Chapter 114 Is it fate or someone else's will?

Beijing.

It's such a faraway place.

It's such a remote place, not just in terms of physical distance, but in every other way.

He stood there, looking at Li Leshan's slightly reddened eyes. After hesitating for a long time, his knuckles cracked as he clenched them. In the end, Jiang Yueming said nothing and just turned his head away.

He hadn't forgotten. It's just… Beijing. He probably couldn't get into that place through the entrance exam. He wanted to go, he wanted to be with Li Leshan. How could he not want to go? But how would he get there, and what would he rely on?

He couldn't give Li Leshan a definite promise. His once lofty aspirations seemed so fragile in the face of reality.

He made this promise to Li Leshan, but what if he couldn't fulfill it in the end? How should he face it? He should have realized the gap between himself and Li Leshan long ago. They are no longer twelve or thirteen-year-old children. They can no longer fantasize about the future and believe that they can win a good future through their own efforts.

This bucket of cold water, called reality, was finally poured over their heads, from head to toe.

After all, I could never have imagined that I would end up like this. Fate can be unpredictable sometimes.

He was now standing in front of Li Leshan, both clearly on the same ground. Yet Jiang Yueming felt as if he were standing at the foot of the mountain, so far away from Li Leshan. He strained to look up, realizing that Li Leshan wasn't standing on the mountaintop; he was the mountain itself.

Li Leshan stood in front of him, silent for a long time, then said, "Thank you and Auntie, I'm going back to class now."

Jiang Yueming stood there watching his departing figure. She didn't understand what he carried on his thin shoulders—life was one thing, studies were another, Li Yong was yet another, and she wondered if she herself might be one of them.

Just how much did Li Leshan bear that made him live like a mountain?

/

The cicadas' chirping grew louder and louder, as if they were chirping right next to his ear. Jiang Yueming abruptly slammed the window shut; he was already annoyed, and anyone who came would only provoke him.

If he loves to bark so much, why not just start barking at him directly?

Amidst the chorus of cicadas, August arrived in Shengping. They were now officially senior high school students. School officially started in August, and seniors didn't have many holidays; twenty days of vacation was enough.

"Damn it, I don't want to live anymore." Cao Fan sat in his seat with a sense of hopelessness. His grades hadn't improved much over the years, but his glasses prescription had doubled.

Those lenses are so thick they could be bulletproof; I should apply for a national patent for them someday.

"I might as well jump down and give you guys a two-day break," Cao Fan said with a mournful face.

"What are you doing?" Jiang Yueming was taken aback and quickly said, "Don't joke like that."

He's become quite agitated by matters of life and death, and can't bear to even hear about them. The mere mention of this topic reminds him of when Li Leshan cried and said he "wanted to die."

Cao Fan was a little puzzled as to why he was reacting so strongly. In his eyes, it was just a joke, meant to lighten the mood. Of course, he wouldn't actually die.

“Yeah, I’m not worthy to jump either.” Cao Fan sighed, resting his chin on his hand. “No one who’s really tall has jumped. What’s the point of me, a person with a height of 3 or 4, being so pretentious? Compared to them, I’m under less pressure.”

Jiang Yueming's heart skipped a beat, and she instantly tensed up. She scratched her hair in frustration, and her tone became a little impatient, "Try dying and coming back to life next to me again. You've been dead for three years. Are you still dead?"

"No, no, I'm not going to die." Cao Fan hurriedly said, "How could I dare to die? I have elderly parents and young children to support, I can't afford to die. If I had no ties, I might think about it."

He kept saying, "This life is unbearable," and "I really can't take it anymore."

Jiang Yueming nearly fell backward. Cao Fan, who was standing nearby, was so startled that he quickly helped him up.

No worries or attachments?

He swallowed hard, thinking, surely Li Leshan wouldn't... still not want to live? Could he still be thinking about dying?

Am I someone he cares about? Jiang Yueming doesn't know, he really doesn't know.

If only he could have someone to care about, Jiang Yueming thought to himself, lying on the table. It didn't matter who it was, as long as they could stop him from taking that step. Whoever it was, Jiang Yueming would accept it.

"Hey," Cao Fan nudged Jiang Yueming's arm, "which university are you aiming for? You used to say I was thinking too much, too far ahead. Now we're in our senior year of high school, but really, it's not that high or far ahead, is it?"

"I haven't decided yet," Jiang Yueming mumbled.

"Anyway, I'm leaving Shengping," Cao Fan said. He had lived here for seventeen or eighteen years and was used to everything, even a little tired of it. He was eager to see a new world, a wider world, even if it meant leaving his hometown. "I'm going north!"

"How much further north?" Jiang Yueming asked. Shengping was already in the north, so how much further north did Cao Fan have to go?

“How about a few thousand miles further north, to the Northeast?” Cao Fan scratched his head. “But I heard that the average height of men in the Northeast is 180 cm. If I go there, will I be able to make it? What if I can’t find a girlfriend there?”

When he enters the crowd, he won't be able to see anything; he'll be completely lost.

