“Typhoon No. 8, ‘Lion Rock,’ is expected to make landfall as a tropical storm along the coastal areas between Wenchang, Qionghai, and Wanning on September 5th. Our city is currently 56 kilometers from its center. The typhoon will enter Beibu Gulf by nightfall, and scattered showers to heavy rain are forecast for today and tomorrow…”

Click. Lin Weixia switched off the radio, then carried the scalding-hot porridge to the dining table. Out of habit, she reached up to touch the tip of her ear before pulling out a stool and sitting down.

The clear porridge steamed quietly. After drinking two spoonfuls, the middle-aged woman seemed to remember something and asked, “Weixia, today is the day you transfer to Shengao, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Lin Weixia ladled a bowl of lily root and pork rib soup and handed it to her.

“Shengao is wonderful, Weixia. You’ve brought honor to our Lin family.” Mrs. Lin’s tone filled with unmistakable pride.

Mrs. Lin’s primary livelihood was selling wholesale fruit. Over the past few years, she had leveraged her booming voice and her smooth, adaptable nature to carve out a firm foothold in the Shuiwei fruit market. Though competition had grown fierce, years of hard work and an extensive network of connections had kept business steady, and she had even opened a fruit shop of her own.

In Nanjiang, there was not a soul who did not know Shenblan No. 1 High School. It was a private high school with a high-caliber teaching staff and an educational model centered around academic coursework and arts and athletics. Its rate of students gaining admission to key universities reached eighty percent.

Some people even joked that getting into Shengao was the same as having one foot already through the doors of a prestigious university.

Many parents in Nanjiang scrambled desperately to send their children to Shengao, yet this private school not only capped its enrollment numbers but also imposed rigorous written examinations and interviews — and its steep tuition fees were enough to deter most families.

Those who remained were, by and large, people born into privilege.

Others said that being admitted to Shengao meant leaping across class divides.

In order to secure the best students, Shengao recruited a small number of exceptionally talented individuals each year on special academic merit. Most notably, Shengao had been the one to extend the olive branch to Lin Weixia, waiving her tuition and miscellaneous fees entirely.

A school that everyone dreamed of attending but could not — and yet her own child had walked in without a struggle. As a parent, Mrs. Lin had long since broadcast this proudly to everyone she knew.

Now all of Shuiwei Lane knew that Lin Weixia had gotten into Shengao.

“But, Weixia, when you were a first-year student, Shengao approached you then too, and you turned them down at the time, didn’t you? Why have you changed your mind and decided to transfer now?” Mrs. Lin asked.

Lin Weixia was about to answer when — click — the door swung open, and a tall, slender shadow fell across the corner of the dining table.

Gao Hang rubbed his bleary eyes, yawned, and swept a glance over the table. “Are you serious? Could this be any plainer? Sis, you could at least throw a little minced meat into the porridge.”

He had only just started middle school, and his early self-study session was later than Lin Weixia’s, so he woke up later too.

“I want congee with toppings. Mom, give me some money — I’ll go eat outside.” Gao Hang turned to his mother and held out his hand.

Mrs. Lin immediately pressed a few bills into his palm. Gao Hang took them, crossed to the entryway in a few quick strides, crouched down to lace up his sneakers, and made ready to head out.

Lin Weixia peeled a boiled egg from the bone dish, carefully picking at the shell. Her voice was mild yet carried the weight of a threat: “Then don’t come eating my cooking anymore.”

Gao Hang’s hand froze mid-tug on his shoe. He spun around at once and returned the money to his mother, then sat down obediently with a wide, cheesy grin: “Come on, how could I? Sis, your cooking is so good.”

Lin Weixia ignored him. She finished the soy milk beside her, glanced at the wall clock, and said in a soft, gentle voice, “I’m heading to school now, Auntie.”

Bang. The security door slammed shut from the momentum. Lin Weixia looked outside. It had rained — the air carried a salty, damp smell of the sea.

Nanjiang was a coastal city where summers were long and winters brief. Under the influence of typhoons, there had been scattered showers the previous night, and the ground was still wet. Vast swaths of deep crimson petals and leaves had come tumbling down from the towering flame trees in a rustling cascade, trailing along the ground.

The road was awash in brilliant red.

