Light-Years Away
In the end, they found out—on the day of her eighteenth birthday.
Ever since before the gaokao, Gu Jianian had lived in constant fear and dread, waiting for the truth to come crashing down.
Even checking her messages every day had become torture.
But more than a month had passed, and her days in Yunmo had remained calm and peaceful. Not her Chinese teacher, not her homeroom teacher, not even her parents had sent her a single message.
It was as if this secret would be buried forever along with her life in Yunmo.
Her parents’ hateful gazes were like an apocalyptic hurricane, dragging her into a whirlpool of time, back to the final day she had stayed behind at school before the gaokao.
That day she had tried so hard to avoid, the day she had been unwilling and afraid to recall.
That evening, during the first period of evening self-study, Gu Jianian used the excuse of extra tutoring, just as she usually did, to escape the suffocating classroom. Carrying her schoolbag, she hid on the abandoned rooftop at the top of the teaching building.
The evening wind that day was as bleak as ever, yet free.
The huge senior-year teaching building was brightly lit. Everyone was bent over their desks, writing furiously as they prepared for the gaokao. She was the only person on the rooftop.
Gu Jianian sat down with her back against the concrete parapet, hiding herself in the shadow of the railing. Trembling, she lit the cigarette she had hidden in her sleeve.
It was the cheapest kind, bought through someone else. The poor-quality tobacco smell was extremely harsh.
Yet strangely, only that smell could gradually calm her down.
She let it burn like that, ring after ring of smoke curling upward, while her mind drifted hazily.
The gaokao was only a few days away.
How wonderful.
Unbelievably wonderful.
She had finally, finally endured until now.
She had done it.
Those endless, lightless days were really about to end.
At last, she could escape her parents, escape this suffocating school, escape this cold, icy city.
When the time came, she would quit smoking and go to university somewhere far, far away from Beilin.
She could grow her hair long according to her own wishes and wear pretty dresses. She could find a part-time job in a bookstore, read the books she liked until late at night, make new friends who shared her interests, go eat the ice cream she wanted, and go with them to KTVs and cinemas her parents had never allowed her to visit.
Then she would start again, step by step, trying to live a life with dignity and freedom.
The cigarette butt collapsed into a scarlet point, like a firefly fluttering its wings in the dark night.
Gu Jianian kept imagining all of this without end, until the sound of footsteps echoed from the stairwell, making her scalp prickle.
Startled, she turned back in panic, praying in her heart that it was only a student who had occasionally come up for some air.
But the person who walked out from the stairwell was her Chinese teacher.
Among all the subject teachers, she was the one who had treated her the most kindly.
Gu Jianian’s heart sank. She quickly hid the half-burned cigarette in her palm. The scorching ember burned a blister into her skin.
Although she moved quickly, her Chinese teacher still saw it.
The teacher walked over step by step. After smelling the cigarette smoke that had not yet dispersed from the rooftop, she sucked in a sharp breath, her expression turning ashen.
She looked at Gu Jianian’s pale face and mercilessly pried open her fingers one by one. Her tone was filled with disbelief and utter disappointment.
“Gu Jianian, I originally thought that although your grades were poor, you were still a good child. I never expected this. You lied and said you were going to tutoring, skipped evening self-study, and hid here just to smoke? This is Lin High School, the top school in all of Beilin, the school with the strictest rules and discipline. Do you know what the consequences are if you’re caught smoking on campus? At worst, expulsion. At best, being advised to withdraw. Not to mention you’ve skipped class for a whole month!”
“You are destroying your own future!”
No matter how hard Gu Jianian tried afterward, she could never remember what she had been thinking in those few minutes after being discovered by her Chinese teacher.
Was it fear? Panic? Or the despair of giving up completely?
It was as if her body had activated some protective mechanism and deleted that process from her mind.
When her memories resumed, her Chinese teacher was taking her to knock on the homeroom teacher’s office door.
The teacher handed the cigarette butt to the homeroom teacher, shook her head, and turned to leave.
Gu Jianian still remembered the look her homeroom teacher had given her.
It was just like the look her father was giving her now, only with even more contempt and disdain.
