Chapter Thirty-Six

The real "entertainment" in high school is often hidden in the gaps fragmented by the class schedule—as short as three to five minutes, yet as bright as a shooting star.

"Silent Disco" during the 8-minute break between classes.

The classroom stereo was monopolized by the physics class representative, who played "Sunny Day" until the chorus. The whole class sang along in perfect unison—exaggerated lip movements, but barely making a sound, because Mr. Cao was patrolling the corridor. After the last line, everyone stopped simultaneously, sitting up straight as if nothing had happened.

Convenience store sprint race.

As soon as the bell rang for the end of the fourth period in the morning, the entire floor erupted with the sound of footsteps rushing downstairs, all heading towards the same destination—the hot dogs at the cafeteria convenience store.

Lu Yi holds the grade record: 58 seconds from the fourth floor to payment. Zhu Yu provided a rap for him: "Left foot Tsinghua, right foot Peking University, hot dog in hand, I have the world at my fingertips."

The "Sunset Glow Observation Club" before evening self-study.

Between 6:30 pm and evening self-study, there are always three or four heads crowding the windows on the west side of the corridor.

Whoever sees an orange-scented sunset tonight posts a photo in the class group chat with the caption, "Today's dose of cosmic romance has been received." Over time, it's become a code: a beautiful sunset = no irritability tonight.

Draw a 15x15 grid on a piece of math scratch paper, and use a ballpoint pen as the chess piece.

Xu Li and Tan Yuze used up half an A4 sheet in three games. When the last piece was placed, the physics teacher happened to pass by and casually took the paper away: "I'll use your endgame as an example in the next class to talk about 'potential functions'."

Night.

After lights out, everyone lay flat, turned their phone brightness down to 1%, and started sending jokes in the class group chat:

Zhu Yu: "If the steamed buns in the cafeteria could talk tomorrow morning, what would be their first words?"

Leng Yuxuan: "Don't eat me, my minced meat is Schrödinger's cat."

Ten minutes later, the dormitory supervisor swept his flashlight across the room, and everyone instantly went silent. The screens all went black, as if the entire dormitory had lost internet access.

During breaks between monthly exams, I used two erasers as my roles, one for writing "Science Comprehensive" and the other for "Humanities Comprehensive," and played "rock-paper-scissors" in my desk drawer.

Whoever lost had to fetch hot water for the other person—so after each exam, you could always see Lu Yi running around carrying four cups.

In the fall, the school assigned the cleaning area to the senior students.

While others complained, they turned sweeping fallen leaves into a "random vocabulary library":

After sweeping up each pile, pick out the most intact leaf, write a whispered message with a marker, and then put it back in the tree pit.

Later, during the school anniversary celebration, younger students dug up the soil and discovered those leaves:

"Running exercises is tiring, but the wind is sweet."

"If you are tired, look up at me—I come from a ginkgo tree."

In the study room.

Xu Li and Tan Yuze each took a pair of earphones, one for each of them. The left earphone contained English listening comprehension practice questions, while the right earphone contained Jay Chou's new song.

After hearing the switch, the world instantly shifted from ABCD to "the sky is blue, waiting for the rain".

During a physics lesson on light diffraction, the projector suddenly froze, and the teacher went to get a new computer. The whole class turned to look out the window, and a cloud was passing by, its edges tinged with rosy hues by the setting sun.

No one spoke for those 30 seconds; everyone looked up. Later, that cloud was named "The Pause Button of March 17th".

Graduation countdown.

76 days before the college entrance examination, a line of chalk writing appeared in the far corner of the blackboard: "76 days until freedom".

Every day, the students on duty would secretly change the numbers, making the numbers smaller and smaller, while the chalk writing would get bigger and bigger, as if trying to burst through the oppressive days.

On the last day, the number was changed to ∞.

Nobody wiped it off that day.

The essence of high school entertainment is to break 45 minutes into 44 minutes of tension plus 1 minute of revelry, and then live that 1 minute as if it were a lifetime.

That night, the countdown to evening self-study was changed to "∞".

The fluorescent lights were humming, and before the bell rang for the last evening self-study session, the entire building had already entered "silent mode."

