At fourteen, Lin Qile wrote in her diary:
“I never want to think about Jiang Qiaoxi again!”
At sixteen, Lin Qile finished her homework late at night. Restless, she propped her head up and previewed the next day’s lessons.
By ten o’clock, Lin Qile lay on her desk, seemingly with nothing left to do. She bit her fingers while staring blankly at her algebra textbook.
Her chest felt hot, brimming with indescribable emotions. Though she didn’t want to cry, not crying made her feel uncomfortably stifled. What was causing this?
She picked up her pen, opened her hardcover diary, and wrote beneath the long-ago entry “I never want to think about Jiang Qiaoxi again!”:
“Jiang Qiaoxi kissed me. November 1, 2006.”
Xin Tingting called from the South Campus, saying she overheard girls at the next table in the cafeteria badmouthing Lin Qile fiercely, loud enough for many to hear.
“You’ve been hiding things from me. You said you weren’t dating Jiang Qiaoxi before, but as soon as you returned, he started pursuing you. He brings you water daily and even skips classes. Even I know about it in South Campus,” Xin Tingting’s tone was extremely excited. “During evening self-study, I heard your former roommates say Cen Xiaoman was crying hysterically in the school bathroom. Did you make her cry?”
Lin Qile, wearing a nightgown and crouching on the balcony, brushed her cat brought back from South Campus. She hurriedly explained, “What? I don’t even know Cen Xiaoman—”
Suddenly, her phone vibrated. Lin Qile checked it to find a new message from Jiang Qiaoxi.
“Feng Letian called me. How do you know each other?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
Lin Qile replied that they were classmates from South Campus.
Jiang Qiaoxi asked if they were close.
Lin Qile found the question odd and responded, “We’re alright, I guess. Back at South Campus, Feng Banzhang was the only one who talked to me. Sometimes we went to the cafeteria together, but we were not close. He’s a nice person.”
Jiang Qiaoxi questioned, “What do you mean by ‘the only one’?”
Lin Qile didn’t reply further.
Before bed, Jiang Qiaoxi asked if she would join him for lunch at the Little White Building cafeteria tomorrow.
This happened in early November. Lin Qile’s impression of autumn gradually shifted from the silhouette of mountains at dusk and the decaying sunset at South Campus to the sky-blocking ginkgo trees at the Little White Building and Jiang Qiaoxi’s eyes when he looked down at her. Initially, she was afraid to go to the Little White Building, thinking she might be kicked out for not being a competitive student. Surprisingly, Cai Fangyuan didn’t care and encouraged Lin Yingtao to try the famous chicken leg rice at the Little White Building cafeteria.
They didn’t eat with Du Shang for two days. On the third day, Du Shang found his way to join them.
By Friday, Yu Qiao and several school team boys, hearing Du Shang rave about the chicken leg rice, couldn’t resist the temptation. Yu Qiao led the way, saying, “We were desk mates for two years in primary school. It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t mooch off this meal, would it?”
Jiang Qiaoxi had only one meal card, and with more people coming, it emptied quickly. He went to recharge it, and the next day at lunch, the balance showed over two thousand yuan, shocking even the cafeteria staff.
Cai Fangyuan, holding ten pairs of chopsticks, remarked, “Your meal card has enough to pass down to the next generation.”
Most diners at the Little White Building were competition students, along with some young teachers who liked to eat there. Jiang Qiaoxi used to eat alone or sometimes with Fei Linge and Cen Xiaoman. He was always quiet, rarely speaking, only becoming lively when underclassmen approached him with questions about their studies.
Now, Jiang Qiaoxi’s surroundings were incredibly bustling, full of people. Yu Qiao and Du Shang chatted at the table, suddenly slipping into the Qunshan dialect. The school team members didn’t understand, but Jiang Qiaoxi unexpectedly chimed in. His Qunshan dialect was a bit awkward but captured the essence, making Yu Qiao and the others laugh heartily.
“Yingtao,” Jiang Qiaoxi said amidst the commotion.
“Hm?”
