That summer, Song Duo's seat was with Shen Zhu on the right and Wang Hongqiang on the left by the window. The ceiling fan was swaying, the corners of the test paper were curled, and the chirping of cicadas stuck to the back of their necks. They borrowed pens, checked homework, and cleaned with a bucket in hand, and they were in tacit understanding as if nothing had happened. He took an extra detour to walk with her, pressing the note under the eraser. She noticed the specialness and pressed back her heartbeat. But when Lu Dongyang shouted, the whole class looked at him, and they both retracted their hands at the same time. Later, a seat adjustment separated them. The note written by Song Duo was soaked in laundry water in his trouser pocket. Shen Zhu was stopped in the corridor and did not look back. Class division, staggered schedules, three rows of people in the graduation photo - no one mentioned it, and we lost contact after that. There is no confession, no villain to fight, only deviations, misunderstandings and their respective silences, turning what could have been into something too late. Many years later, he stopped at the sound of cicadas in another city and put his hands back in his pockets.
This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.
