Encountering Wei Qingyue — this was a very, very good day.
A fierce happiness surged against her ribs. Yet beneath the secret delight lay a thread of something she couldn’t quite name — a faint, inexplicable shame.
Even so, Jiang Du was afraid of Wei Qingyue seeing her. She crept forward carefully, deliberately taking a wide detour to reach the bookshelves where she went in search of the magazine Book City.
After checking several times, Jiang Du finally accepted what she saw: the library had no recent issues of Book City. In the months before her middle school entrance exams, Jiang Du had given up all leisure reading. After the exams, Wang Jingjing’s mother had taken them on a trip, followed by a summer spent studying high school material. When she counted it up carefully, she hadn’t read Book City in nearly a year.
The most recent issue available was the December 2005 edition — but that was already last year’s.
Jiang Du stood in front of the shelves in a daze. She pulled out the December issue. A narrow gap opened in the shelf, and through it, completely without warning, her eyes met another pair — Wei Qingyue was also looking for a magazine.
The library was quiet, but inside Jiang Du’s chest, waves crashed against the shore.
The girl’s eyes were dark and bright. In her confusion, she seemed to fall under a spell — she forgot to look away, and stared at Wei Qingyue without blinking.
At school, Wei Qingyue was always the center of attention. Every Monday flag-raising ceremony, he was the flag-bearer, and every eye would turn toward him.
But only now, in this moment, did Jiang Du clearly understand that Wei Qingyue belonged to her alone. In this narrow space between the shelves, only she had seen Wei Qingyue. There was no one else.
The two of them simply looked at each other in silence for a moment.
Wei Qingyue assumed the girl who had happened upon him must have something to say. But there was nothing — she just quietly stared at him.
“Can I help you?” The boy’s voice was lowered, questioning.
Jiang Du startled back to herself. Her face flushed crimson. It was the most vivid physical reaction Wei Qingyue had ever seen from anyone — a face that had been pale white turned, in an instant, scarlet from end to end, as though the whole of her had been set ablaze.
“Um — do you know why Book City only goes up to 2005?” In her flustered state, she seized on a question and blurted it out.
She hadn’t held out any hope that he would know. She just needed something — anything — to save herself from the excruciating awkwardness.
“It’s been discontinued,” Wei Qingyue told her, his voice flat.
For a moment, bewilderment and disappointment crossed the girl’s eyes in quick succession. Wei Qingyue glanced at her and said, “The decline of print media is inevitable. Of course, if the magazine adjusts its strategy, it might actually manage to resume publication in about six months.”
The decline of print media… But the newsstand at the school gate was always crammed with students buying teenage magazines — how could that be? These were things that a girl her age rarely thought about, and even the boy’s framing felt unfamiliar to her.
Wei Qingyue had unmistakably revealed a side of himself that was older than his years. To him, the girl’s expression was thoroughly naive — she clearly hadn’t absorbed what he’d said.
“How do you know it’s been discontinued?” Jiang Du’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. Her heart was pounding rapidly. She was terrified of speaking to Wei Qingyue, but if she said nothing more, she would regret it — regret it bitterly, in that way that leaves a person dissatisfied for days.
Wei Qingyue looked at her, that unremarkable expression on her face, and suddenly gave a slight smile: “I’ve flipped through it from time to time.”
He came directly around to her side, stepping close. The boy carried a dry, faint fragrance of orchids, and as the scent reached her, Jiang Du’s heart rattled like the pages of an old magazine caught in the wind. His arm reached past her head, pulled out the December issue, opened it, and turned it to the editor’s letter for her to read.
Jiang Du was far too nervous. She couldn’t take in a single word. The page was full of text, yet before her eyes there was nothing but a vast expanse of white.
“All good things must come to an end.” Wei Qingyue occasionally had a dry wit — the opening phrase mournful, the final words a small joke — and he delivered it naturally, without any effort. “Rest in peace.”
Jiang Du looked up sharply.
She couldn’t help herself — she pressed the magazine over the lower half of her face, and the corners of her mouth curved just slightly.
Wei Qingyue was unimpressed. “Are all you girls this dramatic? If you want to laugh, just laugh. Why do you need to cover yourself with a book?”
Jiang Du’s smile slowly stiffened. She lowered the magazine, revealing a thoroughly flushed face, and said nothing.
“I’m sorry — I didn’t realize you were this easily embarrassed.” Wei Qingyue looked at her red face and exhaled with gentle resignation. “I’ll head back now.”
After he’d gone, Jiang Du let out a quiet “Mm.”
Only then did her vision return to normal. She discovered that the editor’s note announced the magazine’s suspension for six months.
She let out a small breath, tucked this last and newest issue under her arm, and carried it back to her seat.
Occasionally lifting her head, she could see Wei Qingyue’s face, absorbed in concentration. The sunlight had long since shifted away from him, but still the whole world angled itself around the line of his profile.
At some point, when she looked up again, that seat was empty. In an instant, Jiang Du felt her own heart go equally hollow. She glanced around the room — many other seats had emptied as well.
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