◎ A Person with Color ◎

Yuan Ye wasn’t unfamiliar with the sea.

On the contrary, when he was very young, his mother Xiang Minshen had tried every means to take him to many places—from the elegantly arranged gardens right at their doorstep to the lush green mountains of New Zealand that had once served as filming locations for The Hobbit. He had gotten sunburned on islands and had crouched through entire nights in completely transparent Finnish cabins, amid ice and snow, just to wait for the aurora to descend across the wilderness like gauze curtains. She encouraged him to read more and understand himself, and she also told him that the most important thing a person should revere is their true heart.

But her marriage was not happy. Her personality was too fierce, too vivid, and too distinct—like a dahlia stuck in mass-produced assembly-line vases.

Especially after having a child, she and Yuan Yi would quarrel every few days, from their approaches to handling matters to their educational philosophies, and even a dish with incompatible flavors could become the spark that set them off.

The phrase she said most often to Yuan Yi was: “You weren’t like this before at all.”

And his father, as if hearing a joke, would coldly snort and retort: “Are you the same as before?”

The cycle repeated endlessly.

Finally, one day, her love for this man and this family was completely worn away by reality.

She filed for divorce.

And she severed herself from everything ruthlessly and completely.

After settling all child support payments in one lump sum, she left this home, this city, this country. From then on, there was no word from her.

The colors in Yuan Ye’s life came to an abrupt halt here. For a very long time, his memories were like a malfunctioning projector, repeatedly dropping frames and playing the same two scenes: one was the night he discovered his mother had left completely; the other was Yuan Yi sitting behind the kitchen bar counter, smoking cigarette after cigarette, with the dim twilight and white smoke swirling and rising, while the man’s silent, defeated face hid behind it all, appearing and disappearing.

Finally, it all flickered into desperate static snow.

From then on, the world became black and white, and he became a silent observer outside the screen, sealed in a theater with only himself as audience.

Unfortunately, life’s plot wouldn’t pause because of his detachment.

After a brief period of depression, Yuan Yi changed his approach, welcoming and enjoying the “true freedom” that came after his wife’s departure.

The educational institution they had founded together officially transformed under his leadership and control, shifting from comprehensive quality education to subject tutoring and competition training. It was then that his son, Yuan Ye, who had perfectly inherited his parents’ genes and displayed extraordinary talent and ability from a young age, began receiving rigorous systematic training. Yuan Yi hired expensive mathematics competition coaches to provide one-on-one tutoring for him.

Later came various awards—the MATHCOUNTS, Hope Cup, Hua Cup, AIMO, Olympiad—along with stable guarantees for admission to top middle schools and high schools. These achievements became as routine as eating and drinking.

His certificates and trophies were displayed in the highest position of the Mingsi Education flagship store’s showcase window.

He was truly a golden signboard worthy of the name, with parents and children seeking enrollment nearly breaking down the doors.

Yuan Ye had no particular objections to all this.

After his mother left, he lost direction and motivation at an early age, becoming a confused person.

He thought that if there could be a step-by-step, beautiful, and spectacular shell to live out this life for him, it wouldn’t be unacceptable.

However, watching the moon wax and wane, the seasons change, his heart would occasionally surge with indescribable desolation and indignation, like awakening from a dream only to be completely consumed by clouds of self-loathing. He despised everything about his present situation and painfully missed his iron-hearted mother. But the next day, he would rise again on campus like the morning sun, navigating all relationships with ease, radiating brilliance.

After returning to school from winter break in his sophomore year of high school, he was surprised to discover that in the dim, surround-screen environment he had gradually grown accustomed to, a person with color had appeared.

He couldn’t say what color it was—perhaps an extremely pale azure blue, like her name, early spring sky, early spring buds. Wherever his eyes fell, he could always notice it immediately.

He guessed it might be the chemical reaction and blessing effect brought by that chance encounter during the Spring Festival.

At that time, he had been suffering from altitude sickness, failed due to a high fever, and was eliminated from the winter camp. Under his father’s regret and pressure, he was preparing for a second attempt at the national team for a guaranteed admission spot to Tsinghua or Peking University.

He was grinding through problems day and night, leaving no attention to spare elsewhere.

Unexpectedly, during the summer of his sophomore year, he saw her again outside school. It was midsummer in July, with cicadas chirping noisily. He walked through tree shadows and pushed open the door to a coffee shop, planning to while away this boring afternoon there.

