“Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. And — happy birthday.”

— Sherry Lab, The Ninth Year Past the Dream

No one crowded too close. They watched from a distance, curious.

Xia Li stood upstairs on the corridor. She didn’t go down.

In the darkness, she could see Ouyang Jing take half a step forward, body tilting slightly — an expression of urgency and sincerity. She seemed to be saying something at some length.

The words were too far away to catch, but it looked like quite a lot had been said.

On the other side, Yan Sishi waited in silence until she finished, then spoke.

Ouyang Jing raised her arm to cover her face and turned and ran.

She ran to the tree-lined path beside the clearing. A figure stepped out from beneath the trees and immediately caught her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. Lin Qingxiao.

Yan Sishi didn’t linger. He turned and walked toward the tree-lined path.

As he passed Lin Qingxiao and Ouyang Jing, he didn’t spare them even a single glance.

In the darkness, his expression couldn’t be seen — only the shape of him, cold and solitary.

Xia Li watched Lin Qingxiao and Ouyang Jing for a moment, then went downstairs.

In the shadow of the trees, Ouyang Jing had buried her face in Lin Qingxiao’s shoulder, weeping in muffled, broken sounds.

The fur trim on her down jacket trembled in the cold wind — like she herself was trembling.

Xia Li reached into her pocket, pulled out a packet of tissues, drew one out, and quietly held it out.

People passed by now and then, stealing glances in their direction.

Xia Li nudged Lin Qingxiao and Ouyang Jing further into the shadows, then stepped forward herself to block any prying eyes.

Just then, Tao Shiyue and two girls from Class Twenty walked past.

They were apparently already discussing what had just happened. Tao Shiyue said to the others: “…Confessing to someone you’ve barely spoken to — how is that any different from walking into traffic.”

Tao Shiyue’s voice wasn’t particularly loud.

But Lin Qingxiao’s head snapped up. “Who do you think you’re talking about?!”

Tao Shiyue stopped, actually startled — she evidently hadn’t noticed there was anyone in the shadows.

She shrugged. “I wasn’t talking about you. Why are you getting worked up?”

“Talking about people behind their backs — is that something to be proud of?”

“I’d say it to someone’s face too. Am I wrong?”

Lin Qingxiao gave a cold laugh. “You’ve spoken to him. You know him so well. So why don’t you have the courage to confess to him yourself?”

“…” Tao Shiyue had no answer for that.

The two of them had never gotten along. Lin Qingxiao was forthright by nature; with Tao Shiyue, she was truly like a needle meeting a spike.

Ouyang Jing tugged at Lin Qingxiao’s sleeve, speaking low: “Xiaoxiao, just leave it, please…”

Lin Qingxiao was still furious. “Just because he’s a little tall and a little good-looking — what makes him so special? You’re so beautiful — in what way are you not good enough for him? The kind of person who looks down on everyone…”

“Don’t say that about him…” Ouyang Jing’s voice was close to breaking.

Lin Qingxiao rolled her eyes at Tao Shiyue and turned away, not bothering with her anymore, murmuring comfort to Ouyang Jing instead.

Tao Shiyue made a sound of contempt and walked off with her friends.

After some time, Ouyang Jing’s composure slowly returned.

Her makeup had run. But she looked up at Lin Qingxiao and Xia Li with a smile, shrugged lightly, and said: “Actually, maybe this is for the best. Otherwise I’d keep thinking about him and not be able to properly train or study. Now that I’ve been turned down, I can let it go.”

“What did he say? Did he say anything unkind?” Lin Qingxiao’s posture suggested that if Ouyang Jing said yes, she would be going to find Yan Sishi personally to settle accounts.

“No,” Ouyang Jing said quickly. “He said he was very grateful that I thought so well of him. He said he was actually not as good as I’d described — he’s not. He said that right now he has more important things to deal with, and he hasn’t had the headspace to think about anything other than those things…”

Xia Li listened, and felt something like the cold of that night seep into her chest.

