Final exams followed in quick succession, and it wasn't long before the results were released. To Qiu Yun’s surprise, she ranked sixth in her year for the entire freshman term. In her previous academic life, her grades had always been mediocre at best, often dragging down the class average. Her only slight regret was that the school scholarship cut off at the top five; she had missed it by a single rank. Nevertheless, she was thrilled. She discovered that being a "good student" provided a profound sense of accomplishment.
Three days after the results came out, the academy organized a sketching trip to the Yungang Grottoes in Datong, Shanxi.
For the freshman art students, this was a highly anticipated and exciting event. In the late 1980s, most people had never traveled anywhere beyond their hometowns, except to attend university in City A. Naturally, the summer sketching trip became the most talked-about event at the Fine Arts Academy. Moreover, this year’s destination was Datong—the furthest the academy had ever traveled—earning them the envy of many upperclassmen. On the night before their departure, Qiu Yun’s roommates chattered excitedly until the early hours of the morning. Yet, the lack of sleep did nothing to dampen their spirits. The next morning, everyone except Qiu Yun seemed to be running on pure adrenaline. Qiu Yun was jolted awake by Liu Yujin loudly singing, *"Our home~town, is in the fields of hope~!"*
In the twenty-first century, Qiu Yun had visited the Yungang Grottoes before. It was during the summer after her first year of high school; Sima Feng had taken her and Chen Liping on a week-long tour of Shanxi. The Yungang Grottoes had been a mandatory stop, but she had only viewed them superficially as part of a tour group, leaving her with a faint impression. She recalled a time later when she had run into Liang He on a high-speed train; she had been helping Wu Liu ask for one of Liang He’s books, which seemed to be related to these very grottoes. A strange sensation washed over her, like watching a movie in reverse—experiencing the ending first, only to be led by chance back to the beginning. It was the kind of feeling that forced one to believe in fate, in destiny, in the will of heaven.
Thus, even though she had been there before, Qiu Yun looked forward to this trip with particular curiosity.
However, the very first hurdle of the journey proved to be an ordeal.
The tickets the academy had purchased for the students were standing-room only, and the journey from City A to Datong took eighteen hours. This meant Qiu Yun would have to stand for eighteen hours on a "green-skin" train that stopped at every single station. Although the school had advised students to bring their own small folding stools, the carriages were packed to capacity. One could sit when the crowd thinned, but at the busier stations, there was no room to even place a stool; people stood shoulder to shoulder. Without air conditioning, the windows were thrown wide open. As the heat rose, the various odors inside the carriage mingled into an indescribable stench. During the day, the students were energetic, filled with laughter and chatter. But as night fell and the novelty wore off, exhaustion set in. Everyone abandoned their reservations—creating space where there was none to set down their stools, leaning against one another, huddling together to catch a few snatches of sleep. By late night, the rhythmic snoring of deep sleepers made rest impossible.
At two in the morning, Qiu Yun’s head snapped down, startling her awake. Listening to the rising and falling "artificial symphony" around her, she found she could no longer sleep. She stood up and tiptoed toward the vestibule between the carriages to get some fresh air.
This area was near the toilet, where two men who looked like farmers were sprawled on the floor in a "Ge You Slump," fast asleep. Perhaps because of the lingering odor, there was a bit more space here. Qiu Yun stood by the window. Outside was the pitch-black countryside; she could see nothing but her own blurred reflection on the glass. She stretched her stiff limbs and gave the window a hard tug. It slid up, and the wind rushed in with a violent roar. Startled, she tried to pull it back down, but it jammed. As she was struggling with it, a hand reached out and helped her slide the window back into place.
Another silhouette appeared on the glass.
"Why aren't you resting?"
She and Liang He spoke almost simultaneously.
Qiu Yun turned around. "I slept for a bit, then woke up and came for some air. What about you?" She hadn't seen Liang He since boarding. The art students were split between two carriages, with Liang He and another teacher, Lin Zhongren, each overseeing one. Qiu Yun happened to be in Lin Zhongren’s carriage.
"I'm not very sleepy," Liang He said.
Qiu Yun noticed a sketchbook in his hand. "Sketching?"
