In the autumn of his seventeenth year, two things crashed into Lin Yanzhou’s orderly life
One was the old parasol tree outside his window that was always dropping leaves. The other was Jiang Che, who suddenly claimed his desk.
One was a top student who always sat in the front row, whose notebook was cleaner than his face, and who was afraid even to disturb the air when he spoke.
The other was the school bully, collar open and always surrounded by a crowd, whose eyes were colder than the autumn wind when he fought.
They should have been two lines that would never meet. Instead, a vicious scratch carved into the corner of their desk forced them to share the same patch of shade beneath the parasol tree.
Lin Yanzhou saw the blood seeping through the bandages after Jiang Che got into a fight. He also heard him lying face-down on his desk, his head covered by his jacket, mutter, “Thanks.”
Jiang Che saw Lin Yanzhou’s ears turn red when he couldn’t solve a problem. He stole his milk, too, but one day quietly stood between him and the thugs at the mouth of an alley.
Some said Jiang Che was a block of ice that could never be warmed. Only Lin Yanzhou knew that unspoken tenderness was hidden in his palm.
Some said Lin Yanzhou was a blade of grass no one could touch. Only Jiang Che understood that an unyielding strength lay deep within him.
When the police appeared at the classroom door and their hidden wounds were laid bare one by one, the two boys finally realized:
Salvation had never been a light shining in only one direction.
It was one pulling the other out of the cage of rules to watch a sunset that wasn’t written on the timetable.
It was one dragging the other out of the mire of darkness and handing him a slip of paper covered in formulas.
The parasol leaves fell, then turned green again, while their story grew amid cicadas and north winds
It turned out the fiercest wind and the gentlest light really could collide and make the whole echo of youth.
