Zhou Ai suffered from a rare bout of insomnia. His sleep quality had never been particularly good, which resulted in him going to bed late and sleeping for short durations. Yet, lying in bed that night, he did not drift into a natural sleep out of exhaustion. Instead, as time passed, he became increasingly awake.
With his eyes closed, fragments of memories flashed before him like a carousel.
On rainy days in their childhood, Zhou Ai and Chen Xunfeng were always the last two to leave kindergarten. Chen Xunfeng was simply waiting because no one had come to pick him up, while Zhou Ai’s nanny was often inattentive and would arrive late. The two would huddle under a single umbrella, taking shelter from the heavy rain outside the security guard’s office. Beneath the canopy, Chen Xunfeng would observe Zhou Ai’s expression, nimbly untying his own hat string to weave patterns to pass the boredom and make him laugh.
In the first grade, when they first encountered the strict structure of examinations, Zhou Ai had taken first place in the entire grade on his first attempt. Even then, Chen Xunfeng was already taller than him. Before going on stage to receive his award, Chen Xunfeng stood backstage with him, reaching out to gently pat Zhou Ai’s hair and saying, “Don’t be nervous.”
Zhou Ai was neither nervous nor afraid of standing before the school’s teachers and students. However, after descending from the stage, he found that Chen Xunfeng was already brawling with four or five older boys. The reason? A few of the older students waiting to receive their own awards had commented on him, saying, “He looks obedient enough, but how is it that he’s a mute?”
Zhou Ai had even seen Chen Xunfeng’s tears. From the moment he had known him, Chen Xunfeng had never shown a hint of disappointment, even when he was injured, bleeding, or punished by teachers. The only time Chen Xunfeng had ever shed tears was the year they were separated.
Back then, he had cried until his eyelashes were matted together with tears. His eyes looked as if they had been washed in water, and his hands were covered in grime, smearing messy streaks across his face. In the end, it was Zhou Ai who had used paper to wipe his face clean.
His memories drifted and finally settled on that very night. Chen Xunfeng had grown up; his physique had stretched out, and the frame of his broad shoulders and long limbs had begun to emerge. When he stood before him, Zhou Ai had to lift his chin slightly to see his face clearly.
The younger Chen Xunfeng had been very talkative. Since Zhou Ai couldn’t speak, Chen Xunfeng had spoken for both of them. At a certain moment that night, watching Chen Xunfeng speak and seeing him look away to avoid eye contact, Zhou Ai stood there and suddenly felt a profound sense of familiarity.
Chen Xunfeng spoke of the helplessness brought by time, of his hesitation, and of his stalking and secret watching. He had dissected himself with such sincerity before Zhou Ai. He had been so determined to finish the words he hadn’t finished in the afternoon that he had waited until the middle of the night.
He spoke of the six years that separated them and of the cruelty of time. Yet, when Chen Xunfeng drew near, he seemed to have disregarded the estrangement and barriers that time had created.
They had only spoken their first words since reuniting that afternoon, and the atmosphere then hadn’t been friendly. Yet, by night, Chen Xunfeng was waiting downstairs, calling him out. It seemed that in Chen Xunfeng’s eyes, while time might change many things and allow them to grow up, they remained themselves. They seemed no different from those two children in kindergarten.
Zhou Ai opened his eyes in the darkness and sat up. His phone showed that it was 3:00 AM. He got out of bed and walked to the window, opening one side to sit down. A cool breeze rushed in, rustling his hair and clothes.
Zhou Ai’s clarity was mixed with exhaustion. He found his cigarette pack in the drawer. He didn’t have much of an addiction after so long in the hospital, staring at the white ceiling every day, he hadn’t thought of it once. But there were many times, when he was truly alone, that he needed something to numb himself.
Smoke rose, yet it could not block the wandering of his thoughts. He remembered the last question Chen Xunfeng had asked before they parted: he had said the group of thugs following him had been sent to the police station for extortion.
