“It was as if, before I fell for the young man, I first fell for his name.”

— Sherry’s Lab, The Ninth Year Through the Dream

Xia Li’s two closest friends had personalities that were almost perfectly opposite.

Xu Ning was a seasoned devotee of the two-dimensional world — a homebody, lazy, averse to hassle, preferring the company of illustrated characters over any kind of socialising.

Lin Qingxiao, by contrast, had a natural gift for winning people over and could easily fall into easy friendship with anyone she met.

Xia Li seemed to sit exactly in the middle of their personality spectrum: warm, slow to open up, relatively introverted. She could strike up a superficial acquaintance with anyone, but the people she would truly call close friends were just these two.

When Xia Li walked in, Lin Qingxiao was singing Guo Jing’s “The Next Daybreak,” and Xu Ning was slumped against the sofa watching anime on her MP4.

Xia Li said, “You keep singing — I’ll grab something to eat first before I pick a song.”

She hadn’t eaten lunch. Before coming to the KTV, she had bought a meal set at the KFC next door.

Her parents gave her enough pocket money to manage comfortably, but she had always been frugal. Under normal circumstances she ate all three meals in the canteen, and only allowed herself a small indulgence on special occasions — a KFC meal was not exactly cheap by her standards at the time.

She spread out her food on the coffee table and invited everyone over to share.

Lin Qingxiao finished the song, switched back to the original recording, set down the microphone, and came to sit beside Xia Li. She handed Xia Li her birthday present.

Dipping a chip in ketchup, Lin Qingxiao said, “Did you all hear? The school is opening an international class next semester.”

“Some outstanding alumnus donated a large sum to fund a pilot international programme at Mingzhong,” she said.

“It’s small-class teaching in the international class, with the best foreign teachers hired specifically for it. On top of tuition, you have to pay a school-building fee.” Lin Qingxiao shrugged. “My family can’t afford that.”

Xu Ning agreed. “And the tuition and living costs if you go abroad for your bachelor’s degree — that’s where the real money is.”

Lin Qingxiao came from a dual-income household, and Xu Ning’s mother was a civil servant while her father ran his own business.

Neither of them had the means to afford the international class — let alone Xia Li, whose family background was even more modest.

Studying abroad was something she didn’t even dare to dream about.

“I think Tao Shiyue will definitely go,” Lin Qingxiao said.

“Isn’t her father working for the municipal committee?” Xia Li said.

Lin Qingxiao nodded. “And not a junior position, either. Her mother is the chief of surgery at the First Municipal Hospital — the one who arranged the surgery for Lao Zhuang’s father back then.”

Lao Zhuang was their form teacher.

Lin Qingxiao knew all of this so clearly because she and Tao Shiyue had been in the same class in middle school, and they’d gotten along quite well back then.

Later, a string of small incidents had soured things between them, and it had all ended rather unpleasantly, so Lin Qingxiao had never much liked Tao Shiyue since.

A few classmates in their class didn’t particularly like Tao Shiyue either, because the way she treated people often carried a subtle air of superiority that was hard to pin down but easy to feel.

“Speaking of which, didn’t the school heartthrob used to pursue Tao Shiyue?” Lin Qingxiao went on. “Though I heard he might be with Zhong Qianqian now.”

They were in the arts stream experimental class.

Mingzhang Middle School had only one experimental class in the arts stream. Places were allocated at the end of the first year of senior high, selected on merit — only the top fifty students in the arts stream year-group were eligible.

Their form teacher Lao Zhuang was strict and reserved, and he ran the class rigorously. Early romances were almost unheard of in their class; the most anyone dared was a furtive exchange of glances in private.

Other classes were quite different, especially the arts elective class.

Lin Qingxiao had a close friend in the arts elective class — they’d grown up in the same building — and through her she had wholesale access to the freshest gossip: who was seeing whom, who had cheated on whom, who was rumoured to have already gone “all the way”…

Xu Ning asked, “Is this the same Zhong Qianqian who performed the jazz dance at the New Year’s Eve show?”

