The rain in Linchuan had been falling continuously from late March straight through April.
It washed the camphor leaves on campus until they gleamed, weighing down the lower tips of the branches. Whenever a stray breeze swept past, strings of water droplets cascaded from the leaves, clattering sharply and faintly against the tin roof outside the corridor.
It was two minutes after the morning study bell rang when the back door of Class 2-3 was pushed open.
The originally noisy classroom fell quiet for a moment.
Standing at the door was a youth wearing the unified blue-and-white uniform of Linchuan High School. His zipper was pulled up neatly to his chest, and a black backpack slung over one shoulder. Likely because he had walked here in a hurry, tiny droplets of water clung to the tips of his hair, and a few strands of black hair across his forehead were dampened by the rainy mist, sticking close to his brow bone.
He did not walk straight in, but simply stood by the doorway, quietly waiting for the teacher on the podium to speak.
“Everyone, put down your books.”
The head teacher, Zhou Lan, closed her Chinese textbook and waved toward the door.
“Come on in.”
Only then did the youth step into the classroom.
Dozens of gazes landed on him, filled with curiosity as well as unreserved scrutiny. He seemed long accustomed to such scenes; his expression didn’t change much, and he merely gave Zhou Lan a polite nod when he reached the side of the podium.
Zhou Lan picked up a piece of chalk and wrote three characters on the right side of the blackboard:
Shen Zhiyao.
The handwriting was delicate and upright, much like her own gentle tone of voice when she spoke.
“This is our new transfer student, Shen Zhiyao.” Zhou Lan turned around. “Due to family matters, his enrollment procedures were delayed for a while. Starting today, he is a member of our class. Everyone please look out for one another, and if he has any questions about our course progress, lend him a hand as well.”
A scattering of applause echoed in the classroom.
In the very last row, someone asked in a low voice, “Where did he transfer from?”
Another person replied, “No idea, but he looks pretty hard to approach.”
The voices weren’t loud, but they were just enough for the surrounding few rows to hear.
Shen Zhiyao did not turn around, nor did he act like he had heard them. He picked up a piece of chalk and wrote a simple line next to his name:
“Hello everyone, my name is Shen Zhiyao.”
After saying that, he set the chalk back down.
He did not introduce his previous school, spoke of no hobbies, and offered no explanation as to why he had transferred in the middle of the semester.
Zhou Lan waited for two seconds, as if confirming whether he had finished speaking.
“That’s all?”
Shen Zhiyao paused briefly.
“That’s all.”
Someone in the classroom couldn’t hold back a small snort of laughter.
Zhou Lan didn’t make things difficult for him, however. She simply looked toward the back of the room, her eyes lingering on a few seats for a moment.
Class 2-3 had forty-eight students in total, arranged in pairs per desk. The seats had just been shuffled last week, and currently, only the empty seat in the second-to-last row by the window remained.
The boy next to the empty seat was sprawled across his desk, half his face buried in the crook of his arm, while his other hand held a pen—its tip resting motionless over a multiple-choice question on an English exercise sheet.
Seeming to notice the sudden silence around him, he raised his head and looked around in confusion.
“Cheng Ye.”
Zhou Lan tapped on the podium.
“Here!”
Cheng Ye straightened up out of pure reflex. His eyes, which had been hazy with sleep a second ago, snapped wide open, and he answered with utmost clarity.
The classroom instantly burst into a wave of laughter.
Zhou Lan said helplessly, “The new student will sit next to you for now. Clear off your desk so he actually has room to put his books.”
Cheng Ye looked down at the test papers, notebooks, and snack wrappers cluttering half his desk, quickly scooping them all into his arms at once.
“Right away.”
Shen Zhiyao walked down the aisle toward him.
The closer he got to the window, the clearer the sound of the rain became.
Cheng Ye had already cleared off half the desk surface and even wiped it down twice with a tissue. Then, he bent over to shove a pair of basketball shoes resting on the chair beside him under the desk.
“Have a seat here.”
He shuffled toward the wall and took the initiative to pull out the chair for Shen Zhiyao.
Shen Zhiyao glanced at him.
