ATLAS TRANSLATES

Experiments Imperial High School was famous for promoting students’ all-around development. Their teaching style leaned Western and was highly liberal, receiving mixed reviews over the years.

Some people thought this could maximize children’s hidden potential and let them experience the joy of learning. Some parents felt that students this age mostly lacked self-control, and under the exam-oriented education environment, this relaxed management style meant students couldn’t restrain themselves.

This unique teaching characteristic also resulted in extremely polarized academic performance among Experiments Imperial High School students.

The smart ones were truly brilliant, with several students entering the national training team for various Olympic subjects last time. The struggling ones were genuinely weak, probably able to compete with Ji Fan in terms of grades.

On Tao Zhi’s first day at school, she heard the publicity commissioner and student council publicity department head discussing plans for the Winter Cultural Festival.

Tao Zhi looked at the calendar in shock, confirming it was indeed late February, almost March.

The second semester of sophomore year, the semester before entering senior year, and these student council officers were still focused on organizing a Winter Cultural Festival.

She suddenly felt that Tao Xiu Ping sending her to this school was because he couldn’t stand seeing her grades improve.

But in this relaxed learning environment, Tao Zhi did feel herself being influenced, becoming much more relaxed.

The students at Third High weren’t not studying. The school had abundant funding and strong teaching resources. Teachers’ lectures were lively and interesting. At least in Tao Zhi’s class, the classroom atmosphere was surprisingly good.

Her new deskmate was a dawdling boy named Lin Su Yan, who enthusiastically introduced himself on the first day of school.

Tao Zhi heard his poetic name and guessed: “Is it the ‘Su Yan’ from ‘brush, ink, paper and inkstone, Korean and Su tides’?”

“No,” the boy said proudly, “my dad’s surname is Lin, my mom’s is Su, and my grandmother is a calligrapher.”

“…”

Tao Zhi felt that sometimes, one shouldn’t think too deeply about things.

Out of politeness, and out of care and pity for her new classmate’s simple mind, Tao Zhi didn’t speak, just nodded and continued looking at the newly distributed textbooks.

Lin Su Yan waited for her to make fun of him for a long while but got nothing, thinking his new deskmate was really aloof.

Within a few days, word spread throughout the sophomore year that Class 5 had gotten a quiet and cold beautiful girl who seemed like a studious student, doing nothing but reading books and solving test papers all day.

Less than a week into the semester, Tao Zhi had already been unofficially crowned as the new school beauty by the male student population.

Until the first monthly exam, everyone discovered that this seemingly studious school beauty had average grades.

Except for English where she was far ahead, her other subject scores weren’t particularly impressive.

Third High was already full of exceptional students, and with young people’s love for novelty, once the excitement died down, it didn’t cause much of a stir anymore.

The domineering Experimental High School tyrant went into hiding, becoming just a pretty school beauty who studied hard.

Tao Zhi hadn’t expected that without those bloody rumors, she would actually get more pursuers.

She began frequently receiving confessions and love letters from boys. Snacks and gifts would mysteriously appear in her desk during breaks. Tao Zhi didn’t keep any of them, sending everything to the school’s lost and found.

“Your arrival is like a wealthy philanthropist supporting a poor mountain area. Now people at our school regularly go to the lost and found to get snacks,” one day, Lin Su Yan commented while eating heart-shaped jelly from who knows where, his speech unclear.

Tao Zhi glanced at him: “I see you running there the most frequently.”

“Well if no one takes them, they think it’s embarrassing, might as well let them sit there,” Lin Su Yan said carelessly, “They just don’t understand you well enough. Our Peach only has studies in her life.”

As he spoke, he asked curiously: “But seriously, what type of guy do you like? The one who blocked you at the classroom door yesterday was quite handsome, wasn’t he?”

Tao Zhi paused, her pen tip stopping on the test paper, not moving.

She didn’t know what type of boys she liked before.

But now, every standard in her heart matched up with a certain person, every criterion seemed to have a prototype.

After a while, she said calmly: “Probably those who score above 700 points.”

Lin Su Yan’s eyes widened: “You only score around 500 yourself.”

“So what?” Tao Zhi rolled her eyes, “I just like men who are much stronger than me, whom I can never catch up to in my life, then enjoy the feeling of riding on their necks. Is that not allowed?”

