Mud beads

That line of text, displayed in the highest-rated position, was filthy.

Yu Zhu looked for two seconds and then took a deep breath.

The morning reading bell hadn't rung yet, and someone in the front row was reciting vocabulary, their voice trailing off. Outside the window, the sycamore leaves rustled in the wind, and chalk dust floated near the teacher's desk; sunlight streamed in, making each speck clearly visible. Her fingertip hovered over the edge of her phone, not sliding down.

Liu Zhengyang sat beside him, not gloating, but with a serious expression.

Yu Zhu suddenly wondered what Yue Jianche would do if it were him.

She quickly found her answer.

From a young age, Toru Koshima lived in the eye of the beholder. Photo walls, school gates, auditoriums, social media. Wherever he stood, there were stares and discussions, and rumors.

He had grown accustomed to being stared at.

This kind of thing probably doesn't bother him much.

Yu Zhu couldn't be as relaxed as him. Her shoulder blades were tense, the veins on the back of her hands were slightly bulging, and the line of words on the screen floated in her eyes, dimming and then becoming clear again, over and over, making the veins under her temples throb.

It's okay. She comforted herself. She could learn a little from him. Learn from him not to prove himself, learn from him not to be in a hurry to expose himself to others.

These swear words may be unpleasant, but they won't cost her a single point on the test.

Yu Zhu closed the book and pushed the phone back.

Liu Zhengyang was taken aback: "You're not watching anymore?"

"Let's get ready for class," Yu Zhu said.

She took out her Chinese textbook and turned to the chapter she was going to teach that day: "Zhuangzi: Free and Easy Wandering." The edges of the pages were slightly curled, from repeatedly turning them last night while she was making lemon tea and waiting for fewer customers.

"He is neither encouraged by universal praise nor discouraged by universal criticism."

She lowered her head and began to recite, her voice very soft. At first, her throat felt a little tight, but by the third line, her breathing had finally become smooth.

"To distinguish between inner and outer, and to discern the boundaries of honor and disgrace, that is all..."

Liu Zhengyang put his phone back in the drawer, looked at her for a while, and then opened his book.

In the first math class, Ms. Li was teaching about sets. Yu Zhu stared at the blackboard, her pen moving quickly across the scratch paper. The bell rang, and the class scattered. Some students huddled together in small groups, whispering amongst themselves, glancing at her every now and then.

Yu Zhu noticed, but didn't say anything, continuing to work through the example problem that Teacher Li had just explained. She had momentarily lost focus and hadn't kept up.

Liu Zhengyang didn't go to the restroom. Instead, he pulled up a chair, leaned closer, and whispered, "The person who submitted the post to the school wall must be one of your former classmates."

Yu Zhu didn't stop writing, and said calmly, "How do you know this person isn't telling the truth?"

Liu Zhengyang's expression went blank for a moment. After two seconds, he frowned and said seriously, "Big sister, if you're going to make money this way, why did you transfer to No. 1 High School?"

Yu Zhu put down her pen and looked up. After thinking about it, it seemed to make sense.

"That's clearly illogical," he added.

Yu Zhu lowered her eyes and suddenly felt a little relieved. She pushed the draft paper on the table toward Liu Zhengyang and tapped the question on the paper with her pencil.

"I didn't understand just now. If you understand, please explain it to me."

Liu Zhengyang frowned even more as he looked at the draft paper pushed towards him. He took the pen, his expression even more serious than before: "Yu Zhu, you can't even understand such a simple question, how did you get into the experimental class?"

As he spoke, he quickly presented two solutions, his handwriting thin and his formulas clear.

Yu Zhu stared at the formula on the paper for a long time without looking up, and whispered, "Thank you."

The aftershocks of the incident at the school wall still linger on campus.

When Yu Zhu went to the cafeteria for lunch, the girl who had been sitting next to her subtly moved aside when she saw her. Suddenly, three or four new friend requests appeared on WeChat. One of them, with a black profile picture, had a note that read: "Politely asking about prices."

Yu Zhu exited the friends list without accepting or rejecting the request. She scooped a spoonful of soup into her rice, mixed it, and continued eating.

