“Thank goodness weather forecasts are only 30% accurate. Otherwise, the world would have far fewer stories, far fewer surprises.”

— Sherry Lab, The Ninth Year Through the Dream

Old Zhuang didn’t like students spending their attention on extracurricular activities. Toward the kinds of school-organized, non-compulsory events, he generally took a stance of neither opposing nor encouraging — which everyone was astute enough to understand meant the same as forbidding.

That said, this particular day an English class representative came to notify the class they’d be going to the lecture hall.

Passing by Class Twenty, Xia Li glanced inside out of habit.

When they arrived at the lecture hall, the first three rows were unmistakably occupied by Class Twenty students.

In the third row, at the innermost seat by the window, sat Yan Sishi.

He was always so luminous — visible at a single glance — yet somehow quiet and detached, hovering at the edge of any group.

The Class Seven girls all turned their gazes toward Yan Sishi, murmuring among themselves.

The English teacher spoke up, asking everyone to quickly find seats.

Xia Li watched as a few bold girls immediately jostled each other into the row directly behind Yan Sishi.

When the room settled, the English teacher smiled and asked: “Did Old Zhuang tell you all that you can’t participate in the New Year’s Eve party?”

“He did!” Several Class Seven students responded with considerable grievance.

“So we’ve managed to get an opportunity for you.”

The English teacher had always favored flexible, creative teaching methods — things like staging small in-class English singing competitions requiring everyone’s participation, or having students pick their favorite English-language animated short and dub a few minutes of it.

In the heavily exam-focused environment of Mingzhong, she was a rare teacher who wasn’t entirely driven by standardized testing.

The English teacher raised a hand to settle things down. “Don’t get excited just yet — hear me out first, then decide whether you want to take part.”

She introduced the two people standing at the front: the two foreign teachers from Class Twenty, Bill and Jessica. “I discussed it with Bill and Jessica, and we’ve decided to have your two classes put on a play together. Here are the requirements — listen carefully. You’ll write the Chinese script yourselves — and the draft needs to be reviewed by Old Zhuang, who will send it right back to you if it doesn’t pass. Once Old Zhuang approves it, both classes will work together to translate it into English, and then hand it to the three of us for final revisions.”

Class Seven’s class president, Zhu Xuan, asked: “Does that mean the final performance will be entirely in English?”

“Otherwise, why would Old Zhuang agree?” The English teacher gave the desk a light tap. “Let me make this clear from the start — the lead roles can’t all go to Class Twenty. Class Seven has more students, so it needs to put forward more actors as well. At the very least, a one-to-three ratio.”

“Zhu Xuan, Tao Shiyue — you two come up to co-host. Work out the division of responsibilities.”

As Class Seven’s class president Zhu Xuan walked to the front, she said: “I’m worried we won’t have time to rehearse — Old Zhuang definitely won’t let us take time away from classes.”

“Then you’ll just have to figure it out yourselves and see if you can sacrifice lunch and dinner breaks. I’ll give you a few English lessons as needed.”

Once the English teacher finished speaking, she and the two foreign teachers stepped to the side, leaving the front to Zhu Xuan and Tao Shiyue.

Zhu Xuan and Tao Shiyue conferred for a few minutes, then Zhu Xuan announced: “Xu Ning, you write the best compositions in the whole class — would you be able to handle the Chinese script?”

Xu Ning had a severe imbalance across her subjects. Out of a possible 150 points in mathematics, she struggled between 100 and 110.

In contrast, her Chinese remained an unshakeable dominant presence — her essays were routinely printed out as model writing and “circulated” to the whole year group.

Old Zhuang, as the Chinese teacher, had a love-hate relationship with a student like this, and had held more conversations with Xu Ning than he could count, trying to get her to put more effort into her weak subjects. He even gave her special dispensation to do math during his Chinese class if she wished.

Xu Ning said: “I definitely can’t do it alone.”

