Hearing a familiar surname, Wei Qingyue glanced at the girl twice.
Chen Huiming was crying and complaining loudly in the corridor. The commotion drew the attention of students from both Class One and Class Two, with some pulling open windows to peer outside. Zhang Xiaoqiang had no choice but to comfort her, saying there must have been some misunderstanding, and was still in the middle of consoling her when Teacher Xiao Xu arrived. After quickly clarifying the situation, he went into the classroom and asked both parties involved to step out.
Because Jiang Du was the Chinese class representative, Chen Huiming had already assumed that Xiao Xu would take his side. She stood there seething, her heart full of indignation, stiffening her neck and saying: “Teacher Xu, ask her.”
Jiang Du neither embellished nor downplayed the incident, recounting everything truthfully from start to finish, and began by admitting her own mistake. This made Chen Huiming detest her even more. Putting on an act, keep putting on your act, she thought, watching Jiang Du with a sullen expression.
Xiao Xu had a good temper. He patiently offered a few words of guidance about the conflict between the two girls, then sent everyone back to their respective classrooms. When Chen Huiming sat down, her desk neighbor clearly heard the word “slut” muttered under her breath, glanced up at her, then lowered her head again with an air of indifference and continued writing her notes.
On the surface, it really did seem like Jiang Du had overreacted — too thin-skinned. When Wang Jingjing returned and learned about the incident, she found it strange and couldn’t help asking Jiang Du what had actually happened.
“I thought she had sneaked a look at the letter, which is why I lost control of myself,” Jiang Du forced a small smile. “I was the one in the wrong.”
Wang Jingjing looked utterly relieved. “Oh come on, was that really worth getting so worked up over? Even if she had seen it, I’d openly admit it — no big deal. Of course, if she dared sneak a peek, I’d definitely scold her. I could scold her for an entire day without repeating myself!”
Jiang Du believed that — Wang Jingjing was extremely bold and fierce. She quickly tried to dampen her temper: “Don’t. Chen Huiming didn’t sneak a look. I made a mistake.”
But Wang Jingjing was convinced that Jiang Du had suffered Chen Huiming’s rudeness because of her own privacy, and stubbornly insisted on treating her to a pork flatbread sandwich from the school canteen after school. Jiang Du felt a pang of guilt, knowing that wasn’t the real reason — at least, it hadn’t been her first instinct. She had simply been afraid that the secret buried deep in her heart, unknown to anyone, would be glimpsed by another.
The window hadn’t been shut properly, and the howling wind roared like surging ocean waves. Xiao Xu had mentioned that the weather forecast called for sleet. Time really does pass quickly, she thought, suddenly feeling a tinge of melancholy — winter had arrived just like that.
After evening self-study ended, Jiang Du had already blended into the crowd heading downstairs, when she suddenly remembered something and came running back up, her footsteps thudding loudly on the stairs.
Two girls remained in the classroom, chatting idly as they locked up.
“Did you know? Chen Huiming says Wang Jingjing also wrote a love letter to Wei Qingyue.”
“That’s hilarious. These days every Tom, Dick, and Harry dares to write Wei Qingyue love letters. Who knows whether he finds it annoying — swarming around him like flies, all rushing in at once. Do they seriously have no idea what they’re worth?”
“Can’t help it — people with no self-awareness are always plentiful.”
The two of them laughed, not noticing that Jiang Du had turned back and was walking toward them. When they finally saw her, they exchanged a glance, clearly worried about whether she had overheard.
Jiang Du had indeed heard everything. She said nothing, only walked over and took the initiative to greet them, saying: “The window wasn’t shut properly. It might sleet tonight.”
One of the girls smiled awkwardly: “Jiang Du, you’re so attentive — we hadn’t even noticed. So you came back to close the window?”
Even in cold weather, with so many people in the classroom, a few windows were always left open just a crack for ventilation.
Jiang Du nodded. The girl quickly said: “Then you lock up. We’ll head off first.” With that, both girls hurried away, leaving Jiang Du standing alone for a few seconds.
When she came back to herself, she climbed up onto a desk, stood on her tiptoes, and forced the last window shut. Once back down, Jiang Du pulled out a tissue and wiped the spot her feet had touched, going over it several times.
After checking everything front to back, she finally felt at ease and stepped out. The classroom lock was a bit stiff — pressing it hard with two fingers, it scraped painfully against her hand without catching. Jiang Du pushed until her face flushed red. The lights on the floor were about to go out; she crouched down, trying to see what was wrong.
“Planning to pick the lock?”