So, while Chen Xunfeng emphasized the barriers of time, he was the one actively ignoring them. While he claimed he didn’t know if Zhou Ai remembered him, he had been bringing him breakfast without fail, beating up Jiang Wenyi in a grand display during the exams, and even taking care of those thugs who had followed him.
Zhou Ai frowned slightly. The menthol cigarette made him increasingly clear-headed. He crushed out the unfinished cigarette, turned away from the window, switched on the desk lamp, and quietly sat down with a fresh exam paper.
The teaching at the Sixth High was strict, and when it came to academic matters, the efficiency was incredibly high. Over the weekend, teachers had worked overtime to grade and rank the results of the previous week’s monthly exam.
Twenty days later, as Zhou Ai stepped into Class 1, he was the same as before his calm demeanor laced with indifference. Ever since he had choked Hu Cheng in front of everyone, all “welcoming rituals” in the class had vanished. His entry into the classroom now brought about an oppressive silence, but this silence actually saved Zhou Ai from further trouble.
Entering the class that morning, it was quiet as usual. Zhou Ai went straight to his seat. He paid little attention to those around him, so he didn’t notice the undercurrents beneath the silence.
His desk-mate, Jiang Wenyi, had already removed his plaster cast and bandages and was buried in his book. This time, he didn’t react at all to Zhou Ai’s arrival, keeping his head down and his eyes fixed on his textbook.
Before the morning study session, Teacher Qin entered the room to supervise. With a grim expression, he stopped the collective reading, plugged in his USB drive, and projected the statistical data of the monthly exam onto the screen: “The monthly exam results are all out. I don’t know what you all are actually studying.”
“The class averages for chemistry and mathematics have dropped to third and fourth in the grade, and history, in particular, has fallen to seventh. Your history teacher has told me more than once that when he is teaching history, all he sees on your desks are math and biology assignments. So why, then, are your math scores also this poor?”
As he spoke, Teacher Qin flipped the screen to the individual grade rankings. He turned his head to look at Zhou Ai’s seat: “This time, the first place in our class and the first place in the entire grade is Zhou Ai. You all know that Zhou Ai has been on leave this month, so take a look at how he studies. And look at how you, sitting right here in the classroom, are studying! Why is it that even though Zhou Ai didn’t come to school, he still ranked first in the monthly exam?”
Every student in the class bowed their heads, though some cast curious, stealthy glances toward Zhou Ai’s direction. They saw that Zhou Ai remained expressionless, his eyes devoid of any ripple.
“I know that after this semester, you all have to choose your subjects, and you’ve likely already decided which ones you want to study, so are you just throwing away history and geography? This has become a laughingstock in the grade! The history teacher, Mr. Wu, said that the class he least wants to teach right now is ours!”
“You don’t listen, you use these sessions for other things, but look at Zhou Ai why is he able to manage it all? Why is he able to score highly in all nine subjects? Why is he able to achieve full marks in physics while also achieving full marks in history?”
The classroom was deathly silent, but Teacher Qin’s anger only grew: “You spend so much time on the subjects you prefer, but tell me, how are you actually performing in those?”
He rapped the projection board: “Look at your own scores! Hu Cheng, you’re the sports representative do you just spend all day doing sports? 58 in physics you didn’t even pass! Isn’t it shameful? Huh? Physics in the first year of high school was this exam difficult? Classes 2, 3, and even 4 have piles of high scores, and you got a 58! I will call you each in one by one later! Now, go to the playground for the flag-raising ceremony.”
As the sun began to rise, Zhou Ai stood once again on the Sixth High’s podium, receiving the honorary award symbolizing his academic rank from the school leadership. A century-old prestigious school, the Sixth High combined rigorous standards with a student body filled with elite pupils and intense competition. For two consecutive monthly exams, Zhou Ai had remained far ahead of the second-place student, firmly occupying the top spot. Not only students but more and more teachers had begun to focus their attention on him.
