At eleven o’clock at night, Lin Murun put down his pen, took off his glasses, and stood up to walk into the bathroom.
His roommate was nodding off, his head bobbing with exhaustion. Hearing the movement, he hurriedly rubbed his eyes and asked, "Is it eleven already?"
"Mhm." Lin Murun entered the bathroom, splashed his face with cold water, and said, "Go to sleep. We have to wake up early tomorrow."
The roommate let out a yawn and closed his book. "Then I’m heading to bed first. You keep at it."
"Okay." Lin Murun took a practice test out of his bag and switched on his desk lamp.
"Goodnight, scholar." The lights-out signal sounded, and the roommate kicked off his slippers to climb into bed.
"Goodnight."
The overhead light went out, leaving only the glow of the small rechargeable desk lamp in the darkness.
Lin Murun sat at the desk, raising a hand to rub his temples.
The warm light reflected off his pale skin, gilding his butterfly-wing eyelashes with a soft hue. He lifted his eyes; in the lamplight, his light-colored pupils looked like golden glass—clear, yet carrying a sense of detachment.
Faint snoring drifted down from the top bunk, a sign that his roommate had fallen asleep.
Lin Murun uncapped his pen and quietly flipped open his workbook.
***
After settling Xiaobai in, Si Bin finally found the time to correct the mistakes on his test paper.
Dabai, having finished a nap, poked its head over the sofa. After a long stretch, it padded silently into the second-floor study with feline grace.
Si Bin glanced up at the cat and reached out to turn up the air conditioning temperature.
Dabai jumped onto the desk with practiced ease, rubbing its head against Si Bin’s arm.
"Don't cause trouble." Si Bin scratched the cat's head, pulled his notebook of corrected errors from his bag, and began organizing the example problems.
***
By the time Lin Murun capped his pen, the clock pointed to one in the morning. The hallway was silent, and the chirping of insects drifted in from outside the balcony. Lin Murun turned off the lamp, stretched his fingers, and walked toward the balcony.
Through the glass windows and doors, he could clearly see the starry night sky and the vast, silent campus.
The basketball court, so boisterous during the day, slept in the darkness. In the distance stood the towering shadows of the teaching buildings. Streetlights lined the sidewalk outside the athletic field; occasionally, a patrolling security guard passed by, the solitary beam of a flashlight flickering past.
Lin Murun sat by the glass door, quietly watching the campus in the dark. The snoring of his roommate never ceased. After an unknown amount of time, he finally succumbed to exhaustion and fell asleep.
That night, Lin Murun had a long-awaited beautiful dream. In the dream, he returned to the days before his father passed away. His father, dressed in a white shirt, looked just as he did in his youth, wearing a pair of metal-framed glasses. The light-colored eyes behind the lenses looked gentle and calm.
The elder Lin held a collection of poetry, tenderly reading to the young Lin Murun.
"If I love you—I will never be like the climbing trumpet creeper, using your high boughs to boast of myself..."
This poem, *To the Oak Tree*, was the one his father loved most to read when coaxing him to sleep. It had been a witness to his parents' love and had accompanied Lin Murun through most of his childhood.
"...We share the cold spells, wind and thunder, lightning; we share the mist, the flow of clouds, the rainbows."
At this point, his father’s voice stopped.
Lin Murun looked up, gazing at him in confusion. "Dad?"
"I have to go now." His father closed the book of poetry and gently stroked his son's hair.
"Where are you going?" Lin Murun grabbed his father’s hem in a panic.
"To find your mother," his father said, opening the front door.
"What about me?"
The fabric of the shirt slipped silently from Lin Murun’s fingertips.
"Someone is coming to pick you up." Just as the words fell, a small white cat with blue eyes squeezed through the crack in the door.
It flicked its tail and circled Lin Murun, meowing.
"Go on," his father said, standing in the doorway.
The little white cat ran out the door with light steps. Seeing that Lin Murun hadn't followed, it turned back and called out a few times.
Lin Murun walked to the door and looked up at his father.
"Go," he said to his son with a smile. "Your mother and I will always be behind you."
Urged by the white cat’s cries, Lin Murun stepped out of the room. He ran, looking back as he went; the original hallway seemed to stretch out, becoming so long that he could no longer see his father’s smile.
The white cat led him downstairs and leaped nimbly into the arms of a man wearing a jacket.
Lin Murun followed, but he could not see the man’s face clearly.
The alarm went off. Lin Murun was instantly pulled back from the depths of the dream. He squinted, groping to turn off the alarm, his mind feeling like a chaotic haze.
His roommate, Cheng Song, grumbled a few times, lingering in bed, unwilling to get up.
*Ping.*
His phone screen lit up. Two messages from Si Bin entered Lin Murun’s field of vision.
Lin Murun sat up, groggily unlocked the screen, and opened WeChat.
In addition to a morning greeting, Si Bin had sent a photo. In the picture, the little white cat was curled up in its bed, sleeping soundly. The sunlight gilded its white fur with a pale, warm gold.
