Wild Stars as Their Lamps
October in Beilin.
After several autumn rains in a row, the large patches of crab-apple leaves outside the teaching building drooped their heads.
It was the Friday evening before the National Day holiday. The dismissal bell had only just rung when the classroom instantly boiled over like a pot of water.
The students of Senior Year Class Ten, who had been repressed for an entire month, cheered as they packed their bags. In twos and threes, they left the classroom together, planning how they would spend their first long holiday since school started.
The boarding students were no exception. Most of them returned to the dorms to pack their luggage, preparing to head home, whether near or far.
Before the gloomy rain could pour in through the windows, only two people were left in the classroom.
Gu Jianian sat at her desk and began organising the political science questions she had got wrong in this monthly exam.
She had missed an entire year of politics, history, and geography classes. Over the past month, she had used almost all of her spare time to catch up.
Fortunately, every evening, the subject teachers gave extra lessons to the three repeat students in the class who had switched from science to humanities. On top of that, Gu Jianian studied day and night through gritted teeth, and it had finally produced some results.
At the very least, her scores in the first monthly exam from two days ago had improved a lot compared to the placement test at the start of term.
In the blink of an eye, an entire month had passed since she left Yunmo.
Beilin had already entered late autumn, and short sleeves had been replaced with jumpers.
Her repeat-year life at No. 9 High had also been proceeding steadily for a month.
During this month, apart from calling her grandmother once a week, Gu Jianian had no free time to contact anyone else.
Besides, the discipline at No. 9 High was no more relaxed than Lin High. Boarding students had to hand in their phones, though they were allowed to use the public phone in the dormitory office to contact home every week.
Time and again, after finishing a call with her grandmother, she would stop in front of the public phone, yet she could not press a single number.
She did not have his number.
Although only a month had passed, Yunmo’s summer had already become as hazy as a dream.
Every night, after hiding under her blanket and memorising her history textbook until she fell asleep, Gu Jianian would dream of Yunmo’s lush green bamboo mountains, the rice fields like emeralds, and the wild roses covering the hills and plains.
And also that mountain road lit by the stars of the wilderness, where the person walking ahead of her had been.
…
Gu Jianian spaced out briefly. When she caught sight of the photo of Zhoushan University’s library pasted on the corner of her desk, she immediately forced her attention back onto the exam paper.
“…resolving contradictions, concrete analysis of concrete problems…”
“…opposition, unity…”
“…production development, expanding domestic demand…”
This was the study method Gu Jianian had painstakingly figured out after school started, in order to improve her learning efficiency and revision speed.
When doing practice questions, she should not focus too much on complete sentences, nor should she brainlessly memorise long answers. Instead, she needed to learn how to grasp the key points and devote her limited brainpower to the keywords that corresponded to each scoring point.
In order to catch up with everyone else, Gu Jianian revised until two or three in the morning almost every day. However, after one or two weeks, she discovered that blindly overloading herself with memorisation did not work well.
She had encountered her first obstacle since repeating the year.
Fortunately, this time, there were no rounds and rounds of tutors sharing all sorts of flashy yet contradictory study experiences with her. Nor were her parents by her side, anxiously blaming and berating her. Gu Jianian finally had time to sit down and think about a study method that suited her.
She thought that what she lacked most right now was time.
In other words, she could not keep wasting large amounts of energy on one question, memorising word order and sentence structures beyond the actual scoring points.
When doing practice questions, for each question, she only needed to quickly recite the keywords silently, then compare them with the answer and fill in the gaps.
During ordinary revision, she would also try to remember keywords. Then, in the exam, she could freely combine them into complete and logical sentences.
After she figured out this method, she realised that learning had indeed become twice as effective with half the effort, and time finally became enough.
By the time Gu Jianian had finished organising all the questions she had got wrong on the entire paper using this method, the dull rain swept past the eaves and splashed in through the open window.
Gu Jianian stretched, got up to close the window, and only then noticed that there was still another person in the classroom.
It was her deskmate.
Her deskmate was not in her own seat at the moment. Instead, she had lined up three chairs from the back row horizontally.
