Zoe Young's tears stopped all at once. Facing such an increasingly unfamiliar person, she couldn't cry. The fact that her tears had suddenly disappeared filled Zoe Young with panic— not crying meant being cold-blooded, not crying was unfilial, was impolite, was... This anxiety made her desperately try to squeeze out tears, her mind replaying over and over the image of Grandpa Green bending over with a smile as he installed a fine tuner on her newly bought strings, and his infinitely lonely, hunched figure standing on stage— she was just frantically recalling, not for the sake of remembering, but simply trying to summon the sadness she had lost. Zoe Young lowered her head, and Alan Carter's solemn profile made her feel very ashamed, so she didn't dare lift her head and let him see her suddenly dry eyes.

"If you can't cry, don't force yourself to squeeze out tears." Funny enough, this gentle sentence made Zoe Young's tears burst out in an instant— not out of mourning for Grandpa Green, but simply because Zoe Young was so anxious she started crying. "Grandpa Green always understood your little thoughts, so he would understand you."

Alan Carter really knew how to make people cry— after hearing this sentimental line, Zoe Young looked at him with teary, infinitely grateful eyes, then looked at the stranger lying in the hospital bed.

At the funeral, the youth center gave Grandpa Green full honors: a sea of crowded wreaths, and the bustling students organized to attend, enough to prove "his students are everywhere"... Zoe Young nestled beside Alan Carter, clinging tightly to his arm, head down, afraid others would notice she wasn't crying.

Zoe Young found that some function in her body always seemed to temporarily fail, but would return home and start working again at some unexpected moment. On another Sunday morning, when Zoe Young arrived early at the orchestra's empty rehearsal room, put down her bag, and paced over to the already icy radiator, she suddenly felt a jarring sense of time and space confusion.

She reached out her hand— pale back, slender fingers— and gently placed it on the radiator, feeling not a trace of warmth. Suddenly, the creak of a door opening sounded behind her, and Zoe Young whipped around, feeling as if a pair of invisible big hands had gripped her heart tightly. The office door slowly opened, and Zoe Young nervously held her breath, eyes wide, staring at the sliver of light at the doorway.

"I'm telling you, just leave the kid with me, tell your wife not to worry, with our relationship, why be so polite..." The new conductor, belly sticking out, pushed the door open and walked out, talking loudly on his phone as he headed for the hall entrance. His gruff voice faded away, and the rehearsal hall door slammed shut with a bang. Zoe Young stared blankly at the office's still-creaking wooden door, suddenly feeling something cool on her chin. She reached up to touch it— it was a tear.

Finally, did she cry? No one would ever again look at her with doting eyes, hands behind their back, smiling and asking, "Zoe, did you slack off on your practice again last week?" No one would ever again stand beside her, warming their hands together on the radiator, hunched over, sighing at the frost on the window. There would never be another maybe.

The one who went far away would never return.

"You've put rosin on the bow for the fourth time, won't it be too sticky?" Zoe Young tilted her head and asked the girl beside her, who had been fussing with her violin for the past hour—

After tuning the A string with the piano five or six times, and playing a few chords, she would neurotically use a dry cloth to wipe off the rosin dust from the violin, then immediately take out a rectangular little box and vigorously rub the slightly yellowed bow hair back and forth on it.

The girl turned her face and gave an awkward smile, pointing at the stand under Zoe Young's cello, and asked softly, "Aren't you afraid that during the exam, your scale won't even be finished before the endpin suddenly loosens and retracts all at once, and then..."

Zoe Young's expression changed too: "Can't you think of something positive?" The girl pulled a long face: "I wish I could, but I just can't think of anything good." "Is this your first time taking a grade exam?" Zoe Young asked as she bent down and gave her own cello endpin a few hard twists, only raising her head after making sure it was tight— nervousness really was contagious. "Of course not, have you ever seen anyone take level ten on their first try? I, I just..." The girl swallowed, "I'm preparing to apply to S City's music academy's affiliated middle school this year, and one of the three examiners today is the teacher in charge of admissions from S Middle. Actually, I've already apprenticed with him, but my mom keeps telling me that all my basics were bought with money, and she still hopes I can leave a good impression. She nagged me the whole way here, telling me I must do well this time. How can I not be nervous?!"

