December passed and 2009 became the past. On the first day of the new year, Fang Ruqing took Ruan Mian to the temple to draw a fortune.
The fortune said everything would go smoothly and her wishes would be fulfilled.
This delighted Fang Ruqing. She stuffed several red notes into the offering box in one go, laughing to Ruan Mian, “Looks like you’ll get good news for the competition this time.”
Later, on the way back from the temple, Ruan Mian tucked the fortune slip into the notebook filled with all her teenage secrets.
In the days that followed, there were only endless test papers and counseling sessions left. The night before the competition, class was cancelled and Teacher Luo played a movie for everyone.
The movie was called “Knocking on Heaven’s Door”. It was from two years ago – Ruan Mian had already watched it when it first came out.
The classroom curtains were drawn and the lights dimmed. Ruan Mian dozed off face down on her desk, dead to the world.
When the nearly two hour screening ended, several teachers from the cram class came to the classroom. Ruan Mian rubbed her eyes and sat up.
Over the closing credits song, Teacher Luo smiled and said, “I don’t have much else to say, just wishing you all the best tomorrow and hope everyone can achieve a good result.”
The class immediately broke into applause. After more than a year of hard work, it was finally time for the harvest, and the end meant parting ways.
After class, the teachers stood at the door handing out exam permits and stationery. When it was Ruan Mian’s turn, Teacher Wang passed the items to her, “Do your best.”
Ruan Mian nodded, bowing slightly to him, “Thank you, Teacher Wang.”
“Go back early and rest well tonight.”
Walking out of the classroom, Ruan Mian glanced back and saw Chen Yi still chatting with Teacher Luo. She hesitated for a few seconds before intentionally slowing her footsteps.
Later, on many sleepless work nights in the future, Ruan Mian would think – if she hadn’t hesitated those few seconds and chosen to go straight downstairs instead, would many things that followed have been different?
But by then, it was already much later. She had lost contact with many people, studying alone far away.
And Chen Yi had gone to UC Berkeley, worlds apart from her, becoming the most vivid and beautiful memory of her youth.
The harsh winter wind gusted in from all directions. Ruan Mian quickened her steps, but Chen Yi seemed to have endless things to discuss with Teacher Luo and still didn’t come out.
She reached the top of the stairs and decided to wait another five minutes. The glass window beside her trembled lightly in the wind, making faint sounds.
Five minutes passed and Chen Yi still hadn’t appeared. Ruan Mian wrapped herself tighter and prepared to head downstairs, when someone suddenly ran up the stairs at that moment, brushing past her.
The person called out as they passed, “Ruan Mian?”
She stopped. In the dim light, she made out the girl’s appearance and her eyelid twitched inexplicably. “Sheng Huan?”
“Ah, it’s me.”
Sheng Huan stamped her feet a couple times. The motion sensor lights came on above. She walked down two steps, “You guys are taking the exam tomorrow right?”
“Yeah, in the morning.”
Ruan Mian looked up, “Are you done with your arts exam1?”
As an arts student, Sheng Huan had been busy preparing for the joint entrance exam and school exam this term, so Ruan Mian rarely saw her at school.
“Just finished the joint exam a couple days ago. Still have to wait a while for the school one.”
Sheng Huan laughed. “Then good luck tomorrow!”
Ruan Mian also smiled. “Thanks, you too.”
Sheng Huan uttered a sound of acknowledgment. Her unmade-up face was fair and beautiful as she gripped the strap of her schoolbag. “I’ll head up first then. Be safe going home!”
Ruan Mian nodded. “Okay.”
The girl turned and walked upstairs, the bunch of strapped charms on her bag swaying, colliding and jingling. Ruan Mian instinctively glanced up, and her breath abruptly stalled.
Among the charms was a very small peace knot, identical to the one Ruan Mian had seen every day recently.
The motion sensor lights switched off again after not detecting movement for some time.
Ruan Mian tightly gripped the railing beside her in the darkness, her heart plummeting heavily. She couldn’t even recall how she managed to get down that flight of stairs.
The civics building rarely saw student traffic. Ruan Mian’s solitary, distracted state quickly caught the attention of the teacher on duty at the entrance.
“Hey, are you okay?”
It took Ruan Mian a moment to react before slowly looking up, “I’m fine, thanks teacher.”
The teacher on duty held a teacup, stepping out to take a look around, “If you’re fine, head back early. Don’t linger around school in this cold.”
“Got it.”
Ruan Mian walked down the steps. The piercing wind slapped her face, chill right to the bone. So cold it made you want to cry.
After leaving the civics building, there were two large planters. When Ruan Mian reached the second one, she heard footsteps and voices behind her.
