Zoe Young felt very embarrassed and wanted even less to talk to him. She turned her head to look at the Little Tigers poster on the ground and didn’t respond. “If you don’t understand pinyin, I can teach you. Actually, pinyin isn’t hard at all…” “Yeah, pinyin isn’t hard at all, I’m just too stupid.” “No, you’re not!” Andrew Lane cried out, waving his hands, hurriedly explaining that’s not what he meant, but the more he spoke, the more confused he became.

He gritted his teeth, pointed at the small ads on the utility pole, and said, “Do you know those characters?” Zoe Young glanced at them: “Yes.”

“See, I don’t know them!”

He spoke loudly, as if desperately trying to prove that Zoe Young wasn’t stupid—Zoe Young looked at him seriously, her bright eyes swirling with emotions she couldn’t even name.

Suddenly, she burst into tears. All the confusion, fear, and helplessness that had been building up since that family gathering poured out at once. She wasn’t a queen, nor a little sweetheart, she was clumsy, she wasn’t likable, she made her mom sad…

Andrew Lane looked at her helplessly, not knowing whether to comfort her or not, scratching his head for a long time, finally just fumbling out a small handkerchief and awkwardly helping her wipe her tears.

By the time Zoe Young was finally tired from crying, the sun had already set. She planned to say goodbye to Andrew Lane and go home. “Do you always go home by yourself at night?”

She nodded. “Doesn’t your dad pick you up?” “He has a meeting today, so he’ll be late. He picks me and Charles Johnson up every day on his way home. …Actually, I live nearby too, remember? I think we’re on the same route, so how about we walk together from now on?” He looked at her expectantly, “I’ll talk to my dad and ask him to just pick up Charles Johnson, he doesn’t need to worry about me—okay? You can teach me the characters on the utility pole, and I can teach you pinyin, how about it?”

Afraid she’d refuse, he kept thinking of reasons. Zoe Young broke into a smile through her tears and nodded gently. Andrew Lane was so excited that he couldn’t help but rush up to Zoe Young, hug her, and plant a big kiss on her cheek.

…………“I-I-I-I have to go back to the school gate, Charles Johnson is still waiting for me there. Let’s meet at the school gate tomorrow, I’m leaving now, don’t be sad, don’t cry anymore, okay I’m going…” Andrew Lane took advantage of Zoe Young not reacting yet, turned around and fled, dashing through the street vendors’ stalls all the way to the school gate, where he finally stopped to catch his breath, patting his chest in lingering fear.

“I saw everything.” Charles Johnson, who was half a head shorter than Andrew Lane, sniffled. Andrew Lane shot him a look and said nothing, embarrassed. “I think Tina Young and Charlotte Lee are prettier than her,” Charles Johnson continued. Andrew Lane chuckled. In Charles Johnson’s eyes, pretty girls were simply those with brighter clothes, more bows, and more complicated braids than others… “That’s your taste,” Andrew Lane shook his head and said softly.

He looked up in the direction where Zoe Young had left. At the end of the long street, the setting sun had just disappeared, leaving only a sky full of red clouds.

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9. Sinking Fish

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That night, Zoe Young waited anxiously, but even after she finished washing up and went to bed, her mother still hadn’t come home.

At midnight, half-asleep, she felt a cool, soft hand stroking her forehead. It was as if cold drops of water fell on her cheek, like the cool rain in a dream.

Zoe Young became very quiet.

Life once again returned to its bland, indifferent state. The little red flowers on the honor board were still at zero, and the little black flowers hadn’t increased either. No matter how seriously she did her homework, even trying to do extra—if the assignment was to write twenty pinyin, she’d write forty—yet Teacher Yu always turned a blind eye.

What’s there to care about a plain little girl who refuses to join the weekend remedial class for underachievers? Zoe Young tried a few times, then stopped forcing herself to “improve,” and simply blended back into the crowd, becoming a faceless drop of water.

Just a drop of water—when she held her red scarf and lined up with the other kids to enter the packed auditorium of the Workers’ Cultural Palace, seeing the first graders from four schools merge into a sea, everyone’s faces blurred into distant waves. The huge chandelier hung from the ceiling; she looked up, trying to count how many petals the flower-shaped chandelier had, counting until her eyes blurred and her neck stiffened, before reluctantly lowering her head.

