In early September, Lin Yingtao finalized the National Day holiday plans for her two friends. Coincidentally, both lived across the Pacific in America.
Her senior from Normal University, Meng Lijun, initially wasn’t sure if she’d have time during the National Day period. Work kept her busy, and she had just found her footing on the East Coast. As a 28-year-old single woman in a foreign country, she couldn’t afford to let her guard down. Unexpectedly, her parents decided to visit her in the U.S. during the National Day holiday, planning to bring along a potential match her grandparents approved of, intending to surprise her.
“If my cousin hadn’t let it slip, I wouldn’t have known!” Meng Lijun exclaimed over the phone.
She requested time off from her supervisor, who, being a woman herself, was very sympathetic.
Lin Yingtao shared this with Jiang Qiaoxi. He remembered Meng Lijun, who had helped Yingtao significantly when she studied in the U.S. for nine months a few years ago.
The other friend was Lin Yingtao’s former deskmate from Qunshan No. 1 High School, Geng Xiaoqing.
Geng Xiaoqing was pursuing her graduate studies in Environmental Engineering in the U.S. She spent her days in the lab, preparing for her first SCI paper. Although she was busy with the final data compilation, she initially said she’d try to make time but ultimately couldn’t arrange it.
When Lin Yingtao heard “SCI,” she exclaimed in admiration, “Wow!”
Geng Xiaoqing modestly replied, “It’s not for a top-tier journal, just an ordinary one…”
On the phone, Geng Xiaoqing mentioned that when she first came to the U.S. for her undergraduate studies, she felt out of place and down every day. Now, things were much better. Her life was fulfilling, and she felt lucky to have a good advisor and a promising direction.
“Yingtao,” Geng Xiaoqing probed, “has Yu Qiao found a girlfriend?”
Lin Yingtao was taken aback.
“I don’t know,” she admitted honestly. “I haven’t seen him in a long time.”
Although they occasionally chatted in WeChat groups, Yu Qiao rarely discussed his personal life. Even Cai Fangyuan and Du Shang didn’t know much about this aspect of his life.
But he was already 24 years old.
“He should… he should have found someone, right?” Lin Yingtao speculated.
Geng Xiaoqing continued, “Over the years, I’ve often thought back to our high school days, wondering why I fell for him. From seventh grade to senior year, honestly, I didn’t even know him, never spoke a word to him. When I finally interacted with him face-to-face, I immediately felt he was nothing like I’d imagined.”
“I understand now, Yingtao,” Geng Xiaoqing said. “What I liked wasn’t the real Yu Qiao, but the one you first described to me in our chats.”
Lin Yingtao, holding her phone, opened her mouth to speak.
“I’m sorry, Xiaoqing…” she said instinctively.
“What are you sorry for?” Geng Xiaoqing was surprised.
Lin Yingtao felt remorseful, “I painted an unrealistic picture! The real person disappointed you!”
Geng Xiaoqing couldn’t help but laugh, “That’s right! False advertising on your part!”
“Sometimes I wish I could turn back time,” Geng Xiaoqing paused for a moment. “I’d go back to middle school and tell you that Geng Xiaoqing: Yu Qiao isn’t at all what you think he is!” She thought for a bit more, “But back then, living in Qunshan, such a small place, every day so dull, that version of me definitely wouldn’t have believed it. She’d insist that Yu Qiao must be her ‘Miyagi’, her Prince Charming!”
They both burst into laughter. Geng Xiaoqing asked, “I remember Dai Lixin was really into Domyoji back then. Who did you like again?”
On Teachers’ Day, Lin Yingtao received a jar of hand-folded little stars from her students, one star from each child. Though clumsily made, she was delighted. After work, Jiang Qiaoxi came to pick her up for a celebratory dinner.
Their high school homeroom teacher, Teacher Chen, contacted Lin Yingtao via WeChat to exchange holiday greetings.
“Lin Qile, when will you and Jiang Qiaoxi have time to come back and visit? My current students have just started their senior year. You could share your learning experiences with your juniors.”
Since graduation, Jiang Qiaoxi hasn’t returned to Experimental High School. Teacher Chen now leads Class 18 at the school. Jiang Qiaoxi glanced at the classroom sign as he entered, feeling little attachment to the school. It seemed he had spent more time here only because Yingtao had transferred to this school.
