Jiang Qiaoxi was a very self-contained person. Almost everyone who had met or interacted with him said so.
His eyes couldn’t accommodate the shadows of others, whether they were his closest parents or childhood friends. All they could see was his cold face.
Every day, he left early and returned late, sitting in his father’s private car with a driver. He never spoke a word to the driver. In class or after, with Cen Xiaoman and Fei Linge by his side, he rarely acknowledged their small talk. He was either studying mathematics, working on new problems, or looking up at birds briefly perched on tree branches outside the window, lost in thought.
He had been like this since childhood, and most people around him had grown accustomed to it. In the small white building of the experimental high school, crowded with competition students, occasionally some would discuss recent movies in the corridor when tired of studying, debating plot points without yielding. Sometimes a group would gather around the blackboard for a “competition,” challenging each other with new problems and approaches, arguing heatedly until everyone crowded around to watch.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat alone at his desk in the corner, seemingly isolated from the world, never lifting his head. When he studied, even if the sky fell, he might not hear it.
So whenever Cen Xiaoman’s friends asked her, “Xiaoman, why doesn’t Jiang Qiaoxi talk to anyone? I see he doesn’t even talk to you.”
Cen Xiaoman would always explain for him: “Jiang Qiaoxi is very focused when he studies. All geniuses are like that.”
Jiang Qiaoxi’s routine was extremely regular, one could say unchanged for fifteen years. He arrived at school early every day, entered the small white building’s study room right on time, sat down to study, solve problems, and read books. The sky outside gradually brightened, but Jiang Qiaoxi remained oblivious. The professor in charge of him had given him a class schedule; when needed, he would return to the classroom for lessons, then back to the small white building to study. He ate lunch there, then napped at his study desk. No one could disturb him.
He had no particular entertainment, didn’t play games, rarely read leisure books, and had little exposure to TV, variety shows, anime, or sports matches… all the things ordinary high school freshmen loved. Fei Linge and Cen Xiaoman didn’t bring these topics up with him either. On rare occasions when he wasn’t in the small white building’s study room, he was most likely on the rooftop terrace.
After about ten minutes, he would return with a faint smell of smoke on his school uniform and sit down to continue studying.
It’s hard to say whether Jiang Qiaoxi truly loved mathematics so much that he was single-minded about it, or if he had placed too big a bet on the math competition. He not only wanted to win, but he also wanted to get that “first place.” He wanted to prove that “Jiang Qiaoxi” was unique, incomparable even to his own older brother.
Fei Linge always felt that Jiang Qiaoxi could excel in competitions without studying so hard. Because Jiang Qiaoxi was unreasonably smart. He spent all day studying math, specializing to a deadly degree, yet he could catch up on other subjects just by attending regular classes. In the midterm exams of the first year, when the grade rankings came out, Jiang Qiaoxi was again first in the grade, defying all logic.
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t care about grade rankings. He only glanced at his own test scores before returning to the small white building to study. Near dismissal time, Fei Linge, indignant, sat in the study room complaining to others: “Damn, I did so well, and I’m still outranked by a country bumpkin!”
“What country bumpkin? Who are you talking about, Fei Linge?”
“Lin Qile, the one ranked 36th in our grade,” Fei Linge grumbled. He had thought he could make it into the top 30, which would have meant his parents would take him to Hawaii for winter break. Fei Linge pressed his ballpoint pen irritably, opened his book, looked back at Jiang Qiaoxi’s seat, and seeing that Jiang Qiaoxi wasn’t disturbed, he said quietly, “How shameless, coming to our experimental high school, sticking around like chewing gum, endlessly annoying people.”
Cen Xiaoman came to the small white building after school to leave with Jiang Qiaoxi and Fei Linge. Jiang Qiaoxi sat in his seat packing his bag, a black square leather backpack. He took a few test papers, lecture notes for evening classes, and some pens.
“Do you have the ranking list for this exam?”
Today, Fei Linge’s father’s car came to pick up the three of them for dinner and evening classes. Mr. Fei was driving in front, comforting his precious son, patting Fei Linge’s head, saying that 37th place was pretty good, and they’d still go to Hawaii.
Jiang Qiaoxi, sitting in the back seat, suddenly asked Cen Xiaoman softly.
Cen Xiaoman looked at him, seemingly surprised that he had initiated conversation. She took out the ranking list from her bag: “You’re first in the grade again.”
The sky had darkened. Jiang Qiaoxi unfolded the ranking list filled with dense small characters. Sitting by the car window, borrowing the last light of dusk, he clearly saw the three characters “Lin Qile” on the paper, just about a dozen centimeters below “Jiang Qiaoxi.”
