The Long Summer of Youth
It was the turn of the season from spring to summer, and the rain was pouring down, like sorrowful tears shed by spring, reluctant to take its leave.
Lin Zhixia had his schoolbag slung over one shoulder and held a large black umbrella—its ribs broken and bent—high above his head with his other hand; he walked barefoot through the deep, accumulated rainwater.
Beneath the umbrella, his blind father, Lin Anwen, slowly felt his way forward with a white cane.
Lin Anwen had been blind for five or six years and was long accustomed to a world of darkness. However, because the two of them had only recently moved to this neighborhood and were unfamiliar with the surroundings—compounded by the disorienting downpour—he couldn’t help but feel a bit apprehensive.
“Dad, I don’t want to board at No. 9 Middle School,” Lin Zhixia muttered. “I could ride my bike; it only takes half an hour if I go fast. Being a day student would work, too.”
“Xiaxia, be a good boy.” Lin Anwen had a fair, refined appearance and spoke in a gentle, cultured manner. “The teachers at No. 9 Middle School value you highly; they’ve offered you generous scholarships and financial aid. You really ought to stay in the dorms, study hard, and get good grades. That’s the only way to repay their support.”
Lin Zhixia scratched his slightly overgrown hair, looking troubled.
“How about you move into the space behind Auntie Liu’s shop? That way, when I’m boarding at school, Auntie Liu and the others can keep an eye on you.”
“Don’t be silly.” Lin Anwen glared at his son with his sightless eyes from behind his dark glasses. “Auntie Liu and Uncle Zhang just got married. If a grown man like me moved in with them, I’d be an eyesore, a total ‘third wheel.’ Don’t worry. I managed to raise you all this way while blind. Surely I can take care of myself?”
Lin Zhixia hung his head and kicked up a muddy splash in the water, which was deep enough to reach his calves.
Lin Anwen reached out and touched his son’s shoulder, which was soaked by the rain.
At twelve years old—a boy on the cusp of adolescence—he had begun to shoot up in height, yet his shoulders remained slender, his frame still delicate and youthful. He was still far too young to face the storms of life on his own.
Lin Anwen put his arm around his son’s shoulders, and the two of them huddled together under the umbrella.
“Xiao Xia, you need to cherish this chance to transfer schools,” Lin Anwen said earnestly. “We may be poor, but Heaven gave you a sharp mind—and with it, a chance to make something of yourself. I’m not capable enough to give you a life of luxury, but at least I can make sure I don’t hold you back.”
“Dad, what are you saying?” Lin Zhixia linked his arm through his father’s. “You’d never hold me back. When I grow up, I’m going to make a fortune, buy a fancy car, and hire a driver to take you out for a spin every day.”
Lin Anwen chuckled. “It would be a lot less trouble if you just got me a bus pass. Besides, I’m blind. What would I see on a joyride?”
“It’s all about the style, isn’t it?” Lin Zhixia smiled, holding onto his dad as they walked toward their new home along a narrow path pooled with murky water.
Yong’an Community was the oldest and largest “urban village” in Feng City.
Before the Reform and Opening-up, this area had been the city’s historic center, home to hundreds of thousands of long-time residents living in cramped quarters.
The winds of reform had failed to reach this district; it had been left behind, becoming a birthmark on the face of Feng City—bearing memories from its very inception, unsightly yet impossible to erase.
Yong’an Community sat in the southwest corner of the old city, facing the new district across the river. Though worlds apart in wealth, they shared the waters of the same river.
When Feng City underwent development, some developers had considered redeveloping Yong’an, only to be scared off by the residents’ exorbitant compensation demands.
Ordinary citizens might lack long-term vision, but developers certainly wouldn’t overlook the vast stretches of open land on the opposite bank.
High-rises sprang up one by one across the water, their glass facades reflecting the shimmering waves, while the old brick buildings of Yong’an Community clung to a precarious existence amidst the winds of a new era.
Makeshift shacks were torn down and rebuilt, only to be demolished and erected all over again. Channeling the revolutionary spirit of their guerrilla-fighting forebears, the residents waged an unyielding struggle against the city planning and fire departments.
As housing prices in Feng City soared, the cost of redeveloping the Yong’an Residential Complex became prohibitive; like an aging spinster whom no matchmaker would visit, it was left awkwardly stranded.
With its chaotic layout, dilapidated facilities, and poor public safety—yet situated in the heart of the old city—Yong’an became the top choice for low-wage migrant workers settling in the city.
In the early summer of that year, Lin Anwen moved into the Yong’an community with his twelve-year-old son, Lin Zhixia.