Teacher Chen stood at the podium, briefly introducing Jiang Qiaoxi and Lin Qile as two outstanding students from the class of 2008. He intentionally omitted their relationship, saying only, “One is a gifted senior, the other a diligent senior. This is a rare opportunity, so listen carefully!”
The girls in the audience stared at Jiang Qiaoxi on stage, whispering and giggling behind their hands. A few boys involved in the Olympiad competitions had already started applauding—six years after graduation, various legends about the academic prodigy Jiang Qiaoxi still circulated in the White Building.
Jiang Qiaoxi took the podium, looked out at the audience, and after a pause, he suddenly said, “I never took the mainland’s college entrance exam. If you have any questions about competitions, or TOEFL, or the American SAT, you can ask me.”
Jiang Qiaoxi had never been particularly talkative. Throughout his life, in any setting, he was more likely to answer questions than to speak unprompted.
A junior raised his hand and asked, “Senior if we prepare too hard, could it backfire on the exam results?”
Jiang Qiaoxi noticed a broken yellow piece of chalk on the desk. He picked it up and put it back in the chalkbox.
“How hard is too hard?” he looked up at the student.
The junior was taken aback, and the surrounding classmates began to snicker.
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t wait for a smooth answer.
“You’re in your senior year now,” Jiang Qiaoxi frowned. “The only thing you can do is study hard. Don’t make excuses.”
The junior nodded meekly and sat down.
The vast majority of students, faced with someone like Jiang Qiaoxi, were somewhat intimidated. Some lay on their desks, watching to see who would have the courage to question the academic god, while others silently rehearsed their questions, repeatedly polishing and revising them in their minds.
Lin Yingtao stood by the window below the podium, watching these juniors. She suddenly remembered how, back in Qunshan, she too was often on the receiving end of Jiang Qiaoxi’s sharp comments. But she wanted to tell the juniors that Senior Jiang wasn’t harsh; he was speaking from the heart.
Questions about when to start preparing for TOEFL, whether to take time off school specifically for SAT prep, how to balance competing in Olympiads with reviewing for the college entrance exam in senior year… Jiang Qiaoxi heard these questions and sensed the students’ confusion.
Most people stumble through what might be the most precious years of their lives in a haze of uncertainty, while only a few know from the start what they want and put in the necessary effort to achieve it.
“Make choices that suit your abilities,” Jiang Qiaoxi said. “You and your teachers know your current level better than I do. Don’t be blindly confident, but don’t underestimate yourself either. Learn to assess yourself: who you are, where you are, and where you want to go. These are questions you should answer for yourself.”
A student who was involved in math competitions stood up and asked a very targeted question.
“Senior Jiang, you studied math competitions for so long and always performed exceptionally well. I was also at Experimental Elementary and then the affiliated middle school and I often heard the competition teachers mention you… Why did you give up when you entered the national training team? Was there something about math competitions that didn’t meet your expectations?”
Jiang Qiaoxi replied, “Why are you asking this question?”
The student said, “I… I’m worried that I might end up like you. After studying math so hard for so long since childhood, I might discover something I hadn’t noticed before when I reach that point, something disappointing or whatever, and then all my time and effort might have been wasted—”
Lin Yingtao, backlit by the sunlight, looked at the present-day Jiang Qiaoxi.
“There’s nothing to be disappointed about,” Jiang Qiaoxi thought for a moment, then said, “Math competitions have their significance. The selection process provides direction and can hone your skills. My withdrawal was for personal reasons and had nothing to do with the subject or the competitions themselves.”
The student asked, “Then why didn’t you continue studying math?”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at him.
The student’s face turned red: “Our, teaching assistant is from your year. He admires you. He said he thought you, Senior Jiang, were the most talented person he’d ever seen. You should have participated in that year’s international competition. You definitely would have made the national team and won a gold medal! Then go to the U.S. for further studies and become a truly outstanding mathematician! Instead of…”
He didn’t finish his sentence.
Jiang Qiaoxi faced the gaze of over fifty pairs of clear eyes. These children were still very young.