Zoe Young suddenly became interested: "You said... apprenticeship? Why? Don't you have a teacher?" The girl looked a year or two older than Zoe Young. She stood up, rolled her eyes in a show of maturity, and tapped Zoe Young's forehead: "You really don't know anything. You think all you need to get into the affiliated school is to play well? Silly. You have to pull a lot of strings. Back then, my mom was running around making connections for me while scolding me for not working hard enough, it drove me crazy."

Zoe Young sat up straight, grinning ingratiatingly, and put on an innocent look: "Sister, what do you mean by connections?"

"The people in charge of admissions, of course, lots and lots of them, and you have to get in touch with the affiliated school's teachers before the exam. If you don't know anyone inside, it's impossible."

The girl spoke animatedly, her tone still childish, but her manner already a bit adult. Zoe Young bent down, cupped her face, and smiled with squinted eyes: "But what if you're really good? Do you still need to do all this?" The girl knocked Zoe Young on the head again: "I say you're silly and you immediately act dumb. You think I make connections just to get in? I'm not doing it to get in, I'm doing it so I don't get pushed out by others who have connections! My mom says it's called self-defense!"

The white wooden door not far ahead opened, and a child who had just finished their assessment came out carrying a violin. The girl paused, then sat down quietly again, picking up the rosin to continue tormenting her bow.

The dark iron door next to the white wooden door also opened, and a boy who had just finished his assessment came out carrying a cello. Zoe Young stopped smiling too, bent down, and twisted her endpin hard.

"By the way, this... self-defense you mentioned," Zoe Young lowered her head and quietly asked the most crucial question, "how much does it cost?"

The girl laughed carelessly: "You mean giving gifts?" Zoe Young lowered her head and chuckled softly: "Mm."

"Pfft, we don't give gifts anymore. We just go to lessons, take lessons with the admissions teacher. Each lesson is forty-five minutes, three hundred yuan. I spent over thirty thousand just on 'lessons' in the early stage."

"That's just the early stage?"

"Spending money isn't just on that. If I really go to S City, my mom will have to go with me, and then the expenses will be even higher."

"Then why do you... why do you want to go to the affiliated school? Do you really like the violin?" The superiority that came with age finally disappeared from the girl's face. She didn't rush to answer Zoe Young's question, just put down her bow and rosin, cupped her face, and stared blankly out the window. "Of course... I knew long ago I'm not Mozart."

She said softly, then smiled as if suddenly enlightened.

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7. Left Side

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When Zoe Young looked down, she noticed a big footprint on her white snow boots. It must have been from the aunt holding a child who stepped on her on the bus. She sighed and walked toward the sea of people at the entrance of the Normal University. It was another November like this, the leaden sky beginning its annual oppression. Zoe Young looked down at her watch— it was only 7:25. She thought she would be very early, but after squeezing on the rush hour bus for over forty minutes, she found there were even more people who had arrived before her.

The city's "New Seedling Cup" Math Olympiad— it was said that children who won first prize would likely be fought over by all the top middle schools. Zoe Young had struggled in the school's math olympiad class for more than half a year, but still felt completely lost. She forced herself to take notes, ponder, and do the examples and exercises in the textbook. But the answers only gave results, not the calculation process or reasoning, and the things she didn't understand she simply couldn't figure out. Lily Young was boarding at the school's senior year boot camp, Tina Young didn't study math olympiad, and Joel Young was busy chasing after the "tigress"— she was all alone.

She could have asked the math olympiad teacher, but she was too embarrassed. For the first time, Zoe Young understood how the so-called "poor students" in class felt— when the teacher listened excitedly to a group of geniuses sharing their insights, Zoe Young stood off to the side clutching her math olympiad book, looking down at the problems she'd circled in red, each one looking more crude than the last. So she lowered her head and slipped away, feeling dejected.