The day of the monthly examination arrived as scheduled. Li Diudiu woke early as always, feeling a mild twinge of dejection when he remembered his right hand likely couldn’t hold a brush — he thought to himself that if he’d known it would come to this, he’d have spent more time practicing writing with his left hand.

Dawn had not yet broken. There was at least another full hour before the examination was set to begin. Li Diudiu got up, drew water himself with one hand, washed his face, and studied his reflection in the bronze mirror for a long moment, then let out a sigh.

“A broken arm and it hasn’t affected your looks in the slightest — truly born with heaven-bestowed beauty that one cannot simply cast aside…”

He dipped his fingers in water and even smoothed his eyebrows into place. That pair of sword-sharp brows above those large eyes truly was handsome.

“It’s just a broken arm. Not to mention it’ll heal — even if it didn’t, surely that can’t stop a man from finding a wife?”

Having finished talking to himself, he tidied the table, sat down to grind ink, and picked up a brush with his left hand to practice writing on paper. The first few characters came out crooked and uneven, but after only six or seven characters, the left hand began moving more and more smoothly, every stroke level and upright.

Li Diudiu hadn’t expected it would go this easily. The thought suddenly occurred to him: if writing with his left hand was no great difficulty, why not practice a different style of calligraphy? With that idea in mind, he began recalling a particular passage from memory and writing it out.

After writing approximately four or five hundred characters, there was no longer any stiffness at all — and the more he wrote, the more satisfied he felt.

Li Diudiu was just about to get up and head to the dining hall for breakfast when he heard someone coughing a few times outside his door. He couldn’t help but smile — that girl had come remarkably early.

Gao Xining coughed a few times outside the door before knocking, and asked in a hushed voice: “Are you awake?”

Li Diudiu said: “I’ve been up for a while. Wait while I open the door for you.”

He went over and opened the door, and immediately his eyes brightened.

Gao Xining today wore a rice-white long dress. She looked like a freshly bloomed jasmine — elegant and fresh — and the purity unique to a young girl was framed perfectly by that dress in the light of the early morning sun, flawless and radiant. She was a jasmine flower; the morning sunlight had wrapped her in an additional layer of brilliance.

For reasons he couldn’t quite explain, Li Diudiu nearly let out a whistle. He only barely suppressed it by reminding himself that actually whistling would look somewhat disreputable, which would make things rather awkward.

“You were about to whistle!”

Gao Xining stared at him as if she could see straight through him.

Li Diudiu firmly shook his head: “No I wasn’t!”

Gao Xining said: “Your lips were puckered!”

Li Diudiu: “Puckered lips means you’re about to whistle?”

Gao Xining: “You are a shameless scoundrel!”

Li Diudiu said: “Even though I wasn’t about to whistle — I must say this to you clearly: when a man can’t help but whistle at a woman, it is absolutely an involuntary expression of admiration for her beauty.”

Gao Xining: “You… are shameless!”

She turned and ran off.

A few steps away she turned back, shoved the food box she’d been carrying into Li Diudiu’s hands, and with a stern face turned and marched away in long strides — while quietly biting back a smile she didn’t dare let him see.

“Insufferable rogue…”

She muttered to herself as she walked: “He made ‘whistling’ sound like such a reasonable thing to do… At least I really am that good-looking — he wasn’t lying about that. If he had been lying, it would be all the more unforgivable.”

Watching Gao Xining’s retreating figure, Li Diudiu strained forward, puckered his lips, and managed to squeeze out the most feeble wisp of a sound — nothing like the bold, carefree whistle a man might give at the sight of a beautiful woman. He was terrified Gao Xining might hear him.

What a pitiful sight he made.

Li Diudiu carried Gao Xining’s food box back inside. He opened it to look, and at once felt a surge of delight. Gao Xining had clearly worried about the inconvenience of him going to the dining hall, and had made a special trip there to bring the food back for him.

There was a variety of dishes — every single one something Li Diudiu enjoyed. And with great thoughtfulness, she had also considered that he probably couldn’t manage chopsticks, so a small spoon was nestled in the food box as well.

As Li Diudiu ate, he wondered to himself: how on earth did she know what he liked?

He had no way of knowing that Gao Xining had gone to the dining hall, found the cook Auntie Wu, and asked her very carefully and thoroughly what Li Diudiu usually liked to eat — and then brought a little of each thing back for him.

Such thoughtfulness — and yet Li Diudiu’s conclusion was that this person must have some sort of psychological condition, some kind of affliction. How else could someone go to this much trouble over matchmaking for him?

What a strange and unpredictable world — people have all manner of interests. Some love money, some love food. And Gao Xining’s passion, apparently, was playing matchmaker.

Li Diudiu gave a quiet harrumph and muttered to himself: “And she calls me strange…”

If his master, the Daoist Changmei, had been there to hear him muttering like that, he’d have long since smacked him upside the head.

That old Daoist who had never found a wife in his entire life still had more sense than Li Diudiu.

—

While Li Diudiu was eating, Teacher Yan Qingzhi strolled in from outside with his hands clasped behind his back. He set a food box down at Li Diudiu’s door, then seemed to feel that showing this degree of concern might be unseemly, and so coughed twice and walked away.

Li Diudiu heard the coughing, came out, saw no one, but found a food box on the step. He opened it and looked inside — the pastries and dishes within were noticeably more refined than what he normally got from the dining hall.

So Li Diudiu quickly guessed it was from Yan Qingzhi — brought from the small teachers’ dining hall. He happily carried the box back inside. Not wanting to show favoritism between the two givers, he made a point of eating everything from both boxes.

