It's said that half of a boy's memories of school are made in the bathroom, and Zhang Shutong had to admit there was some truth to that.
As soon as he lifted the rubber door curtain, he was met with the usual hustle and bustle inside—it felt like he was in a meeting.
He wasn't planning to use the bathroom, nor was he preparing for any sort of conference. He had just come in to reminisce, but the smell in there was so unpleasant that he only took a quick look before pinching his nose and retreating.
Just then, someone slapped him hard on the shoulder. The voice followed immediately:
"Bro, no need to thank me!"
Zhang Shutong was startled.
A few hours ago, someone had stabbed him, and now, anytime someone approached from behind, it made him uneasy.
He turned around to see Du Kang's familiar, smiling face.
A flood of thoughts rushed to his mind, and he said:
"You really haven't changed a bit."
Zhang Shutong couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic. Du Kang still had that boyish face, and now he looked a little younger than they all did, but he wouldn't age badly in the future.
"What do you mean?" Du Kang asked.
"I'm complimenting you for staying young. What did you just say? No need to thank me?"
"I helped you turn in the homework. It was just a small thing. Treat me to some spicy strips?"
"You can pick, but I've got something to do after school, so I might be a bit late."
Zhang Shutong laughed.
The two of them chatted as casually as they did eight years later. But after a few words, Du Kang glanced at his watch, turned around, and ran off, calling over his shoulder:
"I'm going to pick up the milk! Don't forget what you promised me for next class—a meal at KFC!"
Wait, what did I promise you?
Now it was Zhang Shutong's turn to be confused.
He stood there for a while, thinking that Du Kang was just like he would be in the future, always talking halfway through.
That was Du Kang—every class had that one guy who rushed around all the time, always seeming busy, but no one really knew what he was busy with.
But that 'picking up milk' was a real task.
'Milk' referred to the student milk—small rectangular bricks that became part of a nutrition program starting in the early part of this century.
There were all kinds of flavors: vanilla, strawberry, papaya, chocolate… and the unsweetened plain milk that no one liked.
Zhang Shutong knew that most schools distributed student milk in the morning, around the second class break. But since they were on a small island, the milk had to travel by water, so it couldn't be delivered in the morning. It was closer to lunchtime, so it was moved to the afternoon.
Each class had a designated "milk collector" who would go to the warehouse behind the school building, pick up the milk, and distribute it to the classrooms. It was a small responsibility.
People always said that responsibilities before college didn't matter. They didn't have much power or extra benefits, but this milk collector role was an exception—it actually allowed someone to earn a bit.
Every delivery included a few extra cartons, probably because of possible shipping damage. When the milk was dropped off in each classroom, there were always a few boxes left over, and how those were divided up was up to the collector.
Du Kang was a loyal guy. Whenever there were extra cartons, he always made sure they went to their group of friends. Over time, it became like resupplying stock.
Zhang Shutong still remembered the details—Qingyi liked chocolate, Ruoping liked papaya, Du Kang liked vanilla…
He was even a little surprised at how clearly he remembered it all. But that's how it was: many things you think you've forgotten come rushing back at the right moment.
But the reason he remembered it so well was because of another, somewhat absurd thing: he loved the taste of strawberries, and coincidentally, so did Lu Qinglian.
So, every time there was extra strawberry milk, Du Kang would be faced with the dilemma of who to give it to—his loyal friends or the girl he liked.
It became a joke in their circle. Du Kang, despite his tough exterior, would always pass the milk to Zhang Shutong, even though he would often say, 'Let me keep one box,' in a pitiful way.
'Forget your loyalties for love,' Ruoping would joke.
'Prioritizing love over friends,' Qingyi would add.
'Totally agree,' said the only person benefiting—Zhang Shutong himself.
Thinking back, Zhang Shutong couldn't help but laugh at how self-interested they all were.
All these years, Du Kang never managed to win Lu Qinglian's heart. Maybe he just needed a few more cartons of strawberry milk?
It was a bit tied to Zhang Shutong himself.
Well, next time, he definitely wouldn't drink it anymore.
With this thought, he grabbed his bag and headed back to the classroom. He stood in the hallway, waiting for the next class and the seat change.
The class teacher, Mr. Song, was already standing at the front, rolling up his sleeves and shouting:
"Hurry up, you bunch of little brats! Only five minutes for the bathroom break!"
"Come on, come on, yes, I'm talking to you! Why are you sneaking like a weasel stealing chickens? Don't you know how to pick up your bag?"
"Yo, Shutong! Come up front, you're the first one anyway."
