That mother and daughter were certainly hateful, he knew that. Although he could no longer remember the scene when, at two or three years old, he was held by his mother and met them for the first time, he would always recall a certain day in the bright first-floor hall of a shopping mall, where a little girl stood all alone, watching him.

Those eyes made the young Ryan Johnson grit his teeth in hatred—even though he didn’t know exactly what he hated her for. Anyway, if his mother was angry, he should be angry too.

Ryan Johnson’s extra story: his mother said, “Bastard, slut.”

He learned to say, “Bastard, slut.”

In childhood, nothing was questioned; certain words seeped into his body and memory without him realizing. Even if he had doubts when he grew up, he only needed to remember one thing—his own family could never be wrong.

Others could be wrong, fate could be wrong, but he himself was never wrong. With this conviction, there was no confusion in life.

“I heard that child is a squad leader at school? Isn’t Andy the head of the squad?”

Ryan Johnson heard Andrew Lane’s mother laugh awkwardly, “There are so many kids in the squad, how could they all know each other? After all, they’re not in the same class.”

Lying.

Ryan Johnson felt as if, in that instant, he could hear the true expression in Andrew Lane’s mother’s heart.

When he skipped a grade in third grade and entered Class 1, Grade 4, where Andrew Lane was, he once pointed at a girl playing jump rope on the playground and asked, “What’s her name?”

Andrew Lane was juggling a soccer ball, glanced in the direction he pointed, and the ball flew off, rolling away along the edge of the wall.

He turned his head, not looking at Ryan Johnson, “Why are you asking about her?”

Ryan Johnson remembered what his mother had told him, so he said nothing, just shook his head, “Just curious.”

Andrew Lane ran off to fetch the ball, leaving him standing there.

Ryan Johnson had always been a little afraid of Andrew Lane; he always felt that Andrew Lane looked down on him, though he didn’t know why. The more he tried to excel so the other wouldn’t treat him so condescendingly, the more powerless he felt—Andrew Lane was good at everything, and he couldn’t find a single breakthrough, anything that would stop his mother from nagging, “Look at Andrew Lane…”

He was at a loss, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl’s ponytail bouncing with her jumps, like a lively black carp.

“Zoe Young.”

He snapped back to reality; Andrew Lane had already walked past him with the ball in his arms, voice light and seemingly indifferent, but not well disguised.

But Ryan Johnson had no time to care about Andrew Lane’s oddness or awkwardness; he just assumed Andrew Lane couldn’t be bothered with him.

Zoe Young.

After all these years, Ryan Johnson finally knew the girl’s name.

From the first time he learned of her existence as a child, she was just a pair of hateful yet especially bright eyes in his mind. He still remembered his first day of elementary school, when his parents drove him to the school gate, his mother crouched down to straighten his collar and gave him a few instructions, then suddenly said, “If you see that little brat, just ignore her!”

He looked up and caught a glimpse of his father’s slightly furrowed brow—just for a moment, then it was calm again.

He didn’t even realize who “that little brat” was, but nodded obediently. Only when he reached the classroom door did he remember the woman and her child his parents had been arguing about repeatedly these past few days.

His parents were always fighting, over all sorts of things, but in the end, everything always circled back to this girl.

It was only with Andrew Lane’s offhand remark that Ryan Johnson realized all the crisp sounds of vases smashing late at night at home, and the heavy thuds of doors slamming, were all called Zoe Young.

Ryan Johnson’s mother told him that Zoe Young went to the same school as him, told him he had to get better grades than Zoe Young, told him he had to be better than Zoe Young, to trample her underfoot, but also warned him that he should never even look at a child of that kind of woman, just pretend she didn’t exist!

Ryan Johnson had no time to think about how contradictory these words were. He was the nameless shadow offstage, she stood on stage, smiling and radiant. She was as flawless as Andrew Lane, so how could he ever fulfill his mother’s wishes?

So he could only grumble in his heart. Look, she stumbled once while announcing at the arts festival; look how fake her smile is, look how she got scolded by the squad counselor; even, look, she fell while jumping rope…

All her imperfections became holes he dug in his own heart.

