Come dinner time, Gu Fei called to summon him for dumplings. If it hadn’t been for Gu Fei’s custom ringtone—a unique stimulus to Jiang Cheng’s mind—he probably wouldn’t have reacted at all.
The dumplings were the work of Li Yan and the others. Apparently ten of them contained a coin, and whoever got one would have their wishes come true.
They couldn’t fit all the dumplings on one plate, so Gu Fei divided the dumplings directly into each person’s bowl. The result was that each person got one yuan from their dumplings—Gu Miao stared in confusion for a good while because she bit into a coin—except Jiang Cheng, whose five dumplings all contained coins.
“Gah!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, shooting a glance at Gu Fei as he bit into his fifth coin of the night.
“Da-Fei.” Li Yan couldn’t help cracking up. “You cheated, didn’t you?”
“He must’ve.” Liu Fan tossed his coin up in the air, laughing. “I’m impressed he didn’t give all ten to Jiang Cheng—he’s really paying his respects to our friendship.”
“You guys aren’t the ones preparing for the exams,” said Gu Fei.
“Then you could at least leave a couple for yourself,” said Luo Yu. “We’re not taking the exams, but you are.”
Gu Fei just smiled.
✦ ✦ ✦
In Jiang Cheng’s mind, the main events of New Year’s were over once they’d eaten the dumplings. For the next few days of the break, he stayed cooped up in his apartment and hardly went out at all.
Every couple of days, Gu Fei would drag him out to take a walk and get some fresh air, quizzing him sporadically on key points along the way.
Jiang Cheng was surprised to find that even though Gu Fei hadn’t intentionally tried to memorize anything, for the questions he’d asked more than once, he knew whether Jiang Cheng’s answers were right or wrong without even checking.
“Nice,” said Jiang Cheng. “You’ve memorized all of it?”
“Nah,” Gu Fei said with a chuckle. “No way. I only have a vague recollection. I couldn’t answer it myself, but I can tell if your answer is right or not.”
“Oh.”
Even though he didn’t know how much it would help, he gradually started asking Gu Fei to quiz him more and more often. One reason was that the closer they got to exam day, the more he needed to continue refreshing his memory of the knowledge. The other reason was that, in the back of his mind, he didn’t want Gu Fei to give up.
He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he thought this method of mutual benefit was good—and Gu Fei wouldn’t notice.
✦ ✦ ✦
Just like that, the winter break passed by in measured rhythm and flowed into the early start of a new semester. Unlike the tragic fate of Pan Zhi and his peers, who had to start classes only four days into the lunar New Year, Fourth High gave its students a full week off.
“Everyone!” Lao-Xu announced from behind his lectern. “It’s already February! If you slack off in February and slack off in March, and slack off in April, and…” It probably hadn’t occurred to him that there would be so many months to list before he started speaking, but by the time he’d rattled all of them off he was starting to stumble over his words. He cleared his throat a couple of times before he continued, “And May, then sadness and regret await you in June! From this moment on, there will be no more holidays, and you must not loosen your grip…”
The day after tomorrow was Valentine’s Day, but Jiang Cheng had forgotten about it completely. He remembered it with a start when Wang Xu came in the morning to ask him what he should give to Yi Jing as a gift.
Jiang Cheng had practically wrung his brain dry with all the studying, and there was no time to make something for Gu Fei. He still wanted to give Gu Fei something, though—but what?
“Stop thinking about Valentine’s Day!” Lao-Xu raised his voice. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re all thinking!”
Jiang Cheng’s heart jumped; raising his eyebrow, he shot an involuntary glance up at Lao-Xu. Next to him, Gu Fei started laughing. “Did Lao-Xu get it right?”
Jiang Cheng smiled and didn’t say anything.
“We can just set off a couple of fireworks while we’re out for a walk,” Gu Fei said quietly. “Extenuating circumstances. Stop mulling over it.”
“You still have fireworks left over?” Jiang Cheng asked. “I thought Er-Miao went through all of them.”
“Where’s your brain?” said Gu Fei. “They’re still selling them on every corner. I bought more.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng laughed, then sighed. “Sounds good. What’s one year in the grand scheme of things? We’ll celebrate properly next year.”
“Exactly.”
“Next month is your first practice exam.” Lao-Xu kept lecturing them earnestly as he stood in front of the classroom. “You must brace yourself. Show me what you’re capable of!”
His words weren’t met with the usual buzzing of conversation in the classroom…though that was probably because everyone was slumped over their desks, catching up on sleep after overindulging during the break.
Ah, the first practice exam is next month…
“Look! Look at the countdown! Do you see this?!” Lao-Xu pointed at the countdown placard hanging above the blackboard. He raised his voice again. “We’re in the final stretch, people! Let’s go!”
Jiang Cheng leaned back in his chair. The placard showed that there were 114 days until the university entrance exams.
He knew that there wasn’t much time left, but the three months he’d been tracking in his mind had seemed longer than 114 days. Seeing these three meager digits, he found his chest tightening.
114 days.
The time he had left to spend every moment, awake and asleep, by Gu Fei’s side was only 114 days, plus another… His brain suddenly stalled, keeping him from reaching the answer of this simple calculation.
But no matter what the answer was, it all seemed insufficient next to ∞.