Wei Qingyue’s voice came from behind her without warning. Jiang Du’s back went rigid. She couldn’t help looking up and said stiffly: “No, I’m trying to lock it.” Yet her mind echoed with the two classmates’ conversation, and her gaze dimmed in an instant.
Hearing this, Wei Qingyue simply moved her aside. With a click, he locked it effortlessly, letting out a low laugh: “You really have no strength at all. Come to think of it, you spent military training sitting down the whole time.”
There was a note of teasing in his words. Jiang Du immediately burned with embarrassment.
Back then, she had sat on the edge of the sports field every single day. Many people knew there was a girl from Class Two who wasn’t participating in military training yet still sat out on the field. In some people’s eyes, that was quite affected — if you weren’t going to take part, you simply didn’t take part; what was the point of sitting there?
She wanted to explain that she had a heart condition, that she’d had surgery, but she was afraid Wei Qingyue would think she was playing the frail card. After hesitating for a moment, she only said: “Thank you for locking the door for me.”
Her voice came out a little subdued. Wei Qingyue glanced at her: “Did you have a fight with a classmate?”
Hm? Jiang Du looked up in surprise, stammering a little: “You — how did you know?”
“When I came back with Zhang Xiaoqiang, your classmate was in the corridor pouring out her grievances to Zhang Xiaoqiang.”
Jiang Du’s face went white in an instant, as though something had seized her heart without warning.
Wei Qingyue, seeing this, smiled: “Don’t be afraid. I may not know you well, but my instincts about people are sharp. I can tell you’re not the way your classmate described you. Next time she says something like that about you, confront her face to face.”
Jiang Du stared at Wei Qingyue in disbelief. I can tell, he had said — just those three words. In truth, those three words alone were enough. All of it, every feeling she had ever harbored for him, needed no response from him. Only this one moment of understanding was sufficient to console her entire youth. Heaven knew how deeply grateful she was that he had said that.
Wind poured into the corridor. Jiang Du stood dazed for a moment, then suddenly realized that no one had closed the corridor windows either. She hurried over and, one after another, yanked them shut with a series of loud clanks.
Wei Qingyue watched her from behind, just about to say something — and then the lights went out.
Sure enough, the girl let out a low cry of surprise. He pulled out his phone. Phones were not permitted at school, though of course in 2006, it was rare for high school students to have them at all.
Wei Qingyue’s phone was the latest model. He turned on the flashlight, and ahead of them, a beam of light appeared.
“Why close the windows?” Wei Qingyue gestured for her to come walk alongside him. But Jiang Du froze. It was very dark, yet Wei Qingyue himself seemed to have become a beam of light — a light so bright she had never come close to it before. In that instant, what welled up in her most was an overwhelmed, flustered kind of timidity.
“Jiang Du?” Wei Qingyue called her name with a hint of confusion, seeing that she wasn’t moving.
She had always assumed that the kind of girl who belonged at Wei Qingyue’s side would be someone like Zhang Xiaoqiang — outstanding, confident, radiant. Not like her, a little snail curled in a corner, carrying its shell on its back, wanting nothing more than to rest peacefully in its own quiet world.
Her body was stiff. In the end, she kept a small distance from him. The faint scent of orchid from the boy drifted over, and Jiang Du suspected it was some kind of laundry detergent. Their clothes brushed together once, the lightest incidental contact, and Jiang Du pressed her lips together — every nerve, every cell taut — her heart no longer her own.
“Why did you close those windows just now?” Wei Qingyue asked her again.
The silence was finally broken. She did her best to reply in a normal voice: “Teacher Xu said there might be sleet. If it drifts in overnight, the floor might freeze over.”
Wei Qingyue laughed softly again, in a way that was hard to read.
Jiang Du’s scalp prickled, and her heart was uneasy: Does he think I’m being hypocritical — making myself look kind-hearted on purpose? I should have just said I closed them without thinking… The girl agonized and regretted endlessly. She didn’t know why she had answered so honestly without stopping to think.
Stepping out of the teaching building, a gust of cold wind hit, sharp enough to tighten the throat. Wei Qingyue was still dressed lightly. He switched off the flashlight and said: “Can you make it back on your own?”
It was over far too soon — as though the walk had taken only a few seconds. Jiang Du had never wished so strongly that a corridor could stretch for several kilometers so she might walk just a little farther with him.
She made a soft sound of assent and said: “Thank you, truly, for today.”
The wind was cutting cold. Jiang Du glanced up at the sky and, with a touch of shyness, mustered her courage: “The forecast says there’ll be sleet. If you’re not dressed warmly enough, it’s easy to catch a cold — and a cold is a nuisance. Even though it’s a minor illness, the dull headache and heavy feeling are really unpleasant.”