“I want to eat Aunt Juan’s jujube steamed buns,” Jiang Qiaoxi tilted his head, speaking softly, seemingly very happy.
Lin Yingtao looked at his face. In the past, she had only seen such a near-intoxicated expression on her father’s face after he had a little alcohol. But Jiang Qiaoxi hadn’t been drinking.
“I’ll tell my mom when I get home,” she replied.
The next day at lunch, Lin Yingtao brought her mother’s freshly steamed jujube buns in a lunch box for everyone to share. She introduced them to the school team boys: “They’re sweet!” Jiang Qiaoxi, with indelible ink stains on his fingers from fountain pens, was explaining a problem to an underclassman standing beside him while accepting half a bun that Yingtao had broken for him. He had just taken a bite when—
Suddenly, someone called out from the cafeteria entrance: “Qiaoxi!”
The once lively table fell silent.
Lin Yingtao looked up to see Jiang Qiaoxi’s mother standing at the cafeteria entrance, accompanied by the school’s academic affairs director and several teachers responsible for the second-year high school students.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat amid the vanished laughter, an underclassman’s book open on his knee, the student’s pen in his hand, and the half-eaten jujube bun. He stared at his mother, motionless, as if he hadn’t heard her.
Liang Hongfei glanced at their table: “That student, you’re Lin Qile, right?”
Lin Yingtao was stunned, but before she could respond, Jiang Qiaoxi abruptly stood up beside her. Being tall, his chair scraped back with a harsh sound. Without a word, Jiang Qiaoxi walked past Yu Qiao and the others, heading out without the slightest protest.
When Lin Yingtao turned around during afternoon classes, she found Jiang Qiaoxi’s seat consistently empty, with no one returning. At the end of the school day, after some thought, she carefully placed the remaining uneaten jujube bun from lunch back into the lunch box.
Cai Fangyuan said he needed to borrow notes from Jiang Qiaoxi’s drawer and took the opportunity to slip the lunch box inside.
Du Shang used to be extremely concerned about his mother, a true filial son. Now, when calling his mother who was visiting her parents, his tone inevitably carried a hint of impatience: “Mom, you don’t need to worry about me anymore! I’m grown up! I know, I know!”
It was Yu Qiao’s birthday. Lin Yingtao was helping Yu Qiao’s mother pick garlic sprouts in the kitchen. Yu’s mother said, “Boys grow up and start to care about their self-esteem. They don’t like being managed or told what to do anymore. They all want to save face.” As she spoke, she glanced back at Du Shang outside the door, letting out a sigh that was hard to tell if it was disappointment or amusement.
Lin Yingtao put the picked garlic sprouts into a small basket: “But they still want their mothers to wash their clothes, cook for them, and clean up after them!”
“Isn’t that the truth!” Yu’s mother said, slicing pork tenderloin. “They really can’t do anything themselves. Our Yingtao is so considerate, knowing to come to help auntie pick garlic sprouts.”
Just then, someone squeezed into the kitchen doorway. Lin Yingtao didn’t turn around, but from the height, she could tell it was Yu Qiao. He pushed his way in behind them.
“Mom,” Yu Qiao opened the cabinet above, searching impatiently, “Where’s my can of coffee?”
“You’re about to eat, why are you drinking coffee?” Yu’s mother finished mixing the meat for frying, wiped her hands on her apron, and reached up to pat Yu Qiao’s arm. “Stop rummaging around, I’ll find it for you!”
Yu Qiao walked out, passing by Lin Yingtao and peering over her shoulder. “Garlic sprouts again,” he said, disapprovingly.
Yu’s mother replied, “It’s your dad who insists on eating them!”
The coffee was found, and Yu Qiao left. Outside, it was bustling with activity, though it wasn’t clear what they were doing. Lin Yingtao finished picking the last few garlic sprouts, and Yu’s mother said, “Yingtao, wash your hands quickly and go play with them.”
The kitchen was small, with people brushing against each other as they moved. Lin Yingtao left the kitchen to see Yu’s father feeding small turtles in a tank by the wall. Du Shang had found a brush somewhere and was dipping it into the coffee can, drawing on Yu Qiao’s opened sixteenth birthday cake.
