“In my imagination, the end of the college entrance exam should be everyone tearing up books together, celebrating wildly, and laughing about being liberated.”
Wen Qianshu: “And what was the result?”
Zhang Zisheng sniffled, crying as she said: “Who knew they’d still be checking answers! I didn’t want to hear it at all, but I still heard!”
Wen Qianshu sat down and patted her shoulder.
Zhang Zisheng: “What’s the point of checking answers? Check, check, check, all they know is checking. I got another math problem wrong.”
Wen Qianshu pulled out a tissue for her: “It’s okay. Actually, almost no one could solve the last problem.”
The students at the desks in front and behind her gathered around, a bit at a loss. The one in front took out a chocolate, unwrapped it, and handed it to her: “Don’t cry. Want some chocolate?”
The one behind her: “I have potato chips here, your favorite flavor.”
Zhang Zisheng cried even harder.
“What’s going on?” The head teacher came over. “Why are you crying?”
Zhang Zisheng was, after all, afraid of the head teacher. She choked back a sob: “N-nothing’s wrong.”
Head Teacher: “Did you get a question wrong?”
Zhang Zisheng’s tears started streaming down again: “No, that’s not it.”
Head Teacher: “If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. Go have some fun.”
Zhang Zisheng was so surprised she froze, even forgetting to cry.
“You kids.” The head teacher leaned on a desk. “Before the exam, you were thinking about having fun every day. Now that you can, why aren’t you?”
“Go on, go have fun now that the exam is over.” The head teacher said, “You’ve worked hard for three years. What’s done is done, don’t dwell on it.”
“Go have a good time this summer vacation. Learn a skill you want to learn, go to the places you want to go.” The head teacher continued, “Your score doesn’t decide everything, but for now, that score has been determined. You have to take this score and use it to choose a region, a university, and a major.”
“High school isn’t the most important thing; university is. Everything you did in high school is just a stepping stone to university.” The head teacher said, “No matter what kind of university you get into, don’t slack off. You must continue to study, and you must squeeze dry every resource the school can offer you.”
A few of them couldn’t help but laugh.
Head Teacher: “I don’t expect everyone in the class to be wildly successful. I just hope that each of you becomes a better version of yourself every day.”
“Don’t regret the past, and don’t fear the future.”
Head Teacher: “Perhaps I was very demanding of you in the past, but you are all truly the best kids I’ve ever seen.”
The boy in the back seat: “Be more confident, Teacher. Get rid of the ‘perhaps.’ You were very demanding.”
The head teacher shot him a glare, and the boy immediately ducked his head. “My bad, my bad—”
Zhang Zisheng was comforted, but tearing up books was impossible, completely impossible. Because the third-year building was being used as an exam site, they had prepared for the exam in the first-year building, which meant they couldn’t even go back to their own classroom now. Besides, they had to do a major cleanup after the exam, and only after the cleanup was inspected would their vacation officially begin.
The students of the first-year Class 7 knew the college entrance exam was happening. They had even changed the blackboard display to a drawing of a carp leaping over the dragon gate, with large characters written beside it: “Senior brothers and sisters, good luck on the exam!”
On every desk, there was a sticky note—fluorescent, colorful, apple-shaped, speech-bubble-shaped, or at the very least, a piece of scratch paper torn out and taped down.
The handwriting on the sticky notes varied, and none were signed, but the message was consistent—Good luck, you’ve got this.
Most of the third-year Class 7 students hadn’t torn them off; they were still stuck to the desks after three days, including Wen Qianshu. She looked down at hers. The handwriting was rough and messy. She had no idea which unremarkable little English genius had written it. The last sentence was probably meant to be “Good Luck, Guys!” but ended up as “Good Luck, Gays!”【1】.
Wen Qianshu stared at it for a moment, then peeled the note off and put it in her pocket. Then she left her math, physics, and chemistry notebooks on the desk.
As for her Chinese literature notes, she decided not to leave them, lest she lead someone astray.
