“Zoe Young, you’re in Class One, right? I’m Tina Carter, from Class Five in elementary school. I still remember you!

I heard you got into Brightstar High School, and I’ve been wanting to see if you’ve changed, but all of first year I never got the chance. I even said you’re always buried in your studies, it’s like you disappeared. I heard you switched to liberal arts too? Why aren’t you in Class One anymore?

Is it... was science too hard for you?”

Ray Cindy’s brows twisted tightly—this was the second time in half an hour she’d heard something similar. The common misunderstanding and insult toward liberal arts students made Ray Cindy’s irritation flare up even more.

“It really has been a long time. Did you switch to liberal arts too?”

Zoe Young gave a faint smile. Ray Cindy snorted—here we go again. Zoe Young didn’t answer, just casually tossed back a bland question, shifting the conversation in a friendly, effortless way.

“Yeah, my mom insisted I study liberal arts. I didn’t want to leave our Class Sixteen. Charles Morgan and Laura Lawrence are both in our class. Last semester I got only forty or fifty in physics and chemistry, so there’s no way I could get into Sunhill University, so I had to switch to liberal arts. What can you do? Otherwise, who would choose liberal arts!”

Heh, with you, you want to get into 中山? Ray Cindy’s gloom was written all over her face.

“I actually think liberal arts is pretty good.” Ian quietly added from the side. Ray Cindy looked at him, suddenly feeling this skinny boy seemed much taller. “Are you in the same class as Zoe?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’re desk mates.”

“I’m Ray Cindy. The ‘锐’ from ‘sharp’.”

“I know you, you’re really impressive. You and Zoe Young were in the same class in first year, right? I’m Ian Clark, I was in Class Fifteen.”

“Oh, Class Fifteen, I know, I know. Patricia Lucas used to be in your class, her folk dance is amazing. Two boys in our class are chasing her. I heard her mom is the city bank manager, and when she entered the school, the principal met her mom privately. Our school’s loans depend on having a good relationship with her mom. But I heard she switched to liberal arts too, she’s in our Class Three!

And Leo Hughes, I saw his legendary girlfriend the other day—she’s nine years older than him, doing her PhD at the Agricultural University, and her family is super rich.” Tina Carter kept talking as if no one else was there.

“Nine years?” Ian exclaimed in surprise, “Nine years older? Zoe Young, do you believe it?”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter if the girl is a bit older. ‘If the woman is three years older, it’s like holding a gold brick.’” Zoe Young yawned.

“But this is nine years, nine years!”

Zoe Young paused, then slowly said, “Then that’s three gold bricks.”

Ray Cindy burst out laughing. The oppressive feeling brought on by Tina Carter’s unrestrained praise of Charlotte Lee suddenly lightened. She seemed to realize Tina Carter’s enthusiasm for famous people and her unfiltered way of talking, and started to look at Tina Carter with a more indifferent eye.

The other girl kept talking.

“This morning I heard from Emily Goodman—oh, Emily Goodman is in Class Two, the honors class. She’s really good, even in middle school she was amazing. We’re super close. Emily Goodman said there was a poetry recitation at the flag-raising this morning, it was Lily Hughes and Class Two’s Andrew Lane, a great beauty and a handsome guy! The speech was by Thomas Chase, our school hunk, you know? He’s the class president of Class One, and Class One is the honors class!”

Didn’t you just ask me if Class One was the honors class? Ray Cindy sighed.

Zoe Young didn’t say anything more. During a pause in Tina Carter’s chatter, Ray Cindy gave her a helpless look, and Zoe responded with a yawn.

“She thinks really highly of Charlotte Lee too.” Ray Cindy didn’t know why she brought up that person again. As soon as she said it, she regretted it—she didn’t want Zoe to think she was petty.

“She doesn’t have opinions, only rumors.”

“Aren’t rumors just everyone’s opinions?”

“Rumors are the opinions of someone influential, repeated by a bunch of gossips.” Zoe Young seemed to have slept badly last night. As she spoke, she kept yawning, her eyes brimming with tears. “I’m going to the bathroom, you guys go ahead.”