"What if I can find one?" Jiang Yueming hadn't considered this question. First, he had a girlfriend; second, he really didn't need to think about it.

"Why would a girl want to date me if she doesn't want a guy who's 1.8 meters tall? Is she going to take me home as a mascot?" Cao Fan was very self-aware.

Even as a mascot, he's not cute enough. Jiang Yueming's personality is indeed a bit bad. But ultimately, he's a good person at heart. He didn't say this out loud, because saying it would have been hurtful.

“So there are only two types of people who don’t need to worry about this kind of thing,” Cao Fan said eloquently. “One type is the top student, who can go anywhere. They score around 600 or 700 points and Tsinghua and Peking Universities are vying for them. The other type is the slacker, who scores 200 or 300 points and can also go anywhere. Even junior colleges are vying for them.”

"It's people like us who barely passed the undergraduate entrance exam and didn't score by much that are struggling to decide where to go."

The senior year had just started, and the class was already quite empty. Some students were in intensive training for art students, some had gone on to pursue separate admissions, and others had enrolled in private tutoring classes. At first glance, it seemed like half the class was gone, and upon closer inspection, it really was half gone—the classroom felt empty.

"Do you also think that taking the college entrance exam is important?" Jiang Yueming asked casually.

Cao Fan seemed to have heard something, and he exclaimed in an exaggerated manner, "Brother! Do you want to check where you are right now? In China! Do you want to check which province we're in? Do you want to check what's hanging on the banners outside and inside..."

Cao Fan felt as if he had heard something out of the blue, and even suspected that this person had gone crazy from studying. Wasn't he afraid of being dragged out and shot for saying such things in this place?

Jiang Yueming looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a red banner covered with all sorts of motivational slogans. They were varied and included phrases like "Ten years of hard study to hone a sword, June's battlefield will test its edge," and "Break the cauldrons and sink the boats, the Qin Pass will ultimately belong to Chu; endure hardship and humiliation, three thousand Yue soldiers can conquer Wu"...

"I take back what I said, it's important." Jiang Yueming dared not say any more, otherwise if Lao Liu heard him, he could be arrested as a rebel.

"It's not just important, it's extremely, extremely important!" The use of "extremely" three times here is still to emphasize.

"These slogans are all fairly standard. Last time I saw one, it said 'Life can be reincarnated, but the college entrance exam only happens once'. Isn't that scary?" Cao Fan exclaimed in amazement.

"Is it... that serious?" Jiang Yueming asked, puzzled.

“Yes!” Cao Fan said decisively. “So now you know how important the college entrance exam is. We’ve been in school for over ten years, and we’re just one step away from the exam. Who dares to slack off? Believe me, even if someone jumped off a cliff right now, people would say, ‘What a pity, the college entrance exam is just around the corner.’”

Jiang Yueming remained silent, disagreeing. He stared at the exam paper on the table, lost in thought, perhaps thinking of everything, perhaps nothing at all.

The plane trees along the North-South Avenue are lush and green, with sunlight filtering through the leaves and casting dappled patterns, creating a stunningly beautiful scene. Yet, this view, seen day after day, goes unnoticed. Everyone has their own path to walk, hurrying along, and no one needs to stop on any other road.

Cao Fan pulled out a map of China that he had stolen from the liberal arts class, spread it on the table, and pointed out the distance from Shengping to Northeast China to Jiang Yueming. It was said that the distance on the map was 1:50,000 the same as the actual distance.

Cao Fan drew a long line with his pen, stretching from south to north, as if he wanted to draw it all the way to Mohe.

"You've been exiled to Ningguta?" Jiang Yueming was silent for a moment. "You always wear layers upon layers of clothing when you spend the winter in Shengping. You'll need to wrap yourself in quilts there too, won't you?"

"No way, those places all have underfloor heating." Cao Fan had already investigated this beforehand.

"There's outdoor heating too?" Jiang Yueming asked. "That's great! Underfloor heating covers the entire Northeast. Go ahead and use it."

As he spoke, his gaze shifted from Shengping to Beijing. The small place marked with a five-pointed star on the map was Li Leshan's final resting place. Whether it was because of the long line drawn by Cao Fan, or simply because the map was so small, Jiang Yueming felt the distance wasn't so far after all.

He measured the distance between the two places with his eyes, calculating in his mind how many hours it would take by car, how far it would be to go and return, and how much money he would need to prepare for the trip...

In the past, he considered the distance from the Third High School to the Experimental High School, calculated the distance between the three bridges, and how long it would take to cycle... As he grew older, the distances he had to consider became farther and farther, the time he had to consider became longer and longer, and the number of things he had to consider increased.

So this boy, carefully measuring the distance with a ruler while studying the map, could never have imagined that in the near future, some would head north and some south, crossing most of China, and they would meet again sometime in who knows when or how many years.

Traveling north and south, stopping and starting. Looking back at the passionate yet bittersweet years of youth, that boy is no longer by my side.

Whether it was fate or someone else's will, I don't know.