“It’s that kind of story where the main character is laughed at, looked down on, and framed by many people, then suddenly falls off a cliff, and no one knows if he’s alive or dead, or where he’s gone—but there’s always a cave at the bottom of the cliff, and there’s always a secret manual in the cave. When he returns to the world, everyone realizes he’s become the best in the world, invincible…” He seemed a little embarrassed by his own description, so he laughed, “That’s the kind of game.” Zoe Young seemed to understand, but also not quite.

“Go to a school where no one knows you, and draw a new starting line for yourself. With no one around to distract you, you can run even faster. Three years is enough time for you to become a little heroine.”

Zoe Young felt as if a window had opened before her eyes, revealing a different world. Life could be lived this way, and anger and hatred could be dispelled like this.

And, he actually knew she was a heroine. Zoe Young smiled, a kind of happiness she hadn’t felt in a long time, and in Alan Carter’s eyes, she saw the crescent moon of her own smile.

“Mm,” Zoe Young nodded firmly, “I’ll definitely beat this game!” After thinking for a moment, she added, “I’ll get into your Brightstar High School too!”

In the end, she still lacked confidence and added, “...To get into Brightstar High School... I don’t have to take the math olympiad, right?” Alan Carter laughed and patted her head, and Zoe Young shyly scratched her nose, suddenly remembering something and looking up to ask, “But what if there’s no cave or secret manual at the bottom of the cliff? What if I just die from the fall?” Alan Carter stuck out his pinky and hooked it with hers: “周周, I’m your secret manual.” “Mm,” Zoe Young smiled, “I believe you.”

At her grandmother’s door, Zoe Young waved goodbye to Alan Carter, when Alan Carter suddenly called out to her. “周周, I’ve wanted to give you this for a long time, but every time I see you I forget, always thinking there’ll be another chance. This time I finally remembered.” Zoe Young took a thick envelope, lowered her head and opened it curiously.

In the photo, a little girl stood alone on stage, holding a big trophy, her smile so bright it was almost unimaginable. Zoe Young had almost forgotten she had ever smiled like that. “That time at your storytelling contest, I brought my camera to take pictures of Jenny, but she didn’t win anything and cried on stage, so I didn’t take any. All the film was used for you. I’ve always wanted to give you the photos, but kept forgetting. Maybe I just thought the photos were too cute and wanted to keep them a few more days.”

Zoe Young’s eyes grew a little wet, and she gently stroked the little girl in the photo with her finger. “周周, you have to keep smiling like you do in the photo,” Alan Carter bent down to look at her, “You look best when you smile that brightly.” Zoe Young stuffed the photo back into the envelope, then handed it back to Alan Carter. “You keep it, if you like it.” Alan Carter was surprised: “You don’t want it? You look so pretty in the photo.”

Zoe Young shook her head, lifted her face, and gave a smile even brighter than the one in the photo. In the gentle glow of the sunset, she even showed a bit of the pure beauty of a young girl.

“You keep it as a memento,” she said, “As for me… see, I can just look in the mirror.”

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16. You’re different from everyone else

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Zoe Young’s change was like the street trees that suddenly turn green after a night of spring rain—one morning, she walked out the door with her bag, still sleepy, and looked up, so surprised she couldn’t close her mouth.

She smiled more and more, but spoke less and less, as if she was holding onto a huge secret, waiting for something. She was restless with anticipation, and happy—a happiness that radiated from within, not in an exuberant way, but more restrained, more calm, as if all the joys and sorrows and concerns of her peers were just child’s play. Without even realizing it, she had stepped into another world, a more mature and mysterious one.

She was no longer a little girl, but a young lady. She continued preparing for her annual summer cello exam, the final level ten, like a period at the end of a sentence—a perfect farewell to a certain person and a certain world. But she never went to math olympiad class again, and could even ignore the teacher’s disapproving looks—

Claire Daniels finally couldn’t help herself and quietly asked her one day, “周周, what’s up with you?” Zoe Young straightened her pencil case, pushed the rented Detective Conan manga into her desk, and tilted her head with a smile: “Nothing.”