Ryan Johnson seemed to have accidentally found something to do in his otherwise empty life. When others praised Zoe Young Ryan Johnson’s extra story, he spread rumors about her; when Zoe Young embarrassed herself, he laughed the loudest, even if she couldn’t hear him at all. All his little joys were built on her pain—at least, he thought she should be in pain.

He wished he were powerful, that Andrew Lane would bow and scrape to him, that Charlotte Lee would try to make conversation with him, that Charles Johnson would loudly say, “If Ryan Johnson says so, then it’s so,” and that Zoe Young would curl up in a corner and cry softly.

A secret in his heart was stirring; he wished the whole world would join him in calling her a “slut”—but that matter involved his own family and his father, and his mother had warned him again and again, “You can’t tell anyone, you can’t tell anyone.”

Then, on that day, the small Ryan Johnson in a bright green drum corps uniform stood in the dazzling sunlight and suddenly felt possessed by a god. He didn’t know what he wanted to do, but no matter what, he wanted those boys who joked with the girls to see.

His youth album had to have at least one page where he stood at the very front.

On a sudden impulse, he dashed forward, running toward that both unfamiliar and familiar figure.

Everyone looked at him in confusion.

He pretended to smack her on the butt—though his hand never actually touched her. Hearing the laughter around him, Ryan Johnson grinned, turned, and ran back to the drum corps, glancing back as he ran to see Zoe Young’s reaction.

In that instant, his heart was filled with a sense of accomplishment; the sun was the brightest spotlight, he stood on stage, in everyone’s gaze, listening to the whistles of those tall boys.

The girl finally turned around, her bright eyes looking at Ryan Johnson’s quickly retreating figure, her face dazed as if she’d just woken up.

She didn’t know him at all.

Ryan Johnson didn’t know why, but his heart suddenly panicked, his steps faltered, his body pitched forward from inertia, his collar choked his throat hard, and in an instant, tears sprang to his eyes as he bent over, coughing uncontrollably.

With his head down, all he could see through his blurry vision was a pair of white pants.

“Are you looking for trouble?”

The spotlight was too brief. After the darkness, the real protagonist took the stage, and Ryan Johnson realized with a shock that he was only the announcer in the overture.

Memory and recollection are not the same.

Memory hides naked in the bushes, too ashamed to be seen; you have to be willing to cut through brambles and thorns, skin and flesh, to catch a glimpse of its shivering form.

Recollection, on the other hand, is a girl’s Barbie doll, dressed up and changed at will, all according to one’s fancy.

Ryan Johnson’s memory hid itself at a certain moment; when he looked back, all he could see was recollection, draped in splendid robes, telling him how he had punched Andrew Lane in the face, winning applause and cheers from those around him, easily stirring up a green tidal wave.

But he knew it wasn’t like that. Later, he slunk away with the crowd, and then looked back, dazed, to secretly watch Zoe Young smiling and the tall, upright Andrew Lane chatting in the distance as if no one else was there—these scenes scattered and soaked in his mind, all the colors blurring together.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, they say. But Ryan Johnson was neither a gentleman, nor did anyone know where his hatred came from.

Later, he finally threw that punch, at Andrew Lane. But no matter how hard Ryan Johnson tried to paint it in his memory, he couldn’t feel any of the power or momentum, nothing like on TV, nothing like he’d imagined.

In the dim hallway, he finally looked down on Zoe Young, who was no longer bright-eyed, no longer full of that hateful vitality.

“Your mom can’t get married!” he shouted, happily, very happily.

“Who are you?” she asked, helpless, flustered.

Everything was unfolding exactly as he’d imagined in his mind. Ryan Johnson didn’t know how his dream had so suddenly come true; he hadn’t even had time to savor her embarrassment at being unable to solve the simple “chicken and rabbit in the same cage” problem and being left at the blackboard, when Andrew Lane grabbed him by the collar. He almost reflexively shouted, “If you touch me, I—I’ll tell my mom, your mom promised my mom you wouldn’t bully me anymore…”

But no one knew, Ryan Johnson had also promised himself that he would never again say, “I’ll tell the teacher.”