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Don’t be too sensitive, Li Kuiyi told herself.
There were many times she was unwilling to be sensitive. Growing up in her environment, being too sensitive meant living in pain. So she had worked hard to make peace with herself. Her way of making peace was to search for the logic behind things — Why doesn’t my grandmother like me? Oh, because she prefers sons over daughters — good, that has nothing to do with me. It’s her problem.
Why did everyone call the P.E. teacher “Mr. Lin”? Probably because it had become a kind of accepted linguistic habit.
Li Kuiyi talked herself into accepting this logic and didn’t dwell on it further.
By April, the college entrance examinations were drawing near. The teachers of the advanced track in second year were pushing through the curriculum at a frantic pace, determined to complete it in time to begin a full review before summer. For the students, the sheer volume of material was overwhelming — as stifling and oppressive as the weather growing hotter by the day. To add to it all, the homeroom teacher delivered a major announcement: he formally declared that starting in 2016, the province would adopt the national standardized college entrance examination — meaning this year’s exam would be the very last time the province set its own papers.
The whole class let out a long, collective “ahhh,” and immediately broke into spirited debate.
Some wailed in protest: “Why switch to the national exam? Our own papers are better suited to our province’s education, aren’t they?”
Some tried to read the signs: “If this is the last year of locally-set papers, then the examiners must be thinking — let’s end on a good note. This year’s exam is definitely going to be easier.”
Some went further afield: “I heard that eventually there won’t even be separate arts and sciences tracks — students will choose their own subjects. What a shame we can’t benefit from that. Such bad timing.”
Jiang Jianbin rapped his book spine against the podium for quiet, gave one sharp “tsk,” and launched into a lecture: “The way I see it, the students who are worried are the ones who haven’t been studying properly. It’s just a different exam paper — what is there to be afraid of? The fundamentals don’t change. As long as you have a solid, thorough command of the material, it doesn’t matter who sets the paper…”
The students had no interest in hearing this kind of speech. They went quiet, lowered their heads, and got back to their own work.
Evening Study Session
The first period was history, but the history teacher had a curriculum research meeting to attend and couldn’t make it. She rushed to the classroom, handed a USB drive to the history class representative, and said it contained a documentary called Rise of the Great Nations, which could be played for the class to watch. After giving her instructions, the elderly history teacher beamed at the class with a certain smugness: “I’m good to you all, aren’t I? I know you’ve all been exhausted lately, so I arranged a little break.”
The students were genuinely delighted, putting on a show of being deeply moved: “You’re the best teacher, truly our own dear teacher…” But at least one student shot up as if triggered by something and called out loudly: “We don’t have to write a response piece after watching, do we?”
The history teacher pretended to look stern: “No one else has to write one. But you do.”
The whole classroom collapsed into laughter.
After the history teacher left, the lights went out, the curtains were drawn, and the atmosphere instantly took on the feel of a proper movie session. On an ordinary day, very few students would go out of their way to find a history documentary to watch on their own — but watching together like this made it feel like a special occasion.
Rise of the Great Nations
The first episode was exactly forty-five minutes long, and when the bell rang to end class, the documentary finished too. But no one wanted to turn off the classroom computer. Someone persuaded the history class representative to play a couple of songs — it was the break between classes, after all, so even if the homeroom teacher happened to come by, there was nothing wrong with it.
The history class representative was He Lin — the girl who had once handed out wedding candies to the class. She had a soft spot when it came to persuasion, and sure enough, under the encouragement of her classmates, she opened the only music application on the computer and began scrolling through the charts with the mouse.
What song to play? Opinions differed wildly, and it was nearly impossible to satisfy everyone.
She simply looked through the more broadly appealing category of popular children’s songs, and settled at last on one called “Happy Girl” — the theme song from the animated series Sweet Princess. Then, blushing with a suppressed smile, she stepped down from the podium.
