League

Three days until the league competition. It’s almost become a reflex—when the final class ends, the bell rings, I head to the cafeteria for dinner, then rush to Lecture Hall Four to review with Su Hongxin, attend the competition evening class… No need to think it through; my body flows through these actions naturally, seamlessly. Tonight, the last teacher conducted the final lesson, covering ecology. Over twenty days, we’ve only had a dozen or so classes, barely one or two per module. There’s no time to delve deeper; we can only skim the concepts, highlighting key points for someone like me who came in halfway, and cross-reference answers from past years’ exams for the relevant modules. Yet, at least… it’s enough to sketch out a general framework of knowledge.

How many teachers have I seen so far? I checked the schedule—it’s the ninth. Including my own class’s teacher, I’ve essentially attended lessons by nearly every biology teacher in the school. I really like the current biology teacher—a young, adorable young lady who often shares knowledge beyond the textbook. “What I’m about to say is just for you to understand, no need to take notes,” she’d say. But I always jot down every word, then confidently raise my hand to answer when she casually quizzes us later. Thanks to her, some of the extra notes I took actually appeared in the preliminary exam questions. I wonder which teacher will be assigned to my class after the reshuffle next year… Where will Ling Xuan go? No, it’s too early to ponder that now.

Two days left. Tonight is a reading and Q&A session. As usual, I brought two thick volumes of Su Hongxin’s books to Lecture Hall Four. To make flipping through easier during problem-solving—and to give myself a small sense of accomplishment—I place labeled sticky tabs on each chapter after finishing it. “Cell structure and function,” “Cell interactions,” “Plant groups and classification,” “Plant life activities,”… and last night’s final chapter on ecology. The tagged chapters grow day by day, fluorescent markers like footprints tracing across the pages. More than nine hundred pages in total, only a few dozen left now.

From the classroom window, one can glimpse a corner of the sky. The dusk shifts from orange-red to cobalt blue, finally darkening completely by the end of the first evening study period. Though summer has arrived, the daytime heat dissipates swiftly at night. Wearing short sleeves, I feel the coolness as sweat evaporates from my skin.

“The day after tomorrow is the exam,” Ling Xuan murmurs softly, propping her head up with her left hand, her right thumb repeatedly rubbing the book’s corner.

“Mm.” My pen flies across the Olympiad lecture notes. I even ran to the restroom earlier, eager to seize every last moment.

“Yeah, the day after tomorrow. Just last month at this time, we were… feels like a lifetime ago. Two biology novices, coming here to attend some classes, read some books… and suddenly, the exam is just two days away.” Ling Xuan leans close, her whole body slouched on the desk, eyes flickering nervously—glancing at the podium, the desktop, then my book.

“You seem… a bit nervous… afraid you won’t get a high score?”

“Do you fear that? I don’t. They don’t care how many points I get in the biology competition, as long as it doesn’t affect my school grades or math competition results. I’m just afraid… afraid that nights like this will never come again.”

“Like sitting here by the window, excitedly calculating allele frequencies and three-point test crosses; thrilled during class, from animals and plants to microbes, from a single cell to entire ecosystems; happily listening to everyone playfully chatting and laughing beside us, talking about how ‘the 21st century is the century of biology’… on such a cool summer night.”

I gently pat her back, like a mother soothing a child. “It’s okay, it’s okay. There will be more. Next year at this time, we’ll take the exam together again…”

“And after next year?”

“Well… senior year… then we can apply to the biology department together! If we get into the same school, we can study in the library together at night… Anyway, there will definitely be more, there will definitely be more.”

“All good things come to an end.” She shakes her head, staring out into the dark window, sighing.

In recent weeks’ evening classes, we consumed many mints to stay focused after a full day of classes and homework. But tonight, the pre-exam urgency alone keeps me tirelessly flipping page after page.

“Exhausted but unaware of the heat, only cherishing the long summer days.”

Ling Xuan and I printed two copies of the test papers from the year before last, intending to familiarize ourselves with the overall exam format one last time. A teacher once said odd years’ exams are set by Beijing Normal University, even years by Peking University, so this year’s style should resemble that of two years ago. Going through it by feel—I realize I have indeed crammed a lot into my brain over these twenty days. Facing some basic concept and calculation questions, I can’t help but feel proud, thinking “I’ve memorized this,” “I know how to solve this.” Yet, there remain many questions I can only guess at blindly. Hopefully, my elimination skills have improved in these twenty days.

I checked the answers, revisited unclear parts, and marked them. As for scores, I’m too lazy to calculate—waste of time. After all, for me, scores and rankings no longer matter; this shared struggle is enough to cherish for a lifetime.

The last day arrives. After half a math competition class in the afternoon (which I barely listened to), we gathered our ID cards, phones, and overnight bags, then boarded the bus to the Nanjing test center with our supervising teacher. We would stay in a nearby hotel for the night.