The empty stage was lit only by orange lights and three standing microphones. After everyone was seated, the long joining ceremony finally began. Leaders A, B, C, D, E gave speeches, then the excellent Young Pioneers counselors from each school, then the outstanding Young Pioneers F, G, H, I…

The homeroom teachers still stood up from time to time to patrol their class’s area, glaring and scolding any students caught whispering. Zoe Young listened to all the speeches below. Unlike the other children’s excitement, she felt a bit drowsy.

Maybe it was because she felt none of it had anything to do with her. When the last representative finished speaking, Zoe Young and the others clapped hard. Amid the applause, a new Young Pioneer representative walked out from behind the maroon curtain, with a pair of jet-black eyes. The crowd around faded into the background, and only she shone alone on the dark sea.

Swallow.

She stood properly in front of the standing microphone, and the teacher helped lower it for her. Unlike the previous speakers, she didn’t hold a script, but faced the thousand-plus pairs of eyes below with a beaming smile, delivering her speech with emotion and from memory. As the first-grade representative for the new Young Pioneers, she was a stark contrast to all the stiff, rigid people on stage.

Just like every time before class, when she led the calls of “Stand,” “Salute,” “Sit.” She’d passed by other classrooms and heard other class monitors call out “Stand,” “Salute,” “Sit,” but none sounded as nice as Swallow’s. In everyone’s eyes, being able to call out those three words was an amazing thing.

Zoe Young had never watched “Little Red Riding Hood.” At first, it was out of anger that the show took up cartoon time, but now it was a kind of inexplicable resistance.

As if watching it would make her fall, losing the last bit of independence. Maybe others couldn’t tell her apart as a faceless drop in the sea, but at least she knew she hadn’t truly been swallowed by the ocean. But what if even she couldn’t recognize herself anymore?

So every Tuesday and Thursday, she would eat very, very slowly, dragging it out past six o’clock. Swallow’s speech ended, and the audience applauded again. Zoe Young looked up, and this time, three first graders came out from behind the curtain, standing in an equilateral triangle in front of the microphones. The two in the back were strangers, but the one in front was Andrew Lane.

Yet in Zoe Young’s eyes, the Andrew Lane on stage was also a stranger, at least completely different from the Andrew Lane who argued with her on the way home from school, baring his teeth. At that moment, Zoe Young suddenly thought of Benny—if it were Benny on stage, she would definitely be so nervous for him that her palms would sweat. But she never worried about Andrew Lane, and couldn’t say why. Maybe because, even if Andrew Lane failed, there would be plenty of people to comfort him, no one would blame him, and he’d even get more chances. But if Zoe Young or Benny failed, one failure meant a hundred missed opportunities, and there’d be no way back.

Zoe Young stood in the vast black sea, missing Benny more than ever, missing someone like herself who she didn’t know where he was now.

“Everyone stand up!” Andrew Lane’s voice, though childish, was calm and strong. Everyone stood up with him, raising their right fists to their ears.

“I swear—” “I—swear—” The students below repeated the oath after Andrew Lane, line by line.

Unlike the seasoned composure of Swallow, Andrew Lane’s seriousness seemed innate, as if he was born to stand in the spotlight, the focus of everyone’s attention, unpolished yet perfectly fitting.

After the long oath was finally finished, Andrew Lane shouted, “Oath-taker, Andrew Lane.” “Oath-taker, Zachary Lewis.” “Oath-taker, Tina Young.” “Oath-taker, Michael Warren.” “Oath-taker, Penny Lewis…”

Under the teachers’ reminders, the children below all called out their own names. The chorus was broken, and over a thousand different names bubbled and bounced in the hall like boiling water drops, each showing a different face and posture.

Yet, at that moment, Zoe Young was speechless. Her own name was stuck in her throat, and she didn’t manage to say it.

In that moment, she completely lost her resistance and became a fish. Later, when she grew up and did experiments learning that “water is a poor conductor of heat,” the water at the top of the big test tube would be boiling, but the goldfish at the bottom would still swim calmly. Zoe Young suddenly remembered herself at that time—just like that silent goldfish, sinking to the bottom, quietly and wordlessly.