The start of the school term.

Before the start of the new semester, our class gathered for the first time for a self-study session. Our classroom had been moved to the second-year building, and the two "Elite Classes"—Class One and Class Two—were assigned to the fifth floor, the highest level. Seating was currently random, and as luck would have it, Ling Quan and I were seated one behind the other. Our homeroom teacher, who was also our math teacher, and our English teacher had been replaced by the ones from the original Class One. Our new homeroom teacher was a woman in her thirties who seemed full of energy. The teachers for all other subjects remained the same as they had been in Class Two.

"Bring your summer homework to the next meeting—though the competition students are exempt," the homeroom teacher announced. I let out a long sigh of relief.

Then, the teacher called students into the office one by one, based on their roll numbers, for private talks. About halfway through the period, Ling Quan, myself, and two other girls were called in together.

"Xiao Lin, I have nothing left to say to you. Just keep up the hard work, okay?" The teacher patted Ling Quan's shoulder expectantly.

"Understood," Ling Quan replied with a faint smile and a nod.

"And then... Xing Shuo and Fang Chen, I’ve already spoken with you before the end of last semester... Let’s see, you are... Gu Heqing?" The teacher used a ballpoint pen to mark the roster one by one.

"Yes," I replied. From the moment I stepped into the office, I had kept my head down, standing on the side furthest from the desk.

"What’s wrong? Why so shy?" The teacher stood up and placed a hand on my shoulder. It was likely a gesture she used to bridge the gap with students, but I recoiled slightly. Perhaps because the teachers I had encountered as a child were all very stern, I had always been terrified of teachers—even gentle ones like her—as well as anyone possessing "authority," like my parents when they suddenly turned serious. Because I was afraid—afraid of being dragged into an office or having my parents called—I had always been very obedient. But... no, I was a high school student now, and I wasn't here because I had done anything wrong. I forced myself to look up and said, "Hello, teacher."

"You’re a student in the Elite Class now; you need to learn to be confident. To be in this school, in this class, and sitting in this classroom on the fifth floor, you must be both smart and hardworking, right? I seem to have occasionally seen your name on the top-twenty list..." The teacher smiled kindly, then suddenly changed her tone. "But only occasionally. It took me a while to recall who you were after seeing your name just now." She flipped through the cumulative rankings from previous exams. "As for Lin Quan, I’ve seen her at the very top of the list every time, so I recognized her immediately. See? There’s still a gap, isn't there?"

It felt as if a blunt blade had pierced my chest. When Ling Quan’s mother came to pick her up at the gate, she had also told her to "make friends with more outstanding classmates." As for me, despite having used almost all my strength to sit in the same classroom as her, I still couldn't bridge the gap between us. In other words... I wasn't good enough for her.

Seeing that I remained silent, the homeroom teacher continued, "Actually, there are many students like you. You are certainly excellent, but you’re just missing that final push to reach the very top. You’ve all heard the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, right?" She looked at the group in the office. "But at this stage, it’s no longer the Tortoise and the Hare—look around you. Everyone who has made it this far, you are all hares. So, you can’t afford to slack off, understood?"

The weight of her hand on my shoulder increased, and I nodded heavily.

"Oh, right. Gu Heqing, wait a moment." Before I could leave, the teacher called me back. "You were the publicity committee member for Class Two, right? Your class’s blackboard newspapers always won first prize; I was always quite envious. There’s another competition coming up. Take note of the theme: 'New Era, New Transcendence.' Find a few people, erase the old one, and redraw it. Have it done by September 1st."

I nodded again.

"You’re a bit too quiet, too shy—new semester! New transcendence! Keep it up!" The teacher encouraged me with another pat on the shoulder.

The gap... the hare's race... oh, and the blackboard newspaper... My mind was a mess when I walked out.

I returned to my seat and stared at the back of the girl I longed for. Her loose white shirt outlined her slender frame. We were actually this close now. I liked her so much, I was so excited, but...

*Think about the gap between you. You aren't good enough for her.*

I buried my head in my elbows, my chest aching. No, no, I had to do something. I rushed to the podium, grabbed a bucket and a rag, went downstairs to get water, dragged two chairs from the adjacent self-study room, and poured all my energy into scrubbing the paint marks off the back blackboard. While scrubbing, I planned the layout. Once finished, I found some reference images on the classroom's large screen, drew grid lines with a pencil, and as for the content... I’d just find something related to the "New Era" from the last two issues of *Composition Materials*. Nobody really reads the text on the blackboard anyway. Ever since primary school, I had done this so many times that I could finish it without even thinking.

I used chalk to sketch the outline for the central title, then borrowed magazines from two classmates in the back row, folding the corners of the pages I intended to copy. I needed someone to help me with the writing; my own handwriting didn't look good on a blackboard.