“…”

Lin Su Yan cupped his hands at her: “Too impressive, I underestimated you. You truly are a queen.”

Tao Zhi’s new life at the new school was much more pleasant than imagined, with days of classes, breaks, and weekend visits to the hospital to chat with Ji Jin.

Ji Jin had finished a phase of radiation therapy and transferred to oncology, receiving daily chemotherapy drug treatment.

The chemotherapy drugs were very harsh on blood vessels, the liquid ice-cold. Tao Zhi would fill a small plastic bottle with hot water and press it on the IV tubing, trying to make the medicine slightly warmer, attempting to reduce the stimulation a little bit this way.

When she got home in the afternoon, Ji Fan was sitting on the sofa watching a movie. Hearing her, he looked up: “You’re back?”

Tao Zhi made an affirmative sound, looking at him somewhat hesitantly.

She wasn’t sure if this was good or not. When she first learned about this, her mind was full of not wanting Ji Fan to be sad, but some things couldn’t be hidden.

He couldn’t possibly never know, always not know.

He wasn’t a child anymore, but a mature individual with independent judgment ability. He had the right to know everything.

Tao Zhi took off her jacket and threw it aside, standing in front of the sofa, trying her best to keep her voice calm: “I went to see Mom.”

Ji Fan’s gaze froze.

His eyes stayed on the tablet screen for a long time, as if absorbed in the movie plot, yet also as if seeing nothing.

After a while, he slowly opened his mouth: “How is she doing now?”

Tao Zhi was stunned: “What?”

“She’s hospitalized, right?” Ji Fan closed his eyes briefly, “When I called her before and no one answered, I felt something was wrong. It wasn’t that the calls couldn’t go through, but that she wasn’t answering. Old Tao’s reactions during that time were also very strange, so I followed him.”

“I originally wanted to see if he was really going bankrupt and secretly picking up trash behind our backs,” Ji Fan painfully tugged at the corner of his mouth, “But then I saw him constantly going to the hospital.”

Tao Zhi stood there, somewhat at a loss for what to do: “Ah Fan…”

“Anyway, I roughly guessed what was going on,” Ji Fan took a deep breath, “So Mom is really sick? What illness?”

Tao Zhi pressed her lips together.

Ji Fan had grown up wild and unrestrained since childhood, mischievous and carefree. After so long, Tao Zhi had almost forgotten that he actually thought deeply about things, occasionally revealing a sensitive and delicate quality, enlightening her when she was stuck in her own thoughts.

The two of them had indeed separately inherited Tao Xiu Ping and Ji Jin’s personality traits – one stubborn and straightforward, the other always hiding their feelings and telling meaningless jokes while pretending nothing was wrong.

He wasn’t a fragile and ignorant youth.

He was even stronger than her in many ways.

Tao Zhi blinked, then bent down to hug him.

She gently patted the boy’s back: “Go see her.”

Ji Fan buried his head in her shoulder, his voice muffled: “She doesn’t want to, she doesn’t want me to know, I can pretend not to know.”

“She does,” Tao Zhi choked up, holding back tears, “She wants to see you, you’re the one she wants to see the most. You’ve always known, she loves you the most.”

Tao Zhi didn’t know if Ji Fan had gone to see Ji Jin.

Just that one night later, the boy came home very late. Tao Zhi was walking circles in the living room with one earphone in, memorizing English vocabulary.

When he looked up at her, his eyes were red.

“Zhi Zhi,” he called her hoarsely, “I will protect you.”

One end of her earphones played soft, quiet English songs, while from the other end came the boy’s deep voice. He looked at her with red eyes, firmly saying: “I will grow up, become a man. Mom, Old Tao, and you – this family, I will take good care of it all.”

Someone once said that everyone grows up in just an instant.

In a certain moment, you suddenly realize you’re no longer a child, no longer able to act according to your emotions and temperament, understanding that this world is actually cruel to everyone.

It soberly and clearly tells you that one day you must walk out from under this peaceful land where you’re protected, and become someone else’s protector.

Tao Zhi spent more comfortable days at Third High than she had imagined.

The tutoring continued, the focus during classes and endless test papers had become a habit. The red marks on her papers became fewer and fewer, her problem-solving speed went from slow to fast, and her mistake notebook went from thin to thick then thin again.

All these habits made her almost forget what she had desperately worked for in the beginning.

The name Jiang Qi Huai seemed to have become just a trigger, not the goal.

