Before the Sunday evening self-study session, the entrance exam results and rankings had already been posted. A few students, eager to see their scores early, were poking their heads around the entrance of the teachers' office.
Si Bin sat at his desk working through practice problems. Only a week into the new semester, he had already completed two-thirds of his comprehensive humanities workbook.
"Brother Bin!" Yu Wenbo sidled up to Si Bin’s desk holding a score sheet. "The overall rankings are out."
Si Bin took off his headphones and looked up. "How did you get a hold of the score sheet?"
"The teacher was going to give it to the class monitor, but he’s on leave, so I took over the duty." As he spoke, Yu Wenbo placed two score sheets in front of Si Bin.
"Brother Bin, you’re incredible! Switching from the science track to humanities and you’re already second in the grade, first in our class!" Yu Wenbo’s words drew the attention of the surrounding students.
"Wenbo, let me see that!" The vice monitor leaned over.
"Who’s in first place?" Other classmates crowded around.
"Let me see..." The vice monitor took the sheet. "It’s someone I’ve never heard of. Lin Murun."
"Lin Murun?" Si Bin paused, repeating the name.
"Yeah, he’s first in the grade and first in the humanities composite." After finding his own rank, the vice monitor passed the sheet to the next student.
"Which class is this Lin Murun in? I’ve been at First High for two years and never heard of him." Relying on his height, Yu Wenbo craned his neck to look at the sheet as it was passed further away.
"He’s in Class Two," the vice monitor recalled. "I heard Li Qian from Class Two say they have a new transfer student."
"Hah, what a name..." Yu Wenbo scratched his head. "Is he missing the 'wood' element in his destiny or something?"
The vice monitor smiled. "'Jade in the mountain makes the plants lush; pearls in the abyss keep the cliffs from drying.' I actually think it’s a very beautiful name."
"You certainly know how to praise people. We just don't know what he looks like. All that talk of pearls and jade—for all we know, he’s a nerd with glasses as thick as beer-bottle bottoms." The preparatory bell rang, and Yu Wenbo hurried forward to reclaim the score sheet. "Stop passing it around, get it to the teacher's podium, quick."
Si Bin twirled his pen thoughtfully for a moment before getting up and leaving the classroom.
Having returned the score sheet, Yu Wenbo noticed his movement and turned to the vice monitor. "Where’s Brother Bin going? The bathroom isn't in that direction."
The vice monitor looked over and shook his head. "How should I know?"
Class Two was right next door to Class One. Si Bin stopped and looked through the glass window into the room.
The preparatory bell had already rung, and most of the students in Class Two were seated for self-study. His gaze swept across the familiar faces, finally coming to rest on a boy in the last row by the window.
He wasn't wearing his school uniform. A pair of metal-framed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, and his left hand was busy sketching or writing on a piece of scratch paper. His clean fingernails caught the cool light of the classroom, reflecting a faint, healthy luster.
"Si Bin?" Teacher Li, carrying score sheets and test papers, spotted him standing outside the Class Two classroom.
"The bell already rang. Why aren't you back in your room?" Teacher Li asked.
"Just getting some fresh air. I'm heading back now." Si Bin smiled, turned, and returned to Class One.
The students by the window heard the commotion and looked out.
"It’s Si Bin from Class One," Li Qian whispered to Zhou Xuan. "What was he doing outside our room?"
Zhou Xuan still looked like he hadn't fully woken up, his head down as he calculated geography problems. "Who knows? Probably looking for someone."
Sitting at the very back, Lin Murun heard their conversation and looked toward the window, but Si Bin was already gone.
Teacher Li pushed the door open and entered the classroom. While lecturing the students not to set the air conditioning too low, she handed the test papers to the math representative.
"In this exam, only three students from our class made it into the top ten of the grade." Teacher Li picked up the score sheet, her expression stern. "During the track-division exams, we held half of the top ten spots. It’s only been one summer break, and you’ve regressed this much? Have your hearts gone wild? Can't you pull yourselves back together?"
The students of Class Two all hung their heads, terrified of being singled out by their homeroom teacher.
"Most of the questions this time tested basic knowledge, yet our class's average for the humanities composite actually dropped!" Teacher Li stepped down from the podium and stood before the first row, her face grim. "You all need to reflect on this. I will read the names of the top ten in the grade; you can pass the class rankings around yourselves." She handed a sheet to a student in the front row.
"First place, Lin Murun..."
The new student had dropped in and taken the top spot. Half the class instinctively looked toward the boy in the corner. Lin Murun merely looked up expressionlessly when his name was called. There was no joy or excitement on his face for ranking first in the grade, as if he were long accustomed to it.
