sachet in the basket. It was a small county town, though, and people were generally reluctant to spend money on something so impractical.

“Cuicui, let’s go sell on the platform. There’s a train heading to the capital that’s about to pull in — it stops here for five minutes.”

Gu Qiao had experience riding trains in the summer. She knew there was only one fan at the top of each car, and it might even be broken. Passengers on the train, in search of a breeze, would for the most part open the windows. Even if no one got off, she could shout loudly enough to send her voice through the open windows into the car — there was no telling who might be interested.

At the small county train station, there was no real ticket-checking to speak of, and Gu Qiao got herself waved onto the platform under the pretext of meeting someone. On the platform with her were vendors selling large savory pancakes, twisted flatbreads, floral steamed buns, yellow wine, and roast chicken. Gu Qiao had eaten lunch, but after an entire afternoon of hawking goods with full energy, the smell of roast chicken now drifted into her nose and she suddenly felt hungry again. She took a deep breath and waited for the next train to arrive.

She estimated her father would be coming to get her before long. When he arrived, she could ride home on his motorcycle and have dinner.

The moment the train pulled in, Gu Qiao began calling out loudly to promote the mosquito- and heat-repelling sachets in her basket. Things went smoothly — in just over three minutes she sold six, and not one of the buyers bargained at all. While she was still hawking, a young man came up and asked her how much the sachets were, then picked up the remaining ones to look them over.

“Too expensive — can you go any lower?”

Gu Qiao was in the middle of explaining why the sachets were worth their price, when the young man grabbed a fistful of sachets from her basket and in two or three quick strides bolted up onto the train.

Gu Qiao stood frozen for two seconds before she realized what had happened. Shouting “Pay me!” she took off running — forgetting even to put down the basket still hanging on her arm. Over the sound of Cuicui’s cries, Gu Qiao ran up onto the train heading for the capital.

She was entirely focused on catching the man who hadn’t paid. She didn’t even notice when the train doors closed. Cuicui, ordinarily so soft-spoken, let out the loudest sound of her entire life: “Gu Qiao, get off the train!”

That voice flooded in through the open windows and into the ears of every passenger in the car. Cuicui ran after the train, calling Gu Qiao’s name: “Gu Qiao, Gu Qiao…” She kept on calling without stopping, forgetting the natural shyness she had been born with — she only wanted to keep Gu Qiao from leaving.

Almost every passenger in the car heard her — including Luo Peiyin.

That year, Luo Peiyin was eighteen years old. He and the other members of his band had spent the summer break of his first university year going to Guangdong to perform. The pay for performing in Guangdong wasn’t much — otherwise they wouldn’t all be riding hard seats on the way back. He could have afforded a sleeper berth himself, but there was no need to set himself apart from everyone else.

Luo Peiyin had been sitting with his eyes closed, leaning back in his seat, listening to music. His personal stereo was turned up quite loud, and with earphones in he ordinarily couldn’t hear a thing from outside. But the voice from outside the window cut straight through his earphones and pierced his ears.

Gu Qiao? That name was not unfamiliar to him. For three years, he had continuously received letters signed by Gu Qiao. In those letters she warmly and affectionately called him older cousin, and every letter invited him to come visit her in the countryside. The letters mixed Chinese characters with phonetic spelling — clearly she had limited characters but still managed to fill three whole pages, describing her simple, unknowing, and happy life.

By the third letter, the content was still as warm as before — as if he were her true older cousin — but she had almost stopped using phonetic spelling.

Luo Peiyin had never written back because there was nothing to say. He didn’t think that meeting just once was enough to foster any real family feeling between them. The two of them didn’t even share blood. Still, she had gone to such effort to write to him that he couldn’t give her nothing. Every year when he received a letter, he would send a toy in return. He thought that was enough.

Then came the fourth year. He had already gotten so used to receiving her letters that he had even prepared a New Year’s gift for this cousin he had no idea what she looked like now. But the fourth letter never came.

They had only met once, and both of them were small children at the time. Even if they crossed paths now, neither would recognize the other. Yet when Luo Peiyin pulled out his earphones and looked at the girl in the yellow dress standing in the middle of the car, he inexplicably thought of this cousin who shared no blood with him.

Almost every passenger in the car had heard Gu Qiao’s name called — except Gu Qiao herself.

Gu Qiao was entirely focused on catching the man who had taken her sachets. She finally caught up with him and grabbed the back of his shirt.

The man turned on her with a completely aggrieved tone: “A man and woman ought not to touch. What exactly do you think you’re doing with me?”

That sentence left Gu Qiao with a face full of embarrassed red. She had reached sixteen years old without ever once being verbally outmaneuvered by anyone, and this glib, flirtatious remark had caught her so off guard she couldn’t come up with a comeback. But she had righteousness on her side, and quickly said: “You took my sachets and haven’t paid me.”

“I took your sachets? What proof do you have that those sachets are yours?”

“There was only one sachet vendor on the entire platform, and the sachets in your hands are exactly the same as the ones in my basket…”

“Only one sachet vendor on the platform? What proof do you have of that?”

“Proof? Just look out the window and you’ll see — besides me, who else is selling…”

Gu Qiao didn’t finish. She suddenly realized the train was already moving. For one instant, her mind stopped working entirely, and even her grip on the man’s shirt loosened.

The man who had taken the sachets saw Gu Qiao’s bright, sharp eyes suddenly go unfocused, and thought this was his chance to make a move. But Gu Qiao snapped back to herself and grabbed even tighter. If not for this person, she would never be in this predicament.

She had left her home without a ticket on a train whose final destination was the capital — and she didn’t even know what the next stop was. Cuicui must be frantic with worry. And when her father arrived at the train station and found out she’d boarded a train, he would be out of his mind with anxiety…

How on earth was she going to get home?

She tightened her grip on the man’s clothing — even when the man’s back was partly exposed in the car, Gu Qiao didn’t pay it any mind. She was fully focused on getting justice for herself: “If you don’t pay me, I’ll call the train police and let them sort this out.”

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