The girls in the class burst out laughing. The moment the intro began, it felt as though they had all been carried back to childhood.
The song — both in its lyrics and its melody — was bright and cheerful. At first everyone was a little shy, but soon they couldn’t help singing along. Students from neighboring classes came over to look; most of them were from Class One. They watched while complaining to each other: “Same advanced track, and look at how much more fun they’re having than us.”
Before the song was even over, the boys had grown restless. Meng Ran shouted out: “Can we please play something a real man can listen to?”
The comment was delivered in a joking tone and drew another round of laughter from the whole class — boys included, girls included.
Li Kuiyi had been laughing along too, but when she heard that line, her laughter faltered. The pen she’d been twirling in her fingers paused.
That feeling she had long since tucked away came flooding back.
“Can we please play something a real man can listen to” — was that really just a joke? Why did she catch a faint trace of condescension in it?
This kind of condescension wasn’t unusual. As far back as she could remember, boys had always seemed to naturally look down on the things girls liked — a very old and familiar pattern: watching Korean dramas was mindless, idol-chasing was mindless.
Of course, Li Kuiyi believed Meng Ran almost certainly meant no harm — he was only going for a laugh. But wasn’t that unconscious act of “speaking from on high” exactly what was more troubling?
And Li Kuiyi noticed something else: when Meng Ran referred to his own gender, he used the phrase “a real man.” Extending that outward, boys in daily life did habitually express themselves that way — I’m a grown man / I’m a real guy / I’m a proper bloke…
But girls didn’t. Almost no girl would ever say: I’m a grown woman / I’m a proper lady / I’m a real woman… The far more common phrasing would be: a little girl / a delicate woman…
Why was that?
There was, it seemed, quite a pronounced difference between how women and men expressed themselves through language.
The song ended. Zhao Shilei walked up to the podium and put on another track — “Miracle Reborn,” and the monitor screen began displaying scenes from Ultraman Tiga.
A girl shrieked excitedly: “Tiga is so handsome! Daigo is so handsome too!”
“You’re all so superficial,” Zhao Shilei said, laughing as he stepped down from the platform. “All you can do is look at faces, huh?”
There it is — the reflexive put-down, Li Kuiyi thought inwardly.
But the girl fired back without missing a beat: “If the boys around me weren’t so impossible to look at, would I have to crush on an Ultraman?”
Zhao Shilei seemed to take that less well. He made a short, dismissive “tch” and retreated to the back row.
“But He Youyuan is still presentable,” the girl said, throwing a sly grin at the desk behind her. “In fact, you could say he’s a pleasure to look at.”
Hearing them mention He Youyuan, Li Kuiyi drew her gaze back and lowered her eyes. A worry formed: He Youyuan was also a boy. Would he say things like that? In all her time with him, she hadn’t noticed anything like it — but what if one day he suddenly said something similar? What then?
It was at this moment that Li Kuiyi realized she was someone with a deep aversion to certain types of thinking — she could not accept the person she liked saying things like that. In other words, she could not accept the person she liked failing to treat her as an equal.
She glanced back. He Youyuan had gone to the art room and wasn’t there; his seat was empty.
Li Kuiyi quietly pressed her lips together.
Fine. If He Youyuan ever said things like that, she would stop spending time with him. Just like his small private garden — if she walked inside and found something truly unacceptable, something that disgusted her, then there would be no point in continuing the visit.
After the evening study session ended, He Youyuan came over from the art room as usual to do his tutoring session. Li Kuiyi very much wanted to talk to him about something, but didn’t know how to begin. Was she supposed to ask him point-blank how he felt about gender dynamics? That seemed too abrupt — and besides, she hadn’t fully sorted out her own thoughts on it yet.
She said nothing. And he, leaning lazily before her, took the initiative and spoke first: “This weekend — do you want to go run a street stall together?”
“A street stall?” Li Kuiyi was caught off guard. “Selling what?”
