Before daybreak, Wen Qing hurried out of her apartment building's entrance, and the moment she stepped down the last flight of stairs, she saw Zhou Shixu standing right in front of her.
The early morning sunlight filtered through the leaves by the building entrance, falling on him, swaying gently with the wind.
The unexpected figure startled Wen Qing so much that she nearly slipped and sat down on the steps.
Yesterday, Ms. Zhao Yuan's exact words had been for the two of them to go home together after school.
Logically, given where the two families lived, they shouldn't be on the same route to school.
Though the Wen family and the Zhou family lived in the same residential complex, they weren't in the same building.
The complex was divided into elevator apartment buildings and townhouses.
The Wen family lived in an apartment building slightly to the north, while the Zhou family lived in a townhouse to the south.
The Zhou house was big, but Shi Wan and Zhou Xiping were too busy with work and rarely home, so only Zhou Shixu lived there.
So there was only one possible explanation for Zhou Shixu appearing here at this moment.
He was waiting for her.
Wen Qing clutched her backpack strap and shuffled over to Zhou Shixu's side: "Let's go."
The two had known each other since childhood, but they really hadn't interacted much these past two years.
Planning to let him walk ahead and then quietly follow behind, Wen Qing deliberately lagged.
But things didn't go as she expected.
When she sped up one step, Zhou Shixu sped up one step.
When she slowed down one step, Zhou Shixu slowed down one step.
What should have been a brisk walk to school turned into the two of them being forced to walk together like a two-player game of Fireboy and Watergirl.
Utterly speechless at their alternating fast and slow paces, Wen Qing couldn't help but let out a small laugh.
Zhou Shixu, who had been playing the speed-up-slow-down game with her, turned his gaze at the sound of her laughter.
The sky wasn't fully bright yet—the darkness seemed to have its edges torn open slightly, faintly letting through traces of light.
Zhou Shixu didn't ask what she was laughing at.
He simply looked sideways at her upturned lips.
And continued following without missing a step.
Their pace was so slow that Wen Qing had only just reached the corridor outside their classroom when the preparatory bell for morning reading rang.
The moment her left foot crossed into the classroom, the first thing that greeted her was a buzzing sound.
Not impassioned recitations, but more like a murmuring drone.
On the second day of school, the students weren't in much better shape than the first, but since there was a test right after morning reading, nearly everyone was reciting through sheer willpower.
Some even had their eyes closed while their mouths kept moving.
Wen Qing pulled out her notebook of essay material and leaned half against the wall, memorizing rapidly.
Thanks to her feat of falling straight asleep last night, she wouldn't have to kowtow countless times to the person in front of her today.
The school had scheduled two days of placement tests: Chinese, English, and Physics on the first day; Math, Chemistry, and Biology on the second.
Usually, math was the main subject on the first afternoon, but this time it was changed to English—probably out of fear that students would be too drowsy taking math in the afternoon.
But English exams were actually more sleep-inducing.
After morning reading ended, Wen Qing came back from the cafeteria and climbed the stairs to the classroom.
The moment her line of sight rose level with the corridor, she was met with a row of books—even the empty spaces had books occupying them.
Only the outermost layer, where passersby would kick them, was left.
Zheng Shiyi spotted her wandering figure outside the corridor through the window, shifted over a bit by the window, and spoke up:
"Qing, just stack yours on top of my books. I'm only taking up one spot. It should be enough for the both of us."
Seeing the book storage problem solved, Wen Qing slowly began stacking her books.
But Duan Huaian spoke up right after Zheng Shiyi:
"I have two spots for books. Let me give you one—stacking them too high makes them easy to knock over, and it's a hassle when you can't find yours."
Wen Qing moved close to the window and exchanged a knowing smile with Zheng Shiyi. The two of them turned to Duan Huaian at the same time and said:
"Duan Huaian, you're such a good person!"
The spot Duan Huaian had claimed was excellent—even among the sturdiest spots right against the wall.
With their books put away, everyone headed off to the exam hall in high spirits.
But barely a hundred and twenty minutes later, groans of despair nearly burst through the sky.
"I feel like the school is deliberately messing with us."
"Like they made the questions hard on purpose to crush us."
"I think the school is just a bunch of idiots…"
"……"
Some people outright gave up and started checking their answers against each other.
In just the time it took to eat a meal, answers flooded into Wen Qing's ears from all directions.
After the afternoon's joint English and physics exams, the wailing turned into outright screams.
"Has the person who wrote the English exam gone insane?" Zheng Shiyi couldn't wait to complain the moment she sat down.
"When I saw the essay asked us to write about Journey to the West, I thought I was dreaming—I even pinched myself a few times trying to wake up."
Wen Qing turned around and joined the discussion: "I wrote 'two people, a monkey, a pig and a horse go to the west.'"