Compared to the blatant bullying and ridicule she faced at the private school, this subtle isolation was nothing to her.

If fame can be exchanged for money, she wouldn't mind being labeled with seventy or eighty more.

Moth

Nongningcha closes at 10:30 pm.

After washing the tea barrel, Yu Zhu wiped the water stains inside with paper towels. Liang Xia volunteered to work overtime today, a pen tucked behind her ear, squatting in front of the freezer checking the inventory.

"The peach chips are about to expire, there are five bags left. Take two bags home tonight and mix them with water, it's a waste to throw them away."

"I don't have a refrigerator there." Yu Zhu put the tea canister on the shelf, turned her head, and said, "Tomorrow we'll do a buy-two-get-one-free promotion, which will increase the average order value."

Liang Xia looked up at her and clicked her tongue, "No wonder she's from No. 1 High School, she's got a good brain."

Yu Zhu lowered her head and smiled.

When Liang Xia saw her smile, she hesitated for a moment, then said, "Hey, I saw that dilapidated wall at your school too."

Yu Zhu paused for a moment: "Oh."

Liang Xia took the pen from behind her ear and continued to take stock of the inventory: "I thought the students at No. 1 High School only knew how to study. Turns out they're all bookworms, they like to talk about dirty things too."

"There's only one bag of matcha powder left." Yu Zhu checked the stock in the room temperature section. "Do you believe me?"

"Do you think I'm an idiot?" Liang Xia scribbled furiously on the inventory ledger. "If you're so good at making money, why are you here with me checking inventory? You should be picking me up from get off work in a Maserati by now."

Yu Zhu smiled. Her words were similar to what Liu Zhengyang had said, but Liang Xia's version was rougher and lighter.

"I'll pick you up when I have money."

Liang Xia pointed and said, "Remember this: if you become rich and powerful, don't forget me."

"it is good."

Moth

Life didn't stop because of that post.

Yu Zhu gets up at six every morning, memorizes vocabulary for half an hour, goes downstairs to buy two steamed buns, and eats them on the go. She then does morning reading, attends classes, does practice problems, and makes lemon tea after dinner. Long hair is troublesome to wash and time-consuming to dry, so she simply went to the hair salon downstairs in her apartment complex and got a short haircut, even shorter than ear-length. Liang Xia said that from behind, you couldn't tell if she was male or female.

Whether it was because of her short haircut or the leading role played by Liu Zhengyang, who was elected class monitor, the classmates' attitude towards Yu Zhu returned to normal and warmer.

Liu Zhengyang excelled in science, while Yu Zhu excelled in humanities. Being deskmates allowed them to complement each other's strengths, and their monthly exam scores improved rapidly. Over time, Yu Zhu discovered that Liu Zhengyang wasn't as serious as he seemed. Seemingly earnest, he was actually quite gossipy. Nothing in the class, big or small, escaped his ears, and he would drag her along to chatter endlessly at the slightest hint of news. At first, she wasn't used to talking about things unrelated to studies, but as time went on, she gradually joined in, influenced by him.

During a political science class, while the teacher was lecturing on dialectical materialism, Liu Zhengyang was whispering to Yu Zhu about how the sports representative from the next class was pursuing their class's English representative. Yu Zhu, engrossed in the conversation, forgot to lower her voice and exclaimed, "Ah!"

The teacher stopped.

"Liu Zhengyang, Yu Zhu, you two go stand in the back row. You've been whispering to each other for half the class."

The two stood up sheepishly, and the whole class turned to look. Liu Zhengyang was expressionless, while Yu Zhu's ears were burning red. After standing in the back row, Liu Zhengyang turned his head and mouthed silently, "You got me into trouble."

Yu Zhu glared at him and quickly lowered her head.

The teacher, with his textbook rolled up, banged it on the podium: "Some students, because they are good at studying, are affecting others."

With "some classmates" and Liang Xia around, Yu Zhu felt that her life had suddenly changed a bit.

After that, time did not stop to wait for her.

