Chapter 23: Twelve Years Old – A Miracle Reappears

The next day, Xuezhu handed Chi Yue the 85 yuan as promised, along with the snacks she had brought from home.

She didn’t want to owe him anything. She knew that 85 yuan couldn’t buy this MP3.

“You can take the money I still owe you. I’ll pay it back to you slowly when I save up enough. For now, take these snacks as a temporary repayment.”

Chi Yue casually shoved the money into his backpack, then asked as if remembering something, “I heard from Zhu Qingying yesterday that you bought this MP3 for your brother?”

“Mm.”

Chi Yue frowned. “Aren’t you an only child?”

“He’s my brother who lives across from me.”

“Oh,” Chi Yue nodded, then added, “If he’s not your real brother, why are you being so nice to him? You even used your pocket money to buy him an MP3.”

Xuezhu froze.

Why was she being so nice to Meng Yuning?

There was no particular reason.

She just wanted to be good to him.

Although Xuezhu couldn’t explain why she had been acting a bit strangely since she came back from his school that day, every time she visited Meng Yuning before, it was always to play games together. He had a good temper, and no matter what game they played, he would always let her win. Even if Xuezhu occasionally played tricks, he would just say it wasn’t right but would let her make the new game rules.

But once Xuezhu tried to slack off and not do her homework, he would strictly insist that she had to finish her homework before she could play.

That’s why, after that summer when she and Meng Yuning went to her grandfather’s house, Xuezhu never again found herself scrambling to finish homework the day before the new semester started.

But now, things were different.

She still wanted to be with him, but it didn’t require playing games or watching cartoons anymore. Just being around him, even if they didn’t do anything all day, was enough to make her feel satisfied inside.

They used to play the “Statue Game,” where the first person to blink lost.

The two of them would stare at each other in silence. If Xuezhu won, she would ruthlessly tease Meng Yuning, but if Meng Yuning won, she would come up with all kinds of excuses, like a fly buzzing or the wind blowing, to convince him to play again.

But now, that game couldn’t be played.

Because Xuezhu knew she would lose for sure.

Buying this MP3 for Meng Yuning, though it had used up all her pocket money, was totally worth it when she imagined the look on his face when he received it. She felt that the 85 yuan was well spent.

“No reason.”

Xuezhu said quietly.

Chi Yue watched her eyes slowly lower, then spoke in a similar tone, “If you don’t want to say, that’s fine. It’s none of my business anyway.”

Xuezhu silently sat back in her seat and placed the book she would need for the next class on her desk.

Chi Yue saw Zhu Qingying skipping towards her, her face full of smiles as she leaned over her desk and said something to her. But surprisingly, Pei Xuezhu didn’t join in the usual fun. She was unusually quiet, resting her chin in her hand like a doll, lost in thought.

A boy ran to Chi Yue’s desk, intending to chat with him, but upon seeing the pile of snacks on the desk, his eyes lit up. Without hesitation, he reached out his hand: “Chi Yue, why did you bring so many snacks to school today?”

The “sinful hand” was slapped down hard by Chi Yue.

“What are you doing?”

“Did I tell you you could eat them?”

The boy pouted. “Why are you so stingy?”

“I’ll treat you to the snack shop after class. You can buy whatever you want to eat.”

Chi Yue said carelessly, then stuffed all the snacks on the desk into his drawer.

—

Finally, the weekend arrived. For some reason, Xuezhu, who had originally planned to personally deliver the MP3 to Meng Yuning and take credit for it, chickened out at the last moment. All her excitement turned into timidity and shyness, and she ended up handing the MP3 over to Zhong Zihan, asking him to deliver it to Meng Yuning for her.

The evening self-study session at Tongzhou No. 1 High School was quiet and oppressive.

The fluorescent lights on the third floor were connected in a line, and the classroom was filled with students diligently writing.

Zhong Zihan stood at the door of Meng Yuning’s class and politely knocked on the desk of the student sitting by the door.

“Could you please call Meng Yuning for me?”

The student was already quite familiar with Zhong Zihan. Although he was from a different class, he often came to look for Meng Yuning. It was said that they had grown up in the same neighborhood, so their relationship was especially close.

“Meng Yuning, someone’s looking for you.”

The student only whispered the message, but the whole classroom immediately lifted their heads and looked at him. Upon seeing who it was, they nodded and went back to their own work.

Meng Yuning glanced toward the door.

