Chen Yi slept through the entire morning self-study period1. When the bell rang for class to end, he immediately woke up.
It was only the second day since the start of the new semester, and a strong study atmosphere had not yet formed in the classroom. As soon as class ended, it was like a pot of boiling water exploding, lively and bustling.
He lazily leaned against the wall, with red veins in his eyes due to lack of sleep, and watched his classmates running around the classroom listlessly and without much spirit.
His new deskmate was not there either. His textbooks were spread out on the desk, and the pages fluttered noisily in the wind, with the name written on the front page flashing by.
Chen Yi yawned and shrugged his shoulders. Just as he stood up from his seat, a figure suddenly rushed out from behind and hung on his back, putting almost half their body weight on him.
He was bent down by the weight, and barely managed to brace himself against the desk to avoid falling over completely.
“Are you a pig, Jiang Rang?” Chen Yi laughed and scolded.
Jiang Rang walked grinning from Chen Yi’s back to stand in front of him. He took the book on Ruan Mian’s desk and sat right on top of it, putting his feet on the horizontal bars of the stool. “Where did you go during the summer vacation? You didn’t even come to school yesterday on the first day.”
Jiang Rang and Chen Yi had been in the same class since sophomore year. They hung out with two other boys – one called Shen Yu, who was now in the class next door. The other was Liang Yiran, the only one of the four who was in the liberal arts department, having chosen literature when they divided into majors.
“Teacher Wang organized a competition training camp that I went to for training.” Chen Yi said as he rubbed his neck, “Plus the competition itself, it was a nice ten days. I just got back yesterday on the last day.”
Teacher Wang’s full name was Wang Yang. He had been their physics teacher in sophomore year. Before the summer vacation, he was short on people to sign up for a physics competition he was in charge of, and Chen Yi asked him for a registration form when he found out.
Jiang Rang gave Chen Yi a big thumbs up. His mouth kept chattering away, “So how did you do? Can you get a prize? How much is the prize money? I’m calling dibs now, you have to treat us to a meal if you win a prize.”
Chen Yi ignored him and sat down after nudging the stool out of the way.
Jiang Rang flipped through the chemistry textbook in his hand and saw the name written on the front page. He leaned in close to Chen Yi and said, “Your new deskmate is a super top student.”
Chen Yi just murmured a disinterested “Oh” without paying much attention, and matched the new deskmate’s face to her name in his mind.
“She got full marks on the biology mock exam yesterday.” Jiang Rang jumped down from the desk. “That was Teacher Zhou’s exam paper! We took so many exams from Teacher Zhou in sophomore year, have you ever seen anyone get full marks?”
Chen Yi raised his eyebrows, his expression showing some surprise. “That good huh.”
“You bet.” Jiang Rang’s face was smug. He kept slapping the textbook in his hand, and said in a regretful tone, “It’s just that she looks quite plain.”
Chen Yi reached out and snatched the book from his hand. “If Teacher Yu knew you were using words so carelessly, I bet he could come straight back here to No. 8 Middle School to kill you.”
Jiang Rang laughed out loud, his eyes sparkling brightly. “Alright alright, I won’t say any more. It’s about time I go pay Teacher Zhou a visit in his office.”
He obviously knew that the news of him skipping self-study this morning would have already reached Teacher Zhou before class ended.
After Jiang Rang left, Chen Yi opened the biology textbook and saw a name written in the bottom right corner of the front page. The handwriting was bold and energetic, a stark contrast to her demure appearance.
Ruan Mian.
Chen Yi murmured the name out loud, then closed the book and put it back in its original spot before getting up and walking out of the classroom.
Right after class ended, Ruan Mian was called to Zhou Hai’s office. It was about a competition. Every year, No. 8 Middle School would groom a group of students who could get into college by doing well in competitions.
Zhou Hai felt Ruan Mian had the potential, so he wanted her to sign up for a biology competition jointly organized by No. 8 Middle School and several other top high schools this year.
