“Later, working overtime into the deep of night, trapped by rain in that long line of people waiting for a cab — I would always think of that rainy evening back then. The city was small, the road was short, and the thoughts in my heart stretched on and on and on.”

— Sherry Lab, The Ninth Year Through the Dream

Yan Sishi’s gaze returned to Xia Li’s notebook. He scanned it, was just about to speak, then seemed to remember they were in a library. He turned and reached for a pencil on his own desk.

Xia Li watched his elegant fingers close around the pencil and, one by one, write the Chinese definitions next to each vocabulary word she had copied down — even annotating the parts of speech with markers like “n.,” “vi.,” and “vt.”

She could not imagine a scene more likely to send her heart racing.

The mechanical pencil tip moved across the paper with a soft, sandy sound.

Like a needle tracing the grooves of a vinyl record, something played in a loop inside her — more joyful than fireworks bursting open.

Before long — though it hadn’t seemed like very long at all — the pencil stopped, and Yan Sishi pushed her notebook back across.

Yan Sishi asked in a low voice: “Any other questions?”

After Yan Sishi turned back around, Xia Li slid her sleeve away, and pulled two other books over to cover the front of Guns, Germs, and Steel.

She lightly pinched her own earlobe — it was burning to the touch.

She looked down at the definitions Yan Sishi had written in her notebook.

Compared to the signature he’d written with a ballpoint pen at the registration desk earlier, these pencil characters had an additional quality to them — a sharper precision, something with more bone and sinew in the strokes.

The open space filled with the measured sound of approaching footsteps: Xu Ning and the other Class Seven girl coming back together.

Xu Ning set down a towering stack of books with a thud that Xia Li could have sworn made the table shake.

The books Xu Ning had pulled were all over the place — Lovecraftian horror, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, Norse mythology, criminal psychology…

Xia Li knew. She read these to piece together strange and elaborate worldbuilding for the alternate-universe fan fiction she wrote about her favorite animated characters.

Old Zhuang wasn’t wrong — if only Xu Ning would put half this effort into mathematics, her scores in that subject would long since have stopped dragging her down to somewhere below the 25th rank in the class.

The space grew quiet again.

Everyone read their own books until the library gradually dimmed, then brightened once more as the lights came on.

She glanced at the time — past five o’clock.

Xia Li looked ahead — Yan Sishi had closed his laptop and appeared to be getting ready to leave.

She turned and murmured to Xu Ning: “Dinner time is coming up — should we head back?”

“Ah… what time is it?” Xu Ning closed her book.

“Past five.”

“Let’s go then.”

She asked the other Class Seven girl, who said she’d follow them.

Yan Sishi had packed up first and gone to the checkout counter.

The three of them followed shortly after.

Yan Sishi, with his checked-out books in hand, walked to one side and stood there — as if waiting to leave together.

He was always impeccably mannered, with a kind of chivalry you didn’t find in most of their peers.

Xia Li glanced toward where Yan Sishi was, and, seeing that he wasn’t looking this way, she turned back and stepped up to the counter without hesitation.

The staff scanned the barcodes and reminded her: “Return within three months.”

Once everyone had finished checking out, they walked outside together.

It was still raining outside, but lighter now.

Xu Ning had brought an umbrella. Xia Li shared it with her.

The group came down the steps to the roadside.

The other Class Seven girl lived nearby — less than two bus stops away — so she said she’d catch the bus up ahead and walked off, umbrella in hand.

Xu Ning suggested to Xia Li: “Should we get a cab?”

Xia Li hadn’t brought an umbrella, and a cab could drop them right at the dormitory entrance — obviously the most convenient option.

In Chucheng at the time, a taxi started at 5 yuan for the first two kilometers, adding just one yuan per additional kilometer. Split between the two of them, it wouldn’t cost much.

But on a rainy day, cabs were hard to come by, and they were also heading into shift-change hour — several passed, either already taken or unwilling to stop.

Xia Li didn’t mind the wait, because Yan Sishi was also waiting for a ride.

Through the grey winter haze of rain, she looked at the figure beneath that black umbrella not far away, and found herself wishing the car would never come.

But before long, two warm amber headlights cut through the murky sky, and a black Mercedes pulled up beside Yan Sishi.

Yan Sishi opened the rear door, but didn’t get in right away. He paused, glanced in the direction of Xia Li and Xu Ning, and said in a level voice: “Get in — I’ll give you a ride.”

His tone and voice were both unhurried and easy — nothing emotionally loaded about the offer, simply the basic courtesy one would extend to classmates.

Xu Ning froze and turned to mouth at Xia Li: Did I hear that right?

Xia Li had exactly the same question for Xu Ning.

And yet Yan Sishi’s hand was holding the rear car door open, clearly waiting for them.

Xia Li steadied the excitement building urgently inside her, reached over and gave Xu Ning’s arm a light pull. Her voice came out calm: “Coming?”

“Let’s go. Who knows how long we’d wait for a cab.”

