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After several rounds of Werewolf, Li Kuiyi had absorbed a whole heap of game terminology and was beginning to appreciate the genuine fun of it. Even in the round where she drew a plain Villager card, she managed to stir up the waters during her speech, pretending to be the Seer and bluffing two Werewolves into revealing themselves — which prompted Qin Weiwei, who’d also been invited, to point at her accusatorially: “There’s absolutely no way this is your first time playing. You’re definitely a veteran!”

“I swear on everything good and true.” Li Kuiyi raised her hand with a laugh. “I genuinely have never played before.”

“If it were your first time, you’d be playing like Qi Yu — when it’s his turn to speak, all he can manage is ‘I’m a good person,’ hahaha……” Qin Weiwei made a joke of it, then glanced around looking for validation.

People seemed to think she had a point and burst out laughing as one.

“Exactly, exactly.” Zhou Ce chimed in, calling over to Qi Yu: “I’m not wrong — you’ve had incredible luck every round, drawing the most powerful cards every time, but you’ve played each one into the ground. Never mind anything from further back, just look at that last round when you drew the Witch……”

Zhou Ce gave an animated recap of the round that had just finished, and the others listened with relish, chiming in every so often. But mid-story, Zhou Ce suddenly stopped himself, eyes evasive, rubbing the back of his head, scrambling to patch things over: “Hey, well — you’re playing for the first time too, totally understandable. Once we get a few more games in, you’ll pick it up.”

It was the obvious kind of thing someone says when they’re trying to smooth things over, and everyone caught it. Heads turned toward Qi Yu. His face was impassive, his eyes downcast, one hand slowly rotating a glass of fruit juice. Whatever was going through his mind was unclear — but it was obvious to anyone watching that this was not the expression of someone in a good mood.

When a joke doesn’t make the person it’s about laugh, it isn’t a joke anymore. Qin Weiwei made a point of dramatically going after Zhou Ce: “How can you give Qi Yu a hard time? Your own playing isn’t exactly impressive!” Zhou Ce, catching on, fired back: “And yours is any better?”

But the sudden raising of voices only had the opposite effect, making the cover-up more conspicuous. A thin, faint awkwardness slowly drifted up to the surface of the room.

Over the past year or more, Qi Yu had been in a bad way. He’d barely spoken in class, and his results had become less consistent than before — sometimes better than Xia Leyi, sometimes not. People more or less understood why he was like this, but they’d assumed things would turn around once he made a comeback in this year’s mathematics competition. The problem was, Qi Yu had only placed at the provincial level in the national mathematics league this year as well — again failing to make the provincial team, and that had been a significant blow.

His friends wanted to comfort him but couldn’t find the words. Zhou Ce had once played the self-deprecating foil in an attempt to lift Qi Yu up, saying in an exaggerated way: “If you put me in a competition, I’d probably hand in a blank paper — a provincial-level placing is genuinely impressive! And besides, that result qualifies you to sit independent admissions exams at nine top universities. You might even get a score reduction!”

But even he’d felt unconvinced by his own argument. The result was genuinely good by most standards — he knew that. But he also knew that this wasn’t the standard Qi Yu had set for himself. When the goal you’ve set for yourself goes unmet, the best result in the world still carries the sting of falling just short.

Zhou Ce also found himself blaming Qi Yu’s parents. By Qi Yu’s caliber, if he’d simply taken the regular university entrance exam path, his chances of getting into Tsinghua or Peking University were still quite strong — why push so hard for the competition track? Was a guaranteed placement more prestigious than sitting the exam like everyone else? When you came down to it, it was because Qi Yu’s parents had spent so many years coaching competition students — they’d seen so many exceptionally gifted kids that their own standards and ambitions had risen along with their experience.

Xia Leyi, as the host, quickly called everyone to eat. Someone started a new topic, which effectively put the previous exchange to rest. The focus shifted to Xia Leyi, and everyone exclaimed over how impressive she was — spending two months over the summer on an IELTS course and coming out with a score of 8 — before giving the obligatory flattering line about remembering their old friends when she was rich and successful.

