Shy and soft-spoken, yet gentle and certain. “Captain, you like Zoe, don’t you?” “Yeah.”

It seemed like the simplest fact in the world, like the earth orbiting the sun. Fiona James found it hard to sit up and gossip with a grin, or scream, “Captain, are you serious?”... She felt the atmosphere at that moment was indescribable—tense, subtle, and yet made you want to smile unconsciously. See, time really had stopped.

No one knew how long the silence lasted before Zoe Young suddenly snapped out of it, jumped up, and started frantically brushing the leftover snow off her back and pants, shouting, “Oh no, oh no, what time is it?”

Fiona James’s heart sank. She hurriedly struggled to pull her digital watch from her sleeve and glanced at it. “Four o’clock, four ten.”

Stopping time on your own is a crime; it will only make it pass twice as fast. Zoe Young and Fiona James scrambled to brush the snow off each other. Andrew Lane just stood there in a daze, as if part of his soul hadn’t returned yet.

“Why are you just standing there? Hurry up and clean yourself off, don’t let the teacher see we were having a snowball fight!” Andrew Lane replied with an “Oh,” but still didn’t move. He had no idea what Zoe Young had been thinking in that silent moment, but it was clear that fear had now ignited both Zoe Young and Fiona James; their earlier bravado about skipping class had vanished. While he was still in a daze, Zoe Young had already rushed over and started smacking the snow off his back.

“Ouch!” She gave his butt a hard slap. “Are you getting back at me?” “Getting back at you for what?” “For saying I li…” He stopped, his face flushing bright red.

Across from him, Zoe Young’s eyes widened, a few snowflakes still clinging to her fuzzy lashes. As she blinked in panic, they fluttered like a white butterfly in front of Andrew Lane’s eyes.

“How could that be revenge? That’s gratitude, isn’t it?” Fiona James chimed in cluelessly from the side, and the three of them collectively froze.

………… “Run!” It was still the heroine Zoe Young who had the best sense of the situation. Once again, she grabbed Fiona James with her left hand and Andrew Lane with her right, and took off running toward the school. The cold wind stung her cheeks, but deep down, Zoe Young felt a trace of excitement and sweetness beneath her anxiety. She could vaguely sense it, but didn’t have time to think, or maybe she was deliberately suppressing it for now. “Zoe!” As soon as they ran into the courtyard, Fiona James suddenly cried out with a sob in her voice, “No, I have to go to the bathroom, I can’t hold it anymore!” Zoe Young could already hear the bell signaling the end of school. Her heart was pounding—if they didn’t leave now, they’d run into the students with their backpacks, and that scene was easy to imagine. Skipping class was a serious thing; even the worst students rarely skipped class to play outside. In their current disheveled state, there was no way to explain it.

But Zoe Young was a heroine, always had been. She calmed herself and smiled at Fiona James. “Go ahead, I’ll wait for you at the door.”

Fiona James dashed to the girls’ bathroom, then suddenly turned back, legs pressed together, bent over, barely holding on, but still managed to call out pitifully, “Zoe, don’t leave me behind!”

Zoe Young was taken aback. In this situation, shouldn’t Fiona James be saying, “You go ahead, don’t worry about me”? “Go on, if I leave first, I—I’m this!” she shouted, raising her right hand and sticking out her pinky. Fiona James gave her a grateful smile and ran into the bathroom reassured. Andrew Lane, standing to the side, stared at Zoe Young’s little finger and said softly, “How old are you, still making pinky promises.”

Zoe Young didn’t argue. She looked at Andrew Lane seriously and said, “You’d better get back to class. Don’t say we were out playing together—just make up any excuse you want. That student leader excuse… can you give it to the two of us?”

