Ten days before the college entrance exam, the school finally let everyone go.
The grade director stood on the podium and announced that from that day on, there would be no more scheduled classes. Students could review independently according to their own needs.
Mianmian returned home. Her desk was still the same desk, but no one handed her countdown cards anymore, no one led her in reciting ancient texts during morning reading, and no one peeked through the window during evening self-study to check if she was there.
It was just her, and the half-meter-high stack of review materials in front of her.
On the first morning, she completed two mock exams, checked the answers, and found she had gotten seven questions wrong that she shouldn’t have. She copied those seven questions into her mistake notebook, and as she wrote, tears began to fall.
In the afternoon, she went through an entire English vocabulary book, but when she closed it, she couldn’t remember the first word she had just memorized.
In the evening, she sat at her desk in a daze. Her eyes felt dry and swollen, her temples throbbed, and a tension bordering on breaking point spread from her spine to her fingertips.
Formulas and words clashed in her mind, while that colossal monster loomed just ten days away, casting a huge shadow.
Just as she could almost hear the faint snapping of her nerve fibers, a soft sound of a key turning in the lock came from the living room, followed by Jiang Yu’an’s voice, always tinged with a hint of nonchalance:
“Hey, has the kid studied herself silly?”
His eyes and brows carried the weariness of consecutive shifts. Leaning against the doorframe with his hands in his pockets, he looked utterly carefree.
“The air on the sports field is better for your physical and mental health than in this room. Come on, follow me downstairs for a half-hour break.”
He took the pen from her hand, tossed it onto the desk, then grabbed her wrist and pulled her up from the chair, dragging her along like a reluctant cat being taken outside.
She was dragged out the door, dragged downstairs, and dragged onto the cinder track she had walked countless times.
The evening breeze was still cool, feeling pleasant against her face. In the distance, a dog barked; nearby, insects chirped. The sky overhead hadn’t completely darkened yet, deep blue and light purple swirling together like watercolors bleeding into one another.
He walked along the track at a steady pace, just fast enough for her to keep up.
Jiang Yu’an started off with a tone that was almost playful and provocative: “In ‘The Red Cliff Ode,’ the guest’s sorrow stems from which three aspects?”
Mianmian, still mired in the quagmire of math, was abruptly pulled back into the world of ancient texts. She paused for a second, then her competitive spirit instantly overwhelmed her fatigue, and she answered rapidly: “First, lamenting the brevity of life like a mayfly; second, envying the endlessness of the Yangtze River; third, resenting the conflict between ideals and reality, knowing they cannot be easily attained.”
“Correct.”
He raised an eyebrow and immediately threw out the next question: “Then how does Master Su use the metaphor of water and the moon to resolve it?”
Mianmian walked briskly while thinking quickly, the night breeze brushing against her flushed cheeks:
“The passing of things is like this river, yet it never truly departs; the waxing and waning are like the moon, yet ultimately nothing is lost or gained… For if we observe things from the perspective of change… then all things and I are boundless.”
She was slightly out of breath.
Jiang Yu’an never missed a chance to tease:
“Your recitation is decent, but your running speed doesn’t match your brain speed. Next question: the specific steps and energy changes in the Calvin cycle during the dark reaction of photosynthesis.”
Jiang Yu’an always managed to pinpoint the gaps in her knowledge that still needed review. At first, Mianmian was driven by a stubborn determination not to lose to him, but gradually, she became immersed in this mental stimulation.
It made her feel a kind of thrilling intellectual excitement even at the peak of physical exhaustion.
Sweat trickled down her temples, panting breaths intertwined with quick, sharp questions and answers, the night concealing the growing brightness in her eyes.
It was a pure, physical pleasure.
Returning home, she showered and lay in bed, feeling her mind no longer chaotic. Those knowledge points seemed to have been reorganized, neatly lined up and ready to be used at any moment.
This became their unspoken nightly ritual.
Half an hour of brisk walking or jogging, interspersed with rapid-fire question-and-answer rounds, the topics wildly imaginative.
The fragrance of the pagoda tree flowers grew fainter day by day, the stars in the sky shifting positions each night.
She didn’t know why he could come back every day. He was clearly in the middle of his rotation training, busy to the point of barely touching the ground, yet he appeared punctually at the door each day, looking as if he just happened to be free and decided to take her for a walk.
Until one night, she got up to drink water and overheard him on the balcony, talking on the phone.
“Alright, senior, an emergency surgery, right? I’ll be right there. I swapped night shifts with Xiao Liu… just these few days, it’ll be back to normal after the college entrance exams…”
She didn’t say anything, quietly returning to her room.
