As the Start of Summer arrived, School Ten held its second mock examination. The entire school went into lockdown, with all Year Twelve students on full alert and every extracurricular activity canceled.

The closer the college entrance examinations drew, the more oppressive and tense the atmosphere in the classroom became. Even the boys who normally joked and fooled around during breaks had quieted down considerably.

The second mock was scheduled for Thursday and Friday, with the weekend being a rare two-day break.

On the afternoon before the examinations, Year Twelve was given half a day off for exam hall preparation. Lin Tao and Meng Xin didn’t go out either, staying behind at the internet café to study.

Not long after the start of this semester, Meng Xin had also moved out of her family home and into the internet café.

As evening drew near, the outside world was enveloped in dusk. The harsh summer sun drew in its scorching rays and turned warm and gentle, while the rows of tall buildings were cast in brilliant reflected light.

Lin Tao finished writing a practice paper, looked up and caught the scene outside the window, and was briefly transfixed.

There were so many beautiful things in the world, and yet none could compare to the unstudied perfection of nature.

Lin Tao stood up, walked to the window, and pushed it open. A warm gust of wind met her head-on.

The air carried the breath of summer.

She stood there just like that, window open, quietly lost in a daze.

Until Meng Xin came over with a test paper in hand and broke the brief silence. “I genuinely cannot understand this habit of yours — running the air conditioning while also standing at an open window.”

Lin Tao smiled and didn’t bother explaining. She turned and walked back to her desk. “Finished the paper?”

“Here.” Meng Xin set the paper she’d been holding down on the table. Recalling the head-scratching struggle of writing it, she couldn’t help muttering a complaint: “Not to be harsh, but where does the school tyrant even find these papers? The difficulty level is brutal. Under normal circumstances there’s no way I’d take this long.”

Ever since Meng Xin had moved into the internet café, whenever Jiang Yan brought test papers for Lin Tao, he would bring a copy for her as well. The two of them could keep each other accountable while they worked, and also fill in any gaps in each other’s knowledge.

Lin Tao lowered her eyes with a small smile. “I have no idea. All I know is that I’ve been working through papers at this difficulty level since last year.”

“……” Meng Xin gave a thumbs up. “You’re something else.”

By evening, neither Lin Tao nor Meng Xin had any intention of doing more revision or working through another paper.

The two of them found a disc in Jiang Yan’s room and decided to watch a film to unwind.

Jiang Yan was rarely at Xicheng this semester, but he knew Lin Tao liked watching films and had bought quite a few discs to keep in his room — he had even installed a projector in there during his last home leave.

Pull the curtains, switch off the lights, and it became a small private cinema.

Midway through the film, Lin Tao’s phone sitting on the desk rang abruptly. The sudden burst of ringtone was more startling than the horror and suspense on screen.

The screen showed a familiar contact name and number.

Lin Tao picked up her phone and said to the person on the other end, “Give me a moment.”

Then she turned to look at Meng Xin. “I’m going to step out and take a call. You keep watching.”

“Actually, forget it.” Meng Xin casually reached over and turned the light back on. “I’m a bit scared watching it alone. I’ll go downstairs and grab some water. You take your call.”

Lin Tao said no more, paused the film, and brought the phone back up. “Jiang Yan?”

“Here.” Jiang Yan had heard the faint rustling sounds earlier. “Watching a film?”

“Yeah.” Lin Tao couldn’t stay still on the sofa and got up to walk over to the window, pushing it open. The night air carried a cool edge. “Still one of the ones you bought last time. Found a horror film.”

“High Speed Thriller?” Jiang Yan asked.

Lin Tao leaned sideways against the wall, her fingers tapping idly on the windowsill. She was somewhat surprised. “How did you know?”

“Watched a bit of it during my last leave when I had nothing to do.” Jiang Yan said, “But I never finished it.”

“I’ll tell you how it ends after I watch it.”

“Sure.”

Jiang Yan seemed to have someone nearby — there were faint sounds in the background. Lin Tao’s hearing was sharp and she caught them. “Are you still outside somewhere?”

“Yeah, still in the lab.” Jiang Yan glanced at his companion trying to lean in and listen to the call, and stood up with his phone. “Do you still remember Yu Hanghang — the one who brought you the physics notes when my training camp ended?”

“Of course.” Lin Tao said with a laugh, “I’ll never forget him as long as I live.”

“He’s right next to me now.” Jiang Yan kicked Yu Hanghang’s stool. “Say hello.”

Before Lin Tao had time to react, a bright, enthusiastic voice came through on the other end of the line: “Lin Tao, hello! I’m Yu Hanghang! So pleased to meet you!”

She laughed and called back in reply.

The phone quickly returned to Jiang Yan’s hands, though every now and then Lin Tao could still hear Yu Hanghang calling out “Let me chat for a bit more.”

The two of them didn’t talk for very long — only about half an hour before hanging up.

Meng Xin had what seemed like an uncanny sense of timing: the moment Lin Tao put her phone away, she came through the door carrying water. “All done?”

Lin Tao nodded.

“I thought you two would be on for an hour or two.” Meng Xin handed the cola in her hand to Lin Tao. “They were out of cold ones.”