As if to say, *As expected. This is exactly the kind of thing a poor student like her would do.*
He called over the grade director as well. The two of them closed the door and began their cruel judgment.
They scolded her for so many things, so much that Gu Jianian could no longer remember most of it.
She only remembered that under the two teachers’ relentless questioning, she fearfully confessed how she had started smoking, who had bought her the cigarettes, and how she had managed to deceive both her parents and her teachers in order to successfully skip class.
She also remembered crying in the end, begging them not to tell her parents, begging them to let her finish the gaokao.
Before evening self-study ended, her homeroom teacher finally let her leave.
His expression was stern, but his tone was full of mockery.
“Gu Jianian, you should count yourself lucky. If the gaokao weren’t just a few days away, you would definitely be expelled. I guarantee it.”
“But if you don’t do well… based on Lin High School’s consistently strict rules and discipline, we will never accept a poor student like you, someone who would ruin the school atmosphere, back for a repeat year. We absolutely cannot allow one rat dropping to spoil a whole pot of porridge. Go. Conduct yourself properly.”
Conduct herself properly?
She did not manage to do that.
She passed the final few days before the gaokao in a daze, unable to revise a single word. The two days of the gaokao were as long as the end of the world. Every line of those exam papers was filled with her fear, and no matter how hard she tried, she could not concentrate.
After the gaokao, before the results came out, Gu Jianian lied and said she had a cold, shutting herself inside the house.
She drew the curtains and sat on the cold floor, full of terror, shaking all over.
She was afraid the truth would be exposed, and she was also afraid that after failing the exam, she would have no way back and no future left.
Every day, from daylight to night, then from night back to daylight.
Every day felt like a year.
At last, the day the results were released arrived. Urged by her parents, Gu Jianian checked her score.
Even though she had mentally prepared herself, the moment she saw the score, her heart still dropped at the speed of light.
As expected, it was terrible.
Terrible like never before.
Like some absurd April Fool’s joke.
In Lin High School, where ninety-five percent of students passed the first-tier university cut-off, a score like this probably would not be believed if spoken aloud.
There was no school she could apply to.
She knew she was finished.
Sure enough, when her parents saw the score, they sucked in a breath in disbelief.
They shoved her aside roughly and crowded in front of the computer, refreshing the page again and again, completely unable to believe their own eyes.
But that string of numbers did not change at all.
Then they began shouting over each other, roaring wildly as they questioned her for the reason.
Gu Jianian said nothing.
When they could not get an answer, they began scolding her.
Just like every time she had done badly on an exam before—no, worse than that.
This time, they used the ugliest words they had accumulated from all the knowledge they had learned in their lives.
Gu Jianian still said nothing.
She was like a puppet that had lost its soul, listening as they cursed her, then began arguing with each other, blaming and accusing one another.
Her father smoked cigarette after cigarette, his brows tightly furrowed, silent.
Her mother began to sob loudly, venting her emotions without restraint.
She cried as if her heart and liver were being torn apart, listing in detail how much money and effort they had spent over the past ten years for Gu Jianian’s grades and future, accusing her of repaying all their painstaking effort and exhaustion with this result.
As if they had been the ones taking the gaokao.
“Even if I’d raised a dog for ten years, I would’ve gotten something in return, wouldn’t I? What about you? Is this what you give us in return?”
“Why don’t we all just stop living? The three of us can jump together, right out of this eighteenth-floor window.”
“You scored like this because you want to drive your parents to death, don’t you?”
Gu Jianian still said nothing.
She could hardly imagine what would happen if they knew the reason, if they knew she could not even return to Lin High School to repeat the year. Would they really jump, taking her with them?
Finally, her parents’ emotions calmed down.
They reached a consensus. They would go to Lin High School the next day to handle the paperwork for her to repeat the year.
Gu Jianian finally spoke.
“Don’t go. I don’t want to repeat.”
“I don’t want to study anymore, and… I don’t want to go to university.”
It was that she did not want to, not that she could not.
She simply did not want to.
That future—long hair, long dresses, the bookstore late at night, ice cream and cinemas… a free and uncontrolled life, two or three close friends who shared her interests; that beloved, longed-for, dreamt-of future— she herself no longer wanted it.
