·

The rolling shutter came down. The optical shop was officially closed.

On a normal day, they wouldn’t shut up this early — but Li Jianye said he needed to get back to the hospital. He didn’t feel right leaving his wife there alone with their son.

Li Kuiyi said, “Alright. I’ll head home on my own.”

She hesitated for a moment, eyes cast down, and decided to ask about her little brother’s condition — but just as she opened her mouth, she heard Li Jianye ask, “That problem earlier — was it very difficult?”

The words she’d been about to say were swallowed back down.

“…Not particularly.”

Li Jianye glanced at her, made a noncommittal sound, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-yuan note, holding it out to her. “Buy yourself something to eat. Be careful on the way home — get to bed early. Don’t wait up for us.”

Us.

Li Kuiyi knew perfectly well that in this context, the word carried no deeper meaning. And yet she still felt it — the distance in it.

She said nothing, and took the money.

“Off you go then.” Li Jianye waved a hand and turned to walk in the direction of the children’s hospital.

The back of a middle-aged man is nothing like the back of a teenager — it is broader, more solid, like a firm stretch of yellow earth. Was it warm? Was it dry? Was it rough? Li Kuiyi didn’t know.

She held onto the twenty yuan and went to eat a bowl of noodles at the shop on the ground floor of her building.

When she got home, the apartment was dark and hollow. She walked straight through the living room, and only switched on the light once she reached her bedroom. The small room instantly filled with soft, bright light — but the space was so little that all that brightness felt almost like a waste.

Li Kuiyi locked the door behind her, set down her schoolbag, pulled open the zipper, and drew out a mobile phone from the inner compartment.

She’d bought this phone herself. Apart from her close friend Fang Zhixiao, no one else knew it existed.

She’d done exceptionally well in her middle school graduation exams — first in the city, with a gap of nearly thirty points between herself and second place. Both Liuyan Experimental Middle School and Liuyan No. 1 Middle School had wanted her. The way schools competed for top students was always blunt and uncomplicated: money. In the end, No. 1 Middle School won her over with a scholarship of one hundred thousand yuan.

In truth, compared to the Experimental School, No. 1 was slightly wanting. The Experimental School was a century-old institution with deep-rooted strength and prestige — it had long been the undisputed leader in Liuyan. No. 1, on the other hand, had only risen to prominence in the past decade. It was said to model itself on the Hengshui style of education: push students to the absolute limit without killing them, and sure enough, university acceptance rates had shot straight up. It was well on its way to rivaling the Experimental School.

Having tasted success, No. 1 wanted better and better students — not only had their admission score threshold risen year after year, they’d also started openly poaching top students from the Experimental School.

Li Kuiyi had originally planned to go to the Experimental School, but the large scholarship was hard to ignore. Her parents went even further, making the decision for her outright — she would go to No. 1.

She had no real objections. On the contrary, she felt rather pleased with herself for being able to earn money through her academic results.

Until, one evening at the dinner table, her mother Xu Manhua laughed and said, “How convenient — your scholarship can pay for your little brother’s tuition for a few years.”

Her little brother had just turned six, old enough to start primary school. Li Kuiyi was aware that her parents had been thinking about sending him to a private school, but what she hadn’t anticipated was that she would be expected to foot the bill for the expensive private school fees.

She set down her chopsticks on the spot, face going cold: “On what grounds?”

Li Jianye and Xu Manhua were stunned. Perhaps they had taken the whole thing so much for granted that it had simply never occurred to them that Li Kuiyi might push back. Or perhaps it was that Li Kuiyi had always been compliant and obedient in front of them, and this version of her felt like a stranger.

In any case, the air above the dinner table grew thick and still for a long moment — and then Xu Manhua slammed down her bowl and erupted in fury, so loud that the little brother beside her was startled into tears.

While Xu Manhua berated her, Li Kuiyi didn’t say a single word — but the money, she was not giving up. That very afternoon, she went to Fang Zhixiao’s house, borrowed her phone, and called the admissions office at No. 1 Middle School to change the bank account details for the scholarship deposit. Once the money came through, she withdrew five thousand yuan to keep on hand for emergencies, and put the rest into a fixed-term deposit.

Even though this cost her a slap from Xu Manhua and a relentless torrent of abuse, Li Kuiyi still felt it had been worth it.

She spent fifteen hundred yuan on a smartphone, set it permanently to silent, and tucked it in her schoolbag all day long. In the three years she’d boarded at middle school, she’d never felt a need for a personal phone — but now she understood clearly that she needed a way to reach people, and she needed to access the internet.