“Then ask Lin Qingxiao and Xia Li to help you. Start by coming up with a few broad themes and directions — once those are decided, we’ll see what support you need for the actual writing.”

“And for the English translation…”

Zhu Xuan named a few students from Class Seven who were strong in English, and they all agreed.

Tao Shiyue said: “For Class Twenty’s translation contribution…”

Her gaze moved toward Yan Sishi. “Yan Sishi — could you help with that?”

Xia Li felt the room go quiet for a moment.

Nearly everyone had heard of Yan Sishi, but those who had actually interacted with him were few. The collective impression was that he was cold and unapproachable.

It was hard to imagine someone like that agreeing to participate in a school activity.

Into the quiet, Yan Sishi responded with a sound that carried little discernible emotion: “Sure.”

Zhu Xuan wrapped things up. “Then the script side is in your hands. Next, costumes, music, and set design…”

Zhu Xuan operated with brisk efficiency, running through each role systematically, and even roughed out a timeline on the spot.

According to the schedule, Xu Ning had a combined total of just two weeks to settle on a theme and complete the script.

After class, Xu Ning immediately pulled Xia Li and Lin Qingxiao aside to start brainstorming.

Xia Li’s attention kept drifting — it had settled on Yan Sishi, not far ahead of them in the corridor.

Tao Shiyue was walking alongside him. Over the noise of the crowd, she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

At dinner that evening, Xu Ning asked Xia Li and Lin Qingxiao to come with her to Class Twenty’s classroom to discuss the direction for the script.

Tao Shiyue had suggested the location, saying Class Twenty was more spacious.

Lin Qingxiao had a fraught relationship with Tao Shiyue and told Xu Ning she was only tolerating this as a personal favor. Xu Ning laughed and promised to treat her to a proper meal once the New Year’s show was over.

Xia Li stopped by the broadcast station first, so by the time she hurried over, the others had been discussing for a while.

In Class Twenty’s classroom, four desks had been pushed together into one large table, covered with assorted KFC snacks.

She walked over and apologized for being late.

Only one seat remained — diagonally across from Yan Sishi, the farthest seat from him.

Xia Li sat down and stole a glance at Yan Sishi as she settled in.

He wasn’t wearing his school uniform today. His top was a pigeon-grey hoodie, the trousers the same color. Even the dull grey suited him — the whole effect was a kind of clean, understated youthful ease.

The discussion resumed.

Xia Li listened for a while. Xu Ning had laid out three possible directions.

The first was something like Teahouse or Thunderstorm — existing plays, which only needed to be translated, making things relatively straightforward.

The second was something like The Merchant of Venice or Hamlet — classic Western works that were already in English, so translating from Chinese back into English would be somewhat circular.

The third direction was entirely original.

Zhu Xuan said: “Xu Ning, why don’t you share your thoughts first?”

“I lean toward the first option.”

“Can’t you manage original?”

“We could, if it’s really necessary.”

Everyone offered opinions, and eventually the consensus was that adapting Teahouse or Thunderstorm might be the safer choice.

“Actually…” Xia Li spoke up.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Xia Li said: “Xu Ning, have you considered adapting a historical event? Like the Battle of Red Cliffs, or the Xi’an Incident — something like that… it’s semi-original, not as difficult to develop.”

Xia Li’s three humanities subjects, and she liked history best. Her score in history was consistently among the top three in the class.

She might not be exceptional at many things, but her memory was decent — given a blank sheet and a pen, she could reproduce most of the key dates and events from the history textbook with reasonable accuracy.

Thinking of historical adaptations first was simply the way her mind worked.

Xu Ning seemed genuinely sparked by this: “That angle does sound interesting.”

And so the group launched into discussion from there.

A girl said: “I think the Battle of Red Cliffs could work — the Three Kingdoms is a subject most people enjoy. The Straw Boat Ruse, the Three Visits to the Thatched Cottage — those all work too.”

Xu Ning jotted everyone’s ideas down.

Xia Li raised a hand: “May I share my thoughts?”

Xu Ning nodded.

