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That evening during self-study, Li Kuiyi worked through four periods’ worth of math problems in a white-hot fury.

All because Fang Zhixiao, apparently determined to court disaster, had announced cheerfully in front of her: “Our ‘June First’ is super strong at math too, you know — she’s our class’s math representative. Even on that brutal weekly exam, she scored ninety points, which put her first in our class.”

Li Kuiyi smiled without warmth: “That’s wonderful. I suppose you won’t need to go out of your way to come looking for me when you have math questions anymore.”

As luck would have it, Zhou Fanghua chose that exact moment to ask her for help with a problem, and Li Kuiyi accepted with pleasure.

This must be fate. You’ve found a new person to explain things to you, and I’ve found a new person to explain things to. Fang Zhixiao, it seems our connection has truly run its course.

After school, she dawdled over packing up her bag — taking a book out, putting it back in, out and back, over and over. Most of the classroom had emptied out, and still she wasn’t done.

Zhou Fanghua asked quietly, “Are you okay? You seem off today.”

Fang Zhixiao — see? Other people can tell I’m off. Just not you.

Li Kuiyi shook her head. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired from the run this morning.”

“Ah, are you not leaving yet?”

“I’m… waiting for someone.”

Zhou Fanghua understood who. She pressed her lips together. “I’ll head home then.”

“Okay.”

Li Kuiyi decided she might as well take everything out of her bag and put it back in, one item at a time. By the time she finished, the bag was tidier than it had ever been, every item in its proper place.

Done, she pushed the window beside her desk open and propped her arm on the sill, leaning half her body out. The night air, cool as water, swept over her and folded gently around her. The window seemed to divide two separate worlds. The small garden below was still; tree shadows swayed quietly, and the scent of osmanthus blossoms settled thick and layered in the dark, richer and more enveloping than by day. Somewhere in the distance, faint sounds of laughter and running drifted in, as if coming from a very faraway place.

The school around her wasn’t truly quiet — the classroom behind her was full of chatter, and the stairwell across the way was a rush of footsteps. But Li Kuiyi felt an immense and boundless stillness.

She thought of what Su Jianlin had said after he went to university in Hangzhou, when she’d asked him: “Have you been to West Lake?”

He said he had.

“Is it beautiful?”

He had said: “Sometimes it seems entirely unremarkable. Other times, it feels like all sound has ceased.”

All sound has ceased —

It would be hard to call this a state of forgetting oneself. In fact, it was exactly the opposite: in these moments, she felt her own presence most keenly. The lake’s shimmer and the mountains’ contour, the blossoming mornings and moonlit nights, all became a medium for the self, magnifying sensation — the more vividly the self came alive, the more everything else fell into silence and shadow.

Then, all at once, she shut the window with a soft click, hoisted her bag onto her back, and walked out of the classroom.

And there, unexpectedly, was He Youyuan at the classroom door.

They nearly walked into each other. Both stopped short, stepping back half a pace. Their eyes met for an instant, then slid apart in silence as they passed each other, the fabric of her school uniform sleeve grazing his arm.

A second later, she heard Zhou Ce’s grumbling from the back row: “Took you long enough. I’ve been sitting here so long my injury’s practically healed — did your class run over?”

“No,” He Youyuan said, sounding vaguely distracted.

“Then what took you so long? Do you have any concept of time?”

“Oh, be quiet. I’m here to walk you home — you should be grateful, not complaining. Honestly, you’re exhausting.”

“Do a good deed thoroughly!” Zhou Ce called after him, cheerful and shameless. “You’ve already carried me once, so you’re committed now. You may as well come over and make me a pot of bone broth every night while you’re at it…”

Li Kuiyi had moved far enough away that she missed the rest. Over lunch at the noodle restaurant, she’d heard Fang Zhixiao describe how Zhou Ce had hurt his ankle, and how He Youyuan had hoisted him over his shoulder and carried him to the nurse’s office. Fang Zhixiao’s eyes had lit up with admiration as she recounted the scene, concluding with a sigh: “You’d never expect it — he’s so lean, but he’s that strong. It was incredibly impressive! I absolutely swooned!”

Zhou Ce had come to afternoon classes with a splint on his right foot — it must have been a bone injury.

Li Kuiyi climbed up to the third floor with deliberate momentum.

She was afraid that if she hesitated even a little, she’d turn around and go back — she had, after all, mentally cursed Fang Zhixiao approximately ten thousand times by now.

“It’s your fault. So why do I have to be the one to come find you?”

“Friendship isn’t romance — if you want to like both Su Jianlin and He Youyuan at the same time, that’s fine with me. But having Li Kuiyi and then chasing Chen Lu Yi is being fickle and disloyal!”

“It turns out you don’t actually like me specifically. You just like any girl who’s good at math.”

“If I get there and you’ve already left, we are no longer friends as of tonight.”

She reached the door of Class Twelve’s classroom and slowed her steps, holding her breath. Almost no one was left inside — just a few students on cleaning duty, wiping the board and mopping the floor.

She eased her head carefully around the doorframe to look in.

Thank goodness. Fang Zhixiao was still there.

She was bent over a sheet of paper, writing quickly, her pen tip moving in rapid, stabbing strokes. Li Kuiyi knew her writing posture by heart: body tilted, notebook slanted beneath it, neck craned forward, lips moving soundlessly. One of those people who mouths words while they write.

One of the students wiping the board noticed Li Kuiyi and asked, “Who are you here for?”

Fang Zhixiao’s head snapped up. She saw her, and her eyes went round with shock. Visibly flustered, she covered the paper on the desk with both hands.

Li Kuiyi saw everything.

Fang Zhixiao smiled at her, a little unnaturally, sprang to her feet, folded the paper into quarters, tucked it into her pocket, and then hurried to gather her things with clumsy, urgent hands.