Zhu Yu, the student on duty, stood in front of the blackboard with chalk in hand, hesitating to erase the "∞".

He suddenly turned around, made a "shh" gesture to the whole class, and then added a line of small words under the "∞" with chalk:

See you on the rooftop tonight at 10:30 PM.

At 22:25, just after the dormitory supervisor finished checking the rooms, a series of stealthy dark figures appeared at the end of the corridor.

Lu Yi was holding a ukulele, Leng Yuxuan was carrying a plastic bag (containing Coke and paper cups that he had secretly taken from the cafeteria), and Bai Chuan was carrying a Bluetooth speaker.

Xu Li and Tan Yuze walked at the back, each holding a small desk lamp with a red paper shade, like two warm flames.

The rooftop door was pushed open, and the night wind rushed in.

The city lights spread out beneath my feet, like a giant, unfinished circuit board.

The speaker connected via Bluetooth, and the first song was "Sunny Day".

There was no singing or screaming; everyone just sat on the floor, poured Coke into paper cups, and clinked them together.

"A toast to our last evening study session."

"A toast to that countdown that was changed to ∞."

Lu Yi began to gently pluck the strings, the sound so soft it would dissipate with a gust of wind.

Zhu Yu turned on his phone's flashlight and shone it towards the rooftop wall—

On that mottled cement wall, a huge graffiti was painted with fluorescent spray paint:

A ginkgo tree stands beneath it, and two figures stand with their backs to the ground. The taller one tilts his head slightly, as if listening to the wind.

The lines are simple, yet you can recognize who it is at a glance.

Leng Yuxuan whispered, "I secretly came up here last night to paint this. The paint isn't dry yet, so don't rub it."

Xu Li didn't speak, but simply reached out and added a stroke to the edge of the graffiti—

Connect two ginkgo leaves to form a small "∞".

At 22:45, the flashlight beams of security guards patrolling could be heard in the distance.

Everyone quickly packed their things, stuffing the speaker into their backpacks and crumpling up paper cups and stuffing them into plastic bags.

Before running downstairs, Tan Yuze suddenly grabbed Xu Li and stuffed something into her hand—

It was a fruit that had fallen from a ginkgo tree; it was bluish-white and had a slightly bitter taste.

“I heard that ginkgo fruits need to be dried before they can be eaten,” he said softly. “We’ll open them together when the acceptance letters arrive.”

Xu Li gripped the small fruit tightly and nodded: "Okay."

When I got back to the dormitory, the lights-out bell had already rung.

Xu Li lay in bed and heard her roommate on the upper bunk whisper, "Is the rooftop fun tonight?"

She gave a soft "hmm".

The phone screen lit up; it was a message from Tan Yuze:

Remember to bring a jacket for our morning run; it's getting cold.

She replied with a "ginkgo leaf" emoji, then tucked her phone under her pillow.

The night was quiet, and the wind slipped in through the cracks in the window, carrying the scent of early summer.

The ginkgo fruit lay in her palm, like an unexploded star.

The next morning, as the morning exercise group passed the bulletin board, everyone froze—the huge poster that read "74 Days Until the College Entrance Examination" had been altered in red pen to read:

There are 74 days until our next meeting.

Below is a new group photo:

On the rooftop, a dozen or so figures stood in a circle, with two small red lamps in the middle, like two beating hearts.

At the bottom of the photo, a line of text was written in highlighter:

"∞ is not the end, but the beginning."

—In the 24 hours after that "∞" photo was posted, Class 1 of Senior Three felt as if they had been given a shot of adrenaline, or as if they had been put on slow motion.—

Three minutes before the morning reading bell.

Lu Yi was the first to rush into the classroom, holding up a huge poster of the group photo that had just been developed: "Everyone, who stole the film last night? They made me look like I'm only 1.3 meters tall! Come out here, you handsome guy!"

The whole class burst into laughter. Zhu Yu snatched the poster, drew an arrow that read "20cm taller" on Lu Yi's head with a red pen, and added, "Unlockable after adulthood."