Wearing a business shirt, having spent three years in investment banking and fund companies, and lived in Hong Kong for seven years, the sophistication of an adult can sometimes be unexpectedly pierced by the innocence of a child.
“Your initial question was asking,” Jiang Qiaoxi thought for a moment, then said, “You’re worried that your time and effort might be wasted.”
“Yes,” the student nodded.
“No matter what happens,” Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at him from afar, “whether you achieve results or not, or like me, withdraw from the competition—I’ve never felt that my energy and time were wasted. If you have talent in this area, competitions will help you push your boundaries. If you don’t have talent, it’s still an experience, a deeper engagement with the subject.”
Suddenly, another student interjected, “But, Senior Jiang, what if the competitions don’t go well and it affects our college entrance exam performance?”
Jiang Qiaoxi blinked as he listened.
“Isn’t there still half a year left after the competitions?” he put his hands in his pockets.
Everyone looked at each other, and these children quickly understood: the experience and advice of the legendary academic god of Experimental High School, the genius the old principal was so proud of, was truly too difficult for ordinary students to follow.
It was the seemingly kind and lovable Senior Lin Qile who took the stage next, speaking in a more relatable manner.
“Many times, including when I was a student myself, I often wondered what use these subjects had—physics, math, geometry, functions… Will I ever use them in the future?” Lin Qile looked at the children in the audience and said, “Let’s set aside for now whether you’ll use them later. Even if they’re not useful, during high school, these subjects are the only way to prove ourselves. They can demonstrate what level of intelligence we can achieve and what kind of self-control we possess.”
The students listened, some looking at Lin Qile with expressions that seemed to show understanding, yet still held confusion.
“Even though we’re intelligent and capable of controlling ourselves, we don’t always do so,” Lin Qile became serious. “Even though we could reach such a high level, we don’t achieve it. Then it’s not that good universities don’t want us, it’s that we don’t want them. That better future is something we choose to give up ourselves.”
“As long as we’ve put in the effort, it will benefit us at some point in the future… As long as we prove our abilities, we can go to better universities, learn more knowledge, stand on higher platforms, and pursue a better life. From childhood to adulthood, growing up is about proving ourselves again and again, proving that we can enter good universities, and deserve good jobs,” Lin Qile’s large eyes had a certain commanding presence when she wasn’t smiling, making people unconsciously listen to her words. “Even in the future, when you grow up, this ability can still prove that you deserve good partners, and can build good families.”
The students giggled, inevitably letting their imaginations run wild when they heard the word “partners.”
Teacher Chen crossed his arms, nodding slightly to signal Lin Qile to continue.
“Senior Lin,” one student said, “what if I’m just stupid and can’t learn no matter what?”
“Yeah,” a student from the back row asked, “I know I should work hard, but what if I just can’t perform well in exams? I can’t do anything about that.”
Lin Qile addressed them.
“We all have different talents. Some students might not be suited for the path most people take, they might have other abilities, but this isn’t an excuse to avoid the college entrance exam,” Lin Qile said. “Because the college entrance exam definitely won’t be the last test in our lives. Whether in university or the workplace, even if you become an actor or start a business, on any path you can imagine, there will always be more and more complex assessments waiting for you. Maybe now it’s one exam a month, but in the future, it might become a test every single day—”
“What?!” The students cried out in dismay.
Still in school, they had little understanding of the adult world.
“So try to shift your mindset,” Lin Qile said, clenching her fists in front of her. “Exams aren’t a process of filtering us out. Think of them as a process that urges us on, and allows us to prove ourselves. Through each exam, we’re always improving, it’s helpful to us.”
The children fell silent, with only a few obvious top students nodding in agreement below.
Lin Qile continued, “If you’re always afraid of being pushed off the single-plank bridge, thrown off the wheel, crushed under it, constantly harboring this fear towards exams and the future—”
Jiang Qiaoxi watched her face from beside Teacher Chen.
“Not just for this final year of the college entrance exam, but for whatever you encounter in the future, it will be very difficult,” Lin Qile earnestly told the students, also looking at the timid, nervous student who had first questioned Jiang Qiaoxi. “It will in turn affect your state of mind, interfering with your performance. So learning to adjust yourself is also an extremely important part of our abilities.”
