“The people in youth are as small as a grain of smoke and dust. Even the tiniest thing can send them into a blind, terrified panic as if the sky is falling. I have a secret hideout that holds every moment I thought the sky was about to cave in. And beyond that — there is young Y.”

— Sherry Lab, The Ninth Year Past the Dream

After finishing the cake, the three who stayed the latest cleaned up the mess, turned off the classroom lights, and headed downstairs together.

Lin Qingxiao and Xu Ning talked about splitting a taxi home.

Xia Li noticed something and asked Lin Qingxiao, “It seems like you haven’t been going home with Nie Chuhang lately?”

“Don’t get me started.” Lin Qingxiao shrugged. “His family has basically put him under protected species status. His mom shows up every night with a late-night snack and drives him home, so he can eat in the car and still squeeze in half an hour of vocabulary review when he gets back.”

“His parents think his English just needs one more push and he could aim for Tsinghua or Peking University.”

“That’s insane,” Xu Ning said. “By the time he gets home it’s already so late — when is he supposed to sleep?”

“So what did he give you for your birthday today?” Xia Li asked.

“Here.” Lin Qingxiao fished a delicate gold collarbone chain out from her collar.

She regarded it with a look caught between disdain and resignation. “…That’s just the level of his taste.”

Downstairs, Xia Li said goodnight to the two of them and headed home alone, cutting through the campus and out the north main gate to her building.

After showering and returning to her room, she picked up her phone from the bed and glanced at it. There was a text from Jiang Hong, asking if she was asleep yet.

Xia Li laid out tomorrow’s clothes and the books she’d need to bring to class, plugged in her phone to charge, turned off the light, lay down in bed, and called Jiang Hong back.

Jiang Hong: “Your dad’s on the night shift tonight. I was just getting ready for bed. Haven’t called you in a week — just wanted to check in.”

“Two days. We had to do extra lessons.”

“Oh…”

Xia Li always sensed something hesitant in Jiang Hong’s voice, a certain holding-back. She asked, “What is it?”

“Nothing, really…” Jiang Hong gave a small laugh on the phone. “I was just wondering — if someone doesn’t know your QQ password, can they still log into your account?”

“Were you hacked?”

“No… hypothetically — if your dad didn’t know my password, could he log into my account?”

“Definitely not, unless you have the computer set to auto-login.”

Jiang Hong said she understood, then asked, “Your dad says the computer seems to be starting up more and more slowly. He’s asking when you’ll have a break and whether you could come take a look.”

“National holiday, probably.”

They chatted a little more and Xia Li hung up.

Before the National Holiday, the year group’s major monthly exam took place — timed exactly like the gaokao schedule.

The papers were noticeably harder. When the scores came out, moaning was heard across the entire year group.

Xia Li had stumbled again in geography, her perennial weak spot. An error in using sunrise time to determine regional positioning caused her to lose all the marks on the final big question. Her ranking dropped to tenth.

That evening during dinner, geography teacher Mr. Wu called Xia Li to the office and walked her through the problem-solving approach for that question, step by step.

Xia Li felt utterly mortified.

When Mr. Wu finished, he smiled. “Sunrise time is genuinely a difficult concept — making that mistake is completely normal. Getting it wrong now doesn’t matter, as long as you get it right on the gaokao. Besides, the monthly exam revealed the problem, so I’ll put together a targeted review topic for it.”

Xia Li nodded silently.

This kind of gentle encouragement always left her strangely at a loss.

“You still have so many rounds of review ahead of you. No rush.” Mr. Wu patted her on the shoulder. “Head back to the classroom.”

Xia Li walked downstairs with her papers and headed back through the corridor to Class Seven.

At the door, a woman stopped her.

“Excuse me,” the woman smiled and asked, “is Lin Qingxiao in this class?”

“She is. Are you looking for her? I can call her out for you.”

Xia Li stepped into the classroom and called Lin Qingxiao’s name. “Someone outside is looking for you.”

Lin Qingxiao lifted her head from behind a stack of books with a look of mild puzzlement, glanced toward the door, then set down what she was holding and went out.