Lin Tao took it, had a sip, and set it on the table.

Meng Xin switched off the light and the film resumed.

For some reason, now that they had started watching again, Lin Tao found she could no longer recapture that earlier sense of breathless dread. Even the horror sequences on screen didn’t feel particularly frightening anymore.

The film ended just past nine.

Meng Xin’s nerves were shaken after finishing the horror film, and she was too scared to sleep alone that night. She went back to her room, showered, and quickly scurried over to Lin Tao’s room.

The two of them lay in bed and chatted for a while, drifting back over memories from middle school all the way to now.

The night grew deep. Outside the window the stars shone clear and bright. Meng Xin let out a yawn, pulled the blanket around herself, and said in a drowsy voice, “I can’t anymore — I’m going to sleep first. Good night, Tao Tao.”

Lin Tao smiled. “Good night.”

Meng Xin fell asleep quickly. Lin Tao, however, had no particular urge to sleep, and picked up her phone. A notification from an app popped up in her status bar —

Dear Lin, it’s been so long since you updated your post! Remember to keep it up to date!

Seeing this message, Lin Tao suddenly remembered — ever since she had started Year Twelve, she had not logged back into this forum, and had never updated that help post in the “How to Attract a Crush” section.

Since there was nothing on at the moment, Lin Tao opened the forum app, spent over ten minutes updating the version, and finally logged into the back end.

Nearly an entire half-year had passed without a visit, and the latest updates on the “Attracting Your Crush” board had undergone a complete changeover. Lin Tao’s post had long since been pushed aside by newer ones.

But when she clicked on the “Most Popular” tab on the side, the number one post was still the help thread Lin Tao had originally put up.

At some point Lin Tao had been checking the forum during class and, afraid that Jiang Yan might notice, had turned off the app’s notifications.

All the comments, likes, and shares had accumulated into a single small red dot.

Lin Tao opened her post and saw that the total count of comments, likes, and shares at the bottom had reached nearly several million.

The most recent comments were all asking how she was doing and when she would update, with some speculating about whether she and Jiang had ended things badly.

Lin Tao spent a little time re-reading through the content of the post from the beginning. Then she tapped the update button to one side and composed a new entry —

Long time no see! — This past year I’ve been preparing for the college entrance examinations, so I haven’t had much time to update. — Jiang and I are doing just fine — no bad ending and there won’t be one! — Good night, everyone! See you in summer!

No more than a few minutes after this update went live, a flood of comments and likes poured in below the post — most of them expressing delight and exclaiming that she had finally updated.

Lin Tao picked out one comment wishing her and Jiang Yan good luck on the exams and replied —

Thank you, lovely! — (whispered) Jiang has already been admitted on a recommendation! I’m working hard to get into the same school as him [being humble .jpg])

The moment this reply was posted, it broke a thousand likes almost instantly and was pushed to the top of the day’s most-liked comments on the post. Plenty of other readers also piled in with replies below, though after sending that one comment, Lin Tao went directly offline and missed the spectacle of an entire crowd turning sour with envy.

After closing the forum, her phone buzzed with a low battery warning. Lin Tao climbed out of bed, fished through her bag for a charger, plugged her phone in beside the desk, and lay back down. She was asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.

In the hushed and silent room, the phone charging in the corner suddenly lit up, and two WeChat notifications appeared one after the other in the status bar —

Jiang Yan: Forgot to mention on the call — good luck on tomorrow’s exam.

Jiang Yan: Get some rest. Good night.

After the second mock concluded, what followed was an even more intensive stretch of revision and an ever-shrinking countdown on the wall.

Everyone seemed to have grown accustomed to the rhythm of weekly and monthly examinations by now. Complaints had largely faded, and it was rare to hear anyone talk about giving up anymore.

Lin Tao had little sense of time passing — the only way she could feel its movement was through the desk rearrangements that happened every two weeks.

After entering Year Twelve, the frequency of seat changes had increased. Teacher Yu explained that it was to protect everyone’s eyesight.

A week before the third mock, Lin Tao’s seat was moved from the first row back to the fourth column.

Outside the teaching building, lush green banyan trees spread their canopy in every direction. In the distance stretched the crisp red and green of the sports ground.

Figures running on the track. Creeping vines climbing the wall. Sunlight filtering through the gaps in the leaves, tracing the pattern of veins and branches in the foliage.

The marks summer leaves are always difficult to forget.

During the two days of the third mock, Lin Tao was in surprisingly good form. She had a vague feeling that her total score this time would be somewhat higher than during the second mock.

After the exam, the group went out for a meal together. Meng Xin mentioned that during the English portion of the exam, a girl in her testing hall had been so overcome with nerves that she had fainted outright.

Xu Yichuan picked up on this. “Our hall had someone faint too. I figure — if it’s already like this for the third mock, won’t the actual college entrance exam be the death of someone?”

Lin Tao only smiled and said nothing.

Song Yuan remarked with feeling, “At a time like this I suddenly find myself a little envious of Hu Hanghang — no need to fight tooth and nail for the exams, and he gets to do what he loves.”

