Sui Garden.
At ten that night, Fang Lele stared at a problem on his test paper that he simply could not solve and tossed his pen aside in frustration.
Although he had only been out of school for a year, he had been unable to focus on his studies since middle school, his mind crowded with too many worries.
He had actually wanted to quit in high school and find work to ease his family's burden, but his mother had forced him to keep studying.
He had sat the exams, but most of the papers he handed in were blank, so he had never held any hope of getting into university.
Instead, he had gone straight out to get his driver's license and found himself a job.
Only he and Ms. Chen lived at Sui Garden, and she had long since gone to bed at this hour.
There was no central heating in the south. The house's air conditioning ran nonstop, its dry, warm air only making him more restless.
Fang Lele eased his door open and tiptoed downstairs. After standing in the empty living room for a while, he headed for the front door.
A biting wind struck his face, instantly clearing some of the fog from his mind.
A few pots of cold-hardy plants remained in the courtyard; all the others had been moved into the greenhouse.
Despite having lived here for so long, he still had not explored the entire garden. Every day, he dutifully kept to the main building and never wandered anywhere else.
Clear, pale moonlight draped the whole courtyard in a layer of white gauze, making it breathtakingly beautiful.
Was the moon back home this round, too?
Lost in thought, Fang Lele stroked the tough cycad, only for one of its sharp leaves to