Lin Qingxiao nodded.

Xia Li then asked, “Do we have an officially recognised school heartthrob?”

“Chen Yu, of course.”

Xu Ning said, “…I thought you meant Shen Yang. I was sitting here wondering when Shen Yang had ever pursued Tao Shiyue. How is Chen Yu the heartthrob? Shen Yang’s clearly better-looking.”

“What’s good-looking about Shen Yang — he’s got that shifty, street-corner look.”

“Would Nie Chuhang be okay with you calling Chen Yu handsome?”

Nie Chuhang was the boy Lin Qingxiao had a crush on.

“For someone like Nie Chuhang, who’s a top student, how can you reduce it to something as shallow as ‘handsome or not’?”

The two of them couldn’t settle the argument, so they both turned to Xia Li and asked her to cast the deciding vote.

Xia Li chewed on her straw, hesitating.

She had a sudden, clear sense of what the line “after the mountains of Wu, all other peaks pale” truly meant.

She wasn’t sure whether to mention it, but today she had run into a young man who seemed to have stepped straight out of a shoujo manga.

After him, every other boy seemed dull and unremarkable by comparison.

It really was a difficult choice. In the end Xia Li said, “Chen Yu.”

Chen Yu was, after all, in the sciences experimental class. Whereas Shen Yang was in the regular class, his grades and reputation both poor, and though plenty of people said he had a certain roguish charm, Xia Li was completely unmoved.

The type she liked was the kind who excelled academically and held themselves with an untouchable, elevated grace.

Xu Ning gave her a playful shove and laughed. “What kind of taste is that?”

That summer holiday, the backdrop to everything was the Beijing Olympic Games.

When the Olympic programme finally came to a close, the new school term was right around the corner.

Moving up into Year Two of senior high, the arts experimental class kept the same classroom — on the left at the top of the staircase on the third floor.

But the student roll had changed. Lin Qingxiao’s guess had been right: Tao Shiyue, along with three other classmates, had indeed gone to the international class.

Tao Shiyue came early to Class Seven to collect her things, and called on two friends in the class to help her carry her books.

Some classmates crowded around to ask about the international class. She smiled and said, “My parents arranged everything — to be honest, I didn’t really want to go myself.”

“You’re so lucky. No gaokao to worry about, what a life,” said one classmate.

“I actually envy all of you,” she said. “You get to experience a real, complete youth.”

At that, everyone standing nearby fell silent, almost as one.

Tao Shiyue seemed not to notice anything subtle in what she’d said. She stood in the doorway with an armful of books, waving, and called out with a smile, “I’m off! The international class is on the first floor — come find me if you’re ever free!”

Class Seven was, after all, the arts experimental class, and everyone in it had their dignity intact. They all called out good wishes to Tao Shiyue for her new class.

Tao Shiyue called back, “Best of luck to all of you too!”

On the first day of term, no teachers came to supervise — every period was self-study.

Lin Qingxiao’s deskmate had changed seats, and she was now sitting right next to Xia Li.

Lin Qingxiao let out a quiet scoff at that moment. “She couldn’t leave without showing off one last time.”

Xia Li said with a smile, “If it were me I’d want to show off too.”

“I think we’re a little bit sour-grapes about this.”

“Maybe just a little.”

The two of them laughed.

By rights, the launch of the international class was big news, but the mood in the class was oddly subdued — as though everyone had tacitly agreed to leave the topic alone.

In a small city like Chucheng, Mingzhang Middle School was the lighthouse for every earnest student.

The school had a long history and ranked first in Chucheng. Its predecessor was the Mingzhang Academy, founded during the Qianlong reign. Mingzhong reliably sent a considerable number of students to Peking University and Tsinghua each year, and the first-tier university admission rate from its experimental classes was equally impressive.