She painfully convinced herself of that, then clenched her teeth tightly. Like a warrior, she refused to waver.
Memories surged past like floodwaters, countless emotions roiling wildly with the tide.
When she came back to her senses, Gu Jianian realized that all the surrounding noise had disappeared. The courtyard was deathly quiet. No one was speaking, and no one was eating.
Gu Jianian covered her swollen, aching cheek and turned back in confusion.
Everyone was looking at her.
There was no malice in their gazes, but all the warmth and encouragement from earlier had vanished. They looked at her in surprise, as if looking at a stranger.
As if looking at a bad child they did not know.
Gu Jianian’s gaze shifted. The little bun from Uncle Liu’s family, the moment their eyes met, unnaturally hid behind his mother.
In his hands, he was still holding the box of soda he had exchanged for the bottle caps she had given him.
Gu Jianian felt as if her neck had become a rusted machine, turning slowly.
In the end, she looked in Chi Yan’s direction and saw him frowning, lifting his foot as if he wanted to walk toward her.
He had heard it too, hadn’t he?
He had heard what kind of bad child she was.
She felt herself collapsing, falling apart piece by piece.
A sharp whistling sound suddenly rang inside her head, like a violent wind winding through an empty canyon, grinding every coarse grain of sand.
Those sounds were hidden inside her ears, rooted deep within her brain.
Their pitch was extremely high, as if countless ghosts were screaming and darting wildly around, stabbing pain into her skull.
Like the final curtain falling, the world before her eyes instantly blurred.
Everything was like a film after the screening had ended, speeding away from her.
The scalding-hot crispy rice her grandmother made, the blue crab clamped onto her toe, the chocolate ice cream at the market, and the soda bottle Chi Yan had handed to her.
Those sour, sweet, painful, burning sensations all sped away from her.
Only the hysterical sound of wind remained.
Unable to restrain herself, Gu Jianian let out a scream. She clutched her ears in pain with both hands and began to run wildly.
Behind her, faint fragments of shouting, arguing, and scolding came, mixing together with the terrifying wind sounds inside her head.
She ran without caring about anything, aimlessly and desperately, trying to drive those sounds out of her skull.
Across the mountains and fields.
Until a very, very long time later, she used up all her strength and collapsed to the ground, gasping violently.
Her knees, arms, and cheeks were instantly cut open by sharp stones and thorny flower branches. Blood numbly welled out.
The clamouring wind inside her skull finally disappeared, and her mind returned to calm.
Gu Jianian began to hear her own heartbeat, the sound of blood flowing, and even, belatedly, the burning pain all over her body.
She opened her eyes and looked around blankly, realizing that she had somehow circled back to the desolate, empty courtyard of Chi Yan’s house.
The setting sun had long since fallen. The pitch-black night had arrived. Behind her, in the rose bushes, there were faint rustling sounds of insects crawling.
A few ants climbed onto her mud-covered hand, trying to cross mountains and ridges.
Gu Jianian slowly propped herself up, then turned around numbly and hugged her knees, sitting deep within the overgrown garden just like that.
Quietly waiting for her eighteenth birthday to pass.
She could vaguely hear some people calling her name in the distance. Those voices came and went, sometimes far, sometimes near.
She did not know how much time passed.
Gradually, the searching calls disappeared. The oppressive darkness covered everything. All was silent.
Gu Jianian heard the courtyard gate being pushed open.
Someone walked in step by step. Just before he was about to step onto the stone stairs, he suddenly stopped, abruptly changed direction, and walked toward the weed-filled garden.
His footsteps crushed the dry branches and fallen leaves all over the ground, making crunching sounds.
He walked step by step until he stood in front of her, then pushed aside the rose bushes covered in thorns.
The thorns on the branches cut the back of his hand, and tiny beads of blood emerged.
He slowly bent down and reached out, wiping away the cream mixed with blood and mud from both sides of her face, already so dirty it could no longer be distinguished.
“Does it hurt?”
he asked.
“Chi Yan,” Gu Jianian raised her head and stared at him, smiling faintly and lightly. “Do you have any cigarettes? Lend me one.”