The feeling was as if she herself had just been turned down.

This was so like Yan Sishi — gracious, and yet impossibly sealed-off.

“What more important things?” Lin Qingxiao asked. “Going abroad?”

“I don’t think so — that’s the sense I got. He seemed very sincere.”

Ouyang Jing let out a long breath, as though a weight had lifted. “I’m going back to my classroom. Where are you two headed?”

Lin Qingxiao said: “We probably still need to sort out the costumes for our class. But I’ll come find you after — I’ll take you out for ice cream.”

“Lovely.” Ouyang Jing waved at them both. “Bye.”

Xia Li watched Ouyang Jing’s retreating figure — her step was already lighter — and felt nothing in that moment but a quiet admiration.

She admired her courage. She admired the fact that Ouyang Jing’s memories would carry this vivid, unmistakable moment from now on.

Wasn’t that what youth was? There wasn’t time to weigh everything up and think carefully through every consequence. No matter how much it hurt, one good cry under the covers — and the next morning, you could still make it to early study session on time, eyes swollen like walnuts.

Back upstairs in the classroom.

Tao Shiyue was organizing a group trip to karaoke through the night, to celebrate the show’s success — tomorrow was a holiday, a rare opportunity. Some people were enthusiastic; others said their families would never allow it.

Under normal circumstances, Lin Qingxiao would have pulled Nie Chuhang along to something like this.

But she had just argued with Tao Shiyue.

She said quietly to Xia Li: “You go if you want to, Xia Xia. Don’t feel you have to stay on my account.”

Xia Li shook her head. “I’m not going. I just want to go home and sleep.”

Yan Sishi had already left.

Xia Li had no heart for the festivities. She didn’t feel like joining in.

All the costumes were collected, counted, and confirmed complete. The student in charge — whose mother had come to pick him up — took them home with him. Tomorrow, Lin Qingxiao, the arts committee member, and he would go together to return them.

Lin Qingxiao left with Ouyang Jing. Xu Ning had never had much interest in singing and parties, so she hadn’t joined Tao Shiyue’s group. She was heading straight home.

Xia Li went with her toward the exit.

At the bottom of the staircase, Wang Chen intercepted Xia Li.

He seemed still unclear on what had happened. “Have you seen Yan Sishi? I went to the washroom for a second and he disappeared, and he still hasn’t come back.”

Xia Li felt like teasing him a little. “Do you know who I am?”

The question left Wang Chen momentarily blank. He pushed his glasses up and studied her with considerable focus. “Did I get it wrong? Aren’t you the one who ate dinner with us that time…”

She was genuinely in low spirits, but she laughed out loud at that. “Yan Sishi already left.”

“…So much for loyalty. He didn’t even say a word to me.”

“Are you going to Tao Shiyue’s karaoke? Everyone else is going.”

Wang Chen: “What’s the point of that kind of entertainment? Pointless.”

“…”

After saying goodbye to Wang Chen, Xia Li walked with Xu Ning to the school gate, where Xu Ning’s father came to pick her up and she left.

Xia Li wandered into a stationery shop by the gate that hadn’t closed yet, and bought a few replacement ballpoint pen refills.

As she came out, she saw Tao Shiyue and the rest of the group heading in a great, laughing crowd in the direction of Tianxing Street.

Their laughter lingered in the night air.

She walked along the road, took out her phone, and found “Y” in her contacts.

She just looked at the letter. Didn’t do anything more.

She held her phone and looked up at the sickle-shaped yellow moon caught in the treetops, breathing out a slow cloud of white mist.

There was a damp, low feeling inside her — like a story that had ended too soon, or the hollow restlessness after a party has come to an end.

That night, some people were happy, some were sad, one person had slipped away into the dark, and one person stood in the road feeling strangely, quietly bereft.

2008 — belonging only to the sixteen-year-olds who had lived it — drew to a close just like that.

