“‘...Sometimes, just by living well, a person can save someone else.’”

At that time, he was still a careless and indifferent person. He never pursued top ranks in exams; as long as he passed, it was enough. His goal was to be in the middle of the grade—a very good position. It meant he wouldn’t receive excessive praise, nor would he be frequently lectured. He could be a transparent person—no one expected anything from him, and no one blamed him.

He didn’t need to work hard because his starting point in life was already higher than most people’s finish line. He had a privileged family; even if he did nothing, he could have wealth enough to squander for a lifetime. There was no need for him to study hard because his parents could easily send him abroad for education. Even if his grades were not ideal, they had many clever ways to support him.

He only needed to live a leisurely life; why bother struggling?

Therefore, he never put in effort and lived a carefree and casual life, comfortable and untroubled.

But this so-called “carefree and casual” did not always mean “happy,” nor did it mean “secure.” Sometimes, in excessive freedom, he felt confused, especially when he saw classmates like Yan Lin working hard toward a clear goal. His heart felt particularly empty.

What usually follows emptiness? Usually, it is downfall.

Besides his classmates at the public school, he had another group of friends with similar family backgrounds, but unlike him, they didn’t attend public school. They smoked, drank, engaged in early sexual activities, and other risky behaviors, living life seemingly both free and fashionable, trying to pull him into their world as an accomplice.

He refused at first, but later wavered and almost fell into that abyss. The reason he almost fell was not because he was interested in that lifestyle, but simply because he was bored.

A purposeless life is hard to sustain without stimulation.

So he lingered in that gray area for a long time, until one afternoon in his first year of high school, he heard a girl’s voice coming from the direction of the playground at dusk.

It was a motivational assembly held 100 days before the college entrance exam, a vulgar and clichéd event that dragged exhausted and powerless seniors to the playground to listen to speeches by school leaders.

The principal and dean were impressive; they had to deliver these pep talks every year, yet every time they spoke with passion. Their voices were loud and clear through the loudspeakers, reaching even the classrooms where first and second-year students had to listen to the same old official rhetoric, such as “Abandon the thought of luck, forge yourself through trials; accumulate every second of effort to achieve a stunning success,” or “Hundred days of fierce battle to top the golden list; ten years of hard study to repay parents’ deep kindness,” and so on.

He found it boring and could not empathize with such forced enthusiasm—until that girl’s voice drifted into his ears with the evening breeze.

She was Zhou Leqi, an outstanding senior student representative.

“Life offers many paths to walk. Perhaps in the future, we will gradually realize that on many of these paths, effort is useless, cheap, and ordinary,” she spoke slowly, calmly, and profoundly. “But right now, effort can be our strongest support. Every knowledge gap we fill now might help us earn a precious point in the exam, and that point might let us enter a better university, which might help us get closer to our dreams.”

“Exams themselves are always meaningless and boring; what we pursue is always something more metaphysical.”

“It is value, meaning, making the world a little better than it was without us.”

“We seem to be making concrete efforts for a grand narrative. Maybe someday in the future, some people will benefit from our existence, and their happiness will come from the struggles we endure now.”

“This is of course very difficult. You can also choose the easy path at the moment,” she smiled, “but if you haven’t fought desperately alone, haven’t fallen embarrassingly, how can you know you can’t win on your own in the end?”

He had never had such a listening experience before, nor did he know that someone could describe such a grand and heroic vision in such a calm and peaceful tone. She did not intend to incite anyone, but somehow she touched him deeply, stirring his emotions and empathy.

He couldn’t help but turn his face slightly, looking through the classroom glass and the crowd-filled playground, seeing that girl standing on the podium far away. They were too far apart for him to see her face clearly, only her silhouette against the gorgeous dusk and her hair fluttering slightly in the evening wind.

He couldn’t see her clearly, but he felt she was beautiful.

Indescribably beautiful.

Life seems long, but key moments are few. The choices made then leave lifelong marks. She happened to appear at his key moment and said a few words that touched his heart, so naturally and incredulously, he was changed.

He began to think about “the future,” a profound concept, and also some simple questions, such as what kind of person he wanted to become and what he wanted to do in the future.

These questions were hard to answer, at least in the brief three years of high school. All he could do was to try hard—to abandon the careless and meaningless self and, as she said, try to “fight desperately” to gain more possibilities for the still unclear “future.”