Cheng Ye’s hair wasn’t cut very long, but because he had been sleeping flat on his desk earlier, it was pressed into a messy tuft. His uniform jacket wasn’t zipped properly, revealing a white short-sleeved shirt underneath. Probably because he ran warm, his sleeves were pushed up to his elbows, exposing a section of clean-lined forearms.
His eyes were very bright, and when he smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkled slightly, making him look like the type of person who could become familiar with anyone in no time.
“Thank you.”
Shen Zhiyao set his backpack down.
He sat down in the window seat, the chair legs scraping against the floor with a short, sharp sound.
Cheng Ye glanced at his backpack, and then at his empty desktop.
“Did you pick up your textbooks yet?”
“Got them.”
“What about homework notebooks?”
“Got those too.”
“That’s good.” Cheng Ye lowered his voice. “You don’t need to worry too much about the course progress Teacher Zhou mentioned. In math, we’re on solid geometry; in physics, we just started electric fields; and in English”
“Unit Three,” Shen Zhiyao said.
Cheng Ye blinked, stunned.
“You know?”
“I checked the syllabus before coming.”
“Oh.”
Cheng Ye rubbed the tip of his nose, seemingly realizing at last that he might be coming on a bit too enthusiastic.
On the podium, Zhou Lan reopened her Chinese textbook.
“Alright, back to morning reading. I’ll do a spot check later on ‘The Arduous Road to Shu’ that was assigned for memorization yesterday.”
A dragged-out chorus of groans immediately echoed through the room.
Cheng Ye’s expression changed instantly as he hurriedly flipped through his book.
“I’m dead,” he muttered in a voice meant for only the two of them.
Shen Zhiyao pulled out his textbook and turned to the page marked by a bookmark, keeping silent.
Cheng Ye hurriedly scanned two lines, unable to stop himself from leaning over.
“Do you know how to recite it?”
“Yes.”
“The whole poem?”
“Mhm.”
“Didn’t you just get the textbook yesterday?”
Shen Zhiyao didn’t explain.
Outside the window, the wind grew stronger, and raindrops beat diagonally against the glass. The reading voices in the classroom rose and fell in waves, everyone reciting at different parts, merging into a blur of sound.
Cheng Ye stared at his book for a while, then suddenly pushed the textbook toward the space between them.
“Then give me a hint later.”
Shen Zhiyao raised his eyes.
“What?”
“If Teacher Zhou walks over, just cough.”
“You’ll be saving a life.”
Cheng Ye pressed his palms together, his expression utterly sincere.
Shen Zhiyao looked at him, as if evaluating whether this person was actually being serious.
A few seconds later, he lowered his head again.
“The teacher is behind you.”
Cheng Ye’s body froze solid.
Sure enough, Zhou Lan’s voice sounded from right behind him.
“Cheng Ye.”
“Here!”
“Looks like you prepared thoroughly.”
“It’s… alright.”
“Then let’s start from ‘Where the west wind crowns Taibai with a bird-track path’.”
Cheng Ye held his book and stayed silent for a full three seconds.
Around them, several people gradually couldn’t hold back their giggles.
Shen Zhiyao turned his face to the side, looking out the window.
The glass reflected his own blurred outline, as well as Cheng Ye’s expression of walking to his execution.
“Where the west wind crowns Taibai with a bird-track path, one can cut across… cut across…”
Cheng Ye stalled for a long time.
From beside him came an extremely faint sound.
“Mount Emei’s peak.”
He turned his head.
Shen Zhiyao was still gazing out the window, his expression nonchalant, looking as if he had said nothing at all.
Cheng Ye picked it up instantly: “One can cut across Mount Emei’s peak! Earth crumbled and mountains collapsed, brave men perished; only then did the sky ladders and stone paths link together…”
He stumbled through the next few lines. Whenever he paused for too long, a barely audible prompt would always come from his side.
Zhou Lan stood in the aisle, her gaze sweeping between the two of them, though she didn’t expose them.
Only after Cheng Ye barely scraped through his recitation did she speak.
