Fang Zhuo had no idea why it was that every time she found herself without anywhere to go, she ran into Yan Lie.

She wasn’t sure whether to marvel at how small this city was, or at the cleverness of fate.

Seeing how listless she looked, Yan Lie let out a short laugh. “Coincidence.”

He was dressed in the simplest of t-shirts and shorts, a plastic bag in hand — clearly he’d come out in the middle of the night to buy snacks.

“Come on.”

Fang Zhuo said, “Treating me to a meal again?”

“Treating you to a bed.” Yan Lie beckoned to her. “My place is nearby, there’s no one home. If you’re not scared, come with me.”

Fang Zhuo thought to herself that she was practically on a first-name basis with the gods of poverty and bad luck — what was there left to be afraid of? She picked up her bag and followed him.

The night road was quiet and deserted; the loose slippers on Yan Lie’s feet made a rhythmic slapping sound against the ground.

He pulled a bottle of soda out of the bag and offered it to Fang Zhuo, who politely shook her head.

“Why are you out here?” Yan Lie asked. “This isn’t the direction back to school, is it?”

Fang Zhuo said vaguely, “Got lost.”

“Got lost last time too?”

Fang Zhuo gave a muffled “mm” in response.

“So am I your lucky star, then?” Yan Lie pointed at the quiet little lane lit in orange, tilting his head with a grin. “Passive pathfinding function activates whenever you’re lost — destination found, guide: Lielie.”

Fang Zhuo lifted her eyelids and looked flatly at the long shadow trailing behind him. “Then maybe it’s better not to run into you at all.”

“Whether you run into me or not doesn’t change the fact that you get lost,” Yan Lie said. “If I hadn’t found you, you’d have had no choice but to sleep out on the street again.”

Fang Zhuo tilted her head slightly, puzzled. “Why were you looking for me?”

Yan Lie froze for a moment, a trace of regret flashing through his eyes, mixed with a bit of confusion, but it was quickly hidden as his eyelids lowered.

Nothing, really.

He’d just looked it up and found there were very few buses running back from Li Village. If Fang Zhuo’s luck was bad, she might not make it back into the city in time to catch the last bus to school.

Bored sitting at home alone, he’d gone out and played some games with Zhao Jiayou. After his roommate had gone home for dinner, he wandered the streets for a while, and by the time he came to his senses, he’d somehow, as if drawn by some unseen force, ended up at the bus station. So he simply sat in a small shop nearby, watching the figures and traffic across the street.

But when the last bus pulled in and stopped, Fang Zhuo never got off.

Yan Lie thought to himself, self-mockingly, that he’d worried for nothing — she might well be staying the night out there; she’d never said she was coming back. He switched on his flashlight, ready to head home, never expecting to find this stray wanderer halfway there.

Yan Lie covered it up with a laugh. “Nothing, I was just messing with you. Did you actually believe me?”

Fang Zhuo was silent for a moment, then shot back, “…Do I look that stupid to you?”

Yan Lie chuckled low in his throat a couple of times and said nothing more.

The fact that he didn’t press her on the reason for her sorry state actually let Fang Zhuo breathe a little easier.

Yan Lie’s home was actually not close at all; the two of them walked for nearly an hour before reaching the door.

Halfway there, Fang Zhuo found herself thinking: this guy must’ve gotten his brain bitten muddled by mosquitoes — what was he doing wandering around in the middle of the night anyway.

Ahead of her, Yan Lie pulled out his keys and gestured for Fang Zhuo to come over.

The light switched on, illuminating a spacious, tastefully decorated apartment.

Fang Zhuo only gave it a cursory glance, not bothering to look closely at the details, and walked to the living room, sitting herself down properly on the sofa.

Yan Lie’s home didn’t have a guest room set up, but the sofa was big enough. He brought out a clean blanket and laid it on the sofa, pointed out where the bathroom was, and, seeing that she wasn’t entirely at ease, made himself scarce and went off to the master bedroom.

