Yan Lie’s exam paper was handed back. Fang Zhuo was eager to see what this free-spirited master of language had written, and she reached out to touch the corner of his desk — but before she could share a look with him, he raised his hand and covered the page, refusing to let her see.

Yan Lie smiled. “Guess what I wrote.”

Fang Zhuo couldn’t quite read his mind, but looking at his smug expression, she figured it was probably some rare and unusual plant. Then again, given that he even liked bald chickens, how could she possibly understand the tastes of a young man like him?

Yan Lie urged her on. “Go on, guess. What do you think?”

Fang Zhuo ventured quietly, “Foxtail grass?”

“…?” Yan Lie’s expression went blank for a moment. “Is your world filled with all kinds of strange weeds?”

Fang Zhuo sensed a hint. “A head of cabbage?”

Yan Lie was both annoyed and amused. “Is that really the impression I give you?!”

Fang Zhuo looked genuinely shocked. “That spider lily — surely that’s not you?”

Yan Lie took a deep breath, disarmed by her innocent and earnest gaze. He capitulated, lifting his hand to let her see.

It was perfectly standard, utterly mainstream, entirely orthodox — he had written about bamboo.

“I have to bow to the rules of exam-oriented education, don’t I?” Yan Lie said. “How else would my scores stay consistent?”

Fang Zhuo understood and nodded, skimming through the essay. She discovered that the secret to a top student’s high marks was making mainstream subject matter stand out above the rest.

Even with the same bamboo as subject, Yan Lie’s neat and upright brushstrokes had already lent his bamboo an extra measure of character and integrity.

Unlike Fang Zhuo. Her subject was tumbleweed, and her handwriting looked like it had been scratched out with pig bristles.

Yan Lie asked again, “Are you a little disappointed?”

What was there to be disappointed about?

Fang Zhuo asked with genuine suspicion, “Do you actually want to be a tuft of foxtail grass?”

Yan Lie looked as though she had made him genuinely angry. He spluttered for a long moment before finally blurting out, “How can you be so blunt?”

“Are you criticizing me?” Fang Zhuo said. “Aren’t you blunt? You’re universally recognized as the ultimate straight-arrow, and I’ve never even said that to you.”

She had very much the air of someone who had been exercising great tolerance all along.

Yan Lie opened his mouth to reply, and again found himself with nothing to say.

He had played the role of the unyielding, oblivious young man for so many years — and now, unexpectedly, he had encountered someone who was the genuine article, certified and guaranteed. This was probably his karmic retribution.

Unable to let it go, he took a jab at her. “Those characters of yours — you should have started learning calligraphy back in elementary school.”

Fang Zhuo quietly pulled out her homework book.

A moment later, she turned back to him. “How does one practice calligraphy in elementary school?”

Yan Lie: “…”

Throwing a punch and having it land in cotton wool was more satisfying than getting angry at her. A person really ought to treat themselves a little better.

Since this was a short weekend — counting the rest days, there was only a single day off — Fang Zhuo didn’t want to waste half a day travelling by bus, so she stayed at school.

She borrowed Yan Lie’s phone to send a message to Ye Yuncheng letting him know.

She hadn’t been back in more than half a month, and Ye Yuncheng must have been worried. Fang Zhuo first typed out a long text message explaining how things had been going lately, and along the way reported her exam results.

Ye Yuncheng was very pleased to receive it. More accurately, as long as Fang Zhuo was present and showing up, even the most trivial and inconsequential things could make him extremely happy.

The two exchanged a few texts, sorting through an assortment of miscellaneous small matters, and only then did Fang Zhuo call him.

The fact that she was so considerate in saving him on call charges moved Yan Lie, while at the same time he felt that the prospect of Fang Zhuo ever having the freedom to text and call him at will in this lifetime seemed quite hopeless. Unless she could get herself a smartphone and sign up for a plan with a generous data allowance.

The latter sounded like it should be coming soon. You had to use a phone to keep in contact at university, didn’t you?