Separated only by a wall, the teacher in Class One was also reading the rankings. Upon hearing the name of the grade's top student, Si Bin looked down at his Chinese textbook.
"Jade in the mountain makes the plants lush; pearls in the abyss keep the cliffs from drying." That was the vice monitor’s interpretation of the name "Murun."
"Lin Murun..." Si Bin tapped his test paper with the tip of his pen, whispering the name.
"What is it?" Yu Wenbo heard him murmuring and turned his head quietly.
"Nothing, just remembered something." Si Bin twirled his pen and looked down at his problems, though his heart had long since flown out of the classroom.
Intervening on the street hadn't been a simple act of chivalry, and the encounter at the music school hadn't been a coincidence. Ultimately, Si Bin wasn't some warm-hearted do-gooder; he had helped only because the person in need was Lin Murun.
The first time he met Lin Murun was during the summer break after his first year of high school.
The daytime temperature in the Jiangnan region had soared to thirty-eight degrees Celsius in July. After being subjected to three days of relentless, overly enthusiastic calls from Gao Yuan, Si Bin finally stepped through the doors of the Xingyue Music School with a dark expression.
Gao Yuan was a common name, yet he was a very memorable person. Among Si Bin’s many friends, he was the only one who dared to persistently change phone numbers to harass Young Master Si after being blocked three times. Gao Yuan’s grades were average and his looks were ordinary, but his family was wealthy, he was well-liked, and he played the guitar well. Having been praised too often, Gao Yuan, who had just started university, got a bit ahead of himself. On a whim, he decided to help out at a relative's music school.
It was the peak enrollment season for the school. Gao Yuan would sit at the entrance with his guitar and play like a madman, claiming he was "attracting prospective students."
They say boys who play instruments attract girls' attention. After a few days of Gao Yuan "displaying his plumage" at the entrance, he had indeed recruited quite a few students for the owner.
Having earned his first commission, he happily called Si Bin, wanting to teach him a few moves. After Si Bin's numerous attempts to hang up failed, he eventually showed up with a stoic face.
But his timing was poor; Gao Yuan was currently in the middle of a lesson.
The girl working part-time at the front desk heard he was a friend of Teacher Gao and poured him a cup of water.
"Thanks," Si Bin said, taking the water. "What time does he finish?"
"A lesson is forty minutes, and only twenty have passed." She checked her phone and suggested, "You can wait on the sofa, or feel free to look around."
Si Bin nodded and headed upstairs with his disposable cup.
The music school had three floors. Although the doors on the first floor were closed, the intermittent sounds of beginners practicing could still be heard. The cacophony of various instruments was enough to give one a headache.
*Idiot.*
That was Si Bin’s evaluation of Gao Yuan.
*The music school he chose is an idiot, too.*
Si Bin took a sip of cold water, grumbling silently with an expressionless face.
Half of the second floor was a recital hall, and the other half consisted of violin and cello classrooms. It seemed no one was there for lessons at this hour; the entire hallway was incredibly quiet.
The stairs leading to the third floor were blocked by a locked door. Si Bin lingered by the door for a moment and then prepared to head back down.
Just then, a melodious violin piece drifted out from the recital hall.
It was Bach’s *Air on the G String*.
Si Bin followed the music to the recital hall and found the door slightly ajar. It opened with a gentle push.
By the sunlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows, he saw the performer.
It was a youth of fifteen or sixteen, wearing a white shirt and light-colored jeans. His skin was very fair, and bathed in the sunlight, he seemed to emit a faint glow.
The youth stood slightly turned to the side, his slender fingers pressing the strings. His light-colored eyes were shaded by long, thick lashes; from a distance, they looked as if they held fragments of dappled amber light.
A mountain-shattering wave of descriptions flooded Si Bin’s mind, finally settling on a line from a Shakespearean sonnet.
—*Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.*
Seeing someone push the door open, the youth stopped playing. He lowered his violin and turned his tea-colored eyes toward Si Bin. The corners of his eyes were long, like a stroke of an ink-wash peach blossom on rice paper.
"Sorry." Si Bin’s fingers tightened around the disposable cup out of nervousness.
He stood there like a fool, hearing his own heart thundering in his chest.
"I walked into the wrong room."
Si Bin didn't know how he managed to leave the music school, but according to Gao Yuan’s memory, he had been completely out of it that day, unable to tell if his food was seasoned with sugar or salt.
Si Bin was a mature person for his age. After vaguely realizing his sexual orientation, he didn't agonize over it but confessed to his mother early on.
