The letter was delivered at the break during the first evening self-study period. For this service, Lin Haiyang extorted a bottle of sports drink from Wang Jingjing.

Fine rain fell at a slant. The classroom doorway railing was hung with umbrellas in shades of black and gray. Through the dark glass, the shadows of two or three students were faintly reflected. Jiang Du sat there, her mind clear and still, without moving. The letter had been written — some kind of mission felt accomplished. Because she harbored absolutely no hope of any response, she could immerse herself entirely in studying again when the next period began.

Lin Haiyang wasn’t close to Wei Qingyue, but boys tend to speak plainly with each other regardless, making communication easy. He knocked directly on Class One’s window, waited for someone to slide it open, and said: “Can you call Wei Qingyue out?”

The boy came out quickly.

“Your letter.” Lin Haiyang handed it to him.

Implicitly assuming Wei Qingyue would know who had sent it.

Wei Qingyue took it in hand and glanced down at it. The envelope was the same design as the one he’d read on the balcony before.

He turned the letter over between his fingers and asked: “Who sent this?”

Only then did Lin Haiyang realize: Wei Qingyue was not an ordinary person — there were simply too many letters, and he had surely long since forgotten the last one completely. He told himself — Wang Jingjing was wasting her time. These girls and their infatuation with Wei Qingyue.

“Class Two’s Wang Jingjing — you probably don’t know which one, I’ll point her out to you.” Lin Haiyang was enthusiastically offering to help. Wei Qingyue was indifferent — an unfamiliar name, and he had no interest in getting to know strangers. “No need.”

“She sits by the window…” Lin Haiyang’s words trailed off as something caught his eye — Wang Jingjing was at the far end of the corridor, craning her neck to peek this way. He broke into a grin, raised a finger, and said: “Her. She wrote it for you.”

At the far end of the corridor stood a cluster of girls. Wei Qingyue swept a glance over — he couldn’t make out which one was which at all. He said “thanks,” turned around, and went back into the classroom.

Top students truly had their own way of doing things — always this kind of nonchalant attitude. Lin Haiyang sauntered back and teased Wang Jingjing about it. The two of them started squabbling in the classroom. Jiang Du said nothing. She rested quietly against her desk, daydreaming for a while, then — when the bell rang for the second period of evening self-study — emptied her head and began working seriously through her materials.

The autumn rain fell on and on without stopping.

Mei High was a large campus. There was a stretch of distance between the teaching building and the dormitory building. Evening self-study ended at ten. The crowd poured in the direction of the hot water room. The streetlights extended in a long chain ahead, winding into the distance; the paths were full of open umbrellas.

Wei Qingyue was in no hurry to leave. Alone at the now-empty corridor window, he read that letter.

The sound of rain was right there beside him. He really did look out toward the direction of the library, trying to find the tree nearby. A dark, shapeless mass of shadow, tall as it was — no matter how he looked at it, it couldn’t be mistaken for a person.

In the canteen, some students were eating a late supper. The sudden drop in temperature made people especially hungry, particularly adolescents in the middle of a growth spurt — their appetites were extraordinary. Some students had filled out quite a lot during these years, becoming broad and heavy, and those would be years they’d rather not look back on. Most people were only half-bloomed at this age to begin with, so actually growing up good-looking during this period — striking at first glance — was genuinely rare.

Jiang Du’s maternal grandmother made a sweet-and-spicy sauce. One jar for Jiang Du, one jar for Wang Jingjing. Lin Haiyang had seen the two of them dipping fried chicken drumsticks in it at the canteen, tried it once himself, and became hopelessly addicted — brazen enough to ask Jiang Du for more. After getting hot water, the three of them clustered together dipping warm, soft steamed buns into the sauce. Lin Haiyang had an enormous mouth — one bite and half a bun was gone.

He could eat three buns in one meal — that was… six bites. Jiang Du was doing some peculiar mental arithmetic when Wang Jingjing launched into a tirade:

“Aren’t you shameless? The jar is this small and you’ve stabbed it how many times already — for us? How greedy can you get!”

“Why are you getting so worked up? It’s Jiang Du’s sauce, not yours.”

“You have some nerve — try not eating mine then! My jar is the one Jiang Du’s grandmother gave *me* — why are you still going after mine too?”

The two of them were going back and forth when Lin Haiyang suddenly bellowed: “Wei Qingyue! Wang Jingjing’s treating you to some sauce!”

At those words, it was Jiang Du’s heartbeat that stopped. She couldn’t help but look up. Sure enough, at the canteen entrance stood a familiar figure. In the lamplight, where the light ended and shadow began, the boy was folding his umbrella.

Lin Haiyang’s eyes were truly sharp. Wang Jingjing let out a series of squeals and covered her face, sitting there squirming in embarrassment — she was genuinely a little shy at having her crush see her eating steamed buns dipped in sauce. It felt oddly peculiar.

But Wei Qingyue, as it turned out, was far more at ease than any of them had expected. As he came closer, he glanced over in their direction. Beside him, Wang Jingjing said with some flustered energy: “Hey, Wei Qingyue — you’re here for a late snack too? Want to try some sauce?”

Jiang Du’s mouth had gone stiff. The chewing motion she’d been making involuntarily slowed. The more people there were, the less courage she had to look at Wei Qingyue directly — she kept her eyes fixed on the deep-dark glass jar.

