Qin Yeyun turned around and whispered, “He gave you red shoes! Aren’t those wedding shoes? Only brides wear red shoes on their wedding day.”
Lin Qile lay in bed, confused by Qin Yeyun’s words. The bedroom light was off, with only moonlight filtering through the window, illuminating their youthful faces.
“No, no,” Lin Qile quickly said, “He probably just likes red…”
Qin Yeyun’s father had gone to Beijing for a follow-up on his leg injury, so Qin Yeyun was staying at Lin Qile’s house for two nights. The two girls huddled under the same blanket, whispering.
Qin Yeyun grumbled to Lin Qile, “If Yu Qiao bought me a pair of little red shoes, I’d run off and marry him right now!”
Lin Qile turned to look at her.
“Yu Qiao?” Lin Qile said hesitantly.
Qin Yeyun’s eyebrows drooped, probably realizing that Yu Qiao would never do such a thing. “Never mind…”
The two girls lay facing the ceiling, each lost in thought.
“Lin Yingtao,” Qin Yeyun suddenly said, “I used to hate you so much when we were little. I never thought we’d end up sleeping together when we grew up.”
Lin Qile nodded, agreeing, “I didn’t expect it either.”
“When you were little, you were so lucky and spoiled, always throwing tantrums,” Qin Yeyun said disdainfully. She turned to face Lin Qile. “Do you remember when you and Yu Qiao fought once? You wouldn’t forgive him and gave him the cold shoulder for half a month in the senior class, pouting at everyone. Poor Yu Qiao had to follow you around trying to talk to you every day.”
Lin Qile turned her head, disbelieving, “How is that possible?”
Qin Yeyun said, “You’ve forgotten! I remember it all!” She was indignant. “That’s why I think Yu Qiao isn’t incapable of comforting people; he just doesn’t want to comfort me!”
Lin Qile said, “No, no, no, he doesn’t comfort me either. I’m just more forgiving—”
Qin Yeyun retorted, “Are you saying I’m petty?”
“No, no, no…” Lin Qile shook her head hurriedly.
“Jiang Qiaoxi, that guy, he lives up to being a math genius,” Qin Yeyun said, hands behind her head. “First, he gave you Chanel lipstick, and now Ferragamo high heels. You’re so inexperienced and unsophisticated; who else could you possibly like in the future?”
Lin Qile realized she had been verbally attacked again without noticing.
“He’s a bit devious,” Qin Yeyun continued, “Even if he goes to America, he wants you to remain chaste for him here in China!”
Lin Qile quickly defended herself, “What? Why would I—”
Qin Yeyun turned her head, eyes wide: “Lin Yingtao, be honest, do you think you could ever forget Jiang Qiaoxi?”
Lin Qile was stunned.
Qin Yeyun pressed on, “Aren’t you worried? He’s going to America, and you might never see him again. You might never meet a better man than Jiang Qiaoxi. You’ll end up marrying someone worse!”
Lin Qile hesitated, “Will… will it be like that?”
Qin Yeyun said, “Of course! Where else could you find another Jiang Qiaoxi who’s blind enough to like you?”
Lin Qile complained, “Why are you insulting me when you’re staying at my house?”
Qin Yeyun retorted, “Obviously, I’m jealous. Why do you get Ferragamo shoes from a guy?” She suddenly stopped, her gaze falling on the rose gold necklace around Lin Yingtao’s neck.
“He even gave you a jeweled cherry. What’s wrong with Jiang Qiaoxi? He wants you to wear it forever, so you’ll never forget him!”
When the second semester of the sophomore year started, rumors spread that Cen Xiaoman from Class 18 was also going to America with Jiang Qiaoxi.
Lin Qile continued her studies as usual, spending her breaks either studying or joking around with Yu Qiao, Cai Fangyuan, and Huang Zhanjie. Despite a new basketball tournament in the second semester, Lin Qile quit the cheerleading team, saying she was too busy with schoolwork.
