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Silence, and only silence, hung in the air between them.

Li Kuiyi instinctively looked away from He Youyuan’s gaze. She tightened her grip on her school bag strap and lowered her eyes, not sure where to look. She could even hear the faint, steady ticking of the mechanical watch on her wrist — tick, tick, tick — as though it were carrying her awkwardness and embarrassment along with it, seeping out through her pores.

“I…” After a long pause, she opened her mouth.

If she said that yogurt had been for her seatmate — would he believe her?

He wasn’t an idiot. Li Kuiyi quietly deflated. Fine — might as well accept the consequences.

She simply raised her head and looked directly into He Youyuan’s eyes, with an expression that said: do what you will, I’m ready.

She had expected him to press his advantage and put her through some sort of interrogation — but to her surprise, he only looked at her quietly for a moment, then, without a word, set down his school bag, took out the box of chocolate, and held it out to her again.

He really was persistent.

“It’s too expensive. I can’t accept it,” Li Kuiyi said quietly.

He Youyuan’s hand paused briefly, then he drew the chocolate back and said: “Come with me.”

He picked up her school bag, then took her by the arm and led her to a more secluded spot among the greenery nearby. Before Li Kuiyi had worked out what he was doing, he had already stripped off the outer packaging. Sixteen square chocolates were nested inside in a tidy little grid, square and plump and sweet-looking.

He Youyuan picked up a yellow-green one and held it directly up to her lips, the matcha powder dusting her mouth.

Li Kuiyi: “…”

A very crafty move. Now that this chocolate had touched her lips, she had to eat it whether she wanted to or not.

Li Kuiyi raised her eyes and gave him a plaintive look, then took the chocolate from his hand and slowly placed it in her mouth.

She hadn’t even had time to bite down before He Youyuan picked up a deep red one and, using the same tactic, pressed it to her lips again.

Li Kuiyi: “…”

What was this — hand-feeding a cat?

“I don’t want any more,” she muttered, and bit into the one in her mouth. The filling melted out, intensely sweet, and she gave an involuntary little shiver.

“Not good?” He watched her expression carefully.

Li Kuiyi answered honestly: “A bit too sweet.”

He Youyuan didn’t look convinced, and picked one up to try himself — sure enough, it hit him with the same jolt of sweetness. He felt somewhat deflated. This was the first time he had ever bought chocolate as a gift for a girl, and it turned out not even to taste good.

Feeling awkward about making Li Kuiyi eat any more, he closed the lid of the box and glanced around, momentarily at a loss. After a moment, he asked quietly: “So… can we make up?”

Li Kuiyi nearly laughed out loud.

Why exactly did he think eating the chocolate was a prerequisite for making up?

“Yes.” She gave a casual nod.

Then she felt that was too offhand, so she paused and added: “The flowers you bought were beautiful.”

He Youyuan blinked, then turned his face to the side, and there was a brief, small tug at the corner of his mouth. By the time he looked back, his expression was entirely composed.

“Did you arrange them yourself?” Li Kuiyi asked.

He Youyuan gave a languid hum in acknowledgment. The flower shop assistant had suggested a few standard arrangements, but he’d found them too formulaic and taken over himself — he had decided where every single bloom went.

Li Kuiyi didn’t hold back the compliment, because she genuinely loved the bouquet: “They were put together beautifully. The most radiant and lively arrangement I’ve ever seen.”

He Youyuan cleared his throat. “Not bad, I suppose.”

He looked down at the toes of his shoes, the corners of his lips quietly spreading all the way to the tips of his ears.

The only problem was that he had completely forgotten Li Kuiyi was shorter than him — so even when he tilted his head down, she could still see his face perfectly. This was a thorough case of pulling the blanket over one’s own eyes.

Li Kuiyi stifled a laugh. How could he be so oblivious!

“He Youyuan…” she called his name, blinked, and asked: “Is that essay on the bulletin board really yours?”

She had actually gone to read his essay! He Youyuan felt a small burst of delight inside — he really was something, wasn’t he? The only flaw in his entire being was that he didn’t know how to pick chocolate.