Ling Xuan chose a window seat at the back; I sat beside her. At first, I tried to review notes on the bus, but the motion made me dizzy, so I reluctantly put the notes away and plugged in my earphones to listen to music. Ling Xuan had yesterday’s league test paper on her lap but wasn’t reading it; instead, she rested her face against the glass, watching the passing scenery. It was raining outside; after entering the highway, everything blurred into a gray haze—only raindrops traced winding paths down the window. Yet she kept her gaze fixed on the glass.

“Want to listen?” I handed her one earbud, then started the default player’s shuffle mode. No internet, but that’s fine—I had downloaded the music earlier.

The familiar D major Canon string quartet played, and I hummed along unconsciously.

“Do you really like classical music?” Ling Xuan asked, pressing the earbud tight.

“I listen often, though I don’t understand much… Mainly because it helps me calm down. When I used to paint in middle school, I’d loop this track as background music.”

Next came the first piece of the twelve-tone equal temperament series. Ling Xuan seemed immersed in the music, fingers tapping lightly on the windowsill, as if playing an invisible keyboard.

“Let me see what else you have in your playlist.” Suddenly, she grabbed my phone and kept hitting “next.”

“Bach’s fugue, Bach… This one is Grieg’s ‘Lullaby,’ and then… Ah, my favorite, Rachmaninoff! This is the Prelude in C-sharp minor!”

“This one… every time I hear it late at night while cramming or drawing, it suddenly wakes me up.”

“I love it so much! But his sheet music is so difficult.”

“Do you play piano?”

“I learned as a kid, passed grade ten. Then once I entered middle school, I stopped and sold the piano. —Though a bit reluctant, at least I’m not forced to perform for relatives every New Year anymore, haha.”

Then we fell silent, just listening to the music. Ling Xuan turned the volume up another notch.

“Look!” she suddenly exclaimed, drawing the sleepy glances of half the bus toward the window. The rain had stopped unnoticed, but thick lead-gray clouds lingered. The setting sun poured golden rays through gaps, casting beams of Tyndall light, radiant and endless. The clouds tilted as if the entire sky were about to collapse.

The notes in my ears surged like a storm, pulling out a wondrous tension.

Ling Xuan was utterly captivated by the scene, half her face bathed in sunset glow, the other half in shadow.

After a bumpy three-hour ride, we reached Nanjing near mealtime.

The teacher took our group of twenty to a small restaurant and ordered two tables of homestyle dishes.

Stir-fried bean sprouts.

“I like the part below the soybean hypocotyl—it’s crispy and tender,” the teacher said, stirring the sprouts.

“I think the cotyledons taste better…” I muttered quietly.

Stir-fried vegetables.

“Brassica rapa from the mustard family, celery from the Apiaceae… Lettuce is…” Ling Xuan named the plant families as she picked food.

“It’s actually Asteraceae, genus Lactuca,” I looked up each plant name on Baidu.

Braised fish.

“What kind of fish is this?”

“Bone fish, obviously.”

“Anyone can tell that! What kind of bone fish exactly?”

“You clearly haven’t been to the market or cooked before. It’s bighead carp and silver carp. Heard of the ‘four big fishes’?”

“Green grass carp and silver carp!” I shot my hand up to answer.

“Right, right. Delicious, don’t waste it—it’s fish from the Yangtze River. —When properly fishing, the population should be controlled at what level? That’s a question from the college entrance exam syllabus.”

“K over two!” I responded.

Garlic prawns.

“Who can take off all nineteen pairs of appendages and line them up for me? Only after that can you eat.”

Several pairs of chopsticks reached for the plate but froze mid-air.

“Just kidding.”

I picked up a prawn, examining it carefully—the cephalothorax and abdomen, the five pairs of swimming legs and the tail fan were clearly visible. The antennae and rostrum had been clipped.

“Eat quickly, or it’ll get cold,” the teacher urged, pointing at me playing with the food. I quickly bit off the head and tail, savoring the taste. I wanted another, but the prawns had already been taken while I was observing.

After finishing, the teacher stood up, solemnly raised a glass of plain water upside down: “Study well back at the hotel! Good luck tomorrow!”

We raised our glasses in return, the clinking sound ringing out repeatedly.

After dinner, the teacher reminded us to rest early and stay safe. Then we returned to our rooms. There was an odd number of girls, and I was assigned a single room. I couldn’t fathom why—maybe because I seemed more obedient and well-behaved…

I lay alone on the large bed in the budget hotel—no, I can’t lie down like this, the exam is tomorrow. I flipped up, sat at the desk, turned on the lamp, and opened my notebook to recite the ten-step reactions of glycolysis and the citric acid cycle, along with the ATP, GTP, NADH, and FADH2 produced at each step.

Knock, knock, knock. Someone at the door. Is it the teacher doing a room check? I opened it to find Ling Xuan, slippers on, clutching a book, a pen slanted in her shirt pocket.

“I couldn’t focus over there, so I came here,” she said, entering without hesitation. She tossed herself and her book onto the bed, switched on the bedside lamp, crossed her legs, leaned on the pillow, quietly flipping through pages, biting the pen’s tip.

Suddenly, the default Huawei ringtone shattered the silence. Ling Xuan took out a phone—“the one from home”—checked the number, then nervously answered at the door.

