Fang Shumiao stood at the podium with the class roster, calling attendance.

As expected, several of the usual troublemakers — Ren Di among them — had skipped morning study hall again.

By the time she reached the end of the list, Fang Shumiao’s eyes had gone glassy with unshed tears.

Attendance at morning and evening study sessions was directly tied to the class officers’ performance record, which made it critically important to Fang Shumiao, who had her sights set on a position in the student council.

Unfortunately, this particular class was full of characters. Three days into her tenure, and Fang Shumiao had already started breaking out.

No one was paying attention to the class president at the front except Zhu Yun. Everyone else had their heads buried in their books. Especially Wu Mengxing, the advanced mathematics class representative in the far corner, who looked like he was about to press his face directly into the textbook.

Zhu Yun found this genuinely puzzling.

Advanced mathematics had only had one class so far. Teacher Zhang had covered three main points:

What does Advanced Mathematics cover?

What are the requirements for the Advanced Mathematics course?

How does one study Advanced Mathematics effectively?

Still, a dedicated student holding themselves to a higher standard — reviewing ahead of time — was nothing out of the ordinary. Zhu Yun adjusted her attitude and opened her book as well.

After lunch, Fang Shumiao left for a meeting. Ren Di had disappeared somewhere. Zhu Yun was alone in the room. It was too quiet; the afternoon sun was warm against her, and she dozed off without noticing. By the time she opened her eyes, she was already late.

Advanced mathematics — the homeroom teacher’s class.

Zhu Yun sprinted the whole way with her hair in a state of complete chaos, praying internally that attendance wouldn’t be taken.

In the classroom, Teacher Zhang was introducing calculus.

Moving like a thief, Zhu Yun crouched low, waited until Teacher Zhang turned back to the blackboard, and slipped in carefully through the back door, dropping into the nearest seat in the corner of the last row.

Still catching her breath, she turned to the person beside her.

“Did he — did he take——”

“No.”

…That voice.

Zhu Yun pushed the sleep-tangled hair out of her face.

Li Xun.

She had come in with her head so low that she hadn’t seen who it was.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Li Xun said nothing.

For students who had just survived the grueling final year of high school and worked through countless brutal practice exams, the introductory content of Advanced Mathematics was simple — little more than common knowledge.

The easy material gave Zhu Yun’s attention plenty of room to drift. For instance, she noticed that the person beside her was, at that moment, very focused — though not on Teacher Zhang at the front.

In fact, from the moment Zhu Yun had spoken to him, Li Xun had not looked at her once. His entire attention was directed downward, toward his lap.

There sat a laptop, roughly eleven or twelve inches.

Zhu Yun couldn’t look over too openly. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was doing, only that he was typing without pause, at a remarkable speed.

He should probably put something under that… Zhu Yun thought.

The way you’re going at it completely oblivious to everyone around you — someone’s going to notice.

Up front, Teacher Zhang called on the class representative to answer a question.

Wu Mengxing had perhaps studied too intensively in the morning and was now suffering the sluggishness of early afternoon. When his name was called, he was so flustered he could barely string words together.

“That is — it’s, it’s…”

Wu Mengxing’s face turned crimson. He stared at his book, too nervous to raise his head.

In the few seconds of silence that followed, the faint, rhythmic tapping from the back of the room became more noticeable than ever.

Before the whole class turned around to look, Zhu Yun gave a quiet cough.

It had absolutely no effect.

The top scorer was clearly in a state of complete absorption.

Having apparently hit some kind of snag, Li Xun’s brow creased and his keystrokes grew more forceful.

Up front, Wu Mengxing was still frozen. Teacher Zhang spoke in a patient tone: “Don’t be nervous — I just called on you to help you stay alert. Everyone’s the same — the first class of the afternoon is the hardest to get through. Hang in there.” He paused, and looked toward the back of the room. “That, um — Li Xun. Why don’t you take a try at it.”

His name was called and there was no response. Zhu Yun was hesitating over whether to formally alert him when the student on Li Xun’s other side spoke up.

“Hey. They’re calling you.”

He gave Li Xun a kick under the desk. Li Xun finally looked up.

That student, very quickly, in a voice audible only to those in the last row, said: “Practice exercise six. Decompose the composite function.”

The textbook had been open in front of him the whole time. Li Xun glanced down at it.

The student continued: “Start from the outside in. The first——”

Li Xun set the laptop on the floor and stood up.

As he rose, a faint scent drifted up with him…

Zhu Yun drew a quiet breath.

Body wash?

“y=2u, u=−v², v=sin w, w=3x.”

Something like mint, it seemed.

“Correct. Please sit.” Teacher Zhang said, satisfied.

The class representative’s neck had gone red all the way to the back.

Li Xun sat down. The student beside him said with a hint of excitement: “That was fast.”

Gao Jianhong.

Zhu Yun’s impression of him came from military training. During that period, Fang Shumiao had been so overwhelmed with various tasks that she couldn’t manage everything herself, so she’d asked classmates to help with errands. Gao Jianhong had agreed many times over.

He was a warm, easygoing young man, well-liked in the class.

With his train of thought broken by Teacher Zhang’s question, Li Xun didn’t seem in the mood to pick up where he’d left off. He closed the laptop and started chatting with Gao Jianhong beside him.

The bell rang.

Zhu Yun gathered her books, and she and Li Xun beside her stood at the same moment. She instinctively paused.

After you.

She followed behind Li Xun and Gao Jianhong out of the classroom.