“Moreover, this isn’t a life skill,” Lin Qile continued, “it’s a survival skill.”
At this point, the students laughed.
They were too young, thinking she was joking.
“Studying is important, every experienced person will tell you this. Like me, when I was young, my studies were poor, always ranking at the bottom of the class,” Lin Qile saw the surprised looks from the audience. “So I’m very grateful that I made an effort in time, changed my mindset, studied hard, and now have the opportunity to stand here and share with you all. When you’re in school, no matter what difficulties you face or unhappy things you experience, your studies and grades are your support. It’s the same when you enter the workplace later, letting your career and work abilities support you, so you don’t have to fear any storms in life.”
Among the newly enrolled first-year students at Experimental High School, there were already some born after 2000.
Lin Yingtao held Jiang Qiaoxi’s arm as they walked together through the Experimental campus. Jiang Qiaoxi had just visited the principal’s office to “report” on his work direction over the past few years to the old principal who had always valued him.
He sat down on a bench in the small grove, pulling Yingtao to sit beside him, and grasped her hand.
“Shouldn’t those born after 2000 be in kindergarten?” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Yingtao looked at him: “The kids in our kindergarten were all born after 2010! Not just after 2000.”
Jiang Qiaoxi nodded, sighed, and placed his hand on Yingtao’s knee.
Near dismissal time, the campus was full of students. Lin Yingtao leaned against Jiang Qiaoxi, watching these teenagers pass by in groups of two or three. When she looked at them, they unconsciously turned to look at her and Jiang Qiaoxi. From afar, they could hear the rhythmic bouncing of basketballs on the court. Girls leaving the sports field with tennis rackets turned towards another corridor, heading in the direction of the tennis courts.
Lin Yingtao raised her head, looking at the leaves swaying in the evening breeze above.
She suddenly remembered sitting here before with Du Shang, listening to many old songs popular at that time.
Lin Yingtao said, “It feels like we’re still in high school.”
Jiang Qiaoxi replied, “You never sat with me in the grove during high school.”
Lin Yingtao looked at him. Jiang Qiaoxi seemed a bit upset, yet tried to appear indifferent. She laughed and pushed him playfully.
The trending articles in their social media feeds were:
“The First Batch of 90s Generation is Already Balding”
“The First Batch of 90s Generation is Preparing to Become Monks”
“You, the First Batch of 90s Generation, Should Learn to Take Care of Your Health”
Jiang Qiaoxi hugged Lin Yingtao as they took a photo together in front of the main entrance of the White Building. Lin Yingtao turned back, peering into the doorway of the White Building. She wanted to ask Jiang Qiaoxi if he wanted to go inside and look around, when the student who had helped them take the photo came over, returned Jiang Qiaoxi’s phone, and tentatively asked, “Excuse me, are you… Senior Jiang Qiaoxi?”
Lin Yingtao stood at the bottom of the steps, carefully holding up the student’s phone to take a group photo of half a class of competition students with Jiang Qiaoxi. Jiang Qiaoxi, being tall, could only stand in the center of the back row. He smiled towards her camera.
The huge ginkgo tree still spread its canopy over the White Building.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up, gazing at this familiar building that once felt like home to him.
Jiang Qiaoxi hadn’t known before that his photo was still hanging in the White Building. It was a group photo taken when the provincial team arrived in Fuzhou. Besides that, on the bulletin board of the White Building, there was another photo of him taken while studying in the self-study room before going to winter camp—Jiang Qiaoxi himself had no recollection of it. Lin Yingtao leaned close to him, widening her eyes to examine the photo. While all the other students in the study room were looking at the camera, only Jiang Qiaoxi sat in the corner, head down, concentrating on something he was writing, completely immersed, as if the whole world and everything in it were irrelevant to him.
Lin Yingtao shifted her gaze from the photo, secretly glancing at Jiang Qiaoxi beside her, and found him staring at the photo with no expression on his face.
“It’s here!”
Lin Yingtao pushed open the door to her small bedroom, holding Jiang Qiaoxi’s hand as they quickly entered. She crouched in front of the bedside cabinet, opened the door, and bent down to take out a stack of books stored in file folders.