Three days before the exams, a weather warning was issued—a typhoon was passing through.
The family began stocking up on water and food. Father Jiang moved all the flowerpots from the balcony inside, while Teacher Zhao repeatedly checked that all the windows and doors were tightly shut.
By evening, fierce winds and torrential rain battered the windows, the world outside a chaotic, mournful howl.
At seven o’clock, the power went out.
The entire building plunged into darkness, with only occasional flashes of lightning outside the window.
Teacher Zhao fumbled in the dark for a flashlight, handing her one, then lit two candles and placed them on the table.
“Your Uncle Jiang and I have to go to work for our shift. You stay home alone, don’t go outside.”
The flickering, dim light cast enlarged, restless shadows on the wall.
Mianmian had a fear of darkness rooted in childhood memories of loneliness—darkness meant late nights when her mother hadn’t returned, the eerie creaking of the old house, and endless waiting.
She sat on the sofa hugging her knees when suddenly, the sound of the door lock turning echoed through the room.
Jiang Yu’an had actually rushed back through the storm.
Leaning against the doorframe, the light illuminated half of his face, his outline shifting between light and shadow.
“Isn’t the hospital busy?”
“I swapped shifts with someone,” he said, his tone casual. “Anyway, with this kind of weather, the emergency room can’t be that busy.”
He picked up a candle and headed toward his room without looking back. “Come to my room, let’s study together.”
She hurried after him.
She had been to Jiang Yu’an’s room a few times before but had never really looked around. It was always to borrow or return books or ask questions—she’d stand at the door, take what she needed, and leave. This time, she walked in, standing in the middle of the room, taking a proper look at the place for the first time.
The room wasn’t large—a bed, a desk, a bookshelf, and a wardrobe. The bookshelf was crammed with various medical books, tightly packed together, some spines frayed from frequent use.
He lit two candles, placing one on the desk and the other on the bedside table. The flickering candlelight bathed the entire room in a warm, yellowish glow, creating a cozy world entirely separate from the raging storm outside.
“Sit,” he pointed to the chair in front of the desk. “Keep reviewing.”
She sat down, spreading out her test papers and picking up a pen.
He also sat down by the bed, opening a book.
Outside, the wind grew stronger, howling mournfully, occasionally accompanied by the distant sound of something being blown over. Rain lashed against the glass, pattering like someone scattering beans against the window.
But she wasn’t as afraid anymore.
The rustling sound of him turning pages mingled with the wind and rain outside the window, creating a sense of comfort.
Late into the night, Mianmian’s stomach let out a soft growl.
Jiang Yu’an looked up at the sound. “Tsk, mental work burns too much energy. Wait here.”
He stood up, his tall figure holding the candlestick as he disappeared into the kitchen doorway.
The warm, peaceful atmosphere now made Mianmian’s eyelids feel as heavy as lead.
At first, she only intended to rest her head on the table for a moment, but exhaustion washed over her like a tide, completely overwhelming her. Unconsciously seeking a more comfortable spot, her body slid toward the nearby bed with its dark blue sheets, and she was almost instantly pulled into a deep, dreamless sleep.
In the kitchen, Jiang Yu’an was skillfully frying eggs by candlelight, the sizzling sound filling the air as the aroma spread.
Using the limited ingredients in the fridge, he quickly prepared two decent-looking bowls of noodle soup, deliberately adding an extra egg to Mianmian’s bowl.
When he returned to the room carrying the tray, the sight that greeted him made him freeze in place, his breath catching in his throat.
She was lying on his bed.
Her face buried in his pillow, breathing evenly. Her usually tense little face was now completely relaxed, her long eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath her eyelids, her lips slightly parted, like a sleeping cat.
The fabric of her nightgown was soft, rising and falling gently with her breath, clinging to her body and outlining curves he had never noticed before.
His gaze trailed down her body, past her waist, past her hips, past her legs pressed together and slightly curled.
When had she grown into this?
No longer the thin, stubborn little girl from his memory, she now, in the dim yellow light, displayed a natural, serene beauty belonging to a mature woman—soft, rounded lines and quiet grace.
That beauty held no aggression, yet because it appeared in his private space, on his bed, it suddenly possessed a breathtaking impact.
He caught her scent.
A deeply intimate fragrance, a mix of a girl’s fresh natural scent and faint soap, silently invaded his senses, seeped into his nostrils, and traveled down with his breath, deeper and deeper.
A jumble of shock, unfamiliar stirrings, and intense panic, as if an invisible hand had clenched his heart, instantly overwhelmed Jiang Yu’an.
The nerves that had remained calm and composed for years in the face of blood, life, and fragile human bodies now seemed to falter.