"That's not right, Qing, you got it wrong. It should be four people and a horse. In the TV show, when Tang Seng begs for alms, he always says, 'This poor monk and his three disciples came from the Tang lands in the east, heading west to fetch the scriptures.'"
As she spoke, Zheng Shiyi even mimicked Tang Seng's tone, and even threw in an "Amitabha."
"Stop arguing, you two. I wrote 'house' instead of 'horse.'" Chen Zhi, who was sitting behind Zheng Shiyi, covered his face and laughed a couple of times.
"Actually," Duan Huaian, who had been silent the whole time, suddenly spoke up, "'go to west' means to go to the western heavens—it means to die. Journey to the West is 'journey to the west.'"
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
"Huh?"
The three of them cried out in confusion all at once, startling even Duan Huaian.
Chen Zhi was the first to recover: "It's fine. We can't afford to lose those few points anyway. When the grader looks at it, they'll see the master and his three disciples going to fetch the scriptures with a house."
"And if the grader has a good imagination, they'll think it's the local earth god following them around, hahahaha." Zheng Shiyi laughed as she spoke.
Wen Qing, for no particular reason, laughed along with her.
But the more they laughed, the harder it was to stop, and the more bitter the laughter became.
Evening self-study session slowly passed by amid those bittersweet laughs.
Class Ten was on the fourth floor. That morning, Wen Qing had agreed with Zhou Shixu that she would wait for him at the classroom door after evening self-study ended.
He would come down from the fifth floor, and the two of them would head home together.
The stairwell right after school was packed with people, and Wen Qing slowly moved from the classroom door to the side of the staircase.
The school's stairwell had sound-activated lights, but perhaps because the wiring had aged over many years, even with the stairs crammed with students going down, the lights stayed dim unless someone shouted loudly.
Standing at the corner of the staircase, Wen Qing struggled to make out Zhou Shixu's location by the faint light from the corridor and the sound-activated lights that flickered on whenever students shouted.
She looked straight up at the corner of the floor above, as if determined to catch him the very instant he appeared.
The lights flickered on and off, making the wait feel long.
Suddenly someone let out a loud shout, and in that instant of sudden brightness, Wen Qing lifted her eyes and caught sight of Zhou Shixu.
The moment their eyes met, her gaze dropped to the steps.
During that brief lull, she had counted the steps.
There were twelve.
Which means.
He only had to walk twelve more steps to reach her.
"Twelve."
"Eleven."
"Ten." As Wen Qing counted silently, she couldn't help glancing up at Zhou Shixu once more.
Their eyes met again.
Her heartbeat was no longer in sync with the numbers she was counting.
"Five."
"Four."
"Three."
The lights suddenly went out again.
Luckily, only two steps remained; she just had to tilt her head slightly to catch sight of him in the dim glow of the corridor.
"Two."
"One."
The instant Wen Qing counted the final number, someone in the crowd suddenly shouted, hoping to make the lights come back on.
Her heart gave a violent jolt.
When she looked up again, she nearly crashed straight into Zhou Shixu's arms.
Wen Qing clutched her backpack straps, hastily looked away, tossed out a "let's go," and hurriedly turned toward the stairs.
But the crowd was as packed as ever; she only managed to move a couple of steps.
Fortunately, the dim lighting hid her reddening ears.
Yet behind her, she could still faintly sense Zhou Shixu's presence.
To cover up her racing heartbeat, Wen Qing spoke first: "How did the exam go?"
Eighty percent of students don't want others asking about their exams.
Of the rest, ten percent did so badly they didn't care, five percent truly didn't care, and the last five percent had done well.
As for Zhou Shixu, it wasn't that he didn't care—he was simply indifferent.
Indifferent to most things in this world.
"Fine. How about you?"
By the time they reached the last step of the floor below, the crowd had thinned considerably.
Wen Qing hopped down to the ground.
"Just so-so."
The vast campus grew noisy, drowning in scattered pockets of chatter.
The two kept a distance that was neither close nor far.
Before Wen Qing could calm her heartbeat, someone gave her backpack strap a light tug, pulling her off her original course.
Wen Qing looked toward the source of the pull; Zhou Shixu's hand hadn't let go yet. "Watch the road—someone's ahead."
Before she could answer, the dean's flashlight shone straight onto her face.
With no time to react, she grabbed Zhou Shixu's wrist and ducked into the crowd.
The dean didn't care what two students were actually doing—anyone caught canoodling got the instant gift package of a summon to the parents' office, no questions asked.
Zhou Shixu let her pull him along as they squeezed into the packed crowd.
Complaints about the exam rose and fell around them.
Her heartbeat exceeded its usual rhythm.
Zhou Shixu's gaze traveled up along his own wrist, as if terrified someone might read his racing pulse from it.
"Scared me to death! How does Old Liu's flashlight manage such pinpoint targeting?"
The hand on her wrist suddenly released.
