In that chaotic mix of pirated goods and small shops, you could often find quite a few treasures at fair prices. If you asked what kind of leisure activities Sean Sherman had back then, it would probably be taking a one-hour bus ride to the book market on the other side of the city to wander around for an afternoon. She would lose herself in the messy sea, temporarily forgetting the endless goals she set for herself and the future that seemed to have no end.

She arrived a step later than Zoe Young. The shop owner dug out a wrinkled set of test papers from a corner, faced with the intense gazes of two girls of the same height, named the price, and then stepped aside to let them discuss.

Sean Sherman was silent. She had always liked to use the pressure of silence to solve problems. It wasn’t a strategy; she simply didn’t know any other way.

Zoe Young showed the same tact and charm as the rumors said. She flipped through the exercise book, then pushed it toward her, smiling, “It would be a waste if I bought it, just for peace of mind. You take it. If you find it useful, just let me borrow it to make a copy.”

Sean Sherman nodded, pausing as she took out her wallet: “You really don’t want it?”

Zoe Young said seriously, “No... it’s too dirty. And all wrinkled.”

That’s the truth, isn’t it? Sean Sherman wanted to laugh, but she figured her expression was still cold.

Sometimes she felt she needed a translator; she really couldn’t learn how to communicate with this world, even if she didn’t care about being misunderstood by it.

Zoe Young was privileged, happy, had resources, had talent, could slack off, could break the rules, could dislike an important exercise book for being too dirty.

Sean Sherman couldn’t. Once she set her sights on something, no matter how dirty or unworthy, no matter how hard or difficult, she would go after it. She didn’t care about appearances, only about usefulness.

Later, after failing the high school entrance exam, she sat on the empty windowsill with a cold smile, watching Zoe Young carefully restrain the joy of victory in front of her, not daring to show sympathy that might hurt her pride, at a loss for what to do.

They all misjudged Sean Sherman. They thought she would be unwilling, would be jealous.

No one understood her.

In fact, she had never cared about being first in the grade. If she could achieve her goal and get into Brightstar High School, then even if she was always tenth in the grade, it wouldn’t matter. She fought hard and held onto first place without letting up, only because it made her goal more attainable.

That’s all.

But now, none of that mattered anymore.

She asked Zoe Young, “Do you know what your biggest strength and weakness are?”

Maybe because she had never initiated a conversation with her before, Zoe Young thought for a long time, then shook her head.

Sean Sherman extra Sean Sherman smiled and said, “But I know mine. For me, my biggest strength and weakness are the same.”

But Zoe Young didn’t ask. She didn’t know why she held back her curiosity, just smiled and said, “It’s good that you know. You’re more... more...”

She thought for a long time but never found the right word. But Sean Sherman understood.

It seemed that from the moment she was born, everything Sean Sherman had to bear was already decided. Was it because she was born this way that she chose to take it on, or did she become this way because she had to? It was like the chicken and the egg, an endless cycle.

If Zoe Young had really asked that day, she would have told her three words: 企图心.

Sean Sherman didn’t know if she invented this term herself. It wasn’t a goal, not ambition, not an ideal.

Just intent. Her greatest strength and deepest flaw both came from the same 企图心.

Does Zoe Young still remember the look of surprise she couldn’t hide when Sean Sherman said, “I have to get into Brightstar High School”?

But that happy girl would never understand. Sean Sherman’s life had always been full of “musts” from the very beginning.

Sean Sherman’s father was disabled. As a child, he lost hearing in his right ear due to a high fever. When he was young, he worked as a laborer, and a machine accident crushed three fingers on his right hand. He and Sean Sherman’s mother were coworkers at the same factory, introduced by others, married, and a year later, Sean Sherman was born.

But the reality was not so simple. At age eight, he moved with Sean Sherman’s grandmother into a cadre’s family after she remarried. What seems ordinary now would have caused quite a stir decades ago. The twists and hardships of the previous generation were unknown to Sean Sherman, but the scene of other families celebrating the New Year together with grandparents and aunts and uncles was something Sean Sherman had never experienced.

