The cold smell of disinfectant filled my nostrils, accompanied by the regular, monotonous beep... beep... of the heart monitor.
I lay on the hospital bed, my breathing growing weaker and my vision beginning to blur. At twenty-seven, just when my career had finally started to take off and I thought I could at last put down roots in this indifferent city, the diagnosis of terminal stomach cancer dealt me a fatal blow.
There was no one in the hospital room. No family. No lover.
During the final days of my countdown, my coworkers from the Yuanda Planning Department sorted through the belongings in my rented apartment and brought them to the hospital. At the very bottom of that heavy cardboard box lay a metal portable cassette player, long since oxidized and rusted.
It was the eighteenth-birthday present I had given Zhou Huai'an when I was seventeen—and the portable cassette player I had secretly used to record my confession.
During my senior year of high school, Zhou Huai'an had vanished without a word, disappearing from my world completely. I thought he had abandoned me. I thought he had mocked me for my wishful thinking. So, carrying resentment and insecurity, I went alone to the city far away for college.
It wasn't until last month, when I was hospitalized after vomiting blood, that a man claiming to be Zhou Huai'an's executive assistant came to see me.
He handed me the portable cassette player and said to me with reddened eyes, “Miss Xia, President Zhou passed away overseas last month... In the family inheritance battle, he blocked every scheme aimed at you. For those nine years, he didn't contact you even once because he was in hell and didn't dare drag you into it. He kept this portable cassette player clenched in his hand until the moment he died.”
That day, clutching the portable cassette player, I cried until my heart broke.
So there had never been any heartless abandonment. So during those nine years when I hated him, he had spent all nine of them loving me from the dark corner I could never see, his body covered in wounds.
“Beep———”
The heart monitor suddenly stretched into one long, unbroken line. Excruciating pain swept over me, and the last tear slipped from the corner of my eye.
Zhou Huai'an, if I could do it all over again... I would never let go of your hand.
“Xia Zhifeng! Xia Zhifeng! What are you spacing out for? The history teacher is calling on you to stand up and answer!”
A girl's frantic, crisp whisper came with a violent shaking of my arm.
The pungent smell of disinfectant vanished. In its place was the scorched fragrance of sun-dried summer grass and trees, the smell of correction fluid, and the increasingly loud, frantic chorus of cicadas outside the window.
I opened my eyes with a start and gulped down mouthfuls of fresh air. There was no longer any swelling pain in my chest, nor the prickling discomfort of a nasal cannula.
I lowered my head and saw that I was wearing a slightly loose blue-and-white school uniform. My slender fingers bore faint ink stains, while my desk was piled high with thick Five Years of College Entrance Exams, Three Years of Practice Tests books and history textbooks.
Several lines of chalk were written in the upper-right corner of the blackboard: [Sophomore Class 3 Class Schedule].
“Xia Zhifeng! Stand up!” The history teacher's stern voice came from the podium, punctuated by a rap against the blackboard. “Tell us, what was the historical significance of the Xinhai Revolution?”
Kindly snickers rose from the students around me.
Trembling, I reached up and touched my face. It was smooth, warm, and full of youthful collagen. Refusing to believe it, I pinched my thigh hard—pain! It hurt like hell!
This wasn't a dream. I had really died... and then returned to the year I was sixteen, in my sophomore year of high school!
“Xia Zhifeng, are you okay? Why are you so pale?” my desk mate Xiaomei asked softly.
I drew a deep breath and forced back the tears that were nearly bursting from my eyes. The instincts of a twenty-seven-year-old career woman quickly steadied my breathing. I rose and fluently and precisely recited the standard answer from the history textbook, even adding an in-depth analysis from my college political economics courses.
The history teacher froze, then cleared his throat awkwardly. “Ahem... That was very thorough. Sit down. Don't space out in class.”
I sat back down, my heart pounding as if it were about to break through my chest.
Sophomore year. This was the first semester of sophomore year! This year, the Zhou family hadn't gone bankrupt yet. Zhou Huai'an hadn't been forced to flee overseas. His eyes hadn't yet been stained by the weariness and indifference he would carry at twenty-seven!
Bang!
The classroom's front door was suddenly kicked open, the deafening impact interrupting the history teacher's lecture.
“Reporting in. I lost track of time playing basketball.”
A slightly hoarse but unmistakably recognizable boy's voice rang out from the doorway.
My heart stopped in that instant.
I whipped around.
A tall boy stood in the doorway. His school jacket hung open, its buttons undone, over a black T-shirt washed pale from wear. His hair was soaked with sweat, the loose strands over his forehead falling carelessly against his brow. He held a basketball in one hand. His arms were long and powerfully toned, and his face wore a careless, almost punchable grin.
