Lin Zhixia heard two “beeps” as the phone rang. Once connected, she said, “Hello, this is Lin Zhixia.”
Jiang Yubai answered from the other end: “Hello, this is Jiang Yubai.”
Lin Zhixia pulled on the phone cord, holding the landline phone as she walked to her bedroom door. She opened the door a crack and looked out, sure enough, her father had picked up the living room extension and was monitoring Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai’s conversation.
Lin Zhixia took a deep breath and calmly said, “Hello, Jiang Yubai, I’ve arrived home safely. Today at your house, we all had a great time. Thank you very much for your hospitality.”
Jiang Yubai was even more polite: “You’re welcome, hosting classmates is what I should do.”
Lin Zhixia agreed: “Alright, see you tomorrow.”
Jiang Yubai also said: “See you tomorrow.”
Lin Zhixia immediately hung up. She washed her hands and ceremoniously opened the food container to taste the osmanthus cake… it was truly delicious, and she was stunned for a moment before coming back to her senses.
She put down the container and rummaged through her things, finding a book titled “Michelin Restaurant Top Recipes.”
That night before going to sleep, Lin Zhixia sat at her desk, studying the recipes in this book.
This led to a problem.
Lin Zhixia forgot to do her homework.
Her memory was excellent, and she could generally remember things if she tried.
However, this weekend, Lin Zhixia had completely forgotten about her homework until Monday morning at six o’clock when she finally remembered this important matter. She quickly got ready, grabbed a piece of bread from the refrigerator, shouldered her backpack, and prepared to leave.
Lin Zeqiu had just taken a shower. While drying his hair with a towel, he saw his sister’s frantic state and asked curiously, “Lin Zhixia, what’s the hurry?”
Lin Zhixia replied righteously: “I’m going to school!”
Lin Zeqiu asked suspiciously: “Do you need to be at school before seven today?”
“None of your business!” Lin Zhixia rushed out the door.
She jogged to school.
After arriving at the classroom of Class 4(1), Lin Zhixia rushed to her seat, took out her homework, and began writing furiously. She needed to complete a weekly journal, an English reading response, and a unit of math exercises.
Both the weekly journal and English response only required 200 words, so Lin Zhixia completed them quickly, then opened her math workbook to find it full of multiple-choice questions. She finished them at a rate of one per second, completing everything in less than a minute.
After completing her homework, Lin Zhixia took out her notebook and continued recording her “Human Observation Diary.”
In her diary, Lin Zhixia wrote: Yesterday I accepted an invitation to visit classmate Jiang Yubai’s home. At Jiang Yubai’s house, I played the bubble ball battle with many friends. The Jiang Yubai I observed is brave, upright, honest, and never abandons his companions. I lost to Nie Tianqing in the “rock-paper-scissors” game. Jiang Yubai made a shocked expression. He didn’t believe I could fail. Is this an external manifestation of his trust in me? I can’t help but wonder. My intuition tells me—although I’m not a firm supporter of transcendentalism, if my intuition isn’t wrong, perhaps after I graduate from elementary school, Jiang Yubai will still be my best friend…
At this point, Lin Zhixia stopped writing.
Because Jiang Yubai walked into the classroom.
Today, Jiang Yubai arrived at school earlier than usual.
As soon as Jiang Yubai appeared, Dong Sunqi enthusiastically greeted him: “Jiang Yubai! Good morning!”
“Good morning,” Jiang Yubai responded. He walked to his seat, put down his backpack, and happened to see the “Human Observation Diary” in front of Lin Zhixia.
He couldn’t help but rest his hand on the desk. He slowly sat down, enduring in silence for a moment while secretly thinking: My competition with her will never end.
Lin Zhixia said to him: “The strawberries were sweet, the osmanthus cake was delicious, and the fountain pen works well. Thank you!”
Jiang Yubai asked directly: “May I see your diary?”
“Of course.” Lin Zhixia pushed the diary in front of him.
Lin Zhixia’s action was beyond Jiang Yubai’s expectations. She was perhaps too forthright.
Jiang Yubai took Lin Zhixia’s notebook and turned to today’s page, where he saw Lin Zhixia had written “Jiang Yubai is brave, upright, honest, and never abandons his companions.” His eyes scanned further and saw another line, “If my intuition isn’t wrong, perhaps after I graduate from elementary school, Jiang Yubai will still be my best friend.” He immediately closed Lin Zhixia’s notebook and stuffed it back into her desk drawer.