Xia Leyi accepted it all with easy grace.

By the end of the meal, everyone brought out the gifts they’d prepared for Xia Leyi, wrapping up the farewell party. Outside the restaurant, as the moment of parting came, Xia Leyi gave each of the girls a light embrace. When she held Li Kuiyi, she smiled and let out a small sigh: “I never managed to score higher than you even once — that’s a bit of a regret.”

“Oooh — that’s quite the charged atmosphere!” Zhou Ce cheered from the sideline.

Xia Leyi turned toward him with a smile and very nearly let two words slip out between her teeth, but held them back with characteristic composure.

Li Kuiyi gave her a pat on the back too: “Safe travels.”

People began working out how to get home, those going the same direction planning to share rides. Zhou Ce’s home was in the same direction as Li Kuiyi’s, and he suggested they share a taxi — but Li Kuiyi said no, she wanted to stop by the Boya Bookstore to browse, and would be taking the bus, so they shouldn’t go together. Zhou Ce muttered under his breath behind her that she was being petty.

What no one expected was that Qi Yu said he’d be leaving with Xia Leyi — his competition preparation had meant he’d missed a good deal of the school curriculum, and he needed to go to a veteran tutor’s home on the south side of the city for private lessons.

The two of them got into the same taxi. As soon as they were inside, Qi Yu leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes to rest, while Xia Leyi sat beside him unwrapping the farewell gifts her classmates had given her. She opened Li Kuiyi’s gift box to find a card inside, the writing on it flowing and elegant.

“Wishing you: always radiant.”

Xia Leyi smiled without a sound, took out her phone and photographed the card, then posted it to her social feed with the caption: “Only a Leo understands a Leo.”

After a while, she noticed that He Youyuan had liked her post, and had left a perfectly serious comment beneath it: “All the best.”

Xia Leyi really had reached her limit. She forced three words out from between her teeth: “Wretched creature.”

After getting that out of her system, she paused her finger on the screen, then tapped through to He Youyuan’s profile page. He still had the username he’d chosen a long time ago — unbearably smug-sounding, even now. She tapped into their chat history, and what greeted her were messages from a very long time ago.

She did like him. She genuinely did.

Xia Leyi remembered that when they’d first entered middle school, He Youyuan didn’t look nearly as good as he did now. Back then, he had a dark tan, very short-cropped hair, and hadn’t yet grown to any noticeable height. The aesthetic preferences of the girls in their class were strongly influenced by popular dramas — they tended to favor pale-skinned, neat-looking boys, and besides, they were all still children, unable to assess the quality of anyone’s features. All in all, apart from being a little mischievous, He Youyuan hadn’t made a particularly strong impression on anyone.

But somehow — after one winter passed — the class suddenly discovered that there was a strikingly good-looking boy in their midst, with clean, refined features, sitting at the back of the classroom in a languid slouch, all youthful energy when he smiled. Later he began to shoot up in height, got short-sighted and got glasses, and when he made himself look a bit more put-together, he successfully drew a steady stream of girls from other classes to their classroom windows to peek at him.

But Xia Leyi hadn’t paid him much attention at that point — he always slept in class, had poor grades, and had a kind of immature frivolity about him, which gave the impression of someone who was all surface and no substance. That type of boy held no appeal for her.

And then, in a twist of fate, a change of seating put He Youyuan directly behind her. They’d barely exchanged a word before the school’s discipline office teachers came into the classroom to carry out an inspection of students’ personal appearance. The school had strict standards: no long nails, no jewelry, girls’ fringe could reach no lower than the eyebrow, and boys’ hair couldn’t cover their ears. He Youyuan had gone a while without a haircut and was clearly not up to code — so in a moment of desperation, he poked her shoulder and borrowed a pink hair clip.

He Youyuan pushed the hair at his forehead to one side and clipped on the pink clip, then tucked his size-44 feet under his stool, curled one arm up into his sleeve and propped his chin on it, and let the other arm half-retract into the cuff so only half his fingers showed while he pretended to write in his exercise book — to anyone who knew him, his act was clumsy and obvious. And yet, impossibly, the discipline office teachers were completely taken in and assumed he was a girl.

