Charlotte Lee pressed her body against the window of the hot water room and gently closed her eyes. She had always understood that this kind of affection was like a floating cloud—you had to climb very high to see it, but even after sweating ten times as much, all you could grasp was a wisp of steam that would scatter with the wind.

It was just like her father, who had struggled up from being a poor boy in the countryside, married a mother from a privileged family, and spent his whole life treading carefully, tormenting each other.

She let out a deep sigh, then suddenly heard laughter behind her: “What are you doing, thinking of jumping?”

That voice made Charlotte Lee panic. The smile on her face snapped into place as she nodded at Thomas Chase, who was holding a water cup.

“Only three days left until the exam. How’s your preparation going?”

Charlotte Lee steadied herself, deciding not to play the polite, gentle, and agreeable role anymore.

“Not good, really not good.”

Thomas Chase didn’t seem to catch the sincerity and complaint in her tone, just kept filling his cup, answering casually in the swirling steam, “It’s fine, you always do great in exams anyway.”

Since childhood, they’d been soaked in these kinds of boring conversations. It was like when she learned piano with Andrew Lane and Charles Johnson as a kid. She didn’t like practicing, always using homework as an excuse, so every time her mom picked her up from school, the opening line was always: “Did you have a lot of homework today?”

If she answered “not much,” her mom’s reply would naturally be, “Then you can practice piano a bit longer today.”

If she answered “a lot,” her mom would glare warily: “Even if there’s a lot, you still have to practice piano. Hurry up and finish your homework when you get home!”

So why bother asking? Charlotte Lee had wanted to say this to her mom since she was little, and also wanted to say it to all the students, herself included, who kept probing each other with “Did you do well?” “How’s your revision going?” Since everyone knows no one is telling the truth, why bother with these pointless conversations?

“I’m not you,” Charlotte Lee said quietly, “and you don’t need to say these things to me.”

She didn’t fill her cup, just squeezed past him, clutching her heavy thermos.

Thomas Chase called her name from behind, but Charlotte Lee, holding back tears, resisted the urge to look back.

On the morning of the final exam, snow was falling thickly.

Zoe Young finished the bread and cheese on her plate, then gulped down her milk in one go, almost choking. She was about to sneak out when she suddenly heard her grandmother’s aged voice: “Zoe, Zoe!”

Zoe Young glanced at her uncle’s room, which was completely quiet, guessing they were still asleep, so she gently pushed open the door to her grandmother’s room.

Somehow, her grandmother had managed to sit up by herself. Her hair was now pure white, not a single strand of another color. Zoe Young walked over: “Why are you up so early? Want me to help you to the bathroom?”

“No need.”

Her grandmother was especially clear-headed, and Zoe Young suddenly had a bad feeling.

“You’re going to take your exam today?”

“Mm.” So clear, as if it were a final burst of lucidity. Her heart suddenly sank.

“Do your best.”

“I know. It’s snowing outside today, and the heating hasn’t been working well these past two days. You should stay in bed a bit longer, don’t get up so early.”

Her grandmother smiled faintly: “Alright, Zoe has grown up. What’s your mom been busy with these days?”

Zoe Young’s heart skipped a beat, but then she relaxed a little and smiled: “Their branch office is moving, so they’re busy clearing out inventory.”

“Oh, oh, busy, busy.” Her grandmother said, her eyes starting to close again. Zoe Young helped her lie back down, then used a soft little pillow to prop up her neck and lower back, making her more comfortable.

“I’m off to the exam now. If you need anything, just call uncle loudly.”

“Go on, go on,” her grandmother closed her eyes, “do well on your exam, get into a university in another city, leave here, and live a good life.

Live a good life…”

Her grandmother started mumbling again, and Zoe Young felt her nose sting. She lowered her head, picked up her bag, and went out the door.

The seating order in the exam room was still the same: Zoe Young, Charlotte Lee, Ray Cindy.

Ray Cindy answered the questions quickly, and by the time she started the essay, there was still an hour and ten minutes left in the Chinese exam. The topic was “The Ordinary and the Great in Life.” In her arguments, she filled in a large number of stories about ordinary people who had been selected for “Touching China,” and as she wrote, she couldn’t help but want to laugh.

