chapter 2

The person speaking was our mutual classmate and the other star of the reunion: Lin Shanshan.

For adults, class reunions are about more than just reconnecting over fading friendships or reminiscing about lost youth. More often than not, they’re about scouting and exchanging resources.

Whether in the past or the present, Lu Xinyu and Lin Shanshan could easily become the center of attention. One was a famous Host, the other a beautiful radio personality. They were bright and dazzling, making everyone else seem dull by comparison.

My memories drifted back to the summer after our freshman year of high school. I was still learning the violin then. Per my mother’s orders, I stood on the first-floor balcony of our home every afternoon at 4:30 to practice.

At some point, I started seeing Lu Xinyu and Lin Shanshan together. They would walk past our house as a pair.

Occasionally, our eyes would meet, and they would greet me. “Hi, Chen Xiaoshan! Practicing your violin?”

It was usually Lin Shanshan who spoke. Lu Xinyu would just look at me, nod, or wave. That was all.

One day after school started, I overheard Lin Shanshan bragging to others that she had spent the entire summer with Lu Xinyu.

“We went to cram school together every day. Xin Yu really likes the row of plane trees on the back street, so we’d leave a bit early to take a detour through there.”

So, the reason they passed my house was for the plane trees by the entrance.

The entire grade was speculating whether Lu Xinyu and Lin Shanshan were a couple. Some bold students even asked Lu Xinyu during break, but he just looked slightly surprised and said, “How is that possible?”

Lin Shanshan, of course, flatly denied it as well.

Everyone said they were just afraid of the teachers calling their parents.

In the first semester of our sophomore year, Lu Xinyu mentioned he couldn’t see the blackboard clearly from the back. The teacher quickly moved him to the third row, right in front of me.

Those were the days I was closest to him.

Sometimes he would turn around to ask what the homework assignment was, or if I had my history book. It was then I realized that even a golden boy like him could forget his homework or his books.

One day, after borrowing a book, he suddenly asked, “What level are you at with the violin?”

He said I played quite beautifully.

Perhaps to avoid rumors, he rarely went to see Lin Shanshan. Most of the time, it was Lin Shanshan who came to him with her exercise books.

“I don’t know how to do this problem. Xin Yu, can you explain it to me?”

When Lu Xinyu explained problems, his expression was always meticulous. But he looked very handsome.

Until one day.

During a class meeting, Lin Shanshan suddenly raised her hand and said someone in class had stolen her fountain pen.

She said it was a pen her mother had bought for her abroad and that she already knew who took it, hoping the person would step forward on their own.

Our homeroom teacher was a rigorous old man. He said bluntly, “Since you know who it is, say it.”

So, Lin Shanshan stammered and said my name.

I was stunned.

I did have a new fountain pen in my pencil case, a gift from a senior who had graduated. By some coincidence, it was identical to the one Lin Shanshan had lost.

That senior had already gone abroad and couldn’t be reached. Lin Shanshan took out her phone, pulled up an old photo, and insisted that my pen was hers.

I had no way to defend myself.

“I gave her that pen.”

A clear male voice rang out, and the whole class went silent.

Lu Xinyu stood up. “I gave her that pen on October 15th. Your pen went missing on October 20th.”

The whole class stared at him. Lin Shanshan’s face was full of disbelief. “You… why would you give a pen to Chen Xiaoshan?”

“Because I’m always bothering her,” he said, looking at the teacher. “Mr. Wang, it’s alright for classmates to give small gifts as a token of gratitude, isn’t it?”

Of course, it was.

No one would think Lu Xinyu was lying. His parents were in the United States, so it was perfectly normal for him to have a foreign-made fountain pen.
But he really had lied.

To cover for me.

I didn’t know how he knew I’d started using that fountain pen on October fifteenth, but I couldn’t help feeling a tiny spark of delight.

Maybe… he did pay a little bit of attention to me.

A few days later, Lin Shanshan’s fountain pen turned up, but she threw a fit at Lu Xinyu. She stopped going over to ask him questions between classes and stopped seeking him out.

Back then, our second-year evening self-study went until nine. My dad was worried it wasn’t safe for me to bike home that late, so he came to pick me up every day.

One Friday night, I waited and waited, but my dad still didn’t show. When I called him, it turned out my grandma was sick and he was at the hospital.

“Sorry, Xiao Shan, wait for Dad a bit longer at school.”

I didn’t want to tire him out, so I shook my head and said I could go back on my own.

“It’s fine. Lots of classmates live along the way.”

But when I hung up and looked around, in just fifteen short minutes, the school gate was already deserted.

Pushing my bike out, I heard a soft call.

“Xiao Shan.”

I froze and turned around. It was Lu Xinyu.

What did he just call me?

Seeing my face, he seemed stunned for a second too.

Xiao Shan.

Xiao Shan.

Maybe he’d seen wrong and mistaken me for Lin Shanshan.

He walked closer. I stayed silent.

“Can you give me a lift for a bit?” he suddenly asked.

“Huh?”

“My bike tire burst. I can’t ride it.” He pointed at his bike not far away. “Our houses are about the same distance from school. Could you take me part of the way?”

That night, I watched him raise my bike seat, climb on, then turn his head and grin at me.

“Hop on,” he said.

The wind was bitterly cold and my clothes were thick, yet I could hear my own heart thudding in my ears.

Maybe it was that night’s contact that broke some invisible taboo. After that, things between me and Lu Xinyu started to feel familiar.

At that sensitive, high-pressure age, if a boy and a girl so much as got a little close, rumors were bound to spread.

Naturally, neither of us paid them any mind.

Not until those rumors reached the teacher’s ears and he told our parents to come in.

Both of Lu Xinyu’s parents were abroad and didn’t show up.

My mom did.

I didn’t know what our homeroom teacher said to her, but on the way home, I followed behind her, staring at the few strands of white hair at the crown of her head, making her look especially old.

She said to me, “Xiao Shan, do you know what kind of family background that boy has?

“The teacher said his family is very rich. He might not even need to take the college entrance exam-he could go straight overseas to a top university.

“Your dad and I pin all of our hopes on you. We get up before dawn and come home late from our stall, we found the best piano teachers we could for you-what do you think that’s all for?

“How can you forget how hard your parents work and start dating at such a critical time?

“The college entrance exam is your only way out.”

My mom’s words were like a bucket of ice water, dousing every last ember of naïve, budding feeling in my teenage heart.

She wasn’t wrong.

I had no capital to be in love.

My only strength was my grades. My only way out was studying.

After that, the homeroom teacher moved my seat to the other side of the classroom, much farther away from Lu Xinyu.

I never went out of my way to talk to him again. And he, maybe sensing something too, stopped seeking me out.

It was like he was drawing a clear line between us.

Near the end of our second year, just as the teacher had said, Lu Xinyu was going abroad.

Our class held a farewell party for him. Lin Shanshan even cried, repeatedly reminding him not to change his QQ or WeChat, while I sat in a far-off corner and took the autograph book as it was passed around.

Everyone wrote down their blessings. I had no idea what I should say to him.

The words I wanted to say wouldn’t come out.

In the end, I only wrote one sentence in English and didn’t sign my name.

A blaring car horn dragged me back to the present. Lu Xinyu hung up the phone and turned to look at me.

“Sorry, what were you about to say?”

I opened my mouth, thought of what Lin Shanshan had said just now, and finally just shook my head.

“Nothing.”