“Here’s the registration form, take it and fill it out. Submit it to me by this Friday.” Zhou Hai said, in order to ease the pressure, “It’s not some big formal competition, just treat it as practice to get a feel for the competition atmosphere.”
It wasn’t Ruan Mian’s first competition, and being new, she didn’t want to leave a bad impression on the teacher of being uncooperative. She nodded and said, “Got it, thanks Teacher Zhou.”
After talking about the competition, Zhou Hai also asked about how she was getting along with her classmates.
Ruan Mian inevitably thought of Chen Yi, but didn’t know how to bring it up, so she just said, “It’s fine.”
“That’s good then.” Zhou Hai said, “Most of your classmates are new to each other. We’re like a new class now. Just think of it as you got put into a class where you don’t know anyone during class division. It will only take a few days to get used to it.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Just then, there was a knock on the door.
Ruan Mian and Zhou Hai looked over at the same time. Jiang Rang stood at the door with one hand in his pocket, grinning from ear to ear. “Good morning Teacher Zhou.”
He also looked at Ruan Mian and grinned shamelessly. “The new classmate is here too.”
Ruan Mian nodded back at him.
Zhou Hai didn’t even let him into the office. He looked utterly exasperated. “The usual, a thousand words of self-reflection. Hand it in to me by noon today.”
Jiang Rang made an OK gesture with his hand. “You got it. I’ll go write it now. I absolutely won’t do this again.”
Zhou Hai frowned in disgust. “Go go go.”
Jiang Rang left as promptly as he said he would.
Ruan Mian pursed her lips in shock and took a few seconds to adjust her emotions before tentatively asking, “Teacher Zhou, then can I go back to class now?”
Zhou Hai immediately turned gloomy again. “Oh, yes, you can go back first.”
When Ruan Mian came out of the office and got to the classroom door, she saw Chen Yi and Jiang Rang standing in the hallway. The blue and white school uniforms wrapped around the boys’ straight and slender figures like young bamboo shoots.
Chen Yi leaned his arm against the railing. Under his fair skin, the veins in his arms were particularly prominent. He had a careless nonchalance about him, an alluring and unrestrained laziness.
By the time Ruan Mian entered the classroom, another boy had joined Chen Yi and Jiang Rang. The three of them were chatting and laughing. Their voices and laughter came drifting in, barely muted.
“Yiran just messaged me saying he’s going to help a teacher organize exam papers during lunch, so he won’t be eating with us.” Jiang Rang’s voice was especially energetic. “I heard their Chinese teacher this semester is Teacher Wu Yan.”
“The Dean of Studies?” Chen Yi asked.
“Do we have another teacher called Wu Yan in our school?” Jiang Rang’s laughter clearly contained some schadenfreude. “Teacher Wu Yan said last semester that he only wanted to take one class this semester. And it just so happens to be Yiran’s class.”
“Our poor little Liang Yiran is going to have a hard time.” Shen Yu said, unable to hold back his laughter either. “That’s just too tragic.”
Chen Yi also chuckled, which wasn’t very noticeable mixed in with their loud guffaws. But Ruan Mian had installed a detection device for his voice – she could always pick it out accurately amidst any clamor.
Soon the bell rang, and the classroom filled up like birds returning to their nest. But the noise only lasted a moment. When the bell stopped ringing, the classroom had become completely silent.
Next to Ruan Mian came the soft sounds of a chair being pulled and someone sitting down.
She held her pen, her thoughts in turmoil, at a loss for what to do.
This state persisted for a whole day. And in that one day, Ruan Mian quickly and effectively established a friendship with Meng Xinglan, the girl sitting in front of her, because they went to the bathroom together.
Later, through the tempering over time, this bathroom camaraderie evolved into revolutionary friendship.
Of course, that’s all for later.
Meng Xinglan was not in the same class as Chen Yi in sophomore year, but they had interacted a lot because of Liang Yiran.