Xu Li rolled up her English book into a tube and tapped it on the table: "Stop fooling around, Lao Cao is going to announce the order of some important events today."

Tan Yuze leaned against the back door and raised his hand to shush. Sure enough, Lao Cao came in right on time, holding an A4 sheet of paper: "School uniform, class uniform, creative uniform, three procedures - the theme of the creative uniform will be decided by a class vote."

The decision is made in 30 seconds at the polling station.

A dozen or so candidates were quickly written on the blackboard:

"Spacesuit", "Hanfu", "Harry Potter", "pajama party", "RumorShield white coat"... Xu Li suddenly walked up to the podium and wrote a new word - "Ginkgo ∞".

She explained in just one sentence: "Ginkgo fruits are sweeter when dried, and ∞ represents a cycle."

The whole class understood immediately, and the votes instantly turned against each other. The costume design team rushed to finish the project in 48 hours. Leng Yuxuan exported the RumorShield 3.0 logo vector image and handed it to Bai Chuan.

Bai Chuan worked overnight to 3D print 40 "ginkgo leaf badges"—QR codes are hidden in the veins of the leaves, and scanning them reveals the names and coordinates of the entire class.

Lu Yi and Zhu Yu were responsible for the T-shirt's base color: ginkgo yellow on top and night white on the bottom, with a minimalist infinity symbol on the chest. Tan Yuze replaced the last button with a miniature LED that lights up when pressed, symbolizing "the extinguishing of rumors."

Filming Day - Reunion on the Rooftop

The June wind carries a hint of farewell.

The class of 42 students, each wearing a "Ginkgo ∞" T-shirt, lined up in an ∞-shaped queue.

As the drone ascends, its camera pans overhead—at the intersection of infinity, Xu Li and Tan Yuze stand, one holding a ginkgo fruit, the other an LED button.

The sound of camera shutters clicking continuously was like a quiet fireworks display.

Ten minutes after the photo was taken.

For once, Lao Cao didn't urge them to go back to the classroom. Instead, he sat on the edge of the rooftop with his camera in his arms and said, "I'll take one too." He asked Lu Yi to press the shutter for him. In the picture, the whole city was behind Lao Cao, and the "∞" photo was placed at his feet.

“When you come back in ten years,” Old Cao said, “remember to bring a dried ginkgo fruit.”

After the last exam papers were collected, the entire senior high school building erupted in cheers as paper airplanes and fragments of exam papers flew out of the windows like snowflakes.

Xu Li and Tan Yuze, however, shut down the RumorShield 3.0 server in Room 302 of the laboratory building.

The last line of the log on the screen:

【Systemoffline.Missioplete.】

The two looked at each other and simultaneously reached for the power button—click, the light went out. Click, the door lock clicked. They hung the key on the doorknob; the keychain was a small ginkgo leaf.

The crossroads outside the school gate.

The crowd dispersed, and the sounds of buses, private cars, and suitcase wheels rolling mingled together.

Xu Li slung her backpack over her shoulder, and Tan Yuze pushed her shoulder. They reached the zebra crossing; the red light had 30 seconds left.

Xu Li suddenly spoke up: "The volunteer system closes at 18:00 today."

Tan Yuze hummed in agreement and showed her his phone screen.

[Submitted]

First choice: Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University

Second choice: Peking University Turing Class

Third choice: Tsinghua University Yao Class

Willing to be assigned to another major: No

Xu Li smiled and showed her own screen—[Submitted]

First choice: Peking University Turing Class

Second choice: Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, Tsinghua University

Third choice: Peking University Yuanpei College

Willing to be assigned to another major: No

As the red light turned green, the two walked side by side across the zebra crossing. The sound of wheels rolling over the ground was like an unfinished song.

The fate of ginkgo fruits.

It was clearly just a one-day break after finishing the eighth mock exam.

They placed the two packages side by side in front of the old photos on the rooftop, with the dried ginkgo fruit in the middle.

The shell cracked open, revealing the golden kernel inside. Xu Li picked up one half, and Tan Yuze picked up the other half.

"Is it sweet?" "Yes."

The cycle of ∞ has now come to a perfect end.

But as the story goes, a new cycle has only just begun.