The Scorching Sun - 57
During the first week after the college entrance examination, Fang Zhuo found a part-time job through an introduction from Shen Musi's parents.
On her days off, she'd go back to the village to help sort through the old family home. In the evenings, she'd work at a tutoring center, helping mark assignments for younger students. Her schedule quickly filled to the brim, and her days became relentlessly busy.
Because she was working, Yan Lie couldn't just come by and chat with her whenever he wanted, and she couldn't always reply to his messages right away. Without studying together as an excuse to see each other, their relationship grew subtly awkward, until there were stretches of time when they couldn't even find a chance to meet.
They'd thought graduation would finally set them free, giving them the privilege to go wild and indulge themselves. Instead, the weight of real life had landed squarely on the bridge of their friendship and bent it under the strain.
Day after day of clocking in and out left Fang Zhuo with a faint sense of suffocation, the stifling boredom of adult life making it hard to breathe. It felt as though she hadn't actually done anything. She'd exchanged simple labor for a paycheck and gained nothing else, yet time had already slipped quietly away.
One day in late June, Yan Lie came to the store to see Fang Zhuo.
It was summer vacation, and with a special promotion going on, the supermarket was somewhat hectic.
Fang Zhuo helped put away two boxes of stock before returning to her station at the register. She could see that Yan Lie had something he desperately wanted to say, but with the owner standing right beside her, it wasn't exactly a good time for chatting. She sent him a message telling him to go home first.
For some reason, Yan Lie dug in his heels. He turned around, walked outside in a pair of slippers, and stood at the entrance of the supermarket with a popsicle between his teeth, looking thoroughly aggrieved.
A handsome young man standing outside was technically good for business, but the owner couldn't shake the feeling that Yan Lie looked like someone who'd come to collect a debt. Just seeing him planted out there made him feel inexplicably pressured.
The owner hid behind the door and watched for quite some time. The young man stood in the shade, coldly turning down girls who stopped to talk to him, then glancing back through the glass doors, resuming his pointless wait. The owner simply couldn't understand the way young people went about friendships these days.
Eventually, he came back inside and leaned over Fang Zhuo's workstation, lowering his voice conspiratorially. "Your boyfriend?"
"He's not," Fang Zhuo answered without hesitation.
"Then why's he standing outside waiting for you? It's roasting out there. Does he have nothing better to do?" The owner gave her a knowing look. "Did you two have a fight?"
"No. We didn't." Fang Zhuo pointed down at the counter. "I'm working."
"Good grief. You're cold."
Fang Zhuo: "..."
The owner lowered his voice even further, looking delighted to have front-row seats to the drama. "Don't you feel bad for him? Let me tell you, if you feel bad for him, that's called romance. If you don't, then he's just a lovesick fool. Pets aren't allowed in the store, you know."
Fang Zhuo shot him a sidelong look, turning toward the entrance. Frowning, she picked up her phone and sent Yan Lie another message, telling him to go home.
Outside, Yan Lie lowered his head and hammered away at the screen with unusual force.
Yan Lie: No!!
Those exclamation marks really were his most restrained way of expressing himself.
The owner said, "When things aren't busy, you could go outside and talk to him."
Fang Zhuo answered honestly, "But your store is pretty busy."
Yan Lie didn't come by often. A City was hot all the time, after several rainless days, the temperature would shoot past thirty-five degrees, stripping away any desire to step outside.
Fang Zhuo counted. This was probably only Yan Lie's third visit since the graduation ceremony. The first two times had been shortly after graduation. He'd bought some drinks and gone home. After that, he'd gone traveling with his friends and spent half a month away from A City.
Once the college entrance examination was over, the differences between the students' family circumstances began revealing themselves at startling speed.
Wei Xi and the others were planning trips across the country, sharing pictures of local delicacies along the way. The only things Fang Zhuo could share were today's discounted bananas, half-price watermelons, and the supermarket's anniversary promotion: five yuan off every thirty yuan of pork.
It was a gulf that reality made impossible to avoid, like a dividing line. Their heavy schoolwork had kept their worlds compressed while they were students. From here on, those worlds would only grow more different.
The middle-aged owner loved keeping up with whatever was trending online, when he complained about things, he sounded more like a young person than Fang Zhuo did.