Yan Lie held an ice pop between his teeth, sitting on the empty bleachers beside the sports ground, his head full of jumbled thoughts.

A connection tone sounded, and Ye Yuncheng picked up.

Fang Zhuo exchanged pleasantries first, asking how his days had been and whether he was still in good health. Once she had received positive answers, she said directly, “Our school has a parent-teacher meeting next week.”

Ye Yuncheng was momentarily at a loss. “Why at this time?”

Most other schools placed particular emphasis on their hundred-day pledge rallies, boosting the students’ morale as the university entrance examination drew ever closer. School A’s long-standing tradition was rather different.

The closer the exam came, the less they wanted to emphasise it through formal events. What parent or student didn’t already know how important the university entrance examination was? There was no need to aggravate their already sensitive nerves.

The school generally responded by quietly piling on more pressure, more exercises, longer study hours.

The head teacher called it “the slow-boiling frog method” — by the time the frog was fully cooked and placed on the table, you’d know whether it was fit to be served.

So while other schools held hundred-day events, School A preferred two-hundred-day ones.

Ye Yuncheng said nothing after Fang Zhuo finished her explanation. He seemed to be weighing the wording of his next sentence.

His breathing through the receiver was not entirely steady. Fang Zhuo could hear his hesitation and could almost picture the way he was hovering on the verge of speaking, swallowing the words back, and then edging toward them again. She added, “The teacher said it’s our third year now, and it would be best if everyone could come.”

“Oh,” said Ye Yuncheng. “How about I ask your Uncle Liu? If he has time, I’ll have him go and sit in on your behalf.”

Fang Zhuo frowned and shifted her posture, sitting up a little straighter.

Yan Lie didn’t understand — how could something so simple take them so long to sort out? He nudged Fang Zhuo’s arm and leaned in close, gesturing for her to switch to speakerphone.

A somewhat murmuring voice came through the speaker:

“Though your Uncle Liu is quite busy. These past two years the rural poverty-alleviation posts have all been hectic — he’s not only managing the poverty relief work but also planning, project development… He might not have much time to come.”

Fang Zhuo asked, “Is it not convenient for you to come yourself?”

Ye Yuncheng asked back, a little tentatively, “Would it be alright for me to come?”

“I don’t know whether it would be convenient for you,” Fang Zhuo said, puzzled. “Are you feeling unwell lately?”

The two of them seemed to have returned to the state of their very first phone call — the pace slow and halting, as if every sentence had to be carefully deliberated before it was offered, each one feeling its way forward, carefully and indirectly.

“It wouldn’t look good if your classmates saw me, would it?” Ye Yuncheng said.

“What’s wrong with that?” Fang Zhuo’s voice grew a little louder. “Aren’t you quite handsome?”

Yan Lie laughed out loud beside her, chiming in, “Of course — if our uncle showed up anywhere, he’d at least be the most attractive person in the village, wouldn’t he? Not that I mean anything against other parents, but do you know how high a proportion of middle-aged men have let their figures go? I’m just saying.”

Fang Zhuo paused. “My uncle is actually only thirty-four this year.”

Yan Lie was genuinely startled.

Although Ye Yuncheng was quite handsome, there was always about him a sense of time and years having accumulated. Perhaps his composure and reserve made him seem more like someone of a senior generation, so that it had never once occurred to Yan Lie to wonder about “how old he actually was” — he had simply felt Ye Yuncheng was someone dependable.

Ye Yuncheng laughed. “You two think I’m still quite young?”

Because of his physical condition and the misfortunes that had followed one after another, he had always felt that the fundamental tone of his life had been set long ago.

From the time he came to understand the world, he had flown through his youth at a rushing speed, skipped past the growing years, and landed in a dull and dispirited old age.

If Fang Zhuo had not appeared, his thirty-fourth year would have been like this. Perhaps his forty-fourth and fifty-fourth years would have been the same. Or perhaps there would not have been another decade at all.

