When the cicadas chirp onto the window sill of the teaching building, Zhang Xiaofan's canvas shoes always step into the classroom one second before the morning reading bell rings. Her high school life was like an open exercise book, filled with unsolvable math problems, wrong notes from the boy in the back seat, and pop songs leaking from the headphones she shared with Zhang Xiaoke.
Zhang Xiaoke exists in another dimension - with a neat ponytail and never wrinkled homework books. He would poke Zhang Xiaofan on the back with a pen when she dozed off in class, but secretly gave Zhang Xiaofan his collection of wrong questions after the monthly exam. The two girls, whose names differed by only one word, were like camphor and rose in front of the teaching building, taking root in the same sunshine with completely different attitudes.
They secretly read comics together during evening self-study, shared snacks secretly brought into school in the corner of the playground, sighed at their report cards and cheered each other up after the monthly exams. Those trivial worries about growing up, like thunderstorms in summer afternoons, come suddenly and hurriedly, but always leave clear marks after the rain: it was Zhang Xiaoke's quiet thumbs up when Zhang Xiaofan first plucked up the courage to answer a question; it was the mint candy Zhang Xiaofan thrust into her when Zhang Xiaoke was so nervous that she was shaking before the speech contest; it was the words "forever friends" said by the shadow of the two girls as they walked side by side along the path covered with ginkgo leaves.