Sima Qian’s greatest contribution wasn’t the “Records of the Grand Historian,” Edison’s wasn’t the light bulb, and the highlight of “Touching China” certainly wasn’t the touching part.

For Ray Cindy, their greatest significance was as material to fill every blandly-themed exam essay by way of permutation and combination. The last batch of model essays handed out for the midterm had twenty in total, and Sima Qian appeared in every single one. The pens of thousands of high school students twisted fate, leaving these figures restless in life and uneasy in death.

She looked up, staring at Charlotte Lee’s back. Charlotte Lee’s hair was smooth and shiny, with a pearly sheen. Ray Cindy suddenly wanted to write about herself. Everyone’s life is a stretch of ordinary struggle; her greatness lay in struggling to become someone else.

This kind of courage couldn’t be shown to others, much less praised.

Ray Cindy sighed, lowered her head, and continued to write about “Touching China.”

Charlotte Lee sat in the office, head down.

She knew what Lucas Walter wanted to say to her.

If there was anyone in the world who wouldn’t think more highly of Charlotte Lee because of her grades, talent, or beauty, it would definitely be Lucas Walter.

She could even see in Lucas Walter’s eyes exactly how he judged her.

Frivolous, arrogant, not destined for greatness.

This old-fashioned male teacher always assigned meaningless mechanical copying for homework, and correspondingly, his favorite students were those who could complete such copying, like Ray Cindy.

“You’re the kind of student who knows exactly what’s going on. Your mom always calls me, asking me to look after you more. After all, at your age, it’s easy to have some restless thoughts, a bit immature…”

In the end, Charlotte Lee lost her spot as top of the grade. This gave Lucas Walter the chance to say, “I knew you’d suffer for this sooner or later if you kept going like this.”

Not handing in history homework, doing math exercises in politics class, doing English papers in Chinese class, skipping PE, skipping evening self-study whenever she felt like it, sitting on the stairs with her textbooks to study away from the crowd… and frequently going in and out of Class 2, hanging out with Andrew Lane and Charles Johnson.

Charlotte Lee felt that some teachers’ endless nagging in class was just a waste of her time, so why couldn’t she use that time to finish other subjects’ workbooks? During self-study, seeing Ray Cindy annoyed her, and Patricia Lucas’s nonstop chatter was like a loudspeaker that couldn’t be turned off, so she’d take her books outside to study—why not?

As for frequently going to Class 2… actually, she was just using Andrew Lane and the others as cover. From the front door of Class 2, she could see the back door of Class 1, and Thomas Chase’s back seemed almost within reach.

“I know you’re not listening. As the saying goes: ‘When the moon is full, it begins to wane; when water is full, it overflows.’ You won’t make progress like this, it’s just clever tricks…”

“Teacher, I’ll be first next time.”

Charlotte Lee had had enough of her mother’s trembling left cheek, the sarcasm from Patricia Lucas and the others, Lucas Walter’s prejudice, and her own emptiness and confusion.

Lucas Walter’s face darkened at her retort, but Charlotte Lee just leaned back in her chair, feeling the despairing chill from the exposed steel bar.

When did trying to win favor, something she’d done all her life, start to make her unhappy?

------------

5. The Art of Love

The notice for winter break make-up classes came out quickly.

Zoe Young knew that there was a bit of jealousy in Ian’s eyes when he looked at her, but there was no malice.

In Ian’s view, he had worked hard for so long with no improvement, while Zoe Young just put in a burst of effort three days before the exam and could get first in the grade. There had never been such a thing as fairness in this world.

“No matter how hard I try, it’s useless, but I still have to try.”

Like a child throwing a tantrum in despair.

Zoe Young put down her pen, stared blankly for a while, then suddenly had an idea and smiled, “Ian, draw a picture.”

Ian looked at Zoe Young like she was a weirdo for a long time, then finally put down his pen and started sketching on the back of a test paper. About ten minutes later, he placed the quick sketch in front of Zoe Young.