That term’s final exams: for the first time, Xia Li placed in the top ten of her class — eighth.

She found out her score and ranking early, because she had been helping with grading and tallying results.

When the homeroom teacher Mr. Zhuang came over to check the scores, the geography teacher, Mr. Wu, pulled out Xia Li’s paper to show him. “My class representative this semester — the improvement in geography alone has been remarkable. You can see it with your own eyes.”

Mr. Zhuang nodded. “Good. Glad we made her class representative.”

Mr. Zhuang wasn’t one for smiling. He gave praise with the same expressionless face he used for everything, which made Xia Li vaguely uneasy — she thought privately that she’d have preferred a mild scolding.

Mr. Wu added: “Keep this up. Keep at it.”

Many of the students had the kind of easy rapport with the teachers where they could joke around comfortably — the class president, Xiao Yulong, for instance. If either of them had been in her position right now, they could have turned this into a light back-and-forth without thinking.

She was not like that. She always felt a little stiff and awkward in those situations. All she could manage was: “…I’ll keep working hard.”

The moment she got back to the classroom, small folded notes from Lin Qingxiao and Xu Ning made their way over to her — both fishing for her scores.

Lin Qingxiao spent her days chatting with friends, flirting with Nie Chuhang, watching dramas, following celebrities, and reading for pleasure… Her mind could never be fully on studying. But she was genuinely bright — she could coast along and still land somewhere decent in the rankings every time.

This round: Lin Qingxiao fourteenth, Xu Ning twenty-second — both much the same as previous monthly exams.

It was still only the second year of high school, and no one felt a pressing urgency yet. With winter break approaching, everyone’s thoughts were already wandering.

Xia Li didn’t know if she was the only one who wasn’t looking forward to the break.

Once she left school, she and Yan Sishi would have no connection at all.

Xia Li’s hometown was in a small county town — in a village, actually — and because her grandparents on both sides were still living, the family went back every year for the new year. She had attended primary school there, and after transferring to Chucheng in her first year of middle school, she had gradually lost touch with her old classmates. Going home meant having no one to see, and it was dreadfully dull.

The only form of entertainment left was chatting with Lin Qingxiao and Xu Ning on QQ.

QQ at the time still ran as a Java program on phones. The signal in smaller towns was poor and the connection dropped constantly. Mobile data was expensive, so she used text-only mode to save on costs.

With the poor internet and nothing to do, she picked up the English novel and wrestled with it stubbornly, as if she had something to prove — determined to finish the whole thing within three months.

Then on the sixth day of the new year, when they returned to Chucheng, Xia Li had to follow her parents around paying holiday visits to colleagues and relatives.

Luo Weiguo’s family lived in the city center, in an apartment they had just finished renovating the previous summer, moving in just before the new year. Three bedrooms, two living areas — spacious and bright.

Xia Jianyang looked on with barely concealed envy.

Luo Weiguo remarked that Chucheng was planning to host the Provincial Games in a few years, and when that happened, property prices would certainly skyrocket — so if anyone was thinking of buying, now was the time.

Xia Jianyang gave an awkward laugh and said “yes.”

Every time Xia Li witnessed this kind of scene, something in her stung. She thought: what’s so impressive about that.

At the dinner table, Luo Weiguo asked Xia Li about her final exam results.

Before she could answer, Xia Jianyang spoke up for her. “Eighth in the class this time.”

Luo Weiguo immediately turned and shoved his son, who was gnawing on a drumstick beside him. “When the hell are you going to get scores like that?!”

His son, Luo Wei, nearly dunked his face into his rice bowl. He looked up and rolled his eyes. “What was that for!”

In other respects, Luo Weiguo had done well for himself — but this son, who was in his third year of middle school, was his one persistent headache: chasing girls, smoking, getting into fights, haunting internet cafes, keeping company with people from outside the school… Anything and everything except studying.