Fang Zhuo sat there awkwardly for a while, then brought her bag over to the coffee table.

Since she’d already slept on the bus, she wasn’t sleepy at all now, so she simply pulled out her workbook and worked through that week’s assignments.

Yan Lie wasn’t used to having someone else in the house, and he couldn’t sleep well to begin with — let alone with Fang Zhuo out there. He lay awake until the middle of the night, and seeing light leaking in through the gap under the door, got up to use the bathroom and found that Fang Zhuo was doing homework.

This diligent classmate of his didn’t switch off the living room light until two or three in the morning. Yan Lie noticed it in a drowsy haze and thought to himself that Fang Zhuo’s energy really was something — whatever power she’d absorbed during the day could keep her going that late into the night.

The next morning, Yan Lie was woken by the sound of a door opening and closing. Even though it had been done very quietly, he still felt, in his half-asleep state, a flash of cold sweat.

It took him two seconds to recall the events of the night before, and he hurried out of his room barefoot.

The living room looked almost untouched, as plain and quiet as before. A clear plastic bag hung from the front door handle — one glance told him it held soy milk and steamed buns.

Yan Lie pulled the door open and found Fang Zhuo outside, waiting for the elevator.

He raised a hand to ruffle his messy hair and asked, “Where are you headed?”

Fang Zhuo said, “Back to school?”

“I’m headed back too,” Yan Lie said. “I’ll go with you after breakfast. Do you know the way?”

That question was rather humiliating, but after a moment’s hesitation, Fang Zhuo turned and went back inside.

Yan Lie quickly got himself ready, ate breakfast, then went downstairs to get his bicycle and rode his desk-mate to school.

Fang Zhuo sat in the back, feeling like the sunlight today was especially blinding, her head spinning a little. She lowered it and leaned against Yan Lie’s back.

They’d set off early, so by the time they reached school, there weren’t many people there yet.

Fang Zhuo’s mind was a bit foggy; she went straight into the classroom and buried herself in her seat, working through problems. Yan Lie had meant to chat with her to pass the time, but seeing she had no real enthusiasm for it, he gave up and pulled out his phone to play games beside her instead.

Students trickled in one after another; the classroom grew lively for a while, then settled back into quiet.

In the afternoon, just after one period of self-study, the homeroom teacher walked in with her lesson folder tucked under her arm. She started with the usual morale-boosting talk for the class meeting, then had the class officers organize a general cleaning.

With sports day and the Mid-Autumn break both coming up soon, the senior grade had decided to get the hallways, restrooms, and other common areas cleaned ahead of time, so that the assigned duty students could just handle things quickly later and get home early.

The students got up to rearrange desks and chairs and clear the space.

Fang Zhuo drew mopping duty, assigned to the hallway section. She waited until the students sweeping had gone over it once, then slowly picked up the washed mop and got to work.

The homeroom teacher went over a few details with the PE committee member, then came back to inspect the work. Seeing Fang Zhuo’s brisk, efficient form, she nodded with satisfaction and said to a group of grinning, unserious boys nearby, “See that? That’s what mopping looks like. What do you call what you’re doing? Just skimming the surface — anyone can tell you never do chores at home.”

Zhao Jiayou said, “Now that’s not fair, Teacher. Sure our form isn’t textbook, but we’ve got strength! We scrubbed off all that years-old grime!”

Shen Musi chimed in loudly, “Right, you’re playing favorites, Teacher!”

“You two and your endless excuses — your cleaning is always half-baked,” the homeroom teacher said with distaste. “I’m not asking you to match Fang Zhuo’s standard, just don’t fall too far short of it, okay?”

While they were chatting and joking around, Fang Zhuo suddenly staggered a step backward, leaned against the wall, and slumped to the ground.

Catching it from the corner of his eye, Zhao Jiayou cried out in alarm, “Fang Zhuo!”

The group rushed over to gather around her.

The homeroom teacher held her up and called her name a few times, but Fang Zhuo showed no response — she’d clearly lost consciousness. The teacher said urgently, “Carry her to the infirmary, quick!”

