Xu Ye followed the crowd toward the school gate, everyone around him buzzing and comparing answers. He was the only one walking in silence, just soaking it all in — the feeling of being young again.
At eighteen, he’d been free. Unburdened. The world wide open.
At twenty-eight, he’d been worn down to nothing. A complete mess.
It had all started with this year. More times than he could count after getting married, Xu Ye had asked himself — if he’d never chased after Gu Mengyao, would his life have turned out better?
“Ha. Looks like God decided to give me a second chance.”
Jiangzhou City hadn’t changed all that much between now and ten years later. This was the year Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared, and “Little Apple” had just dropped and taken the country by storm. [TL: “Little Apple” (小苹果) is a massively popular 2014 Chinese pop song by Chopsticks Brothers.] As an ordinary guy, Xu Ye couldn’t think of any other major events from that year off the top of his head.
He was just about to reach the school gate when—
“Xu Ye! Xu Ye!”
A voice called out from behind him — one that felt both foreign and familiar at the same time. A teenager in glasses and a green T-shirt came jogging over and threw an arm around Xu Ye’s shoulder, catching his breath in big gulps.
“Didn’t we say you’d wait for me after the exam? The hell did you just take off for?”
“Wei?” [TL: Short for Zhiwei — Xu Ye’s nickname for Qin Zhiwei, his best friend.]
Qin Zhiwei frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason.”
Xu Ye smiled and let it go without an explanation.
If he told Qin Zhiwei that just last night they’d been out drinking together, the guy would never believe him in a million years.
“How’d you do?”
“Not bad. Pretty sure I cleared the cutoff for a top-tier school.”
Qin Zhiwei snorted. “If you actually get into a top-tier school, you can have my last name.”
Xu Ye grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him toward the gate. “Let’s go ask your dad if that’s okay with him.”
“Get lost.”
Xu Ye remembered it well. After the gaokao, the two of them had ended up in the same city for college. Sadly, neither of them had much luck when it came to relationships.
Xu Ye’s situation went without saying. But Qin Zhiwei had it even worse — his wife cheated on him in their second year of marriage. After the divorce, Zhiwei had spent his mid-twenties living like a widower, pulling double duty as both mom and dad. The stress had given him a beer gut that looked like a seven-month pregnancy.
“Xu Ye, you heading over to No. 2 High later?”
“What for?”
“Gu Mengyao’s exam is at No. 2 High. Didn’t you say you were going to find her after the exams today?”
Xu Ye’s smile disappeared. He said flatly, “Why would I go find her? I’m having dinner with my parents.”
Qin Zhiwei stared at him, genuinely thrown off. “What’s going on with you? I thought you were trying to get with her?”
“I’ve been reborn — why would I still chase after her?”
The crowd around them was too loud, and Xu Ye had said it too quietly. Qin Zhiwei didn’t catch it.
What Zhiwei did know, though — had known since their first year of high school — was that Xu Ye had a thing for their class beauty, Gu Mengyao. Xu Ye was a day student; Gu Mengyao boarded at school. For three years straight, Xu Ye had gone out of his way to buy her breakfast from the shops outside campus more times than anyone could count.
Everyone in class knew Xu Ye liked Gu Mengyao. That wasn’t a secret to anyone.
What made things complicated was that Gu Mengyao’s attitude toward him had always been maddeningly mixed. Some days she treated him like a boyfriend. Other days she was ice-cold. That push-and-pull had dragged on all the way through college.
“What’d you just say?”
“Nothing. I’m having dinner with my parents first. Tomorrow I’m planning to spend the whole day in bed, and at night…”
“Night we hit the internet café. I’ll play Yasuo, you play Lee Sin, and we go absolutely wild.”
Xu Ye shot him a look, then walked out through the school gate.
Across the street, a middle-aged couple was waving at him like their lives depended on it.
The man had on a short-sleeved button-up shirt and slacks. The woman — probably going for a lucky omen — was wearing a dark red qipao. [TL: A qipao (旗袍) is a traditional form-fitting Chinese dress. The dark red color was likely chosen for good luck before the exam results.]
“Xiao Ye, over here!” [TL: Xiao (小) is an affectionate diminutive prefix, roughly like “little” — used by family and close friends.]
He hadn’t expected his parents from ten years ago to look this young.
Xu Ye stood there for a second, then told Qin Zhiwei he’d see him tomorrow night and crossed the street toward his dad, Xu Xiangdong, and his mom, Zhang Hong.
Both of them knew their son had always struggled with English, so this last exam had been the one that mattered most.
As Xu Ye walked up, Zhang Hong looked at him with worried eyes. “How’d it go, son?”
Before he could answer—
“Hey, didn’t we agree not to ask yet?” Xu Xiangdong cut in.
Zhang Hong shot her husband a look. “I’m asking about my own son. What’s it to you?”
The familiar bickering hit Xu Ye like a warm wave, and his mood lifted.
After he’d married Gu Mengyao, his parents had spent years quietly worrying themselves sick over him. They always say the hardest relationship in a family is between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law — and Gu Mengyao had made it worse than most. She hadn’t just failed to show his mom any respect; she’d bossed her around like a servant. Zhang Hong had swallowed it all for her son’s sake, smiling through every slight, and the atmosphere at home had grown colder with each passing year.
Stress ages people fast. By their early fifties, both his parents had gone completely gray.
Thinking about it now, Xu Ye wanted to slap himself.
“Son, don’t listen to your mom. Exams are done — stop overthinking it. Come on, let’s go grab some drinks. Father and son, we’re not leaving until we’re both under the table.”
“Dad, honestly — I think I did really well this time.”
“Really?”
“Really. I’m pretty sure a standard four-year is locked in. Might even have a shot at a top-tier school.”
Zhang Hong looked like she didn’t even know what to do with herself. Xu Xiangdong wasn’t far behind, a wide, relieved grin spreading across his face.
He was their only child. All they’d ever wanted was for him to grow up healthy and happy, get into a decent university, and find a good job.
“Come on, let’s go out and eat. My treat.”
Xu Xiangdong grabbed his car keys excitedly and headed to unlock the car. Zhang Hong looped her arm through Xu Ye’s, her face glowing.
Xu Ye looked at his mom’s dark hair — not a gray strand in sight — and felt a quiet guilt settle in his chest.
“Mom,” he said suddenly. “You’ve worked so hard.”
Zhang Hong had no way of knowing that those words were meant for two people at once — the woman standing in front of him now, and the one she’d become ten years from now.
She reached over and gently patted his hand, eyes just a little too bright. “What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
“Just noticed how rough your hands are,” Xu Ye said. “You’ve given so much to this family.”
“These calluses?” Zhang Hong laughed it off. “I got those from playing mahjong.”
She said it like it was nothing, but her eyes had already gone a little red at the corners.
They piled into an old Volkswagen Santana that had clearly seen better days, and Xu Ye watched the street roll by outside his window, a tangle of feelings he couldn’t quite sort through.
He hadn’t expected something so simple to move his mom that much.
Memories he’d buried came flooding back in, dark and heavy like a bad dream.
Xu Ye took a long, slow breath and pushed it all down.
His life had gone off the rails right after the gaokao. Now that he had the chance to do it over, he was going to make it count — not just fix what went wrong, but build something entirely different. A version of himself he could actually be proud of.
(End of Chapter)