And yet, even so, Luo Weiguo still seemed to carry an unspoken air of superiority over Xia Jianyang — an assumption he never stated directly: no matter how well your daughter does, she’s still a girl.

Xia Li’s contempt for boys who were all flash and no substance had its original source in Luo Wei.

She genuinely could not stand him.

In her first year of middle school, when she had just moved to Chucheng and Luo Wei was still in primary school, he had ridiculed her — called her a country bumpkin to her face.

And because Luo Weiguo had just helped her family sort out the household registration transfer, Xia Li had been in no position to refuse when he asked her to tutor Luo Wei. That summer, before middle school began, had been the single worst nightmare of her life.

After dinner, everyone moved to the living room.

Xia Li took out her phone and replied to a message from Xu Ning.

Luo Wei sat beside her, watching her from the corner of his eye, fringe falling over his face, his gaze flat and unsettling. “Still using that ancient phone?”

Xia Li didn’t bother responding.

“Who are you texting? Your boyfriend?”

“Mind your own business,” Xia Li said, quiet but firm.

Luo Wei snorted, rolled his eyes at her. “Country bumpkin.”

At least now that Luo Wei was in middle school, he was no longer as childishly vindictive as he had been in primary school — he wouldn’t sneak up behind her and stuff a cockroach down the back of her collar anymore.

The second semester of the second year began. Valentine’s Day arrived not long after the start of term.

Lin Qingxiao gave Nie Chuhang chocolate — homemade ones, melted and reset in a heart-shaped mold over a hot-water bath. Too precious and girlish by far. Xia Li and Xu Ning teased her mercilessly.

Xia Li herself didn’t do anything for it. She had no desire to contribute to what she privately considered a wasteful custom — especially when Yan Sishi’s desk drawer would be stuffed full of love letters and chocolate that same day, all of which would end up in the bin without being opened.

Once the fuss of the new term settled, it was time for the school broadcasting station to hold its annual changeover.

One day, flipping through the calendar at the front of her journal, Xia Li noticed that February 19th had a circle drawn around it, with a small “Y” marked beside it.

February 19th was Yan Sishi’s birthday.

She thought about the timing of the changeover. And then, all at once, a bold idea formed.

February 19th fell on a Thursday.

The moment the last class ended and the teacher left, Xia Li grabbed her MP3 and a dinner she had bought in advance — and was the first one out of the classroom.

She went up to the broadcasting station, unlocked the door, and began setting up the equipment.

A moment later, the host for today’s program arrived — a first-year girl, a junior.

She looked a little puzzled to see Xia Li. “Are you today’s producer, senior?”

Xia Li explained: “I swapped with someone. Tomorrow night’s the handover meeting — today is probably my last time working here.”

The junior nodded. “I’ll do my very best today, senior. To give you a proper ending.”

Xia Li smiled. “Thank you.”

She plugged in her MP3 and navigated to the folder she had created and named “Y.”

When the host finished the opening segment, Xia Li pushed up the volume.

The music drifted out through the school’s speaker system.

It was one of the songs from Yan Sishi’s playlist — Monta’s “Farewell Dear Ghost.”

The artists and bands Yan Sishi liked were all quite obscure: Monta, Matt Duke, Sonic Youth, Hung Cheuk-Lap… Finding the files to download had taken her no small effort.

This folder’s songs — she had listened to them more times than she could count. Especially during the new year holidays in her hometown, with nothing else to do.

By the end she could sing along to every one of them. Even the Cantonese lyrics she could mimic quite faithfully.

Her personal favorite from the collection was Hung Cheuk-Lap’s “The Boy Saw the Wild Rose.”

She had saved it specifically for the last spot in tonight’s program.

Outside, dusk was gathering.

As the music played, Xia Li stopped talking. She walked to the window, propped her arms on the windowsill, and listened in the soft, cool light of early evening.

Somewhere in the school at this very moment, Yan Sishi was listening too.