Jiang Qiaoxi no longer attended school during the day, preparing for the SAT exam in May. After discussing with the school, they agreed to let him temporarily stop classes to focus on exam preparation. Lin Qile could only see him at night when they called. Jiang Qiaoxi mentioned he had left his TOEFL study materials with Cai Fangyuan, saying, “You can get them if you want to use them.”
Lin Qile, focused on her English vocabulary book, didn’t respond.
Jiang Qiaoxi added, “You’re not doing cheerleading anymore, right?”
“No,” Lin Qile replied.
Jiang Qiaoxi said, “That’s good. Better to study vocabulary.”
In April 2007, Lin Qile overheard adults on the school bus discussing news about an American financial company going bankrupt.
Companies go bankrupt every day; it wasn’t particularly noteworthy.
“My MP3 is out of battery,” Lin Qile said to Du Shang. “Can I listen to yours?”
Du Shang, eating a jianbing, smiled and took out his MP3 player. “You’re not worried about boys and girls being too close now?”
Lin Qile grinned and happily accepted it, knowing Du Shang always had new songs.
“What’s the name of Jay Chou’s new album?” she asked.
Du Shang leaned over to look, “Still Fantasy.”
“Still?” Lin Qile said, unconsciously kicking her legs under the chair. She liked the name. “Still ‘Fantasy’…”
Yu Qiao was reading a sports newspaper in front, while Cai Fangyuan was absorbed in a game, its background music blaring noisily.
Du Shang smiled at Lin Qile, “In six years, Jay Chou will release another new album, ‘Still Fantasy’!”
“Du Shang,” Lin Qile leaned back in her seat, suddenly mumbling, “Didn’t you delete ‘Lonely Northern Hemisphere’ from your MP3? Why is it back? It’s such an old song.”
Du Shang’s face flashed with embarrassment.
“Well… um, our class monitor wanted to listen to it,” Du Shang said dismissively. “She doesn’t have an MP3 player, so she had to borrow mine.”
Lin Qile turned to study Du Shang’s expression: “Is your class monitor a boy or a girl?”
Huang Zhanjie returned to Class 18 with an armful of water cups, distributing them to his classmates.
Yu Qiao sat in the back, looking at the Air Force recruitment handbook and a civil aviation company application form given by the homeroom teacher. Hearing Lin Qile ask about Du Shang, he couldn’t help but smile.
“Haven’t you noticed he didn’t come out to play at all during the winter break?” Yu Qiao looked up, irritated. “When we invited him out, he only knew how to send text messages. What a joke.”
Lin Qile was shocked.
Cai Fangyuan said to Lin Qile, “Did you hear that? He’s talking about you, what a joke!”
At lunch in the small cafeteria, Lin Qile and Qin Yeyun hid outside the window, secretly watching Du Shang eat with a girl at the same table. The girl looked sweet and gentle, constantly talking to Du Shang and sharing cut apples from her bag.
“What are you two doing?” Cai Fangyuan approached from behind, annoyed at their sneaking around.
Du Shang took a bite of the apple the girl gave him, smiling happily, but then choked on it.
Qin Yeyun couldn’t take it anymore: “What an idiot!”
Du Shang coughed several times. He smiled awkwardly at the girl, then noticed something and quickly opened his bag, taking out a pack of tissues to help wipe the sauce from her fingers.
“Wow…” Lin Qile said in surprise, “Du Shang is so considerate!”
Yu Qiao and a group of school team boys came up from behind. Yu Qiao kicked Lin Qile’s back, “What are you looking at? Don’t be nosy!”
Jiang Qiaoxi returned to school in mid-May. When the Fee Lingers asked how his exam went, he said he didn’t have much feeling about it, which probably meant it went well. The principal also called him to the office for a talk. Although Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t continue with the math competition or get recommended to Peking University or Tsinghua, if he scored exceptionally high on the SAT and got into Harvard, Yale, or another top school, the school would still be proud of him. The principal still viewed him as a source of pride.
After all, Jiang Qiaoxi’s TOEFL score had already come out: 116 out of 120. How could the principal not love such a student?