Lin Qingxiao was gone for over twenty minutes.

By then, students had been trickling back from the cafeteria one by one. Everyone quietly did their own thing, and only very faint murmurs filled the classroom.

When Xia Li spotted Lin Qingxiao coming back, she took one look and saw her walking with her head bowed, as though she was on the verge of tears.

Lin Qingxiao went back to her seat and slumped face-down on the desk. A moment later, her shoulders began to heave.

Xia Li immediately put down her pen, crossed the aisle to Lin Qingxiao’s seat, crouched down, and put an arm around her shoulders. “Xiaoxiao, what happened?”

Lin Qingxiao shook her head and refused to lift her face, just crying in muffled, suppressed sobs.

Xia Li pulled out a packet of tissue from her school tracksuit pocket and pressed one into Lin Qingxiao’s hand. She didn’t press with any more questions — she just sat quietly beside her.

Lin Qingxiao cried for a long time before finally lifting her head. She unfolded the tissue and blew her nose.

Xia Li handed her the entire packet.

Lin Qingxiao held the tissue over her eyes, voice catching as she said, “…That person who came to find me was Nie Chuhang’s mom.”

Xia Li was mildly startled. “What did she want with you?”

“Nie Chuhang also didn’t do well this time. He’s always been in the top three of his class, but this time he only came in seventh. His mom kept hinting, between the lines, that I’d been distracting Nie Chuhang from his studies…” Lin Qingxiao was deeply aggrieved.

“Then she should be talking to Nie Chuhang about it — what does any of it have to do with you? Xiaoxiao, how did you respond?”

“I said I barely run into Nie Chuhang even once in an entire day now, so I had no idea what she meant by ‘distraction.’ Then she said — ‘Well, when did you start accepting that necklace around your neck…'”

“…That’s outrageous.”

At that, as if unable to contain her indignation any longer, Lin Qingxiao reached up and seized the collarbone chain with one sharp yank.

Xia Li didn’t manage to stop her in time.

The chain was thin. It snapped off in an instant.

Lin Qingxiao held it out to Xia Li. “Xiaxia, help me throw it away.”

Xia Li didn’t take it. “Are you sure?”

“…Yes.”

One look at Lin Qingxiao’s face, and Xia Li knew she wasn’t entirely sure. “If you really don’t want it, it’d be better to return it to Nie Chuhang directly. I’m sure his mom came on her own initiative — he definitely doesn’t know.”

“What does it matter whether he knows or not? I’m not going to see him anymore. If something this small can derail his chances of getting into Tsinghua or Peking University, then he was never going to get in to begin with.”

Lin Qingxiao had always been direct and clear about her likes and dislikes. She pressed the chain into Xia Li’s hand. “Help me throw it away. From now on, I have nothing to do with him.”

Xia Li still hesitated.

“Then I’ll throw it away myself…”

Xia Li quickly snatched it back. “Okay, I’ll handle it. But you’re not allowed to be sad anymore.”

“I’m not sad — I just feel humiliated.” Lin Qingxiao pulled a set of test papers from her desk drawer. “Tsinghua or Peking University? Please. As if no one else can get in.”

Seeing that Lin Qingxiao had genuinely decided to channel her anguish into motivation, Xia Li stood, patted her on the shoulder, and went back to her own seat.

She dug an unused envelope from a card she’d once given out, slid the broken necklace inside, and sealed it.

She glanced up at the clock above the board. There was still a little while before evening self-study.

Xia Li went to Class Eighteen and called Nie Chuhang out from where he’d been buried in his work.

Nie Chuhang took the envelope, opened it, looked inside, and immediately panicked. “…What does this mean?”

Xia Li told him that his mother had come to speak with Lin Qingxiao.

“My mom is completely out of line,” Nie Chuhang’s expression changed at once. “…How is Lin Qingxiao taking it?”

“She says she’s not going to see you anymore, and she asked me to throw the necklace away. I thought throwing it away was a bad idea, so I brought it to you — figure out what to do with it yourself.”

