“I don’t know who said it... Anyway, someone said it was Fiona James who stepped on it. Just now she was circling around the snowman for ages, and Daniel Hughes told her if she wasn’t going to help, she should stay away. She even argued with Daniel Hughes.”

“Who said she stepped on it?” “Don’t know. Anyway, someone said so.” “Someone” is the most mysterious and powerful person in the world.

Zoe Young watched as Fiona James futilely confronted a group of boys and girls. Among Fiona James’s opponents, she even saw Emily Xavier’s gloating smile. She felt a bit sad, but didn’t have the courage to go against so many people and stand by Fiona James’s side to defend her, so she just lowered her head and harshly despised herself.

“Forget it, forget it, it’s all done now, good or bad, it’s like this. Everyone, hurry up and hold hands to make a circle, then I’ll smash the snowman with the shovel!”

Everyone finally grumbled and dispersed, then joined hands to form a big, lopsided circle. Zoe Young stood with Zachary Lewis on her left and Claire Daniels on her right, slowly spreading her arms to widen the distance. When the circle started to take shape, everyone suddenly realized that standing in the middle, besides Daniel Hughes and the snowman, was Fiona James.

Fiona James stared blankly at the big circle, feeling extremely awkward being surrounded, so she hurriedly ran to squeeze between two people, hoping they’d let go and give her a spot, but those two just gripped hands tighter and didn’t even look at her.

Like a criminal paraded through the streets. Fiona James tried three or four times, and Zoe Young seemed to see beads of sweat breaking out on her forehead in the freezing cold.

Zoe Young didn’t know that, at this moment, the way she looked at Fiona James was almost the same as the look Fiona James had given her five years ago, when she walked back to her seat in class holding a pinyin test covered in red X’s.

Sympathy. But with a subtle difference. “Fiona James!” Zoe Young blurted out, then froze for a second. Under Zachary Lewis’s surprised gaze, she let go of Zachary Lewis’s hand.

“Come over here.” Everyone looked at her, but she just looked at Fiona James with a nameless sense of tragic heroism. Like watching a little swallow with broken wings, tiredly, step by step, walk to her side.

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9. Big Liar

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The shovel slammed hard into the back of the snowman’s head, and as it shattered and collapsed, everyone burst into screams and laughter. Daniel Hughes wiped his nose, grinning happily, then pretended to be a gentleman by placing his left hand over his stomach and bowing to everyone, drawing a round of playful jeers.

Zoe Young could feel through her thick gloves that Fiona James was trembling, as if it wasn’t the snowman that had been smashed, but her. As the crowd dispersed, Claire Daniels looked at Zoe Young, not knowing what to say. Zoe Young gave her a reassuring smile and said, “You go play with them first.” So Claire Daniels ran off, looking back every few steps. Zoe Young pulled Fiona James to try climbing the horizontal bar, but no matter what, she just couldn’t get up. “How did you get up there?” Fiona James gave up, looking helplessly at Zoe Young swinging her legs high above.

“Is it really that hard?” She widened her eyes. Fiona James lowered her head, “Maybe I’m just too fat.”

Zoe Young froze for a moment, feeling very sad. She knew a lot of people laughed at Fiona James, her face was breaking out, she’d gained weight, the TV station didn’t want her anymore...

“I’m wearing a lot too.” She patted her thick coat and round belly. “Actually, you just haven’t got the technique. This time I’ll help you from below!” “No need.” Fiona James shook her head, looking at Zoe Young, “How are you like Little Dragon Girl, able to climb up the bar?” “Who’s Little Dragon Girl? Does she like climbing bars too?” Zoe Young jumped down from the bar like a bear. “Little Dragon Girl sleeps on ropes. When I was little and recording at the provincial TV station, I always cried, and a director sister told me the story of Little Dragon Girl, saying she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Oh, and there was a TV drama about her, haven’t you seen it? It’s called ‘The Return of the Condor Heroes.’ Oh, and Little Dragon Girl knows Guo Jing and Huang Rong, but she’s much younger than them, and she likes Yang Kang’s son.”

“Yang Kang’s son? But Yang Kang is a bad guy.” Zoe Young was surprised.