Then he asked: “What is transcendentalism?”
Lin Zhixia explained: “As I understand it, it’s when a person uses intuition to perceive the world, ignoring the pleasures brought by material things, and valuing spirit and inner self.”
Jiang Yubai thought for a moment: “Like Thoreau?”
Lin Zhixia asked in delight: “You know about Thoreau? Thoreau is a famous writer and philosopher.”
Jiang Yubai said: “I’ve read Thoreau’s ‘Walden.'”
Lin Zhixia turned to face him: “I’ve also read Thoreau’s ‘Walden.’ Thoreau wrote in the book, ‘I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life’… this sentence should also summarize transcendentalism.”
Hearing her recite the content verbatim, Jiang Yubai couldn’t help but ask: “Lin Zhixia, can you recite the entire ‘Walden’?”
“Yes,” Lin Zhixia nodded, “I don’t do it on purpose. Do you understand?”
Jiang Yubai felt confused: “Not really.”
Lin Zhixia explained: “When you memorize text, you need to spend time remembering. I’m just the opposite. I need to expend effort to forget something. I’ve been training myself to improve my ability to forget. Now I’ve made a little progress… last weekend I forgot to do my homework.”
Jiang Yubai asked her: “The ability to forget? What’s good about being forgetful?”
Lin Zhixia shook her head: “Some things aren’t worth remembering. I don’t want to remember the arguments I have with my brother.”
“You have a brother?” Jiang Yubai dug deeper into his competitor’s family information, “A biological brother?”
“Yes. He’s three years older than me, in his first year of junior high this year.” Lin Zhixia answered honestly.
Jiang Yubai asked again: “Do you argue with him often?”
Lin Zhixia rested her chin on her hand: “I often have disputes with him. What about you? Do you have disputes with your parents at home?”
Jiang Yubai took out his homework from his backpack: “My parents are very busy with work. They don’t have time to have disputes with me.”
Lin Zhixia nodded repeatedly. She took out a brand new notebook, held the fountain pen Jiang Yubai had given her, and wrote on the title page: Time Lin Zhixia gives to Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai found it strange. What did “time given to me” mean? Could time be given as a gift?
He saw Lin Zhixia create a table of contents: History, Geography, Astronomy… Before Lin Zhixia finished writing, Jiang Yubai used a pencil to check the word “History.”
After brief consideration, Lin Zhixia continued writing: African History, Asian History, European History, American History…
Jiang Yubai immediately checked “African History.”
Lin Zhixia asked him: “Do you always choose the first option?”
Jiang Yubai urged her: “Keep writing.”
Lin Zhixia continued: Egypt in North Africa has the earliest historical written records in Africa. At least ten thousand years ago, Egyptians settled along the Nile River. “Rah” was considered the most important deity of ancient Egyptians. It’s said that the sun god “Rah” would board a sacred boat before dawn and pull the sun, with the goddess of truth guiding the sun god. Research has proven that ancient Egyptians used toothpaste and soap to clean their bodies…
“Did ancient Egypt have soap?” Jiang Yubai drew a line under the word “soap.”
“Yes, it’s said that a chef in the ancient Egyptian palace was the inventor of soap,” Lin Zhixia answered enthusiastically.
In the blank space of the page, she drew a strangely shaped box with a pharaoh statue wearing the Atef crown connected to its front. Next to the statue was a line of small text: An ancient Egyptian pharaoh’s soap box.
Jiang Yubai asked her: “You even remember the pictures you’ve seen?”
“Of course,” Lin Zhixia described, “I saw this ancient Egyptian soap box in ‘The Ancient Egyptian Empire’ from the provincial library.”
Jiang Yubai was very interested. He particularly enjoyed reading books like “Unsolved Mysteries of the World,” “Visiting Ancient Civilizations,” and “Complete Historical Records”—real and dangerous historical puzzles always had an ancient and mysterious attraction.
Jiang Yubai switched to another fountain pen and also wrote in Lin Zhixia’s notebook: Have you heard of the Great Pyramid of Khufu?
“Of course.” Lin Zhixia immediately drew a perspective view of a large pyramid. The four corners of this pyramid precisely pointed to the four directions of east, south, west, and north—because the Great Pyramid of Khufu’s four corners indeed point to east, south, west, and north, with an error of less than 0.167 degrees[1].