Nie Chuhang started to say something more. Xia Li cut him off directly. “This is between the two of you. I’m not free enough to keep playing messenger. If you have something to say, go explain it to her yourself.”

Nie Chuhang hung his head, defeated. “Thank you. I understand.”

Xia Li turned and left.

That same evening after self-study ended, Nie Chuhang came to Class Seven to find Lin Qingxiao and firmly insisted on walking home with her.

Lin Qingxiao’s refusal was even firmer. She told him to stay away from her.

Nie Chuhang stood there and sighed.

After that, the two of them remained in a standoff all the way until the National Holiday.

During the holiday, Xia Li made a trip back to the gypsum factory in Jushuzhen — partly to collect her living expenses, partly to look at her parents’ computer.

Just as she’d expected, the computer was nothing like it had been when it was first set up. A heap of bundled junk software had been downloaded onto it, and the pop-up ads were beyond relentless — knock one down and three more appeared.

She spent some time cleaning out the malicious software and then prepared to tidy up the storage space.

The computer management software, after a deep scan, listed files in order of size. Xia Li clicked through them one by one to check and clean.

While cleaning out an unfinished compressed file download, she somehow clicked her way into the default storage folder for QQ users.

The folder was organized by individual QQ account number. The one she’d opened was under Xia Jianyang’s account.

Inside were a pile of various notices sent from the security office and a jumbled mix of things like “drinking to our friendship” emoji memes…

Xia Li was scrolling through quickly, about to close out, when she caught a glimpse of some photographs. Those photographs made her face burn and her skin crawl.

The image quality was poor — obviously photos taken with a phone held up to a mirror. The environment reflected in the mirror looked like a shabby rental room, with a bed piled with clothes.

In the mirror stood a woman — an entirely ordinary middle-aged woman, with long hair and thick, imprecise makeup.

What made it jarring was that she was wearing only her underwear.

Four similar photos in total.

Xia Li’s mind seemed to come to a complete halt.

She couldn’t figure out where that kind of photo had come from.

She was also deeply resistant to figuring it out.

In the end, she told herself: maybe they were downloaded from some adult website.

Nothing that unusual about that.

She finished tidying the storage drive as quickly as she could, and shut down the computer.

At noon, Jiang Hong brought back several dishes she’d cooked, and Xia Jianyang rushed back from the security office to the dormitory.

The three of them sat together — a rare occasion.

Over the meal, Xia Li gave a report on her monthly exam results.

Xia Jianyang said, “Being in the top ten is already very impressive. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself — work hard, but make sure to rest too.”

“Mm.” Xia Li chewed small bites of rice and studied her father.

In the eyes of everyone — including her own — he was a quiet, inarticulate man: sincere, hardworking, kind, with just a slight streak of timidity.

He hadn’t amounted to much and hadn’t grasped for much, but he’d never shortchanged his wife or daughter. He handed nearly his entire salary over to Jiang Hong to manage, keeping only a small amount each month for cigarettes.

Xia Li felt a faint twinge of shame at the thought that, for just one moment, she had suspected such a father.

On the afternoon of the third day of the holiday, they returned to school.

That evening during dinner, after eating at the cafeteria, Lin Qingxiao asked Xia Li to take a walk with her around the sports field.

The field was full of leisurely first- and second-year students. That kind of ease seemed to belong to a very distant past now.

Lin Qingxiao chewed on the straw of her yogurt drink and said softly, “I talked to Nie Chuhang during the holiday.”

“How did that go?”

“My position hasn’t changed — I won’t be in contact with him for now.”

Xia Li was quiet.

“I genuinely, truly hate the feeling of being looked down on. Every time I think about the way his mom looked at me — like I was some kind of pest — I can’t swallow that. Maybe this is a turning point. I’m going to study seriously.”

“And you and Nie Chuhang…”

“We’ll see.”

Both of them understood what “we’ll see” meant: after the gaokao, we’ll see.

And yet, they had both heard too many stories of people going their separate ways after the gaokao, drifting further and further apart.

It seemed that youth was always like this — passionate, radiant, pure, confident…

The sort of thing that deserved every beautiful description imaginable.

And yet more fragile than anything else.

