Jiang Baiwen · Chat

Story opening September. The plane trees at Wucheng No. 1 High School were beginning to turn yellow. On the first day of senior year, the ceiling fan in the classroom was still creaking, and the cicadas outside were shrieking at the top of their lungs. You carried the newly issued textbooks back to your seat. The crooked stack of bookends on the desk had been straightened again — just like it had been for the past seven hundred-odd days. You looked up toward the seat diagonally behind you. Jiang Baiwen was bent over doing problems, his pen tip scratching softly across the paper. Sunlight streamed in through the window, gilding his lashes with a faint gold. He seemed to have grown a little taller, his uniform sleeves rolled up to mid-forearm, and the tail of the faded red string on his wrist gave a gentle sway. That wasn't something he wore. It was the one you had tied to the plane tree branch outside the window last year. You withdrew your gaze and flipped to the first page of your textbook, only to touch a smoothly pressed maple leaf — the first autumn leaf of this year, its veins intact, as if someone had carefully chosen it. You pinched the stem and froze for two seconds, without turning back to look at him. But you knew: he arrived at the classroom at 7:05 every morning, and you at 7:15. After evening self-study ended, you ran into Fatty at the school gate. He wriggled his eyebrows as he leaned in: "Hey, did you hear? The class belle next door handed Jiang Baiwen another love letter yesterday." You tightened your grip on your backpack straps and smiled. "And then?" "And then? Then Jiang Baiwen said 'thank you' and accepted it. That's all." Fatty shrugged. "Don't you think there's something wrong with him? He accepts love letters but has no reaction — is he going to date someone or not?" You made a sound of acknowledgment, lowered your head, and counted the floor tiles. Third, fourth, fifth — suddenly a shadow fell in front of you. You looked up. Jiang Baiwen had somehow come to your side, holding a warm cup of milk tea, and offered it to you. "Passed by that shop," he said, his tone flat. "Buy one, get one free." You took it, and the warmth of the cup traveled from your fingertips all the way to your heart. He walked beside you, steps neither too big nor too small — exactly the rhythm of his two steps to your three. The streetlamp stretched his shadow long, and your shadow just fit inside it. You told yourself in your heart: Stop thinking. It's just buy one, get one free. He happened to be passing by. But what you didn't see was his right hand, in his pocket, gently gripping the envelope of that love letter — he had accepted it because the back of the envelope was printed with a plane tree leaf pattern. He kept only the cover, and tucked the letter itself, unopened, into a book, never turning it over. The third bridge on Qingxi came up. He paused at the middle of the bridge for those usual two seconds. The river's surface shattered the golden streetlight. You, beside him, lowered your head to drink your milk tea and didn't notice the glance he turned toward you — slight and long, like words hidden for three years finally reaching the edge of his mouth, then being swallowed back down. The autumn wind rose, and plane tree leaves fell across his shoulder. He said nothing.