“Yes,” he said, catching her eye with a glance, his tone perfectly unbothered.

“Oh.” Li Kuiyi nodded, then pressed her lips together in a way that suggested she wasn’t entirely convinced.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He Youyuan suddenly felt something was off.

Li Kuiyi shook her head, turned away with a hint of a smile: “Nothing. I’m going home now. Goodbye.”

He Youyuan caught up to her in two or three steps: “No — what exactly did you mean by that?”

Li Kuiyi paid him no mind, walking ahead at her own pace. He fell into step beside her, keeping up a steady stream: “You think I copied it, don’t you? Li Kuiyi, who do you think you’re looking down on? Just because your grades are good doesn’t mean you get to accuse people of things. Do you think everyone else around you is an idiot or something…”

In truth, Li Kuiyi didn’t actually disbelieve the essay was his. She had just seen his smug little grin and decided to tease him on purpose — much as Xia Leyi had once put it: a little light teasing of a handsome boy.

“Alright.” She stopped, looked back at the long stretch of road he had walked after her without noticing, and sighed: “I do believe you. Go home now.”

He Youyuan looked back as well. He had indeed, without realizing it, followed her quite a long way. He stood there, shuffling his feet, and then suddenly fidgeted in a way that was very unlike him, the words tumbling out: “Actually, maybe I should walk you back — it might not be safe for you to go alone…”

He didn’t mean anything by it, truly. He was just a kind-hearted person, he told himself. He couldn’t feel at ease leaving a girl to walk home at night alone. Whether this girl was Sour-Face Pineapple or anyone else — he would walk her home regardless. It just so happened that at the moment, he hadn’t had the opportunity to walk any other girls home.

He had genuinely intended to part ways with Li Kuiyi after the apology — but it wasn’t as though it had to be this exact second. He could still send her home first, and they could go their separate ways afterward. That way things had a proper beginning and end, didn’t they?

Li Kuiyi said: “There’s nothing unsafe about it. I walk home by myself all the time.”

He Youyuan wanted to ask why her parents didn’t come to pick her up the way many girls’ parents did after the evening study period. But that felt too prying — he didn’t know her family situation, and he didn’t want to make things uncomfortable for her.

He tucked his hands into his pockets, and with a careful sideways glance: “You don’t think I’m walking you home because I like you, do you? Because I’m not. Don’t go getting the wrong idea…”

“Who said I thought that?” Li Kuiyi glared at him. She wasn’t a narcissist like him.

He Youyuan said with perfect logic: “Then why won’t you let me walk you?”

What kind of reasoning was that?

Li Kuiyi couldn’t begin to follow the workings of his brain. She said, without much patience: “Walk me or don’t — suit yourself.”

And with that, she turned and marched off.

He Youyuan watched her go, all ruffled up and indignant. He very much wanted to flick her on the forehead, but he didn’t dare. He followed behind her, staring at the back of her head. He thought it was a rather nicely shaped head — round and full without looking clumsy or heavy — and he found himself closing one eye and stretching out his fingers, as if he held a pencil and were tracing the outline of her skull.

Unexpectedly, she turned around.

Li Kuiyi saw him with his arm raised, fingers spread and aimed at her, one eye closed, and immediately assumed he was mimicking a gun pointed at her. She rounded on him furiously: “Childish!”

He Youyuan: “…”

When it dawned on him why she had said that, he couldn’t help laughing.

Li Kuiyi, you…

His throat moved. What was he supposed to do — he was finding her a little endearing.

The thought lasted only an instant before He Youyuan stamped it out firmly. But the embarrassment that came with it lingered, accompanied by a strange, unreasonable urge to take it out on her. Like some kind of release — Li Kuiyi, look at what you’ve done to me.

Since he couldn’t take it out on her directly, he took it out on the little spider charm on her school bag instead.

He Youyuan stepped forward, reached out, and gave the little spider a firm squeeze.

“What are you doing?” Li Kuiyi turned and looked back, then lifted her eyes to demand an explanation.

