That evening before school let out, the results of the monthly exam were finally made fully public.

As always, the top one hundred rankings for the entire grade were posted on the bulletin board outside the teaching building.

The top three were crowned in the most prominent place of all — the honor board — each with a personal six-inch photograph.

This time, to no one’s surprise, first place was Lu Rangchen.

His grades had been at the top of the rankings last semester, and lately he seemed to have put in a bit more effort — enough to take first place with effortless ease.

Many people were curious about his individual subject scores.

The moment the bell rang for dismissal, a crowd had already gathered around the bulletin board. Some debated the rankings earnestly; others chattered away, photographing his picture with their phones.

Yunque was an exception.

She only glanced briefly at the honor board from a distance before looking away to wait for Xu Linda.

Xu Linda had squeezed through the crowd for a long while before finally getting a photo of Lu Rangchen. The moment she returned, she excitedly thrust it in front of Yunque.

A blue-background identification photo. The young man was wearing his school uniform, his brow and eyes sharp and clear, upright and full of vitality.

Yunque looked at it quietly for a moment.

Xu Linda clicked her tongue in amazement. “How come our ID photos all come out looking so blank, but he looks this good even with a completely straight face?”

Yunque cast her eyes down, nudging a small pebble out of the way with her foot. “Because he’s heaven’s favored son, I suppose.”

Xu Linda wrinkled her brow. “Then the heavens are far too biased — letting all the good things fall to one person.”

Yunque paused, turning to look at her. “But I thought you really liked him.”

“Me?”

As if she’d just discovered something extraordinary, Xu Linda pointed at herself in exaggerated disbelief. “Who told you I liked him?”

Yunque’s eyes flickered.

Xu Linda rolled her eyes. “Please. I just admire someone who has it all together. That doesn’t mean I like him.”

She waved her phone. “And I’m not taking this photo to moon over him, either. I’m sending it to someone else.”

With that, she actually did send it.

As for who, Yunque had no way of knowing.

It was Xu Linda herself who told her — saying she was sending the photo to a friend of Lu Rangchen’s. “He said they’re at tennis practice right now and can’t come over, so he asked me to take a photo and save the moment.”

Yunque’s eyes went still for a moment.

She knew Lu Rangchen was on the school tennis team, but she never would have guessed that Xu Linda also knew one of Lu Rangchen’s friends.

Xu Linda tossed her a flirtatious wink. “Just met him recently, we haven’t quite reached the level of true comrades yet. I’ll introduce you sometime if I get the chance.”

“…”

Yunque shifted her gaze away without quite knowing why.

After a while, she said, “So he even cares about this kind of honor?”

Xu Linda lowered her eyes, replying to the message. “It’s not Lu Rangchen who cares — it’s his mother.”

It was the first time Yunque had heard anything about his family. Her heart beat a half-beat faster, embarrassingly out of her control.

Then Xu Linda added, “Lu Rangchen cares deeply about his mother.”

Without realizing it, the two of them had reached the school gate.

Xu Linda’s family driver was already waiting there. Even though Yunque still wanted to ask more, there was no opportunity. All she could do was wave goodbye to Xu Linda, then turn and head in the direction of the bus stop.

The bus wouldn’t come for a long while.

Yunque stood where she was for a moment, then took out her phone and opened the chat window with Lu Rangchen.

The red packet still hadn’t been collected.

There was not a single word between them.

Strangers, through and through.

She quietly swallowed the bittersweet feeling rising in her throat. After hesitating for a few seconds, she finally deleted the words “remember to collect the money” that she’d typed into the input box.

By then, the setting sun had stained the horizon a deep crimson, and a breeze drifted past. Without realizing it, she found herself looking in the direction of the school gymnasium.

She was suddenly wondering — how far was the distance between her and him?

Was it so far that she could never reach him, not in her entire life?

—

That day, Yunque ended up caught in the evening rush hour. The bus was nearly half an hour late by the time it finally arrived.

The road was badly congested for a long stretch after that, so by the time she reached Yanliuxiang, it was well past the usual dinner hour. She happened to pass a fried noodle shop on the way, and bought a portion on the spot.

Just as she reached the entrance of the residential compound, Deng Jiali came walking out of the building entrance alone, bag in hand.

Yunque’s steps faltered.

She followed Deng Jiali’s retreating figure with her eyes, wanting to call out “Auntie” — but Deng Jiali didn’t spare her so much as a glance. Red-eyed and radiating resentment, she strode toward the mouth of the alley.