The two of them walked over, closed their umbrella, and got into the backseat one after the other.

Yan Sishi gently shut the rear door behind them, then opened the front passenger door and got in.

The car’s heating was on full. The air inside carried a faint, pleasant warmth.

After standing in the cold rain for a while, there had been an inevitable chill settling in. Being wrapped in that warm air now, it was as if the coldness seeping through her bones was slowly being drawn out — she felt comfortable and at ease.

The driver was someone Xia Li didn’t recognize — probably the dedicated driver Luo Weiguo had mentioned.

The driver asked where they lived, and they gave their addresses in turn.

Xia Li worked out in her head that, based on the direction of travel, she would be dropped off after Xu Ning.

Which meant she would have a moment alone with Yan Sishi.

Simply imagining that, she couldn’t help squeezing her fingers tight.

During the ride, Xu Ning and Yan Sishi exchanged a brief word or two about the script, and then no one spoke.

When all was said and done, neither of them knew Yan Sishi particularly well. Their contact, so far, had been minimal.

And someone like Yan Sishi — it was genuinely hard to figure out how anyone could get closer to him.

He was like the cold moon hanging in the sky.

Everyone could see him. No one could reach him.

The driver was wonderfully diligent — willing to take even narrow back roads — and dropped Xu Ning right at her neighborhood gate.

After pulling back out from the side street, the car fell even quieter.

It was barely past five, but the sky was already completely dark. The water streaks on the windows distorted the streetlights and neon signs, blurring them into scattered, unfocused halos of light.

Now that it was just Xia Li, she felt even more acutely that the air in this enclosed space had thinned somewhat — she was so nervous she couldn’t sit still.

She glanced up at Yan Sishi in the front seat. In the silence filled only with the hum of the engine, she found herself breathing, without even thinking about it, more lightly and slowly.

Chucheng’s urban area was very small. From Xu Ning’s place to the student dormitory, it was no more than a ten-minute drive.

She still wanted to say a little more.

Xia Li tightened her fingers on her knee. “The script…”

“Mm?” Yan Sishi turned around.

Xia Li glanced at him — the cabin was dim and she couldn’t quite make out his face — and quickly moved her gaze away. “There’s one part of the translation I think might be worth reconsidering.”

“Which part?”

“The slogan the students shout during the protest — translating it directly and performing it out loud feels like it loses some of its force. If it could be a little shorter, with some rhythm and rhyme, it might come across more powerfully.”

After saying it, she was seized with doubt.

Her English scores were nothing to boast about in her class. Would raising this kind of suggestion to Yan Sishi make her look like she was overstepping?

But Yan Sishi nodded. “That’s a good point. I’ll think about it again.”

Xia Li let out a breath.

She had wanted to raise this during the group discussion, but since everyone else was satisfied, bringing it up alone in that atmosphere might have been awkward.

“Any other places?” Yan Sishi asked.

“Not really…”

Yan Sishi said nothing more and turned back to face the front.

The car sank into silence again.

Before Xia Li had any time to work up her next topic, the car had already drawn near the school.

The driver spoke up then, asking exactly where to stop.

Xia Li quickly said: “Just up ahead — next to that Huaxing supermarket.”

The car glided a short distance forward, pulled to the curb, and put on its hazard lights.

Xia Li picked up her backpack and said to Yan Sishi: “…Thank you for the ride. I hope we haven’t taken up your time.”

“Not at all. It’s on the way anyway.”

Xia Li reached for the door handle.

“One moment,” Yan Sishi suddenly said.

Xia Li went still.

Yan Sishi leaned slightly forward, picked up the black folding umbrella, and passed it back from the front.

Xia Li started and reached out to take it. As she did, the undreid rainwater on the umbrella scattered and fell, a faint coolness landing on the back of her hand.

“…Thank you. I’ll return it to you on Monday.”

Yan Sishi made a sound that was neither agreement nor disagreement.

She opened the door, said a last goodbye, and closed the car door.

Standing outside, she opened the umbrella, then turned back to the window and gave a small wave.

The car’s left turn signal came on. It pulled forward, made a U-turn up ahead.

Xia Li gripped the umbrella handle and stood under the lamplight, watching the car as it passed on the other side of the road and disappeared into the dark, rain-soaked distance. Then she turned and headed inside.

Walking under a tree, raindrops falling from the leaves knocked on the umbrella fabric — a dripping, tapping sound, like a little song.

Back at the dormitory, Xia Li set the umbrella open on the balcony to dry.

She took a hot shower and changed into warm cotton pajamas, then tossed her worn clothes into the washing machine.

Back in her room, she draped a knit cardigan over her pajamas, pulled out the chair at her desk, and sat down. From the drawer she took out her diary.

She also pulled out her notebook from her backpack, turned to the page where Yan Sishi had written, and looked at it for a long time. Then she took a ruler from her pencil case, pressed it along the binding, and tore the page out cleanly along the ruler’s edge. She trimmed away the excess, and tucked it into today’s diary entry.