Zhong Zihan waved at him.

He stepped out and asked briefly, “What’s up?”

“MP3,” Zhong Zihan tossed the small item to him. “Xiao Zhu asked me to return this to you. She said it’s been fixed. Oh, and here’s the money,” he pulled some change from his uniform pocket, “Xiao Zhu said this is the leftover money after the MP3 was repaired.”

Meng Yuning counted it with his eyes.

Ninety yuan.

“I remember my MP3 before only had a broken headphone jack, and it only cost a little over thirty yuan. Yours fell in water, and it’s only ten yuan?,” Zhong Zihan pursed his lips, “Has the price of things gone down so much now?”

Meng Yuning smiled lightly. “I don’t know. I’ll ask Xiao Zhu when I go home next week. I’m going back to the classroom.”

“Don’t go, our homeroom teacher is giving a lecture on the podium. I slipped out by saying I needed to go to the bathroom, and I really don’t want to go back now,” Zhong Zihan glanced toward Meng Yuning’s classroom. “Anyway, your homeroom teacher’s not here. Come on, let’s go to the snack shop and buy something to eat.”

Meng Yuning reluctantly agreed. “Alright.”

Zhong Zihan grinned. “Good brother, let’s boldly skip this evening self-study session together!”

He hooked his arm around Meng Yuning’s shoulder, walking with a swagger toward the teaching building and then to the snack shop.

On the way, they encountered a few girls from the same grade. The dim streetlights barely illuminated the tall figures of the two boys, but the girls still looked at them intentionally and unintentionally all the way.

“Senior year, yet I didn’t even catch the last chance for early romance,” Zhong Zihan sighed.

Meng Yuning ignored him. Whenever Zhong Zihan brought up topics like this, he always pretended not to hear.

“Do you know? Zhengyue said that after she graduates from university next year, she’s going to work with her boyfriend in Shanghai.”

Seeing that Meng Yuning didn’t respond, Zhong Zihan had no choice but to bring up something else.

This time, Meng Yuning stopped pretending to be deaf. He nodded, “I know.”

“My mom said that Zhengyue’s going to work so far away, Uncle He was almost furious,” Zhong Zihan said with interest. “I remember when she was younger, her grades weren’t good, and Uncle He always said she’d end up working at the supermarket downstairs in our neighborhood. Who would’ve thought she’d go so far?”

Is it really far?

Actually, not really. But for them, who hadn’t left home yet, it felt like a long journey, one that would take them far away from their parents.

When they reached the snack shop, Zhong Zihan bought a ^[1]“Wan Wan ice pop” refers to a specific brand of ice pop in China, often known for its fruity flavors. “Wan Wan” (旺旺) is a well-known Chinese food brand, famous for various … Continue readingWan Wan ice pop, broke it in half, and handed half to Meng Yuning, joking without much seriousness, “Here, you take half, I take half. You’re my other half.”

Meng Yuning silently refused the ice pop.

“Why are you so hard to joke with?” Zhong Zihan sucked on the ice pop, “At least we’ve watched adult movies together—”

Meng Yuning interrupted him in a low voice: “Shut up.”

Zhong Zihan smiled with his eyes squinting: “What’s wrong? Are you afraid the girls at our school will hear you’ve watched this and ruin your image? You’re not even in a relationship, what’s there to be afraid of?”

The temple on the side of Meng Yuning’s face twitched twice. He rested his tongue on his cheek, almost as if laughing in frustration, and softly said, “Why don’t you just go to the broadcast station and announce it to the whole school?”

Knowing he was just upset, Zhong Zihan casually replied, “You agreed to it, didn’t you? I’ll go to the broadcast station during lunch break tomorrow and announce it to the entire school.”

Meng Yuning gave him a quiet look, his clean eyes showing a hint of disdain, but he didn’t speak.

For someone like Zhong Zihan, who would shine with a little attention, ignoring him was the best way to handle it.

Of course, they couldn’t return to the classroom with snacks. The two of them found a quiet spot and began chatting idly.

The crushed ice was lemon-flavored. It was sweet and sour as it melted in his mouth, and his teeth trembled from the cold, which was just right for the sultry summer night.

The reason he bought that flavor was because Xuezhu always mentioned that lemon-flavored crushed ice was the best.

When he had been picking out ice cream from the freezer, he didn’t know why, but he had remembered Xuezhu’s words and decided to trust her recommendation.