“…” She suddenly had a very bad feeling.

And sure enough, the moment Yunque stepped inside, she sensed the atmosphere — almost deathly silent.

The sofa that Deng Jiaqiang had been occupying was now tidied up and neat. The kitchen, on the other hand, was a mess.

When she came in, the old woman — normally never quiet around her — said nothing at all as she held her grandson in her arms and coaxed him. But her expression was still sour.

Yunque had long since become immune to her. She simply turned to look at Zhu Ping’an.

The man was around forty. Weariness was etched into his face. He sat hunched on the sofa, smoking with a heavy fatigue.

Something vague and oppressive stirred in her chest. Yunque called out softly, “Dad.”

Zhu Ping’an’s fingertips trembled slightly. He sat up straighter and looked at her, forcing out a small smile. “Yunque is back — why so late? Have you eaten?”

Her grip on the plastic bag tightened.

Yunque said, “I have.”

She hesitated, then decided she needed to say it anyway. “Auntie went out alone. You should go after her.”

Zhu Ping’an’s expression shifted to surprise for a moment.

Before he could react, Yunque had already turned and gone back to her room.

The bedroom had a bowl and chopsticks she used for takeout. She set the fried noodles down in the bowl, still in their plastic bag, and hadn’t even picked up her chopsticks before the bedroom door was knocked open.

It was Zhu Ping’an.

He spotted the meager dinner on Yunque’s desk and visibly startled. “Didn’t you say you’d already eaten?”

Yunque looked at him without expression. “I was just about to.”

Zhu Ping’an: “…”

Guilt welled up in him without warning. After a long pause, he closed the door and came inside.

The bedroom became a small world sealed off for just the two of them.

Yunque ate her noodles quietly. After quite a while, Zhu Ping’an finally opened up and spoke from the heart.

“Yunque, your father thought carefully about this today. Whatever the reason your grades slipped, it’s my fault. I wasn’t taking proper care of you — that’s why it happened.”

“As for your auntie — I really didn’t expect it would affect you this much. Jiaqiang is her only family, her only blood relative. She can’t bear to turn him away.”

“But no matter what, I failed to handle this properly. I caused you pain and fear, and that’s on me.”

“So I’ve decided — I’ll have Deng Jiaqiang move out for the time being. And as for your mother—”

At that, Yunque’s chopsticks paused, and she finally looked up.

Zhu Ping’an hesitated, then spoke with measured weight. “If — and I’m only saying if — I let you go and live with your mother for this year and a half before your college entrance exam, would you hate me for it?”

“Your mother knows about your situation and is very worried. As it happens, she’s planning to come back to Nancheng for business recently, and she suggested wanting to take you in with her.”

“I just don’t know whether you’d be willing.”

His voice trailed off.

The man watched Yunque with an anxious, searching gaze.

Afraid that her sensitive, reserved nature might lead her to misunderstand.

But he was overthinking it.

Yunque didn’t hesitate for even a second. “I’m willing.”

Perhaps because her response was too calm, Zhu Ping’an’s face showed unmistakable surprise.

He wanted to say more, but after a prolonged, uncertain silence, he found he had no grounds to press Yunque further. Without another word, he quietly left her bedroom.

Not long after, Yunque heard Zhu Ping’an making a phone call in the living room — to Feng Yanlai.

The gist of it was that Feng Yanlai needed more time before she could return. In the meantime, Zhu Ping’an would take good care of Yunque, and he wouldn’t let Deng Jiaqiang come back.

Yunque’s grip on her chopsticks tightened.

The heavy storm cloud of feelings that had gathered in her chest seemed, like dispersing mist, to quietly gather and then drift apart without her noticing.

The next morning, she told Xu Linda and Ye Tian about it.

Ye Tian sent back a brief, flat congratulations.

Yunque stared at her phone for a moment, then didn’t reply.

Xu Linda, by comparison, was the supportive enthusiast — always reliable in her warmth.

On the way to the little supermarket before morning study hall ended, she lit up with repeated “really?”s and offered her congratulations, saying Yunque wouldn’t have to put up with that disgusting man anymore.

Yunque smiled and said she hoped so.

No sooner had the words left her mouth than her phone chimed with another notification.

Yunque’s brow twitched without reason. It was a red-packet-returned notification.