He raised an eyebrow: “Drawings. Let me show you just how wide the career prospects of an art student really are.”
Li Kuiyi still couldn’t quite believe it. It wasn’t that the idea of running a stall seemed strange — it was more that she was skeptical. “Your work is already at a level where it can actually be sold?”
“Who said anything about selling drawings?” He Youyuan looked at her with amusement. “We’ll go to the entrance of the zoo, and paint little animal designs on children’s faces. What do you think — would there be business?”
That was actually a fairly good idea.
There would probably be customers, wouldn’t there? Li Kuiyi imagined it: if she were out for a day at the zoo and came across a little setup like that, she’d want to try it.
But… why was it the zoo again? Was he doing it on purpose?
Li Kuiyi flicked her eyes toward He Youyuan and found him looking at her with an expression brimming with something unspoken, the faintest upward curve at the corners of his mouth, as though he really was up to something.
So petty.
Fine, zoo it was. If she refused to go to the zoo, he’d think she had something to feel guilty about.
Sunday morning at ten, Li Kuiyi arrived at the entrance to the zoo as arranged. He Youyuan had already set up the stall: a folding table held a paint set and a jar full of brushes, a washing bucket was on the ground beside his feet, and a small sign had been propped up nearby, written in rounded cartoon lettering:
Animal Face Painting
10 yuan per person
Non-toxic paint, washes right off
It was actually quite professional.
There was already a customer getting a design done. He Youyuan was painting a dinosaur on a small boy’s face; the boy’s mother stood to one side taking photos, looking delighted.
Li Kuiyi had assumed painting an animal design would take a long time, but He Youyuan worked fast and his shapes were precise. In no time, a green cartoon dinosaur appeared on the small boy’s face — utterly adorable.
The boy’s mother paid up, and took her son into the zoo in high spirits. He Youyuan pinched the ten-yuan note between his fingers, flicked it, and lifted his chin with a look of pride: “Impressive, right?”
The April sunlight was neither cold nor hot — temperate and clear, and it made his skin look exceptionally pale, as though faintly luminous.
“Yes.” Li Kuiyi gave him a brief nod of approval, then sat down on the small folding stool beside him: “Is there anything I can help with?”
He Youyuan tucked that ten-yuan note into Li Kuiyi’s pocket: “Help me count the money.”
The way he said it had a certain extravagant air to it — as if he’d made ten million, not ten. It wasn’t exactly convincing, but Li Kuiyi agreed anyway: “Alright.”
“There’s no one here right now — let me do your face too.”
“What would you paint?”
“What do you want?”
Li Kuiyi thought about it: “A tiger, I think.”
He Youyuan dipped the brush into several colors of paint and began mixing on the palette. Li Kuiyi watched, fascinated. He was so talented — how did he know instinctively which colors to combine to get the color of a tiger’s coat? And his proportions were precisely right, every shade taken in exactly the right amount.
To every craft, its own master.
She was still thinking about it when He Youyuan reached out and cupped her chin in his hand.
Li Kuiyi: “…”
“Don’t move,” he said softly.
Li Kuiyi simply closed her eyes and stopped looking at him. She could only feel the gentle brush strokes on her face, like the softest silk passing over her skin — pleasant, and slightly ticklish. His warm palm pressed against her skin, the pressure shifting between light and firm, occasionally tilting her face with gentle redirection.
Her eyes were closed. His were not.
She felt an inexplicable nervousness well up inside her. Without meaning to, she curled the hand hanging at her side into a fist. Beneath her thin eyelids, her eyes moved slightly, and her lashes trembled.
Midway through, He Youyuan suddenly stopped.
She didn’t understand why, and cautiously held her breath. Still he didn’t move.
Li Kuiyi couldn’t bear the not-knowing — the blankness of sitting in darkness, not knowing what was happening. She was about to ask what was wrong when, before she could open her eyes, she heard his voice, slightly husky, break the silence.
“Your face is red.”