Zhao Jiayou was slow to react; he’d just crouched down to lift her onto his back when Yan Lie seemed to materialize from some corner, grabbed Fang Zhuo’s hand directly, and hoisted her onto his own back instead, running after the homeroom teacher toward the infirmary.

·

Fang Zhuo’s dream was long and chaotic.

She seemed to be back in front of Ye Yuncheng’s old house, quietly watching the person inside through the window. Just like when she was little, standing in the corner of the yard, watching silently as the old woman knitted with such focus.

Grandmother didn’t like her.

Fang Zhuo had known this since she was very small.

The old woman always kept her eyes lowered, walking past her in silence. Her gaze rarely settled on Fang Zhuo, and a smile rarely touched the corners of her mouth.

She loved knitting clothes — knitting many clothes, to give to other people. When Fang Zhuo wanted to talk to her, clung to her, tried to get close to her, the old woman would always say: I’m busy. Go play somewhere else by yourself.

All Fang Zhuo could do was sit beside her and watch.

Fang Zhuo had been small then, and a noisy child besides — probably genuinely unlikeable. Having hit a wall with the one elder she had, she grew curious about her other family members. But whenever she asked questions like that, her grandmother’s brush-offs seemed barely even like brush-offs at all — she’d simply say there was no one, that Fang Zhuo had no other family.

Worn down by such coldness, Fang Zhuo, in that reckless period of her childhood, once tried running away from home, hoping to test how the old woman truly felt.

Perhaps a child’s little schemes always look painfully obvious to an adult, or perhaps the old woman was simply certain Fang Zhuo had nowhere else to go. The young child waited in the fields not far off, all the way into deep night, but no one ever came to fetch her.

Under the cover of night, the lamp in the yard stayed lit, then dimmed as deep night set in. The cicadas chirped on, loud and lively, while the doors and windows stayed shut the whole time.

Having finally faced reality, the child, miserable from mosquito bites, slunk back home on her own in the end.

After that, Fang Zhuo’s rebellious phase began. She started skipping class.

When the thin, wiry old woman found out, she simply picked up the schoolbag and tossed it straight into the paddy field outside, telling her, stern and cold: If you don’t want to study, then don’t. You can grow up to work the fields like everyone else here. Marry early, have children early, and stay in this place your whole life!

Fang Zhuo had been frightened, even though she couldn’t fully understand what those words meant at the time.

She’d picked up her bag and taken it to the river to wash. After that, she’d grown sensible — she came to understand that she shouldn’t go begging for anyone’s affection.

She had, in fact, been deeply hurt. Even now, looking back, she could still recall the salty, sour tears that had soaked into her pillow back then.

But it had also broken something rebellious in her, made her forget all the comparisons she shouldn’t have made, and steered her onto the proper path.

That was the first time she’d learned what reality meant.

Reality was a burden too heavy to bear, a tall wall toppling down upon her.

It was a future with no choices, a wandering with nothing to lean on.

During that time, Fang Zhuo often lay in the grass on the hill behind the house, basking in sunlight dappled by leaves overhead, the slow, lonely breeze of the woods drifting over her, thinking through all sorts of adolescent troubles on her own.

When the sun finally set, she’d hoist a basket of fresh grass onto her back and head home to feed the family’s rabbits.

That path home was always so very long, and every time it took Fang Zhuo a good while to walk it.

The evening glow cast the tangled, crisscrossing trees into stretches of hazy shadow. At the far end, a dim yellow light came on, like a distant cluster of stars at the edge of the sky.

She kept walking through the woods, for so long it felt as though the next day’s sun was about to rise, lighting up this quiet, deserted road.

Golden light would pierce through the heavy clouds, lighting the road ahead of her and behind.

Fang Zhuo frowned, tilting her head back to look at the sky brightening above her — the dream world grew blurred, and her hazy consciousness was finally tugged back by a beam of light sweeping across her eyelids.

She opened her eyes. Through a misty blur she made out a tall figure sitting with its back to the light.

