August 12. Overcast.
Qin Manjiang picked up the glasses on his bedside table and put them on, then turned to check the time. Seven thirty in the morning.
The curtains were drawn, but not a trace of morning light seeped through. It looked like an overcast day.
He got out of bed and switched on the television. The morning news was playing.
He picked up his phone and sent the class monitor a message.
"Not feeling well. Still need leave."
Soon, he received a voice message from the class monitor, who was also up early:
"Qin Manjiang, if you keep missing classes, you'll fail every course this semester. You should..."
Her voice was gentle, but Qin Manjiang didn't keep listening.
He didn't much like his name.
His dad had picked it. He wasn't an educated man and had never left their little riverside village in his entire life. All Qin Manjiang had heard was that he happened to be born at dusk. The old village chief, seized by poetic inspiration as he gazed at the crimson river, recited, "A shaft of setting sunlight spreads across the water; half the river emerald, half the river red." That gave Old Qin an idea. He decided on the spot that if half a river could be that beautiful, his son deserved a whole river at the very least.
At the old village chief's suggestion, the name Qin Quanjiang was replaced with Qin Manjiang.
Qin Manjiang was grateful for that, too. At least Old Qin hadn't gotten carried away and named him Qin Sese.
But later, Old Qin drowned in the river he had depended on all his life. After that, Qin Manjiang stopped liking his name very much.
"It's fine, class monitor. Please keep requesting leave for me as usual. I'll figure out