“You’re definitely going to Beijing, right?” Zhong Zihan mumbled around his ice, “Maybe I should just apply to universities in Beijing too, then we can go together when school starts.”

Meng Yuning bit into his ice pop, his voice calm and light: “Beijing’s pretty far. Would you be willing to leave your parents?”

“What’s there to miss? I’d rather be as far away as possible. It’s better that way, they won’t be able to control me. You don’t know how miserable it’s been for me these past few years, especially after you moved here. My mom uses you as an example to force me into tutoring classes every day. It’s driving me crazy,” Zhong Zihan said with a face full of complaints, but then quickly clarified, “I’m not blaming you though. Anyway, I’ll probably end up going to Beijing like you.”

Meng Yuning raised one eyebrow and nodded. “That’s fine.”

“Then if we both go to Beijing, Zhengyue goes to Shanghai, wouldn’t that leave just Xiao Zhu at home?” Zhong Zihan suddenly said. “Ah, poor thing, when she plays games with others in the future, no one will let her win anymore. Where else will she find such good older brothers and sisters like us?”

The surroundings were quiet, and no one responded to his words.

Meng Yuning had always been used to being the listener, and Zhong Zihan didn’t feel neglected at all. He started reflecting like an old man, nostalgic for the passing of time: “Don’t you think time really flies? It feels like you only moved to our neighborhood yesterday, and now we’re about to take the college entrance exam. And then there’s Zhengyue. I remember she used to always talk about finding a boyfriend as handsome as Rukawa Kaede. But when we chatted on QQ last time, she showed me a photo of her boyfriend, and he didn’t look anything like Rukawa Kaede. And Xiao Zhu—”

Zhong Zihan paused for a few seconds, his tone becoming more melancholic: “I remember when Xiao Zhu used to like playing with me when we were little. Later, I had weekend classes, and she got closer to you. When she was still too young to walk, she’d sit in her walker, and I’d push her around, taking her everywhere. Kids have no conscience.”

Most people from their generation were only children. The children of relatives, or those of a similar age from the neighborhood, became the childhood companions most deeply remembered.

At seventeen or eighteen, they were in the prime of their youth, but also the age most prone to inexplicable feelings of melancholy. They often thought back to their childhood, a time when the pressure of schoolwork wasn’t so great, and days were spent in carefree play. When looking back, only the good memories remained. Perhaps this is the early maturity unique to youth.

Even Zhong Zihan, who didn’t have many worries, couldn’t escape this pattern.

It was the right moment to listen to a sad song and elevate his mood.

“Here, let me borrow your MP3 to play a song,” Zhong Zihan said, stretching out his hand.

Meng Yuning took out his little device, handed him an earphone, and asked, “What do you want to listen to?”

“Anything but ‘^[2]“Beijing Welcomes You” (北京欢迎你) is a popular Chinese song, originally created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It became widely known for its upbeat, celebratory tone and was … Continue readingBeijing Welcomes You,’ I’m so tired of that song. They play it everywhere.”

After waiting for a while without hearing any music, Zhong Zihan turned to urge him: “Why haven’t you played it yet?”

Meng Yuning seemed not to hear him, lowering his head to fiddle with the MP3, the soft blue light gently illuminating his profile, quiet and peaceful under the night.

Zhong Zihan pushed his arm again.

He snapped back to reality and pressed the play button.

The intense beat of the intro immediately blared out.

“Like the sunlight breaking through the dark night—

The dawn quietly streaks across the sky—

Whose shadow weaves through the cycles of life—

…

Miracles will surely appear!”

In the span of a second, he went from being a melancholic teenager to a superhero out to save the world.

To be honest, listening to this as a senior in high school was quite motivating. Before, he’d been worrying that he wouldn’t make the cut for the top universities, but after hearing the song, it suddenly felt like getting into Tsinghua or Peking University was within reach.

Zhong Zihan couldn’t help but admire Meng Yuning’s childish taste in music: “…So this is how you keep yourself motivated to stay number one in the grade.”

Meng Yuning smiled at him.

He smiled for a moment, then sighed and lowered his head to rest on his knees. Zhong Zihan wasn’t sure what was wrong with him, so he leaned in closer to quietly observe him. Unfortunately, the small back hill of the teaching building didn’t have any lighting, so he could barely hear Meng Yuning’s soft sigh, as if someone’s gentle grasp had touched his heart, leading to a helpless exhale.