Andrew Lane tilted his head. “I’m not leaving.” Zoe Young was furious and was about to say something, but was suddenly struck by the calm and determined look in Andrew Lane’s eyes after he said “I’m not leaving.” She lowered her head, staring at her snow-dusted toes, her mind a complete mess. With Fiona James gone, only the two of them stood side by side. Zoe Young could almost hear Andrew Lane’s breathing. For every five beats of her heart, he took a breath. There was a question in her heart, but she didn’t know how to ask it. Yet the more critical the moment, the more that question bounced around inside her.

“Andrew Lane?”

“Yeah?” “…It’s nothing.”

She didn’t know what she wanted to ask, or what she was waiting for. She just felt that Andrew Lane should say something.

But Zoe Young didn’t know that, for Andrew Lane, “I like you” simply meant “I like you.” He didn’t yet understand that in the adult world, “I like you” or “I love you” always carries the implied meaning of “let’s be together.”

“Being together” is complicated, involving many aspects and many people. “Being together” is fragile and hard to sustain, but it can make people even more vulnerable and bring longer-lasting hurt.

That’s why adults think long and hard before saying “I love you,” because it means so much. But for Andrew Lane, when Fiona James asked, “Do you like Zoe?”—the answer was yes. It was just a question, so it only needed an answer.

The simplest answer.

He didn’t even need to know what Zoe Young thought. Twelve-year-old Andrew Lane had the purest, most black-and-white kind of liking, and all he needed to say was, “Yeah.” He gently pressed pause on his own timeline. The snow fell silently, the girl beside him was quiet as could be. The world was peaceful and white—even if, rather awkwardly, they were standing in front of the girls’ bathroom. But so what.

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11. The Crossroads of the Maze

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Zoe Young never understood why Andrew Lane insisted on standing next to her, but later, when the three of them faced the teacher together, she finally realized how important Andrew Lane was.

Mr. Hughes beamed, while Andrew Lane spoke with confidence and eloquence, describing in vivid detail how a mysterious stranger had tricked the three of them away, and how they’d stood outside the print shop fiercely debating what to do—Zoe Young insisting it was a scam, while Andrew Lane and Fiona James were half-convinced and decided to wait a bit longer—until school was over.

Fiona James kept her head down in fear, while Zoe Young’s mouth twitched for a long time. Andrew Lane, which of us is the real liar?

Actually, Zoe Young knew that the success of a lie doesn’t depend entirely on eloquence or quick thinking—in the end, it depends on who’s telling it.

Even if Andrew Lane said the three of them had been abducted by aliens and then rescued by Bunny Moon, Mr. Hughes might just say, “Oh, Bunny Moon is such a kind person,” and ignore their wet, disheveled coats, even patting Andrew Lane’s head with a smile and praising him for being so smart.

Zoe Young turned her face slightly to look at the confident and composed Andrew Lane, and smiled faintly. He wasn’t as simple as she’d imagined. He always knew about his natural influence and charm, and was always learning how to use it. Like when he was little, grinning cheekily as he pleaded with the class monitor for help, or now, clearly seeing their panic and so staying behind, stepping up, and making up stories.

The conversation between Andrew Lane and Mr. Hughes had long since moved past the topic of skipping class, and was now about “moving up to middle school,” “taking math olympiad exams,” “you’ll definitely get into Tsinghua or Peking University,” and “whenever your Mr. Zack mentions you, she’s so proud.” Andrew Lane smiled obediently, while Zoe Young and Fiona James stood awkwardly to the side, silent as the background.

“Look how smart and sensible you are. If my son were like you, I’d be burning incense in thanks! Unlike our class—when the contest results came out, only Daniel Hughes made it to the next round. The rest of these kids, so hopeless, all got eliminated.”

Zoe Young suddenly looked up. The contest results were out? So soon.

She already knew she’d done terribly, but no matter how gloomy she felt, she still held onto a sliver of hope, like a protagonist in dire straits hoping for a miracle. But now, she was no longer anxious or uneasy—just numb.

The wildness and exuberance in the snow had been crushed into powder by the gray marble floors and white walls of the school building, drifting away and disappearing into the snow.

Time never stands still. It moves forward relentlessly, forcing you to make decisions.