The No. 1 High School in the city has exams, rankings, competitions, and lists of students recommended for admission every day. The students are busy pushing forward and don't have time to keep staring at a quiet girl.

Yu Zhu didn't show them anything new. She continued with her classes, part-time jobs, returning to her rented room, showering, memorizing vocabulary, and filling her account book page by page.

In her second year of high school, her grades were consistently in the top twenty of her grade. By her third year, the hallways smelled of exam papers all year round, the desk drawers were overflowing with materials piled up at her feet, and the convenience store sold out of black coffee faster than bottled water.

Yu Zhu didn't attend the graduation dinner. After finishing her last exam, she went back to work the night shift at Nong Ning Tea. After closing, she sat at the shop entrance, folded her exam admission ticket, and tucked it into the innermost part of the ledger.

The day the acceptance letter arrived at her rented apartment, the edge of the envelope was slightly crumpled from being caught in the delivery locker. Chang'an University, Chinese Literature Department—a top-tier university nationwide. She stared at the paper for a long time, then read through the fee details again.

At eighteen, Yu Zhu put away her high school uniform from the city's No. 1 High School and bought two of the cheapest white T-shirts and black trousers. The old campus of Chang'an University wasn't far from Nongning Tea, just a ten-minute bike ride away. She didn't change jobs or move, but simply changed her schedule from high school to university, her morning reading time to 8 a.m., and her evening self-study time to the lights before the library closed.

Moth

In late September, after the start of my freshman year, the previously empty two-story detached building across from the Nong Ning Tea shop was being renovated. During the day, the roller shutters were closed, and workers were hammering and banging away inside, filling half the street with the smell of cement dust and paint. At night, when the neon lights came on, a black sign with silver lettering appeared, calling it LIMBO.

Liang Xia stood at the shop entrance with her arms crossed for a long time, then mumbled in a very rustic way, "Li—Mubo?"

"Lin Bo. It sounds like a game name." Yu Zhu was cutting a lemon behind the bar. "Liu Zhengyang said it's a nightclub."

"A nightclub is a nightclub, why give it such a foreign name?" Liang Xia scoffed. "I could tell from the style that it wasn't anything good."

Sister Liao came today after a long absence. Standing outside the bar, she instructed, "Now that the bar is open, this street will be busier at night. Starting next week, we'll move our closing time two hours later. You two will both have to work weekend shifts."

Liang Xia immediately yelled, "Do you want more money?"

Sister Liao was very generous: "Add it."

Moth

On the first weekend after the nightclub opened, Dongmen Street looked like it had been ripped open.

Even before dusk was fully dark, the roadside was already packed with cars. Girls with heavy makeup and miniskirts walked hand-in-hand across the street, their high heels clicking sharply on the concrete. Boys with all sorts of hairstyles leaned against their cars in twos and threes, smoking; the cigarette butts glowed briefly before going dark again. The smells of alcohol, perfume, grilled skewers, and the sweet and sour aroma of lemon tea mingled together, carrying a restless, pungent scent with every gust of wind.

Nong Ning Tea started receiving a surge in orders from 10 AM.

The order processing machine beeped incessantly, and the numbers on the screen scrolled down. Liang Xia frantically cursed in the back area, calling Sister Liao a capitalist and a exploitative woman. Yu Zhu stood at the bar packing, her thumb throbbing from pressing on the cup lid. Her bangs were completely wet, her short hair plastered to her neck, and her apron was splattered with milk and tea stains that stiffened after drying.

"Customer number 97, your 'Qianqian Jasmine' is ready!"

"Hello, would you like it to go or ready to drink?"

Someone walked up from the nightclub entrance, a fluorescent stamp on the back of his hand, a cigarette between his fingers: "Hey beautiful, want a drink to sober up?"

"Smoking is not allowed in the shop," Liang Xia said expressionlessly, peeking out from behind the curtain. "Lemon tea, to quench your thirst. To sober up, go to the pharmacy fifty meters away."

Yu Zhu lowered her head to stick on the label and couldn't help but laugh.

