“Yexiaobai.”

“Mm?”

“For you?”

“Uh… what?”

Yexiaobai’s brow was knotted like a locked gate as he wrestled a problem like a stubborn stone.

He heard the call like a pebble in a pond, lifted his head, and blankly took a note from a girl like a passing cloud.

Her odd look felt like a misbuttoned shirt, like chalk dust on his face, a prickling of wrongness.

He followed her tilted gaze like a compass needle, and saw a skinny, tall boy with black‑rimmed glasses lurking by the door like a spy behind a curtain—Li Hang, the one who had shoved the notebook at him.

He opened the note; his face shifted like weather; his right hand clenched, and he crushed the paper like snow underfoot.

“Hey? Let me see.”

Mu Xiaowei, who’d been craning her neck like a curious crane, was caught and yelped like a startled sparrow.

“Nothing worth seeing,” Yexiaobai said, steady as a stone in a stream.

“Tsk. Stingy Bai.” Mu Xiaowei stood, one hand on the desk like a perch, and leaned in until her cheek could have brushed his like a drifting petal.

They were too close; strands of her black hair fell into his collar like kitten paws, and that soft scratch made him itch like grass in spring.

He angled away on reflex like a reed in the wind; she, perhaps unaware or feigning it, cheeks rosy as peaches, kept teasing like sunlight through leaves.

“Looking won’t—ah—”

Her slender fingers slipped like wet glass; her one support vanished; books toppled like a small landslide, pages scattering like leaves.

She cried out, about to smack the desk like a falling sparrow, but Yexiaobai turned and caught her like a net.

“Careful.”

He wrapped her shoulders like a steady shore; he didn’t panic, moving with practiced ease like a routine dance, a hundred rehearsals across their long years.

He patted her thin back like brushing dust, said a few measured words like rain on eaves, then let go of this forever‑clumsy girl like releasing a kite.

He gathered her fallen books like stacking bricks, then stood and looked; she didn’t help, only stared and smiled like a crescent moon.

“Huh? What’s with the goofy grin?” Yexiaobai tapped her head like knocking a gourd.

“Hehe. Nothing.” She covered her mouth, hiding that small curve like stolen candy from a secret tin, laughter fizzing like soda she refused to waste.

She was too cute like a kitten in a basket, and Yexiaobai couldn’t help tapping her head again like flicking a bell.

Mu Xiaowei puffed her cheeks like a little pufferfish, then thought of something; her lips curved again like a spring bow; she held it, then couldn’t, and whispered, “It’s just—you caught me again.”

“And then?”

Confusion drifted in Yexiaobai like fog; “What’s so funny? It’s not the first time. Back at the park, under that big banyan, I caught you—you cried all afternoon.”

“Hey! We agreed not to mention that!” Mu Xiaowei burst out like a kettle boiling; that was her lifelong stain, tears like a monsoon, with Yexiaobai as the cushion under her like a sacrificed mat—super embarrassing.

“So. Same as before.” Yexiaobai shrugged like a leaf. “Still don’t get why you laugh.”

“Because it’s the same—no change—that’s worth being happy.” She waved a book like a fan and giggled like wind bells. “You’ll never get it, dummy Bai.”

“Oh.” Yexiaobai shook his head like dislodging dew and chose not to chase her mood like a butterfly.

Lately, his childhood friend kept doing little odd things like ripples in a pond, but laughter beats tears like sun beats rain.

He never said it, but he really didn’t want to see that sudden, unplaced loneliness on Mu Xiaowei’s face, a shadow like dusk.

Maybe, as she said, keep the present rhythm like a steady drum: she sometimes blunders, and his hand is there like a guard rail.

A calm life, long live the everyday—no need for grand waves like storm‑tossed seas.

So Yexiaobai thought, like a stone sitting in shallow water.

…

…

But life isn’t built that way; it changes like weather on a mountain.

Life may be calm like a pond, or vast like an ocean in a gale.

Life rarely lets you choose calm or grandeur; the crossroads blur like mist.

You pick a road like stepping onto an old trail, and years later a day arrives like a bell, and the choice overturns your world in ways unlike your plans.

Butterflies beat their wings and oceans ripple; uncertainty hums like a hidden drum—that’s the main melody of life.

Yexiaobai, skulking like a thief, carried a Chinese textbook like a shield and walked toward the small garden behind the teaching building like a quiet temple.

On the path, faint pink petals drifted from person‑high trees like soft rain; green sprouts slipped from brick seams like shy tongues.

He didn’t admire it; the black notebook pinched in his textbook felt hot like coal, as if the World watched him like a thousand eyes.

He couldn’t know what would unfold once he acted per the note like a cue card.

He couldn’t know that the cause lay earlier, in some careless move like a pebble tossed long ago.

“Hey. Comrade.”

A voice struck his back like a thrown pebble; Yexiaobai spun like a wheel and saw Li Hang like a stick insect in glasses.

“Got the files?” Li Hang asked, trying for mystery like stage smoke, ruined by the red mark on his right cheek like a slapped apple.

“Your face—”

“I fell!” Li Hang snapped like a trap, then repeated, “It had to be a fall!”

His look said, ask again and we fight like dogs, while his mouth kept muttering like a leaking pipe, “Yao Yuelu, that crazy woman—she’ll pay.”

“Alright. Business.” His tone straightened like a ruler. “I gave you the files as promised. The other two as well.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Yexiaobai hesitated like a paused pendulum, then handed back the notebook stamped with big characters—Suzhiaoyao—like a bold banner.

“What do you mean?” Li Hang’s eyes widened like lanterns.

“I meant to say it yesterday. The person I’m looking for isn’t Suzhiaoyao.”

“Hey! Eat it and spit it out?” Li Hang flared like dry grass. “You think you can do this and I—” he glanced at his thin frame, then at Yexiaobai, and switched tracks, “our Organization will let you go?”

“I don’t know what Organization you mean,” Yexiaobai said, rubbing his temple like easing a knot. “But that’s the fact.”

“After reading the notebook, I’m surer. The one I’m after—I don’t know her well—but she isn’t dazzling like fireworks.”

“She’s dimmer, plainer, more like charcoal in the hearth, not painted in five colors like Suzhiaoyao.”

Li Hang looked ready to hop like a sparrow, so Yexiaobai added, “Since I read it, I’ll still give you the info you want, within reason.”

Li Hang’s face smoothed like a lake after wind. “That’s better.”

“But your info won’t be free,” he said, pushing his glasses like resetting a lever. “Rules are rules. Yesterday was on me.”

“Tell me more about the one you want.”

“Uh… I’ve only met her once.”

“Huh? You’re that devoted?” Li Hang gaped like a fish. “Met once, and you camp at Class One every day? Is she even Class One?”

“I don’t camp every day!” Yexiaobai’s eyes widened like moons, then he muttered, “Only sometimes,” like rain under breath.

“Fine. Once is once.” Li Hang tapped his frames like a metronome. “Give whatever you’ve got. Maybe she’s not Class One.”

“It’s not really only once,” Yexiaobai said, memory glimmering like water. “The formal, proper meeting was just once.”

“After that, it was chance touches like drifting boats. That one time was…”

He lifted his gaze; behind the building, blue stretched like silk, white clouds drifting like slow sheep.

Yexiaobai let himself remember, and the past rose like mist from a valley.

…

…