She blinked hard, and once her vision cleared, she found herself lying on a small white bed. A gentle wash of sunset light was filtering through the glass onto her face.

It was that fading ray of sunlight that had woken her.

Without even turning around, Yan Lie reached out and tugged the curtain across, blocking out the light, and said, “I’ve got eyes in the back of my head, impressive, right?”

Fang Zhuo: “…”

“Fang Zhuo.”

Before she’d fully gathered her wits, Yan Lie suddenly turned around and called her name, very seriously.

Her throat itched; Fang Zhuo swallowed hard and asked, her voice hoarse, “What is it?”

Yan Lie opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment as if about to speak and then holding back, then said, with a seriousness that seemed half real, half put-on, “Did you know? You talk in your sleep.”

Taken in by his earnest expression, Fang Zhuo grew a little nervous. “What did I say?”

Yan Lie said, “Inverse trigonometric functions.”

Her train of thought twisted off into some other dimension entirely; she blurted out without thinking, “You’re making that up, that’s not even on this year’s exam syllabus.”

“Wow, you caught me.” Yan Lie laughed heartily, reaching over to tuck in the corner of the blanket. “Rest a bit more. The doctor said you’re just overtired. If you’re still feeling unwell, we’ll have to take you to the hospital.”

Fang Zhuo gave a muffled “mm.” She raised a hand to wipe her face and felt an odd dampness there. Before she could puzzle it out, Yan Lie held out a banana and asked, “Want this?”

Fang Zhuo felt as if she’d spent a very long time doing chores in her dream; feeling weak and drained, she took it from him.

She leaned against the headboard eating the banana while Yan Lie sat nearby playing on his phone.

Fang Zhuo’s gaze drifted over, and she asked, “What are you playing?”

“Just a little game.” Yan Lie waved his hand. “Want to play?”

Fang Zhuo didn’t refuse, so Yan Lie brought his phone over and sat beside her, teaching her how to play.

Bright colors and a cheerful soundtrack paired with simple, repetitive rules. Though it was just a simple puzzle game, Fang Zhuo played it through patiently a couple of rounds. She asked, “How is this made?”

Yan Lie didn’t quite know how to explain it. “You need art design, development, programming, testing, all that — it takes a whole team to make something like this.”

Fang Zhuo nodded, only half understanding, and handed the phone back to him, then sat there blankly, lost in thought.

Yan Lie asked, “What are you thinking about?”

Fang Zhuo said quietly, “About going to college.”

Yan Lie asked curiously, “Which university do you want to go to?”

Fang Zhuo shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Then what do you want to study?” Yan Lie glanced at his phone. “Computer science? Game programming?”

“I don’t know.” Fang Zhuo blinked slowly, her gaze unfocused. “I just want to know more things. That’s why I want to go to college.”

Defeated by her sheer thirst for knowledge, Yan Lie laughed. “Sure. They say the eyes are the windows of the soul — well, college is the window of learning, then.”

Fang Zhuo didn’t argue, just gave a small sound of agreement.

Seeing her go along with it so readily actually made Yan Lie feel a bit guilty, since he’d just made that line up on the spot. But on second thought, he decided it wasn’t wrong, either.

Two minutes later, Fang Zhuo wiped her face and climbed off the bed.

“Booting back up already? That speed would beat ninety-nine percent of users nationwide.” Yan Lie looked at her newly refreshed expression with curiosity. “Where to?”

Fang Zhuo said, “Back to study.”

Yan Lie was taken aback. “You like studying that much?”

Fang Zhuo: “No.”

“I don’t like it either,” Yan Lie said. “So why are you in such a hurry to get back?”

Fang Zhuo bent down to fold the blanket, saying with amusement, “What else would I do? Go find somewhere to cry?”

At that, Yan Lie shot her an odd look; but the moment Fang Zhuo looked back at him, he turned away again, pretending nothing had happened.

He stuffed his phone into his pocket and said, “I’ll walk you back to the classroom.”