Gu Wen is the recognized top student of Class 3, Grade 10: quiet, disciplined, excellent grades, and a life that follows a steady routine.
He thought his three years of high school would pass just as peacefully, until the transfer student became his desk mate.
Wu Fengcan is forthright and frank. On the first day of school, he drew a line down the middle of their desk.
The whole class worried for Gu Wen.
But things unfolded in a way nobody expected.
When Gu Wen was unexpectedly injured during a basketball game, Wu Fengcan was the first to rush over, carrying him on his back to the infirmary.
And when Wu Fengcan fell behind in his studies, Gu Wen helped him catch up one problem at a time, slowly pulling him up from the bottom of the class.
Under the library lights, they went from getting on each other’s nerves to becoming each other’s most trusted companions.
The leaves of the plane trees turned from green to yellow, then from yellow to green, as the seasons outside the window changed again and again.
In their final year of high school, Wu Fengcan said, “I want us to get into the same university.”
Gu Wen said nothing, but changed his first-choice school on his application to the one they had agreed on.
Two boys, one desk, and a youth spent going from “unable to stand the sight of each other” to “moving forward side by side.”