The corridor was packed with students pouring out of class. Zhu Yun looked up — Li Xun’s height and the glowing expanse of golden hair at the back of his head stood out unmistakably in the crowd. He had the laptop and his book tucked under one arm, his other hand in his pocket, lean and long-limbed.

Fang Shumiao came back to the dormitory to find only Zhu Yun there, and her expression immediately fell.

“What am I going to do.” Fang Shumiao dragged her stool over and sat down beside Zhu Yun.

“I’m going to worry myself to death.” She clutched Zhu Yun’s arm and poured out her grievances. “How much can they possibly hate coming to study hall? How did they even get into this school?”

“Take a breath first.”

“How can I take a breath — look at our attendance record. I’m finished.”

“…”

Fang Shumiao had worked herself up until her voice had gone hoarse.

Zhu Yun offered a suggestion. “Why not talk to Teacher Zhang about it?”

“Would that do anything?”

“Have him have a word with them. Teachers tend to carry more weight.”

“That makes sense.” Fang Shumiao brightened with renewed determination, picked up her stool, and went back to her desk.

Zhu Yun’s phone buzzed. She pulled it out — her mother. She took the phone and left the room, walking to the balcony at the far end of the corridor to answer.

Her mother’s usual round of warm inquiries.

“Is the coursework intense?”

“Not yet. School just started.”

“What’s your teacher like?”

“Quite good.”

“Listen to your teacher. Don’t give me things to worry about.”

“How old do you think I am? You know perfectly well whether I’m well-behaved.”

Her mother laughed softly over the phone: “I do, I do. You’ve always been Mama’s pride. Oh, and what are your classmates like?”

Ah…

Zhu Yun’s mind instinctively called up an image of the cake girl and the golden-haired anomaly.

“They all have quite a lot of personality.”

“Personality?”

Wanting to head off a lengthy lecture, Zhu Yun changed the subject: “Oh — our class president is my roommate. She’s a very good girl.”

Her mother was successfully redirected.

“Then you must get along well with her.”

Zhu Yun told her mother about Fang Shumiao’s troubles with the student council elections, though she kept any reference to the specific individuals involved to a passing mention.

“You should help her,” her mother said when she’d finished. “She sounds like a good girl — do what you can for her. Who skips class at the very start of term? That’s simply not acceptable.”

“…Mm.”

Her mother spoke with great solemnity: “Many students treat the college entrance examination as the finish line. That’s a very misguided notion. University is where you truly lay the foundations of who you become. This is not an ending — it isn’t even a midpoint — and it absolutely cannot be taken lightly.”

“Mm.”

That seemed to be the opening of a lecture going in an entirely different direction. Zhu Yun shifted the way she was holding the phone.

After twenty-odd minutes of methodical and well-organized commentary, her mother concluded:

“…All right. Though studying seriously is important, you also need to balance work with rest. Get out and walk around now and then. Don’t just sit in your room.”

“Mm.”

Zhu Yun was just about to say her goodbyes when her mother spoke again——

“One more thing. You’re all still very young. You haven’t been out in the world yet, and your sense of values is still developing. Never mistake ignorance for charm, or rudeness for personality. Do you understand?”

“…”

She’d thought a single sentence would be enough to change the subject. She had been far too naive.

She hung up, and immediately ran into Fang Shumiao coming back from outside.

Fang Shumiao, damp with sweat, relayed the outcome of her conversation with Teacher Zhang.

“Teacher Zhang’s thinking is that the class officers should try talking to them first, and only if that doesn’t work will he step in. He said it’s still the start of term — having the teacher go directly to students right now would feel too formal.”

Zhu Yun nodded, then noticed the expression on Fang Shumiao’s face.

Full of expectation.

“…”

Fang Shumiao grabbed Zhu Yun’s hands. “Save me.”

“…………”

Drawing on what her mother had just said, Zhu Yun replied: “Fine. Who do you want me to talk to?”

Fang Shumiao: “The two most difficult ones, of course.”

“Both of them?” Zhu Yun broke into a cold sweat.

Fang Shumiao: “Then pick one.”

“Ren Di.”

Fang Shumiao drew a deep breath. “All right. Then I’ll go find Li Xun.” She leaned in and told Zhu Yun quietly: “I just saw Ren Di a moment ago. She’s on the sports field.”

Zhu Yun looked out toward the balcony.

The sky was darkening. The sports field in the distance was a spread of black, like a beast waiting to swallow you whole.

“I’ll go take a look.”

Zhu Yun bought two cups of milk tea from the shop downstairs — something to help ease the conversation along.

The last classes of the day were done, and a stream of students was moving toward the residential buildings. Zhu Yun walked against the current along the grey concrete path.

The sports field was surrounded by tall chain-link fencing. Zhu Yun made her way around to the entrance, looked up, and spotted two figures.

In this level of darkness, it should have been difficult to make anyone out.

But some people simply couldn’t go anywhere without bringing their laptop.

There were a few people scattered around the field, getting some exercise. In the center was the football pitch. The school’s football field was not in great shape — the grass was old, with a certain desolate quality to it, a source of frequent complaint among students who liked to play.

Zhu Yun, for her part, thought the place had something to it.

She imagined a couple sitting one day on this stretch of overgrown grass, watching a starless sky together… That permanently dated, slightly melancholy romanticism had a certain appeal.

But then — right now——

Zhu Yun came back to herself.

Both of her targets were just ahead.

To go forward, or not to go forward.

That was the question.