“The wild rose had ten thousand branches— but I know he would gladly endure the thorns three times, four times over, to find the one.”

Yan Sishi.

I hope you find your wild rose.

Happy birthday.

When the program ended, Xia Li asked the junior host to wait a moment while she went to the washroom on the basement floor. She said she’d be right back to tidy up and lock the door.

She used the washroom on the ground floor below, then came back to the broadcasting room.

The junior rushed over, eyes bright. “Senior — guess who came just now!”

“Who?”

“Yan Sishi!”

Yan Sishi was well known beyond just the second year — a boy who looked the way he did had no equal in all of Mingzhang. Anyone who paid even a little attention to school gossip would know his name.

Xia Li stiffened. “…What did he come for?”

“He asked who had selected the songs for the program.”

Xia Li’s heart jumped straight into her throat. “What did you tell him?”

“I said the songs were all requested by students — the request box is outside on the first floor, and if he wanted to submit something, he could drop it in there.”

“And then?”

“And then he left.” The junior replayed the scene, suddenly feeling like she hadn’t done quite enough. “…Should I have told him more about how our request system works?”

Xia Li didn’t answer. Her heart was pounding.

The junior was still talking — she’d said when she saw him up close, he was even better-looking than everyone described; how had she let the opportunity pass without getting a few more words in…

Xia Li responded absentmindedly.

Her feelings were a contradiction.

She had been so careful all along precisely because she was afraid of being found out.

And yet — now that discovery had come within a single step — she felt something like disappointment.

The junior left first.

Xia Li stayed in the broadcasting room a little longer.

It was true that today had been something of a private indulgence. But what she had said to the junior wasn’t entirely false, either.

A year and a half at the broadcasting station. A year of serving as station director. She did feel something for this little room.

For the very last program of her tenure — she had given it, as a gift, to the boy she liked.

The most perfect ending she could imagine.

She checked the equipment and switched off the power.

One last look around the broadcasting room. Xia Li stepped out and locked the door.

She left the clock tower, crossed through the covered walkway, and arrived at the outside of Class Twenty’s classroom.

Out of habit, she glanced in through the window. Yan Sishi was not there.

Wang Chen, though, was — blocked at the door by a cluster of girls.

He stood there with his arms full of things that had evidently been pushed on him against his will, his expression one of complete desolation. “…Can’t you just give these to him directly? I’m not some kind of messenger service!”

“He’s not here!” one of the girls said. “Can you just put them on his desk? That’s all.”

Wang Chen exhaled at great length.

It was rather too much to ask of a bookworm absorbed entirely in literature.

When the girls left, Xia Li walked over to say hello.

Wang Chen fixed her with a look. “You’re not here to give him something too, are you? I’ll tell you now — don’t waste the effort. He won’t keep anything. It all goes straight into the bin, unopened.”

Xia Li shook her head.

She had known this would happen. She had never bothered with that approach in the first place. “Is he not in the classroom?”

“As soon as class ended, girls started showing up. He said he was tired of it and went to find somewhere without people to have some peace and quiet.”

Somewhere without people.

Xia Li’s heart gave a sharp lurch.

She glanced at the clock hanging inside Class Twenty’s classroom. More than twenty minutes before the evening study session.

She turned around and ran.

By now, the northeastern corner of the school grounds was quiet, with almost no one around.

The clock tower itself was silent.

Xia Li ran all the way up to the fourth floor, took a breath to steady herself, reached for the door handle, paused — and then pushed it open.

The light inside was on. A pale, solitary bulb.

The boy standing at the window heard the sound and turned around sharply.

Xia Li’s breath went still.

Her secret place. The one she had shown to Yan Sishi.

He was here, just as she had guessed.

And when she had been up here playing songs for him — he had been just one floor above her.

The realization sent a wave of vertiginous unreality through her.

“Oh… hello. I thought no one was up here — I wanted to come and have a moment alone… am I disturbing you?”

“No.” Yan Sishi shook his head. “I borrowed your space.”