She never ran into him again anywhere. After she deliberately avoided all the places where he had appeared, she realized that in such a huge city, wanting to accidentally encounter someone was a very, very difficult thing.

In the first mock exam of senior year, she got 700 points for the first time.

Standing at the mountaintop, she remembered when she first made her ambitious declaration.

At that time, she always felt that if she could achieve this goal, she would have reached the finish line.

Now, standing here looking at the thick rolling clouds below, watching people climbing up in groups, she suddenly felt lost.

She had spent nearly two years to finally stand here.

But she didn’t know where her finish line had gone.

At the end of June, during the last school day after the college entrance exam, Third High’s senior building was so lively it could have shattered the windows.

Lin Su Yan tightly held Tao Zhi’s hand, tears in his eyes as he said: “Peach! I’m free now, right? I’m really free, right?”

Tao Zhi patted the back of his hand, humbly saying: “No need to call me dad, grandfather is fine.”

Lin Su Yan didn’t argue with her over this momentary verbal sparring, his whole being immersed in joy: “I’ll call you ancestor if you want! How about it, shall we have a feast tonight? We’ve been meaningful deskmates for a year and a half, and in another month we’ll all go our separate ways.”

Tao Zhi sighed, her phone constantly buzzing in her pocket. She took it out to find that WeChat groups that had been quiet for a very long time suddenly all exploded.

Tao Zhi scrolled to the bottom of the chat list. In the group called “Beautiful Girls Alliance”, Li Shuang Jiang and others still chatted a few words every day, but another person’s WeChat had never appeared again.

Although she had transferred to Third High, she hadn’t lost contact with the people from Experimental. Just that in their senior year, everyone had been so busy they barely had time to chat.

After the college entrance exam, Li Shuang Jiang fully revived and started organizing a gathering.

He called several close friends from high school and specifically mentioned Tao Zhi.

Tao Zhi held up her phone to Lin Su Yan: “I have plans tonight.”

Lin Su Yan looked: “Your old friends from Experimental?”

“Mm.”

“Alright,” he nodded, “We’ll meet up another time then.”

Li Shuang Jiang chose the same Chinese restaurant.

This person was quite loyal, having the same preferences at sixteen and eighteen. When Tao Zhi arrived, the table was already full of people. Fu Xi Ling stood at the door stretching her neck waiting for her.

The last time Tao Zhi met Fu Xi Ling was also several months ago. The little girl had grown taller, her chubby baby fat had faded. She hugged Tao Zhi tightly, rubbing her head against her chest, then looked up.

Fu Xi Ling blinked her eyes, saying honestly: “Zhi Zhi has grown up more.”

Tao Zhi raised her hand and poked her forehead: “Shut up.”

Fu Xi Ling: “Hehe.”

She was about to say something when Ji Fan walked out of the private room, glanced at her: “Why so slow,” he grabbed Fu Xi Ling’s collar, “What are you grinning about, everyone’s here, go in and eat.”

Fu Xi Ling made an “oh” sound, reluctantly pulling Tao Zhi’s hand, dragging her in.

Li Shuang Jiang and Zhao Ming Qi were still the same, going back and forth like a crosstalk duo. Jiang Zheng Jun’s sarcasm was even sharper. Fu Xi Ling hadn’t seen her for so long and stuck to her like sticky rice cake, chattering away.

The boys and girls who once sat in the same classroom were about to go their separate ways, heading to new environments with new friends and their own new worlds. Everyone felt reluctant yet excited, drinking without restraint.

Tao Zhi didn’t know how many bottles she drank, or even if she was drunk. She leaned back in her chair, watching Ji Fan and Jiang Zheng Jun argue with arms around each other about who was Ultraman, while Zhao Ming Qi held Fu Xi Ling’s hand crying: “Little Ling ah, I owe all my English homework these two years to you.”

In the midst of the noise, she stood up and silently walked out of the private room.

Early June summer, cicadas chirping loudly, evening breeze wrapped in gentle warmth. She stood at the entrance with lowered eyes, then walked forward aimlessly.

Not far away was a bus stop. It had been nearly two years since she last took a bus.

She walked to the bus stop sign, her finger pointing at all the bus routes and stops on it, going through them one by one.

She thought memory had become blurry.

She thought after so long, she should have forgotten.