They were standing close. He was looking into her eyes, and he noticed his own breathing had quickened slightly. He Youyuan thought this was very strange — she wasn’t going to eat him, he had no reason to be nervous around her.

It must be because her eyes were so sharp. They made her look like someone not to be trifled with.

He shrugged with exaggerated innocence and changed the subject as if he’d only squeezed the little spider to make conversation: “What did you give Qi Yu for his birthday?”

“A thermos flask. Why?”

“Oh.”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

At the entrance to her residential complex, just as Li Kuiyi was about to say goodbye, He Youyuan got there first: “Does your family have any young children?”

“Why?” Li Kuiyi asked. He never seemed to say anything that made immediate sense.

He Youyuan pulled the box of chocolates from his pocket: “Young kids tend to like sweet things.”

“No good — my little brother has very bad cavities. He can’t have any. Figure out what to do with it yourself.” What Li Kuiyi said was true. Her brother wasn’t in the best of health and was in and out of the hospital constantly, so their parents indulged him without much restraint, and with no limits on candy, his teeth had already been ruined. She could only hope they’d improve once he lost them.

“In that case, give it to someone else who can handle sweet things.” He pushed the chocolate into her hands, turned around, and ran.

Li Kuiyi: “…”

She had spent the entire evening expending energy on this, and for what? The chocolate had ended up in her hands after all.

He was genuinely going to be the death of her.

Was this the price one paid for teasing a handsome boy?

He Youyuan ran to the corner of the residential complex, stopped, and leaned against the wall. He pulled out his phone and searched: “What does it mean when a girl gives a guy a cup?”

The search result: It means “a lifetime together.”

He spat in disgust.

He Youyuan curled his lip, shoved the phone back in his pocket, and was about to leave — when he heard a cat meow. He looked around and spotted a small black stray cat at the base of the wall, its eyes gleaming, which looked like the same one he had seen the first time he walked Li Kuiyi home.

He crouched down, made a soft clicking sound with his lips — and to his surprise, the little black cat wasn’t afraid of people at all. It walked right over, tail raised. He Youyuan petted it; its fur was sleek and glossy, clearly well cared for by the residents nearby.

What a pity, he thought. He hadn’t brought any food.

“Can I offer you a drink instead?” He raised an eyebrow at it.

He took the thermos from his school bag, poured a little water into his palm, and the cat leaned in to lap it up, making a soft, contented rumbling sound.

That night, He Youyuan couldn’t sleep.

Past two in the morning, he got out of bed and started drawing.

He drew the little black cat — head bent down, drinking from a cupped palm. The hand was slim and fine-boned, unmistakably a girl’s. He couldn’t stop himself, and drew the hand’s owner too: a girl crouched down, thermos flask in one hand, the other extended to offer the cat a drink. She had a lovely, well-shaped head, wearing a school uniform, school bag on her back — but the bag’s zipper was open, and tucked inside was a vivid, full bloom of flowers.

When it was done, he stared at it for a long time. And then, abruptly, he tore it off the page, crumpled it into a ball, and threw it in the bin.

There. That was the end of that.

He threw himself onto the bed, buried his face in the pillow, and fell into a heavy sleep.

On Friday, final scores for every subject were released, along with rankings. For the vast majority of students, this meant grade-wide rankings. Only the top students learned their combined placement among the four schools in the regional exam.

During the class meeting, Liu Xinzhao set the score sheet on the lectern and said: “Let us congratulate Li Kuiyi on once again achieving first place in this midterm examination — first in the grade…” She blinked. “And first among all four schools.”

Of all the high schools in Liuyuan City, First High and Real High were by far the strongest — so placing first in this joint exam was effectively placing first in the city.

A thunderous round of applause broke out across the classroom.

“Would Li Kuiyi like to come up and share some of her study strategies?” Liu Xinzhao asked, still clapping, with a warm smile.

Sharing study strategies was something Li Kuiyi had grown used to from all the school recognition assemblies. She could practically open her mouth and talk without preparation. And she had no hesitation about sharing — since she had earned first place, her methods were clearly effective. She wasn’t opposed to letting others in on them, because they were easy to describe but genuinely difficult to execute. She had once told Fang Zhixiao: just pay full attention in class, and you’ll be able to answer at least seventy percent of any exam — it saves you from spending extra time catching up afterward. Fang Zhixiao had wailed in response: “I don’t want my mind to wander either, I just can’t control it.”