Speaking with the knowing tone of someone who'd been around the block, he said, "Promise me something. If someone confesses to you, don't let him get away. There aren't many people as straightforward as you. And someone as stupid as him..." He clicked his tongue. "Actually, those aren't exactly rare."
Fang Zhuo: "..."
The fact that this store had survived until today was something of a miracle.
Fang Zhuo opened her mouth. Without even realizing what she was saying, she casually came up with an excuse. "It's too soon. You're overthinking it."
"Too soon?!" The owner's expression became wildly exaggerated. "You're out of high school and you're an adult now. I'm telling you, you're not even qualified to call it puppy love anymore. Are you saying you're not mature enough to make your own decisions, or that you can't take responsibility for your actions? What's too soon about it?"
Fang Zhuo didn't know how she was supposed to measure whether this period of her life was early or late. Or perhaps she simply didn't know what she was supposed to do even when the time came.
On the day they left school after graduation, Yan Lie had been surrounded by people demanding that he write messages for their yearbooks. He'd lifted his head and looked straight toward where she was standing.
And then there were all those bright little stars scattered throughout his photo album, those everyday records that seemed to carry traces of her everywhere.
His shameless favoritism had blurred the boundaries of what Fang Zhuo considered one of the "three great illusions of life."
Yan Lie's unmistakably youthful affection had rekindled the creative spark that had been interrupted last time, bringing her unfinished poem back to life and giving its abandoned ending a continuation.
"I think you must be a beam of light. Every morning, you rise with the sun, and somehow, you're everywhere. Even if one day the sun and moon cease to take turns, I could close my eyes and still find your presence filling the world."
A strange scene was about to unfold in her mind.
Fang Zhuo shook her head hard.
Of course, getting Yan Lie to stop taking turns with the sun and moon would be difficult. His presence was simply too overwhelming.
But still.
But then again.
There was a river between Fang Zhuo and Yan Lie, wide enough that she had to stand on tiptoe and strain her eyes just to see him walking along the opposite bank.
His side of the river was prosperous and carefree, while her world contained only a sparse scattering of greenery. If Yan Lie didn't stop for her, then no matter how hard she ran or how far she swam, the distance between them and the destination would remain impossibly long.
But she didn't need that. She didn't need another person in her world.
She didn't need anyone to stop for her.
And she didn't need Yan Lie to accommodate himself to her life.
She resisted thinking about these mundane questions.
After a long silence, Fang Zhuo asked, "Is my life... kind of boring?"
"You realized it too?" the owner said. "It's incredibly boring! Where did all that youthful energy go?"
Fang Zhuo nodded. She barely heard the rest of what he said. A customer happened to approach, so she waved the owner aside, took the customer's basket, and began scanning the items.
After the customer paid, she sent Yan Lie another message, saying she would finish work at five that afternoon. She told him to wait at the fast-food restaurant at the end of the street for a while instead of standing outside in the sun.
Yan Lie turned around and glanced inside. At last, he left.
The owner wandered around the supermarket in a somewhat deflated mood, putting misplaced items back where they belonged. As he passed the little television by the entrance, he heard a news report about the college entrance examination. Suddenly realizing something, he came back and asked, "Today is the day your exam results come out, isn't it?"
Fang Zhuo nodded.
The owner asked, "What did you get?"
"I don't know," Fang Zhuo said. "I haven't had time to check."
"Good grief, kid. How can you be so calm?" The owner handed her his phone. "Can you check it on this?"
Fang Zhuo pulled her admission card from her pocket and tried entering the website into the search bar.
Whether the internet was too slow or the system was too overloaded, she spent more than ten minutes trying without getting any results. No matter how many times she refreshed, the page remained blank.
Customers kept passing by to ask questions or pay for their purchases, interrupting her over and over. Eventually, Fang Zhuo simply returned the phone to the owner and said she'd go to an internet café after work to check.
Around five, Yan Lie came wandering back.
Fang Zhuo bought a watermelon from the fresh fruit section. She hadn't even made it out of the store before Yan Lie took it from her.
He handed his phone to Fang Zhuo and told her to call their homeroom teacher.
The two of them found an internet café nearby and took a computer in the corner.