Sixteen-year-old Zhou Huai'an. Zhou Huai'an, alive, vibrant, and not yet battered by life!
On this day in my past life, he had been late from playing basketball and knocked over my desk. He and I had gotten into a huge public fight in the classroom. I called him an uncivilized punk, and he mocked me as a bookworm who only knew how to cram. That had begun a full year of mutual hostility between us in sophomore year.
“Zhou Huai'an! You again! How many times has it been this month? Get back to your seat!” The history teacher was so furious he practically blew his top.
Zhou Huai'an merely curled his lips, dribbling the basketball as he swaggered toward the last row of the classroom.
His seat was diagonally behind mine.
When he passed my desk, just as he had in my past life, he deliberately slammed the basketball against the corner of my desk with a loud bang, trying to startle me.
He stopped, braced one hand on the edge of my desk, and leaned down slightly, lifting his brows as he prepared to enjoy my furious reaction.
The boy leaned in close. He smelled of sunlight, sweat, and the faint scent of soap.
“Hey, Xia Zhifeng.” He curved his lips into that familiar cold smirk, his eyes blazing with arrogance. “What are you staring at? Never seen a handsome guy play basketball before? Keep looking and I'll—”
His taunt cut off mid-sentence.
Because I didn't slam my desk and leap up to curse him like I had in my past life. I didn't show the slightest trace of disgust.
I simply stared at him, at that young, arrogant face without a single scar. The despair of the hospital room at twenty-seven, the oxidized and rusted portable cassette player, and the tragic ending of him going to his death alone as described by his executive assistant—all those emotions erupted like a flash flood.
Tears rolled from my eyes without warning, like beads slipping from a broken string, splattering across the notebook-covered textbook on my desk.
Zhou Huai'an was completely stunned.
His provocative expression froze instantly. The fingers of the hand gripping my desk tightened sharply, and the basketball slipped from his other hand and rumbled out into the classroom hallway.
“You... why are you crying?”
This menace, who feared neither heaven nor earth at school and even dared to talk back to the discipline director, completely lost his head the moment he saw my tears.
He frantically tried to pull a tissue from his pocket, only to fish out a pack of chewing gum. He stood there stiffly, all the arrogance gone from his eyes, replaced by utter helplessness.
“No, Xia Zhifeng, I only hit your desk... I didn't even hit you. Don't cry...” Zhou Huai'an lowered his voice, panic edging into it like he was begging for mercy. “At worst... at worst, you can hit me back. Just don't cry. The whole class is watching!”
I said nothing. I only looked at his clumsy, flustered appearance.
The mind of a twenty-seven-year-old woman made it impossible for me to disguise myself with a little girl's pride anymore.
Under the shocked gazes of the entire class and the history teacher, I suddenly stood, took one big step forward, opened my arms, and hugged him tightly around the waist.
I buried my face deep in his chest, which carried the scent of sweat and sunlight, and listened to the strong, vital thud of his heartbeat inside his chest.
Thank goodness. He was still alive. He was still somewhere I could see and touch.
This time, Zhou Huai'an, I would shield you from your hell. I would help you fill every one of your regrets.
“Xia Zhifeng...?! What... what are you doing?!”
The body of the Zhou Huai'an I held tightly went rigid as stone.
I could feel him trembling all over. His previously cocky brain seemed to crash in an instant. His long hands hovered helplessly in midair, unable either to drop or to embrace me, and he even held his breath.
As the entire classroom sucked in a collective breath, I clearly saw the most flamboyant menace in sophomore year turn red from the base of his neck all the way to the tips of his ears, so red he looked ready to bleed.
“Xia Zhifeng, are you... are you crazy? We're in class!” His voice was terrifyingly hoarse, his heart pounding like a drum, the vibrations making my ears tingle.
“Xia Zhifeng! Zhou Huai'an! What are you two doing! Clinging to each other in the middle of class—what kind of behavior is that? Out! Both of you, go stand in the hallway!” The history teacher was so furious that the chalk in her hand snapped as she shouted.
The whole class exploded into whispers.
“Oh my God, doesn't Xia Zhifeng hate Zhou Huai'an the most? They almost got into a fight over the class bulletin board last week. What's going on today?”
“That’s hate? This is obviously a confession! Didn't you see Xia Zhifeng crying as she hugged him?”
“Bro Zhou's ears are completely red! I'm dying. He usually fears nothing, but the class president totally has him wrapped around her finger!”
The discussion around me reached my ears, but I didn't care in the slightest.