Qi Yu was still second in the grade, but in the four-school combined rankings, he had fallen to fifth. And it wasn’t only Qi Yu — most students in Class One had dropped in the overall ranking. Xia Leyi, for instance, had fallen to fourteenth; Qin Weiwei was sixteenth.

Liu Xinzhao said: “There’s nothing to be discouraged about. No. 1 High School marks more strictly than any of the other schools. If your scores had genuinely dropped across the board, I would have gone to Director Chen to tender my resignation before any of you had a chance to be upset.”

The class let out a breath of collective relief, and a wave of laughter followed.

Qi Yu’s laugh was a bitter one.

Even accounting for stricter marking, some people were strong enough to transcend the rules of the game entirely — weren’t they?

Liu Xinzhao then announced the date of the parent-teacher meeting: this coming Sunday evening. On hearing this, everyone promptly asked whether it meant they could skip the evening study session. Liu Xinzhao told them not to get their hopes up — the meeting was scheduled for the last two periods, and while parents were in the meeting, students were to go to Room 501 on the fifth floor and write an essay. Once the essay was submitted to the class representative, they could go to the sports ground to let off some steam and then come back before dismissal.

A chorus of groans went up around the room.

After class, Li Kuiyi and Zhou Fanghua waited for Fang Zhixiao to head to the canteen for dinner.

The moment Fang Zhixiao saw Li Kuiyi, she launched herself at her, yelling: “Little Crayon Li Kui, you’re incredible! Our homeroom teacher announced the top scorer in the joint exam was from our school, and I just knew it had to be you — and it was!”

Li Kuiyi was nearly knocked off balance, but she was happy too, and asked: “What about you? How did you do? Can you face your mother?”

Fang Zhixiao’s expression crumbled immediately into something resembling a bitter melon. “I dropped thirty-seven places in the grade ranking. Maths pulled me down again. Functions are genuinely brutal!”

“Do you need me to work through some problems with you now?”

“Yes, please — tutor me like you used to in middle school.” Fang Zhixiao clutched Li Kuiyi’s arm and rubbed her head against it affectionately. “Ha, look at me, trust Fang Zhixiao to know who to latch on to — always grab the sturdiest leg within reach!”

Zhou Fanghua stood watching the two of them, a wistful light in her eyes.

She had once had a very close friend too — close enough to work through problems together, inseparable and easy with each other. But they had ended up at different high schools, and without thinking much of it, the closeness had simply dissolved.

Friendships in student years were easily formed and easily lost. Sometimes it took nothing more than a change of seat and a bit of lost contact before a bond quietly faded.

She thought she understood why Li Kuiyi always waited for Fang Zhixiao to go to the canteen together, why she always walked home with her. When you found someone truly precious, you held on with everything you had.

But when it came to building something new with Li Kuiyi, Zhou Fanghua hesitated — because Li Kuiyi already had a best friend. Did friendship have the same exclusivity as romance? She didn’t know.

After dinner, Fang Zhixiao bought three little bottles of Yakult from the school shop and declared they needed to toast Li Kuiyi’s success.

The three of them strolled around the track, drinking their Yakult, unwinding and letting their dinners settle.

Somewhere in the conversation, Fang Zhixiao brought up He Youyuan — said he had dropped quite a lot this time, probably a hundred places or more, and that his homeroom teacher had criticized him in front of the class during the meeting.

Li Kuiyi found herself curious: “A hundred places — where does that put him in the grade ranking?”

Fang Zhixiao thought for a moment: “Somewhere around five hundred, I think.”

This surprised Li Kuiyi. Xia Leyi had once said He Youyuan owed Qi Yu and herself a bow of gratitude for making it into No. 1 High School, which had led Li Kuiyi to assume he had barely scraped in and sat firmly at the bottom. Apparently he ranked somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Fang Zhixiao added: “His maths and his politics and history all went badly — that’s why he dropped so far in one go.”