“Sit down. Copy the whole poem once tonight and hand it to me tomorrow.”
“Understood, Teacher Zhou.”
After sitting down, Cheng Ye let out a long, heavy sigh of relief.
He propped his book up in front of his face and whispered, “Thanks.”
“No need.”
“Didn’t you just say you wouldn’t help?”
“I never said that.”
Cheng Ye thought about it carefully; he really hadn’t.
He grinned. “Well, you’re pretty loyal.”
Shen Zhiyao’s hand holding the pen paused slightly.
Loyal.
They had known each other for less than ten minutes.
He didn’t respond, merely writing down the date in the blank margin of his Chinese textbook.
April 13th, Monday.
Raining outside.
After morning reading ended, the classroom grew lively once again.
A few classmates gathered around Shen Zhiyao’s desk. Someone asked what school he used to go to, someone asked how his grades were, and someone else took an interest in the black camera bag sitting on the corner of his desk.
“Is that a camera inside?”
Just as a hand was about to touch the zipper, Shen Zhiyao moved the bag down by his legs a step ahead.
The movement wasn’t heavy, yet it carried an obvious refusal.
The boy who had reached out felt a bit awkward.
“I was just looking.”
“Sorry,” Shen Zhiyao said. “You can’t touch it.”
The guy clicked his tongue and turned to walk away.
The people around who had originally wanted to keep chatting gradually dispersed as well.
Cheng Ye had just returned from the office, holding a stack of exercise workbooks. He placed them on the podium, pulled one out from the top, and walked back to his seat.
“This one’s yours.”
He placed a brand-new issue of English Weekly on Shen Zhiyao’s desk.
Shen Zhiyao took it. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to say thank you every time,” Cheng Ye said as he sat down. “It sounds strangely formal.”
Shen Zhiyao lowered his head to flip through the paper, offering no reply.
Cheng Ye turned his body sideways and noticed that he had placed the camera bag in the innermost corner by the window, with the zipper pull facing toward his own side—as if silently drawing a boundary line.
“They were just curious. They didn’t mean any harm.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you”
“Knowing there’s no bad intent doesn’t mean I have to accept it.”
His tone remained entirely calm.
Cheng Ye opened his mouth.
There was actually nothing wrong with that sentence, but coming from Shen Zhiyao’s mouth, it always had a way of shutting people outside the door.
“Fair enough.”
Cheng Ye didn’t ask further.
First period was math class.
The math teacher’s surname was Chen, a middle-aged man who spoke very fast. He didn’t slow down the pace just because there was a new transfer student in class; as soon as he stepped inside, he wrote a solid geometry problem on the blackboard.
“Who still hasn’t corrected this problem from yesterday?”
The classroom was dead silent.
“Nobody?”
Teacher Chen looked around the room, then pointed toward the window seat.
“New student, you come try this one.”
Cheng Ye subconsciously knitted his brows.
The question was a comprehensive example taught a few days ago, and the solution was by no means simple. Shen Zhiyao had just transferred here today, and he might not even know which set of supplementary materials they were using.
“Teacher, he just”
Shen Zhiyao had already stood up.
“Do I need to write out the steps?”
Teacher Chen raised his chin slightly. “Write them.”
Shen Zhiyao walked up to the podium and took the chalk.
The youth had a lean frame, making the school uniform look a bit loose on him. The lines of the diagram on the board were complex, but after studying it for only a moment, he drew auxiliary lines to the side.
The classroom gradually quieted down.
The chalk stroked across the blackboard, leaving behind crisp and neat white handwriting. Shen Zhiyao didn’t copy the conventional textbook solution; instead, he first proved that two planes were perpendicular, and then calculated the angle using spatial vectors.
The steps were concise, with almost no pauses.
Teacher Chen, who had initially stood to the side with his arms crossed, slowly lowered his arms as his expression grew a bit more serious.
After writing the last line, Shen Zhiyao turned around.
“Is this okay?”
“How far did you learn before?”
“This section was already finished.”
“Which school did you transfer from?”
“Nanchuan Attached High.”
A low murmur of discussion rippled through the classroom.