Behind the ruined flower bushes, the little girl sat hugging her knees. Half of her palm-sized face was swollen, and the corner of her mouth was split in a miserable-looking cut.
Yet she seemed not to care at all. She tugged casually at the corner of her mouth, a strange light shining in her eyes.
Chi Yan had never seen Gu Jianian like this before.
In truth, there had been plenty of times when she had looked wretched in front of him.
When a crab had pinched her toe and she had been in so much pain that tears shot out, yet she had not dared make a sound; when she learned that the person she liked already had someone in his heart and her shoulders and brows collapsed, yet she still pretended she was fine; when she had tried to open a bottle cap the way he did but failed to control her strength, ending up drenched in sprayed soda, ridiculous and absurd.
Even just now, when she had been hit, her face full of shock, fear, and despair.
But never like this—sitting in the desolate flower bushes, covered in dirt, her face full of wounds.
Clearly filthy all over, yet with bright, sparkling eyes, grinning as she asked him for a cigarette.
As if she had finally shed that restrained, repressed shell of a good student and wanted to recklessly, desperately pursue the last bit of freedom in her heart.
Even if she knew she was falling, falling endlessly, she still wanted that freedom.
Chi Yan suddenly felt his heart give an uncontrollable thump.
This little girl had only just turned eighteen today.
Seeing that he did not respond, Gu Jianian smiled and asked again, “You definitely have some, right? My craving’s acting up. It feels awful.”
Her voice was like a murmur.
“You should know what this feels like, right? It’s like there are ants crawling inside my body. Help me, okay?”
After she finished speaking, she stared into his eyes and saw that, unusually, he did not frown. He merely tugged at the corner of his mouth and nodded.
“I do.”
Then he reached out his hand to her.
The rose branches covered half of his face.
The cuff of his black shirt carried a pleasant woody scent, still making her think of a primitive forest buried in thick mist after a heavy rain.
Gu Jianian did not respond. She used the most sensitive self deep within her and stared straight into his eyes, wanting to distinguish the emotions inside them.
There was no amusement, no disgust or contempt, and certainly no sympathy or pity.
He only reached out his hand to her.
From beginning to end, he did not dodge. He calmly met her gaze until she finally lowered her eyes and reached out to hold his hand.
The instant they touched, both of them seemed to shiver. Neither could tell whose hand was colder.
The night wind stirred every clump of flowers and grass in the decaying garden. The dense ivy climbing the wall was like a giant net, silently guarding this primitive place.
Gu Jianian put away the smile on her face and numbly allowed him to pull her to her feet, stepping over the weeds and thorns and onto the stone stairs.
Like a puppet on strings, she followed him to the door, then watched him take out his key with one hand, open the door, fetch slippers, and turn on the light.
Throughout the entire process, he never let go of her hand.
Gu Jianian was led to the single armchair that had almost become exclusively hers and sat down.
He finally released her hand and turned on the reading lamp beside her. Warm yellow light instantly illuminated the corner of the hall.
The soft leather sofa wrapped around her without leaving any gaps. On the bookshelf behind her, the books that fascinated her were still there. Everything was so familiar, but she had not come here to read.
Perhaps because it had not seen sunlight for years, the temperature inside the house was even lower than outside. Gu Jianian belatedly felt cold all over, yet she still did not forget to raise her head and ask him for a cigarette.
“Wait.”
A long while later, Chi Yan came over with a blanket. In his hand, he was also carrying a tray with a cup of coffee and a plate of chocolate cake.
Gu Jianian curled up on the sofa, swept a glance over the things on the tray, then looked up at him.
“Where’s the cigarette?”
Chi Yan slowly set the tray on the low table and gently pushed it in front of her.
Then he covered her with the blanket.
“Sorry, there are no cigarettes left,” he said with lowered eyes. Gu Jianian could not tell from his tone whether he was lying. She only heard him continue, “Have a cup of coffee. Even though it’s night.”
Gu Jianian did not move.
Chi Yan added, “If you trust me, drink some. It helps. When my cravings used to get out of control, I would drink coffee.”
Gu Jianian smiled and blurted out, “But didn’t you fail to control it anyway? You’re an addict yourself. How am I supposed to believe you?”