Many other students did the same, leaving their Five-Threes and notebooks for the first-year junior brothers and sisters. Zhang Zisheng wiped her tears dry and left behind a bag of potato chips and a thick stack of notebooks.
After everything was cleaned up, Wen Qianshu shouldered her schoolbag, ready to leave. She had arranged with Shen Ting that morning to meet at the school gate and ride their bikes home together.
Wen Qianshu: “I’m dead tired. I want to go home and sleep.”
2333: “Actually, I already know your scores.”
Wen Qianshu: “…”
Just as she was about to say something, she caught sight of Jiang Mingyue standing outside the classroom door. The other girl had been looking at her phone, but now she looked up at Wen Qianshu.
Jiang Mingyue: “Walk together?”
She pointed at her phone: “Luo Qing already went home.”
Wen Qianshu knew that Jiang Mingyue’s family always picked her up by car. They were in the first-year building now, which was very close to the school gate. The bike shed, on the other hand, was at the very back of the school. Going there to get her bike and then heading to the gate would be a huge detour.
Wen Qianshu smiled: “You told her to go home first?”
Jiang Mingyue didn’t reply, just looked at her.
Wen Qianshu, with one hand in her pocket, fingers rubbing the piece of paper inside, asked with a smile, “What’s up?”
Jiang Mingyue: “You already know, don’t you?”
Wen Qianshu didn’t answer either. She just squeezed the paper. Her thoughts drifted, thinking of her mother, then of that doctor, and then of Jiang Mingyue.
She thought of the Jiang Mingyue she saw for the first time, of Jiang Mingyue panting after a run, of Jiang Mingyue with her hair down, of Jiang Mingyue on the mountain with her ears red from the cold—
Jiang Mingyue: “So, what’s your answer?”
Occasionally, students would pass by and glance at them, but they kept walking. Few were crying or laughing; most wore expressions of sleep deprivation and confusion. They had just crossed the single-plank bridge called the college entrance exam, only to find a web of various paths ahead, shrouded in mist, their destinations unclear.
“Jiang Mingyue.” Wen Qianshu lowered her gaze and then raised it again. When she wasn’t smiling, she often appeared somewhat cold. “I’m not a good person.”
“I’m very guarded, and I don’t like to invest too much emotion. I have no plans for the future. Maybe I just want to casually earn some money, travel, do—I don’t know, maybe anything I’ve never done before.”
Wen Qianshu let go of the paper in her pocket: “But you’re a very goal-oriented person with a lot of plans. Have you ever thought that we’re not compatible at all?”
Jiang Mingyue: “Yes, we’re not compatible.”
Wen Qianshu hadn’t expected this answer at all and looked at Jiang Mingyue.
The number of people on the floor dwindled until there was no one left. Only the sound of the wind and the sunlight lingered on this floor, day after day, witnessing one batch of students arrive and seeing another off.
Jiang Mingyue averted her gaze, looking somewhere unknown: “My maternal grandfather is a doctor. I’ve wanted to be a doctor since I was little.”
Wen Qianshu was taken aback: “A doctor?”
“Yes, a doctor.” Jiang Mingyue said, “I have a university I really want to go to, a job I really want to do. I plan to study all the way to a doctorate, and my work will be very busy after graduation. If we were together, we’d spend more time apart than together. I might not be able to travel with you…”
Jiang Mingyue even handed her phone over. There was a long string of text typed in the memo app, but it wasn’t a love letter or any sweet nothings. Instead, it listed the differences in their personalities and the many problems a same-sex couple would face. It was just short of having a bunch of charts and diagrams.
Wen Qianshu didn’t know what expression to make as she read it, and for a moment, she was at a loss for words.
Jiang Mingyue shifted her gaze back: “Wen Qianshu, I’ve considered what you said about our personalities not being compatible. In fact, I’ve considered many things, and I still want to be with you.”
“But this path might have many difficulties, so I listed them out. I hope you’ll take a look.”
The memo was unexpectedly long. The more Wen Qianshu read, the more her head hurt, and the less she understood. “You listed so many things at once. Aren’t you afraid that I might have wanted to say yes, but now I won’t?”