The final exams were also approaching. Lin Qile was busy studying every day, with no time to joke around with others. Sometimes Jiang Qiaoxi would come to find her, either to borrow her water card or to bring her snacks and leave them on her desk. Lin Qile and Huang Zhanjie sat together, and whenever Jiang Qiaoxi came, they would ask him to explain a few math problems. Jiang Qiaoxi would look at the sophomore-level math problems and smile.
He took Huang Zhanjie’s pen and first erased the messy lines Huang Zhanjie had drawn. The math genius seemed to have a bit of an obsession with neat work. Huang Zhanjie quickly offered Lin Qile’s ruler: “Jiang Xueba, here’s a ruler for you!”
Jiang Qiaoxi casually drew a perfectly straight line.
“This is an auxiliary line…” he said as he continued to explain.
“Wow!!” Lin Qile, sitting next to Huang Zhanjie, couldn’t help but exclaim in admiration.
Huang Zhanjie’s face also turned red, his small hands gently clapping.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood tall next to Huang Zhanjie’s desk, seeming to tolerate their exaggerated reactions with a smile.
“Do you understand now?” he finished explaining and tossed Huang Zhanjie’s pen aside, looking up at Lin Yingtao.
Lin Yingtao had been staring at him the whole time and was startled, quickly nodding.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at her, his gaze rather meaningful.
“I’ll explain it to you again,” he said, picking up the pen once more. “Don’t look at me, look at the problem.”
Lin Qile focused intently on the process Jiang Qiaoxi had written, not even blinking.
Just then, class monitor Feng Letian was distributing a new school notice about organizing a summer camp for sophomores to visit prestigious universities in Beijing. The notice reached Huang Zhanjie’s hands, with a blank reverse side. Seeing that Lin Qile still didn’t fully understand, Jiang Qiaoxi took Huang Zhanjie’s notice and began writing problems on the back.
He wrote one, two, three problems… He wrote so quickly that his handwriting was inevitably messy.
Huang Zhanjie looked and saw that all the problems were related to the concept they had just asked about.
Jiang Qiaoxi tossed the pen aside and handed the notice to Lin Qile: “Do these. I’ll check them after school.”
When he was nine, Jiang Qiaoxi casually wrote out a math problem to shut Lin Yingtao up. Back then, he said he would only chat with her if she solved it.
Now, Lin Qile spent the entire self-study period working on the math problems Jiang Qiaoxi had given her, not even having time to reply to his text message.
Yu Qiao and Cai Fangyuan decided to let the children participate in the summer camp organized by Experimental High School, saying that with the Olympics coming next year, visiting the Tsinghua and Peking University campuses this year would boost the morale of the upcoming seniors.
Lin Qile called Jiang Qiaoxi to tell him about this. She asked what he planned to do during the summer vacation.
Coincidentally, Jiang Qiaoxi was also considering his options. He had thought about spending a few weeks at Berkeley’s summer school, but his parents told him that a teacher from Tsinghua had called, asking if Jiang Qiaoxi would like to attend Tsinghua’s math summer camp. After all, he would go to Berkeley eventually.
Hearing Lin Yingtao’s excitement over the phone, Jiang Qiaoxi asked, “Have you finally studied your TOEFL vocabulary?”
At home, Lin Qile was packing her luggage, holding a red vocabulary book for the college entrance exam in one hand and a TOEFL vocabulary book she had secretly bought in the other. She crouched on the floor in her slippers, her lips pressed against her knees, silently hesitating.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated. It was a text message from her middle school classmate, Geng Xiaoqing.
“Cherry! Our school is also organizing a Beijing prestigious university summer camp! I saw the list today, and we’re going with your Experimental High School!”
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Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
“An American financial company went bankrupt”: On April 2, 2007, New Century Financial, the second-largest subprime mortgage lender in the United States, declared bankruptcy. This subprime company, which had assets exceeding $1.7 billion at the beginning of 2007, shrank to less than $55 million in just three months.
“Lonely Northern Hemisphere”: A song performed by Ou Deyang, with lyrics by BENNY.C. Released on November 5, 2003. It was an extremely popular internet song in China at the time.