Jiang Yubai asked her: “The Great Pyramid of Khufu was built over 2,000 years BCE, with a total weight of over 6 million tons. How could ancient Egyptians make such a colossal structure with such a small margin of error?”
Lin Zhixia answered: “The Egyptian pyramid complex, including the Great Pyramid of Khufu…”
She drew three stars of the Orion constellation on her notebook and arranged three pyramids below the stars: “Jiang Yubai, have you heard of ‘Orion’? ‘Orion’ is a constellation in the universe, and its northern part is within the Milky Way. Egypt’s three great pyramids are ground projections of Orion’s stars, with very small errors. This has led to an alternative hypothesis called the Orion Correlation Theory[1], which specifically refers to the connection between Egyptian pyramids and the Orion constellation. I have a serious conjecture.”
Jiang Yubai listened attentively: “What conjecture?”
Lin Zhixia began drawing again: “Larson’s three laws tell us that molecular clouds are approximately in a micro-equilibrium state. The molecular cloud nucleus of Orion is a high-density region with very strong gravity! But I think, based on my inference, the collapse of cloud nuclei into stars is not due to their gravitational action, but from magnetic fields and other stellar systems…”
Jiang Yubai’s fingertip pressed against Lin Zhixia’s pen tip.
She turned her head, staring at him intently.
He said: “Let me draw something too.”
Jiang Yubai pulled the notebook toward himself and drew a human figure—barely recognizable as a person. This person had a ponytail and wore a little dress. He wrote three words next to it: Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia questioned: “Why did you draw me like this? Am I that ugly?”
Jiang Yubai drew an even uglier person and labeled it: Jiang Yubai.
Lin Zhixia’s anger subsided: “I look a little better than you.”
Jiang Yubai used a large bracket to enclose all the content Lin Zhixia had written before, then used an arrow to point to the heads of the two little people. He made Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai the protagonists, creating a comic for these two characters.
He wrote seriously: In the year 2004, Lin Zhixia and Jiang Yubai wandered into the Orion constellation in the universe…
“Why would the two of us be wandering?” Lin Zhixia asked, confused.
Jiang Yubai said: “Because…”
Before he could come up with a reason, Lin Zhixia very happily suggested: “Because we want to explore the universe!”
Jiang Yubai named his self-made comic “Exploring the Universe,” with the first chapter titled “Wandering in Orion.”
When Ding Yan and Dong Sunqi came to play with Jiang Yubai, they happened to see Jiang Yubai’s dedicated comic creation “Exploring the Universe.”
Ding Yan rushed over to look and immediately said: “Jiang Yubai, buddy! Give me a role too! This time I want to be on your team!”
Jiang Yubai obligingly drew a human figure and noted beside it: Ding Yan, male, 9 years old, one of Jiang Yubai’s companions. Wandering in Orion with Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia.
“Me too!” Dong Sunqi volunteered, “Let me be the villain! I want to be the big villain!”
Jiang Yubai recalled what Lin Zhixia had told him and immediately wrote Dong Sunqi’s biography: Dong Sunqi, male, 9 years old, controller of magnetic fields, can manipulate the collapse of Orion’s cloud nuclei.
“Wow!” Dong Sunqi exclaimed in delight, “I’m so powerful!”
Although he didn’t understand the setting, he felt he was very powerful. He also asked: “Hey, where are your and Lin Zhixia’s biographies?”
Jiang Yubai turned back to the previous page and wrote under the name “Lin Zhixia”: Lin Zhixia, 9 years old, a genius, the goddess of truth, the navigator on the nebula.
Ding Yan found it confusing. Jiang Yubai said he considered Lin Zhixia a competitor, but looking at how he set up “Lin Zhixia” as a character in the comic, she was a “genius,” a “goddess of truth,” and a “navigator on the nebula”… this was too powerful!
Ding Yan had watched many TV series, such as “Ji Xiaolan,” “Emperor of the Han Dynasty,” and “The Qianlong Dynasty.” Generally speaking, the strongest character must be the protagonist.
Thus, Ding Yan keenly observed: “Jiang Yubai! Lin Zhixia is the female protagonist in your comic! You’re the male protagonist! Lin Zhixia is the female protagonist!”
“We are companions,” Jiang Yubai declared, “like the Fellowship of the Ring in ‘The Lord of the Rings.'”
Lin Zhixia clapped her hands, exuberant with joy: “Yes! We will always be companions!”