After New Year’s Day, life got a great deal duller.

Over the following week or two, every lecturer started marking out the key points.

The class’s enthusiasm for study rose noticeably. Even a dud like Xu Ye gritted his teeth and started opening a book — but every time he did, the words on the page worked like a sleeping charm, and it was never long before he was nodding off.

Of his three roommates, Li Tongwen was the least afraid of exams. He was actually looking forward to them, because the counselor had already said that the scholarships were tied to final results.

Zhang Xinzhou paid attention in lectures and was a reasonably capable learner. There were plenty of problems he couldn’t do on his own, but one run-through from Li Tongwen and he could take the principle and apply it three more ways.

As for Yang Fei, he wasn’t much better off than Xu Ye and was now cramming at the last possible minute — although he had one significant advantage over Xu Ye, which was that his brain still worked well enough to get the material in.

The truth is that most people hit their mental peak during their senior year of high school.

After the summer that follows the gaokao, the overwhelming majority start sliding straight back down.

In the last week of the month the school broke up, leaving the students a week to revise. This was known as revision week.

Every morning Xu Ye opened his eyes to the sight of all three of his roommates sitting below him, quietly reading.

He hadn’t taken any of it especially seriously to begin with, but watching them out-work each other day after day, he found an unaccountable pressure building in him.

Except that when he picked up a book to study, he couldn’t get comfortable in his own skin. He decided the problem was that the dorm didn’t have the right atmosphere for it, and proposed, “Why don’t we go and study at the library this afternoon?”

“Sure.”

“I’ve never even been to the library. I hear it’s completely full at this time of year.”

“Then we’ll eat at half eleven and get there at twelve. There’ll definitely be seats then.”

“Works for me.”

Li Tongwen had more or less finished revising already. Hearing this, he turned round and said, “Xu Ye. If there’s anything you can’t do, you can ask me.”

Xu Ye let out a world-weary sigh. “You might not believe this, but there is not one single problem in these books that I can do.”

Zhang Xinzhou laughed. “Then how did you test into a school in Shanghai? Our cut-off isn’t exactly low.”

Xu Ye made something up on the spot. “After the gaokao I went home and slept, and when I woke up it was like my brain had been formatted. Problems I could do before, I couldn’t even understand anymore.”

“Christ.”

Yang Fei chimed straight in. “Same here, basically. One summer, and when I went back and looked at papers I’d done in high school, more than half of it was gibberish to me.”

The four of them went back and forth like that, and toward noon they picked up their books, went to the canteen together, and headed straight for the library afterward.

It was exactly as predicted.

The library, which normally had barely anyone in it, became the most popular place on campus in the fortnight before finals.

Even in the middle of the day there were people inside, scratching their heads over their revision.

There weren’t many seats on the ground floor — it was mostly shelving — so the four of them went up to the third floor before they found somewhere to sit.

Xu Ye put his books down on the desk and picked up advanced mathematics first. He turned two pages, found he couldn’t understand it, and swapped it for probability theory. He couldn’t understand that either.

In the end he opened the microeconomics textbook, and that at least he could just about follow a little of.

He hadn’t been sitting there half an hour before he started feeling sleepy. He got up, went to the toilets and splashed cold water on his face, which woke him up somewhat but did nothing for his capacity to revise.

So Xu Ye came down from the third floor and drifted around the second instead. There were a great many books up there — they even had wuxia novels. He wandered up and down for a while, and eventually, in a corner, he found one that genuinely interested him: A Connoisseur’s Guide to World Erotic Cinema.

…

A little after eight in the evening.

The most relaxing part of the day: time to talk.

Xu Ye opened the chat and started typing. “I spent the whole afternoon studying. I’m shattered.”

Chen Qingqing: “Keep at it.”

Chen Qingqing: “We’ve got finals too, but ours are on really basic music theory. They should be easy to pass.”

Xu Ye: “Mine start on the 2nd and I should be done around the 5th. Zhiwei’s about the same. What about you?”

Chen Qingqing: “I should be finished on the 3rd.”

Xu Ye: “Then I’ll book tickets for the 6th. Can you stay at school a couple of extra days?”

Chen Qingqing: “That’s fine.”

Xu Ye promptly reported the travel plan to his mother-in-law. “Auntie. Qingqing and I are coming back to Jiangzhou on the 6th, arriving around one in the afternoon.”

Jiang Meilin replied almost at once. “Good. Take care of Qingqing.”

Xu Ye: “Don’t worry.”

Once he’d finished replying he booked three tickets in advance and sent them over. “I’ve got the tickets. I’ll come and find you on the afternoon of the 5th.”

Chen Qingqing: “Okay.”

Xu Ye: “Are you lying down yet?”

Chen Qingqing: “Mm.”

Xu Ye: “Let’s video call, then.”

Chen Qingqing: “Why do we need to video call?”

Xu Ye: “I haven’t seen you in ages. I want to look at you.”

Chen Qingqing: “No. I’ve taken my makeup off and I haven’t washed my hair.”

Xu Ye: “You look good without makeup too.”

Chen Qingqing: “No.”

Xu Ye: “Then just let me see your legs.”

Chen Qingqing: “…”

Chen Qingqing: “I knew you were going to say that.”

Xu Ye: “/pitiful/ /pitiful/ /pitiful/”

Xu Ye: “/wheedling/ /wheedling/ /wheedling/”

Chen Qingqing held back a laugh. She glanced over at her three roommates, found them all occupied with their own things, and after thinking about it for a moment she came out of WeChat, opened the camera, pulled the quilt up a little, and let her small bare feet show.

Perhaps because her skin was so pale, you could just about make out the faint blue of the veins across the top of her foot. Every toe was straight and evenly formed, precise as something made rather than grown.

Chen Qingqing took a quick photo and sent it over.

And then, ten seconds later, she recalled it.

Xu Ye was frantic on the spot.

Xu Ye: “???”

Xu Ye: “Why did you recall it?”

Xu Ye: “I hadn’t even had a chance to look.”

Chen Qingqing: “I pressed the wrong thing.”

Chen Qingqing: “Just as well you didn’t see it.”

Xu Ye: “Qingqing. You’ve picked up bad habits.”

Xu Ye: “Tell you what. I’ll take a photo of my foot and send it over. We’ll trade.”

Chen Qingqing: “/angry/”

Chen Qingqing: “Who wants to look at your big pig trotters!”

Xu Ye: “I’ll send you my abs, then.”

Chen Qingqing: “No!”

Chen Qingqing: “Not looking!”

Xu Ye: “Then I’ll send it to Zhang Ruowei and Jiang Yu. They’d love it.”

Chen Qingqing: “Xu Ye!”

Xu Ye: “I’m winding you up. I only show you.”

Xu Ye: “And not just show you. You can touch as well.”

Chen Qingqing’s cheeks went scarlet, and she had no idea what to send back.

(End of Chapter 177)