She had happily spent two years of high school, made new friends, met good teachers.

As he had wished, she had proudly and smoothly moved forward, without thinking of looking back.

But when she got on the bright and empty last bus, when she instinctively chose a single window seat in the front, then couldn’t help looking at the back seats, when she stood on that busy street, at the entrance of that deep and narrow little alley.

Memory clearly told her that she actually hadn’t forgotten a single moment.

Tao Zhi lowered her eyes, walking step by step into the alley, passing through the blue carport, entering that old residential building.

She didn’t know what she was doing, probably influenced by alcohol, recklessly and impulsively just wanting to act on her desires.

She stood in front of that gray security door, then knocked.

After waiting a while, someone inside opened the door.

The woman opened the door while complaining: “Why so slow? Did you go start a soy sauce factory when I just asked you to buy a bottle?”

She saw Tao Zhi and paused: “Oh, who are you looking for?”

Tao Zhi raised her head in a daze, looking at the woman’s unfamiliar face: “Isn’t this Jiang Qi Huai’s home?”

“Oh, little Jiang? He moved out, left at the beginning of the year. I’m his landlord, just moved back these past few days,” the woman looked at her and asked, “You’re his friend, right?”

Tao Zhi hesitated.

“Actually, he and old Mr. Jiang moved in a hurry and left some things behind. I kept them for him. I was thinking of calling him in a few days,” the woman said straightforwardly, “Can you contact him now?”

Before Tao Zhi could speak, the woman said: “Wait a moment.”

Saying this, she turned and went inside, then brought out a small cardboard box.

“Here,” the woman reached out, “It’s not heavy, just some photos and such. I kept them all for little Jiang, just don’t know where they live now. If it’s convenient, you can give them to him directly.”

Under the influence of alcohol, Tao Zhi felt her mind was half a beat slow. By the time she reacted, the box had already been handed to her.

Tao Zhi lowered her head: “How did you know I was his friend?”

“Of course you are,” the woman smiled, pointing at the small box: “You’re in these photos.”

The woman closed the door, and Tao Zhi stood at the entrance holding the box, staring blankly.

The evening wind blew through the broken wooden windows into the corridor. Tao Zhi slowly walked to the stairs and sat down on the dirty steps.

The box sat on her lap, though very light, it seemed to carry a heavy weight.

She pressed her lips together, raised her hand, fingers pinching the box lid, gently lifting it piece by piece.

Inside were many, many photos.

They had once been neatly pasted on the walls of his bedroom, now scattered in a pile, lying quietly in the cardboard box.

Tao Zhi took out the photos one by one – cats at street corners, weathered walls, broken puzzles.

It was her first time looking at these photos up close in her hands. Under the dim light, she saw small writing in the corners.

The earliest ones were somewhat childish, with crooked handwriting:

—First gift.

—Always steals my fish sausage.

—Home wall.

Tao Zhi looked at these secrets one by one, ones she had once eagerly pursued but dared not touch. His childhood moments, like scenes from a movie, unfolded before her eyes frame by frame.

The last photo was taken on the Ferris wheel, with fireworks beneath the sky, bright flashes illuminating large patches of the deep purple heavens.

The day she first saw this photo was when she realized she might like Jiang Qi Huai.

She had impulsively run to the convenience store to secretly find him, but was caught red-handed, nervously followed him home, then saw that the photo with her wasn’t chosen for his wall.

Tao Zhi stared at that photo, looking carefully and thoroughly for the first time.

She remembered Fu Xi Ling took many photos that time. This one wasn’t shot very well, probably because the angle and distance weren’t ideal – the fireworks only captured a small part, with the Ferris wheel cabin taking up more space.

The lens mainly showed the back of her head. The cabin was brightly lit, its glass windows reflecting like mirrors, showing the small figures of others inside like background.

Smiling Li Shuang Jiang, head-tilting Zhao Ming Qi, phone-holding Fu Xi Ling.

Then, she saw herself.

She had been sitting by the window then. In this angle, her face took up most of the glass reflection, the girl’s features both hazy and clear. Her eyes were wide open, looking out the window in wonder, corners upturned, lips curved in a small smile.

Tao Zhi’s eyelashes trembled, her fingers holding the photo turning white from pressure.

Her gaze moved down.

In the dark corner of the photo, right by her hand’s position on the glass, written in equally dark ink were tiny words:

—Sun.