Michael coughed a few times after speaking, muttered under her breath, “It’s fucking cold in the hallway,” and then staggered into the room.

Andrew Lane carried the nine test papers in his hand, sleepwalking up the stairs back to class.

Suddenly, he curved his lips into a smile, as if life had finally given him a sweet goal.

Then he remembered, Michael hadn’t even asked his name—how was she supposed to help him?

Could it be… he’d been played?

Zoe Young heard her phone vibrate, picked it up and saw it was a text from Andrew Lane.

“Are you sick?”

“Probably just a cold, fever. Don’t worry, it’s nothing serious.”

“Take your medicine, drink more hot water, dress warmly, stop looking at your phone, sleep more, you’ll get better faster. Be good!”

Zoe Young felt as if she’d been struck by lightning. Without thinking, she replied: “Do you know why Guanyin wanted to strangle Tang Seng?”

She was sure Andrew Lane had seen “A Chinese Odyssey.”

Andrew Lane replied quickly: “But in the end, she still couldn’t do it.”

Zoe Young rolled her eyes and collapsed onto the bed.

Living for obsession, for all beings—she didn’t know why, but after getting a call from her dad yesterday, she’d started running a high fever that night, feeling groggy and out of it. The fever only started to subside this morning.

Her body reeked of alcohol. It seemed her aunt had sat by her side all night, wiping her down with alcohol: forehead, ears, neck, palms, soles… over and over, using the oldest method to try to bring down her temperature. In her daze, Zoe Young felt as if her mom had come back. When she had chickenpox in ninth grade and ran a high fever for a week, it was the same hazy midnight, a blurry figure by her bed, but with such gentle hands—once they held hers, she never wanted to let go.

She cried all night without realizing it.

On the phone, her dad said he hoped Zoe Young could spend the New Year with them. At the time, she hadn’t called Alan Carter yet, and just refused on her own. The other end of the line was silent for a while, then said, “I’ll be on business trips before and after the New Year, only during the holiday do I have some free time.”

Zoe Young suddenly wanted to laugh. “Really? But during the New Year, I don’t have time.”

The other end was quiet for a moment. “Alright, I’ll contact you after the holiday. Study hard, take care of yourself.”

“Thank you, goodbye.”

In the middle of the night, Zoe Young admitted to herself that she was happy.

She hadn’t told Alan Carter that at the time, a desire for revenge had excited her so much it scared even herself. Even with a high fever, she was itching to get up—even though she didn’t know what she’d do once she got up.

Turns out she still had obsessions, still wanted to do something, even if it was just to slap someone, say something harsh, or insult and show off in the most mundane way.

She wanted to see him and them. Now she had nowhere left to retreat, burning her bridges, with no one left to worry about or care for, except herself.

Zoe Young knew that, at that moment, she was willing to be a suicide bomber.

She was waiting for the fuse to be lit.

Ray Cindy was nearly frozen stiff on the bus, finally giving up her seat and jumping up and down a couple of times to try to warm up.

The brilliant neon lights outside shone on the thick window decorations, casting shimmering colors. In today’s foreign teacher’s class, she’d finished a whole set of analytic geometry exercises, to the point where just seeing a coordinate axis made her want to throw up.

During music and art class, when the teacher played appreciation clips on the big screen, she kept her head down, memorizing idioms and English phrases she’d written on sticky notes, as if Sean Sherman had possessed her. Not to mention skipping PE and morning exercises every now and then.

Only in the foreign teacher’s class did she participate actively, because she felt that spoken English was an important skill and a kind of facade.

Facade. To “level up” and become a girl like Zoe Young and Charlotte Lee.

Only Ray Cindy herself knew how much effort she’d put in to become someone else. Back then, when Zoe Young helped her from above, she thought all Ray Cindy wanted was good grades, to escape the so-called “bad student” treatment.

But actually, what Ray Cindy wanted was far more than that.

Every time her middle school self stood in class, tongue-tied like a stone until finally allowed to sit down, she’d close her eyes and cover that memory with fantasy. In the dark world of her imagination, she was eloquent, winning thunderous applause, even helping Zoe Young out of a tough spot.

When she sat down, she’d see the furtive glances Mia Waters cast her way.

Ray Cindy had many such fantasies. In music class, she imagined herself as a stage queen; in art class, she fancied herself able to comment knowledgeably on Van Gogh and Raphael; even in PE, she’d stare at her chubby legs, willing them to become long, straight, and slim…

How could Zoe Young know that, besides studying, she ran laps every day, dieted, crammed history and art knowledge, listened to pop songs like she did English listening exercises, learned entertainment trivia, all so she wouldn’t seem like an alien when talking to others, and maybe even become the popular center of attention…

Ray Cindy always thought the greatest tragedy of her life was that she was Michelle Cindy, and not someone else.

Not another person. Just Michelle Cindy.

The beautiful top student Charlotte Lee spoke in perfect American English in the foreign teacher’s class, and Ray Cindy stood there, mind blank, suddenly terrified of being exposed for who she really was.

From the first time they met, her gut had told her this day would come. She’d smashed Grace Howard’s mirror, but as for Charlotte Lee’s—how could she even make the first crack?

Ray Cindy stepped into her cramped new home, and as she took out her key, she heard the sound of pots and pans crashing inside.

Living for obsession, for all beings—“I’m this fucking sick and you still go out drinking, why don’t you just drink yourself to death?”

Poor, pathetic, endless arguments.

If that’s the case, why don’t you get divorced, why don’t you just die.

Ray Cindy pressed her forehead to the door. Such rebellious thoughts made her feel both ashamed and exhilarated.

Zoe Young would never know that, even though she’d lost her mother, Ray Cindy envied her freedom and lack of attachments.

The two people inside, hurling filthy insults at each other, were her dearest ones, and the biggest stain in her life.

“Is Dad busy today?”

“Your dad’s entertaining guests in his room. I don’t think he’ll be done anytime soon, so I called you to take a cab home yourself. Come, take off your coat, wash your hands, and eat in the kitchen.”

Charlotte Lee spread her hands under the warm water, looking at her fair skin and healthy pink nails, over and over, until her mom called from the kitchen, telling her to hurry up.

“Finals are coming up, right?” Her mom put a piece of rib on her plate. “How’s your review going?”

“Eh, it’s alright, I guess.”

“What do you mean, ‘alright’?”

Charlotte Lee looked up and saw her mom getting a bit too worked up again, the muscle in her left cheek trembling, twitching from her eyelid all the way to the corner of her mouth.

Not even three sentences in, and just a second ago everything was fine.

“It’s good, I mean, it’s really good.” Charlotte Lee sighed inwardly.

After surgery in Beijing and a month and a half of recovery, her facial spasms seemed to have healed, but then relapsed, getting worse and worse.

The doctor said, don’t let her get agitated.

Charlotte Lee really wanted to ask the doctor, does every middle-aged woman with facial spasms come with an extra-sensitive nerve? Besides putting them in a glass case, what else can keep them from being triggered?

Life itself is a kind of stimulus and torment. Not to mention her mom would fly into a rage over a fly or mosquito that got in when the window was open, or get all worked up and trembling over a simple “it’s alright, I guess,” her left cheek shaking like the Tangshan earthquake—what could she possibly do to keep her mom calm?

Charlotte Lee buried her head in her food, suddenly overcome by a wave of exhaustion that made her close her eyes for a moment.

People seem especially prone to distraction and losing control in the dark, and also more honest.

She asked softly, “Mom, what if I don’t get first place this time?”