Xu Linda was picking two big White Rabbit ice creams from the freezer. Seeing Yunque’s expression, she asked what was wrong.

Yunque: “…”

She pushed down the faint drop of emotion and put her phone away, shaking her head. “Nothing.”

The two of them walked back, eating their ice creams. Along the way, they passed the honor board at the bulletin board again.

In the first-place photo, the young man looked cool and arrogant. Even expressionless, his handsome face seized your attention the moment you laid eyes on it.

In a moment when Xu Linda wasn’t looking, Yunque stole a second, longer glance.

Back in the classroom, she asked Xu Linda a question that came to her out of nowhere. “If you owe someone money and you send them a red packet, but they don’t collect it — why would that be?”

Xu Linda looked up from her practice workbook, blinking. “What kind of person turns down money being paid back to them?”

Yunque tried to sound as casual as she could. “Sort of someone I don’t know that well.”

Xu Linda had rarely seen her anything but composed. She grinned and leaned closer. “Oh, look at you, Zhu Yunque. Something interesting going on.”

Yunque pretended to be exasperated. “Can you please not say things like that.”

Knowing she didn’t take teasing well, Xu Linda said “alright, alright,” then turned to give the matter genuine thought.

“Generally speaking, there are three possibilities. One: he’s wealthy and doesn’t care about the money. Two: his brain isn’t working right and he forgot. And as for the third—”

Yunque’s lashes shifted.

Xu Linda said, “He likes you. He wants an excuse to talk to you again.”

“…”

Yunque’s hand jerked. The pencil lead she was in the middle of replacing snapped clean off.

She gave Xu Linda an incredulous stare. Xu Linda laughed with a mischievous gleam in her eye. “I’m just stating facts. Our Yunque is so quiet and pretty — lots of boys would like her.”

That sudden remark left Yunque at a complete loss.

All she could do was look away again, bow her head over her fill-in-the-blank exercises, and try to bring some order to the thoughts spinning out of control inside her.

She thought: there might well be boys who liked her.

The only one who couldn’t possibly be that person was Lu Rangchen.

She and he were like the moon in the sky, and a flower doing its utmost to bloom in a pond.

The moonlight happened to fall on the petals.

That was not the moon showing any particular tenderness toward the flower.

—

That inexplicable low mood was perhaps every girl’s teenage constant. For several days running, Yunque had no energy to speak of. Yet contradictorily, when it came to studying, she was possessed by an almost fierce drive.

In Xu Linda’s words: before, she only ever thought about studying. Now it seemed studying was all she had.

While the endless stack of exam papers ground other students into sighing despair, Yunque seized every possible moment to immerse herself in a sea of questions. The little time left over, she spent only with Xu Linda.

Xu Linda thought she had lost her mind.

One failed exam — was there any need to be this extreme?

What she didn’t know was that this score had nothing to do with Yunque’s real ability.

Even counting the English and Chinese composition sections she had deliberately answered terribly, her actual score was only two points below Gaoge’s — ranking 41st in the entire grade.

That ranking was what she found unacceptable.

Between her and Lu Rangchen, there were 40 people separating them. That was a full Class A. And that was precisely why she had suddenly become fixated on Class A.

But her personality was stubbornly contrary.

Everyone else was racking their brains to make their existence known to Lu Rangchen, while Yunque only wanted to keep out of his way.

She stopped furtively glancing in his direction during between-class exercises. On the way back to the classroom, she no longer made a point of casually drifting her gaze toward the back door of Class A.

It was as if — as long as she didn’t see him, the uncontrollable thoughts wouldn’t spring to life in her heart.

But because of it, she also realized that Lu Rangchen had seemingly never entered her life from the very beginning. It was her own attention that had conjured his presence into being.

With that thought, Yunque found it almost funny.

The name Lu Rangchen had wound its way around her heart a thousand times over. But in his heart, she was no more than a stranger whose name he didn’t even know.

Because of that single thought, September of that year tasted of nothing but grey.

Yunque felt as if she had sealed herself inside an airtight glass jar.

One time, during physical education class, Class B happened to share the session with Class A. When the PE teacher announced free time, she still didn’t look at Lu Rangchen once. She only exchanged a quick wave with Xu Linda, then went straight back to the classroom.

Out on the basketball court, the boys played with full-throttle abandon. Girls’ shrieks rose and fell without end.

Every now and then someone called out “Lu Rangchen” — like a spell hovering in the air that refused to fade.