Along the way she ran into neighbors from Shuiwei Lane, and Lin Weixia greeted each of them warmly in turn. Her schoolbag strap slipped from her shoulder; she simply hoisted the black bag by its handle. As she lowered her head, she suddenly remembered she had never answered her aunt’s question.

Why did she want to transfer to Shengao now?

At the thought of it, a flicker of emotion passed through Lin Weixia’s eyes — and vanished just as quickly.

— Because now she had a reason to go.

When Lin Weixia arrived at Shengao and passed through the main gates, she nearly lost her bearings at the sight of the imposing architecture and labyrinthine layout. Fortunately, she had brought a map prepared in advance.

After completing a lengthy series of enrollment formalities, the bell for the end of morning reading period rang right on cue. The homeroom teacher was a lean man in his thirties, wearing an old-fashioned long-sleeved white dress shirt. From behind, the outline of an undershirt was faintly visible beneath it — his frame so thin his bones jutted out sharply.

“Your overall scores are quite impressive. I’m looking forward to what you’ll do going forward,” the homeroom teacher said, smiling as he cast about for a piece of paper to wipe the sweat from his forehead, when a tissue appeared in front of him. He paused, then accepted it with a grateful smile.

Faced with the teacher’s praise, Lin Weixia remained composed: “Thank you, teacher. I’ll do my best.”

“You’ve just arrived in this new environment, so you’re bound to need some adjustment time. Come find me if you need anything.” Liu Xiping said.

“All right.”

That was not merely polite talk. To be candid, from the moment Liu Xiping set eyes on Lin Weixia, he had felt the natural warmth a teacher develops toward a student with genuine promise — especially once he had reviewed her academic record. Her grades and credits across the board were straight A’s. Though her science subjects were somewhat on the weaker side, her overall ranking still placed her near the top. The previous year she had also won first prize in the National Chinese Language Essay Competition.

Coincidentally, of all the essays in the competition anthology distributed to students by the school, the model essay he admired most was the one written by Lin Weixia.

Beyond that, Lin Weixia possessed a composed, almost adult-like bearing — neither arrogant nor restless — a quality conspicuously absent in most students going through the tempestuous years of adolescence.

Liu Xiping led Lin Weixia into the classroom, and the moment she stepped inside she felt a powerful magnetic field suffusing the space — one that had clearly existed for a long time and that no one had the power to change.

Since it was break time, the classroom was somewhat noisy. The boys in the back rows lounged in their chairs tilted backward, balancing on two legs, chatting and laughing. A few girls in school uniforms, wearing knee-high black stockings with an air of superiority, clustered together in conversation, chins propped on their hands, breaking into bright, playful laughter every now and then. Others sat silently at their desks doing homework, their expressions undisturbed by the commotion around them.

Liu Xiping rapped his ruler against a desk. “Quiet down for a moment, everyone. We’re starting the new semester of Year Two, and we have a student transferring in. Please introduce yourself.”

“Hello, everyone. My name is Lin Weixia. I look forward to being in your care.” Lin Weixia said.

At the homeroom teacher’s command, the classroom had fallen quiet, but no one directed any real attention toward the podium. Everyone went about their own business, and no one paid Lin Weixia’s arrival the slightest heed.

Lin Weixia was untroubled by this. She was about to step down from the podium and ask the homeroom teacher where her assigned seat was when, in the overly hushed atmosphere of the classroom, a voice emerged — not loud, but thick with mockery.

“Ha. Definitely an F-student.”

Immediately, as if an anthill had caved in, a ripple of small, snickering laughter spread outward through the room, extending further and further with each passing second. Liu Xiping had clearly noticed it too, and was just about to call for silence.

Lin Weixia looked entirely unaffected. Her voice was mild: “Teacher, where do I sit?”

“Any empty seat is fine for now — it’ll be rearranged later.” Liu Xiping’s attention was drawn back to her. “Pick up a copy of the textbook list from the class monitor.”

Just then, a head poked through the front door. Someone said, “Old Liu, the principal wants you.” And with that, he hurried off.

Lin Weixia stood in the aisle clutching her black bag, lifting her gaze to survey the only two empty seats in the classroom. After weighing her options, she chose the second-to-last row of the fourth column, beside the window — the window outside framed a wide sweep of green, and the desk itself was exceptionally clean. The shadow of a fiddle-leaf fig growing just outside the building reached across and settled into one corner of the desk’s surface.

