Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Lu Chen died during the first cold snap of the second semester of senior year.

School had let out early that day, and the gates were incredibly crowded. A five or six-year-old boy broke free from his mother’s hand and dashed into the road, chasing a rolling ball. I was standing by the crosswalk, still clutching the White Magnolia Hair Clip I had just taken out of my hair. I was about to lower my head to tuck it into my school uniform pocket when a voice suddenly shouted in my ear, “Watch out!”

When I looked up, I only saw Lu Chen already rushing forward.

He shoved the child back onto the sidewalk, but he didn’t have time to pull himself back.

The screech of the truck’s brakes was as sharp as a knife, slicing through the evening chatter. My entire body froze; my legs were weak even as I tried to run toward him. By the time I pushed through the crowd of onlookers, I saw Lu Chen lying on the ground. Half of his school uniform jacket was soaked in blood, and his face was as pale as a ghost.

He was still holding my hair clip.

The White Magnolia Hair Clip lay in his palm, stained with blood, one of its petals chipped.

I knelt on the ground, my hands shaking so much I didn’t even dare to touch him. I could only call his name over and over again.

“Lu Chen, Lu Chen… don’t fall asleep.”

His eyelashes fluttered slightly, and he seemed to look at me with great effort.

His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Later, I kept wondering what he had wanted to say at that moment.

Was it “Don’t cry,” or “Keep the hair clip safe,” or perhaps, just that confession of love that he, like me, had kept bottled up for three whole years?

But I would never have the chance to know.

The ambulance arrived quickly. The doctors pushed him inside, and I followed. The monitor beeped incessantly all the way there. A nurse pressed on my shoulder, telling me not to get in the way, but I was as if deaf, staring fixedly at that intermittent heart rate line.

A minute before we reached the hospital, the line turned into a flat, white streak.

My vision went black, and I couldn’t even make a sound as I cried.

That night, spring had not yet truly arrived.

But Lu Chen had left first.

Three days after Lu Chen was buried, I went to his house.

His mother’s eyes were red and swollen from crying. When she saw me standing at the door, she froze for a long while before remembering who I was.

“You’re… Cheng Zhi, right?” Her voice was incredibly hoarse. “Lu Chen mentioned you before.”

My heart clenched suddenly.

Lu Chen had mentioned me.

But between him and me, there had clearly been nothing.

We were just in neighboring classes. We only occasionally brushed past each other in the hallway; occasionally, while on cleaning duty, he would conveniently wipe the high corners of the blackboard for me; occasionally, when I dropped an eraser, a hair tie, or scratch paper, it would always appear safely on the corner of my desk the next day. Lu Chen was a man of few words, as silent as a tree in winter, yet I had spent three years staring at him.

I thought this crush was something only I knew about.

Lu Chen’s mother took a black-covered notebook out of a drawer. Her hands were still trembling as she handed it to me.

“This was found at the very bottom of his desk,” she said. “Your name is written on the last page.”

My fingertips were ice-cold, and I could hardly bring myself to open that diary.

The first page had a date: September, Freshman Year.

The second line was my name.

“Cheng Zhi was on cleaning duty today. She stood on her tiptoes while wiping the blackboard and almost slipped off the edge of the podium. I wanted to tell her to slow down, but I was afraid she’d think I was meddling.”

I flipped further back.

“When she wears a high ponytail, the White Magnolia Hair Clip is always pinned on the left. She didn’t wear it today; she probably lost it.”

“She’s very bad at math. She habitually bites her pen cap when doing the final challenge problems.”

“If she doesn’t like someone else after the college entrance exams are over, I want to give it a try.”

My tears instantly splashed onto the pages.

That diary was densely packed, filled with a Lu Chen I never knew. It turned out he also secretly recorded someone in the night; it turned out he had picked up more than just one hair tie for me; it turned out his silence wasn’t because he didn’t care, but because he cared too much.

The handwriting on the last page was messy, as if written in a hurry.

“I saw her standing at the school gate for a long time today. The wind was very strong, and the tip of her nose was frozen red. When spring truly arrives, I want to tell her those words.”

But spring didn’t make it in time.

I clutched that diary and cried until I couldn’t breathe, my vision blacking out in waves. When I woke up again, what reached my ears wasn’t the mourning music of the funeral hall, nor the sound of the winter wind, but the piercing announcement of the new semester over the loudspeaker.

“Freshmen, please enter the field in order of your classes.”

I snapped my eyes open.

The sunlight on the playground was bright and dazzling, and the rostrum was a piercing red. I looked down and saw myself wearing a freshman uniform that hadn’t been tailored yet. My name tag read: Class 7, Freshman Year, Cheng Zhi.

Three years ago.

I had returned to three years ago, to the day I first met Lu Chen.