The word “young” seemed somehow distant when applied to him. Hearing it fall into his ears now, it produced a soft, tingling warmth — something like the first signs of life returning to dead wood in spring.

“Still very young, yes!” Yan Lie said.

Thirty-four — that was clearly an age when a person had everything still ahead of them.

“My own family isn’t coming,” Yan Lie added, wrapping his hand around Fang Zhuo’s and bringing the phone closer, his voice softening. “Uncle, why don’t you come, and you can sit in on the meeting for me while you’re at it? If you don’t come, won’t the two of us end up as the orphan pair?”

“Don’t say things like that,” said Ye Yuncheng, his voice full of ease. “In that case, shall I come a little early on the day?”

Yan Lie said warmly, “You don’t need to come that early — the main event is in the afternoon. Though if you do come early, I can take you around the school. School A has had some money in the past few years and renovated several gardens and classroom buildings — quite interesting to walk through.”

Ye Yuncheng replied in agreement several times. “Alright, alright.”

On Sunday evening, the class representative came around making a list.

After Fang Zhuo wrote Ye Yuncheng’s name and contact details after her own name, she was about to fill in the same for Yan Lie — but her deskmate raised his hand to stop her, and carefully copied his own information down in his own hand.

The class representative glanced at the list and made a puzzled sound.

Yan Lie twirled his pen between his fingers, raised his chin, and declared with a hint of pride, “Never seen this before? Naturally a good deskmate means sharing a family guardian.”

The class representative pushed up his glasses and said with flat indifference, “Never heard of it,” then turned and walked away without interest.

On the day of the parent-teacher meeting, Ye Yuncheng arrived especially early. He took the first bus and reached the school before ten o’clock.

Yan Lie received his call and gave him a couple of quick instructions, then called out to Fang Zhuo, “Come on, let’s go meet Uncle!”

Fang Zhuo stood up, turning something over privately in her mind.

Somehow, compared to her, Yan Lie seemed more like Ye Yuncheng’s nephew.

The two of them must have been chatting by text late at night, calling each other by name with easy familiarity.

Ye Yuncheng was wearing a dark overcoat that day. The generous drape of the coat concealed his walking stick to some degree, and the well-tailored lines brought out the breadth of his shoulders, lending him a rather dashing, refined bearing.

Though his movement was hindered, he still stood as upright as he could, waiting beside a flower bed, his gaze resting, without blinking, on the greenery inside. You had to be close to notice how distant his expression actually was.

Fang Zhuo had some reason to suspect the coat had been borrowed. It was obviously not cheap. And looking at his hair — neatly combed, with what might have been hairspray applied — she guessed he had probably gotten up before dawn to get ready.

The Ye Yuncheng of today was handsome enough to pass for a model on the street rather than a parent attending a school meeting.

Fang Zhuo was not particularly good at giving compliments, and she was still mentally sifting through words to describe him as they walked over.

The person beside her was far more candid — he seemed capable of saying whatever was in his heart at any moment. Fang Zhuo was just thinking of learning from him when Yan Lie broke into a bright, broad smile, gave a thumbs up, raised his eyebrows in the direction of the man ahead with a look that said everything without saying anything, and called out warmly, “Uncle!”

Ye Yuncheng came back to himself, lowered his head with a slightly flustered smile, then looked up at them again, asking with an air of mild awkwardness, “Did I come too early?”

“Not at all,” Yan Lie said. “We’re still decorating the classroom. The teacher hasn’t arrived yet, so if you want to chat with her, you may have to wait a bit.”

Noticing that Fang Zhuo had been staring at him, Ye Yuncheng couldn’t help glancing back at her.

“What is it?”

Fang Zhuo thought for a moment and said, with her usual directness, “Very spirited. Very good-looking.”

Ye Yuncheng reached out and ruffled Fang Zhuo’s hair. “You’re very spirited too, and very good-looking,” he said with a smile.

His hand passed over the scar on her forehead that hadn’t fully faded yet. He pressed his lips together briefly, then pretended he hadn’t noticed, and putting his arm around her, walked with her toward the school.