She unlocked the phone screen, and a cascade of notification pop-ups appeared immediately.

Fang Zhixiao: What time are you going to school tomorrow to register?

Fang Zhixiao: The thought of military training when school starts makes me want to die [crying emoji][crying emoji].

Fang Zhixiao: Went shopping with my mum this afternoon and bought two sunscreens. I’ll bring one for you tomorrow.

Fang Zhixiao: Ahhhhh, school’s actually starting, I want to die!!

Fang Zhixiao: Say you want to die too — come on, let’s go out together in a blaze of glory [firework emoji][firework emoji]!

Li Kuiyi could practically hear Fang Zhixiao’s shrieking, flailing delivery of every word, and despite herself, a smile spread across her lips. If there was one great upside to attending No. 1 Middle School, it was getting to stay with Fang Zhixiao. They’d shared a dormitory room all through middle school, then ended up as desk partners in class — closer than close.

Li Kuiyi: I am not going out in a blaze of glory with you.

Li Kuiyi: I’ll be at school by eight-thirty tomorrow morning.

Li Kuiyi: Thank you.

New student registration day had no fixed arrival time — you just had to check in with your form teacher before noon, collect your new student handbook, fill in your military training uniform size, and the class would gather in the afternoon.

Fang Zhixiao: That early?!

Fang Zhixiao: This is our last chance to sleep in and you’re not going to take it??

Li Kuiyi: It’ll be too hot any later, and there’ll be more people.

Li Kuiyi: Better to go early and leave early.

Fang Zhixiao: Blaze of glory — CANCELLED! You go as early as you want, I’m not coming!

Li Kuiyi: …Hmph.

The next morning at half past eight, Li Kuiyi arrived at the gates of No. 1 Middle School right on time. Contrary to her expectations, there were already quite a lot of people at this hour — clusters of three and five, families in tow, and boarding students weighed down with bags. By comparison, she looked almost lonely arriving on her own.

No. 1 wasn’t far from the residential block where she lived — less than twenty minutes on foot. So she was living at home this year. Fang Zhixiao had said: “Since you’re not boarding, I won’t board either — hehe, my mum bought me a little electric scooter.”

Red banners hung all along the outside of the school gates, most of them reading things like “Congratulations to our student XXX for their acceptance to XX University” — row upon row of them, puffed full of wind, looking enormously proud of themselves. A crowd of parents had stopped to read them, all murmuring praise, as if the accomplishments belonged to them too.

Through the school gates, on the left, stretched a long row of notice boards. They were even more crowded — everyone craning their necks to find the class assignment lists. Li Kuiyi figured that given her grades, she should, barring any surprises, be in Class One.

So she headed straight to the notice board at the front.

But as she drew closer, she spotted something on that particular board: several dark-printed photographs, one of which was hers.

The photo had been taken by the school’s admissions office after she’d accepted their offer. She’d had no idea it would end up posted here. Beneath it, in bold, eye-catching characters: Li Kuiyi — 2013 Municipal Middle School Top Scorer.

In all honesty, the photo wasn’t very flattering. The lighting was poor, her face looked dark, and she hadn’t smiled — she looked like a stern, ancient scholar. It seemed Fang Zhixiao hadn’t been wrong: when she wasn’t smiling, her face really did look rather unapproachable.

Beside her, a parent was loudly and shamelessly commentating: “Goodness, the city’s top scorer — what a promising girl!” And a father nearby had just delivered a sharp slap to his son’s arm: “Look at her — topped the whole city and she’s still this calm. So humble.”

Li Kuiyi quickly lowered her head and retreated from the scene.

The class assignment lists were posted on the glass panels of the boards further along. Li Kuiyi stood on her toes and peered through the crowd. Sure enough, at the very top of the first list, she found her name — Class One, Year Ten.

Glancing just below it, the next name read: Qi Yu.

Li Kuiyi paused, suddenly reminded of the three boys she’d encountered the day before. She thought one of them had been called “Qi Yu” — she wondered if it was the same person.

She recalled how he’d walked her through the problem, then stepped away from the crowd, pulled out her phone, opened the browser, and typed: Liuyan City middle school exams Qi Yu.

She’d naturally find out this afternoon when the class met in person — but she found herself curious, and wanted to figure it out on her own first.

The first result that appeared was a notice published on the official website of Liuyan No. 1 Middle School. She clicked on it, and found a line that read: Congratulations to Qi Yu of Class Four, Year Nine, for achieving third place in the city in the 2013 middle school examinations!

Third in the city. That ranking matched perfectly well with the way he’d solved that problem yesterday — completely effortless.