Mingzhong had always judged everything by results. Of course, the school also had no objection to collecting a generous school-building fee — every year a certain number of places were set aside for students from wealthy families — but the school had never openly advertised this.

The new international class was different, though.

Its establishment seemed to be the first moment anyone had so clearly sensed the existence of “class divisions.”

Some students burned the midnight oil fighting for the handful of Peking-Tsinghua-Fudan spots. Others coasted along and went straight into American or British degree programmes.

For the ordinary majority of students, that moment produced a sting — some felt it sharply, others only faintly.

Under the authoritative eye of their form teacher Lao Zhuang, by only the second day of term, Class Seven had already settled back into its rhythm. From morning reading to evening self-study, seven in the morning to ten at night, the routine ran like clockwork.

That afternoon the weather turned overcast. The daylight vanished in an instant; the sky went the colour of a blackened pot-bottom — one look told you rain was coming.

According to the newly posted duty roster, Xia Li was assigned to the outdoor cleaning zone for Class Seven that day.

She also held the position of head of the school broadcasting station. When the last afternoon period ended, she dashed over to check that the editor-director and announcer for that day’s broadcast were both in position, then hurried to the duty zone.

She ran into Xiao Yulong, who was on duty with her that day, just before she left. “I need to pop to the broadcasting room first — could I ask you to head over there now? I’ll be right behind you.”

“Then treat me to dinner,” Xiao Yulong said.

“Sure, sure!”

“I’m joking! Go on, I’ll grab a broom for you.” He laughed.

“You’re a lifesaver, thank you.”

Xia Li rushed to the broadcasting station, confirmed that the editor-director and announcer on shift had everything under control, and then ran to the duty zone.

Xiao Yulong was already sweeping. He’d set a second broom down beside him for her.

Xia Li hurried over and picked it up. “Have you done this side?”

“Done — go do that side.”

It wasn’t long before the rain started to fall.

They both picked up the pace, sweeping roughly, gathering the dust and dead leaves and twigs into a pile, scooping it into the dustpan, and emptying it into the rubbish bin nearby.

Just before the rain had fully soaked the ground, the two of them sprinted into the covered walkway at the front of the teaching building.

They nearly ran straight into someone. Xia Li braked just in time.

And then she froze.

She was out of breath from running, clutching a dustpan and two brooms, her hair half-damp from the rain, her fringe sagging down over her forehead.

At her most bedraggled moment, she had run into the person she’d thought she would never see again for the rest of her life.

Fortunately, the young man had not noticed her.

He was wearing a white T-shirt with a black backpack slung across one shoulder, and he stood beside an elderly person with an expression of calm detachment.

The elderly man appeared to be in his sixties, his temples silvery white, his face wearing a genial smile.

Facing the two of them stood the deputy head of studies, equally warm in expression.

The old man smiled and said, “…I have every confidence in Mingzhong’s rigorous academic standards. This child is sensible and won’t give Director Zheng any trouble — I’ll be counting on you to keep an eye on him.”

Director Zheng smiled. “You can rest assured — we take responsibility for all our students…”

Xia Li stood there, dazed. Her heart swelled with a joy she hadn’t known could come back like this — the happiness of something lost and then recovered.

How could it be? How could they possibly meet again…

Xiao Yulong had walked on ahead and called back to her. Only then did Xia Li come back to herself and catch up.

She didn’t dare look back until she was safely some distance away. Through the curtain of rain beneath the walkway eaves, she caught one last glimpse: his silhouette, slender and upright, like a white crane poised in solitary grace. He was so tall — a full head above Director Zheng.

Xiao Yulong went off to empty the rubbish, telling Xia Li to go back to the classroom first.

The route back through the first-floor corridor went past the international class’s room.

The international class was numbered Class Twenty. Just now, four or five students were gathered around Tao Shiyue in the corridor outside the classroom, next to the window.