That voice was too familiar.
She instinctively hid in the nearby shadows. The boy walked briskly, not noticing anything amiss around him. The girl bouncing along beside him chatted incessantly.
“Chen Yi! Wait up, why are you walking so fast!”
“Are you confident about the exam tomorrow?”
“Can you get a guaranteed admission?”
“I heard from your classmates you’re preparing to study abroad? Aiyo, if my exam doesn’t go well, I’ll just go abroad too.”
“Which university are you planning to attend? Let me see if I can get my dad to spend some money sending me to the same one.”
“Chen Yi…”
“Chen Yi…”
Their voices faded into the distance along with their silhouettes, leaving only an indistinct echo. Ruan Mian emerged from the shadows watching their retreating forms. There was a hole carved out in her chest, the cold wind rushing right in. All the warmth inside her turned desolate and devastated in an instant.
That night, Ruan Mian returned home in a daze. Zhao Shutang brought milk sent by Fang Ruqing and saw something was off with her. “Are you okay?”
Ruan Mian shook her head. She downed the milk in one go, but accidentally choked from drinking too hurriedly. When she looked up again after coughing violently, her eyes were red.
“Are you really okay?”
Seeing her on the verge of tears, Zhao Shutang pressed her lips and asked, “Is it because you’re worried about the exam tomorrow? Teacher Zhou said, just do your best. Don’t worry too much, rest early.”
Ruan Mian rubbed her eyes. “Okay, I know.”
“I’ll go out first then.”
Zhao Shutang looked back three times on her way out. At the door, she stood for a while watching the girl sitting in the room before gently closing the door.
The long night dragged on, restless and sleepless.
Ruan Mian hadn’t slept well that night. When she got up in the morning, her eyes were still slightly swollen. Afraid Fang Ruqing would notice something off, she soaked a hot towel and repeatedly pressed it to her eyes for over ten minutes in the bathroom.
When she came out, Fang Ruqing had already laid out breakfast on the table, smiling, “Come eat, then your uncle and I will take you to the exam hall after you’re done.”
That day was a Friday. A sudden snowstorm had caused road closures in the Pingcheng city area. On the drive to the exam hall, Zhao Yingwei’s car unexpectedly broke down midway. Fang Ruqing hurriedly brought Ruan Mian down by the roadside, but after waiting forever, they still couldn’t hail a cab. In the end, they found a traffic cop directing traffic nearby to give them a ride to the exam hall.
By the time they arrived, the other students were already entering. Ruan Mian only exchanged a few words with the teachers who had come to see them off before quickly rushing in.
It was half an hour after the exam had started when Fang Ruqing finally made it to the exam hall.
Teacher Zhou brought her to a makeshift shelter set up in the waiting area, “You didn’t come with Ruan Mian this morning? I saw she came with a traffic cop.”
“My husband was originally driving here with me to send her off, but his car ran into some trouble along the way.”
Fang Ruqing sighed, “And the roads were closed on that side of the city today too. No taxis around, could only trouble someone on duty temporarily.”
Zhou Hai smiled. “As long as she wasn’t late.”
“Yes, luckily.”
Fang Ruqing rubbed her hands, resisting the urge to pace around in the shelter. She stomped her feet anxiously a few times in place.
The wait was nerve wracking.
At this time in the exam room, Ruan Mian kept her head down, writing swiftly. The room was filled with the sounds of pen tips gliding over paper. Halfway through the exam, she stared blankly at the numbers on the page for a few minutes, until the proctor walked past her and she came back to her senses to continue the problems.
An exam lasted three hours, ending precisely at noon. For once, Ruan Mian didn’t finish the last question until the teacher said to hand in papers.
Right and wrong, good and bad, everything was set at this point.
There was some disorderliness in collecting the papers. Ruan Mian sat in the classroom, eyes lowered looking at the exam information sticker pasted on the corner of her desk. She brushed her fingertips over it, stroking it a few times.
After the proctor finished collecting the papers and did a final confirmation of no mistakes, he said, “You may leave now.”
Immediately following this, the classroom was filled with the sounds of stools scraping on the floor as everyone stood up. Ruan Mian gathered her belongings and went downstairs following the stream of people.
At the meeting spot, she saw Yu Tian. The girl had her backpack in front, chatting with a boy next to her about the exam questions.
Seeing Ruan Mian, she smiled and waved. When Ruan Mian came over, she asked, “Mianmian, can I ask what your answers were for the exam?”
Ruan Mian nodded it was fine. She looked around, not seeing Chen Yi anywhere.
“For the second part of the second-to-last question, what did you get for the torque required for the cube to rotate at constant speed?”