Xia Li glanced at Lin Qingxiao.

In the fading dusk, her eyes were downcast. That look of sadness on her face was something Xia Li rarely saw there.

Time slipped by in the monotony of classes, review sessions, and exams.

The only thing that let Xia Li lift her head and catch a breath from the dullness each day was the occasional glimpse of Yan Sishi passing the Class Seven windows, or those fleeting corridor encounters when she was carrying her geography papers and only managed a quick “hey” before they both rushed on.

Once November arrived, the cold set in.

Word was that Chucheng would have a harsh winter this year.

That particular Friday coincided with the first cold snap — it had rained for two days straight, and the sky never cleared. It stayed overcast, while the north wind howled and tore at the leaden gray wisps of cloud along the horizon.

And the mood was just as foul as the weather.

Two consecutive math periods in the afternoon had been run together, with the teacher appropriating the break and dinnertime to fill out a full two hours for an exam.

It was an eight-school joint exam paper — brutally hard, a blow that landed squarely on students who had been growing slightly complacent from the prolonged grind of exam preparation.

Xia Li naturally didn’t do well either.

Beyond the difficulty of the paper, her period had come three days early and arrived without warning.

She’d muddled through the multiple-choice by guessing, and left large stretches of the fill-in-the-blanks and open-ended questions blank.

She’d always been reasonably solid in math. This sudden, unprepared blindsiding left her feeling rattled and defeated.

After handing in the paper, everyone rushed off to the cafeteria.

Xia Li had to make a detour back to the apartment first — she’d only managed to borrow one daytime pad, and after sitting through two hours of exams, her trousers were ruined.

She wrapped her school jacket around her waist, went to the office to sign a leave-of-absence form with Old Zhuang, and then half-ran across campus and out the school gate to get back to her place.

Running back, as she came around the corner by the first- and second-year teaching building, she collided straight into a boy.

The boy had been walking and spinning a basketball on one finger. On impact, the ball flew out of his hands.

Xia Li apologized and jogged two steps forward, bent down to retrieve it — and immediately someone’s foot landed on the ball.

She looked up and only then realized the boy was part of a group of three.

She knew one of the three: Luo Wei.

And it was Luo Wei who was standing on the basketball.

Luo Wei looked down at her with half-lidded eyes. “You blind or something?”

Xia Li had no patience for him. She apologized again to the boy whose ball it was and turned to go around them.

Luo Wei grabbed her arm. “Did you pick up the ball yet?”

“Aren’t you standing on it so I can’t pick it up?”

Xia Li wasn’t in the least bit intimidated. She felt only the same irritation as having a cockroach latch onto her. Self-study was about to start — she had no time to waste on him.

Luo Wei saw she was trying to leave again and yanked her back.

Xia Li stumbled, and her temper flared. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m telling you to pick up the ball.”

Luo Wei seemed to be digging in.

The boy whose ball had been knocked away said, “Come on, Luo Wei — she apologized. There’s no need to do this to a girl.”

Luo Wei let go.

Xia Li straightened her school jacket and moved to walk around them.

She’d barely taken two steps before Luo Wei gave a cold laugh from behind her. “What are you acting all high and mighty for? Your dad’s good for nothing but making trouble for our family. Let me tell you — your dad is in serious trouble this time. Doesn’t matter how many people he begs.”

Xia Li stopped walking.

Luo Wei glanced her way. “Oh, you don’t know yet? Your dad had an affair with the wife of some guy from the logistics department, and that guy beat him up…”

“You’re talking garbage.”

“Garbage?” Luo Wei sneered. “Their QQ chat logs are all over the place. If you don’t believe me, go ask your dad yourself. Disgusting — making such a scene, and on top of it, my dad still has to go clean up after your family…”

Xia Li didn’t want to hear another word.

She started jogging toward the teaching building, then stopped.

Her chest felt so tight she couldn’t breathe properly.

She thought of Jiang Hong cautiously hinting at it — asking whether someone could log into another person’s QQ without their password — and the photos she’d found while sorting through the folder…

What Luo Wei was saying might not be baseless at all.

