When students signed up to choose between the sciences and liberal arts in the second semester of their first year of high school, the decision landed in Lin Xiaoyu’s ordinary life like a stone in a pond. After much deliberation, she chose the liberal arts, only to find herself unexpectedly paired with Jiang Chen, a transfer student, in the school’s “Science and Arts Peer Study Group.”
Jiang Chen was the science whiz everyone thought was “trouble”: an incredible basketball player and the perennial top-ranked student in math, he was also often the subject of gossip because he always looked stern and occasionally skipped class. During their first group discussion, Lin Xiaoyu quietly passed him her notes when he frowned over a history question. Later, when he helped her family move boxes at their stationery shop on the weekend, he silently took on the heaviest ones, revealing a thoughtful side beneath his hard exterior.
But rumors soon followed. Some said Jiang Chen had once been expelled for fighting; others mocked Lin Xiaoyu for “choosing the liberal arts and still throwing herself at him, hoping to marry up.” It wasn’t until Jiang Chen used his intimidating presence to drive away the thugs harassing her on the way home from school that Lin Xiaoyu realized she had fallen for him. After they were placed in different classes the following year, they became each other’s “personal tutor.” She helped him tackle his weak English, while he taught her to use scientific reasoning to solve difficult math problems. They secretly passed each other breakfast at the bus stop and shared snacks in a corner of the sports field, turning their “secret relationship” into an everyday routine of striving side by side.
When Lin Xiaoyu’s mother opposed their relationship because of her studies, and Jiang Chen’s father wanted him to quit school and get a job, the two young people who had met in the study group refused to give up. They promised to get into universities in Beijing and silence their critics with their grades. They encouraged each other through the pressure of their senior year, ultimately earning admission to their dream universities and allowing the love that began with “helping each other” to grow into the warmest part of their youth.