Nanchuan Attached High School was a famous key high school in the province, and its curriculum pace was considerably faster than Linchuan High’s.
Teacher Chen nodded. “Your logic is fine. Don’t let your guard down on future problems just because you’ve learned them before, though—the focus points of the textbooks are different on both sides.”
“Okay.”
Shen Zhiyao put down the chalk and walked back to his seat.
Cheng Ye shifted his chair forward to make room for him to pass.
“You’re that good at math?”
“Average.”
“This is considered average?”
“The problem wasn’t hard.”
A student in the front row who had been tortured by this exact problem for two days silently turned around, his eyes filled with complex emotions.
Cheng Ye held back a laugh and lowered his voice.
“You’re going to make it really hard to have friends like that.”
Shen Zhiyao uncapped his pen. “I didn’t come here to make friends.”
He said this line so naturally—without petulance, nor deliberate coldness—as though he were simply stating a long-settled fact.
Cheng Ye looked at him for a moment.
Outside the window, a trail of rain slid slowly down the glass, stretching the flagpole on the playground into a curved shadow.
“If you didn’t come to school to make friends, what did you come for?”
“To study.”
“Besides studying?”
Shen Zhiyao paused briefly.
“To graduate.”
Cheng Ye was amused by his deadpan answer.
Teacher Chen on the podium immediately looked over.
“Cheng Ye, do you have a new understanding of this problem?”
“No.”
“Then quiet down.”
Cheng Ye lowered his head, wrote a line of text on his scratch paper with his pen, and quietly pushed it over to Shen Zhiyao’s hand.
You really are a boring guy.
Shen Zhiyao glanced at it and paid no mind.
A moment later, the scratch paper was pushed back.
Cheng Ye looked down.
Below his own line of writing, two neat, small characters had been added.
Thank you.
He stared at those two characters, his shoulders trembling twice as he nearly burst out laughing again.
When the last class of the morning ended, the rain finally eased up a bit.
Students headed toward the cafeteria in groups, and the sound of dragging chairs and chatting echoed everywhere in the hallway.
Cheng Ye slipped his meal card into his phone case and asked, “Head to the cafeteria together?”
“Not going.”
“Did you bring lunch?”
“No.”
“Then what are you going to eat?”
“I’ll figure it out later.”
Cheng Ye looked out the window. Although the rain had lessened, it still hadn’t stopped. There were no places to eat near the school, and even if there were, students weren’t allowed to leave campus freely during lunch break.
“There won’t be any seats left in the cafeteria soon.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Do you know where the cafeteria is?”
“Yes.”
“Did you put money on your meal card?”
Shen Zhiyao finally raised his head.
“Are you like this with every new classmate?”
“Like what?”
“Asking so many questions.”
Cheng Ye thought for a moment. “No.”
“Then why ask me?”
“Because you sit next to me.”
The answer was so direct that Shen Zhiyao actually didn’t know how to respond for a second.
Cheng Ye stood up and slung his school uniform jacket over his shoulder.
“I’m heading out first. If you change your mind, the noodle shop on the far end of the second floor is alright. Don’t buy the sweet and sour pork on the first floor—the name and the taste have zero relation to each other.”
With that, he ran out of the classroom with Lin Bo, his figure quickly disappearing past the back door.
The classroom gradually emptied out.
Shen Zhiyao remained in his seat, motionless.
Outside the window, the rain drizzled finely. No one was on the sports field, and a few camphor trees swayed gently in the wind. The gray sky opposite the school building pressed down low, resembling a photograph that hadn’t dried yet.
He pulled his camera out from his backpack.
When the lens aimed out the window, what appeared in the viewfinder wasn’t just the rainy playground.
Residual marks from where Cheng Ye had wiped the glass with his finger earlier still lingered. That tiny patch was clearer than its surroundings, perfectly revealing the distant flagpole shrouded in rainy mist.
Shen Zhiyao pressed the shutter.
Click.
The sound was very light.
He looked down to view the photo, then turned the camera off a moment later.
Resting on his desk was that new issue of English Weekly, its upper right corner inscribed with a name in black gel pen.