Wen Qing, still shaken, glanced back once more.
"The light's too bright—it wasn't necessarily aimed at us."
The incident seemed like nothing more than a small episode on their walk home.
Yet neither of them spoke again the whole way.
Each was afraid the other might detect the racing heartbeat in an unsteady voice.
In August, dawn came early; by six o'clock, the last trace of night's ink had all but faded.
She had claimed she was giving up because the exam questions were too tricky and too hard, but in truth, Wen Qing had spent nearly the whole night reviewing math formulas.
After the math exam ended that afternoon, the whole school seemed to have hit a boiling point.
The sound of students checking answers was unceasing.
Barely had the final subject—math—ended when the answers to the earlier exams were handed out in profusion.
The moment the answers were in hand, Zheng Shiyi finished checking all the multiple-choice questions at lightning speed.
"I only got three wrong on the Chinese multiple-choice. What about you, Qing?"
"None wrong, hahahaha."
"What about English?"
"Don't ask what you shouldn't ask."
It was a thoroughly exhilarating answer-checking session.
One's own mistakes are certainly heartbreaking, but other people's failures make the heart feel much better.
"Let me put it this way—if I score 120 on the math exam, I'll eat the test paper on a livestream." Chen Zhi crumpled his test paper into a ball.
Zheng Shiyi shot him an exasperated look: "You think 120 is a low score?"
"Isn't there no answer key for math yet?" Wen Qing pulled out her own test paper and looked at the two of them bickering.
Zheng Shiyi glared at Chen Zhi and said, "Qing, don't even get me started. You weren't here just now—Chen Zhi said he got too many wrong and insisted on checking answers with me to boost his confidence. Can you believe this guy?"
Wen Qing couldn't help laughing at the two of them: "Fine, do you have the final answers? Lend them to me to check."
Chen Zhi unfolded the math test paper he had just crumpled up and handed it to Wen Qing.
"I'm not sure about the second-to-last question's final part, and nobody wrote anything for the last question's final part."
Duan Huaian hadn't entered the classroom yet, but from by the window he could already see Zheng Shiyi and Chen Zhi glaring at each other. Wen Qing had one hand covering a crumpled test paper and a pen in the other, checking one answer at a time, gingerly and nervously sliding her hand off each answer to reveal the next.
After Wen Qing finished checking and let out a long breath, she finally noticed that the scorching sunlight had been slightly blocked.
She was startled, then looked up at Duan Huaian with a mock-fierce smile: "How dare you spy on my answers?"
"Can't I look?"
"Top secret. Not for distribution."
Duan Huaian sat back down in his seat and said with a smile, "So should you be locked in a little dark room for that?"
"No no no—just give me your test paper."
Wen Qing scratched her head for a good ten minutes before turning around: "Second-to-last question—Chen Zhi and Duan Huaian, why did you both write root seven? I calculated root three."
Zheng Shiyi spun around the instant Wen Qing spoke, looking at Chen Zhi with a hint of smugness:
"I just said it was root three!!"
"How could it be root three?"
Chen Zhi picked up the solution on Wen Qing's test paper and studied it over and over, but couldn't figure anything out.
"Why can't it be root three? Root three looks way more like the right answer than root seven, doesn't it? Besides, tell me where exactly in my and Qing's solution steps did we go wrong?"
"Your method isn't the standard one. By the rules, the standard method gives my and Old Duan's answer."
"Dare to make a bet?"
"Bet on what?"
"Tomorrow's breakfast. The loser buys breakfast—those soup dumplings at the place by the south gate with the half-hour wait."
At the mention of soup dumplings, Wen Qing perked up and immediately joined the battle: "Count me in on the bet!"
"Fine. If it's root three, I'll treat you two; if it's root seven, you two treat me and Old Duan."
"It's a deal!"
The four of them asked around some more.
Since the class had just been reshuffled, no one knew how good anyone else's grades were.
After asking around, besides root three and root seven, there were now also root five and two-times-root-three, and one person had even calculated root 107.
Three or four sheets of scratch paper were filled. Both sides trusted their own answers, yet neither could find a flaw in the other's method.
Chen Zhi even sneaked into the math teacher's office.
Only to find the door locked.
The soup dumpling shop by the south gate was a twenty-year-old establishment, with a line of at least half an hour every time.
With students so pressed for time, they wanted to squeeze in every extra minute of sleep.
The four of them appeared to be checking answers, but in reality they were manufacturing an excuse to eat xiaolongbao.
And not just any excuse—one that couldn't wait until tomorrow.
Seeing that the xiaolongbao were hopeless, Wen Qing slapped the table and stood up.
"It looks like this arduous task of getting the answers falls to me personally."
Before the other three could even pull their surprised, puzzled gazes away, Wen Qing swept grandly up one flight of stairs.
Then stopped at the door of Zhou Shixu's classroom.