She couldn’t bring herself to say it outright: dress more warmly when it gets cold.
The girl expressed her feelings in roundabout, gentle terms, hiding her thoughts in the wind.
“That day when I was being reprimanded — were you watching from the balcony opposite, secretly pleased?” Wei Qingyue made a joke out of nowhere. That day, he had noticed Jiang Du. In truth, he had long known she lived in the building across from him. Once, he had happened to see the girl struggling with a clothes-drying pole to hang a heavy sweater up high — drip, drip, drip, water pouring as though it hadn’t been wrung out at all — and only then did he understand that Jiang Du’s lack of strength was entirely genuine.
Jiang Du was startled again. She was flustered, and for a moment, couldn’t even come up with a lie on the spot.
“I wasn’t secretly pleased. Really.” Jiang Du said, her face flushed, her mind racing. “That day, a lot of classmates saw you. I was just looking along with everyone else to see what was going on. I genuinely had no intention of laughing at you.”
The girl’s manner felt vaguely familiar to Wei Qingyue — hazy, fleeting, carrying a sense of wistfulness. He didn’t know where this momentary feeling came from. After saying goodbye to her and returning to the dormitory, amid the noisy, boisterous laughter, he had even less means to identify or trace it.
Until the next day — and it truly was sleet — when lead-gray clouds blanketed the sky and cold rain mingled with snowflakes, melting into every paving stone across the school grounds. Lin Haiyang came to find him again, delivering another letter.
Wei Qingyue had thought he would not receive another one of these letters. After all, quite a long interval had passed.
The same envelope. The same paper. And the same handwriting.
At the time, after Wang Jingjing finished reading the third letter, she tilted her head and mulled it over, asking: “Jiang Du, are you writing a novel? My family doesn’t have a Chinese toon tree.”
Jiang Du had long anticipated that Wang Jingjing might harbor deep confusion on this point. She responded calmly: “Writing it that way feels warmer and more intimate — I think an easy, unhurried tone is nicer. Don’t you think?”
Wang Jingjing pursed her lips and said: “What I think? I think you’ve been acting like an old grandmother the whole time — rambling on and on, talking about nothing but dull things. Otherwise, why not copy out some romantic poetry for him? Copy the kind nobody’s read before, something with real flair? You must have read poems like that.”
“But those were written by other people,” Jiang Du said, with one of her inexplicable streaks of stubbornness.
Wang Jingjing couldn’t quite understand this line of thinking: “So what? You’re even allowed to quote famous sayings in essays.”
“This is a letter, not an essay. A letter should contain the most genuine things.” Jiang Du refused to yield. In moments like these, she was as stubborn as a mule — though Wang Jingjing had no personal experience with mules and didn’t quite understand why stubbornness was compared to them.
But Wang Jingjing’s mouth was quick, and she was best at arguing back: “My family doesn’t have a Chinese toon tree — that’s not genuine either!”
Jiang Du was momentarily stumped. After a pause, she said: “Artistic truth.”
“Oh, give it a rest — what on earth is that — you’re actually killing me, Jiang Du, you’re genuinely hilarious!” Wang Jingjing burst out laughing. When she finished, she was still quite happy to copy the letter out. But toward the end of the copying, she couldn’t help muttering again.
When the letter was delivered to Wei Qingyue, the weather was dreadful. After evening self-study, everyone hunched their shoulders, crying “Freezing to death!” as they sprinted toward the dormitories. Some students were particularly lazy — never filling their own hot water, borrowing from this person one day, that person the next, or simply crawling straight into bed without washing their feet. Wei Qingyue, though relaxed about minor things, still maintained basic hygiene. He slept on the upper bunk; after washing up, he climbed into bed, sat there in his thin pajamas, and read the letter.
The topic male dormitory students loved discussing most was always girls. Wei Qingyue would usually listen in silence, smile in silence, rarely joining in such conversations — yet the subject matter itself was undeniably compelling. The boy in the bunk across from him — short, thin, his face dotted with pimples — had mentioned Jiang Du a few times.
What surprised him was that the other boys in the dormitory also had an impression of Jiang Du. They said she was a genuine beauty, though she seemed physically fragile — like a gust of wind could carry her away. Someone joked that they should call her “Little Sister Lin,” after the sickly heroine from Dream of the Red Chamber.
Was this the same girl he knew? Wei Qingyue always felt that the Jiang Du his dormitory mates described and the one he knew were not the same person.
Honestly, he didn’t remember much of the details. Every time their paths crossed, Wei Qingyue would say whatever came to mind — to him, she was simply a schoolmate they’d had some minor interactions with. If he were truly asked to recall what he and Jiang Du had ever said to each other, he could summon perhaps a third of it.
