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After summer arrived in Liu Yuan City, the temperature climbed like a monkey scaling a tree — shooting upward at breathtaking speed. The ceiling fans in the classroom began their creaking, whirring rotations again. Test papers always stuck to your arms, and the conic section and calculus problems on them were enough to fray anyone’s nerves. Teachers droned on from the podium about the impending “first round of revision” plan, while students sat below, heads nodding drowsily, stupefied by the heat.

Between working on test papers, He Youyuan counted the days and realized that it was now only a little over a month before he would head to Beijing for his intensive art training. He would leave after the Academic Proficiency Test was over, and when he returned, the December art joint exam would already be behind him. After the joint exam came the individual school examinations; by the time everything was completely finished, it would already be March of the following year. He was bound to miss the school’s first round of revision, so he had to make the most of this period and learn as much as he could.

Having Li Kuiyi to guide him made studying considerably easier, yet for him, studying was still an inherently joyless affair. He was forcing himself through it entirely through sheer willpower; sometimes he studied himself into such a dejected state that he wanted to go to Li Kuiyi for some sense of reassurance, only to turn and find her utterly absorbed in solving problems — eyes bright and keen, her pen moving as though guided by some divine force — not noticing his inner restlessness in the slightest.

Go spend your life with your maths problems then, He Youyuan thought, twirling his pen.

Then he felt that he was being too petty. How could he be jealous of maths problems, of all things?

There was nothing for it but to pick up his own pen and bury himself in his studies, not daring to slack off for a single moment. In the end, at the recent mid-term exams, he had successfully… dropped three places in the rankings.

This mid-term’s history paper had been quite difficult, and he had made quite a few errors in the multiple-choice section — with each multiple-choice question worth four marks, the gaps could open up very quickly. It was the first time he had dropped in the rankings since he began studying seriously, and although Li Kuiyi had given him a five-place margin for slipping, he still felt his heart in his throat. The students ranked just behind him were treading very close on his heels, and if he had gotten just one more multiple-choice question wrong, Li Kuiyi would have called a halt to their relationship.

He felt a peculiar, belated fear.

Even though Li Kuiyi hadn’t raised a single objection to his drop in the rankings, he found himself consumed by anxiety, afraid that one moment of carelessness would be enough for her to stop liking him. And so he became desperately eager to look for signs in every small thing that told him whether she still liked him or not. For instance, when he was called on by a teacher in class and she — like all the other students — turned her head to look at him, he felt his mind settle, deciding she probably adored him entirely.

Ah, she liked him so much, yet he was about to be separated from her. She must be heartbroken.

He Youyuan wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before he left for training, so he suggested that they eat lunch and dinner together from now on, and thoughtfully added that if she was afraid of being spotted by teachers, the two of them could eat off campus. But to his surprise, Li Kuiyi declined, saying she wanted to eat with Zhou Fanghua. On the weekend, when he asked her to come out and spend time with him, she didn’t agree to that either — sometimes saying she wanted to stay home reading magazines, and other times saying she needed to organize her notes.

She doesn’t love me anymore, he thought.

But Li Kuiyi did agree to one thing in the end: every Saturday evening, she would walk him to the art studio.

He had wronged her — she still loved him. He Youyuan cheered up again.

Unable to arrange anything with Li Kuiyi, he went to harass his friends instead, calling them out to play billiards at the Nandu Commercial Street. Zhang Chuang and Zhou Ce gave him a thorough scolding, but still showed up. When they got to the billiards hall, they grabbed their cue sticks and gave him a solid thrashing before the game even began.

Zhang Chuang bent down to take a shot — the crack of the billiard ball rang out cleanly — and asked: “How come you didn’t call little Qi Yu?”

“He’s not in the city.” He Youyuan said.

“Huh? Where’d he go?”

“Don’t you know? He went to compete again.” Zhou Ce cut in to answer. “He got first prize at the provincial level in last year’s National Mathematics League, right? His parents weren’t satisfied — they probably want him to try again this year.”

“Rough.” Zhang Chuang expressed his sympathy in one short word.

Zhou Ce, however, said: “What’s rough about it? If he really makes it into the national training squad, he gets a direct exemption into Peking University or Tsinghua University — isn’t that way better than the rest of us grinding through the college entrance exam?”

The mention of university and exams made his voice trail off for a moment. He suddenly grew curious: “Hey, be honest — where do you all want to go?”

The brothers often gathered together to eat, drink, and fool around, but their conversations were mostly confined to boasting and shooting the breeze; they rarely talked about dreams or the future. Zhang Chuang let out a dismissive sound, still in a joking tone: “Where else would I go? Guo Yan and I agreed to be proper underachievers together — find a university in this province and call it done.”

