She started from the introduction, underlining some small but seemingly important sentences, because at the last moment before losing consciousness, she heard the politics teacher say that the multiple-choice questions might be based on these little sentences.

Zoe Young skimmed through the notes, roughly memorized them, but when she started doing the exercises, her mind seemed to come to a standstill.

No wonder it's philosophy in politics. Zoe Young, who thought she had read quite a bit of philosophy history and philosophy introductions, actually spent half an hour on forty multiple-choice questions, making her even suspect she had missed some heavenly secret while sleeping.

Her aunt pushed the door open, brought in a glass of milk, cold as usual, and complained as always: "You’re just being stubborn, drinking cold things is bad for your stomach."

Zoe Young smiled and said, "Thank you, Auntie."

Around ten thirty, her uncle and aunt went to bed. Zoe Young usually stayed up until eleven, took a shower, dried her hair, then crawled into bed and set her phone alarm.

She pulled up her contacts, found Alan Carter's number, and sent: "Good night."

She no longer told Alan Carter every little detail of her life, only occasionally sending a random text with some headless, tailless sentiment, but she was sure Alan Carter would understand. Saying good night had become a habit, and sometimes Alan Carter would even call.

Ever since Zoe Young knew Alan Carter would always reply "Good night," she would always turn off her phone and go to sleep before he replied, so that when she turned it on the next morning, she would receive his morning greeting.

And then she would have something to look forward to all day.

As if it were the only source of warmth in her life.

But tonight, she received a message from Andrew Lane.

"Did you save my phone number?"

She could even imagine his slightly stubborn, shameless look.

Zoe Young felt a bit strange inside. "I did, good night."

Then, she actually extracted his number and saved it.

Suddenly, another message came in.

"This morning's poetry recitation, was it... was it really silly?"

Zoe Young was surprised.

Andrew Lane, poetry recitation?

Except for the flag-raising, Zoe Young wore headphones throughout the ceremony. All the songs were ones Alan Carter liked, and she played them on loop for a week, ending each day that way.

She used the songs he liked to tie knots and mark the days.

"It was nice." Zoe Young could only lie randomly in reply.

There was no reply for a long time. Just as she was about to turn off her phone, the screen lit up again.

"Do you have anything to do at noon tomorrow?"

"No, why?"

"I'll come to your class after class, let's have lunch together."

For a long time, Zoe Young had always felt indifferent, it didn't matter either way. But this time, she vaguely wanted to refuse.

"Okay." She sent it, turned off her phone, and went to sleep.

Since she had just said this morning that she never blamed him, she had to make some kind of amends, to let him be freed from guilt, so that neither of them owed the other anything.

This was her way of making up for a year of misplaced blame. To prove to him that she really didn't blame him.

Did she really never blame him?

Sometimes you just need someone to blame, right? If not him, then herself.

At midnight, when Zoe Young woke up again, she still didn't scream. She just suddenly opened her eyes, stared blankly at the ceiling, and only after a long time accepted the fact that she was awake.

She got out of bed and found the curtains hadn't been drawn. The white moonlight cast a gentle glow on the floor, everywhere she could touch was a cold illusion. Zoe Young walked to the window and looked at the mess on the street.

At the intersection, there were piles and piles of ashes. Tonight was the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, known as Ghost Festival, when people burn paper money for deceased relatives. Yesterday, the night before school started, Zoe Young, led by her uncle and aunt, stood at this intersection burning paper money for her mother and Uncle Quinn.

The weather was already turning cool, and the night wind was chilly. Her aunt, a somewhat superstitious woman, kept muttering that this wind was brought by ghosts coming to collect the paper money.

Under her uncle's guidance, Zoe Young drew a circle with a stick, left a door, then poured cheap white liquor along the edge of the circle, and lit the first piece of paper money in the center.

She couldn't cry, just stared blankly at the flickering orange flames, the warmth on her face feeling like her mother's caress. Zoe Young stubbornly stood at the imaginary "door," waiting for that elusive wind.

Her aunt, following old customs, kept muttering while burning the paper: "Sister-in-law, come collect the money, your daughter is doing well, don't worry, don't fret, be well over there..."

Can't you just be quiet, can't you just be quiet.

Zoe Young wasn't angry, she was just afraid of this feeling of talking to her mother as if she were really there, so she stayed silent the whole time.

Only at times like this did she feel alive. Zoe Young hadn't felt any emotional fluctuation for a whole year, as if she had been hibernating, but at this moment, the warmth from burning paper awakened her, and a feeling called hatred filled her body, bringing her back to life.

Hatred gives people strength. Hatred makes people want to live.

Zoe Young would rather hate someone, someone she could take revenge on. But her object of hatred was so vague, its very existence was questionable.

It had given Zoe Young the most perfect, blazing happiness, and then put a full stop to it right in front of her.

"They stopped at the happiest moment, Zoe."

Was it Alan Carter who said that? Zoe Young's memories of that time were so chaotic, looking back she could only find broken fragments, not even the order or who said what.

As if she had deliberately forgotten.

Did she herself say anything in her own agitation and confusion? Say something extreme and final? Curse fate, curse everything, say she didn't want to live, that life was meaningless, or that it was all her fault, that she had harmed her mother and Uncle Quinn, or maybe, put all the blame on Andrew Lane?

Whenever she thought back, all she could hear was a noisy clamor.

"If it hadn't been for you, if it hadn't been for you back then..."

Did she say something like that to Andrew Lane?

She didn't remember what she said, only remembered the helpless silence on the other end of the phone.

Zoe Young stood barefoot on the cold floor, tilting her head up to bathe in the quiet white moonlight.

Andrew Lane was never at fault. There were two tour groups, one leaving on the 17th and one on the 23rd, and just because of a clumsy invitation call from Andrew Lane, she told her mother and Uncle Quinn, let's go on the 23rd instead.

Let's go on the 23rd instead.

At that time, Zoe Young was excited, and then, trying to cover it up, added, "Actually, I don't really want to go, but that classmate keeps insisting..." Uncle Quinn, the man she had already sweetly called "Dad," looked at her knowingly, held back a laugh, patted her head and said, yes, that classmate is really annoying!

At that moment, when Zoe Young looked up, all she could see was happiness.

Alan Carter said, none of you were at fault, it was just a coincidence.

Zoe Young struggled for years, for her and her mother's happiness. Now Alan Carter told her, it was just a coincidence.

She lay in Alan Carter's arms, face pale, unable to cry.

Once, Zoe Young thought misfortune was a kind of coincidence.

Now she finally understood, the real coincidence was happiness. The rarest coincidence in the world.

Zoe Young went to and from school as usual, studied, took exams. Life was a mechanical motion, because she knew it didn't matter whether she tried hard, whether she was outstanding, whether she was happy.

In the end, she crawled back into bed, curled up her warm, cold toes, and slowly drifted into sleep.

She wasn't late in the morning, and saw Benny at the school gate.

"Morning." Zoe Young smiled.

Benny had grown taller, fair and gentle, his cool-guy moves more and more natural, no longer the low-level hero who disappeared after saving the damsel in distress. He was well-known in both the main and branch campuses, but Zoe Young rarely asked about him.

She didn't really care what kind of person Charles Morgan was in other people's eyes; anyway, Benny never acted cool in front of her.

"How do you feel about the new class?" Benny's questions always sounded like statements.

"Not much feeling, the homeroom teacher is pretty funny, very sloppy and careless, kind of like our middle school Monica Zack.

Oh, and there are quite a few beauties in the class."