At a top high school in a small southern city, cicadas buzz from June through September. A layer of fallen leaves always gathers beneath the camphor trees behind the classroom building, and a red banner on the bulletin board reads, “100 Days Until the College Entrance Exam.” Here, youth is half the scent of ink on exam papers and half the thump of a basketball hitting the ground. Xu Yang and Wen Yining’s story begins in the gap between those two sounds, in a rush, and ends in silence.