Si Bin’s mother had lived abroad for many years and was long accustomed to the concept of homosexuality. After receiving her son's call, she fell into silence for a moment but soon came to terms with it, occasionally asking if he had someone he liked.
Every time, Si Bin’s answer was "No." But during a phone call that night, his mother sensed his hesitation.
"Yes," Si Bin finally chose to tell the truth after a moment of silence. Then, he added somewhat incoherently, "He plays the violin beautifully."
From then on, Si Bin reported to the coffee shop behind the music school every day. Sitting on the second floor of the shop, he could see directly into the recital hall across the street.
Under the pretext of doing summer homework, he requested a small private room in the cafe just to catch a distant glimpse of the boy playing the violin.
It wasn't that he hadn't thought about asking for the boy's name, but every time the thought surfaced, he would hurriedly suppress it.
*What are you thinking?*
Si Bin mocked himself. *He’s so handsome and plays so well; he must be the pride and joy of his teachers and parents. Why should I disrupt someone else's life for my own selfish desires?*
Two weeks before the end of the break, the youth disappeared from the recital hall.
Si Bin panicked. He began making various excuses to hang around the music school, but he never saw him again.
"Do you have a violin student here?" A week after the youth disappeared, Si Bin finally couldn't help but ask Gao Yuan.
"We have quite a few people learning violin." Gao Yuan scratched his head, confused. "Who do you mean?"
"The boy who went to the recital hall every afternoon." He added, as if feeling guilty, "I rented a small room in the cafe across the street to do my homework. I got used to seeing him every time I looked up. I haven't seen him these past few days, so I was just curious."
"Oh? You mean Xiao Lin? He’s not a student here. He’s the child of a friend of the owner, here to help teach the students." Gao Yuan didn't think much of it and told Si Bin everything he knew. "He’s not a local. He probably went back for school."
A massive sense of loss washed over him. Si Bin managed a strained, "Oh."
"What’s wrong? You want to learn from him?" Gao Yuan didn't notice anything amiss.
"No."
Gao Yuan laughed and praised his self-awareness. "Teacher Lin is amazing. Don't you go ruining his reputation."
"Right." Si Bin put his hands in his pockets and looked at the distant sunset, feeling that the summer break had passed far too quickly.
Before the new term started, Si Bin transferred to the humanities track. The busy workload diverted much of his energy. That unknown youth surnamed Lin seemed to have appeared only briefly in his life, leaving a vibrant stroke of color in that summer filled with the sound of cicadas.
Just when Si Bin himself thought this unrequited love had come to a dead end, he met "Teacher Lin" again.
It was a rainy night before school started. Teacher Lin, wearing glasses and a vocational school uniform over his head, appeared in Si Bin’s line of sight.
And so, without a second thought, he stepped forward to stop a bullying incident.
"Thank you for helping me out."
Those were the first words Teacher Lin had ever said to him.
*He really doesn't seem to remember me.*
Si Bin felt a bit dejected, but then he thought he was being a bit self-important.
He was daydreaming so intensely that he didn't even notice the teacher calling his name.
"What are you thinking about?" The teacher, who had walked up to him, asked with a smile. Teachers were always exceptionally tolerant of good students, but that didn't mean they would tolerate endless daydreaming in class.
"Stand up and wake yourself up," the teacher said, tapping on his desk.
"Huh? Oh..."
Under the gaze of all twenty-nine classmates, Si Bin picked up his test paper and pen with reddened ears and went to stand at the back of the classroom.
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
文综 (Wénzōng) | Humanities Composite | A comprehensive exam covering History, Geography, and Politics.
理转文 (Lǐ zhuǎn wén) | Science to Arts/Humanities transfer | Switching from the STEM track to the Liberal Arts track in high school.
玉在山而草木润，渊生珠而崖不枯 (Yù zài shān ér cǎo mù rùn, yuān shēng zhū ér yá bù kū) | Jade in the mountain makes the plants lush; pearls in the abyss keep the cliffs from drying | A quote from Xunzi's "Encouraging Learning," used here to explain the name "Murun."
五行缺木 (Wǔxíng quē mù) | Lacking 'wood' in the Five Elements | A concept in Chinese fortune-telling where a person's destiny lacks one of the five elements, often compensated for in their name.
星月琴行 (Xīngyuè Qínháng) | Xingyue Music School | The name of the music center where Gao Yuan works.
小林 (Xiǎo Lín) | Little Lin / Xiao Lin | A friendly way to address someone younger or of lower status with the surname Lin.
一中 (Yīzhōng) | First High School | The prestigious high school the characters attend.
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