A Small-Town Encounter With a Young Man

After her parents died in a car accident, her aunt kept the 120,000 yuan in compensation money, while Le Yao and her younger brother, dependent on relatives, went hungry and wore threadbare clothes. Once I earn my own money, I’ll buy two bowls of soy milk. I’ll drink one and pour the other out right in front of my aunt. This was Le Yao’s most humble ambition, and her sharpest act of defiance. She endured every cruelty life threw at her, waiting for a chance to take her brother and leave. On her first day after transferring to Jiangnan Town, Le Yao wrote in her notebook: “Even in the mud, my eyes are fixed on the stars.” Her deskmate, Wang Chongyang, supported his younger sister and grandmother by collecting recyclables. His hands were covered in tape to protect his chilblains. He said, “Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths, while others are born destitute, stuck in the mud. But we refuse to give up or accept our fate. We’ll trudge through the darkness and carve out our own boundless sea of stars.” Years later, someone asked Le Yao what she remembered most about those four years in the town. She said, “A beat-up motorcycle, a boundless sea of stars, and a proud young man.”