In deep winter Shanghai, a fine drizzle wrapped in biting cold seeped into the marrow. Zhou Xu stood before the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing at the dazzling lights of the Bund, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the second button of his shirt—one that Su Nian had sewn on herself years ago, with crooked stitches that he stubbornly refused to replace.
In a small Jiangnan town seven years ago, during a summer of clamorous cicadas, Zhou Xu met Su Nian when they were sorted into classes in the second year of high school. She wore her hair in a low ponytail, clutched her textbooks, and sat in the very last row of the classroom like a timid little beast afraid of being discovered. Until one afternoon when Zhou Xu forgot to bring his physics homework and was punished by the teacher to stand in the corridor, Su Nian silently handed over half a piece of mung bean cake and whispered, "Eat something sweet, and it won't hurt so much."
From then on, light began to fill Zhou Xu's world. They shared the same pair of earphones to listen to Jay Chou, split a skewer of candied hawthorns under the old pagoda tree on the way home from school, and Su Nian would turn her class notes into cute cartoons while Zhou Xu secretly carved her eraser into a little rabbit. Once, when a torrential rainstorm struck suddenly, Zhou Xu took off his school uniform jacket and covered Su Nian's head with it, the two of them squeezing under a narrow eaves while the water droplets falling from the tips of her hair…
Chapter 198