The twenty-seven-year-old me had long since seen through the world's judgment. Compared with the pain of losing Zhou Huai'an in my past life, what did a little punishment standing in the hallway matter?
I slowly released him and looked up at him with a smile. Tears still clung to the corners of my eyes, but my smile held an indescribable gentleness and certainty.
Zhou Huai'an met my gaze and seemed to be struck by lightning. He turned his face away in a panic, not even daring to look me in the eye.
“Fine, I'll stand. No need to yell...” Zhou Huai'an muttered under his breath. He snatched up the jacket from the floor and turned to leave the classroom first.
But his slightly disordered steps and burning-red ears completely betrayed the chaos inside him.
Outside in the hallway, the afternoon sunlight spilled across the corridor, stretching the shadows of the camphor trees long and thin.
Zhou Huai'an and I stood side by side at the classroom door. Wind swept through the corridor, bringing waves of coolness and dispersing the stuffy heat inside.
Zhou Huai'an leaned against the wall with one leg bent and both hands in his pants pockets, his eyes drifting toward the distant athletic field. An unlit lollipop dangled from his mouth.
He tried to recover his usual careless, aloof, arrogant air, but whenever my peripheral vision brushed over him, his body tensed unnaturally.
“Hey.” After a long while, he finally couldn't stand the silence anymore. Without looking at me, he lowered his voice and asked stiffly, “Back there... why were you crying? Did someone bully you?”
A dangerous edge seeped into his voice on the last few words.
Seventeen-year-old Zhou Huai'an had always been like that. No matter how much we fought on the surface, if anyone actually dared touch me, he would be the first to object. Once in my past life, a gang of punks from the neighboring class cornered me in an alley. He had run over alone carrying a steel pipe, shielded me behind him, and taken such a beating that his body was covered in purple bruises.
But I had been too proud and too sensitive then, always convinced he was laughing at me. I had stubbornly pushed his concern away.
“No one bullied me.” I turned and looked at him steadily. “I’m fine.”
“Then why did you freak out in class? And... and suddenly hug me...” Zhou Huai'an's voice grew quieter and quieter. The blush that had finally faded from his face showed signs of returning. He scratched his head awkwardly. “Xia Zhifeng, I'm warning you. Don't think crying will make me forget that you reported me to the discipline director for smoking last week!”
Seeing how stubbornly he refused to admit anything, I couldn't help but let out a soft laugh.
That smile was as radiant as sunlight, banishing every trace of gloom from my eyes.
Zhou Huai'an stared at me.
In his memories, Xia Zhifeng had always been stern and rigid, forever wearing the face of a class officer around him. When had he ever seen me smile with such gentleness and sly amusement?
“Zhou Huai'an, what if I told you I had a long, terrifying nightmare? In it, I lost you, so when I saw you just now, I couldn't help...” I took one step forward, closing the distance between us. “Would you believe me?”
Zhou Huai'an instinctively tried to retreat, but his back struck the cold wall. There was nowhere left to go.
He looked at the suddenly different Xia Zhifeng before him, his heartbeat spiraling out of control again. The first stirrings of a seventeen-year-old boy's awakening heart were completely transparent before the soul of a twenty-seven-year-old woman.
“Tch... How childish. Aren't you too old to believe in dreams?” He forcibly turned his head toward the clouds in the sky and coughed twice in an obvious attempt to cover himself. “Boring.”
“Yeah. I think it’s boring too.” I stood beside him and leaned against the railing the way he did, looking up at the blue sky.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps between the leaves and fell across me, bringing tangible warmth.
Zhou Huai'an, in this life, I won't let you face the storm alone again. The schemers plotting against you, the hidden blades aimed at destroying the Zhou family, and every grievance you've buried in your heart—I will clear them away one by one.
“Zhou Huai'an.” I called his name.
“What now?” he answered irritably, though his peripheral vision secretly drifted toward me.
I turned my head. My eyes were clear as stones washed clean in a stream, and I smiled at him.
“Starting today, I want to get to know you all over again. And about hugging you in the classroom just now... I meant it.”
The lollipop nearly fell from Zhou Huai'an's mouth.
He turned to stare at me in shock, disbelief and uncertainty filling his eyes. The afternoon breeze swept past the edges of our uniforms with a soft rustle.
“Xia Zhifeng, do you... do you even know what you're saying?!” The boy's voice was hoarse, his ears blazing red, panic written all over his eyes.
I only smiled without answering and turned to look at the school grounds bathed in sunlight.
The summer of seventeen had only just begun. And this time, our story would never have any regrets.