“I’m going to Beijing.” He Youyuan leaned against the wall beside the billiards table, wiping the tip of his cue.

“I want to go to Beijing too.” Zhou Ce chimed in. “But honestly, I don’t stand a chance at Tsinghua or Peking University. If I perform normally, I’m probably looking at an average top-tier university.” Saying this, he nudged He Youyuan with his elbow. “What’s the name of that school you want to get into again? If we really do both end up in Beijing, I’ll come find you.”

“Central Academy of Fine Arts.”

“Oh right, the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Isn’t there also a Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing? And I think there’s one in Hangzhou too, right? Those are the only art academies I know of.”

He Youyuan said: “The one in Hangzhou is the China Academy of Art.”

“China Academy of Art?” Zhou Ce was stumped. “Isn’t that the electronics store?”

He Youyuan: “…Get lost.”

“You get lost!” Zhou Ce grew indignant and lunged at him, locking his arm around He Youyuan’s throat. But Zhang Chuang suddenly cut in: “So why aren’t you going to Tsinghua’s Academy of Fine Arts then? Tsinghua and Peking University are so close to each other — wouldn’t that be way more convenient for going on dates with you-know-who?”

Zhou Ce’s ears pricked up, alert: “Who? Going on dates with who?”

“Take a guess.” Zhang Chuang cast him a languid, sideways look.

Zhou Ce’s eyes rolled rapidly as he pondered: “What did you just say — Tsinghua and Peking University? Who wants to get into Peking University? Someone from the humanities stream?” Then he suddenly drew in a sharp breath: “Oh my God, don’t tell me it’s that person?”

Zhang Chuang rolled his eyes at him: “Your eyesight really is something blunt.”

Zhou Ce was already shocked into leaping about, seizing He Youyuan by the shoulders and shaking him vigorously: “For real? You and Li Kuiyi are together? Oh wow — a person like her is actually dating someone?!”

He Youyuan pushed him off and said mildly: “We’re not dating.”

“Still in the will-they-won’t-they stage, right? I get it!” Zhou Ce patted his chest as though he had plenty of experience, but then on reflection, still found it a little hard to believe. “That said… being in that stage with Li Kuiyi is kind of… how do I put it.”

He Youyuan glanced at him: “What’s wrong with being in that stage with Li Kuiyi?”

Zhou Ce leaned close and asked skeptically: “Can you actually handle her?”

“Why would I need to handle her?” He Youyuan straightened up lazily from the wall and asked in return.

Zhou Ce figured he must not have understood, and started to explain: “What I mean is — can you accept the fact that she’s better than you? And her personality’s probably pretty forceful, right? Hey, you’ve never been in a relationship so you wouldn’t know, but let me tell you — for a relationship to be stable, the girl needs to have a sense of admiration for the guy, and the guy needs to have a nurturing tenderness toward the girl. That’s not me making things up — that’s what emotional experts online say; you can look it up if you don’t believe me. So with the two of you… will she ever feel that sense of admiration for you?”

He Youyuan didn’t respond, silent for a short while.

Was that how it worked?

But he wanted to be with her — not to feel superior to her. What did he need her admiration for?

“No.” He Youyuan said to Zhou Ce, then thought for a moment and added: “But I don’t think there’s any problem with that. And besides — she doesn’t think there’s any problem either.”

“Fair enough.” Zhou Ce shrugged. “But I think, if your girlfriend is always one step above you, over time, doesn’t your heart start to feel out of balance? Back when Xia Leyi liked you and you didn’t get together with her, I just assumed it was because you couldn’t accept a girl who was better than you, ha… Oh, speaking of which, do you guys know? Xia Leyi seems to be transferring schools.”

Zhang Chuang heard this, and the cue he was about to take a shot with went sideways. He looked up in surprise: “Huh? Transferring? Why would anyone transfer this close to Year 12?”

“No idea. Her household registration isn’t in this province — her parents just work here long-term. She’d have to return to her home province for the college entrance exam, and she says the exam is a bit easier there. But she says she’s not sure either — she might just go abroad and skip the national exam altogether.”

“What? No college entrance exam? That easy?” Zhang Chuang’s eyes went wide; almost instantly, he bit his teeth in frustration. “Zhou Ce, you scoundrel, why would you let me know something like this? Your old man here is dying of envy.”

“You’d all find out eventually. And you think she joined all those competitions and activities for nothing? It was precisely to build a strong application for overseas schools.”

