Calligraphy

Although Qin Huai could not be called an old teacher, he had considerable experience. Among that generation who had grown up generally starting to earn a living before eighteen, Qin Huai had been teaching for nearly twenty years...

What kind of student had he not seen? Yet he had never seen one like his son, grinning at his deskmate right under his nose, his whole face lit up...

Could his son really be an early bloomer? Had something been budding between him and Ye Zhulan, only to be nipped in the bud, and now he was setting his sights on Sun Sun? What a fickle boy...

Qin Huai raised his voice a little, and Qin An finally reined himself in somewhat...

How could he not be happy?

If he and Sun Sun had been alone right then, even if it frightened her, he would have laughed without restraint, held her, and planted several fierce kisses on her...

Ye Zhulan had been the most fragrant, most beautiful, sweetest flowering thorn tree of Qin An's middle school years. Once the flowers faded, only a treeful of thorns remained, piercing his heart until it bled and leaving shocking scars. Each thorn had sunk in and never been pulled out again...

What was Sun Sun?

Sun Sun was a hot-water bottle. She was empty, and once filled with hot water, she was warm, heating Qin An's body. When the water cooled and Qin An no longer needed the hot-water bottle, she lived her own life, quietly following her own path. When Qin An needed her, when he remembered her, she could still be warm...

Countless times, Qin An had contacted Sun Sun after suffering setbacks and dejection. Sun Sun always stayed with him until he made it through those dispirited, gloomy days...

Throughout the lesson, Sun Sun rolled her eyes at him again and again whenever the teacher turned away...

Qin An seemed to be asking for it, grinning shamelessly without a care, making Sun Sun's little face flush bright red. She wanted to lose her temper, but because they were in class, she had to struggle to hold it in...

Class finally ended. After giving his son a warning look, Qin Huai left the classroom...

"Hey, your name's Qin An, right? If you dare look at me again, I'll... I'll tell your dad!" Sun Sun turned toward him, stood up, and said angrily...

The classroom instantly fell silent. In her classmates' eyes, Sun Sun usually relied on her pretty looks, distinguished family background, and top grades to keep apart from everyone and look down on them. She always maintained that proud, princesslike aloofness, never hurried or flustered, never laughing freely or getting angry with anyone, as though nothing mattered to her...

This new transfer student was obviously a troublemaker, or he would not have switched classes. To think he had provoked Sun Sun on his very first day, in his very first lesson-how could people not take notice of him...

Qin An smiled again, lay across his desk, and turned to look out the door, making no attempt to argue with Sun Sun...

Sun Sun had not expected Qin An to have no temper at all and actually be so obedient. Instead, she felt a little awkward herself and sat down in a huff...

From his seat, Qin An could see everyone who passed the door. Anyone going from Ye Zhulan's Class 68 to the restrooms had to pass Class 69. Qin An remembered that for many days just after switching classes, he had waited for lessons to end just like this, watching Ye Zhulan walk past and catching that fleeting glimpse of her face as she laughed with her classmates at the doorway...

That seemed to have been Qin An's favorite thing to do at first, seeking his only comfort and happiness in an unfamiliar class...

Ye Zhulan's slightly skittish figure hurried past. As though sensing Qin An's gaze, she turned her head, then stiffened her expression and pretended to speak to the classmate on her other side...

Clearly, Ye Zhulan had yet to get over Qin An's confession to her that morning. Her little head was occupied with questions somewhat too complicated for her age...

Sun Sun watched this scene. Ye Zhulan and Qin An had always been the most conspicuous pair among the classes on this floor. Sometimes, as they chased each other with brooms, he and she would even charge into Class 69. Sun Sun had never seen such a mischievous girl, fooling around with boys, and did not have a very good impression of Ye Zhulan...

"Hmph!" Sun Sun snorted coldly. Already behaving like this at his age, shamelessly staring at me during class and then staring at Ye Zhulan after class. Is looking at girls all he knows how to do? Doesn't he know that at our age, studying matters most, and those other things are shameful?

Qin An turned back to look at Sun Sun again. So this habit of hers had started back then. At their class reunions many years later, Ye Zhulan's name would inevitably come up, and every time, Sun Sun would give a snort carrying a different shade of emotion...

He's looking at me again!

Sun Sun's eyes widened. On that seemingly naturally chilly face, a stiff expression of affected disdain still lingered...

"Let's be friends..." Qin An spoke before Sun Sun could erupt...

"I don't like that line..." Sun Sun said bluntly. "And I don't like people like you..."

At fourteen, Sun Sun had already drawn the attention of boys a year or two older in other classes. There were always people trying to approach her under all sorts of pretexts, and lines like "let's be friends" had been used to death...

Qin An did not mind. At first, he and Sun Sun had indeed been locked in a cold war of mutual indifference. Only shortly before the high school entrance exams, when a nervous Sun Sun lost her admission ticket and Qin An searched through an entire trash bin to find it for her, had their relationship eased. At this age, Sun Sun's head was still full of model-student dogma, and there was no possibility of her becoming too close to a boy...

Qin An took a fountain pen from his desk and tore the cover off his English textbook...

"You... how could you treat your textbook so carelessly!" Her surprise made Sun Sun's wide-eyed expression look especially innocent...

On the back of the cover, Qin An wrote a short poem in English:

A friend stays with you when everyone else walks away...

Sometimes in life,

You find a special friend,

He is only one part of your life, yet he can change your whole life...

He makes you laugh with delight, he makes you believe there is genuine affection in this world, and he makes you certain that there really is an unlocked door waiting for you to open it...

This is friendship...

When you are down,

When the world turns dim and empty,

Your true friend lifts your spirits, and the world, once dim and empty, suddenly becomes bright and full...

Your true friend stays with you through times of hardship, sadness, and worry...

When you turn and walk away,

A true friend follows close behind,

When you lose your way,

A true friend guides and encourages you...

A true friend holds your hand and tells you that everything will be all right...

Beautiful calligraphy, pristine white paper, crisp ink strokes. Qin An handed it to Sun Sun...

After Sun Sun killed herself, Qin An would think from time to time that he had always been used to pouring his heart out to her, yet had never paid much attention to her affairs. If Sun Sun had already been accustomed to discussing things with him when something like that happened, he would certainly have rushed to comfort her as soon as he heard the news, instead of ending up outside her mourning hall, weeping in anguish when it was already irreversible and nothing could help...

"The kind of friend I want to be to you is this kind of friend... Your forever friend holds your hand and tells you that everything is going to be okay..."

"You wrote this?" Sun Sun was still in shock. She had never imagined that this shameless fellow could produce handwriting far more beautiful than even his delicate face...

"You just saw me, didn't you? Seeing is believing. I'm not completely worthless, you know. You'll discover my good points little by little..." Qin An blinked. Given another chance, he could even bear Ye Zhulan gradually drifting away, but he could not turn a blind eye to Sun Sun's tragedy. He would make sure that no matter how devastating a blow she suffered, Sun Sun would remember she had a friend like him who could support her as she carried on...