“I think you’re acting weird.” Claire Daniels muttered softly, and seeing that Zoe Young didn’t plan to explain, she awkwardly revealed her real concern.

“Why are you so close with Fiona James?” “You don’t like her?”

“No!” Claire Daniels realized Zoe Young was getting better and better at dodging, more and more like… her own cousin, so she quickly smiled, “Why wouldn’t I like her? It’s just… you don’t pay attention to me anymore.”

Claire Daniels’s voice got quieter and quieter. Zoe Young laughed and tugged her hand: “How am I not paying attention to you?” “Yesterday we said we’d all go to the wholesale market to buy autograph books, but you didn’t come with us.” “Oh…” Zoe Young scratched the back of her head and laughed, “Because I’m not buying an autograph book, so I didn’t want to go.” “Did you already buy one?” Claire Daniels was shocked, “And you didn’t tell me!” Zoe Young shook her head: “I didn’t buy one, and I don’t want to.” “You’re not going to write in autograph books?” Claire Daniels almost felt like she was seeing a monster.

That early summer, almost everyone was frantically passing around autograph books in private. The girls crowded together, agonizing over different styles: big or small, pink or blue, scenery or anime, loose-leaf or binder, whether the content was complete, whether the required fields included zodiac sign, blood type, motto, favorite celebrity, favorite food…

The richness of your autograph book represented your popularity over the past six years, and everyone took it very seriously. Zoe Young had accumulated a pile of loose-leaf pages, each marked with the owner’s name in pencil in the upper right corner. She quickly filled in her name, nickname, zodiac sign, birthday on each one… then carefully wrote “Wishing you a bright future, happiness always, success in everything, all the best” in the “graduation message” section on the back of each.

Funny, sentimental, affectionate… everyone was busy coming up with more unique messages. More importantly, many ambiguous relationships that hadn’t been made clear yet took these autograph books very seriously. Everyone was worried, because whether they could get into the High School Affiliated to Normal University or No. 8 Middle School was a heavy weight on their minds, but they couldn’t say much, so they just wrote, “We’ll always be good friends.”

Zoe Young always wrote those same words, only adding a few more memories on the autograph books of Claire Daniels, Zachary Lewis, and Fiona James.

No one knew, she just didn’t want to leave any traces. Zoe Young had experienced many separations in her life, and she seemed to have realized earlier than her peers how fragile these so-called “forever friends” promises were—they were all powerless in the face of time and distance, and couldn’t even fight their own forgetfulness and indifference. On the road of growing up, there are always new things, more interesting new friends, but the human heart is small and can’t hold that much, so you keep moving forward, and keep leaving things behind.

Until a Tuesday in mid-June, when Andrew Lane stopped her on the way home from school.

The fourth-grade drum corps and bouquet team were going to perform at the Youth League celebration, so there was a noisy rehearsal in the afternoon, and the whole school had the afternoon off. Zoe Young walked past the playground with her bag, saw the kids in bright green drum corps uniforms lining up under the sun, and suddenly looked up at the gray school building, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

Life is like a spinning top, going round and round, and so it goes on. Just as she finished sighing, she saw Andrew Lane leaning against the wall with his bag, glaring at her. “What do you want?”

Andrew Lane pulled out a light green sheet of paper from behind his back: “You have the nerve to ask? Look at what you wrote for me!”

“Andrew Lane, wishing you a bright future, happiness always, success in everything.” Zoe Young looked it over several times, “What’s wrong with it?” There weren’t even any typos. “How could you… how could you…” He was so anxious he couldn’t get the words out. He’d asked Fiona James to give his autograph book to Zoe Young, waited eagerly for days, and finally got it back today, only to see such a generic message.

And, more importantly, he knew Zoe Young had written the same thing in many people’s autograph books. How could what she wrote for me be the same as what she wrote for them? Andrew Lane felt especially wronged, but he just shook the paper in the air for a long time, finally gritting his teeth and saying, “What you wrote for me is the same as for everyone else, even… even… it’s missing a line!!!”

Only then did Zoe Young realize she’d forgotten to write “all the best.”