She stood there for a moment, steadied herself, and pulled out her phone. She dialed Jiang Hong’s number as she walked toward the clock tower at the northeast corner.

It rang a few times. The call connected.

Jiang Hong’s voice was hoarse. “Hello…”

Xia Li got straight to the point. “Mom. I heard Dad was beaten up. Is that true?”

Jiang Hong didn’t speak.

Her silence was already an answer.

“…Is it true?”

Jiang Hong seemed to be choking back tears. “They only ever talked on QQ. Nothing actually… happened…”

“Is that what Dad said?”

Jiang Hong was silent.

“Do you believe him?”

“…I believe him. He didn’t have the opportunity — he was either on shift or staying in the dormitory. With so many eyes on him at the factory, how would he have managed… He probably just got confused for a moment, bored and lonely, and ended up… chatting too much with someone on QQ…”

“Are you two at the hospital?”

“The clinic in town… Do you want to say something to your dad?”

“No.” Xia Li’s refusal was absolute. “…Get some rest. I’m heading into evening self-study.”

“Lili, this has nothing to do with you — don’t let it affect your studies…”

Xia Li hung up.

Without realizing it, she had walked all the way to the base of the clock tower.

She pushed the door open without hesitation.

She climbed all the way to the fourth floor, pushed at the empty classroom’s door — it was unlocked.

She went inside, used her phone as a torch, made her way to the back of the room, and pushed open the last window.

She wiped her palm casually across the dust, then sat down in the chair and slumped forward onto the old desk in front of her.

She had always believed that her life, though ordinary, was full of hope.

Her parents were plain people, but they loved each other.

She’d been named “Li” because the year her parents had just married, they had gone to Guangxi looking for work and opportunities, and along the way, visited the Li River. That was probably one of the very few tourist spots they had ever visited in their lives. They’d talked about it for years afterward, over and over, never forgetting it.

They said the water of the Li River was clear and beautiful, and that the daughter they would have one day would surely be the same.

And now, Xia Jianyang had torn apart everything she had quietly, privately taken pride in — those warm, tender things buried at the very center of her heart.

Wind poured in from outside.

Like a slap across the face. Cold to the bone.

A blur of footsteps broke through her suppressed sobs.

Xia Li went still, holding her breath in an instant.

The footsteps came from outside the door, growing closer, then stopping in the doorway.

A beat of silence — and then the door was pushed open. At the same moment, a cool, clear voice cut through the air, as if speaking to someone on the phone: “…You don’t need to invoke Grandfather to pressure me. We both know perfectly well who caused this situation. Until you apologize and change your approach, I won’t be coming back.”

It was Yan Sishi.

Xia Li would never mistake that voice.

But the tone — this was something she had never heard from him before.

The Yan Sishi in her memory, though distant and reserved, had always been polite and measured when he spoke to people, never entirely without courtesy.

She had no idea who was on the other end of the line, but his voice now was hard and cold, carrying a barely-contained undercurrent of anger. “…In that case, I have nothing more to say to you.”

The call ended.

In the silence that followed, Xia Li caught the faint sound of a lighter’s wheel being spun.

A moment later, a small point of flame appeared in the gray dimness.

A faint smell of smoke drifted over.

Xia Li had kept completely still.

Until a gust of wind came through and stirred an itch in her throat she couldn’t suppress. She let out a light, involuntary cough.

She clapped a hand over her mouth immediately.

“Who’s there?” Yan Sishi looked up.

“…It’s me.”

Yan Sishi moved toward the sound, heading into the corner.

Light came in from outside, and the room wasn’t entirely dark — the eyes adjusted well enough to make out shapes in the dimness, especially since Xia Li was sitting by the window.

Xia Li spoke softly, her voice carrying a slight nasal quality: “I’m sorry — I thought it was a teacher doing rounds just now, so I didn’t say anything right away. I wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping on your call…”

Yan Sishi said nothing.

He stopped in front of the desk before her and propped one arm on the edge of it, leaning forward slightly, tilting his head toward where she sat, studying her.

After a moment, he asked, “Have you been crying?”