While waiting for his order at the front counter after taking his receipt, Yuan Ye took out his phone to browse competitive sports news pushed to his feed. Just as he was about to remove his baseball cap to fan himself, a young, sweet voice like coconut water caught his attention.

He looked over, somewhat surprised: How is it her again?

Yuan Ye pulled his cap brim down a bit more and began observing inconspicuously.

The girl stood in front of the cash register, with the staff asking what she needed.

“I’m not buying anything, just want to ask about something,” the girl seemed to have hurried over, her bangs damp with sweat and cheeks slightly red from the sun, but her expression was calm, not embarrassed at all about not ordering: “May I ask if you hire summer workers here?”

The staff looked her up and down: “How old are you?”

The girl answered: “Almost a sophomore in high school.”

The staff laughed: “You need to be an adult. Come back after the college entrance exams.”

“Mm, I was thinking of coming during the summer after senior year anyway.” She seemed to have gotten a satisfactory answer, her eyes crinkling with a smile as she thanked them and left that spot.

But she didn’t leave the store.

Carrying a large canvas bag, she wandered around the store’s cup, saucer, and coffee bean retail area, finally stopping in front of a public postcard wall to look at poems or wishes handwritten by thoughtful customers.

Yuan Ye took the tray with his iced americano and chicken croissant, found a seat with just the right angle, and instead of opening his phone to watch livestreams or videos, treated this as today’s entertainment while eating.

The girl stood there alone, flipping through them one by one, reading almost all of them completely.

The foot traffic in and out of the shop would occasionally glance at her strangely, but she was completely absorbed, serene like a reed by the lakeside, not caring about the geese drawing water or the changing weather.

Every time he saw her, she gave him the feeling of a female protagonist who would appear in a Ghibli animation—brave, pure, inexplicably healing.

After a long while, she finally moved.

She returned to the shelves, unhurriedly selected a postcard, and went to the counter to pay.

After returning, she found an empty seat, took out a gel pen from her bag, and began writing on the back of the postcard.

The hand holding the pen moved very slowly, stroke by stroke, solemn and earnest.

After finishing, she glanced at her wrist watch, seeming to realize time was getting late and she couldn’t wait for the ink to dry completely.

So she held up the blue postcard high, blowing on it several times, and after confirming it was dry, she returned to the packed postcard wall, found an empty wooden clip, and hung it up high among the others.

Only after watching the girl leave the store did Yuan Ye remember to eat the rest of his bread.

As evening approached with sunset streaming through the windows, he slung his backpack on to head home. Before leaving, he stopped in front of that wall.

The postcard the girl had used wasn’t hard to find—it hadn’t yet been covered by later arrivals, and the large expanse of blue was particularly eye-catching. Only up close could one see that it was an entire sea, azure blue, calm and cool seawater, like satin, flowing into his eyes.

He flipped it over with his long fingers. On the back was written a line of elegant but forceful characters:

“I will keep swimming until the seawater turns blue.”

The signature wasn’t her name, but a Q-version simple sketch of a small bird with wings spread, ready to fly.

—

Yuan Ye had confessed to her about their first encounter, but kept the second encounter treasured and hidden in his heart.

After returning home that day, the words on the girl’s postcard became like an incantation, a telepathic connection that touched his soul.

He didn’t eat dinner or turn on the lights.

He lay for a long time in his room after dark, beginning to examine his muddled self, the gray environment, and these several years of being pushed forward in confusion.

He watched helplessly as his true heart became lost in murky waters and wilderness, sinking, withering.

That night, he made a decision.

Why should he hand over the decision-making power of his life to others?

He changed his long-blank username to X—the first letter of his mother’s name, and also the designation she had previously liked to use.

She had told him that X was an unknown variable, meaning life had infinite possibilities.

Whatever competitions, whatever agreements—let them all go to hell. He wanted to jump out of this vicious cycle, corner himself into a dead end, and charge forward with no way back.

Using the excuse that the dormitory’s noise disturbed his problem-solving, he moved out of school, taking this as the first step of his journey.

Relying on his father, who still harbored some guilt about living off this particular rice bowl, naturally gave him everything he wanted, urgently and expensively finding him accommodation.

Accustomed to going it alone, he had never imagined needing or having a companion for the uncertain journey ahead.

But that evening, on the first night of coming to this room, when he turned around and saw the girl behind the door.

His thoughts changed.