Once the inspectors had moved on, Xia Leyi was curious what he looked like just then, and turned to look — and found him lifting his eyes from his exercise book, leaning loosely against her desk, head tilted, giving her a slow, lopsided smile, sharp-edged and brilliant.

Xia Leyi’s heart gave an immediate, unsteady lurch.

She’d underestimated just how good-looking he was, she thought.

A young girl’s heart can be captured in an instant. And once captivated, when she looked at him again, she couldn’t help but see him through a soft-focus filter. She’d once found him too immature — later she decided that actually, he was kind of fun that way. His grades were poor — so she proactively made excuses for him: well, he can draw, he can sing, that’s impressive too.

On her birthday, she’d asked He Youyuan for a drawing as a gift — a portrait of her. She’d never changed her QQ profile picture since.

Xia Leyi tapped on her profile picture.

Maybe it was just her imagination, but the drawing seemed to have faded a little, after all this time.

Perhaps because the clearest version of that painting had already been printed into her memory. She liked him — everyone knew it, he knew it too — but she had no way to be the one to express it, to pursue him. The only thing she could do was strike a lofty, unbothered pose and “tease” him, like a game of cat and mouse.

That was the pride she couldn’t put down.

Well — that was all over now. She was leaving. And he had someone he liked.

So be it, then.

Xia Leyi gave a faint sigh, about to put her phone away — but then she noticed something, and glanced sideways: Qi Yu, who had apparently opened his eyes at some point, was staring blankly ahead, his gaze either resting on her or focused on nothing at all.

She didn’t know whether he’d seen what she’d just been doing. She simply acted as though nothing had happened and slipped her phone into her pocket. She was about to look back down and continue unwrapping gifts when she heard Qi Yu say: “He seems to be with Li Kuiyi.”

So he had seen.

Xia Leyi’s hands paused; her lashes made a small movement. “Mm,” she said lightly. “I know.”

That was all thanks to Zhou Ce and his complete inability to keep anything to himself — like a sieve, every secret poured straight through.

“You never scored higher than Li Kuiyi — that’s a regret. Does not being with him feel like one too?”

Xia Leyi looked at Qi Yu: “Are you some kind of reporter?”

“I have a bit of a regret too,” Qi Yu said.

Xia Leyi naturally assumed Qi Yu’s regret was the same as hers — that he’d never once scored higher than Li Kuiyi. Seeing that he was being sincere, she gave an equally sincere answer to his question: “It is a bit of a regret.”

She had assumed, once, that she and He Youyuan would end up together — because they seemed so well suited, suited to the point where she felt like a proud princess, and he happened to be a prince.

“So what do you do about it?” Qi Yu asked quietly.

“What can you do? He doesn’t like me, and that’s just the way it is.” Xia Leyi said. “I’ll just have to go to America and date a few handsome boys and forget about that wretched creature.”

“Can you really forget?”

Xia Leyi thought about it: “Yes. Actually, I think it’s like that film says — your first love is just a small thing.”

In the brief, blazing passage of her youth, He Youyuan had left a vivid and significant mark — but cast across the whole long river of her life, there was perhaps nothing so difficult to let go of. She was going to America. She’d study there, perhaps work there, meet different people, experience different things. She had many goals she wanted to accomplish, and she believed she would keep on shining — maybe she really would have too little time to think of him.

So be it, then.

There was some regret. Just a little.

“You’re exceptional — that’s why you can be so free about it,” Qi Yu said with a bitter smile.

Xia Leyi turned to him: “What do you mean by that? As if you’re not exceptional.”

Qi Yu shook his head: “I’m just……like Zhou Ce said: a hand of great cards, completely squandered. If someone had given Li Kuiyi all the resources I’ve had from childhood, she’d have done far better than me with them. And the fact is, she hasn’t had those resources — and she’s still done better than me.”

“That part I’ll grant you — Li Kuiyi is quite remarkable. I genuinely think if you gave her two months to prepare for the IELTS, she’d score very well. But……” Xia Leyi stopped mid-sentence, and looked steadily at Qi Yu. “Are you so sure that what you’ve been dealt is a good hand?”

