Liao Xinyan stood on a chair, using a wine bottle as a microphone, delivering her confession with the heroic determination of a martyr.
Jing Qichi had just popped a piece of boiled fish into his mouth when he choked violently, coughing uncontrollably. Huan'er swiftly grabbed a tissue and shoved it into his face. Under the gaze of the entire class, his face turned crimson as he struggled to stop coughing.
The boys egged him on, "Hold it in, man. The class monitor is confessing."
Liao Xinyan had drunk quite a bit, her face flushed red down to her neck. She swayed unsteadily on the chair, with two girls standing on either side to prevent her from toppling over.
Yet the protagonist of the moment continued, her words blurring the line between drunkenness and clarity, "You all heard it. I like him."
The private room erupted into another wave of raucous cheers.
Her confession target finally stopped coughing and slowly turned around. For a moment, even the air seemed to grow still.
Impatient voices urged, "Jing Qichi, stop playing dumb. Give her a straight answer."
"If you two get together, you'll be the first couple in our class."
"Come on, yes or no?"
Another round of laughter followed.
Jing Qichi also laughed, using the moment to address Liao Xinyan, "Class Monitor, you just haven't met enough men yet."
A tactful, clever rejection that spared her dignity.
The atmosphere froze for an instant.
But soon, a quick-witted boy stepped in to lighten the mood, "Same here. I haven't met enough women either."
"You haven't met enough? Your collection at home is stacked to the ceiling!"
"Bullshit."
"No wonder you're going to teacher's college—got ulterior motives, huh?"
"I got in on my own merit!"
Liveliness quickly reclaimed the space. Liao Xinyan was pulled down from the chair by the girls beside her and left the room with her face covered.
Du Man quietly whispered to Huan'er, "I heard the class monitor only chose Beijing because she saw Jing Qichi's college preference form. Who knew he'd change his mind?"
Just then, Jing Qichi kicked Huan'er's chair. "You coming or not?"
"Now?"
"How's she supposed to come back if I'm still here?"
Du Man hugged Huan'er. "Go on. Keep in touch."
Even after leaving the restaurant, Huan'er wasn't sure if she'd made the right choice. Objectively speaking, she got along well with Liao Xinyan—leaving like this felt like siding with the enemy, disloyal and dishonorable.
The city lights flickered on, and the streets buzzed with life. Summer nights were never lonely. The two rode their bikes side by side at a leisurely pace.
Huan'er broke the silence. "Have you been with Song Cong these past few days? No news from him."
"Yeah," the boy replied. "We've been working on something together."
"What is it?"
"I'll tell you later. It's not ready yet."
Huan'er nodded. "What else? What have you been up to?"
"Playing soccer and video games."
"Knee not hurting?"
"Not too bad."
Beyond that, there wasn't much to say. He couldn't talk about rejecting Liao Xinyan, couldn't mention changing his college preferences, and definitely couldn't bring up anything about schools—each topic danced around the unspoken line between them. Crossing it might mean no turning back.
And Jing Qichi, it seemed, had no intention of speaking up either.
Chen Huan'er returned to Sishui and settled into a peaceful, uneventful holiday routine. Mornings were spent puttering around the yard with her grandparents, tending to plants. Afternoons were reserved for unwavering dedication to the boxing gym. Evenings passed with books, visits to neighbors, and TV. Each day dawned anew. "I built my hut beside a busy road, yet hear no noise of passing carts and horses"—she didn't need to recite Tao Yuanming to grasp the poem's essence. A life of idle clouds and wild cranes was, after all, its own kind of ambition.Old folks are superstitious and love to gather in groups. Hearing about a fortune-teller in a nearby village who could read people's destinies, Grandma specially took her for a divination. The white-bearded old man squinted his eyes, sized her up, and said, "Books hold houses of gold—this girl's academic path stretches far, she'll be a scholar." He added that her great calamities were already past, everything would go smoothly from now on, her marriage was predestined since childhood, and with her full forehead, high nose bridge, and round head, she bore the appearance of a woman who brings prosperity to her husband. Grandma happily paid the "hard-earned fee," but Huan'er scoffed, "The moment you walked in, you told him I got into university—of course he'd say I'm a scholar. And what's this about marriage? All the neighborhood kids grew up playing together—who doesn't have a childhood sweetheart? That fortune-teller really knows how to deduce things."
The old woman scolded her, "Everyone from ten villages around says his readings are accurate. Don't talk nonsense—you should believe in fate."
"With that logic, I could just sit around and gold would fall from the sky."
"He said your great calamities were in childhood," Grandma insisted, utterly convinced. "You're just blessed with good fortune."
How absurd. Just as she was planning to idle through life, she was declared destined for endless study. Just as she'd finally toughened her wings to face the storms of the world, she was forecasted to have nothing but clear skies overhead.
Even those with a female lead's script have to endure some setbacks.
"Hey, wasn't that Cheng Family Boy you used to chase around also studying down south?" Grandma muttered to herself. "Oh wait, he must've graduated by now."
Where did this Cheng Family Boy come from? This old woman would grab anyone to be her future grandson-in-law.
Huan'er yelled, "I'm not close to anyone surnamed Cheng!"
On a scorching summer day, she received a call from Qi Qi. When the name flashed on the screen, Huan'er hesitated for a moment—it had been too long. So long that a full cycle of seasons had passed, so long she'd nearly forgotten how close they once were. So long that she thought if anyone mentioned Qi Qi in the future, she'd just say, "I know her," and with that mindset, she pressed answer. After some meaningless small talk, she heard the saccharine dialogue of a TV drama in the background. Qi Qi said, "This Mu Nianci looks just like you." Huan'er listened to the voices as she turned off the AC, the unnatural cold breeze making her scalp tingle. Qi Qi added, "I'm going to Beijing. It probably won't be easy for us to meet anymore."