They were busy until 2 a.m. when the shop finally emptied for a while. The floor was a mess, covered in water droplets, shoe prints, and discarded straws. Liang Xia was refilling the syrup in the back, while Yu Zhu tied two large black garbage bags tightly, picked them up, and headed out the back door.

The bag contained many flattened milk cartons, their corners sharp and hard, which punctured the plastic bag after walking for a short while. Tea mixed with milk leaked from the bag, flowing down Yu Zhu's trouser legs and soaking her shoes. The black carrying strap dug into her palm, and the smell of wet garbage wafted from the bag's opening—a sour, rotten odor that lingered in her nostrils.

It was colder in the alley than inside the shop; the wind that swept in immediately cooled her sweaty back. She threw the trash bag into the designated bin at the garbage station, and just as she looked up to breathe a sigh of relief, her gaze swept across the bustling crowd at the distant intersection and caught sight of several familiar faces.

Two sports cars, one black and one red, were parked in front of LIMBO, their bodies slicing through the neon lights. Ji Yong leaned against the car, smoking, her hair dyed a very light gray, and was talking to Song Ban. Song Ban wore silver-rimmed glasses, his dark red shirt collar loose, and was holding a lighter, lighting a cigarette for the girl opposite him.

The girl had her back to Yu Zhu, wearing a black short skirt and a thin leather jacket. Her long curly hair fell over her shoulders. She seemed to have heard something funny and was laughing so hard that her back trembled. She was a little drunk, her steps unsteady. She had a cigarette in one hand and was holding the arm of the man standing next to her with the other, leaning on his shoulder.

Yu Zhu's heart sank. Almost instinctively, she dodged behind a trash can, leaving only her eyes showing, her gaze slowly settling on the man's back.

The man wore a fitted black T-shirt, his shoulders broad and his waist lean. He kept his head down, letting the girl hold his hand in one hand, while a cigarette dangled between his fingers in the other. He barely smoked it, just letting it burn slowly. Halfway through his sentence, he suddenly turned his head, the light cutting across his brow bone to reveal his sharp features.

Toru Echizen.

The moment she confirmed it was him and Zhou Qiyu, Yu Zhu quickly crouched down, hiding herself firmly in the darkness of the corner between the trash cans. Behind her, rough plaster rubbed against her shoulders, and the air was thick with the acrid stench of rotting garbage. She looked down, her gaze falling on the tips of her shoes; her black sneakers were soaked with white milk stains, and her trouser legs were also wet.

She quietly, very slowly and cautiously shifted her perspective slightly outward.

For over four years, she had only seen Etsuya Tetsuya in the margins of her WeChat Moments. Those things, stored away through a screen, always felt weightless. Now, standing vividly under a streetlamp, the sound of the wind, the smell of smoke, and the headlights of cars suddenly gained weight.

The traffic flowed on, the noise never ceased. But Yu Zhu felt that all the surrounding sounds had been filtered out, and all she could hear was the pounding of her heartbeat.

He was taller and broader than when he left. The delicate, youthful slenderness of his youth had been stretched out, replaced by the weight of a grown man. As he listened to Zhou Qiyu speak, he leaned down slightly. Zhou Qiyu smiled and leaned back, staggering half a step back, but her hand hooked between his fingers, their fingers intertwined.

Too far away, Yu Zhu couldn't hear the sound, but she could see the smoke drifting past her eyes and being scattered by the wind.

Like a silent film.

The security guard at the nightclub opened the door, and a burst of bass drumbeats erupted from inside, shaking the ground. Dim purple light swept through the crack in the door, landing on Zhou Qiyu's bare calves.

The door opened and then closed again, the drumbeats and laughter being pressed back behind the heavy door panel, along with the figure of Echizen Toru.

Yu Zhu remained squatting behind the trash can, her legs numb, without moving.

She recalled the fireworks of New Year's Eve four years ago. Brief, dazzling, they had bloomed before her eyes, only to vanish into the sky in an instant.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She belatedly pulled it out and dialed the number.

"What were you doing taking out the trash?" Liang Xia asked on speakerphone, the background noise quite loud. "We're overwhelmed with orders, hurry back!"