Xia Li smiled a little. “It’s not my space. It’s just a space I found.”

The wind from outside was still sharp with the last of the cold, but Yan Sishi was wearing only his school uniform jacket with a white dress shirt underneath — which somehow seemed barely enough. And yet it suited him. That kind of clean, clear quality — like moonlight on frost.

“Have you eaten?” Xia Li asked.

“No.”

Xia Li walked over and held out the red bean bread she had bought but hadn’t yet opened. “Then let me give you this. The best bread from the school shop.”

Yan Sishi had been standing with his arms resting on the windowsill. At that, he paused, then reached out one hand to take it. “Thank you.”

His fingers worked at the plastic wrapping, making a soft rustling sound.

Xia Li stood beside him without speaking.

Yan Sishi ate slowly and deliberately — nothing like the students in the canteen at peak meal hours, who swallowed their food almost without chewing.

“Did you walk past Class Twenty’s classroom just now?” Yan Sishi asked suddenly, tearing off a piece of bread.

“Mm.”

“Was Wang Chen still being held hostage by people?”

“…I didn’t pay that close attention. I think so.” She wasn’t sure whether it was the lie or simply being this close to him — but the tips of her ears, hidden beneath her hair, were burning. She would have liked to stick her head out into the cold wind and let the heat drain away.

Yan Sishi gave a quiet “mm.”

Xia Li said nothing more.

Just existing quietly in the same space as him was enough to fill her with an emotion so complete she was afraid to open her mouth for fear of giving herself away.

Yan Sishi also said nothing. He simply ate.

When he was nearly done, he took out his phone to check the time.

Xia Li came back to herself. “How late is it?”

“Almost time for evening study.”

“Oh — I need to get back to my classroom…”

“Then let’s go,” Yan Sishi said.

Xia Li nodded and watched him turn toward the door. She followed.

The light switch was by the door. Xia Li pressed it, stepped out, and then remembered something. “One thing—”

“Mm?” Yan Sishi was holding the door for her.

“If you come here during evening study hours, don’t turn the light on. If a teacher sees a light on from outside, they’ll come to check.”

“Has that happened to you?”

“Mm… I skipped study hall once.”

The stairwell had motion-sensing lights. Yan Sishi clapped his hands once to activate them. In the light that came on, he said: “You don’t seem like the type to skip class.”

“And you don’t seem like someone who smokes.”

“Is that so.”

Something about Yan Sishi’s tone tonight was lighter than usual — by two small degrees. That “is that so” made her almost certain she could imagine him giving a faint, quiet smile.

But she had never once actually seen him smile.

Her heart was like a kettle coming to a boil, bubbling and lurching against its limit.

She very much wanted to turn and look back just to see for certain — but she didn’t dare. It would have been far too obvious.

They reached the bottom of the staircase.

Along the wall beside the clock tower, forsythia grew in a trailing vine. The blossoms were a bright, tender yellow.

Xia Li began walking toward her classroom, then glanced at Yan Sishi — he seemed to be heading toward the school gate.

“Aren’t you going back to your classroom?”

“I’ll go straight home.”

She suspected he simply didn’t want to return and deal with the pile of love letters and gifts covering his desk — and at the study session break, there would probably be more people waiting at the door for him. So he had decided to skip out.

“Then I’ll head back to class,” she said. “Goodbye.”

“Thank you for the bread.”

Such a solemn expression of gratitude made her momentarily at a loss.

She blinked, nodded twice, said goodbye again.

She was about to step away when she hesitated.

She looked at the boy standing ahead of her, under the thin wash of lamplight.

It mattered too much not to ask — even if it was a risk:

“You seem to be in a good mood today.”

“It’s my birthday,” Yan Sishi said. “And I heard a song I like.”

Xia Li smiled.

A thousand white doves took wing inside her heart, rising and rushing into the sky.

“…Happy birthday.”

At last. She could say it to his face.