The teacher was about twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, a bit older than the Zhang Shutong from before the time leap. He was over 1.8 meters tall, with a hooked nose, a long face, and a square chin, giving off a resolute vibe.
His voice was loud enough that it echoed a bit, and he even pushed the shoulders of students he didn't like, showing none of the gentlemanly demeanor he had used with Lu Qinglian earlier.
But the students weren't offended. Some even laughed and playfully retorted.
This was their class teacher, Mr. Song Nanshan—Zhang Shutong's favorite teacher from his entire school life.
Mr. Song Nanshan was a typical rough-and-tumble man. The first button of his shirt was always missing, his hair wasn't properly groomed, and he had a stubbly beard that made him look a little messy but also full of rugged manliness.
When teaching, his sleeves were always rolled up to his elbows. Once, during a public class, he didn't notice the grade leader behind him coughing several times. He was so focused on writing on the board that he didn't realize his speech was full of spittle.
He was a bit unreliable too, sometimes doing things like losing the test papers and then having to sit next to a student to talk through them.
But he shouldn't be underestimated. Mr. Song was originally a teacher at a prestigious city school. He came to the island to gain a promotion and was supposed to leave after getting it, but he ended up staying.
He got along well with the students and had an open mind. He could be stern when needed, but he could also connect with the students, especially with Zhang Shutong and his friends.
He had a red car, which he sometimes drove around on weekends, taking Zhang Shutong and others with him. They would watch Mr. Song's carefree driving, weaving through the mountain roads, while Ruoping would throw up from the motion sickness.
Mr. Song taught English, and thanks to him, Zhang Shutong's English was always good. He passed his college English exams in his first year. His later freelance job was even related to translation.
Now, thinking back, his English grades in middle school had always been in the top two, something Mr. Song was proud of, always calling him his 'favorite student.'
But the English class monitor was Lu Qinglian, so maybe it wasn't love enough?
At that moment, Mr. Song casually asked:
"You didn't do well this time, huh? You came fifth in the monthly exam. Do you think you can make it into the top three next time?"
Zhang Shutong thought to himself that getting out of the bottom three was already a win, and he couldn't help but glance at Mr. Song. He reminded him:
"Your cigarette pack is showing."
"Oh, oh…"
Mr. Song quickly stuffed his cigarette pack into his pocket and went to call the students at the back of the line.
The seat changes in their class always happened after the monthly exams. Oddly enough, they didn't follow the usual method:
In other classes, the teachers would usually arrange seats according to exam scores.
But Mr. Song had come up with his own way—a 'priority seating choice.'
It wasn't useless. Du Kang had moved up nearly twenty places and was now at the middle level. But he was still far behind Lu Qinglian, who always came first.
Zhang Shutong was second.
Finally, he remembered what Du Kang had promised him.
It was to save a seat for him.
Teenage boys' thoughts were complicated—awkward and stubborn. For example, Du Kang wanted to sit next to Lu Qinglian but didn't dare to sit at the same desk as her. Ideally, he wanted to sit in front or behind her.
So what did he do?
He asked Zhang Shutong to sit behind or in front of Lu Qinglian, so he could sit next to him. It was a complex plan.
Zhang Shutong couldn't help but smile bitterly.
But it wasn't such a big deal. Teenage crushes were huge, and even if he didn't quite understand Du Kang's intentions, it didn't matter much to him.
With Mr. Song's call, the students finally lined up, and he started reading the names:
"Second, Zhang Shutong."
As for why he didn't call out the first name, it was because Lu Qinglian was always first and didn't need to line up. She would just choose her seat and move the desk there.
It had become a habit for everyone, including the teacher, who would always start from the second name.
Zhang Shutong walked into the classroom and saw Lu Qinglian sitting by the window.
Since the island lies north of the Qinling-Huaihe Line, the classroom was equipped with a row of radiators beneath the windows—piping heat through the winter.
Every year around this time, the heat would kick in, and the best seat in winter was by the window, while in summer, it was by the wall.
This place was just right for Zhang Shutong, and it seemed that Lu Qinglian also knew the best spot—no wonder she was the top student.
He wasn't young anymore—although not old either—but when he was younger, he didn't really understand the concept of being 'cold.' Even in autumn, he would walk around the house in short sleeves with a fan on.
But in recent years, when sleeping, he had to wear long-sleeved autumn clothes and couldn't let his shoulders show.
When choosing his seat, he thought about it for a while. Not wanting to be stared at from behind, he decided to sit at Lu Qinglian's side, leaving the seat behind her for Du Kang.