“Chen Yi is the darling of heaven, excellent in both character and academics. Handsome, with a wild personality, and born into a scholarly family. In No. 8 Middle School, countless girls are his fans.”
Meng Xinglan’s tone was purely admiring: “He has an easygoing and unrestrained personality, with many friends. Teachers and students all like him very much, especially the girls – I dare say out of the sixteen girls in our class, fourteen have had a crush on him before.”
“What about the other two?” For a moment Ruan Mian didn’t react.
“The other two are me and you!” Meng Xinglan twisted off the faucet handle matter-of-factly: “To like someone like him, the darling of heaven, sadness is destined to outweigh joy. But liking someone should make you happy. I don’t want my memories of it to be full of sorrow in the future.”
The speaker had no intent, the listener took it to heart. Over the pattering water sound, Ruan Mian vaguely saw her future self.
She turned off the faucet and shook the water off her hands. Very calmly, she said, “Let’s go, class is starting soon.”
In the afternoon biology class, Zhou Hai asked Chen Yi to stand up and introduce himself. There was really no need for this at all, since basically everyone in No. 8 Middle School knew who Chen Yi was.
Even Ruan Mian, who had just transferred over, already understood most things about him after Meng Xinglan’s briefings.
Chen Yi probably also knew this. He simply stood up, stated his name, and stopped talking.
Zhou Hai told him to sit down, and quickly announced the selections for other class officer positions, leaving it to the teachers of each subject to decide on their own class representatives, except for Ruan Mian whom Zhou Hai had already confirmed as overall class rep.
After class ended, Meng Xinglan pulled Ruan Mian to go fill up water bottles again.
Their fast friendship quickly attracted Zhao Shutang’s attention. On the way home from school that day, Zhao Shutang made a few snide remarks to her.
At this age, it was just some childish verbal sparring. Ruan Mian didn’t take it to heart and didn’t tell Fang Ruqing about it either.
Blended families were difficult enough as is. To truly become a family took more than just a short time. All she could do was try to avoid causing more trouble for her mother.
Back home, Ruan Mian took the registration form out of her bag and filled in the information one by one. When she finished writing, she looked up out the window.
Across the way were the rows of luxury villas of Pingjiang Mansions. In the dark of night, the distant lights were like a low hanging galaxy, scintillating and colorful.
Meng Xinglan’s words from earlier in the day gradually surfaced in her mind…
“Chen Yi’s whole family are very accomplished people.”
“His father is an expert in astronomy. His mother is a dancer. He has an uncle who is an official in the military. His maternal grandfather is a retired veteran general. His grandmother is a doctor. His paternal grandparents are both renowned figures in academia.”
“He’s the only child in the family, born in Rome, a privileged child since birth.”
“His family lives in Pingjiang Mansions. The houses there are extremely expensive, and you can’t just buy one even if you have money.”
In the recollection, Ruan Mian could hear her own voice, calm and indifferent after the disguise: “So he, I’m talking about Chen Yi – has his family thought about what he’ll do in the future?”
“They have.” Meng Xinglan thought for a moment. “During the freshman speech competition in sophomore year, he said he wanted to join the army in the future. Guys all have that sort of patriotic heroism. And moreover his family itself is a military one, so it’s not surprising.”
“But I don’t know if he’s changed his mind now.”
Their conversation was then abruptly interrupted by the sudden clamoring of the bell. Ruan Mian also returned to the present. She put the registration form into her bag, opened the lock on her drawer, and took out a notebook from inside.
She flipped to one of the pages.
Two lines were written on it.
2008816.
In the east, Chen, standing tall in the floating image, can pluck stars2.
Ruan Mian turned to a new page, picked up her pen and wrote a few words.
2008831.
What’s wrong?
- In Chinese schools, morning self-study is a period of mandatory independent study time before the school day officially starts. Students are expected to be quiet and use the time effectively to review and prepare for classes. Skipping it is seen as a serious offense. ↩︎
- T/N: The same line that was referenced in Chapter 1; i.e., ?????????????? ↩︎
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