Shen Zhiyao.
The handwriting was bold and free, with the final stroke dragged out long.
It was likely written by Cheng Ye when he picked up the materials for him earlier.
Shen Zhiyao looked at it for a few seconds, picking up his pen as if wanting to trace over that name once more.
Just as the tip of the pen touched the paper, the back door of the classroom was suddenly pushed open.
Cheng Ye ran inside carrying two transparent plastic bags, his hair sprinkled with rainwater again.
“I knew you didn’t go.”
He placed one of the bags on Shen Zhiyao’s desk.
Inside was a box of hot milk and a piece of bread.
Shen Zhiyao frowned. “I didn’t say I wanted this.”
“I bought extra.”
“You clearly went to the cafeteria just now.”
“The cafeteria sells bread too.”
“The school cafeteria doesn’t use this kind of bag.”
Cheng Ye looked down at the transparent bag, clearly not expecting this loophole to be caught.
“Picked it up on the way.”
“Just kidding.” He pulled out his chair and sat down. “The line at the convenience store was way too long, it took me forever to buy it. It’s your first day here, you can’t go hungry at noon.”
Shen Zhiyao didn’t touch the bag.
“How much was it?”
“No need.”
“How much?”
Cheng Ye quoted a number.
Shen Zhiyao took his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll transfer it to you.”
“Do you have my contact info?”
Shen Zhiyao’s movement froze. “No.”
“Then perfect timing.” Cheng Ye tapped open his QR code and held it out in front of him. “Add me, that way I can send you homework and announcements in the future.”
Shen Zhiyao looked at the profile picture on the screen.
It was a photo of a basketball court painted in orange-red sunset, with a blurry silhouette standing right in the center.
“I don’t check messages often.”
“That’s fine, I send them often.”
Cheng Ye waved his phone. “Adding or not?”
The sound of rain outside the window still hadn’t stopped.
Shen Zhiyao stayed silent for a moment, then pulled out his phone and scanned the QR code.
The friend request was accepted almost the next second.
Cheng Ye’s display name was just a simple character: “Ye”.
He quickly sent a message over:
Hello, new desk mate.
Shen Zhiyao stared at his phone without replying.
Cheng Ye had already unwrapped his own bread, taking a bite as he mumbled incoherently, “Don’t feel pressured, I was just testing if it could send through.”
Shen Zhiyao transferred the money over to him.
Cheng Ye accepted it quickly.
Right after, he transferred back one cent.
The memo read:
New classmate discount.
Shen Zhiyao raised his eyes.
Cheng Ye was chewing his bread while looking at him, an unreserved smile floating between his brows and eyes.
“Doing business in our family requires a good start.”
“Your family sells bread?”
“Sells stationery.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing at all.”
Cheng Ye answered with complete justification.
Shen Zhiyao shifted his gaze away, though his fingers didn’t exit the chat interface right away.
Rain fell onto the tree leaves outside the window, and the wind blew into the half-open window crack, carrying a damp and fresh scent.
In the end, he opened the bread.
Before the first class in the afternoon, Zhou Lan came to the classroom to announce that the two rows by the window were responsible for cleaning duty after school today.
Cheng Ye opened the duty roster and slid his finger all the way down.
“Let me see… me, Xu Zhi, Lin Bo, and”
He paused, turning his head to look at his side.
“Shen Zhiyao.”
Getting hit with cleaning duty on the very first day of transferring was hardly something to be happy about.
Cheng Ye, however, grinned.
“Looks like we’re pretty fatefully connected.”
Shen Zhiyao looked out the window, offering no response.
The rain in Linchuan continued on, gray and white cloud layers blanketing the sky, offering not a single sign of clearing up.
At that time, Shen Zhiyao did not know that many years later, he would still remember this damp morning.
He would remember the winding rain trails on the glass, the un-erased name on the right side of the blackboard, and that youth sitting beside him who smiled with zero guard up.
Even less could he have known that some encounters do not begin with a grand spectacle.
It was nothing more than a rainy day, a seat by the window.
And a phrase that couldn’t be more ordinary
Hello, new desk mate.