Although, when she was little, she really liked the handsome actor who played Wanyan Kang, the young prince, in the 1983 version of ‘The Legend of the Condor Heroes.’

Fiona James shrugged, “A bad guy’s son isn’t necessarily a bad guy.” Zoe Young paused, suddenly thinking of herself, of how others called her mother a vixen and said she’d grow up to be one too. When she was little, she’d get angry and indignant, but actually, a lot of times her own thinking was just like those people’s, instinctively making some stubborn and hurtful assumptions.

“So his son is a good guy?” she asked tentatively. “Yang Kang’s son is a great hero, very handsome, highly skilled in martial arts, chivalrous and righteous, and he even raises an eagle.”

Fiona James said with certainty. Zoe Young didn’t see what was so great about raising an eagle, but a hero must have his reasons, and even if a hero carried a chicken in each hand, he’d still be dashing. But a heroine who can’t do math olympiad problems is just embarrassing. This wicked, unequal society.

Zoe Young and Fiona James both fell silent. Snow started falling from the sky again. Zoe Young had just reached out to try to catch a snowflake when she suddenly heard Fiona James softly say, “Thank you.” The heroine Zoe Young who shouts at injustice blushed. “It’s... it’s nothing,” she shook her head, “they were too much.” Fiona James smiled.

“Actually, that footprint really was mine.”

...Zoe Young was petrified for a few seconds before she managed to turn her head to look at the smiling little swallow. “You... want... to kill me... is that it?”

“I don’t know why, I just wanted to step on it.” Fiona James lowered her head, but the corners of her mouth were smiling. Zoe Young found this side of Fiona James a little scary.

“This morning on the way to school, my mom scolded me. She’s been scolding me a lot lately, and said the people at the TV station are all snobs, ungrateful. This morning when I was washing my hair, I didn’t hear her tell me to save some hot water, so after I finished I poured it all into the toilet, and she got mad and even slapped me.”

Zoe Young covered her mouth in shock, but Fiona James comfortingly patted her face, “It’s fine, I dodged, it didn’t hurt at all. See, there’s not even a handprint, otherwise I definitely wouldn’t have dared come to school today.”

“And,” she continued, “someone brought up that interview about me in ‘Young Pioneers’ Newspaper’ two years ago. I really didn’t do well on the test, but the stuff those reporters wrote was all made up. When they interview child stars like us, those uncles and aunties have a routine, they don’t even need to interview, they just write it up. They said I didn’t go to class for a whole semester but still got perfect scores at the end, but it was all nonsense, I never said that. Back then everyone said they admired me, but now, Emily Xavier and the others brought up that article again, saying I was bragging, saying I only got such a low math score, how could I claim to have gotten perfect scores...”

In situations like this, Zoe Young never knew what to say. She still remembered when she was little and Benny told her he’d been badly beaten by his dad, she would always bring up her own even worse experiences to comfort him, so he wouldn’t feel alone or like the most miserable kid.

But what could she say to Fiona James? Fiona James wasn’t Benny, and even if she was, Zoe Young couldn’t be sure she could say so frankly now that she didn’t have a dad.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Fiona James. It’s just that Benny, and that carefree childhood, were already things of the past.

“My mom hits me too,” Zoe Young started making things up, “and it really hurts. When I don’t practice piano properly, she hits me. And I did really badly on the math olympiad, I probably won’t get into the High School Affiliated to Normal University, I won’t pass the exam, maybe I’ll have to go to a really bad middle school, then I’ll be too dumb to keep up, and then I won’t get into high school... you get it?”

After she finished, she was startled herself. At first she was lying, but as she spoke, the truth slipped out. When she used to comfort Benny, she had to rack her brains to find sad things to say, so “no dad” and “mom is disliked” were always brought up. But now, after a few years, Zoe Young was shocked to see she already had so many sad things to use to comfort others.

So many. She could pick any one and talk about it for a long, long time.

But those first two things were still the most devastating. She hadn’t understood before, but now she realized just how deeply those two facts affected her, so she buried them and never brought them up again.

Unexpectedly, Fiona James smiled and said to her, “Me too.” “What?”