Her parents stood outside the door, wondering why Yingtao had suddenly brought Qiaoxi back.
They closed the door behind them.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood behind Lin Yingtao. When he realized what these books were, he tugged at his trousers and sat cross-legged on the floor by the bed. Lin Yingtao also plopped down on the floor. She dug out a small denim pencil case from the cabinet, turned around and unzipped it in front of Jiang Qiaoxi. Inside lay several black pens, though they were all unusable now, probably long since dried out.
“Where did you get all this?” Jiang Qiaoxi picked up a set of lecture notes and flipped through them.
The blank spaces on the pages were densely filled with numbers, in youthful yet overly practiced handwriting.
Lin Yingtao lowered her head to look at the notes too, and told him that after he went to Hong Kong, she heard his books were still in the self-study room of the White Building and were about to be taken away: “I went to check and brought them all back.”
Jiang Qiaoxi put down the notes and picked up an exercise book, flipping through it.
“I’ve done all these,” Jiang Qiaoxi looked up at her round face.
Implying, what was the point of bringing these back?
Lin Yingtao looked at him too.
Lin’s mother knocked on the door from outside, bringing in a plate of sliced honeydew melon for her daughter and son-in-law. She was startled to see Qiaoxi sitting on the floor by the bed in his dress pants, writing in an old book with a pen, just like when he used to do homework at their house as a child.
Lin Yingtao leaned against him, intently watching him calculate. Seeing her mother come in, Lin Yingtao looked up and said, “Mom, we’d like to stay for dinner today!”
“Oh,” Lin’s mother reacted, quickly saying, “Good, good!”
Jiang Qiaoxi finished a problem and filled in the answer. Lin Yingtao reached over to turn the page, pointing to a corner: “You forgot to do this problem too.”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at the problem and said softly, “How do you know so clearly?”
Lin Yingtao looked up at him and said, “I also know on which pages you drew cherries with stems—”
Jiang Qiaoxi lowered his eyes and raised an eyebrow.
Small notes were occasionally tucked between the pages of the exercise book, with scribbled letters, formulas, and indistinct numbers. The notes were too small to be scratch paper. Jiang Qiaoxi picked up a few to examine closely.
Yingtao asked from within his embrace, “What are these?”
He recalled that these were math problems he had been pondering at the time. He liked to jot down sudden ideas this way. Ideas were precious, but sometimes they were accidentally lost.
He lowered his head and hugged Yingtao.
Lost for six years.
Outside the door, Lin the electrician received a call from his old buddy, Foreman Yu. Bored to death, Yu invited Lin to gather fishing gear and go night fishing after dinner.
“Jiang Qiaoxi.”
“Hmm?”
Lin Yingtao raised her head from his embrace and asked closely, “Do you still want to continue studying?”
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t speak.
Lin Yingtao said, “Whenever you don’t want to work anymore, let’s go study.”
Jiang Qiaoxi asked, “Study what?”
“Math,” Lin Yingtao said, “Don’t you like math?”
She added, “You used to want to study statistics at Berkeley, statistics is fine too.”
“There’s no money in studying math…” Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly said, then thought for a moment, “Besides, what if I can’t learn anything…”
Lin Yingtao stared at his face.
This was the first time she had heard him express such a lack of confidence in his academic abilities.
“You’re, you’re so smart…” Lin Yingtao hurriedly said, “You even won the national math Olympiad…”
“That’s not the same as advanced mathematics,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Lin Yingtao frowned.
“It’s okay, you go study,” she said, “I can earn money. If you can’t learn, then you can’t learn.”
Jiang Qiaoxi sat with his head down for a while, then looked up at Lin Yingtao’s expression. He suddenly smiled and turned his head away, still smiling.
“What are you laughing at!” Lin Yingtao said dissatisfied.
Outside the window, dusk was deepening. From beyond the door came the sound of her mother cooking, the spatula scraping against the wok.
“I want to go back to Qunshan and have a look…” Lin Yingtao said suddenly, leaning in his arms.
Perhaps returning to the high school today had evoked memories.
Jiang Qiaoxi hugged her and said, “Then we’ll go after the wedding ceremony.”