By the time he finished, his little belly was round and stuffed. He waddled slightly as he walked, and after mentally checking the time and deciding it was about right, he headed out toward the classroom.

The moment he reached the doorway, he saw Liu Shengying — always looking as if on the verge of tears — pacing back and forth outside with a food box in hand, looking as though he was nearly beside himself with anxiety.

Li Diudiu blinked. He never would have imagined Liu Shengying would come. He quickened his pace over to him.

“How did you end up here?”

“Ah…”

Liu Shengying seemed startled by Li Diudiu, and the tears that had been welling in his already mournful eyes now threatened to spill over.

“I… for you!”

He thrust the food box into Li Diudiu’s hands.

Li Diudiu looked at the food box, then looked down at his own belly: “I…”

Liu Shengying saw him hesitate, and could no longer hold back — he burst into tears with a wail: “You won’t eat what I brought…”

Li Diudiu hastily said: “I’ll eat, I’ll eat, I’ll eat…”

He opened the food box right then and there, looked inside — and was immediately astonished. This Liu Shengying really knew how to bring food: steamed buns, stuffed buns, fried dough sticks, crepes — nothing but doughy things…

“Well… I’ll eat it, I will, but there might be too much here for me.”

Li Diudiu sighed, looked at Liu Shengying’s expression, and thought: fine, let’s do this.

He ate again.

He managed to push down a respectable amount. Liu Shengying went from tears to smiles. He and Li Diudiu were the same age, but his emotional maturity seemed about that of a five- or six-year-old — thoroughly spoiled by his family.

But he had a good heart, so Li Diudiu patted Liu Shengying on the shoulder and gave a sincere, earnest: “Thank you.”

That single thank you sent Liu Shengying into a state of excited happiness — he looked so moved he didn’t know what to say.

“Come on, let’s go take the monthly exam.”

Li Diudiu said: “How prepared are you?”

Liu Shengying shook his head repeatedly: “I’m no good at it — my studies are no good, my nerves are no good. The moment I hear ‘monthly exam’ my heart starts pounding in fear. It was fine when you didn’t bring it up, but now that you have I’m already panicking again.”

Li Diudiu had to reassure him too.

“Relax, relax. It’s just the monthly examination. Your level of learning is more than sufficient.”

“Really?”

“Of course! If I say you can do it, you can do it.”

“Right, I can do it!”

Liu Shengying pumped his fist, as though suddenly filled with courage. And Li Diudiu found himself thinking… Liu Shengying actually wasn’t as poor as he appeared. He was simply genuinely without confidence — he needed someone to believe in him.

A person like this, if no one ever affirmed him, might see his life develop in a very different direction. And that direction would almost certainly not lead anywhere good.

At his age, Li Diudiu had no idea why so many chaotic thoughts would come to him. He walked along and pondered, and the more he thought, the more unsettled he felt.

A child like Liu Shengying — pampered from birth, sheltered and protected by his family in everything — might be fine when small, but once he grew up, he would most likely be timid and weak, accomplishing nothing.

At that point the adults in his family would probably berate him. Say he was useless, say he was no good at this and that, say he was a disgrace to the family name.

Li Diudiu shuddered the more he thought about it. Heaven only knew what kind of person a child like that might become.

Sometimes the adults in a family aren’t right about everything. They think spoiling a child when young does no harm, and scolding him more when he grows up does no harm either — it never occurs to them that they themselves might be the problem.

If the child turns out badly, naturally it’s the child’s fault.

“Liu Shengying.”

“Hm? What is it, Brother Li?”

“Oh? You’re calling me Brother Li now…”

Li Diudiu smiled and said: “Since you’re calling me Brother Li, shall we have a little competition? If I beat you in this monthly exam, you treat me to pastries from Sanshuizhai — I’ve heard about that shop for ages but never gotten to try them. If you beat me, I have no money to treat you, but I’ll make you something with my own hands. You can tell me now what you’d like.”

Liu Shengying panicked: “No, no competition — there’s no way I could beat you. I’m hopeless.”

Li Diudiu gave a dismissive wave: “Hopeless or not, we’ll find out after we compete. If you don’t even dare to compete, doesn’t that mean you’ve already lost? It’s nothing serious — just a few pastries from Sanshuizhai. Surely that’s not enough to frighten you?”

Liu Shengying thought it over, then nodded: “Alright then. Whether I win or lose, I’ll treat you to Sanshuizhai’s pastries.”

Li Diudiu said: “Does that mean whether I win or lose, I have to handcraft something and give it to you?”

Liu Shengying grinned a little: “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Li Diudiu said: “That won’t do — we’re men of our word. My master always said: a real man’s word is his bond — once spoken, you honor it.”

Liu Shengying seemed to ignite like a flame, and exclaimed resolutely: “Honor your word!”

Li Diudiu asked: “So what do you want?”

Liu Shengying thought for quite a while, then asked tentatively: “Do you know how to make cricket cages? I love listening to the sound of crickets.”

Li Diudiu swung his right arm in a sweeping gesture — it hurt, he hadn’t quite managed the swing — so he switched to his left arm and swept it grandly: “What kind of question is that? Not only will I make you a cricket cage, I’ll fill it with crickets too!”

Liu Shengying burst out laughing — a laugh as bright and radiant as the morning sun.

Seeing Liu Shengying laugh so happily, Li Diudiu broke into a grin as well. Two boys of about ten walked side by side — now this one giving the other a nudge with his shoulder, now the other nudging back.

Perhaps this is what it means to be young.

—