Zhang Chuang cursed, tossed his cue down: “Not playing anymore. This is pointless — I thought we all had to kill ourselves grinding through the college entrance exam.”

Zhou Ce muttered: “It’s obviously different for everyone. Don’t even need to go far — just look at the people in our group: one doing academic competitions, one going abroad, one doing arts exams, one doing the regular exam — all different…”

He Youyuan picked up the cue Zhang Chuang had thrown aside and set it to one side, then bent down and, spreading his slender-fingered hand, cleared the balls on the table into the pockets one by one.

For some reason, the words Zhou Ce had said a moment ago were still imprinted on his mind.

Perhaps because conversations about the future were just too melancholy, Zhang Chuang let out a heavy sigh, took two gulps from his bottle of mineral water, puffed out his cheeks, and decided to dig for some gossip from Zhou Ce to lift his spirits: “Hey, how are things going with your girlfriend? How far along have you two gotten?”

“How far along could we be? Mate, we’re still in high school.”

“Pfft, it’s not like I was expecting to hear any explosive revelations from you. I just don’t want you, being in your first relationship and all, to be too chicken to even hold her hand.”

Zhou Ce gave a contemptuous snort of laughter: “Who do you think you’re underestimating.”

“Just underestimating a certain someone.” Zhang Chuang also scoffed, aiming his words at Zhou Ce but shooting a glance toward He Youyuan. “Being dangled along by someone, can’t even hold hands, can’t even steal a kiss — what a state of affairs!”

He Youyuan: “…”

Zhou Ce was thunderstruck: “For real? Li Kuiyi is dangling this dog around? She’s that ruthless?”

“I’m not being dangled, alright? We’ve just decided not to date in high school.”

“Understood, understood.” Zhang Chuang nodded with a thoroughly straight face. “You don’t want to hold her hand, you don’t want to kiss her, you’re doing all of this of your own free will.”

He Youyuan: “…”

After coming back from the billiards hall, He Youyuan curled up in the beanbag chair in his room and thought things over in silence for a long while. He suddenly stood up, locked his bedroom door, wandered casually around the room for a bit, then came to a stop, took out his phone, opened Baidu, and typed: “How do you hold the hand of a girl you like?”

Oh, first do this, then do that.

After reading it, he felt so guilty he could barely stand it. He hastily deleted his browsing history, picked up his glass, went to fill it with water, drank a couple of mouthfuls, and pressed down on his own erratic heartbeat.

After the evening study session, Li Kuiyi came over to help him with his studies as usual.

“Didn’t I have more to explain about those wrong questions from last time? Bring them over and I’ll keep going.”

He Youyuan found his notebook of wrong answers and handed it to Li Kuiyi.

“This problem looks complicated, but it’s actually just a variation of trigonometric functions — the root problem is the one we worked on last time.” Li Kuiyi flipped back through the notebook a few pages and pointed with her finger. “You see…”

He Youyuan watched her slender white fingers move slowly across the pages of the notebook, and his throat involuntarily bobbed. He took a deep breath, forced down his wayward thoughts, and listened to her explanation with genuine concentration.

Not until the tutoring session was over, when she was packing the books and test papers she was taking home into her schoolbag, did he nervously press his lips together, glance at her busy hands, and open his mouth in a stilted, fumbling way: “Your hands… are really small.”

Li Kuiyi did pause at that, holding one hand up in front of her face and turning it over for inspection: “Are they?”

“They are.” He Youyuan’s face warmed slightly. He discreetly held up his own hand, making as if to compare: “Look at my hand — it should be quite a bit bigger than yours.”

Li Kuiyi looked at his hand. It was indeed slender and long, but she didn’t place her own hand against it. She only smiled: “Well, you’re taller than me, so of course your hands would be bigger too.”

“Right.” He Youyuan took his hand back with a touch of awkwardness, rubbing the back of his neck, wondering to himself: why didn’t that work?

The summer night was as cool and clear as water. They walked side by side out of the classroom, the gap between their bodies very small. The sleeve of her school uniform short-sleeves brushed against his arm from time to time, making him feel a tickling sensation — and yet he only wanted to be even closer to her. Both of their arms hung naturally at their sides. He stealthily lowered his eyes, and saw that her fingers rested lightly against her school uniform trousers. He couldn’t help curling two of his own fingers, wanting to hook hers — but the swaying motion of walking meant he kept missing, over and over again, only clinking and tapping lightly against her fingers, like skipping along a row of small keys on a little wind-chime.

His whole body had gone taut, all his concentration gathered in his fingertips.

“He Youyuan…” Yet she suddenly called his name. Her voice was soft and unhurried, carrying a faint note of embarrassment, as though she wasn’t sure how to start.