At eleven o’clock, the dormitory lights went out on schedule. Wei Qingyue switched on his phone’s flashlight. Around him, the other boys chatted on about girls.
“Dear Reader,
It has been a long while since I last wrote to you — I hope you are well. I imagine everything is the same as usual for you? You ranked first in the midterms again, and everyone is talking about you. Your name has become synonymous with supreme honor.
Time passes so quickly. Without realizing it, another autumn has gone. Winter always seems especially long — and everyone is bundled up so heavily. I’m not very fond of winter, but if it happens to be a snowy day, gathered around a small brazier with family, roasting sweet potatoes and chestnuts while wind and snow swirl outside — that kind of scene I do love. The classroom, however, leaves much to be desired. It’s so cold. I especially hate duty days: the benches are hard, the desks are hard, and when the broom swings, dust flies straight into your face. Why is there so much dust in winter? It settles on the desks, and wiping it away with a facial tissue doesn’t work — you have to use a wet cloth. Some classmates like to just give the desk a few sweeps with a book and then sit right down. Can that actually get it clean? Quite a few students in our class do that. I wonder how you wipe your desk and bench.
Perhaps the greatest pleasure of winter is being able to look forward to the New Year and to spring. Speaking of spring — there used to be a Chinese toon tree in our old courtyard. Once spring arrived, the family would pick the freshest toon shoots. They could be stir-fried with eggs, or mixed with tofu — the color was so delicate and lovely. People who aren’t used to the taste of toon shoots find it strange, but once you’ve grown accustomed to it, there’s a particularly fragrant aroma. Sadly, we moved house later on, and now we can no longer pick toon shoots in spring, nor can we see the swallows that came year after year to build their nests under our eaves. Though the apartment complex we live in now is cleaner and closer to school, I still miss our old courtyard most of all. Most importantly, back then, my family hadn’t grown so old. I grow a year older, and so do they — one year older for every one of mine. By the time I start university, by the time I start working… I actually don’t dare think about these things. There is truly nothing more merciless than time.
Oh — the large tree near the library has lost almost all its leaves. Its branches twist and contort, and suddenly it carries the air of something desperate and withered — entirely different from the magnificent abundance of its full foliage. It used to frighten me a little; now it no longer does. I’ve even begun to feel a small tenderness toward it. After all, it’s the only solitary tree in that area, with a small flower bed beside it full of blooms — but they’re all a different kind from the tree, none of its own sort. I wonder if you’ve ever felt this way: when you’re not the same kind as others around you, there’s always a hollow feeling somewhere. Like — everyone else has something that you don’t. Of course, I’m not saying I’m the sort of person who wallows in self-pity. I only mean that having an absence — while not necessarily something that cuts to the bone — can sometimes make you feel empty. Like a piece missing from somewhere, impossible to fill.
I’m not quite sure why, but this letter has taken on a rather melancholy tone as I’ve written it — that was entirely not my intention. It may simply be because the days are short and the nights are long, and people tend to let their minds wander. I imagine you’re nothing like me in this respect — your goals must be clear, your plans well-defined. I’ve heard you intend to study abroad. You’ll be going to a country very far away, won’t you? If you come to love it there, you might stay. I wonder whether you have family here you’d miss, and whether there is anything at Mei High you’d be reluctant to leave behind. I love Mei High dearly — very dearly. Being able to study here makes me feel so fortunate. I think, no matter where I go in the future, no matter how old I grow, I will always cherish every memory of Mei High.
It’s been truly cold lately, and everyone has been adding layers. I don’t know whether some people simply don’t feel the cold — dressing so lightly, as though they’re not afraid of getting sick at all. But I’ve heard from my family that if you dress too lightly when you’re young, you’ll develop joint pain when you’re older, and joint pain is terrible to endure. I truly cannot imagine the feeling of not being able to run and move about freely. So since our bones have to serve us for an entire lifetime, it’s surely better to care for them gently — (just my personal thought).
This is the third letter, and I don’t know whether you’ll read it. Before picking up my pen each time, I’ve actually thought about this question. Whatever the case, I still hope you will read it. Of course, if it causes you any trouble or irritation, I won’t write again — (this is something I suddenly realized: I don’t want you to dislike me. Strangely, I used to think that simply writing it was enough, and never considered whether it might bother you. That was too selfish of me.) But at this moment, I don’t even know whether you read the first two, so perhaps these worries are simply talking to myself.
But regardless — finally, I’d like to say in advance: “Happy New Year.” And also: “May the New Year bring you health, peace, and continued excellence.” This wish holds for every year.”