"Is there anyone... whose handwriting is nice... who can help me copy the text for the blackboard newspaper?" I stood at the podium and shouted as loudly as I could. The students below looked up for a moment, but soon they were back to writing their summer homework or competition books. No one answered. There was only silence. I didn't want to call out a second time.

Ling Quan stood up silently, walked straight to the podium, picked up a piece of white chalk from the tray, and turned to ask me, "Where should I copy from?"

In the end... it was you.

I lost all my momentum as a publicity committee member and began to stutter, "Uh, this part, I—I’ve framed this part, copy this paragraph on page thirty-five... and then copy this part on page forty-three on the right..."

After giving my instructions, I brought over my brushes, paints, and palette, and started drawing the central title and images in front of the large screen. I tried my best to focus on the drawing—I hadn't painted in a long time and my hand felt a bit rusty—but every few strokes, I couldn't help but glance at Ling Quan. The four or five o'clock sunlight slanted in through the west windows, illuminating us both. She stood on a stool, her right hand holding the chalk long and knobby, the nails on her left hand holding the magazine bitten down to the quick—neatly, evenly bitten. She often started biting her nails unconsciously while working on problems; even these little habits of hers seemed adorable to me.

At 5:30, it was time for school to end. I had mostly finished the main body of the drawing, and Ling Quan had finished copying a page and a half of text. I was shocked that her handwriting was so beautiful—neat, powerful, and fluid. She said she had practiced since she was a kid; I could only feel inferior.

"I really like the painting Xiao Qing did, too. It feels so real."

"It's nothing... do you need to go back first?"

"There's still a little bit left. I should be able to finish in ten minutes—being a little late shouldn't matter. What about you, when are you going back?"

"I... I’m living nearby now anyway, so it’s not too late to go back after everything is cleaned up."

"Oh." She sped up, and once she finished copying, she hopped lightly off the chair. Then, she pulled a small red phone from somewhere and snapped a few pictures of me and the blackboard.

"It—it’s not finished yet."

"I'm not taking pictures of the drawing," she said, giving me a sly smile at the screen before tossing the phone back into her desk drawer, grabbing her schoolbag, and running downstairs.

Until the day school started, we spent every day from morning till night in the lecture hall grinding through math competition problems. The summer break didn't feel like a break at all. After all, the exam on September 8th was drawing closer. Looking through the papers I had written, I couldn't help but feel a bit panicked; despite studying for so long, the number of advanced problems I could actually solve on my own was still countable on one hand. My skills... were still not enough.

School started, and I was now a second-year student. During the assembly, the homeroom teacher handed out last year’s college entrance exam papers, telling us to try writing whatever we could to get a feel for it. The implication was, "In a year, it will be your turn." The number of subjects dropped from nine to six, and music and art classes were cut as well. I don't know why, but Ling Quan's mother appeared at the school gate more and more frequently, pushing a small electric scooter to take her home, as if she were afraid of wasting even those ten minutes of walking time.

A week later, on a Sunday morning, the Math Olympiad took place. At the city’s test center, the crowds surged. I squeezed through the encirclement of parents with my pencil case and admission ticket. The loudspeakers were playing *True Hero* over and over again: "Seize every minute of your life, give your all for the dreams in our hearts... Without experiencing the wind and rain, how can one see the rainbow? No one succeeds without effort..."

And then, I spent the duration of the second round of the exam struggling for my life... and then, having no choice, I sat there blankly for nearly two hours, during which I did some desperate artistic creations on my scratch paper with my drafting pencil.

A score of zero was inevitable.

I walked out of the exam room in a daze, the sun blindingly bright. For me, such a result was within reason and fully expected.

Forget it, forget it. Even if I felt guilty for wasting the school's nomination, it was useless. Look forward. The second year of high school... was just beginning.

The new English teacher asked every student to choose an English name to use during conversation practice.

I flipped through the dictionary for a long time and chose the English translation of the last character of my name: "Cyan."

"It's the root of the word 'Cyanide'," Ling Quan said, turning back to stare at the new name I had written on the cover of my notebook.

"Eh? Do they... have some connection?"

"One theory is that the hypoxia caused by cyanide poisoning leads to cyanosis, and another is that the pigment Prussian Blue contains a cyanide radical... I don't remember where I saw it."

I was about to say, "You know so much," but then I remembered her telling me in the biology competition classroom about her childhood obsession with toxins. I quickly changed the subject.

"What's Ling Quan's name—Zero-aldehyde?" I flipped through the dictionary, reading out the awkward chemical name.

"Hahahaha, who names people like that... Whatever, let's just go with 'Rin,' a direct phonetic translation."

"Rin? Are you talking about Tohsaka Rin, or Kagamine Rin, or Ayanami Rei..." Ye Zihan suddenly cut into our conversation, muttering to himself. That's right, this guy actually ended up in my class again. He didn't sit there before, but after two days of disrupting class, he was moved next to me—the quiet one—and thus (in his words) we were fatefully reunited.

"Get lost..." we said in unison, ignoring him.