Next to that empty desk sat another one, its surface stacked with a somewhat disorderly pile of books. Beneath them, the faint impression of bold, sharp handwriting was visible on what appeared to be test papers.

Lin Weixia walked toward that desk. The classmates who had been indifferent to her presence all snapped their gazes in her direction at once, their stares practically boring through her back.

Diagonally across from her, a girl had been leaning against a desk chatting. When a companion discreetly poked her arm, the smile on her face remained, but her eyes fixed on Lin Weixia and the curve of her lips gradually flattened. Her body language radiated hostility — as if the next second she might storm over to confront her.

As Lin Weixia stood deliberating whether to take the seat, crash — the back door was kicked open, and a tall, lean boy with a buzz cut appeared in the doorway. He swung his arm and released.

The basketball traced a smooth arc and dropped neatly into the trash can in the corner.

The boy swaggered in. A girl beside him pinched her nose and complained in disgust, “Ning Chao, could you at least go shower after basketball? You reek!”

Ning Chao, mid-stride, stopped, walked right up to the girl, raised his arm, and flashed a wide grin: “What do you know? This is called manliness. Don’t believe me? Have another sniff.”

“Ahhh!” The girl fled the scene in total despair, pinching her nose.

Ning Chao draped his school uniform jacket casually over one shoulder — his pink T-shirt was damp with a patch of sweat. He walked to his seat whistling and flung himself down with grand, sprawling ease.

If not for the Shengao uniform slung over him, one could easily have mistaken him for a delinquent from some vocational school outside campus.

Ning Chao lifted the hem of his pink T-shirt to let the cool air in, giving it an energetic flap. That was when he caught sight of the confrontation playing out. Without much concern, he said, “Come sit over here — the seat next to me is empty too.”

“Sure. Thank you.” Lin Weixia said.

The taut atmosphere dissolved in an instant.

Everything settled back into calm.

Shengao placed considerable emphasis on copyright protection for its textbooks, which students purchased individually off-campus using a provided list. For now, Lin Weixia’s bag held only two Raymond Chandler novels, but reading novels outright on the first day of school probably wasn’t the best look.

Ning Chao’s desk was covered in several test papers in complete disarray, some of them freshly distributed quiz papers. Lin Weixia glanced at one — a vivid red score stared back at her: 23 points.

“Were you recruited by Shengao on special merit, the same as me?” Lin Weixia did her best to organize how to phrase the question.

Ning Chao was sorting through his test papers. At her words, he gave a derisive smirk. “I can tell you’re a top student. Don’t you know? To maintain its reputation, Shengao recruits a small number of socially disadvantaged students every year.”

“That’s me.” Ning Chao shrugged with complete indifference.

He was an F-student.

After tidying up, Lin Weixia asked Ning Chao who the class monitor was, then went to find them for the textbook list. As luck would have it, the class monitor’s seat was empty — only their deskmate was there.

“Hi, is the class monitor around? I came to get the textbook list from her.” Lin Weixia bent forward slightly to ask.

The girl turned slightly away, both slender elbows propped on her desk, a faint, delicate fragrance drifting from her. She was chatting with the student behind her, smiling and laughing without pause.

As though she could not hear Lin Weixia at all.

Lin Weixia’s emotions were undisturbed. Her pale, slender fingers knocked lightly on the desk. The girl’s conversation was interrupted; she finally looked up at Lin Weixia but said nothing.

“Hi, do you know where the class monitor went? I came to get the textbook list.” Lin Weixia patiently repeated her question.

“No idea,” the girl replied.

“Do you know—” Lin Weixia’s question died there, because the girl had already turned back to her conversation, her manner suggesting that an extra second spent on Lin Weixia would be a second wasted.

None of these people had actually done anything overt, and it was only the first day — Lin Weixia hadn’t even truly crossed paths with them yet — yet she could already feel the weight of the superiority that came from belonging to a different social tier.

Lin Weixia had no choice but to give up, and class resumed with the bell. During the lesson, Lin Weixia and Ning Chao shared a single textbook — but barely five minutes in, Ning Chao buried his face in his folded arms and began to snore loudly, utterly unbothered by the fact that he was in the middle of class.

The teacher at the front glanced at him, then simply continued the lesson.

Lin Weixia had not expected that the first friend she made would be the girl sitting in front of her. The girl’s pencil case had just fallen to the floor, and Lin Weixia bent down to pick it up, only to be met with a friendly face.