Qin Yeyun lay nearby, resting her face on her hands, suddenly complaining, “You drew it wrong! That’s a soccer ball!”
Du Shang was then pushed aside by Yu Qiao. Du Shang belatedly realized, “Oh… doesn’t a basketball look like this?”
Cai Fangyuan was playing on the computer in Yu Qiao’s room, vigorously slamming the mouse: “Yu Qiao, your computer needs a virus scan!”
Little cousin Yu Jin chirped nearby in his childish voice, “We just scanned it yesterday.”
Cai Fangyuan shouted, “Yu Qiao! I’ve found a new website for you, hurry up and come here!”
Yu Qiao couldn’t be bothered to go in: “Brother, my little brother is still young. Could you not always use my computer to browse porn sites?”
Cai Fangyuan retorted, “Come on, I’m celebrating your birthday with you. Are you coming or not?”
Lin Yingtao heard Yu’s mother call from behind, “Yingtao! Come help me with one more thing—”
She went back into the kitchen and took a stainless steel steamer basket from Yu’s mother: “Take out the jujube buns your mom made and put them in here. We’ll heat them before eating.”
Perhaps it was the heat in the kitchen or the steam, but as Lin Yingtao lowered her head to arrange the jujube buns in the steamer basket, she suddenly felt her eyes grow hot, tears nearly falling.
Lin Yingtao wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She took a bowl to scoop water, poured it into the pot, then placed the steamer basket on top and covered it with the lid. Yu’s mother remarked from the side, “How does Yingtao know how to do all this without being taught?”
Lin Yingtao smiled at her: “I help my mom heat things at home!”
“Ah, daughter, how nice it would be if you could marry into our family…” Yu’s mother joked.
Lin Yingtao left the kitchen, pulling down her rolled-up sleeves. She passed by Du Shang and Yu Qiao’s group, turning to enter the balcony filled with potted plants.
She crouched between the pots of flowers and the washing machine, alone, and made a call to Jiang Qiaoxi on her phone.
But still, no one answered.
Late at night, at Fuzhou Changle International Airport.
In the first-floor hall of the airport, there were still many staff on duty at the Winter Camp Organizing Committee’s reception booth. Among the coming and going travelers, there were occasionally students from all over the country arriving to participate in the competition. Accompanied by parents and teachers, they carried their luggage and boarded vehicles heading to the campsite.
Jiang Qiaoxi walked off the plane alone, carrying only a backpack with no other luggage. He exited the passageway, first lifting his head to look at the row of ground lights outside the airport, extending from his feet to the horizon.
As he walked down the stairs, he took out his phone and turned it on.
“Yingtao?” he asked.
“You can take calls now?” Lin Yingtao asked, surprised.
“I’m in Fuzhou,” Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly said.
“Fuzhou?” Lin Yingtao questioned.
Jiang Qiaoxi walked towards the Winter Camp Organizing Committee’s reception booth. He took out his credentials and handed them to the teacher, then picked up a pen with one hand to sign a form. He said into the phone, “I’ll be back at school in a few days.”
“Are you at that winter camp?” Lin Yingtao asked.
“Mm,” Jiang Qiaoxi said, “It’s almost over.”
His voice was soft, devoid of emotion, unusually calm.
Lin Yingtao didn’t understand. The exam hadn’t even started yet; what did he mean by “almost over”?
“What are you doing?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
“I’m at Yu Qiao’s house,” Lin Yingtao said. Through the balcony door, she could hear the laughter of friends in the living room. “We’re celebrating his birthday.”
Jiang Qiaoxi swallowed, audible even over the phone.
“Yingtao,” he said, “Can you celebrate my birthday with me next year?”
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Note:
The Chinese Mathematical Olympiad and the 22nd National High School Students Mathematical Olympiad Winter Camp took place on January 25, 2007, at Wenzhou Middle School in Zhejiang Province. Due to the involvement of real-life awards and rankings, the locations and cities related to the competition have been fictionalized in this text.