After packing up his things, he leaned on his hand and watched as the students filed in, recognizing their names one by one.
"...Du Tingting."
A slightly chubby girl.
"...Zhou Ziheng."
A boy with slightly darker skin.
For some reason, when the boy saw Zhang Shutong, he froze for a moment.
"...Meng Qingyi."
Then came a cool-looking boy with messy black hair, a white turtleneck sweater, and his hands in his pockets, expressionless like a stone-faced handsome guy.
He gave Zhang Shutong a thumbs-up, probably meaning 'you're awesome.'
Zhang Shutong returned the thumbs-up, signaling 'you're awesome too,' though he had no idea what Du Kang meant.
He felt a little embarrassed, wondering what to do if someone wanted to sit next to him now that Du Kang was busy. He was just about to reject them, but no one seemed interested in sitting near him.
The seat in front of Lu Qinglian was already taken, but the area behind her, except for him, remained vacant—like a vacuum zone. Everyone seemed to avoid it, as if it had bad feng shui.
Zhang Shutong found this odd.
He knew that many boys liked Lu Qinglian, so there should have been at least one who wanted to sit near her. After all, it wasn't just about liking her—sitting next to the heating was a good deal.
Was it his fault?
Zhang Shutong patted his face.
He had been staring at everyone who came in, trying to remember faces. He must have looked a little gloomy.
But it couldn't be that bad. Even if he was 'aloof,' it shouldn't be scary enough to scare people away.
Just as he was thinking this, another short-haired girl quickly walked over and tapped his desk. Her nails were painted a soft pink.
Before Zhang Shutong could speak, Feng Ruoping quietly said:
"Did you not wake up?"
"What?"
"Why did you sit next to 'the young lady'?"
She covered her mouth and giggled, giving him a meaningful look before leaving, just like when she looked at Lu Qinglian's photo earlier.
The young lady?
Next to her?
Suddenly, a long-buried memory resurfaced.
Zhang Shutong glanced into the desk hole beside him and saw a few books that hadn't been put away. Then it clicked.
He was sitting next to Gu Qiumian's seat. Although he had seen it a few times during the previous class, he hadn't remembered exactly where she sat.
She had a peculiar habit, or perhaps a strong territorial instinct. Since the first monthly exam after she transferred, she had moved to the window seat and never changed spots after that.
It wasn't a dramatic scene where she would throw money around and arrogantly say, 'This is my seat, leave if you're smart,' but most people instinctively avoided sitting near her.
This has something to do with Gu Qiumian's strange ecological niche in the class.
Kids on the island were close-knit, and outside of school, they were often related or had connections. Who played basketball on Friday, whose aunt visited over the weekend—all that kind of stuff was normal.
But Gu Qiumian never made any good friends in class, and she didn't try to fit in with anyone either.
She wasn't someone who blended into the group. Instead, she isolated herself, leaving others no choice but to avoid her as well. And she was perfectly fine with that.
Her 'followers' were outside the class.
The four grades in the school were full of her 'Pokémon.'
Sometimes, she would take them off the island for a trip.
They would gather at the dock at ten on Saturdays, with bikes already neatly lined up.
Then the black Audi would pull into the center of the group, and a pale, slender leg would emerge from the car, and everyone would follow the leg's owner onto the boat.
They could have ridden their bikes onto the ferry, but Gu Qiumian didn't have a bike and wouldn't ride one. She didn't want the family driver to follow, and she didn't want to seem out of place, so she walked while everyone else rode.
And when the boat docked, she would wave and signal for taxis to come. She'd assign seats and lead her entourage toward the nearest shopping mall.
It felt like a scene from a TV drama.
The fare was, of course, paid by Gu Qiumian.
One time, Zhang Shutong ran into them on his way off the island to buy books. He spat out his gum, wondering why there were so many students today.
Someone lowered their voice and asked him:
"Bro, how did you get your bike on here? You're so brave."
He was referring to the bike Zhang Shutong had pushed onto the boat.
Zhang Shutong had no idea, and after talking for a while, he realized what had happened. He felt speechless.
He didn't even remember spitting out his gum, but as he chewed again, he accidentally bit the soft flesh in his mouth, wincing in pain. This became a small habit of his from then on.
As the boat docked, Gu Qiumian came over, arms crossed. Her hair was blown into her face by the wind, and she had the posture of a victor. It took her a while before she finally asked:
"Zhang... Shutong?"
Her tone was similar to how Ash would call out 'Charizard' in the Pokémon anime.
"Thanks for remembering me, Pokémon Master."