“Thank you — this isn’t really something I’m used to eating. Enjoy your meal.” Wei Qingyue said this while looking at Wang Jingjing. *Wang Jingjing* — she was Wang Jingjing. He repeated the name silently to himself. He simply couldn’t connect her appearance to those two letters.

And beside her, someone sat quietly — a girl who hadn’t even lifted her face. Her cheek was slightly puffed, as though she were eating. Wei Qingyue suddenly found her amusing. She had managed to pretend she didn’t see him that quickly.

There weren’t many canteen windows open. Wei Qingyue bought a few things to eat — enough to get through, nothing more. Food and clothing both meant little to him. Wei Zhendong was fastidious about everything; Wei Qingyue was casual about everything in response.

Outside, the rain intensified. Lin Haiyang started singing *Rainy Night*, his voice like a cracked gong — the notes were off by the second line. Wang Jingjing was so irritated she kept stuffing her fingers in her ears. But Jiang Du asked him sincerely:

“Whose song is that?”

“Beyond’s. The lead singer is Huang Jiaju.” Lin Haiyang said a name Jiang Du didn’t recognize at all. Most girls her age liked Jay Chou; the name Huang Jiaju carried the feeling of something old and distant, and sure enough, after asking further, she learned it was a Hong Kong rock band, and that the lead singer had passed away when their generation were only two years old. No wonder she’d never heard of him.

Lin Haiyang pulled out his MP3 player and offered Jiang Du the earbuds with a grin: “Though this version was originally sung by Huang Jiaqiang.”

She put the earbuds in. The opening notes rang out like cool raindrops rolling down — and Jiang Du fell in love with the song instantly.

The group was discussing Hong Kong singers, and at some point without anyone noticing, Wei Qingyue’s figure had disappeared. Lin Haiyang and Wang Jingjing didn’t pay it any attention. Jiang Du had noticed — he’d taken his things and left directly from that side, without looking over in their direction even once.

*I want to share this song with you*, Jiang Du thought quietly. On the walk back, the lamplight filtered through the fine rain like a dense net of needles. She stared at the rain the whole way, and she knew — Wei Qingyue had probably not read that letter.

The osmanthus at school had fallen. The days grew colder, and dark came earlier. Time passed just like that, day after day, and no one had held any expectations for that letter. By the time the mid-term exams were over, everyone suddenly realized that time could move this quickly. Before they knew it, more than half of the first semester of first year had gone by.

Calculated that way, third year felt like it was nearly upon them. In the mid-term exams, Jiang Du’s ranking slipped rather than rose — by two places, which still stung. She had worked just as hard as before. She dropped two places in the class standings, and the drop in the grade ranking was even larger.

At the notice board, Wei Qingyue was still a dazzling first place — exceptionally steady. Jiang Du had every one of his subject scores committed firmly to memory. The gap was enormous. She couldn’t help feeling a little downhearted — though she didn’t even know why she was absurdly using Wei Qingyue as her benchmark. If anyone should take him as a reference point, it would be someone with Zhang Xiaoqiang’s grades.

Over the weekend she went home and told her maternal grandparents about the mid-term exams. Her grandfather was cleaning fish. The kitchen carried the faint smell of raw fish; a smear of blood at the bottom of the trash bin. Jiang Du crouched beside him, helping peel garlic.

“Win without arrogance, lose without despair — fluctuations in ranking are perfectly normal. Just keep working hard!” Her grandfather began chopping the fish head with full, vigorous strokes. On the stove sat some Sichuan pepper he’d clipped from the pepper tree at the old family home in early autumn. Jiang Du gave a soft “mm,” picked up two peppercorns, and held them just beneath her nose to inhale lightly. There was in them the scent of the seasons.

Her grandmother was in the living room stringing red chili peppers. They lived on the ground floor with a small vegetable plot by the front door where they grew a few vegetables — more than they could eat, so the surplus went to the neighbors. Hearing the grandchild and her grandfather talking about exam results, her grandmother started discussing with the old man the idea of arranging tutoring for Jiang Du.

*It’s so expensive* — that was Jiang Du’s first thought. She didn’t want tutoring. But her mathematics and physics really were weak spots. Still, since she planned to choose the humanities track, physics tutoring would be wasted money.

“Math will definitely need some work,” her grandmother said.

Jiang Du stared at that string of red chili peppers, undecided: “Humanities math will be easier in second year, won’t it? Maybe things will get better on their own.”

“Better to be prepared before trouble comes,” her grandmother untied her apron. “Our math isn’t terribly bad — a little tutoring could push it to the next level. Maybe there’s one thing you haven’t quite cracked open yet; once it clicks, everything else follows.”

The old woman even made a comical gesture along with the words, and Jiang Du laughed too.

After a whole dinner’s worth of discussion, the family decided they would hire a one-on-one mathematics tutor for Jiang Du over the winter holiday.

The tutoring center was located in a building in the city center. Trial lessons were available, so her grandfather took Jiang Du along to see what it was like. As they were getting into the elevator, they noticed a boy with a guitar case on his back — still a few steps from the elevator door. Jiang Du quickly held the button.

The boy was wearing a hoodie, half his head tucked inside the oversized hood, with loose-fitting jeans in a worn, faded color. He looked, in a word — cool. The moment he walked in, Jiang Du’s mind produced the exact word everyone seemed so fond of using.

“Thanks.” The boy acknowledged her without even lifting his head.

The elevator doors slowly closed. The space was narrow. Jiang Du froze — she had recognized Wei Qingyue from his voice alone.

—