He began to take things seriously.

People love to create legends. After his grades soared, most people were happy to make legends about him—how smart and talented he was, how easy studying was for him. But that was not true.

There are no geniuses in this world. He was just an ordinary person who worked much harder than others to make up for his weak foundation. He stayed up countless nights, repeatedly doing countless exercises, studying almost every moment. This tedious life lasted nearly a year before he became the “Hou Shen” people talked about.

Only after experiencing all this did he understand how lonely “effort” really is: before achieving those glamorous results, he had to endure many long silent nights. Giving up was the easiest thing, always possible, but he also knew that only pain meant progress, so he had to actively choose that pain.

He was often exhausted, but whenever that happened, he would see that dusk, hear that girl’s voice and silhouette in the distance, and quietly think in many lonely early mornings: at this moment, was she also fighting desperately alone?

Thinking this way, everything seemed less hard.

At that moment, the cold autumn air still condensed in the room. That once vivid and bright girl was silently crying under the quilt. His heart was deeply stirred, yet extremely calm.

“Have you read Keigo Higashino?”

He asked slowly as if in casual talk.

“He wrote a book called The Devotion of Suspect X. It’s about a math genius who helps a mother and daughter hide the crime of killing the ex-husband. He takes the blame for them, fabricates lies to deceive the police, engaging in a battle of wits.”

She gave no response, but that didn’t stop him from continuing.

“The story is good, or maybe just average. When I first read it, I didn’t think the suspense was that exciting. Honestly, I found Ishigami’s feelings for Yasuko a bit strange, neither here nor there.”

“But later, the book had a passage explaining Ishigami’s feelings for the mother and daughter that suddenly convinced me. It made me believe his feelings could be strong enough to make him become a murderer for them—that passage left a deep impression on me, and I can still recite it.”

He paused to think, then began to recite slowly and calmly:

“‘After meeting the Hanaoka mother and daughter, Ishigami’s life changed. The thought of suicide vanished; he regained the joy of life. Just imagining their lives made him happy. On the coordinate of this world, there were these two points, Yasuko and Misato, a rare miracle. Sundays were happiest; just opening the window, he could hear their voices. Though he couldn’t catch the words clearly, the faint sounds carried by the wind were the highest music to Ishigami. He never desired to get involved with them. They were not his objects to touch. For noble things, just brushing against them was happiness enough, as with math. To seek fame would only harm his dignity. Helping the mother and daughter was natural for Ishigami. Without them, there would be no him now. He was not taking the blame but repaying a debt. Surely they were unaware. That was best...’”

He stopped here. The sentence was clearly incomplete, and the missing part was the key. The girl under the quilt held her breath, waiting for the half sentence he deliberately left out.

He didn’t keep her waiting long. After two or three seconds, he continued:

“‘...sometimes, just by living well, a person can save someone else.’”

His recitation ended here.

The last sentence floated slowly in the air, as calm and unhurried as his voice. The girl under the quilt remained silent, but her grip on the quilt seemed to tighten, like her heartbeat.

He seemed to notice her subtle movement, or maybe not, just like her, he fell into long silence. For a while, only the sound of rain outside the window remained in the room.

A long time passed, long enough for her to almost fall asleep in tears. Then he spoke again.

“Zhou Leqi.”

He called her full name, just like hours ago on the rooftop when he saved her, but now without harshness, only solemnity.

“I know something terrible happened. I know you’re tired and hurting now.”

“But life won’t always be like this... it will slowly get better.”

“You once changed me, made me believe that fighting desperately and enduring loneliness have value, made me feel life is worth the effort... You don’t have to do anything, just like Yasuko Hanaoka, just by living well, you’ve already saved me.”

“Now can you save yourself? Or... allow me to save you?”

“I can do everything. You don’t have to worry about anything. Just wait a little longer... don’t try to jump again.”

The boy’s voice was so gentle and quiet, even warmer than the rain outside that night.

He seemed no longer just a boy. In a few hours, he had become a man. Growth is sometimes sudden, a moment’s thing.

He liked her and was trying to catch her.

She knew his kindness, knew many things, but at that moment, she had no strength to answer.

She was guarded by him.

She fell asleep.