To take part in the recording of The Voice, Hu Hanghang had temporarily taken leave from school. Before he left, he said: “This is the one gamble I’m taking with my life. Whatever happens, I have to put in the effort for my dream.”

When Teacher Yu learned of Hu Hanghang’s decision, he had commissioned a custom microphone through a friend and presented it as a gift, inscribing a line of small characters on it himself —

One who has not climbed a high mountain does not know how tall the sky is; one who has not stood at the edge of a deep valley does not know how thick the earth is.

Until you have not climbed a high mountain, you do not know how high the sky reaches. Until you have not leaned over the edge of a deep ravine, you do not know how deep the earth goes. Some things — you only ever know the outcome after you have lived through them.

Once one has a goal worth striving toward, the future seems to grow clearer in every direction. Everyone was working toward the outcome they were hoping for.

Their futures held promise, and there was still so much time ahead.

……

After the third mock, the days remaining before the college entrance examinations grew shorter still.

Two weeks before the exams, Jiang Yan specifically requested two weeks’ leave from Coach Guo Wen.

Jiang Yan’s accomplishments in physical engineering were exceptional, and Guo Wen had always been particularly indulgent toward him. Upon learning that Jiang Yan was going home to accompany his girlfriend through the exams, he even joked, “Any chance you could bring your girlfriend over to our lab?”

“Probably not.” Jiang Yan touched the tip of his nose and laughed. “My girlfriend is excellent at everything — except physics.”

“……” Guo Wen picked up his lab notebook and gave Jiang Yan a tap on the arm, shaking his head in an expression of fond exasperation. “Off you go then.”

News that Jiang Yan had taken leave to return to Xicheng to accompany his girlfriend through the college entrance examinations spread through the entire lab in no time, and earned a wave of envious sulking from every unattached person in the building.

One senior student joked ruefully: “I genuinely regret not dating someone in high school. Now that I’m in university there’s absolutely no time to date.”

“……”

Everyone in the lab already thought the fact that Jiang Yan had a girlfriend was envy-inducing enough — little did they know it got worse.

Not only did he have a girlfriend, she was also top-tier — beautiful and academically brilliant. It was simply not giving anyone else a reason to live.

This outcome meant that for a long while afterward, Jiang Yan became a standing subject of teasing among the senior students and faculty in the lab.

On the day Jiang Yan returned to Xicheng, it happened to coincide with the final qualifying round of Hu Hanghang’s preliminary stage. The program’s management had given each contestant in their group one group ticket to invite family and friends to watch the competition in person.

Hu Hanghang hadn’t planned to have his parents come during this period, so he gave the ticket to Xu Yichuan and the others. Guan Che also happened to be staying in Xicheng during those days.

The whole group was rarely all together at the same time, so all six of them went to the venue.

The Voice had attracted significant attention since it began airing, and Lin Tao and the others, because of Hu Hanghang, had been following its updates all along.

For the sake of his long-term development, Hu Hanghang had been dieting ever since he joined the program’s recording.

When they watched the show, they had vaguely sensed he seemed to have lost some weight — but seeing him in person made them realize the change was far more dramatic. He hadn’t just lost a little weight; he had lost a great deal. At the very least he had to have shed twenty pounds.

The hint of baby fat that used to round his face had given way to sharp angles and definition, and his features and eyes appeared much clearer now that he had leaned out.

In makeup, his level of attractiveness skyrocketed.

Of the six of them, only Jiang Yan and Guan Che rarely had time to watch the show, though neither was completely out of the loop — whenever they had a spare moment, they would go on Weibo and cast a vote for him.

When they ran into Hu Hanghang backstage, both Jiang Yan and Guan Che were visibly taken aback.

“Is this actually Pangpang as we know him?” Guan Che draped an arm over Jiang Yan’s shoulder, laughing. “This is practically Hu Handsomehang.”

Hu Hanghang was the same as always — the moment he got shy, he scratched his head. “It’s all the makeup artist’s skill.”

They only managed a few exchanges before a production assistant called Hu Hanghang away to go over the program’s running order. The rest of them were escorted to their seats by a staff member.

The corridors were lined with contestants’ rooms on all sides, and occasional laughter drifted out from within.

Lin Tao walked hand in hand with Jiang Yan, bringing up the rear of the group. Someone came out of a room nearby. Lin Tao glanced up, and recognized the person as the contestant who currently had the highest following on the show.

The boy seemed to notice Lin Tao’s gaze and smiled politely in her direction.

Lin Tao kept her expression neutral — but the moment he had walked past, she grabbed Jiang Yan’s arm in excitement. “He just smiled at me — did you see that?!”

Jiang Yan looked at her and said nothing.

Lin Tao, still oblivious to her boyfriend’s mood, pressed on: “Do you think I could ask Pangpang to help me get his autograph later?”

“You can try,” Jiang Yan replied, his tone dropping several degrees.

“……” Lin Tao offered a sincere apology. “Oh — sorry, I forgot you were here.”

Jiang Yan: “?”

Author’s Note: Jiang Yan: I’m about to pour a bucket of water over her head.