As the car moved forward, the three characters “Lin Qile” swayed before his eyes.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood at the edge of the small white building’s rooftop terrace, looking down. It was autumn, and the wind was strong up there, wrapping his school uniform around his waist and shoulders.
Sometimes Jiang Qiaoxi felt that this was the embrace of his true “mother’s” hand.
But what was a true “mother,” and where was the “mother” that belonged to him?
Was it the wind that wrapped and held him, the clouds that gathered and dispersed above his head, the earth and mountains, or the intangible air—after all, when people die, they all return to the soil, sharing a common life home.
From this perspective, he was equal to others.
Sometimes Jiang Qiaoxi couldn’t understand: how could someone who had died still be living?
And some people who were alive might as well be dead.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat in the car seat behind Liang Hongfei. Jiang Zheng had bought a new car, and it smelled of formaldehyde. Jiang Qiaoxi opened the window a bit. He held a pen in his hand, always pretending to study to avoid listening to Liang Hongfei.
Where was the South Campus?
Jiang Qiaoxi looked up, gazing out the car window.
During class break, Cen Xiaoman left her female friends and came to Jiang Qiaoxi’s desk. Everyone around looked at them.
It was just a boy and a girl talking, but when it involved Jiang Qiaoxi, it seemed to hint at “puppy love.”
Cen Xiaoman blushed a bit and asked Jiang Qiaoxi: “Do you remember that country girl who wrote you letters in middle school?”
Jiang Qiaoxi said: “Who?”
Cen Xiaoman glanced back at her friends and shook her head: “You probably don’t remember. Never mind, it’s nothing.”
No matter what he said to Cen Xiaoman or Fei Linge, it seemed to quickly spread to various ears.
Perhaps everyone thought Jiang Qiaoxi was focused on studying, so he didn’t know anything. Legends about the top student and school heartthrob “Jiang Qiaoxi” evolved in whispers around many corners of the school.
Cen Xiaoman asked Jiang Qiaoxi to recommend a popular science book. He lent her “From One to Infinity,” which someone had given him but he hadn’t read yet.
The next week, when Jiang Qiaoxi’s class was queuing in the corridor to enter the chemistry lab, he saw girls from the neighboring class coming out of the lab, many holding this book like admission tickets.
The scene was truly bizarre. Jiang Qiaoxi noticed them looking at him, and he lowered his eyes.
Due to studying for the Math Olympiad, Jiang Qiaoxi rarely participated in class activities. He didn’t need to fill out leave request forms when he missed classes. He stayed in the small white building, where it was quietest before dawn. He liked having a desk to himself, a study room to himself, with no noise or arguments to bother him.
He wore earphones listening to TOEFL practice, and when he felt tired, he would press the iPod buttons to switch to music.
It was a song by that new female singer who debuted in 2000.
“Jiang Qiaoxi…”
She seemed to appear out of thin air behind him, appearing in Jiang Qiaoxi’s repetitive, numbing daily life. She looked thinner than before, with a round little face, a small chin, and two eyes that looked at him, seeming larger now. She wore a red and white school uniform that fit snugly at her wrists and ankles, looking incredibly cute.
But there was no smile on her face. She looked at him with a confused, fearful, and uneasy gaze, her eyes wandering restlessly, everyone around seeming unfriendly. This prison surrounding Jiang Qiaoxi had scared her away.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood between Cen Xiaoman and Fei Linge, watching helplessly as Yu Qiao and Du Shang chased after her. It felt like something had been torn from his heart, yet he could only stand there motionless.
Cen Xiaoman said: “Let’s go quickly, Aunt Liang is watching us over there…”
Sometimes, Jiang Qiaoxi would encounter Cai Fangyuan, Yu Qiao, Du Shang, and others in the corridors of the experimental high school. They weren’t in the same class, and even if their eyes met, he wouldn’t speak to them.
Cai Fangyuan would occasionally send him text messages, maintaining some contact. Du Shang didn’t like him, and as for Yu Qiao, there was even less interaction.
Liang Hongfei would sometimes ask: “Do those kids from Mountain Group still come to see you?”
Jiang Zheng corrected her: “They’re all children from headquarters, what Mountain Group?”
Liang Hongfei’s words were loaded. She said to Jiang Qiaoxi: “Do you miss it?”