Was she also trying to hold his hand?

He was so nervous he could barely stand it: “Yeah?”

“Um… don’t walk so close to me, you’re pressing against me.”

“Oh.” He Youyuan’s face flushed red in an instant, and he bounced away from her side. “I — I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She said quietly.

His heart plummeted in an instant, and an overwhelming sense of grievance washed over him. After walking Li Kuiyi to the entrance of her apartment building, He Youyuan waved goodbye and watched her turn and head upstairs. But once she was gone, he stood alone downstairs for a while, and standing there, he began to quietly seethe.

Won’t let me hold hands, will you? Fine, Li Kuiyi — even if you beg me someday, I won’t hold yours. And you even took issue with me walking too close to you. Fine, I’ll keep a wide distance from you from now on. Happy now?

On Saturday afternoon, after the short quiz was over, Li Kuiyi walked He Youyuan to the art studio as agreed. She walked ahead with her schoolbag, while he lagged behind at a notably wide distance. Li Kuiyi didn’t notice anything, assuming he simply wanted to keep his distance from her while still on school grounds. But after they passed through the school gate and turned onto the narrow lane leading to the art studio, he still didn’t close the gap. Only then did she stop and look back at him with a quizzical expression.

She stopped; he simply stopped too, crossing his arms over his chest and shifting his gaze, refusing to meet her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

His tone was light: “Not pressing against you, am I?”

Li Kuiyi: “…”

Nobody had ever warned her that men could be so adept at sulking.

She turned back and walked up to him, tilting her face up to look at him, and said in genuine bafflement: “Why would you get upset over something like this? All I did was tell you that you were pressing against me.”

“I can’t even be close to you?”

“…You can, but what you were doing wasn’t just being close to me — you were practically leaning your whole body on me. We agreed to keep a certain distance.”

He Youyuan turned his face away and said nothing. He liked her and wanted to be close to her — what was wrong with that? If anything, it was she who was indifferent toward him, as though she felt nothing at all. All she could think about was keeping distance, keeping distance. He was the one taking the initiative to close the gap, and she still wasn’t happy about it.

Seeing him like this, Li Kuiyi felt his temper was truly unreasonable. She didn’t try to coax him, but turned and walked straight in the direction of the art studio. He stayed rooted to the spot without following, lowering his head and lightly kicking at the edge of the curb with the tip of his shoe.

Noticing that he hadn’t followed, Li Kuiyi came back a second time, drew a deep breath, and asked: “What are you sulking about?”

He Youyuan raised his eyes and looked at her: “Do you find it troublesome?”

“No. I just want to understand the reason you’re upset. Is it really just because I said ‘don’t walk so close to me’?”

He said nothing, then after a moment, suddenly asked: “If I actually did drop five places in the rankings, you’d immediately end the relationship — is that right?”

This was in the “Three Articles of Agreement” they had made together. Li Kuiyi didn’t overthink it and gave a nod: “Yes.”

“Not even a shred of reluctance to let go?”

“It’s not a question of reluctance. It would mean the relationship was affecting our studies, and in that case it would be better to call it off.”

“I see.” He tightened his fingers, and looked toward the distance.

Li Kuiyi frowned: “Do you think that’s unreasonable?”

“I don’t know.” He lowered his eyes and shook his head. “Actually, I understand perfectly well that we need to study hard right now. But the way you just said that makes me feel as though I don’t matter to you at all — like I could be given up on at any moment.”

Is there a problem with that? Li Kuiyi thought.

When two things come into conflict, the one that is relatively less important will inevitably be set aside. Of course, when the relatively less important thing happens to be a person, it does sound somewhat cruel.

Li Kuiyi had no desire to say something that cruel to him, and softened her voice a little: “I never said you don’t matter to me. It’s just that there’s no need for us to gamble our futures on uncertain things.”

She hadn’t expected those words, once spoken, to instantly alter He Youyuan’s expression. He repeated them: “Uncertain things?”

What were the uncertain things? Their feelings for each other?

He looked at her, his expression seeming disbelieving: “Our future and our feelings for each other — are they not pointing in the same direction for you?”

“They might be, or they might not be.” Li Kuiyi felt this was something that needed to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. “It’s precisely because we can’t yet be certain whether they point in the same direction that we need to work hard together.”

“And what if I work hard and it still isn’t enough?” He Youyuan pressed.

“Why would you say something like ‘it isn’t enough’? Is it because you dropped three places this time? Why do you care so much about that?”

“You said it yourself…” His voice turned hard, and his eyes reddened slightly. “Drop five places, and you don’t want me anymore.”