“But, Charlotte Lee isn’t just a rumor.” She didn’t want to bring it up, but couldn’t help arguing about her. Ray Cindy felt like she was going crazy.

At this point, Ian, out of politeness, had to listen to Tina Carter’s gossip about Class Fifteen celebrities and went downstairs with her, while Ray Cindy and Zoe stood quietly at the corner, looking at each other, neither moving.

“Has she become your new motivation?” Zoe Young asked.

“I don’t understand.”

“You do.”

“Say whatever you want.”

“I’m actually glad you found someone like that.”

“Why would I look for her? To cause her trouble?” Ray Cindy vaguely sensed that Zoe Young was touching a forbidden place in her heart.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Ray Cindy, you can’t survive on your own.” Zoe Young sighed.

“But you can.”

Ray Cindy was surprised even at herself for saying this. The words were sharper and more cutting than Grace Howard’s mirror, stabbing straight at Zoe Young’s deepest wound. She wanted to say something to smooth things over, but felt it was pointless in front of Zoe Young, so she could only keep embarrassing herself.

Zoe Young looked at her and smiled quietly.

“Yeah, I really can. So I don’t hate.”

The people passing by didn’t notice them in the corner. Zoe Young quietly watched Ray Cindy, her eyes misty with tears.

Ray Cindy suddenly remembered the same expression, by the edge of the middle school playground, Mia Waters’s gaze.

A dragonfly flew by behind her in early summer. Ray Cindy, blushing a little, pressed on, “Tokyo is far away—what does that really mean?”

“Far is just far.” Mia Waters clearly didn’t want to say more.

Tokyo is far away? If you have money, it’s just a few hours by plane, thirty thousand feet up.

But sometimes she felt she actually understood what he meant.

Because she always remembered this scene, someone saying it to her so clearly.

Tokyo is far away.

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5. Her Highness the Princess

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Charlotte Lee stood dazed on the flag-raising square.

After a lazy vacation, getting up early all of a sudden was really too much for her. Her dad left very early in the morning, and to catch a ride with him, Charlotte Lee had to get to school more than an hour early.

Suddenly she heard someone whispering nearby: “Look, that’s Charlotte Lee.”

Charlotte Lee pretended not to hear anything, didn’t even glance toward the voice, but instead turned her face and started talking to Jennifer Lewis behind her, her charming, radiant smile aimed right at the people talking.

“So pretty.”

“Yeah, and she’s so good at studying. She switched from Class Two to liberal arts, she must be top of the grade.”

Charlotte Lee’s lips curled up a bit more. She still felt a little groggy, but instinctively knew she was the center of the flag-raising square. Life is like a performance—glamorous and beautiful, entertaining others and herself. From the very start of her school days, some invisible force seemed to be pushing her forward. From the little girl in kindergarten who won the most red stars to today, she’s always held her head high, receiving the dew from heaven, soaking up all the admiration and affection, making it impossible to stop. After burning the midnight oil and getting the best grades, she’d sit properly on the sofa, facing the aunts and uncles who worried about their own kids’ grades but praised her as “perfect,”

showing a modest, gentle smile, and then quietly complaining behind their backs that she really didn’t like being flattered—

Charlotte Lee didn’t know why, but every time this scene played out, happiness would well up inside her like a spring.

The beautiful Charlotte Lee would sometimes shield her eyes to look at the sun, and in a daze, it seemed that dazzling brilliance was her own boundless life.

Maybe that’s why she’s so sensitive to flaws. In the morning, she could only keep her head down to look at the history book on her lap, afraid others would see it was wrinkled from getting wet. Charlotte Lee’s house was full of notebooks, all high-quality and beautiful, but most only had a few pages written in them—usually because the handwriting on those pages wasn’t neat, or the lines were crooked, or, like this one, water had spilled on it, so it was set aside. Even in elementary school, she loved pretty stationery. If she accidentally scratched the paint off a new pen, she’d insist on buying a brand new one—only to find that the damaged one was actually the most comfortable to use. Who knows why.

She was a bit irritable this morning, just because she was impatient to buy a new history book. Just a little thing like that.

She suddenly remembered the odd Charles Johnson, who once philosophically told her that perfectionists are doomed to a bad end.