After asking, Yu Tian also told her two answers – one was her own, the other was the boy’s next to her.
Ruan Mian listened, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat. “I…seem to have something different from you two.”
“No way, it was just one part of a question, how did we get three different answers?”
Yu Tian waved her hand. “Nevermind, forget it. The more I think about it the more nervous I get.”
Ruan Mian was stirred up by her few words. She lowered her head, standing to the side recalling all her impressions about that question.
After a while, the No. 8 students had all gathered. The teacher leading them had everyone head out. Chen Yi was surrounded by his classmates.
Ruan Mian lagged a couple steps behind, her gaze falling on the boy’s backpack. The peace talisman tied to the zipper swayed lightly as he moved.
That day was very windy. She nearly cried.
The days after returned to the normal senior year pace. Before the competition results came out, they still had to calmly prepare for the upcoming final and even the gaokao.
It was around then that gossip about Chen Yi and Sheng Huan suddenly proliferated at school. Some said they saw Chen Yi and Sheng Huan together at the movie theater downtown on the weekend, others said they saw Sheng Huan bringing water to Chen Yi at the school basketball court in the evening.
Anyway, there were too many fleeting accounts.
That morning, because Ruan Mian had forgotten to set her alarm the night before, she woke up half an hour later than usual. When she got to school, she happened to run right into Wu Yan catching late students.
With so many eyes around, Wu Yan couldn’t play favorites. He frowned and jerked his chin to the side, signaling for Ruan Mian to go over there.
Ruan Mian was quite famous at school, known for good grades and personality, and was admired by many younger students.
When she went over, a junior tried to talk to her, but was caught by Wu Yan. The two of them each got a warning look.
The junior didn’t give up. After Wu Yan left, she asked in a small voice, “Senior sister, can I add your QQ later?”
Ruan Mian smiled. “Sure.”
Their group of late students stood outside for probably half an hour before Wu Yan finally let them go.
As punishment, they had to be responsible for cleaning the school’s public areas for a week.
The junior exchanged contacts with Ruan Mian, then waved at her as she ran over to the freshman area.
Ruan Mian walked forward with some senior classmates. When they got to the bottom of the classroom building, she saw Sheng Huan standing in the hallway by the stairs near the liberal arts classrooms, holding some books and her bag, listlessly swaying her head.
Hearing the footsteps, the girl looked up and saw Ruan Mian. She quietly greeted her, “Hey.”
Ruan Mian nodded at her. Just as she was about to head upstairs, the girl called out to stop her. “Ruan Mian.”
She halted her steps and looked over. “What’s up?”
“Can you help me bring this to Chen Yi?”
The girl took out two test papers and a notebook from her bag and handed them to her. “I was planning to bring them over after self-study ended, but I have to go see my advisor later to write a reflection report, so I’ll trouble you. I’ll treat you to milk tea next time.”
Ruan Mian took them. “Okay, no problem.”
The girl standing next to Sheng Huan nudged her arm, quietly reminding her, “The teacher is coming.”
Sheng Huan immediately stood up straight, using the books to half cover her face, but you could still see genuine smiling eyes. “Bye.”
Ruan Mian hmm’d, and went all the way up the stairs in one breath before suddenly stopping.
Her hand gripped the notebook tightly, fingers white.
She stood on the stairs, looking down at the black notebook in her hand. It was like she had made an enormous decision, slowly opening the cover.
The only thing written on the title page was a name.
Chen Yi.
Ruan Mian was more familiar with that handwriting than anyone. How many nights had she laboriously copied his strokes on paper, writing down one identical “Chen Yi” after another?
In an instant, all kinds of complicated emotions washed over her like a tidal wave – aggrieved, heartbroken, helpless. All intertwined together.
Ruan Mian flipped through a few pages. Her vision gradually grew blurry. She hurriedly closed the notebook, raising her hand to wipe at her eyes. She went to the bathroom before returning to class.
Zhao Laoshi was on duty for morning self-study in Class 1. When Ruan Mian came over, he was holding a teacup standing in the doorway. He joked, “Got caught by Teacher Wu huh?”
Ruan Mian’s face still had undried moisture, the corners of her eyes red. “Mm, got caught. And punished to do cleaning for a week.”
Zhao Laoshi laughed schadenfreudically. “Alright alright, hurry and come in.”
Ruan Mian returned to her seat. The notebook and test papers in her hand attracted Fu Guangsi’s attention. She tilted her head and asked, “What’s that you’re holding?”
“Some things Sheng Huan asked me to bring to Chen Yi.”
“Sheng Huan? Why doesn’t she bring it over herself?”