There was a certain pride in Tao Shiyue’s eyes and brow — it hadn’t quite crossed into open superiority, but if you looked carefully, that impression was easy to get.

Xia Li didn’t have any particular strong feelings against her, really. Tao Shiyue was simply the kind of girl who existed in every class from childhood onward — the little princess type: privileged family background, pretty face, well-liked, good grades. With all that going for her, why shouldn’t she feel a little superior?

“Shiyue, how do you know him?”

Xia Li caught this as she passed.

“Our grandmothers both used to work at the First Municipal Hospital before they retired — my mother was in the same department as his grandmother, practically her student.” Tao Shiyue said.

Xia Li’s footsteps slowed.

She didn’t know who they were talking about, but there was an inexplicable intuition.

Were they talking about that young man?

Someone let out a low “wow” and asked again, “What school is he transferring from?”

“Beicheng.”

“Why would someone transfer from Beicheng all the way to a small place like our Chucheng?”

“That’s exactly why the international class was set up,” Tao Shiyue said. “His grandfather donated most of the funding for it. Though he’s only here on a visiting student basis — when the time comes for applications and submitting materials, he’ll still go back to Beicheng.”

At that point Tao Shiyue noticed Xia Li and gave a cheerful wave. “Hi!”

Xia Li’s hands were full, so she just smiled back and said “Hi.”

Though she was full of curiosity, she was standing in front of another class’s door and couldn’t very well hover there listening in. She said her hello to Tao Shiyue and moved on.

Xia Li put away the brooms and dustpan, went to the washroom at the end of the corridor to wash her hands.

She had barely settled back in her seat when Lin Qingxiao returned from the canteen, a bowl of stir-fried noodles in hand for Xia Li.

Xia Li thanked her.

Lin Qingxiao sat down at the adjacent deskmate’s spot, sipping her Bright brand yoghurt drink. “You were out on duty earlier so you didn’t see — a really, really good-looking boy showed up in Class Twenty.”

Xia Li had been in the middle of breaking apart a pair of disposable chopsticks. She stopped. “I passed by just now heading up — I heard Tao Shiyue and the others seemed to be talking about him. Apparently Tao Shiyue already knows him.”

“Trust her to seize the chance to show off about that,” Lin Qingxiao said.

Just then three girls walked in, all of them excitedly discussing the very same topic.

One of them said, “I heard he hasn’t left yet — he’s over at the admin building.”

“Should we go look?”

“I don’t know, it feels so obvious.”

“Just how good-looking is he? Better-looking than Shen Yang?”

“Next to him, Shen Yang’s nothing special.”

Through their chatter, Xia Li gathered a few more details.

The young man had arrived towards the end of the last period in the afternoon, mainly to drop off his books. He came into the classroom without saying hello to anyone. It was Tao Shiyue who called him by name on her own initiative — but his response had been very cool. The moment class ended, he left, and the next time anyone spotted him he was over at the admin building.

Xia Li had an odd feeling.

Years later, in 2013, a song called “Miss Dong” became hugely popular. The lyrics said: “You are not, after all, a girl with no stories.”

But Xia Li was, in fact, exactly that — a girl with no stories of her own.

Warm and well-behaved, following the expected path, never stepping out of line.

And yet, here and now, she felt herself so close to the edge of a story.

There was an impulse in her — to announce to the world: the person you’re all talking about once borrowed my earphones and listened to music for two hours.

But she couldn’t.

Someone would surely question whether it was real.

Had it really happened? She almost doubted it herself.

If only she had been brave enough then to ask his name.

If she had known his name, he wouldn’t feel quite so much like a page of daydreaming she had conjured up in the back of a car.

Xia Li asked Lin Qingxiao, “What’s his name?”

“Yan Sishi.”

“How is it written?”

Lin Qingxiao took her pen and a scrap of paper.

晏斯时.

Yan — as in the calm of a peaceful river. Si — as in: “I rejoice in my birth, appointed to live in exactly this moment.” Shi — the same character.