“I actually think The Xi’an Incident might be the stronger choice? It has a larger cast — beyond Zhang Xueliang, Yang Hucheng, and Chiang Kai-shek, we could expand to include Song Meiling, [Zhou Enlai], Song Ziwen, and other roles… The main thing is — if we also write in a scene of student protests demanding that Chiang stop the civil war and unite against Japan, then everyone could have a part on stage.”

At that moment, she noticed that Yan Sishi — who had been somewhat disengaged from the discussion — looked over at her.

She immediately lost her train of thought, stumbled over her words, and then pressed on: “…We’re going into Year Three next year, and Old Zhuang definitely won’t let us do something like this again. Everyone will be focused on college entrance exams, and probably won’t be in the mood for any of this. This year is the last real chance to do something fun together. I really hope everyone gets to be part of it.”

Zhu Xuan nodded vigorously. “Exactly — if it ends up being just a handful of people having fun, it loses the point. What do you think, Xu Ning?”

“I’m fine with it. It’s really the translation that I’m not sure about…”

Class Seven, as the liberal arts enriched class, certainly had above-average English levels for the year group, but whether they could translate a literary script was another matter entirely.

After a brief exchange, everyone’s eyes turned to Yan Sishi, and the final decision was left to him.

Xia Li had heard that Yan Sishi had been raised bilingually from childhood.

Yan Sishi spoke evenly: “You decide. I can work with either.”

With that, everyone talked it through briefly and settled on The Xi’an Incident.

At that point, Tao Shiyue noticed the snacks had still been untouched and opened them up, pushing them toward the group. “Eat before everything goes cold!”

Xia Li munched on fries, keeping a low-key eye on Yan Sishi.

He was holding a cup of cola, leaning slightly back in his chair. His expression had a faint air of someone who had nothing better to do.

She kept replaying the look he had given her when she was speaking — trying to parse whether it had meant something or was simply a casual glance.

Saturday.

Xia Li took the bus to the city’s new public library.

Xu Ning had finished her script, and it had been reviewed and approved by both the history teacher and Old Zhuang. The Class Seven students had completed the translation and passed the text to Yan Sishi for final review.

Today everyone had arranged to meet at the library to discuss.

Xia Li had forgotten her umbrella when she left. The weather forecast all week had been calling for rain, but after days of grey skies without a single drop, she assumed today would be the same.

Then, not long after boarding the bus, rain came — tapping against the window glass and pooling into small rivulets that slid and wound their way down.

When it rained and the wind picked up in Chucheng in winter, the cold was merciless — an icy, seeping chill that felt as if it went straight into your bones.

The rain seemed to intensify by another degree.

Xia Li pulled her neck in and quickened her steps.

The city’s new public library had just been completed that year — one of the showcase projects built to welcome the provincial sports meet coming in a few years’ time — and it had been built impressively. In front of the main building, there were dozens of stone steps leading up, all in uniform grey-white granite, wide and stately, making the walk to the library feel almost like a pilgrimage.

Xia Li had only climbed a few steps when she heard a clear, cool voice from behind her: “Xia Li?”

With the wind and rain between them, it sounded almost unreal.

She paused, thinking she’d imagined it, but turned to look anyway.

A black sedan was parked by the road. Yan Sishi stood beside the car door, a black umbrella open in his hand.

He pressed the door shut behind him with a light click, and the car’s left turn signal lit up. It glided away through the grey rain, leaving two blurred red trails of light that faded into the mist.

Yan Sishi stepped onto the stairs.

He was wearing a black crewneck sweater, trousers in the same color. Dark colors on him were somehow not heavy or dull at all — they only made his complexion look more strikingly pale.

Xia Li stood frozen on the spot, heart still racing from the moment he had called her name for the very first time.

Yan Sishi walked to her side and asked quietly: “No umbrella?”

She hadn’t even had a chance to answer when the black umbrella tilted toward her.

The moment that shadow fell across her, she felt as if her heart had leapt straight out of her chest.