Qi Han lived in an unusually oppressive home. His parents kept him on an extremely tight leash, and his father had violent tendencies, often resorting to fists. On weekends Qi Han was more likely to be at home, and when he was, his phone was very likely to be checked by his parents. So even though Han Yiyi was worried, she didn't dare text him until Monday morning self-study. The moment she sent "Did you bluff your way through?" her phone was confiscated by the homeroom teacher on patrol.

After morning exercises, during the long break between classes, Han Yiyi stood in line outside the office with her English textbook waiting to recite. Mai Mang, who had just come out after asking a question, latched onto her. "Were you texting your BF this morning?"

"Wish I were." She laughed lightly.

Every detail of that night two days ago was still vivid.

On the way back to school, Qi Han took two steps forward and caught Han Yiyi's arm.

The girl looked back in surprise.

Shadow and shadow.

On a small patch of ground they overlapped.

Above them, the streetlight gave off a warm yellow glow.

Han Yiyi lifted her eyes to him and heard him—what was he saying? Each word certain.

"Yiyi, no matter what happens to you, if you can't think of anyone else, come find me. I don't know what I can do, but at least I can stay with you. I don't want you to wrong yourself, and I don't want you to give up on yourself."

How could he—suddenly become so serious?

Summer was approaching. Heat wrapped around them. The roadside trees occasionally swayed lazily in the wind with a soft shhh.

Compared with the silence of the next few seconds, the rustle of leaves was already loud enough. The sound came from above and to the side, yet the girl couldn't bring herself to look up and respond.

She couldn't react at all. She stood frozen in place. Not shocked, not stunned—just emptied out.

Where they touched, the faint scent of disinfectant spread through the air and changed its quality. Maybe something else changed too. But what? Her thoughts had been cut off and wouldn't line up. She could only remember everything in sharp detail and turn it over day after day later, like looking at a photo with soft focus. Eyes that wouldn't move away. Breathing gone uneven. Once she'd been determined to wander in one dead end of a maze, then suddenly understood, on a certain night in summer. No—near summer, but still spring.

A hot night that still had spring wind in it.

Han Yiyi understood. For three months she'd kept changing boyfriends not because Mai Mang was picky, but because she didn't really like any of them. She'd been desperate to break free from that failed old relationship. At the same time, she'd hoped the news would reach her ex and draw his attention again. Such contradictory feelings. But as Qi Han had said, she was only "giving up on herself."

"I broke up with that guy." Han Yiyi told Mai Mang with a sense of relief.

"What? No way? No way! I don't even know who that guy is! And you already broke up with him!"

Mai Mang's reaction was almost more intense than the dumped boyfriend's.

Han Yiyi laughed helplessly and spread her hands. "Good thing you can clear your name now. It wasn't because of you. The mess in my love life isn't your fault. I'm sorry about that."

"Then whose fault is it?" Mai Mang pressed, oblivious.

Han Yiyi glanced at the girl beside her. This wasn't a topic she could go too deep on with her. "Our ancestors'. When they invented characters, they took the top half of 'change' and the bottom half of 'attitude' and put them together to make 'love.' That doomed romance to being something twisted."

"I see." Mai Mang believed it completely and nodded as if enlightened. "Oh, speaking of 'twisted'—I think I've been stalked by a creep lately."

"Huh? Any clues?"

"Like, someone's been secretly taking pictures of me."

"Who?"

"No idea. On the way back from exercises just now something flashed in front of my eyes. Must've been a camera flash!"

Who told you the only thing in the world that can flash is a camera flash?

And given that Mai Mang's sixth sense had never been reliable, Han Yiyi's face went dark. "Are you sure it wasn't lightning?"

"How could you see lightning on a sunny day?" Mai Mang declared confidently.

Han Yiyi calmly walked over and pulled open the corridor curtain. "Maimai, it's been raining since you saw that 'lightning.' The world is just a little unpredictable."

Mai Mang had no concept of "the world changing in an instant." Fortunately, Mai Mang had an all-powerful brother.

Of course, Xie Jingyuan hadn't foreseen the downpour before leaving the house. He'd only canceled some school commitments and gone home early in the rain, grabbed an umbrella, and gone to Yangming to pick up Mai Mang. Mai Mang had an umbrella but refused to use it, squeezing under her brother's instead. Jingyuan had no choice.

On the way home Mai Mang suddenly dropped a bombshell. "Gege, I think you've been a little twisted lately. Are you in love?"

The umbrella in the boy's hand wobbled. He barely kept his face blank. "I came all this way to pick you up and this is how you repay me?"