While they waited for the computer to start up, Fang Zhuo called the homeroom teacher back.
The line was busy. It kept giving her the engaged tone. Just as Fang Zhuo opened the results page, the call finally connected.
"Teacher Gao."
Before she could even exchange another word, the homeroom teacher blurted out, "Fang Zhuo! I used your admission card number to check your results!"
She could tell from her tone alone that it was good news.
She'd had a feeling all along, but actually hearing it still made a wave of relief wash through her.
Sure enough, the homeroom teacher burst out laughing. "Your score is enough for A University! Fang Zhuo, you really did us proud this time!"
Fang Zhuo glanced at the person beside her. "What about Yan Lie?"
Yan Lie gave a smug little smile.
"The two of you, honestly. He's asked about you first thing, too," the homeroom teacher said. "He can apply for practically any major he wants. The university's reorganized some of its colleges this year, though, so he's not sure which direction he wants to go in yet. He's talking to the admissions office about it. What about you? What are you applying for?"
Fang Zhuo asked, "What majors can I apply for?"
The homeroom teacher's tone turned serious. "You should be careful when choosing your major. If you get assigned somewhere else, it might not be something you actually like."
Fang Zhuo thought she was worrying too much. As far as Fang Zhuo was concerned, all majors were equal. There wasn't any particular one she disliked.
They talked for a while. Considering her ranking, the prospects for different fields, and A University's strength in each major, the homeroom teacher suggested that she consider statistics.
Fang Zhuo made the decision and completed the application right there on the computer.
Yan Lie found the whole thing rather absurd. Before the exam results came out, his plans for university had been clear and definite, while Fang Zhuo had been completely lost.
But when it actually came time to choose their majors, Fang Zhuo had settled her future in less than half an hour, while he was the one who'd started hesitating.
"For something as important as your future, you made that decision pretty casually," Yan Lie said.
"Did I?" Fang Zhuo asked, unbothered. "I just think that even if I spent another few days thinking about it, I wouldn't magically come up with a better choice."
Yan Lie thought about that for a moment, then made a strange face. "You keep feeding me inspirational speeches out of nowhere."
Fang Zhuo laughed. "So? How does it taste? Feeling inspired yet?"
Yan Lie didn't answer. Instead, he said expectantly, "In a few days, Cake and the others and I are going to the beach. Around mid-July. We'll stay at an empty house belonging to one of our relatives. The girls will have a separate suite. We'll be back in about five days."
"I'm quitting after I get my wages in a few days. The owner's house has already been rented out, I won't have anywhere to stay in A City." Fang Zhuo paused. "But now that the exam results are out, I think I can go back to tutoring. I understand better how students with weak foundations need to study, and I have a clearer idea of the difference in teaching resources between the two places. If I start a bigger tutoring class at home and charge a little less, I should earn more than I do working as a cashier at the supermarket."
Yan Lie opened his mouth. "But next month, I..."
He stared intently at Fang Zhuo's face, searching for some trace that she was joking, some hint that she hadn't meant it.
The complete lack of expression on Fang Zhuo's face made her seem almost cruel. She said calmly, "Have fun. Take plenty of nice pictures. I'd like to see them too."
Yan Lie immediately felt like he'd swallowed something he couldn't get down.
Fang Zhuo picked up the watermelon beside her. "Want some watermelon? It's already pretty late. I still have to get to the tutoring center after we finish it."
She stood up to leave, but Yan Lie grabbed her hand.
The boy's hand was hot. His lips were pressed tightly together, there was a clear accusation in his eyes, yet his voice came out soft. "I'm giving you a chance to reload your save."
Feeling that the setup wasn't intimidating enough, he raised his voice, pinched Fang Zhuo's cheek, and threatened her. "Fang Zhuo! You have to keep your word! I trusted you! I've been waiting for so long!"
Fang Zhuo felt that sometimes telling the truth was terribly inconvenient, but she genuinely couldn't think of a suitable excuse to brush him off. If she put some trivial reason ahead of his birthday, she suspected he'd be even angrier.
"I'm sorry. July 16 is actually the anniversary of my mother's death, too. I have to go to her grave."
Yan Lie froze.
Fang Zhuo patted the watermelon. "Come on. I'll treat you to the fruits of my labor.”
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