“I did control it.” Chi Yan looked straight into her eyes without dodging. “Ever since you came, I haven’t smoked again. That time at the hospital, I didn’t light the cigarette either.”
Gu Jianian froze. She remembered.
That time at the hospital, he had said he was going outside to smoke, but he had not lit it. He had only stood by the railing with an unlit cigarette between his fingers.
Not only that time. It seemed that ever since their second meeting, she had never seen him smoke again, nor had she smelled smoke on him. In its place was this fresh, pleasant woody scent.
So it had actually been because of her?
So this minor would not be harmed by second-hand smoke?
Gu Jianian finally turned her sluggish gaze toward the tray.
Noticing that her attitude had softened, Chi Yan handed her the spoon.
“This was the only thing in the fridge. Although it isn’t a birthday cake, it’s… something He Jitong bought when he was here before.”
Gu Jianian looked at the piece of chocolate cake. For the first time, she did not argue when he deliberately mentioned He Jitong.
She had not yet had the chance to eat her birthday cake today.
“Thank you.”
She picked up the cup and began drinking the coffee.
There was no sugar or milk in the coffee. The bitter, strong liquid was so hot it numbed the tip of her tongue.
She ignored the heat and drank it all in one breath, hoping the caffeine inside would take effect more quickly.
It was just truly too bitter.
Gu Jianian could only stuff mouthful after mouthful of cake into her mouth.
One bite after another.
It was as if her sense of taste had been covered by bitterness. She could not even tell what the sweet, rich mixture of cream and chocolate was supposed to taste like.
She chewed and swallowed in big mouthfuls, trying to fill the emptiness in her heart.
But even after eating the entire piece of cake, it still was not enough.
She asked him, “Is there more?”
Chi Yan shook his head. “Sorry, that was the last piece.”
Gu Jianian sensitively noticed that this was the second time he had said sorry tonight.
He was tolerating her with good temper.
Gu Jianian suddenly felt as if she had become someone wilful, no longer reading the room, no longer cautiously taking care of other people’s feelings.
Perhaps she had always been this kind of person. When she was three, she would get angry because someone had not bought her food.
Maybe that was simply her nature. She had only pretended to be obedient for so long that she had even fooled herself.
As Chi Yan spoke, he handed her a tissue.
Gu Jianian silently took it and began carefully wiping her face.
When the tissue rubbed across her cheek, the swollen wound burned sharply with pain.
Her hand did not pause at all. She kept wiping, not even furrowing her brows, as if she did not feel the pain at all.
Chi Yan’s heart darkened slightly, and finally, he frowned.
He went upstairs to get the first-aid kit, then crouched in front of her and treated her wounds for the second time.
Her neck, arms, and calves were covered in thin scratches from the rose bushes, not to mention her swollen cheek where she had been hit.
Gu Jianian heard him click his tongue beside her ear, then frown and tease her.
“Kid, why are you always so miserable in my house? Does the feng shui clash with you?”
She smiled a little too and did not make a sound.
Maybe it really did clash with her. But perhaps what clashed was not the house, but him and her. She was always causing him so much trouble.
As Chi Yan treated the wound on her cheek, he said, “When I went to get the medicine just now, I called your grandmother. She’s very worried about you. I told her that if you don’t want to go back, you can stay here tonight.”
“And… as for your parents, after you ran off, your grandmother drove them into that taxi with her cane. They’ve probably calmed down after their impulsiveness. They said they’d return to Beilin tonight.”
Gu Jianian nodded, still saying nothing.
She remained silent until Chi Yan finished carefully cleaning the last wound and asked her, “…When did you start smoking? Why?”
Gu Jianian finally raised her head to look at him.
Her homeroom teacher and Chinese teacher had asked her the same question, but his tone now was different from theirs. There was no sternness, no disdain, no disappointment. It was as if he simply wanted to understand the full story.
As if bewitched, Gu Jianian began to recall.
How had she, step by step, gone from Gu Jianian the good child, the little genius in her parents’ eyes, to Gu Jianian the poor student?
How had she taken one wrong step after another, given up on herself, until she lost her future?
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