The year she was starting middle school, Ji Li's aunt and uncle pulled some strings to get her into Huaying Experimental School.
On the first day of school, she stood at the classroom door, too nervous to go in, until a girl with a ponytail waved and called, “Over here!”
That was Shi Jinhuan, her old childhood friend: carefree and loud, with a laugh bigger than anyone else's.
Through Shi Jinhuan, Ji Li met Ye Zhenzhen, a cool, confident top student; Peng Ran, an honest and good-natured boy; and Xia Jue, aloof on the outside but warm at heart.
The five of them went from seventh grade to ninth, from strangers to friends, and from lonely corners of their own to gathering around the same hotpot table.
But youth wasn't all laughter.
Shi Jinhuan's mother pinned all her hopes on her daughter, driving her to break down sobbing in the stairwell. After Xia Jue's father disappeared, leaving behind loan-shark debts, Xia Jue spent every day in a small house in the south of the city, keeping his mother company as she sighed beside a folding table. Peng Ran had been left behind by his parents since childhood; year after year, he could count on one hand how many times he had seen them. Ye Zhenzhen's parents had been happily in love for more than a decade, but she herself was nothing more than an “accident.” Ji Li secretly loved Xia Jue, but didn't dare to say it.
Each of them bore their own burdens. They met in the hallway, ate together in the cafeteria, clinked glasses at the hotpot restaurant, and built snowmen in the snow.
They watched one another cry, watched one another run, and watched one another take step after step forward.
