Returning to this city, Lu Mingfei felt a little dazed.
Outside the car window lay unfamiliar streets. The pitted asphalt road from his memories had become a smooth paved surface. More than half of the old apartment buildings along the roadside had been demolished, replaced by construction pits and tower cranes.
The little shops he used to pass on his bicycle—the pancake stands, book rental shops, bicycle repair stalls—had all vanished, replaced by rows of identical glass storefronts bearing chain-brand signs.
All of a sudden, he felt as though this city was no longer the one he remembered.
"This place has changed so much." Nono leaned against the window and looked outside, the passing streets reflected in her eyes. "Looks like it's doing pretty well."
Fine, it wasn't the world's fault. His hometown had simply developed too fast.
Lu Mingfei muttered to himself.
They parked by the road in front of Shilan High School. Through the window, Lu Mingfei looked at that familiar yet unfamiliar gate. Shilan High School was still the top school in the city; that hadn't changed. But the entrance seemed to have been renovated. The old iron-bar gate had been replaced by an imposing electric one, with marble inlaid into the pillars and an electronic display scrolling through the school's honors and announcements.
The plane trees on both sides of the gate had been cut down completely. Lu Mingfei remembered those trees. In summer, their branches and leaves were dense enough to shade the entire street. He and Chen Wenwen had once walked beneath them, her white skirt and his blue-green school uniform, sunlight slipping through gaps in the leaves and falling over them like golden rain.
Now there was nothing left, only a row of brand-new streetlamps.
All kinds of luxury cars came and went—Mercedes-Benz,