Liang He looked down and smiled. "Yes. This is actually the best time for quick sketches."
Qiu Yun leaned in. Sure enough, the pages were filled with a dozen or so sketches of people in various sleeping poses: some leaning against windows, some slumped over tables, some propped against others, some lying flat on the floor, and some "fishing"—nodding off repeatedly. With just a few strokes, he had captured their expressions and postures vividly, making them leap off the page.
Qiu Yun smiled. "You certainly know how to find joy in hardship and pass the time. But..." Her finger paused over a drawing. "You drew Da Chen! I was right next to her. If I’d known, I wouldn't have gotten up."
"I was just sketching at random." Liang He took the sketchbook back.
"Then why don't you do a proper one of me?" Qiu Yun asked on a whim.
"You?" Liang He looked up at her.
"Yes."
Liang He’s eyes flickered slightly.
"What's wrong?" Qiu Yun did a little twirl. "I'm a very professional model. I won't move."
Liang He smiled. "Next time."
"Next time?" Qiu Yun tilted her head. "Isn't now a good time? We're both bored anyway. How about I sketch you instead?"
Liang He looked at her again, then smiled and tucked his pen into his bag. "Next time."
"What, don't you trust me? Or are you shy?"
Ignoring her playful persistence, Liang He looked out the window and changed the subject. "We'll be there in three hours."
"...I see." Qiu Yun followed his gaze. It was a void of darkness. She imagined the fields outside, just like the song—they were traveling through the "fields of hope." The faint sound of frogs croaking drifted in from the distance.
"You know," Qiu Yun couldn't help but say, "thirty years from now, trains will be very, very fast."
"Hmm?" Liang He turned his head. "Very, very fast? How fast?"
"Well..." Qiu Yun said, "they can reach speeds of over 200 kilometers per hour. More than double what they are now."
"How do you know?" Liang He noted her serious expression. "You sound as if you've actually ridden one."
"I... I think they will be," Qiu Yun whispered. "With social development and technological progress, maybe... maybe even 500 kilometers per hour is possible."
"Then why not ten years, or twenty? Why thirty? Why such a specific number?"
"That..." Qiu Yun hedged, "I just said it randomly."
"Thirty years later..." Liang He followed her thought, narrowing his eyes slightly. "2018. I’ll be fifty-three, and you’ll be nearly fifty. I wonder what it will be like then... it feels so far away."
He turned back to look at Qiu Yun, a smile playing on his lips. That smile struck Qiu Yun’s heart like a bolt of lightning. Thirty years... in this world, Liang He still had his thirty years, perhaps forty or fifty... but she didn't. She only had a few months... and even if she didn't leave, she only had four years.
She wouldn't be in his future world.
An indescribable ache bloomed in her chest, and tears threatened to well up. She suddenly realized that she was truly leaving; her time was genuinely counting down. Although she had known this for a long time, that "knowing" had never felt as direct or as profound as it did now.
Liang He’s words had jolted her out of her reverie.
She turned back to the dark window and murmured, as if to herself, "Thirty years from now, you will still be young, healthy, and handsome. Time won't have left many marks on your face. You’ll have stayed at A-University as a professor, specializing in Buddhist art, and you’ll write a monograph on the Datong Grottoes..."
"Hey," Liang He interrupted softly. Seeing how solemn she looked, he couldn't help but tease, "You make it sound so real. Is this some ancestral secret? Are you telling my fortune?"
"Think of it that way if you like," Qiu Yun replied without explanation. Looking at her reflection in the glass, she forced a light tone. "My family’s fortune-telling has always been very accurate. You can see for yourself later if I was right."
"And what about you? Tell your own fortune first. What will you be like in thirty years?"
"Me?..." Qiu Yun hesitated.
Liang He laughed. "What, you can tell others' fortunes but not your own? Let me try for you—" He mimicked a fortune-teller, tapping his fingers together. "Thirty years from now, you should be a somewhat successful painter. If you're still in City A, then perhaps I’ll invite you to give a lecture at A-University... maybe we’ll have a chance to ride those 'very, very fast' trains you mentioned... maybe we’ll even have afternoon tea together..." His voice slowed, as if he were truly visualizing it.