Back then, he didn't think much of it. He nodded calmly, treating it as an encounter with a classmate, and then rode his bike off, leaving Gu Qiumian standing there in the lake wind, looking a bit flustered.
The name 'traitor' was carved even deeper.
Back in the day, Zhang Shutong and his friends would refer to it as the 'castle,' though they only ever looked at it from a distance through the fancy iron fence. Inside was an entire basement converted into a home theater.
Gu Qiumian didn't have any real friends in class, but that didn't mean there weren't boys secretly harboring feelings for her.
What did boys at fifteen or sixteen talk about?
Zhang Shutong would say they talked about the fish in the lake, the straight sticks they found on the way to school, or the comics they saw in magazines. Unfortunately, the rest of the boys were all talking about the prettiest girls.
In their class, there were two factions: one led by Lu Qinglian and the other by Gu Qiumian. The former had more followers. The latter had some, but their admiration for her was always understated, carefully spoken, as though they were afraid their feelings would be noticed.
The seat next to Gu Qiumian was often taken by the boys who secretly admired her.
Gu Qiumian knew this, and it sometimes annoyed her, but she didn't blame the boys entirely. She liked eating snacks, and her bag had a special pocket for them. She didn't just keep the snacks for herself but would share them with her 'minions.'
Once, Du Kang lost a game of Truth or Dare and, reluctantly, under Ruoping's urging, asked Gu Qiumian for snacks. Everyone around them tried to stifle their laughter, and to their surprise, Gu Qiumian actually nodded and handed some over.
Everyone watched in shock as she pulled out a bunch of snacks from her bag, distractedly asking Du Kang to take whatever he wanted.
Most of the time, when she had more snacks than she wanted to eat, she would casually share some with her desk mate.
She was generous, but the sharing was unintentional for her while it was meaningful to the receiver. At that age, when a boy received an extra glance from a girl, he would wonder if she liked him. Especially when it was snacks, he would feel like he was being treated specially.
However, one unlucky boy took this too far.
That boy was Gu Qiumian's desk mate. He had just been given some wafer biscuits and was chewing them while proudly boasting, with biscuit crumbs falling to the desk from the last row.
For some reason, he suddenly got bold, thinking his closeness to her allowed him to say something less 'shallow.' So, he told a dirty joke, probably about women's bodies, something that boys usually talk about among themselves. But, for girls they were close to, it depended on the depth of their relationship.
No one expected this boy to be so bold, as even the main subject of the joke—Gu Qiumian—was now part of it.
He laughed to himself twice after telling the joke, but Gu Qiumian's face immediately turned cold. She slammed his pencil case onto the ground.
"Say it again?"
The boy, who was embarrassed and in his most prideful moment, didn't back down. He stubbornly repeated it loudly, even angrily saying, 'What's the problem? It's just a joke!'
Gu Qiumian didn't even look at him. She just walked away.
The next class, the boy was called out and was publicly reprimanded. He went home for a few days and was transferred to another class when he returned.
It was then that everyone had a deeper understanding of Gu Qiumian. Previously, people thought she and everyone else were from two different worlds, but in fact, she just didn't care to mingle. If someone touched her, it was like an egg hitting a rock—her world would shatter like the crumbs of a wafer biscuit.
After this incident, many terrifying rumors about her family spread throughout the class. Some of them were even malicious.
It's unclear whether she knew about these rumors. Maybe she didn't, since no one told her. But even if she did, she had an air of indifference, as though she didn't care what others thought. She went about her classes and occasionally drew funny faces on the glass when her mood improved.
Now, the one sitting near her was Zhang Shutong.
Finally, Zhang Shutong understood why he had been the subject of so many surprised stares.
Gu Qiumian was like a rose with thorns. If you didn't provoke her, she wouldn't bother with you. But if you accidentally upset her, then you would have to hear all about her family, her father—Gu Jianhong, the super-rich man who donated the library and sports field to the school, and the island's wealthiest person.
Zhang Shutong didn't think he could take on all those people.
Now, back in his seat—he wondered where he used to sit.
Maybe it was in front of Lu Qinglian, purposely avoiding this spot.
However, after coming back and changing one small thought, everything from the past had changed as if stirred by a butterfly's wings.
"Now, the seating could still be changed...," he thought.
Looking at the time, that 'incident' should have happened not long ago.
He vaguely remembered that their relationship had dropped to an all-time low.
But before he could act, Mr. Song's voice rang out again, and as if on cue:
"Next, Gu Qiumian."
The sound of small boots echoed on the floor as the girl walked in.
Then, a pair of striking, beautiful eyes glared directly at him.