A pair of long, straight, outstanding legs were casually stretched out flat. Her slender back leaned against the wall as she played a mobile game in a lazy, unruly manner.
Her expression was extremely cool and arrogant.
Her deskmate had always been very capable. She could secretly hide a phone in the strict and disciplined No. 9 High and had never once been discovered.
As if noticing that Gu Jianian had finished studying, her deskmate unplugged her earphones and let the phone audio play aloud.
Gu Jianian heard the intense background music of the game mixed with the excited cries of two girls.
“ADC-gege is so strong! That pentakill was amazing.”
“Gege, please carry us again next round!”
Gu Jianian saw a smile of disdainful dominance appear on her deskmate’s pretty face.
“…”
The next second, that same deskmate, who was utterly arrogant and was called a “troublemaker” by all the subject teachers, put away her straight long legs and phone, flicked the hair by her temple, looked over at her, and winked.
“What are you looking at, little Jianian? Tired from studying and want gege to teach you how to play games?”
“…”
Gu Jianian finally could not bear it anymore.
“Song Minwen, are you addicted to cross-dressing as a man?”
The heavy rain beat against the windows in a dispirited manner.
Her beautiful-as-a-flower deskmate widened her eyes in sudden realisation and said exaggeratedly, “Oh, right. I almost forgot. I am a little addicted. Thanks for reminding me.”
Then she strode over with her long arms and legs, bent down to look at Gu Jianian’s densely packed notebook of wrong answers, and clicked her tongue.
“Little Jianian, you’re seriously amazing.”
As she spoke, she glanced at the photo of Zhoushan University’s library pasted on the upper-left corner of Gu Jianian’s desk and said, “Back during the placement test, your humanities score was only one point higher than mine. The two of us were last and second-last. When you said you wanted to get into Zhoushan University, I thought that although you were this good-looking, your brain must have broken, and I deeply sympathised with you for a whole month.”
“I didn’t expect that, actually…”
Her deskmate tossed her big wavy hair, then said cheerfully, “…it was my brain that was broken.”
“…”
Why could someone say something like that in this tone?
Gu Jianian silently put away her wrong-answer notebook, took a mooncake out of her schoolbag, and handed it to her.
“Want one? My grandmother sent it to me around Mid-Autumn Festival.”
“Yes.” Song Minwen took the mooncake, tore open the packaging in a few moves, and bit into it. After swallowing a piece almost whole, she asked indistinctly, “So you’re not going home for the National Day holiday?”
Gu Jianian was silent for a while.
Over this past month, whether it was a short or long weekend, she had stayed at school the entire time and had not gone back to her home in Beilin.
And no one had asked her to go back.
On the first day of school, her parents had reluctantly come over to help her pay the tuition and boarding fees, then left behind two sentences.
“No matter how much you mess around, you can’t spend your grandmother’s money. We still can’t afford to lose face like that.”
“We’ve paid your tuition and boarding fees. If you want to stay at school, then stay at school. Suit yourself.”
That phrase again.
“Suit yourself.”
Gu Jianian shook her head, forcing away those unimportant emotions, then asked back, “Don’t you also never go home?”
Speaking of which, her fate with Song Minwen really was quite deep.
They were both repeat-year boarding students, and by coincidence, they were deskmates. Even their birthdays were only two days apart — Gu Jianian was two days older than Song Minwen.
Of course, her deskmate never admitted this. She always used her height to overpower people. Every time she addressed Gu Jianian, she had to add the word “little,” while referring to herself as either “gege” or “jiejie.”
Song Minwen belatedly let out an “oh” and asked, “Is that so? Have I never gone back on weekends before?”
“Looks like I really haven’t. Then maybe I’ll go back for National Day. I’m bored anyway.”
Gu Jianian did not respond.
Her deskmate was good in every way. She was pretty and tall, and although her temper was a little arrogant, she had no bad intentions. It was just that she truly was—
As she herself had said, her brain was not that great.
However, Gu Jianian did not find it annoying.
On the contrary, she really liked this new deskmate of hers.