"Is that so..." The corners of Qiu Yun’s mouth lifted. If it were true, it would be wonderful. But her smile quickly faded. What would Qiu Yun be like in thirty years?
If she was Qiu Xiaoyun, she would die of brain cancer in four years. If she was Sima Qiu Yun, thirty years later, she would just be an ordinary former student whom Liang He had once taught.
She didn't have the "thirty years" he imagined.
"I don't know," was all she could say.
"I was thinking of recommending you for Party membership," Liang He teased, tapping her on the head. "It seems your ideological awareness still needs some work."
"Fine." Qiu Yun didn't want to continue the topic. Liang He didn't know what she was thinking, and even if he did, he wouldn't believe it. She leaned against the window, letting the wind toss her hair.
The sound of the wind mingled with the snoring of the farmers. Then, the train entered a tunnel. The echoes magnified the clattering of the tracks, and the wind grew stronger, blowing Qiu Yun’s hair into a tangled mess. She had to pull it back into place.
Amidst the cacophony, Liang He suddenly spoke. "I have a very strange feeling."
"What?"
"I feel like... I’ve seen you somewhere before."
Qiu Yun’s hand froze. If this were thirty years later, she would have dismissed it as a cliché pickup line. But hearing it from Liang He now made her limbs go cold. Over the "clack-clack-clack" of the train, she pressed, "What did you say?"
"I mean... I feel like that first time I went to your dorm to apologize and brought you some food. You ran down in such a hurry and then just stood there in front of me. You stared at me for a few seconds without saying a word," Liang He said slowly. "At that moment, I didn't speak either."
"Because I thought it was so strange. This person in front of me... I felt like I’d seen her somewhere before."
"...Is that so..." Qiu Yun bit her lip hard, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time.
"Isn't it strange? But I don't know why. I’ve wanted to tell you for a long time, but I was afraid it would sound presumptuous."
"Maybe, just maybe... we really have met before," Qiu Yun said, half-joking, half-serious.
"Really? We... we really met before?" Liang He took her seriously.
"I'm joking," Qiu Yun said lightly, her tone playful. "It’s a good thing you prefaced it, otherwise I would have thought you were reciting lines from Jia Baoyu."
"Oh..." Liang He blinked, then laughed as well. "It’s a good thing I waited until now to tell you."
Qiu Yun wanted to tell him that now was the perfect time, but then again, perhaps the timing didn't matter. In the vast heavens above, God surely knew everything.
The train rattled and clattered through the tunnel.
It grew even darker outside, and even the dim lights inside the train seemed to fade. If only this train could go on like this forever—always on the road, never reaching a destination. Or perhaps, if passing through this tunnel meant traveling through thirty years of time. If, in the final second of leaving the tunnel, night turned to day and she and Liang He were exactly as he had described—the sun rising over the horizon as they sat across from each other on a high-speed train, drinking tea.
But the wind suddenly died down, the clattering of the tracks softened, and the sound of frogs returned. The train had exited the tunnel.
A lifetime of change, gone in an instant.
Outside, there was still only the endless, pitch-black night of a summer in 1988.
***
| Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 云冈石窟 | Yungang Grottoes | Ancient Buddhist temple grottoes near Datong, Shanxi. |
| 大同 | Datong | A city in northern Shanxi province. |
| 绿皮火车 | Green-skin train | Old-fashioned, slow, non-air-conditioned trains in China. |
| 小马扎 | Small folding stool | A portable, traditional Chinese stool. |
| 葛优瘫 | Ge You Slump | A popular internet meme/slang referring to a specific lazy sitting posture (anachronistic for 1988, used by the time-traveling narrator). |
| 钓鱼 | Fishing | Slang for nodding off while sitting up (the head bobbing like a fishing float). |
| 贾宝玉 | Jia Baoyu | The protagonist of *Dream of the Red Chamber*; famous for saying "I have seen this sister before" upon meeting Lin Daiyu. |
| 沧海桑田 | Canghai Sangtian | Idiom: "The blue sea turned into mulberry fields," meaning great changes over time. |