Whether "twisted" was fair was debatable—in the mental world of cult leader Mai Mang, "twisted" sometimes just meant "unusual." But Jingyuan was clearly rattled. Mai Mang wasn't bad at observation, so she pressed her advantage. "So you are in love?"

"No such thing."

"Then what is it? Tell me, tell me!" Her talent for pestering was first-rate.

Jingyuan exhaled and shortened his stride. Mai Mang happily hooked her arm through his.

"The girl I like is the one Jibo gege showed you in a photo last time..." Jingyuan had a classmate who lived in the same building and often fed intel to Mai Mang, so for her it was old news.

"Jing-jie?"

He'd even told her the name? Jingyuan had half a mind to go back and settle scores with someone. "...Yeah, that's her. She took a guaranteed admission spot that wasn't hers. It's caused a huge uproar at school and a lot of criticism. And the person the spot originally belonged to is also my good friend."

"So you don't know who to side with?"

"This isn't a fight. There's no question of taking sides. No matter what I do, I can't change what's already happened. I just don't know where I'm supposed to stand."

"Obviously on Jing-jie's side!"

Jingyuan was a little surprised. Mai Mang had answered almost without hesitation.

"Why?"

"Because you like her."

"But in principle—"

"No principles."

"Huh?"

"I think if you like someone, you should be ready to tell principles to go die. Take you, for example. If you fought Ultraman, I'd stand on your side without a second thought. Ultraman might be the symbol of justice, but you're the most important person to me."

"Maimai, I'm a little moved right now, but," Jingyuan reminded her with an awkward face, "I'm not a monster."

Mai Mang completely ignored the monster assumption and kept going. "Everyone else is already on your friend's side. If you like Jing-jie and don't comfort her, who will? Even a death-row inmate who reforms can be forgiven. Jing-jie must be hurting under all that criticism. Would you like someone with no humanity? You wouldn't! You have to always believe this: Jing-jie isn't a bad person. So she shouldn't be executed."

Jingyuan had wanted to remind her not to mix Jing Zhihui up with murderers, but knowing she wouldn't get it next time either, he decided one useless sentence was one too many and held his tongue.

"The thing is, maybe this isn't even the time to comfort her. When someone's healing alone, other people's comfort can backfire. I'm usually like that."

"Gege, you're a refrigerator. Normal people aren't like you. Besides, you usually get whatever you want—when do you ever have 'time alone to heal'?"

For the first time in two weeks, Jingyuan smiled. He raised his free hand and ruffled Mai Mang's hair. "I do. Like today, when you hit me with 'twisted, monster, refrigerator' all in a row."

Rain poured down.

On the sidewalk, water surged past their shoe tops.

Laughter between brother and sister cut through the misty curtain of rain and stretched forward.

The distance ahead was invisible, but everything nearby had been washed clear by the rain.

Some things, though, are simple to say and hard to do.

That day, Xie Jingyuan stopped in front of the honor roll where "Liu Xichuan's" name had been replaced with "Jing Zhihui's." He stared at it for a while, mind racing, thinking about how to comfort Jing Zhihui.

Xie Jingyuan had always been cold to everyone. Even Jing Zhihui, as the girl he liked, hadn't gotten an extra degree of warmth. They weren't close enough for him to offer comfort naturally, and since he'd been directly admitted he rarely showed up in the classroom anymore. Would it be too abrupt to go to her on purpose and stiffly declare where he stood?

Maybe the key question wasn't choosing a side, or hesitating over whether to comfort her, but how to comfort her.

The boy had no experience with that.

The three characters "Jing Zhihui" at the focus of his gaze blurred slightly from unfocused vision. The next second, as someone passed behind him, the corridor wall lights came on. Jingyuan realized he shouldn't linger in front of this notice and turned to leave—then looked back and froze.

Standing pale-faced on the stairs halfway up was Jing Zhihui herself.

In the dim corridor the boy turned. His gaze landed squarely in her eyes.

Time passed second by second, like blood dripping away drop by drop.

Both of them seemed frozen in place, motionless.

Both hearts were a tangle of feelings.

If she could choose, she would never want such a sudden encounter. Xie Jingyuan knew that in this helpless state he couldn't give her comfort openly.

The wall light went dark again in silence. In the blurred quiet and darkness, only their own breathing remained, so steady it was almost stopped. Jingyuan's gaze still hovered where Zhihui should be. It didn't move.

A moment later several third-year students carrying books passed by. Tap-tap footsteps made the voice-activated lights come on again. He could still hear their low, fragmented whispers. "Is that her?" Another person glanced quickly at Zhihui and lowered her voice. "That's her." They didn't notice the boy a few steps away was Xie Jingyuan. They didn't notice this was a standoff between two people.

But the two in the standoff noticed them pass and talk.