She didn't know where Qi Qi had been admitted—she'd grown distant from all her former classmates in the humanities class, and she'd stopped paying attention to anything happening in that building. But she thought Qi Qi must have done well.
"I found out about Liao Xinyan's confession," Qi Qi continued unprompted. "Just found out."
Huan'er stayed silent.
If she had to trace it back, it seemed their estrangement began with Liao Xinyan's intrusion. But that couldn't possibly be a complete or logical reason, which was why Chen Huan'er never understood. Her confusion had faded with time but never disappeared.
Qi Qi said, "Because of me, there was a huge misunderstanding between us. I sincerely apologize."
"Misunderstanding?"
"Yes, a misunderstanding."
The TV drama's theme song started playing, and the room's temperature began to rise.
Before hanging up, Qi Qi's final words were, "Give me some time. I need to think about how to tell you."
Misunderstandings can be resolved, mistakes can be forgiven, apologies can be accepted—but what about the cracks that formed, the time lost, the defeated feelings? How can those be remedied?
It's just that they were once too close—letting go feels unbearable, but going back is too hard.
On the day she returned to the Family Compound, Song Cong and Jing Qichi showed up together, acting mysteriously as they pressed her in front of the computer. They turned it on, opened the browser, typed in a URL, and hit enter—revealing a page she'd never seen before.
The top-left corner displayed the title: Notes Alliance."What's this?" Huan'er was completely baffled.
"What we've been up to," Jing Qichi said, pulling out an envelope. "Your share."
Inside was a hundred-yuan bill.
Song Cong explained, "We set up a website—Qi Chi's idea—to sell graduating students' notes publicly. The traffic isn't huge yet, but the conversion rate is pretty high."
No wonder. The images were photos of notes, with simple descriptions labeled as "products," along with the original owners' high schools and the universities they were admitted to—some for middle school entrance exams, others for college entrance exams. These two really knew how to make quick money.
Huan'er pinched the hundred-yuan bill. "You sold mine?"
She had no idea about any of this.
"Aunt Lina said they were going to sell them as scrap paper anyway, so we picked out all your notes, mistake logs, and printed excerpts from that pile of books," Song Cong said, watching her expression. "Are you mad? We wanted it to be a surprise..."
"So..." Huan'er frowned. "All of mine sold for just a hundred?"
"That's about right," Jing Qichi said, rubbing his nose. "Lao Song only got five hundred."
He was clearly trying not to laugh.
Song Cong had been frugal with paper and notes over the years—his stack of notes for all subjects combined wasn't even as thick as her single mistake log. Outdone in academics, and now, even after graduation, she was getting thoroughly stabbed in the back.
Huan'er turned away, pouting, and started browsing the webpage. It wasn't as flashy as a portal site, but it was highly functional. The images were uniformly sized, the text clear and prominent, and the color scheme had a minimalist elegance. Terms like "Tianzhong Honor Class," "recommended admission," and "top-tier universities" appeared repeatedly, perfectly catering to—and stoking—the expectations of their target audience. Casting a wide net and reeling them in steadily—these two had clearly been busy all summer.
"Qi Chi did most of this," Song Cong said, taking the mouse to demonstrate. "Here, clicking this 'Contact' button sends a message to our admin email. You can make an offer or ask questions directly. The only thing missing is an online payment feature—we didn't have enough time to make it more complex."
Huan'er asked, "Where did you get all these resources?"
"Director Fu and our experimental school's academic director helped out," Song Cong said, pointing at the screen. "Not just the student notes—most of the customers came through them too. They shared it in teacher group chats, and the teachers forwarded it to parent groups. Word spread, and soon enough, inquiries started pouring in."
One handled the inside, the other the outside—brothers working together with a clear goal.
Huan'er thought to herself, No wonder they didn't include me—there really wasn't a place for me in this setup.
She glanced at Jing Qichi. "What's the plan for this going forward?"
Song Cong chuckled. "Him? His ambitions are way bigger."
"If it doesn't work out, it becomes a local Tianhe platform for exchanging and trading study materials, expanding from middle and college entrance exams to other types of tests," Jing Qichi said matter-of-factly, with no hint of joking or exaggeration. "If it does work out, it becomes a nationwide knowledge-sharing community, covering everything from academics to daily life. It could be divided by region or by category and purpose—something like that."
"See?" Song Cong gave Huan'er a look.
"True," Huan'er said, nodding emphatically at Jing Qichi.
At the time, she hadn't yet realized that in this year before the full advent of the smart era, Jing Qichi had already demonstrated an internet mindset that surpassed most of his peers—and even most people.
"Did you buy the tickets yet?" Jing Qichi suddenly asked.
"Not yet.""I'll buy them together," he said, picking up his laptop and sitting directly on her bed. After some searching, he asked, "Do you want to leave in the morning or arrive in the morning?"
"Let's leave in the morning."
"Okay."
Everything seemed normal—his questions, expressions, reactions—all perfectly normal, yet something felt off. Since Jing's Father's incident, Jing Qichi had indeed changed significantly. He spoke less and no longer teased or joked around for no reason. Jing's Mother mentioned he sometimes even made instant noodles when he came home. The adults all said he had matured and become more sensible. Was that why it felt wrong?
But Chen Huan'er had long grown accustomed to this version of him. That wasn't the issue.
It was as if there was a layer between them, making her and Jing Qichi feel less close.
Strangely, she was certain that on some deeper, intangible level, nothing between them had changed.
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