Jiang Du couldn’t help turning slowly to look back, her chin resting against her shoulder, carefully watching to see where that figure was heading.
She couldn’t quite tell whether it was the back door of Class Three or the front door of Class Four, but a figure suddenly flashed out from somewhere. Jiang Du stiffened and hastily pulled her gaze away. In her flustered state, she crouched down on the spot and pretended to tie her shoelace, face flushing completely red at the sudden scramble.
Once the person passed, she shot a quick glance over — only to find the boy had already disappeared.
Was he from Mei High? A first-year? He looked completely different from before… She had originally assumed he was some kind of delinquent — the type with terrible grades, enrolled at a vocational school, spending his days doing nothing, getting into relationships, smoking, fighting… Like most people her age, Jiang Du held certain assumptions about vocational high school students.
Even though seeing him again suggested he wasn’t that kind of person, he didn’t exactly seem like… a good student either, did he? Jiang Du’s head was a jumble of random thoughts. She turned on the tap and splashed a handful of cool water gently against her face.
She was curious about him — genuinely curious about someone for the first time.
The curiosity was a very subtle feeling, thin as a layer of mist, drifting through her heart — but not strong enough to disrupt ordinary life. When she returned to the classroom, she couldn’t help glancing quickly in the direction of the boys in the back row — a very fast glance, instantly pulled back as though nothing had happened.
“Jiang Du, were you looking at me?” Lin Haiyang had been watching her since she walked in, and now suddenly called out to tease her. Jiang Du was abruptly mortified. She shook her head, smoothing her skirt to sit down, when a man walked into the classroom, and the room fell instantly silent.
The homeroom teacher. A man named Xu — slightly stocky, looking older than he probably was. Yet he said he’d only graduated from university two years ago. Teacher Xu was amusing: “I’m twenty-five, though I realize you all probably think I look forty. Truth is, I’m a young man — I can’t help it, I was born looking middle-aged right from the start. But the great advantage of looking old like this is that I’ll still look exactly the same at forty — believe it or not? Come back and check when I’m forty. You’ll see.”
The classroom burst into laughter. Even Jiang Du couldn’t help the faint tug at the corner of her mouth. She did the math in her head: when Teacher Xu turned forty would be fifteen years from now — which meant she’d be thirty. Thirty… that sounded quite old, really. Thirty was a number that, to a young girl, felt distant and ancient.
She genuinely had no idea what she’d be like at thirty. I don’t want to have a permed flower head like Auntie Li from next door, Jiang Du thought. And I don’t want to wear one of those fitted skirts. I still want sneakers and denim skirts.
Then came the one-minute self-introductions. When Jiang Du stood up, there was a small ripple of murmurs through the room — her skin was snow-white and her brows were ink-black. The class immediately understood firsthand what it meant to have features as delicately drawn as a painting.
She was terribly shy. Her eyes gleamed bright and clear, lashes fluttering — not knowing where to rest her gaze, she ended up fixing it on Wang Jingjing for the entire duration.
Teacher Xu stood nearby with the class register, which noted all their middle school entrance exam scores. When Jiang Du finished her brief two-sentence introduction and began to step down, Teacher Xu stopped her: “Jiang Du? Would you be willing to serve as Chinese Language Class Representative for now? I can see you have the highest score in this subject.”
“Teacher Xu, Jiang Du was the Chinese Language Class Representative all three years of middle school — she’s won awards for her essays! Choose her!” Wang Jingjing was cheering on her behalf from below, and at that, Jiang Du’s ears went completely red. She hastily accepted, returned to her seat, and gave Wang Jingjing a light swat.
That evening, the teacher set up a rough class structure — appointing subject representatives for each course — then sent the boys out to collect textbooks. The boys had warmed up quickly to one another; they left laughing and talking together.
Military training was traditional at the start of term. Before it officially began, the first-year students in their slightly ill-fitting green training uniforms filled the sports field in a dark mass. The sun had already started burning against their faces.
Everyone complained about why it couldn’t have rained this particular week. After a round of hushed murmuring, they fell silent again under a sweep of the homeroom teacher’s gaze.
The school leadership took to the podium in turn. Each one said something along the lines of: “Now let me say a few words” — and everyone understood that an adult’s “few words” meant a minimum of twenty minutes, at least.
By the time the so-called New Student Representative took the stage, the audience below was already thoroughly impatient.
After all, the freshman orientation ceremony had been going on for over two hours. The podium itself was covered, but the students standing below had been baking in direct sunlight — some of the more fragile girls had already fainted and been carried to the medical room.
“Ugh, who knows how long this representative is going to talk. Didn’t they say it would be done in an hour?”
“I’m dying in this heat — can we please just speed things up? I’m so sick of listening to these cookie-cutter ‘respected leaders, honored teachers’ speeches.”
“Everyone, in this cool and refreshing golden September…” A boy oilily picked up the thread, mimicking the tone, and the mood shifted — people couldn’t help sneaking smiles again.
But the smiles faded quickly as everyone suddenly straightened up.
“It’s Wei Qingyue — it really is him!”
“That one right there — first place — that’s him.”
“He’s so handsome. Isn’t he in Class One? Right next to us!”
In the midst of a faint dizzy spell, Jiang Du gritted her teeth and raised her eyes. The boy on the stage was Wei Qingyue. There wasn’t a single first-year student who didn’t know that name — it was simple enough: he was the top entrance exam scorer, placed in Class One.
She stared at him, struck.
He wasn’t some kind of delinquent at all. He was the top scorer in the city on the middle school entrance exam.
So she had known his name all along.
Jiang Du wiped the sweat that had trickled down her neck.
After stepping onto the stage, Wei Qingyue first gave the leaders on the podium a bow, then walked up to the microphone. He took the speech his homeroom teacher had pre-approved and tucked it into his pocket. His expression was calm:
“Hello, everyone. You’ve all been standing for over two hours, so I’ll keep this brief. I’m glad that we’re standing here at Mei High right now — one step closer to where we started. I hope all of us are the same: that we study well and live well here, that we stay true to ourselves, and that we don’t waste our youth. Thank you. My remarks are finished. Sorry for taking up your time.”
He gave a slight bow, turned, and stepped down from the stage.
The entire sports field was still for a beat.
No one had expected it. Wei Qingyue, as the new student representative, had cast aside the prepared speech entirely and improvised for exactly one minute — leaving the teachers and school leadership exchanging bewildered glances, and the students staring in stunned confusion.
Someone started it with a single shout of approval. What followed was a wave of applause like the sea breaking against a shore. It was within this applause that Jiang Du’s legs gave out beneath her, and she fainted.
This was, without question, an unforgettable orientation ceremony: the top-scoring new student’s unconventional speech, the blazing autumn sun, the charged atmosphere, the girl who collapsed — all of it composed the very first scene of this class of students’ life at Mei High.
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