Jiang Mingyue didn’t understand either: “If we get together, these are difficulties we’ll both have to face. Don’t you have the right to know?”
Wen Qianshu was stunned. She had actually imagined scenarios of Jiang Mingyue confessing, but she never thought it would be like this. There was no reading-comprehension-style game of charades, but a clear list of circumstances. At first glance, it even looked like an instruction manual for some home appliance, the kind that’s especially prone to malfunctioning and advises people not to buy it.
Wen Qianshu was even reminded of the Venn diagram Jiang Mingyue had drawn in the book. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Who confesses like this?”
Jiang Mingyue paused, frowning slightly: “Is it not okay?”
Her back was still straight, her neck snowy white, but her pair of light-colored eyes held confusion, like a beauty from an ancient painting showing a flicker of emotion, so beautiful it hurt the eyes.
Wen Qianshu: “…”
Wen Qianshu just couldn’t get past a pretty face: “It’s not that it’s not okay—”
2333 watched helplessly as she strayed further and further off course: “But, aren’t confessions usually romantic?”
Jiang Mingyue: “If it were more romantic, would you have agreed?”
Now Wen Qianshu was surprised: “You knew I wouldn’t agree? Then why did you—”
“I don’t know.” Jiang Mingyue said, “I only know that you don’t like getting too close to people. Over the past two years, you’ve also been slowly distancing yourself from Shen Ting. Even Zhang Zisheng, your deskmate, gets along better with the person in front of you.”
Jiang Mingyue: “It’s actually quite obvious, isn’t it?”
It was obvious, but only Jiang Mingyue had noticed.
Wen Qianshu liked to joke around with everyone, but she didn’t open her heart to anyone.
The people in her class actually liked Wen Qianshu a lot. No matter what they told her, how many secrets, she would never breathe a word of it to anyone else.
But by the same token, she never mentioned a thing about her own affairs.
Wen Qianshu fell silent.
Jiang Mingyue: “I don’t know why you’re like this. But as you know, I don’t like people prying into my privacy, so I won’t pry into others’ privacy either. I don’t like my parents forcing me to do things, so I won’t forcibly interfere with any of your actions or choices.”
“You don’t want to get too close, but I like you a lot. So I’ve laid out all the possible situations and difficulties we might encounter before you, letting you decide the distance between us, decide our pace. You just need to be a little honest and tell me, do you like me?”
It was almost summer, but the wind and sunlight were still too gentle, so gentle it was almost illusory.
“If, by chance, you like me too—then, do you want to give it a try?”
If you like me too—
Do you want to give it a try?
Let’s try.
Let’s try—
A voice in Wen Qianshu’s mind said.
She stood at the classroom doorway, by the wall, her hand unconsciously squeezing the paper in her pocket again.
She heard the wind pass through the corridor, heard the second hand of the clock in the classroom ticking, and heard herself ask: “You’ve mentioned so many disadvantages. Are there any advantages to being with you?”
Jiang Mingyue: “Yes. Tomorrow is your birthday.”
Wen Qianshu didn’t know how she knew that, but it was most likely Shen Ting who had told her. “So?”
Jiang Mingyue: “So if you agree, today will be our anniversary. Every year from now on, you’ll receive two gifts before your birthday.”
Wen Qianshu: “And if I don’t agree?”
Jiang Mingyue was silent for a moment, then pursed her lips: “Then there will only be one.”
2333: “…”
Wen Qianshu was amused. She didn’t even know what was so funny about that sentence.
She just simply wanted to laugh.
“That’s a good reason—”
She heard someone speak, and it seemed to be her own voice.
“So, what about this year’s two gifts?”
Author’s Notes:
【1】Good Luck, Guys. Good Luck, Gays. Also, ‘gay’ is more commonly used as an adjective, as in ‘a gay man,’ and rarely as a noun like ‘a gay.’
Don’t be fooled by Wen Qianshu acting like she dislikes Jiang Mingyue’s direct approach; she was clearly moved by it.
Sigh, you just keep pretending.
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