Yunque pressed her lips together, and from start to finish, never once looked out the window.

Time passed imperceptibly until the National Day holiday arrived.

Nancheng No. 3 High, being a top-tier school, gave its second-year students only three days off.

The first day of the holiday happened to be Xu Linda’s birthday.

Her parents were both out of town, and she didn’t want to spend it with just anyone, so she asked Yunque.

As her best friend, Yunque said yes without question. That evening, Xu Linda proceeded to give her the first taste of rebellion in her life — makeup, permed hair, and a bar.

The ordinarily clean-cut and bookish girl set aside her glasses, put in a pair of pretty colored contacts, and traded her good-girl aesthetic for a cool, breezy tank top.

The sudden transformation seemed to paint that night in a different color entirely.

Not only did Xu Linda declare that Yunque looked gorgeous like this, but the boys at the neighboring table inside the bar kept glancing over without subtlety, their looks unmistakably warm with interest.

Yunque didn’t quite know how to handle it. She was about to ask Xu Linda if they could switch seats, when the stage inside the bar suddenly lit up.

The evening show had begun.

There was a performance getting ready on stage.

At first Yunque simply looked toward the stage in calm curiosity — until she saw that familiar silhouette: upright, untamed, and entirely unmistakable.

A young man stood in the center of the stage with a guitar in his arms.

The overhead light carved his arms into clean, powerful lines. His features, already sharp and handsome in daylight, now held an added edge of wildness and rough-hewn charm.

Lu Rangchen lowered his eyes. His long fingers plucked gently at the strings. His low, gritty voice carried through the microphone during the sound check, threading steadily through the noise into her ears.

Yunque’s heartbeat stumbled, missing a beat without warning.

The tumult of emotion she had suppressed for nearly half a month collapsed all at once and came flooding out.

Xu Linda recognized Lu Rangchen and immediately grabbed Yunque’s slender arm, shrieking with excitement. “Lu Rangchen — it’s actually Lu Rangchen! What is he doing here?!”

Yunque felt dazed, as if none of it were real.

She shook her head dumbly and said she had no idea.

In a state of bewildered confusion, she watched him accompany two songs for someone else, then step down from the stage. Xu Linda grabbed Yunque and stood up.

The alcohol was getting to her a little, and the noise left Yunque in a fog. “Where are we going?”

Xu Linda was buzzing with excitement. She raised her voice. “Come on — I’m introducing you to some new friends!”

And so Yunque followed her, not quite sure where she was headed, into the backstage lounge. The moment she stepped inside, she found herself face to face with Lu Rangchen — black T-shirt, jeans.

Beneath the harsh white light, the young man was sprawled loosely on a sofa, having just finished a bottle of ice water.

Sensing them enter, Lu Rangchen swallowed, and his dark, unhurried gaze drifted over to them.

That cool, clear look carried a casual, insolent confidence.

Like a bullet of lethal force, it found her heart with perfect aim and left behind a shuddering, breathless crack.

Yunque froze where she stood.

At that moment, Deng Zhe appeared from another room, caught sight of Xu Linda at the door, and let out a surprised laugh. “That was fast — you said you’d come and here you are.”

Clearly the two of them had arranged this in advance. Xu Linda grinned brightly. “Of course.”

She dragged the bewildered Yunque inside. “While I’m at it, let me introduce my friend.”

Deng Zhe naturally looked at the girl standing stiffly behind Xu Linda.

Wispy bangs. Loosely wavy hair half-pulled up into a princess bun. A breezy white tank dress. Pure and fresh, with a faint hint of youthful awkwardness.

He blinked, apparently not recognizing her.

Before he could say anything, Lu Rangchen tossed his empty water bottle with a clean thud into the bin in the corner.

“No need for introductions. We know each other.”

Two languid, unhurried words, low and magnetic.

The small lounge went quiet.

Xu Linda made a startled sound and looked from Yunque to Lu Rangchen. “You know each other??”

Lu Rangchen didn’t answer — just let the hint of a smile hover at his lips.

Yunque, pinned by his gaze until her fair skin flushed pink, pulled her hands into loose fists without realizing it. “Are you sure you know me?”

His dark eyes settled on her for two seconds.

Lu Rangchen gave an exasperated laugh. “Do I look senile to you?”

Yunque: “…”

Lu Rangchen narrowed his brow in genuine bewilderment. “Besides, I called out to you that time at the bus stop. You forgot?”