“Really?” Lin Yingtao looked at him.
“Why not?” Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
“Qunshan is still there, it won’t disappear,” Jiang Qiaoxi said, “If you want to see it, let’s go.”
After finishing the music class, Lin Yingtao stood at the classroom door, musing with her teaching assistant.
The trends among the post-2010 generation changed rapidly. Last semester they insisted on the teacher playing “Little Apple,” but now it had changed to something about left hand, right hand, and slow motion.
“Teacher Lin…” the assistant said softly, touching her arm.
Lin Yingtao followed the assistant’s gaze and looked back into the classroom. During free activity time, all the children were playing and chatting, except for one little girl. Not yet six years old, she wore glasses and didn’t touch the toys in the classroom. She sat quietly on a small stool, holding a pencil and scribbling in an arithmetic notebook.
Since her transfer this semester, Lin Yingtao has been observing her for nearly half a month, including the previous music lesson where this little girl was also very unsociable, unwilling to join the others, and unresponsive to musical rhythms.
When Jiang Qiaoxi came to pick up his wife after work, he saw Lin Yingtao crouching in the classroom, huddled next to a little girl, saying something. The girl didn’t respond to her, seeming very introverted, clutching her arithmetic notebook and not listening to the teacher.
Lin Yingtao turned her head and saw Jiang Qiaoxi standing outside the door.
Usually, apart from the foreign teacher who taught English rhymes, it was rare for men to appear in an environment accessible to the children, let alone someone as tall and handsome as Jiang Qiaoxi. Lin Yingtao took the little girl’s hand and led her out of the classroom, sitting on the steps at the entrance. Lin Yingtao pointed at Jiang Qiaoxi, who was crouching in front of them, and said, “This uncle is extremely good at math. Do you have any questions you want to ask him?”
The bespectacled little girl was stunned for a moment. She looked up and saw Jiang Qiaoxi.
Jiang Qiaoxi’s long eyelashes seemed to have attracted not just Lin Yingtao as a young girl.
“Uncle,” the little girl asked timidly, “are you a mathematician?”
Before Jiang Qiaoxi could respond, Lin Yingtao said, “Yes, he is!”
Jiang Qiaoxi sat down on the steps beside them, taking the arithmetic notebook and pencil from her hand. It was a simple geometric division problem, somewhat like a brain teaser, no wonder Lin Yingtao couldn’t figure out the answer right away. Jiang Qiaoxi turned to a new page in the scribbled notebook and raised his hand to draw a circle.
“This…”
Before he could finish speaking, the bespectacled little girl suddenly exclaimed “Wow!” and covered her mouth dramatically with both hands.
She instantly reverted to her childlike nature, her eyes shining with admiration as she looked at Jiang Qiaoxi.
More and more children began to gather around them from behind. Jiang Qiaoxi sat with his head lowered, feeling surrounded by all sorts of little ones on his shoulders and hands. These were the vibrant young lives Lin Yingtao cared for, like the kindness of this world, softly enveloping Jiang Qiaoxi. Lin Yingtao had once told him that being relied upon by a child can soften even the hardest heart, but Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t understand at the time.
“Uncle,” the little girl tugged at his sleeve, pleading softly, “can you draw it again, please draw it again…”
Jiang Qiaoxi felt a bit helpless. He held the pencil and obediently drew another circle in the notebook, just as perfectly standard as before. This wasn’t something an ordinary person could do. This uncle, who looked like an office worker, must have had some unusual experiences. As soon as the children saw it, they excitedly covered their mouths and began to applaud and cheer around him. Some even started jumping with joy, as if they had witnessed some kind of superpower.
Before parting, Jiang Qiaoxi explained the problem step by step to the little girl.
“Goodbye, Mathematician Uncle!” The bespectacled little girl, with her backpack on and her arithmetic notebook tucked inside by her mother who had come to pick her up, held her mother’s hand with one hand and waved energetically at Jiang Qiaoxi with the other.
Suddenly, Yingtao linked her arm with his. “Shall we go home too?”
Our Generation – Chapter Notes:
“Left hand, right hand, a slow motion” refers to the song “Youth Training Manual,” performed by TFBOYS, which was officially released on July 24, 2014.