And she also really liked the vast majority of classmates in this class.
The atmosphere of No. 9 High’s ordinary class was completely different from Lin High. There was not such a tense, hostile sense of competition. Everyone had one common enemy, and that was their homeroom teacher, Zhou Yongning.
Moreover, these people did not divide others into ranks based on grades. Even though Gu Jianian had ranked near the bottom in the placement test, they did not distance themselves from her because of it.
These kids, whose average age was one year younger than hers, were warm toward her and full of curiosity.
Of course, most of this curiosity was about her appearance.
After she shed the shell of timidity and misery, and also abandoned the old-fashioned hairstyle and clothes her parents had forced on her in the past, Gu Jianian’s good looks, inherited from her grandmother, gradually began to show.
Starting from her self-introduction on the first day, people had constantly discussed her appearance. Sometimes, even in the corridor, boys would whistle at her without restraint.
The Gu Jianian of the past would definitely have been very unused to this kind of attention and would have avoided it whenever possible.
However, after spending two months tumbling around among the neighbours in the Yunmo countryside, from feeling very uncomfortable with neighbours’ greetings at first, to later being able to chat freely with four or five unfamiliar men at the wonton stall in the market—
It seemed she had evolved.
While seizing every moment to study, Gu Jianian would occasionally gather with the girls in her class in the corridor, leaning against the railing and chatting about gossip.
They shared pretty stationery with her, beautiful art books, dresses, their favourite idols, and even the boys they liked.
These unfamiliar experiences allowed Gu Jianian to begin understanding what teenage campus life was supposed to be like.
She also gradually began learning how to sincerely accept praise.
Praise from her peers that she, as “poor student Gu Jianian,” had almost never received before.
For example, last week, she had accidentally overheard another girl in class say that she and her deskmate were being called “the two new grade beauties from the humanities classes” by people from other classes.
Because their styles were simply too different and hard to compare, their ranking had remained tied.
After her deskmate heard this, she had been indignant for a long time.
Arrogantly, she shouted, “Our little Jianian is this pretty, this cute, and this soft and adorable. How can she be tied with someone else? Besides—”
“—I’m the damn grade hunk! The grade hunk!”
Gu Jianian watched her deskmate, who was sitting opposite her, wolf down the mooncake. Then Song Minwen reached her hand out toward her again, wearing a flattering expression that clearly wanted more.
“It’s so good. I just ate it too quickly and didn’t taste what flavour it was. Do you have more?”
Gu Jianian slowly took another one out of her schoolbag and handed it to her, then slowly curved her lips.
In more than ten years of lonely student life, this was the first time she had a sense of presence and belonging. She also had good relationships with people.
It was just that—
It would be nice if, every night, she did not miss Yunmo so much. If she did not miss that courtyard, the room full of books, and that person so much.
After having dinner in the cafeteria, Gu Jianian held an umbrella and walked alone around the sports field.
After eating the mooncakes, Song Minwen had actually packed her bag and gone home.
Heartless and carefree.
The entire campus was silent, as if she were the only person who had not gone home for the holiday.
The rain grew heavier and heavier.
Calling it a walk was really just asking for trouble.
Her trouser legs and shoes were both soaked by more than half.
Gu Jianian had no choice. She quickly walked back to the dormitory building and stood beneath the eaves beside the magazine rack, staring blankly into space.
She thought of the last time she had contacted Chi Yan.
It had been on the day school started.
At that time, she had not yet handed in her phone.
Chi Yan had sent her a message.
**Did you get to school safely?**
Gu Jianian had only had time to reply with one message.
**Mm, I’m here. Don’t worry.**
But she did not know whether he had contacted her again after that.
Perhaps he did not have time either?
Gu Jianian had heard from her grandmother that one week after she left, Chi Yan returned to his studio in Zhoushan and was busy with work.
Gu Jianian guessed that it had something to do with his new book. Before she left, she had heard him mention that he needed to check the manuscript with the publishing editor, as well as handle some miscellaneous matters outside of writing.
He had returned to Zhoushan and left that silent villa covered in climbing ivy, living among people again.
