The older you get, the more taboos there are. Zoe Young learned to be reserved; family matters were no longer the only forbidden topic. The ambitions and desires hidden deep in her heart also had to be carefully wrapped up, never revealed to anyone, or else she might only invite incomprehension and ridicule.

Michelle Cindy had quite a few snacks in her bag, but judging by the brands, they all seemed pretty old. Zoe Young picked up a bag of Maltesers that you could hardly find near the school anymore. She was just about to ask which grocery store she got them from, when she realized her palm was covered in a thick layer of dust.

Why... is it so dirty...

She didn’t say anything, didn’t even frown, and immediately smiled: “I haven’t had Maltesers in so long.”

“Back in first and second grade, after every class, the class life committee would ask everyone what snacks they wanted, then go downstairs to buy them together, and pay afterwards. At that time, everyone loved Maltesers. Sometimes a few people would even pool their money to buy them. Later, they started eating Cadbury, JinDi, Dove, and no one said they wanted Maltesers anymore.”

Michelle Cindy was extremely sensitive.

“I just suddenly remembered them, so I rummaged around in the grocery store for a long time before I happened to find them. See, they’re a bit dirty.” she said softly.

Zoe Young smiled with a chocolate ball in her mouth, quietly flipping over the red packaging.

Not only were they dirty, but they were also expired.

But she still swallowed it, and because of that, she felt rather heroic.

But at that time, she didn’t know yet that she could be even more heroic.

The arts committee member had volunteered for the girls’ 0-meter race, which was the longest distance for girls. But all morning she’d been busy under the sun, directing everyone—waving pom-poms to welcome the school leaders’ inspection—and hadn’t eaten much. By noon, her face naturally looked ashen—she was exhausted.

Facing the eager gaze of the sports committee member, Zoe Young couldn’t help but swallow.

So at exactly two in the afternoon, the sports committee member pinned the athlete’s number to her chest and back. She was contestant number 13 from Class 6, Grade 1 of 0-level, so her number was 13.

Even though she’d already told herself to just jog slowly, since no one expected her to place anyway, when the PE teacher at the check-in led them to line up at the starting line, Zoe Young stood alone, staring at the long red rubber track beneath her feet, still able to hear her heart pounding wildly in her chest. She hadn’t even started running, but her legs already felt weak, and in her ears was the sound of blood rushing through her veins.

“On your marks, get set—”

The moment the gun fired, Zoe Young suddenly spaced out. She remembered writing an essay as a child, the topic was “Sports Day,” and the teacher had summarized all the beautiful phrases from the model essay on the blackboard—full of energy, perseverance, striving to be first...

But Zoe Young thought, the most accurate description was probably: “The starting gun fired, and the students dashed out like unleashed wild dogs.”

Unleashed wild dog number one, Zoe Young, ran on the innermost lane, wasting what was supposedly the most advantageous position. No one was running fast, since they had to run more than four laps and needed to conserve energy. When Zoe Young passed by Class 6’s area, she absentmindedly raised her hand and waved at her class’s section—this comical gesture made the class erupt, everyone playing along and making the crazy faces of die-hard fans, even Ethan Xavier shouted in a weird tone, “Zoe Young, go for it!”

Playing to the crowd can be uplifting. Zoe Young had already started breathing through her mouth, trying to force a smile, then continued running forward in a gloomy mood. Her chest and throat felt like they were about to explode, burning with pain.

She barely made it through the second lap, her speed almost a walk, but she still kept up the appearance of running. Girls around her started dropping out one by one, but Zoe Young kept telling herself, just one more hundred meters and I’ll quit, just one hundred meters—like that, she actually managed to finish the third lap.

So if she gave up on the last lap, wouldn’t that be a waste? Although people say it’s the process that matters, that’s just to comfort those with disappointing results. If you can get a good result, then no one cares how ugly the process was, because bystanders only care about and remember the result.

Zoe Young suddenly thought of Sister Lily. When Alan Carter was happily being a Peking University student, Sister Lily was repeating a year.

“Alan Carter, what if you’d failed the exam that year? Even if you were better than anyone else during twelve years of school, but you just failed the exam... would you be angry at fate?”

Fate is destined to ignore everyone.

So no matter how much Sister Lily cried and resented it, she could only calm down and keep repeating the year, with a forehead full of pimples, biting her pen and fighting analytic geometry to the end.

When anger is useless, and the embarrassment of being mocked and ignored leaves us with no choice, we can only smile and say, “Forget it, I don’t mind.”

Forced into a corner, we make peace.

Zoe Young thought about life as she ran her last lap. Spacing out didn’t ease the pain in her chest or the soreness in her calves. In her vision, white snowflakes like those on a broken TV screen began to appear, speckling and eating away at the red rubber track in her sight.

But there was still one lap left. Just one lap. If you can’t finish, you’ll never beat Sean Sherman.

Much later, when Zoe Young looked back, she could never figure out what the last lap of the 0-meter race had to do with Sean Sherman.

Maybe it was just the boundless, illogical thinking of that age.

Just as Zoe Young was moving forward mechanically with half-closed eyes, her chest hurting so much she could barely breathe, she suddenly heard a soft laugh by her left ear.

“Zoe, are you still alive?”

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9. So-called Cherishing Blessings

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“If I’m not alive, am I a corpse now?” she panted, then remembered to turn her head to look at the person who had suddenly appeared beside her.

“Isn’t there a phrase... uh, the walking dead...”

A bucket of cold water poured over her head. Zoe Young’s surprise and gratitude vanished in an instant.

Benny was strolling slowly on the grass to her left, but somehow always managed to keep pace with her running.

“Am I... really that slow?”

Benny turned his face and smiled: “Yes.”

Zoe Young was about to retort, when she heard Benny add, “The boys’ 3000 meters hasn’t started yet, all because you’re blocking the way here. We’re all hoping you’ll quit soon...”

Zoe Young sighed in frustration, then suddenly realized that her throat and chest didn’t hurt as much when she breathed, and her legs felt freed, no longer weighed down. Unknowingly, she had crossed some physical threshold, just like the PE teacher always said: get past that barrier, hang in there, and it won’t be so hard after that.

“So why are you here, to persuade me to quit?” She tried to suppress the joy in her voice.

“I recognized you when you ran past our class, looking like you were about to die. I came to check on you. After all, we know each other, so I have to be the first to collect your corpse!”

“Who says I’m about to die?” Zoe Young suddenly raised her voice. She happened to be passing near the podium, surrounded by third-year students buried in their work. At that moment, her newly freed breath and steps were filled with strength, as if she’d been waiting for this.

How did Seiya, beaten to a pulp and spitting blood, manage to stand up and deliver the final blow? Zoe Young had played the role of the badly injured Seiya in front of Benny countless times, but never really knew how much it hurt to be in that situation.

“Alan Carter, at that moment I suddenly realized, no matter how much people mock those heroes who fight back against the odds, when you’re really in that situation, you often don’t have the courage or ability to finish the script. So we’re all just ordinary people.

“Whether it’s studying or running, both can be a kind of trial, or a short cartoon or movie. We just don’t realize that not only grand stories count as adventures. Sometimes, fantasy and real life aren’t that far apart. All I have to do is finish the last lap.”

Thinking this, Zoe Young suddenly waved hard at the podium and the numb third-year audience.

“Are you crazy?” Benny was startled by her sudden burst of passion.

“A final flare.” Zoe Young smiled.

Before Benny could figure out what “final flare” meant, Zoe Young suddenly sped up, striding toward the finish line about three hundred meters away.

Like an... unleashed wild dog.