“Hello, yes, I’ve eaten. It was good… I’m not playing on my phone, I’m reading! Didn’t I set the student mode already?… Okay, okay, I won’t… Tomorrow afternoon’s cram class homework… I’ve done it, I’m working on it… Sorry… Got it, got it, sorry… Oh.”

After three to five minutes, the onslaught ceased. She hung up and flung the smartphone toward me like a shot put. It arced through the air, bounced a few times on the bed, and sank slightly into the mattress.

“Phew.” She sat back at the bedside, reopened the book, and bit her pen again.

“Phase one: carbon dioxide fixation, ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate generating two molecules of glycerate 3-phosphate…” I drew molecular formulas and whispered to myself—until Ling Xuan’s voice broke the quiet again.

“I can’t focus.” She flipped the book shut onto the bedsheet. “Only a few hours left, who knows what tomorrow will bring… I’m kind of scared.”

“Ling Xuan, you’re strong. Besides, it’s just this year’s exam. Winning awards in junior year isn’t too late.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“And this stuff will probably be useful at university, if you study biology.”

“I’m not saying that! Why, why can you so naively and steadfastly believe in the future? Why?” She suddenly shouted, her voice raw and desperate. I sat frozen, at a loss.

“Last night too—how can you so casually say things like ‘we’ll take the exam together again next year,’ ‘we’ll apply to biology together in college’… Has the future ever promised us anything? Why can you believe in the future so naively and stubbornly?”

Long silence. I had never seen Ling Xuan like this before.

“Who knows how much longer I can keep this up, maybe not even until tomorrow. Newton’s laws, kinetic theorems… nothing can predict it. Even this little lump of tofu brain, it can’t predict anything.” She pressed her index finger against her forehead.

“Right now, I’m studying properly, but maybe the next second it’ll all turn into chaos, maybe the next minute I’ll suddenly smash it on the floor, maybe tomorrow I’ll go home and start a fire. None of this is up to me; it’s the currents, the neurotransmitters…”

“Wait, no, that’s not what I mean! I…” She bit down hard on her thumb. “I… have no future.”

Tears suddenly slid down her cheeks.

“See.” Her voice was hoarse but strangely calm. “I don’t know why my tear glands suddenly started producing this colorless, slightly salty liquid. I don’t know what ‘sadness’ usually associated with this feels like; to be precise, I feel nothing now—just some dilute solution of inorganic salts and lysozyme immune proteins flowing out. That’s all.” She lowered her head in confusion, tears dripping onto her palm, one, two drops.

I handed her a tissue. She wiped away her tears, but her expression soon returned to its usual faint smile. The contrast made her seem like a robot.

“Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Let’s keep studying.” She dashed to the bathroom, turned on the tap, washed her face with a rush, and wiped the water from her cheeks with her shirt sleeve. Except for some redness around her eyes and nose, she looked just like usual—as if the shouting, tearful Ling Xuan had never existed.

“Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong. Whatever you say… I… I’m always listening. Whatever happens later, the two of us together… we’ll definitely make it…” Now I began to babble.

…Better do something. I took a bag of fruit from my backpack—apples and bananas. Mom must have slipped them in at some point; the bananas were a bit bruised from the journey.

“Want some fruit? I can’t finish it anyway.” I handed her the plastic bag. I’d heard bananas contain lots of tryptophan, which helps serotonin production and improves mood. I thought Ling Xuan could use some. But she took an apple instead.

“Thanks—such a healthy lifestyle, you even brought so much fruit.”

“Heh, yeah. Ling Xuan, don’t work too hard; remember to stay healthy like me.”

“Stay healthy? What special use is there for this body anyway?” She shook her head.

“Well… if you get sick, I’ll…”

“Do what?” She stood up and stepped closer.

“Do I have to say it… I’ll… be really worried.” I lifted my notebook to hide my face. I wasn’t used to saying such things; it felt a little cheesy.

“Pfft.” She burst out laughing. Hopefully, it was a genuine laugh.

“I’m going back.” The door slammed shut behind her.

“Phase two: reduction, 3-phosphoglycerate becomes 1,3-bisphosphoglycerate, then glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate…” The Calvin cycle wasn’t finished yet. I forced down the lingering echoes of our conversation, opened my notes again, and resumed memorizing. The teacher came by to check rooms and urged us to sleep early.

Phase three ended. As I prepared to wash up and go to bed, I glanced back at the bed, noticing the creases where Ling Xuan had been sitting.

In that instant, memories of the other Ling Xuan—so different from usual—flashed through me, a pain twisting at my heart. Not a metaphor, but a real ache.

Like a volcano that appears calm from afar, but beneath its surface churns molten rock, ready to erupt at any moment. As I approach Ling Xuan, she gradually sheds her model student facade, revealing an unstable core.

That too is Ling Xuan—perhaps the truer version.

I recalled the vow we made at the amusement park. “...Even if you see everything inside me, will you still say you want to stay by my side forever?”

Yes, I will. I repeated it over and over until I drifted into sleep.