Qi Yu raised his eyes to meet Xia Leyi’s, and said nothing for a long, long time.

Li Kuiyi hadn’t been lying to Zhou Ce — she really did take the bus to Boya Bookstore and browse for a while, and came away with three books. It was Year Twelve now; she didn’t have nearly as much time for outside reading. But she still didn’t want to give up the habit, because she was afraid that once she put it down, it would be hard to pick back up. If she became someone who didn’t love reading, she would be very disappointed in herself.

Carrying the bookstore’s paper bag, she walked home at a light pace from the bus stop, and as she arrived at the entrance to her residential compound, she came to an abrupt halt.

It was Fang Zhixiao.

She was standing under a tree, also holding a paper bag — not a big one, but in a bright, cheerful colour that looked rather festive. Fang Zhixiao saw her too, but in the split second their eyes met, she turned her face slightly away.

Li Kuiyi wasn’t even sure whether she should walk over.

What had Fang Zhixiao come for? To make up, or to make it a clean break?

She couldn’t judge which was more likely. Was it to make up? If it were a clean break, the cheerful, festive paper bag would be completely out of place, wouldn’t it?

Li Kuiyi decided that her powers of deduction were still rather sharp.

But she absolutely did not want to make up. She wasn’t even her best friend anymore, as far as that went.

She let out an unconscious sound somewhere between a huff and a groan from the back of her throat, and turned her own face away.

The two of them stood there, each being stubborn, neither acknowledging the other. The security guard in the booth at the compound entrance probably found it odd, because he stuck his head out of his window to look — and even then both of them still hadn’t moved. The guard apparently decided it was none of his business and retreated back in to watch his television.

The chatter of the TV set filled the silence between them with an inconsequential, tepid noise.

After a while, Fang Zhixiao seemed to have finally had enough. She came striding over in a direct line, shoved the cheerful festive paper bag into Li Kuiyi’s hands, and said without a trace of grace: “This is a birthday present I bought for you a long time ago. The return period has passed, so I can’t take it back, and it’s taking up space sitting at home with no use for it, so I’m giving it to you now. Take it if you want it. Throw it away if you don’t.”

And having said that, without any pause, she strode away in a straight line, the ponytail at the back of her head bouncing with each step, without looking back once.

She had always been direct and forthright — but at this moment, she finally understood why some people chose to speak in roundabout ways. With no certainty that Li Kuiyi would forgive her, she really didn’t dare speak from the heart. One wrong move and she’d become a laughing stock.

Fang Zhixiao, you absolute coward, she scolded herself.

Li Kuiyi watched her figure grow smaller and smaller in the distance, until she disappeared in a rush onto a bus — and she couldn’t help herself from pouting with a touch of aggrieved feeling.

Of all the things!

Not a word about making up, and then going and saying something like that!

Fang Zhixiao, you’ve spent so long around me that you’ve learned to talk with your jaw locked, you stubborn thing.

Li Kuiyi took the gift toward the rubbish bin, made the motion of being about to throw it in, and then stopped. If the two of them shared some kind of telepathy, Fang Zhixiao would certainly have been furious — and she wanted to be infuriating, just for a moment.

Then she carried the gift home.

Sitting down at her desk, she carefully took the gift box out of the paper bag and opened it. Inside were a pair of silver bracelets — and hanging from them were two tiny, small silver longevity locks.

Wasn’t this a gift for a newborn?

There was a local custom: a mother would typically give her daughter a pair of silver bracelets at the one-month celebration, hung with longevity locks, as a wish for safety, health, and long life.

What was the meaning of this? Was Fang Zhixiao trying to be her mother?

Li Kuiyi picked up the bracelets, held them up in front of her eyes, and examined them carefully. The two tiny longevity locks chimed against each other, a bright and delicate ringing. Strange — absurd, even, as a gift — and yet she couldn’t stop her mouth from trembling as she looked at them. She let out a quiet, muffled sob, and the tears came.

Dear friend — thank you for coming into my life, and for giving me, once, the love I was missing.