After the procedure was over, Zhou Ai left from the backstage as usual. During the flag-raising ceremony, all the students and teachers were gathered on the playground, leaving the campus path empty, with only the background music from the campus loudspeakers playing.
When he reached the front of the teaching building, Zhou Ai’s footsteps paused slightly. He looked toward the honor board just a few paces away. A boy was standing in front of the glass display case. The boy was tall, his back to him, staring at the photos behind the glass. From behind, he wore his school jacket in a way that looked reckless and uninhibited.
The campus was deserted; the two of them were the only ones there.
The boy seemed to sense something and suddenly turned his head from the front to look over. The sunlight made him squint slightly, but he still unerringly fixed his gaze on Zhou Ai. Seeing him, there was no surprise on his face. He simply stepped aside to make space and said to Zhou Ai: “I knew you would pass by here, so I was waiting for you.”
Zhou Ai stood still, emotionless, but he kept his gaze on Chen Xunfeng, listening until he finished.
Chen Xunfeng gestured to the glass case: “It’s been updated with the results of this monthly exam, but your position hasn’t changed.”
The dean’s voice continued to drone on over the campus speakers. Chen Xunfeng stood to the side, facing him, seemingly waiting with great patience for him to walk over.
The wind blew from Zhou Ai toward Chen Xunfeng. Zhou Ai kept his hands tucked into his pockets, feeling the rigid back brace underneath. He didn’t move. A few paces away, Chen Xunfeng watched him, his cool voice sounding remarkably crisp in the morning air: “Want to come over and see?”
Under Chen Xunfeng’s gaze, Zhou Ai breathed softly. From not pretending to ignore him earlier, to now standing here and listening to him finish his words, it seemed he had already lost the opportunity to refuse directly.
Zhou Ai stood in the shade under the eaves. After a moment of hesitation, he walked over. They stood side-by-side before the honor board, the sunlight spilling onto their identical school uniform backs. Chen Xunfeng turned his head to watch the Zhou Ai beside him, his eyes deepening slightly, before slowly turning his gaze back to the front.
Zhou Ai’s gaze shifted to the disciplinary board on the left. The contents had been updated, but the first name on the list was still Chen Xunfeng. The Chen Xunfeng in the blue-backed photo seemed slightly younger than he did now, his arrogance uncontained, staring coldly straight ahead through the glass.
Zhou Ai’s gaze drifted to the disciplinary notice nearby, stamped with the red seal of the Academic Affairs Office. Chen Xunfeng had been late and leaving early for several weeks, skipping classes and playing truant; the nature of his behavior was deemed egregious, and thus he was on the disciplinary list once again.
The wind carried the faint scent of the boy beside him a cool, crisp, and subtle fragrance. Zhou Ai couldn’t identify what it was; to him, it was an unfamiliar scent. In his childhood, Zhou Ai had worn clothes just like his and used the same things; back then, they had both smelled of the detergent chosen by the nanny.
During this time, with Chen Xunfeng’s appearance and approach, many details from the depths of Zhou Ai’s memory had been overturned. He would even find himself involuntarily searching for the past to reconcile it with the present things he had thought he had forgotten or discarded were, in fact, all safely kept within him.
The harsh bell rang, signaling the end of class. Zhou Ai remained seated. During the ten-plus minutes following the last morning class, the cafeteria was at its most noisy and crowded, so he always waited in the classroom for a bit before heading over.
The students in the class, who had been crowding toward the door, suddenly stopped as if someone had pressed a pause button. Even Zhou Ai, sitting in the corner, suddenly felt the stagnation in the air. He hadn’t yet looked up from his page when he heard a light knock on the back door of the classroom.
Zhou Ai looked up. More than half the students remained in the room, but they were all frozen in place, their gazes shifting back and forth between him and the person leaning against the back door of Class 1.
Then, Zhou Ai heard Chen Xunfeng’s voice from the back door, clear enough for him to hear perfectly: “I’m looking for Zhou Ai.”