Lin Anwen was a blind masseur; he had previously worked at a community massage parlor, where he was a highly regarded veteran practitioner.
Lin Zhixia’s biological mother had passed away before he was old enough to form memories; at that time, Lin Anwen was not yet blind and worked as a factory technician.
Lin Anwen was handsome and possessed a skilled trade that guaranteed a livelihood, so finding another wife would not have been difficult. However, he never remarried, fearing a stepmother might mistreat his son.
When Lin Zhixia was six, Lin Anwen suffered a workplace accident, losing his sight to chemical exposure.
Naturally, he could no longer work as a technician. Fortunately, Lin Anwen was dexterous; he switched careers to become a blind masseur, managing to scrape by.
Lin Zhixia was precocious. Coming from a humble background, his family didn’t fuss over early childhood education; it was a primary school teacher who discovered the boy’s exceptional mind, he could memorize anything after being taught just once.
Thanks to this gift, Lin Zhixia spent his years from fourth grade onwards attending school in a different district as a scholarship student.
When the time came to transition from primary to junior high, several top-ranked middle schools in Feng City extended offers to him.
Poverty limits one’s horizons. When choosing a school, Lin Zhixia looked only at which one offered the most generous scholarship.
Just as a scholar might sell their learning to the highest bidder among emperors, a student selling their academic talent is essentially doing business—naturally, the highest price wins.
No. 9 Middle School ranked fifth in the city, not quite the absolute best, but they were certainly generous with their offers. Upon realizing that the scholarship would cover his living expenses and even allow him to help his father out, Lin Zhixia agreed immediately.
To support his son’s education, Lin Anwen moved into the urban area of Feng City. Through an acquaintance, he found work as a masseur in the Yong’an Community and rented a room at a low rate.
It was an old factory dormitory—a four-story building made of prefabricated concrete slabs, dating back to the 1980s; it was one of the few ‘high-rises’ in the neighborhood.
The father and son lived in a one-bedroom, one-living-room unit of just over twenty square meters on the top floor, facing south. Water leaking from the roof had left the walls mottled with patches of mold, though Lin Anwen chose to turn a blind eye to it all.
A torrential rainstorm in early June swept away the lingering low-pressure gloom, and a humid breeze drifted through the screen door, circulating through their cramped, humble abode.
An old fan whirred softly; Lin Zhixia held down his exam paper with one hand while rapidly scribbling calculations on his scratchpad with the other. Meanwhile, Lin Anwen fumbled about in the kitchen, preparing a meal.
Once the food was ready, the father and son sat at a small folding wooden table by the doorway—the airiest spot in the apartment—to eat.
The screen door across the hall creaked open, and a little girl with pigtails walked over.
“Uncle Lin, Xiao Xia, we made kelp and mung bean soup at home. Grandma asked me to bring some over for you.”
Lin Anwen hurriedly put down his chopsticks and motioned for Lin Zhixia to open the door.
The girl was the same age as Lin Zhixia; she had a round face, a round head, round eyes, and round dimples at the corners of her mouth. Even her name was ‘round’—Sun Mingzhu.
Sun Mingzhu’s parents worked in the New District across the river, so she lived with her grandmother in the old house in Yong’an.
The arrival of a handsome young boy in the community had set the local children whispering. Sun Mingzhu, however, had the advantage of proximity; she was the first to strike up a conversation with the father and son, and with her outgoing nature, she promptly claimed the handsome boy as part of her own social circle.
“Now that Xiao Xia is here, our North District finally has a top-tier academic whiz,” Sun Mingzhu said, her voice crisp and rapid, words tumbling out like beans pouring from a bamboo tube. “Last year, a girl from the South District got into No. 3 Middle School, and they treated her like a rare treasure—like a phoenix hatched from a common nest. That South District crowd was insufferably smug, constantly mocking our North District as a ‘barnyard for scruffy chickens.’ Hah! What’s so great about No. 3 Middle School? They still get absolutely crushed by No. 9 Middle School. Listen, Xia, if that South District bunch ever gives you trouble, just come tell me. With Sun Mingzhu around, you can walk tall and own the place here in the North District!”
The girl was half a head shorter than Lin Zhixia, yet she carried herself with the swagger of a seasoned gang leader.
“South District? North District?” Lin Zhixia had heard the shop owner and the others mention these terms at the massage parlor that morning.
“This area here is the North District; anything south of the Jinhe River is the South District.”
After dinner, Sun Mingzhu took Lin Zhixia out to get familiar with the neighborhood.