Lin Murun’s brain, which had been stalled for several minutes, finally began to function.
Just yesterday, this little white cat, which had been a stray for nearly a week, finally had a new name and a new home. Its bed looked very comfortable, and its soft white fur had been cleaned and groomed by its new owner.
"Good morning." Lin Murun saved the photo of the kitten, then got up to wash and change.
***
The moment he stepped into the classroom, Lin Murun sensed an unusual atmosphere.
From the second he entered the door, almost everyone was sizing him up.
Shen Hao, who sat by the door, saw him arrive and leaned in to ask, "Si Bin left with you yesterday, right?"
Lin Murun thought for a moment and nodded. "Yes."
Shen Hao raised an eyebrow and whispered, "Then did... anything unpleasant happen between you two?"
Unpleasant?
Lin Murun recalled every detail after the evening self-study session and shook his head. "No."
Not only was there nothing unpleasant, but Si Bin had seemed to be in a fairly good mood. After all, Xiaobai was indeed a very likable cat.
"Really nothing?" Shen Hao was stunned, feeling that Lin Murun’s reaction deviated from everyone’s theories. "Did he mention the grades to you? He’s always been first place before, after all."
Lin Murun paused, then said, "Then he can win it back next time."
Shen Hao was stunned by these words as well. After carefully observing Lin Murun’s expression, he slowly gave a thumbs-up. "Impressive, Student Lin. If you didn't look so sincere, I would have thought you were being provocative..."
"Provocative how?" Lin Murun looked baffled. Recalling the scene of his first meeting with Si Bin, he could roughly guess why Shen Hao had such thoughts.
"Is Si Bin very scary?" Lin Murun asked. Someone who could make a group of vocational school thugs back down collectively probably wasn't just a simple top student.
"Scary isn't quite the word..." Shen Hao lowered his voice. "But at No. 1 High, whether it's the teachers or the students, everyone proactively gives way to him."
"Why?" Lin Murun asked. Recalling his few encounters with Si Bin, his impression of the boy wasn't bad. Although he seemed a bit difficult to approach, overall, in Lin Murun’s perception, Si Bin was a kind-hearted person.
After all, he had intervened in a fight, lent an umbrella, and adopted a stray cat... It was very hard to feel ill will toward him.
"How should I put it..." Shen Hao felt he couldn't explain the entire social hierarchy of No. 1 High to the new student in a short time, so he summarized: "His family is incredibly rich. Even though our school has plenty of 'rich second-generation' kids, his family is truly in a league of its own."
"And his grandfather and uncle..." Shen Hao gave another thumbs-up. "You know what I mean. Our province has too many rich people, but just having money isn't considered a real feat."
Lin Murun nodded as if he understood. Simply put, Si Bin’s family background was very powerful.
"That does sound like he's not someone to mess with, but what does that have to do with me getting first place?" Lin Murun asked. "No one doesn't want to be first in the grade. Did you all used to let him win?"
"That’s giving us too much credit," Yu Qianyi, who had been listening to their conversation, whispered. "Si Bin is genuinely good at studying. Even if he goes off-topic on his essay, no one can catch up to him. Except for that one time..."
"Which time?"
"There was a monthly exam last semester where he only took the first day of tests and then took a leave of absence," Yu Qianyi said. "You can imagine how disastrous his ranking was that time."
"He didn't get first that time, and after the results came out, he took a week off," Yu Qianyi looked around and whispered. "We all said he must have been angry. It scared the student who got first place half to death."
Just as she finished speaking, Si Bin appeared at the door of Class 2.
Yu Qianyi’s expression was as if she had seen a ghost. She hurriedly picked up her Chinese textbook to cover her face.
Si Bin knocked politely on the door, then walked into the classroom and handed an answer sheet to Lin Murun. "The English teacher wants you to turn on the projector first. She needs to use your essay as a model when she goes over the questions later."
"Okay, thank you." Lin Murun took the answer sheet. Under the curious gazes of Shen Hao and Yu Qianyi, he looked up at Si Bin. "Do you know how to turn on the multimedia system?"
Si Bin raised an eyebrow, walked up to the podium, and turned on the projector.
"There, that’s it." Having said that, he gave a wave and turned to leave.
Lin Murun stood on the podium and thought for a moment, reaffirming his original thought.
Student Si Bin was actually quite a helpful person.
***
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
--- | --- | ---
致橡树 | To the Oak Tree | A famous poem by Shu Ting (舒婷), a key work of "Misty Poetry."
凌霄花 | Trumpet Creeper | Campsis radicans; used in the poem to represent a parasitic or dependent love.
程松 | Cheng Song | Lin Murun's roommate.
申浩 | Shen Hao | A student in Class 2.
余倩怡 | Yu Qianyi | A student in Class 2.
大白 | Dabai | Literally "Big White"; Si Bin's resident cat.
一中 | No. 1 High | Short for the city's First Middle/High School, usually the most prestigious.
