However, now, Brother Joe was starting to become her third family member, after her mother and Benny. The third person for whom she would give up “Bluewater” for their life. Time always slips away in a flash, and summer afternoons are stuffy and sticky, but those long afternoons that once felt so hard to endure, when looking back, left Zoe Young puzzled—what had she done with all that time? It was just gone. In the remaining days, Zoe Young rarely saw The Duke and Viscount again, and Athena and her Dark Overlord also disappeared from her world. She missed Benny more than ever. I wish that when I turned around, I could see you looking at me timidly with those pure eyes, calling me Zoe. So I kept turning around, until I was dizzy, but you still didn’t appear. Zoe Young thought sadly, so this is what it feels like to miss someone. Zoe the Heroine had not yet recovered from the previous blows, and August was already at its end. September arrived, and she put on her new black backpack and went to school.

Zoe Young waved to her grandma and Tina Young, and without looking back, stepped through the back gate of the playground into the campus. Just now, when her grandma was holding her hand and weaving through the bustling crowd at the morning market, her palm was sweating, but after saying goodbye and being alone, Zoe Young was no longer afraid. On the first day of school, there was a special rule: new students’ parents could accompany their children to the flag-raising ceremony, so many kids were led in by their parents. But when her grandma asked if she needed company, she shook her head eagerly.

Grandma could even see her eyes saying, “Please, just go, just go.” After that dinner, Zoe Young was left with a side effect: she only got nervous in front of people she knew. This “people she knew” included all her relatives, including her grandma, and all the uncles, aunts, grandpas, and grandmas who looked the same and were connected to her relatives. Of course, if her immediate family wasn’t present, all those other associated people would count as strangers, so she wouldn’t be nervous around them. The conditions for this side effect were indeed complicated. Simply put, she was afraid—afraid she would mess up, freeze, or embarrass herself in front of her relatives at a crucial moment… But Zoe Young had her own explanation. She thought she was just too kind. If she wasn’t so afraid of making her family feel embarrassed because of her, if she didn’t want to see them disappointed because they expected too much, she wouldn’t be nervous. At the time, grandma said calmly, “That doesn’t contradict messing up. What you’re explaining is the cause, what I’m talking about is the result.” Zoe Young froze for a few seconds, then forced a smile and said, “Anyway… I’m just kind.” Grandma raised her eyebrows and looked at her for a long time, as if holding back a laugh, and said, “Oh, I can see that.”

That was three nights before school started, when it was almost dark, and Zoe Young, who had gone downstairs to play alone, still hadn’t come home.

Grandma went downstairs to look for her, and saw a group of old ladies, who always brought their own little stools to sit in front of the flowerbeds and sunbathe, forming a circle. In the middle stood her little granddaughter Zoe Young, passionately singing “A Dashing Life” to a group of elderly fans, enjoying their uneven clapping and rhythm, her face flushed with excitement.

“Hey, Aunt Yu, your little granddaughter is such a treasure—so smart and pretty, so outgoing, and she sings so well…”

This smart, pretty, and outgoing granddaughter had just, the day before, sung “A Dashing Life” at her grandma’s senior center party, right in front of her, sounding like a mosquito struggling in early autumn—buzz, buzz, buzz—singing with her head down, face red with shyness, poking her left toe into the ground as if there was oil underneath.

Grandma seemed to have discovered this fear-induced side effect in Zoe Young, so the more nervous she got, the more grandma pushed her to the front.

As Zoe Young followed grandma upstairs, she swore, “This—this is my real level.” She just couldn’t explain why her real level and her kindness couldn’t coexist. Today was the same. Grandma nodded and let her go into the school gate by herself, then stayed behind with Tina Young, who was starting school the same year but wasn’t in the same class, planning to take her over personally. Looking up, she saw Zoe Young walking tall and proud, her ponytail bouncing with each step, her small frame carrying a kind of heroic spirit. Grandma didn’t know that just last night, before falling asleep, Zoe Young suddenly realized she couldn’t go on being so down. She had never seen “Gone with the Wind,” but she clenched her fists, closed her eyes, and told herself silently in bed: tomorrow is a brand new day.