Li Kuiyi paused imperceptibly.

Could his exams have gone badly because of her? Because of what she had said to him the night before?

Surely not. She hadn’t said anything that terrible — and she had been perfectly calm when she said it.

It definitely had nothing to do with her. Li Kuiyi reassured herself, then gave a slightly unnatural smile: “If it was all in the same day’s exams, it means he wasn’t in a good state that day — that’s not a serious problem. He’ll bounce back next time.”

Fang Zhixiao and Zhou Fanghua both nodded. Scores went up and down; it was entirely normal.

Zhou Fanghua, curious, asked Li Kuiyi: “And you? Have you been first since you were young?”

Li Kuiyi shook her head: “No. I started around the second year of middle school, I think.”

“I’ll tell it, I’ll tell it,” Fang Zhixiao jumped in, eager to take over. “Li Kui was already doing well in first year — reliably in the top ten, usually around seventh or eighth. But back then the first-year top student was the history teacher’s kid, and let me tell you, that history teacher was so insufferable — always going on in class about how brilliant her child was, how obedient and well-behaved, until our ears were practically blistering. Eventually Li Kui reached her limit, buckled down, and took first place away from that kid in the very next exam. You have no idea how good it felt — we were practically floating!”

Fang Zhixiao laughed with absolute glee.

Well, Zhou Fanghua laughed along — so that was the origin story of how Li Kuiyi had become the top student.

But she was so envious — that particular combination of resolve and natural ability, where deciding to come first actually meant coming first.

As Li Kuiyi’s seatmate, Zhou Fanghua had a clearer picture than most. Li Kuiyi wasn’t the type who buried herself in books. She would often lean against the window watching the world outside, lose herself in thought, read large quantities of books that had nothing to do with school, and write very long journal entries during the evening study period. But Zhou Fanghua also knew: she was genuinely efficient in class, she reviewed before and consolidated after every lesson without fail, she never grinded through repetitive problems mechanically but always worked through the reasoning and drew conclusions, and she never put things off — if she said she would finish something, she finished it.

Zhou Fanghua felt as though heaven had placed a template of an ideal student directly in front of her. All she had to do was follow it and she would become the next “Li Kuiyi.” But she didn’t know how to begin, and had even started to feel anxious about it.

She wanted to become her — and yet feared that in trying to imitate someone else, she would lose herself.

What was the right thing to do?

It was a genuinely difficult question.

On the Saturday evening with no study period, Fang Zhixiao proposed again to sleep over at Li Kuiyi’s place. Li Kuiyi agreed — the flowers He Youyuan had given her had already wilted, and she had quietly disposed of them. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to put them in the trash bin, so she had laid the tired stems among the shrubs in the residential complex’s green belt, to decompose there and return to the earth.

Fang Zhixiao was relentless: “I got hold of another copy of Lust, Caution. High definition this time, and I checked — it’s 158 minutes.”

So the two heads bent close together again, earbuds shared between them.

“Wang Jiazhi is so beautiful,” Fang Zhixiao sighed.

Li Kuiyi nodded in agreement.

When they reached the scene where Wang Jiazhi, in order to ensure the assassination plan went perfectly, had to sleep with the only man among the students who had any sexual experience, Fang Zhixiao yanked out her earbud in a fury and burst out: “I can’t watch this! Why should she have to do that? Is this worth it? Everyone is using her — and what’s Kuang Yumin doing just standing there? Does he even like Wang Jiazhi? Does he?”

She raged at everyone in the film in turn, then forced herself to put her earbud back in and keep watching.

But this film was nothing like the romantic dramas they usually watched. No one stepped in to save anything. They watched helplessly as Wang Jiazhi finally slept with that man — something painful and mechanical, settling at last into a kind of numbness.

Two girls, confronting this kind of scene for the first time.

In every novel and drama they had ever consumed, this was supposed to be something beautiful, something joyful, described in the most rapturous terms.

But what hit them now was an overwhelming, suffocating weight.

Both of them pressed their lips together, and they cried.