Jingyuan kept looking into Zhihui's eyes.

After the noise, the light went out again. The two of them still stood rigid.

In the darkness, the place where the girl should have been standing became a blurred phantom in the boy's vision.

A few more students passed.

Jingyuan and Zhihui held each other's gaze in the flicker of the wall lights—on, off, on, off.

—If you like Jing-jie and don't comfort her, who will?

The question wasn't even comfort anymore. Comfort was actually easy.

Say some sweet words from a safe distance. Hand over a handkerchief and wipe her tears if she cried. Hug her, if your head was hot enough. Would any of that change anything? Would it lessen Zhihui's guilt and shame by even a little?

There was no surprise in her eyes, no innocence, no clarity. She seemed to have no emotion at all—very hollow, giving the illusion of being disheartened and indifferent. But it was because she cared too much that her eyes were full of a plea: Please disappear quickly.

When the wall light came on for what felt like the hundredth time, the boy opened his mouth but didn't make a sound. He only sighed. In the end Jingyuan moved first, walking down the stairs past the girl frozen on them. No words. They brushed shoulders and passed.

—You have to always believe: Jing-jie isn't a bad person.

She wasn't.

A top student like her, facing the college entrance exam, bore pressure most people couldn't imagine. Too much was expected of her, far beyond what anyone could carry. Maybe taking someone else's spot had been unavoidable. Maybe it hadn't been her intention at all. If she wanted excuses, there were plenty.

But she knew right from wrong.

Because of that, the girl had already been swallowed by guilt and shame. Anything Jingyuan said or did now would be useless. It would only add to her fear.

Jing Zhihui wasn't Mai Mang. Not every girl's inner world was as simple and direct as Mai Mang's, black and white.

Jingyuan had enough reason to believe that if Zhihui were given one wish that would come true, she wouldn't wish for "Xie Jingyuan to forgive me and comfort me." She would wish—

For Xie Jingyuan to go away. Better if he didn't exist in this space at all.

Don't look at me like this. Don't hear all the talk about right and wrong.

Don't interfere. Don't encourage me without principles. Don't give me more burden and pressure. Don't do anything.

If he knew nothing at all, that would be best.

When school let out, a light drizzle fell. By the time Jingyuan got home on the bus it had stopped. He looked out the window, decided there was no need to bring Mai Mang an umbrella, and went to his room to change out of his rain-soaked uniform. He'd only gotten halfway into dry clothes when the door burst open and Mai Mang came in, safe and sound and in high spirits.

Jingyuan reflexively hid in the closet. Once he saw it was Mai Mang, his nerves relaxed. "Didn't I tell you to knock? You're a girl, for God's sake. What kind of bandit barges in like that!"

Mai Mang didn't care. "What's there to be shy about? You're my gege! In my eyes you're not even a boy!"

Jingyuan pulled on his T-shirt and asked casually, "If I'm not a boy, what am I?" He didn't expect anything sensible.

Sure enough. "In my heart gege is basically a household appliance. My biggest dream is dragging my handsome gege out for exhibition and charging admission. Later I'll use 'dating my gege' as leverage to scam free meals..."

"I'll thank my parents on your behalf for creating me as an exhibition-grade household appliance and for your life plan built on bad taste." Jingyuan cut off Mai Mang's derailed inner drama in time—but in Mai Mang's world, saying "thank you" meant thank you.

The girl was delighted and handed him the stack of things she'd been holding.

"What's this?"

"Midterm exam papers. Sign them for me."

"Why me? Why not Mom?" She'd gotten off work early too.

"Her handwriting is too childish—all careful strokes. The teacher always suspects I signed them myself."

"Your grades aren't that great either, and you've got the nerve to diss someone's childish handwriting."

The moment the first half left his mouth Mai Mang looked visibly depressed. Jingyuan regretted speaking without thinking and quickly tried to fix it. He flipped to the math paper and pointed at a multiple-choice question. "Whoa, you got this hard one right. You're so smart!" He sounded like one of those talking arithmetic toys from kindergarten.

Mai Mang rolled her eyes at him. "Gege, you haven't comforted Jing-jie yet, have you?"

"...No." He had no idea why she was bringing that up now.

"Then don't. Let Jing-jie live a little longer. I forgot what you're good at." Meaning: Xie Jingyuan's comfort usually had the effect of driving people to suicide.

"..."

The girl took back the signed papers and continued miserably, "Come to my parent-teacher conference tomorrow at four."

"Okay." Out of guilt he agreed without thinking.

After Mai Mang disappeared outside the door, Jingyuan realized he'd been played. "Attending a parent-teacher conference" clearly meant "going to school on display." Mai Mang really did what she said. Immediately.