Having never even attended kindergarten, Zoe Young actually had no concept of school. She just thought it was a place full of strangers. Thinking of this made her so excited she could hardly contain herself. She was no longer the silly Zoe Young who shrank into a corner, speechless, when singing, dancing, or showing off at relatives’ houses.

Today was a brand new day. Zoe Young’s enthusiasm gradually cooled in the bustling crowd on the playground. She forgot which class she was assigned to. Grandma had told her many times, but it went in one ear and out the other. Zoe Young’s heart skipped a beat, and a fine sweat broke out on her back. She turned and started running toward the big iron gate—Grandma, Grandma, please don’t leave…

Later, every time Zoe Young remembered this, she would blame whoever gave her a god’s-eye view—she seemed to be standing aside, watching her own left foot sink into a small pit in the asphalt, her whole body pitching forward from inertia, the bag in her right hand flying out in a long arc…

She fell to the ground, her palms and knees hitting first, scraping a large patch of skin. The dusty wounds oozed a little blood, and at the same time, the bag with her lunchbox and duck-shaped water bottle crashed with a “bang” into someone’s head. She only heard a clatter, as if the bag had burst open—her lunch must be all over the ground now.

Zoe Young held back for a long time, but her nose still stung, and as soon as she pouted, tears splashed onto the ground. It hurt, it really hurt. She couldn’t remember who helped her up; she just leaned all her weight on the arm that lifted her, her legs so weak she couldn’t stand.

With teary eyes, she looked up and saw a lady in a business suit and black high heels looking at her with a complicated expression—a bit annoyed, but holding it in because she couldn’t get mad at a little girl.

The person holding her up spoke gently above her head: “Little girl, are you okay?” Zoe Young suddenly felt very, very scared—only then did she notice what she should have seen earlier—a little boy five meters ahead had vegetable soup spilled all over the back of his white shirt, and the smell of tomato and scrambled eggs filled the air. The lady was wiping him with tissues, shooting cold looks at Zoe Young, the little troublemaker.

Zoe Young felt utterly hopeless. Everyone’s eyes made her instinctively duck behind the uncle who had helped her up. The uncle patted her shoulder comfortingly and said to the lady, “Irene, did Andy get hurt?”

“No, just… what a mess.” The lady sighed and didn’t pursue Zoe Young’s responsibility any further. Then the uncle bent down and asked her gently, “Which class are you in, what’s your name? Don’t go to the flag-raising ceremony for now. In a bit, I’ll have a teacher take you to the nurse’s office. You’ve scraped your skin, it needs to be cleaned.”

Zoe Young nodded through her tears. “Silly child, why are you just nodding? I’m asking which class you’re in.”

Years later, Zoe Young still blushed when she remembered this—she could hear her own voice trembling. “I… for… got…” Hearing her voice, the little boy suddenly turned around. After a moment of surprise, he rushed over, still covered in tomato and egg soup. Zoe Young thought, oh no, he’s going to settle the score with me, he… But instead, he just grabbed her collar fiercely and, gritting his teeth, said word by word—“Why—didn’t—you—come—the—second—day?!”

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5. Nowhere to Run

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Zoe Young sat on the sofa at Andrew Lane’s house, staring blankly as Mrs. Lane set a white first-aid kit in front of her and tore medical cotton into small pieces.

“Thank you, Auntie,” she said softly. “Bear with it, it might hurt a bit.” The cotton soaked in alcohol stung her scraped wounds, making Zoe Young shudder from head to toe as if she’d been shocked. “Serves you right!”

Andrew Lane, now in a sky-blue T-shirt, appeared at the living room door. Seeing Zoe Young’s left palm and knee covered in red medicine, looking utterly miserable, he still glared at her fiercely.

Mr. Lane gave Zoe Young an apologetic smile, then lowered his head and said sternly in a low voice, “Andy, what are you saying? How can you be so rude?!”