“Grandpa” had two children, a son and a daughter, before marrying Sean Sherman’s grandmother. When they grew up, both worked in the provincial committee, civil service jobs passed down like a family tradition, while her father was just a worker in a small factory for the disabled.

Sean Sherman’s independent, unyielding nature, never relying on connections or giving up, probably came from her father. Living under someone else’s roof, you had to know your place, keep your distance. He was deaf in his right ear and couldn’t hear much, but it wasn’t hard to guess what the neighbors were saying.

Besides, his eyes were sharp. How could he not see the looks from his so-called half-siblings?

Her father often told her, “I can’t say anything about your grandmother’s choices when she was young, but I want others to know, I don’t want anything from them.”

Sean Sherman looked out the window again. Her middle school classmates, exchanging business cards with arms around each other, were blurred by the white mist she breathed onto the glass. Mutual use was the right path; people like her and her father, setting out alone with stubborn courage, would only end up battered and bruised.

“Tell me, is that car really yours?”

Frank Yeats was quite surprised to hear this question, and after thinking for a moment, replied, “I borrowed some money from my dad and bought it on a loan.”

Sean Sherman nodded and fell silent.

“What, you regret it after all?” Frank Yeats laughed, finally unable to hold back, opened the driver’s side window, and lit a cigarette.

Sean Sherman looked at him in confusion, making Frank Yeats a bit embarrassed.

“You really don’t know what I mean, do you...”

Sean Sherman didn’t press further. She just clarified her question very seriously: “I just wanted to know how someone your age could drive such a nice car. I don’t really get it.”

Frank Yeats couldn’t help but laugh.

Still the same Sean Sherman from middle school.

Sean Sherman had spent years on campus, studying electrification, always focused on textbooks and test papers, and really didn’t understand the outside world. How is money made? How are contracts signed? What kind of people buy apartments that cost tens of thousands per square meter? If you earn three thousand a month, how many years would it take to save up?

She was never good at fishing for information indirectly, and her question just now wasn’t flattery or envy.

For Sean Sherman, it was simply a question she couldn’t figure out.

Sean Sherman extra Where did your money come from?

But when she heard he borrowed money from his father, Sean Sherman felt a sudden clarity. It was just the primitive accumulation of capitalism.

Just like that aunt with no blood relation could spend money to get her academically hopeless son into Brightstar High School and then into the best university and major in the province. No one would believe it if you said Sean Sherman didn’t mind at all.

The sad thing was, they would never believe that Sean Sherman, who had always fought for first place, really never cared.

Don’t envy others, don’t laugh at yourself for having nothing. If you have the ability, go get it yourself.

Frank Yeats exhaled a long puff of smoke, as if he had guessed what Sean Sherman was thinking.

“Do you still want to go sing with them?” he asked, a completely unrelated question.

Sean Sherman shook her head. “No.”

“Then why aren’t you leaving?”

She was stunned. The tone was unfriendly, but the question was very real.

Yeah, why wasn’t she leaving? Because she had helplessly followed her aunt’s advice, thinking she should reconnect with old classmates, let go of her “vanity,” “see the world,” “find out her own worth”... She had actually planned to “see” it through to the end.

Even with things like this, she was overly serious, always seeing things through. Sean Sherman didn’t know whether to admire herself or feel sorry for herself.

With a bitter smile, she put her hand on the car door handle and said, “You’re right, I don’t want to join them. I’ll go now.”

Unexpectedly, he just threw out a gruff “Buckle your seatbelt,” then slammed on the gas. Sean Sherman was shoved hard against the seat by the speed. Years of hunching over her desk had given her a slight hunchback and neck problems, and now she suddenly sat up straight, even hearing a faint “crack.”

She looked back. The classmates left at the restaurant entrance took a while to react, then ran to the roadside to look after them. Their faces grew smaller and smaller, finally swallowed up by the night.

“I bet they think we went to get a room together.”