Ruan Mian sniffed. “Looks like she has to go see her advisor and write a reflection report. Probably doesn’t have time. I happened to pass by their classroom doorway so she asked me to help bring it over.”
“I see.”
Fu Guangsi tsked. “Hey, Mianmian, do you think those rumors about her and Chen Yi are real or fake?”
“…I don’t know either.”
Fu Guangsi shook her head with a sigh, hating that she couldn’t directly go ask the people involved to get to the bottom of her gossip-loving heart.
After class, Chen Yi wasn’t at his seat. Ruan Mian placed the notebook and papers on his desk. Meng Xinglan walked over and asked, “What’s that?”
Ruan Mian said, “The notebook and test papers Sheng Huan asked me to give Chen Yi.”
Meng Xinglan casually flipped through them. The papers were Sheng Huan’s, the notebook was Chen Yi’s. She exclaimed, “So Chen Yi really is tutoring her!”
Ruan Mian froze. “What?”
“Tutoring. Isn’t Sheng Huan an arts student? She’s been busy with mock exams and school exams this term, falling behind in academics, so she’s having Chen Yi tutor her.”
“I see.”
Ruan Mian blinked, forcibly suppressing the sourness welling up.
The competition results wouldn’t be announced until mid-February. During this waiting period, the school organized several large-scale exams for the senior class, with joint mock exams rotating one after another.
In a recent mock exam, Chen Yi, who steadily held first in the grade, exceptionally dropped out of the top three, tying for 10th place with a girl from Class 2.
His grades had always been stable and outstanding. Since entering 10th grade, whether big or small exams, he had always decisively taken first place. This setback made both teachers and classmates very surprised.
Even Yu Tian, who normally tailed his score closely, specially came to Class 1 to find him. “Chen Yi, what happened this time?”
Because Yu Tian had always placed right after Chen Yi in every exam, the grade teachers had jokingly labeled her the perpetual runner-up.
When she came to Class 1, it was around evening time. Chen Yi was standing at his seat, smiling lazily. “A small mistake, no need to make such a big fuss right?”
Yu Tian shrugged. “We making a fuss doesn’t matter. You need to think about how you’re going to explain this to Teacher Zhou. He definitely won’t believe this was a mistake.”
Right on target.
That night, Chen Yi was called to Zhou Hai’s office. Ruan Mian, who had gone to collect test papers, was also there. When they got to the office, Zhou Hai gave the papers to Ruan Mian, deliberately praising, “You did pretty good this time, I can see your Chinese and English improved.”
Ruan Mian hmm’d. “Thank you, Teacher Zhou.”
Zhou Hai immediately turned his gaze to Chen Yi, pressing his lips in a frown, his tone rather unpleasant. “Then what happened with our grade’s number one this time? Don’t try to fool me with mistakes. You’ve taken so many tests since 10th grade, how did you just happen to make a mistake this time? I see it’s because…”
Speaking to here, Zhou Hai suddenly recalled there was another person present. He abruptly stopped. “Err, Ruan Mian you can go back first. Pass out the papers and have everyone check over the incorrect questions themselves first.”
“Okay.”
Ruan Mian looked up at Chen Yi before turning and leaving the office. She hadn’t gotten far when she heard Zhou Hai’s voice from inside.
“Tell me, you not testing well this time, it’s because of that girl from the arts class right?”
Zhou Hai must have been angry, suddenly slamming the table. “Do you know what kind of rumors are going around school now? I didn’t look for you earlier because I believed you wouldn’t do anything inappropriate at this time. You’re really letting me down now.”
Chen Yi said, “Teacher Zhou, this has nothing to do with Sheng Huan. I didn’t test well because I was preparing for going abroad these past few days and didn’t rest well.”
Zhou Hai sighed. “Forget it, I don’t want to lecture you either. Tomorrow I’ll go speak with her advisor and ask how he teaches his students. As a girl she really…”
He sighed again.
The office was quiet for a good while before Ruan Mian heard Chen Yi speak again. “Not testing well this time is my own problem, it has nothing to do with Sheng Huan, and nothing to do with her character either. I hope that you…”
Ruan Mian didn’t hear anything else after that. She cried as she walked that stretch, finally understanding that whether one likes someone and whether they are excellent have no real connection.
Her being good or not was unrelated to others. As long as he could see her goodness, that was already winning.
- Arts Exam (Yi Kao / ??) – Also known as the National College Entrance Exam for Art Students, runs parallel to the gaokao and focuses on arts/literature subjects e.g., dance, fine arts, drama, broadcast etc. People typically prepare for one or the other (gaokao vs yikao), because they’re both grueling and highly competitive. Here’s a glimpse of how yikao is for Chinese students. ↩︎
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