It’s probably him.

She let her finger hover over the screen for a moment, and on an impulse, clicked over to the homepage of No. 1 Middle School’s official website, typed “He Youyuan” into the search bar, and hit enter.

What came up was… a school-wide disciplinary notice.

She skimmed through it. The reason for the disciplinary notice: skipping evening self-study session to secretly climb the school’s ornamental rockery.

Zhang Chuang had been disciplined right alongside him.

So No. 1 really did maintain strict discipline — even skipping one evening study session to go climbing a fake mountain earned you a school-wide disciplinary notice. At her middle school, No. 158, something like that only happened in cases of serious cheating or fighting.

Li Kuiyi smiled to herself in understanding, tucked her phone away, and made her way back to the notice boards to look up Fang Zhixiao’s class. The crowd had grown even denser — a dark, pressing mass of people — but she was tall enough, and her eyesight was good, so the search wasn’t too difficult.

Before she found Fang Zhixiao’s name, she first spotted Zhang Chuang in Class Nine, then found He Youyuan in Class Twelve. It made sense — since they’d all attended No. 1 for middle school, staying on for high school was the most natural thing in the world.

By coincidence, Fang Zhixiao had also been placed in Class Twelve, her name not far from He Youyuan’s on the list.

And by an even greater coincidence, at that very moment, Fang Zhixiao called.

Li Kuiyi stepped away to a quieter spot and answered.

Fang Zhixiao’s voice still carried the stuffiness of someone who’d just woken up: “Li Kui, are you still at school?”

“Yeah, still here. I just found your name on the class list too — you’re in Class Twelve.”

“What class are you in?” Before Li Kuiyi could answer, Fang Zhixiao sighed mournfully, “Definitely not the same class as me, are you? You scored way too well.”

“I’m in Class One.” Li Kuiyi paused. “But Feng Luanxin is in your class.”

Feng Luanxin was a classmate from their middle school.

Fang Zhixiao pursed her lips. “But I’m not close with him.” Then she started whining at Li Kuiyi, “I want to be in the same class as you! If only I’d studied harder — now I’m so full of regrets, boo hoo hoo…”

The pitiful whimpering made Li Kuiyi’s scalp prickle. She thought quickly and offered: “Class Twelve might not have me, but it does have the guy you’d love most.”

As expected, she heard the sound of Fang Zhixiao flying bolt upright in bed: “A good-looking guy?! How do you know there’s a good-looking guy in my class? How good-looking? Is he tall?”

“I ran into him when I was looking at the class list — he told his friend he was in Class Twelve.” Li Kuiyi told a small, guilty fib. “He’s quite good-looking. And tall.”

“Achoo!” He Youyuan had just stepped through the gates of No. 1 Middle School when a thunderous sneeze overtook him. He rubbed his nose, deeply disgruntled: “Who on earth is thinking about me at this hour of the morning?”

The two beside him — Zhang Chuang and Qi Yu — rolled their eyes in unison.

Zhang Chuang: “It’s not exactly early anymore, man.”

Qi Yu: “You’ve probably caught a cold.”

He Youyuan raked his fingers through his hair with lazy irritation: “You two just don’t know what it feels like to have someone missing you.”

Zhang Chuang spread his hands, utterly unbothered: “Well, I have a girlfriend.” Qi Yu, however, seemed to reach the end of his patience all at once — he spun around abruptly, grabbed He Youyuan by both shoulders, hooked his ankle, and nearly swept him off his feet.

And that was precisely when Li Kuiyi noticed them.

Her phone was still pressed to her ear, and she watched as the very “good-looking guy” she’d just described straightened back up, cursing loudly: “Qi Yu, what the hell?! Are you out of your mind?!”

He Youyuan had no idea what had gotten into Qi Yu, and was just gearing up for retaliation when Qi Yu suddenly grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the notice board. Qi Yu pointed at the photographs pinned there: “Hey, isn’t that the girl we met yesterday?”

“Which girl?” He Youyuan’s retribution was forcibly interrupted. He frowned, mildly irritated.

“The little owner of the optical shop!” Qi Yu said. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Oh, well now.” He Youyuan peered at it and gradually made the connection, then let out an involuntary snort of amusement. “So her name is Li Kui — no wonder she’s so fierce. She’s a regular Li Kui right there.”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

Qi Yu looked pained: “Did you just swallow the character ‘Yi’ at the end?”

He Youyuan: “Huh? Isn’t that a dash?”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

Li Kui — 2013 Municipal Top Scorer. Well. One could argue it had a certain ring to it.