Liang Hongfei seemed to fear germs, fearing everything related to Mountain Group. Her excellent son, her “Mengchu,” absolutely could not encounter anything that might lead him astray, such as “puppy love.” Any rebellious or uncooperative behavior Jiang Qiaoxi had shown in the past was, in Liang Hongfei’s eyes, the evil influence of “Mountain Group” and that little girl called “Lin Qile.”
Later, Jiang Qiaoxi received Lin Qile’s second letter.
In the letter, she said she hadn’t written him a love letter.
“I’m not the kind of person they say I am. I don’t like you, and I’m not clinging to you. Jiang Chunlu has nothing to do with you either. I just wanted to show you my drawing.”
“I didn’t go to the provincial city to find you, I just happened to run into you. I won’t write to you or call you anymore…”
Jiang Qiaoxi read this letter under Fei Linge’s gaze. He crumpled the letter in his hand, like clutching a ball of insignificant waste paper, as if about to throw it away.
He sat there without any strength.
His cousin called regularly, as if afraid that if he didn’t call at set times, he might never be able to reach his little cousin Jiang Qiaoxi again.
“Was little sister Lin coming for you?” his cousin teased.
But Jiang Qiaoxi couldn’t laugh.
“Probably not,” he said.
His cousin was silent for a moment: “You still have a chance to be in the same school, you can still be good friends.”
What the hell kind of good friends.
Jiang Qiaoxi thought.
If there was anything good about that time, it was that Lin Qile never truly appeared before Liang Hongfei’s eyes.
“Qiaoxi,” his cousin said, “your thoughts are too deep. Can’t you tell me what you’re thinking?”
Jiang Qiaoxi crouched on the rooftop of the small white building, looking at the sky that seemed closer overhead. He wanted to walk out of the school gates right now, take a taxi to the South Campus to see Lin Qile.
“I have a crazy mother,” Jiang Qiaoxi said.
His cousin sighed: “Qiaoxi.”
Jiang Qiaoxi pushed open the terrace door and saw Cen Xiaoman standing behind it, talking to a senior student selling cigarettes.
Cen Xiaoman turned around and smiled: “You’re calling Hong Kong again?”
She was just an ignorant little girl who thought she cared about him.
Jiang Qiaoxi passed by her and went downstairs.
The school’s broadcasting station would sometimes play Stefanie Sun’s songs. Jiang Qiaoxi looked up, listening for a while as he had become accustomed to doing.
As he walked down the stairs, he heard someone below say that Jiang Qiaoxi liked girls with short hair: “Like Stefanie Sun’s style.”
No one really understood. No one.
Jiang Qiaoxi lived in a world full of misunderstandings and self-righteousness, where everyone arbitrarily interpreted everything.
Classmates from the competition class asked, “Jiang Qiaoxi, how do you manage to study every day, treating problem-solving as entertainment?”
Jiang Qiaoxi thought, maybe because it was hard for him to feel joy.
Fei Linge immediately answered for him: “For Jiang Qiaoxi, solving problems is way more satisfying than doing anything else!” He turned back with a smile and asked: “Isn’t that right?”
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t deny it.
But he didn’t believe that solving a math problem was the happiest thing in his life.
As the end of the semester approached, news was posted on the experimental high school’s bulletin board.
Over a hundred students from the school had passed the provincial selection and officially entered the mathematics competition finals. Among them, eleven students, including Jiang Qiaoxi from Class 21 of the first year, received first-class provincial awards and special commendations.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood with several senior students who had received provincial first-class commendations, propped in front of the principal’s desk. He heard the principal on the phone with the South Campus principal, sharing the good news. The principal said on the phone: “Good, good, I’ve seen the list of second-year students applying to transfer here.”
Jiang Qiaoxi didn’t hold any hope.
On the day of the final exam, Jiang Qiaoxi took his admission ticket and walked into the exam room with shuffled seating arrangements.
He sat down, put down his pen, wanting to sleep for a while before the exam started.
Someone called him in a whisper from the back row.
“Jiang Qiaoxi!” It was Cai Fangyuan.
Jiang Qiaoxi turned around. The entire exam room was filled with strangers. He heard Cai Fangyuan say: “Lin Yingtao is transferring to our school!”
“Want to eat together after the exam?”
As usual, Jiang Qiaoxi got into Liang Hongfei’s car to go to his tutoring class. Night fell, and thousands of families gathered around their dinner tables. Jiang Qiaoxi sat next to Cen Xiaoman, unable to focus on even a minute of the class, but pretending to be unaffected. Although he hadn’t seen her face yet, he could already imagine what she looked like.
He was an escapee, not knowing what he would face upon his return.