The girl was petite, with a short bob cut level with her shoulders and a pair of black-framed glasses. She took it back and smiled.

Not long after, the girl flicked a folded slip of paper in her direction. Lin Weixia smoothed it open — the girl’s handwriting was neat and delicate: My name is Fang Mo. Thank you for picking up my pen case just now. You were really close to getting on the wrong side of those A-students earlier — I was nervous for you! You don’t know this, but that seat is taken. The student who sits there doesn’t want a deskmate, and those girls are always guarding the space next to him, refusing to let anyone near.

P.S.: Your skin is so fair, and the mark on your face is so distinctive — you’re really pretty.

Fang Mo had even added a bold exclamation mark at the end. Lin Weixia bent her head and wrote a reply.

— Thank you. You’re really sweet too.

After class ended, the classroom erupted back into noise. Lin Weixia went to the restroom on her own. After finishing, she was about to push the door open to leave when voices drifted in from outside.

“He didn’t come today. I did my makeup for nothing.” A girl muttered quietly.

The voice sounded vaguely familiar — Lin Weixia had heard it somewhere in the classroom earlier. Then someone else let out a short, amused laugh, and the sound of a lip gloss cap being unscrewed followed. A girl began applying it and mused aloud:

“His whole world is basketball and astronomy. Would he ever notice you?”

“Why don’t you ambush him at the observatory? It’s basically his personal space — no one else can get in. Just go there and take your shirt off—”

“Oh, shut up—”

A scuffle of laughter seemed to break out. The tap ran with a loud rush of water; droplets floated in the air. The laughter gradually faded into the distance. Lin Weixia finally pushed the door open, silently washed her hands, and crumpled the paper towel into a ball before dropping it in the trash.

Walking back toward the classroom, as she reached the back door, Lin Weixia spotted, from a distance, a girl seated in the front row with a cluster of people gathered around her. All the earlier competitive tension had vanished; judging from their expressions and body language, Lin Weixia could tell exactly what she was looking at.

This was fawning.

She must be the “queen” of the group, the others her entourage.

The girl at the center was strikingly beautiful — very slender, model-thin. Her beauty felt as though it had been measured and calibrated by a ruler: imperious, and precisely within permissible bounds.

Long, tea-brown curls cascaded over her shoulders, one loose wave revealing a graceful, alluring curve. She wore the school uniform just as everyone else did, but the white mother-of-pearl four-leaf clover bracelet on her wrist caught the light brilliantly.

Lin Weixia stopped at the back doorway. As if sensing something, the girl turned her head — her features came into sharp focus: vivid and exquisite. Her voice lit up with surprise:

“Weixia!”

“Sijia.” Lin Weixia smiled back at her.

Lin Weixia caught the almost imperceptible shift in expression among the girls surrounding Liu Sijia. She walked over, and Liu Sijia caught her by the arm, saying, “I skipped one class today. I didn’t see you earlier — I almost thought you were lying about transferring to Shengao.”

“Sijia, you two know each other?”

Liu Sijia’s tone was noticeably cooler compared with how she had spoken to Lin Weixia: “Yes. We met outside of school.”

Liu Sijia owed Lin Weixia a favor.

“Well then, Sijia’s friend is our friend too.” The girl who had been so icy just moments before immediately linked her arm through Lin Weixia’s with exaggerated warmth. “The class monitor gave the list to me — Weixia, I’ll come with you to buy your textbooks after school.”

“That’s all right. Just give me the list.” Lin Weixia’s voice was gentle; she harbored no resentment over what had happened earlier.

Liu Sijia found the noise irritating and pulled Lin Weixia out to the corridor to breathe some fresh air. Liu Sijia propped her chin in her hand. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”

“I didn’t think so either.” Lin Weixia gazed into the distance and said, slowly.

“I’ll take you to get your textbooks later,” Liu Sijia said.

Liu Sijia chatted with her, saying, “Your written exam score is quite high — only two points behind the top student at our school.”

“Who?” Lin Weixia asked.

At the question, the girl who had been carrying herself with imperious confidence seemed to freeze as though someone had hit pause on her — her held-high chin lowered a fraction — then she spoke again, as casually as she could manage.

But Lin Weixia, attuned to subtle things, caught the barely perceptible catch in her breath when that name was mentioned. She said:

— Ban Sheng.