A half-moon hung overhead, thin as a hook. Side by side, neither spoke.

How had it come to this? At lunch, even while still annoyed, they’d had so much to say to each other. It had only been a few hours. Why had Fang Zhixiao suddenly stopped talking?

Guilt? Remorse? Or had she actually moved on to someone new and was ready to leave the old behind?

Li Kuiyi kept her eyes down, gripping the straps of her bag. She wanted to say something — opened her mouth — and found she had nothing.

Fang Zhixiao went to the bicycle shed to retrieve her scooter. Li Kuiyi waited on the roadside beneath a dim yellow streetlight, scuffing small pebbles with the toe of her shoe. The pale, warm light fell over her in patches. A few mosquitoes circled above her head, threading back and forth in the gap between light and shadow.

Someone passed close beside her — deliberately or not, it was hard to say — and bumped her shoulder.

She looked up to find He Youyuan sauntering past.

He seemed to have lagged behind for some reason. Zhou Ce had his arm around He Youyuan’s shoulder and was hopping forward on one foot, calling out: “Man, can you walk in a straight line? You’re about to veer right into the ditch!”

He had already hopped a few paces ahead when he turned around. “…Hey? Isn’t that our class’s Chinese representative?”

“It is. How come you’re still not home?” Zhou Ce raised his chin at Li Kuiyi. He Youyuan, however, didn’t look at her at all — he gazed indifferently off into the dark.

“I’m waiting for my friend.”

“Ah, we’ll head off then.” Zhou Ce gave a wave of his arm. They weren’t close, so exchanging a brief greeting was plenty.

“Wait.” Li Kuiyi called after him — or more precisely, called after him in order to reach He Youyuan.

This person was supposed to be impressive? He was unbearably petty. He’d sulk over the slightest thing for no apparent reason, and now he’d gone and bumped into her out of nowhere. Fang Zhixiao sat so close to him every day and still couldn’t see through him? “Swooned” — more like she should just faint dead away and be done with it.

She didn’t look at him either. She addressed only Zhou Ce: “Your friend just walked into me. He hasn’t apologized.”

“Huh?” Zhou Ce hadn’t expected that to be the reason. He stood there confused. Had he heard wrong? Were people in high school still tattling on each other like little kids? And why was she telling him — he wasn’t a kindergarten teacher.

He frowned, thought it over, then pushed He Youyuan in front of her. “Do you… want to hit him?”

She wasn’t short, but He Youyuan was noticeably taller; up close, looking at him required tilting her head back somewhat. He looked down at her, his expression as cool and detached as the first time they’d met, the picture of innocent insolence. “Did I walk into you?”

Li Kuiyi’s eyes flickered slightly.

“Did I laugh?”

“Did I walk into you?”

Both sentences rang out in her mind at once, and for a long moment she couldn’t find any words — the stone she had picked up had, in the end, fallen on her own foot.

He Youyuan, seeing her like this, was quietly triumphant. His dark eyes glimmered with mischief, even the arch of his brow carrying a hint of teasing.

While the two of them stood in a standoff, a third head suddenly appeared between them — Zhou Ce, peering in with curiosity: “So did he or didn’t he?”

Right on cue, Fang Zhixiao materialized with her scooter, inserting herself just as silently, wearing the exact same curious look: “So what exactly is going on here?”

All four of them startled. The group immediately scattered.

Li Kuiyi moved quickly to Fang Zhixiao’s side, curled her fingers tight, and looked at her with a helpless, wronged expression, unable to begin explaining.

In an instant, Fang Zhixiao’s eyes went wide and her voice jumped a full octave: “Did you two bully her?!”

Zhou Ce: “…”

He Youyuan: “…”

Their stunned silence only confirmed it in Fang Zhixiao’s mind. She opened fire: “Are you serious? Two guys ganging up on one girl — do you have any shame at all?! Is it because you’re tall? Because you’re big? Because you think you look decent enough to get away with it? Let me tell you, this is a school, not some place where you can just go around and—”

Li Kuiyi had absolutely not anticipated the conversation going in this direction. She quickly tugged at Fang Zhixiao’s sleeve and whispered close to her ear, “Nobody bullied me. Stop.”

Fang Zhixiao cut herself off mid-charge, but narrowed her eyes with suspicion: “Really?”

Li Kuiyi’s expression had already crumpled into something too mortified for words. She gave the tiniest of nods.

“Ahem.” Fang Zhixiao cleared her throat and pivoted immediately into a bright smile. “Well — no better way to meet new people than a little friction…”

In the end, it was Li Kuiyi who grabbed Fang Zhixiao by the arm and, taking advantage of Zhou Ce’s limited mobility, fled the scene at top speed.

Once they were safely away, Li Kuiyi felt a warm, tentative happiness blooming beneath her lingering breathlessness — Fang Zhixiao had stood up for her! So she definitely still cared.

Fang Zhixiao was still muttering: “Why’d we have to run — I was going to say we should all be friends. That was such a wasted opportunity… fine, whatever.”

Deflated, she climbed onto her scooter. “Okay, I’m heading home.” Then she seemed to remember something, and began digging furiously in her pocket, pulling out the paper folded into quarters, and tossed it to Li Kuiyi. “For you.”

And she was off in a flash, engine whirring.

Fang Zhixiao had written her a letter!

Li Kuiyi’s eyes went wide with disbelief. Fang Zhixiao — someone who couldn’t even be bothered to write love letters — had written her an actual letter.

She reached out with trembling hands to open it, then remembered: she was standing outside, under nothing but the dim and murky glow of a streetlamp.

And for the first time, entirely of her own volition, she ran — ran at full speed into the dark of the night.