With people by his side and things to do, he probably would not be as lonely as before, right?
While Gu Jianian felt reassured, she also felt a little melancholy.
After that summer, they had both left that otherworldly place one after another and returned to their own peaceful, non-intersecting tracks.
The confession on that hazy, beautiful night seemed like an illusory dream.
She did not know whether, after a year of losing contact, he would still remember to give her an answer.
Would he simply forget her altogether?
Gu Jianian lowered her head and tried hard to suppress the soreness at the tip of her nose.
She forced herself to memorise two passages of classical Chinese.
After her mood had calmed, she turned around and planned to return to the dormitory to continue revising humanities maths. But by coincidence, she caught sight of the newest issue of ‘Tilted Words’ on the magazine rack.
As if possessed, Gu Jianian opened it and saw the first new serial inside the title page.
*The Forest People of the Greater Khingan Range.*
Author: Yanchi.
His new book had actually already begun serialisation in ‘Tilted Words’!
Gu Jianian’s heart thumped loudly. Her eyes widened, and she sat down on the chair beside the magazine rack, reading this issue’s serial in one breath.
In truth, she had already read the content before. But reading it in a magazine felt entirely different.
Gu Jianian reluctantly finished reading the final line. Just as she was about to close the magazine, she suddenly saw a small line of text beneath the article.
“The copyright of this piece belongs to Four Seasons Literature Studio. Reader submissions are welcome.”
Reader submissions?
Gu Jianian’s heart suddenly jumped. After being stunned for a moment, she stood up, folded the legs of her school trousers up three times, opened her umbrella, and rushed into the rain.
She ran all the way to the small shop at the school gate and bought an envelope, a stack of writing paper, and a sheet of stamps.
Then, leaning over the short table in the shop that was piled with spicy gluten strips and braised eggs, she wrote a short letter.
To Yanchi-dada,
I hope this letter finds you well.
I saw that you have started serialising your work in ‘Tilted Words’ again, and my heart is extremely excited.
Autumn has already arrived here, and several rains have fallen in a row.
As I write this letter, the rain is about to drown the low holly bushes by the school gate.
I want to know what autumn in Zhoushan is like. Is it raining there? Remember to add more clothes, sleep early, and go outside more often.
Wishing you well.
Signed: A diligent and hardworking miserable senior-year student.
She finished writing at top speed, stuck on the stamp, wrote down the address in her memory, and dropped the letter into the mailbox by the school gate.
Since he had started serialising again, there were probably many reader letters being sent to the studio every day like this. Perhaps, in the end, it would never reach his hands at all. Even if it did, he definitely would not know it was her.
She never expected to receive a reply.
And yet, she suddenly felt as though she had once again formed a connection with him. Her heart was once more filled with the courage to move forward.
More than a month later.
On the day the midterm results came out.
Gu Jianian’s overall ranking rose from thirty-fifth in the class to sixteenth, and her grade ranking went from the seven or eight hundreds to within the top four hundred. Among them, her Chinese, maths, and English scores rose steadily, while her humanities comprehensive score improved greatly.
Although she was still thousands and thousands of miles away from her goal.
Her deskmate looked at the now considerably different scores between the two of them and cheerfully gave her a thumbs-up. She even took it upon herself to peel off the already scratched photo of the library on the corner of Gu Jianian’s desk and replace it with a new laminated one.
That evening, Gu Jianian cut off the name and school from this report card, sealed it in an envelope, and sent it out.
When she returned, she was utterly shocked to receive a reply letter from Zhoushan, handed to her by the dormitory auntie.
She could not wait to open it and read.
To a certain miserable yet diligent senior-year student,
I hope this letter finds you well.
After many delays, I finally received your letter. I apologise for making you wait.
Autumn in Zhoushan is very clear and bright. The temperature has not dropped, and the plane trees downstairs from the studio have had their leaves dried by the sun. I hope you can share one of your rains with me.
When studying, remember to balance work and rest. Rest more, and don’t stay up late.
Also, the weather is getting colder. Eat less ice cream.
Yours,
Yanchi.
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