JFWCM Chapter 8

The Torn 26 Points

The chocolate wrapper made a faint rustling sound in Yi Shang’s palm. She stood under the bus stop sign, watching the black sedan turn onto the mountain road and disappear, its exhaust fumes rising into distorted, transparent waves in the sunlight. The pink chalk in her pocket pressed against her thigh, like a piece of red-hot coal.

Only when the electronic screen on the front window of the bus flashed “Nanshan Cemetery → Bauhinia Garden” did Yi Shang realize she was going in the wrong direction. She hurriedly pressed the stop button, and the strap of her backpack caught on the armrest of the seat, tearing off a small piece of thread.

By the time she got off the bus, dusk had already spread across the sky. Yi Shang stood at an unfamiliar intersection, and the streetlights suddenly lit up, startling the sparrows on the wires. She took out her phone, and the lock screen showed the daily schedule set by her father: 19:00-20:30 Physics Competition Problem Set.

The unread messages column was stacked with three notifications. At the top was a message from her father at 17:45: “Professor Zhang is coming for a home visit at seven.” Followed by two missed call reminders, the latest one ten minutes ago.

Yi Shang’s finger hovered above the callback button. The glass of a convenience store in the distance reflected her shadow, the hem of her navy blue school uniform stained with grass clippings from the cemetery. She suddenly turned and pushed open the door of the convenience store, and the air conditioning mixed with the aroma of Oden wafted over her.

“I’ll take a pack of Seven Stars.” Yi Shang’s voice was calmer than she expected. This was the brand that Jiang Wan’yuan often smoked, the cigarette box printed with a deep blue starry sky pattern.

The clerk sized her up suspiciously: “Student ID.”

As Yi Shang pulled out her ID card from her wallet, a cemetery ticket fluttered to the ground. She bent down to pick it up and saw small numbers written in pencil on the back of the ticket: N32°04′, E118°46′. This was what Jiang Wan’yuan had secretly written while she was staring blankly at the tombstone.

“Twenty.” The clerk slammed the cigarette box on the counter. The glass counter reflected Yi Shang’s suddenly pale face – she thought of the telescope in her father’s study, the complete set of “Introduction to Astrophysics” he gave her for her birthday last year, and the way his eyes lit up when he said, “Shang Shang will go to the Zijin Mountain Astronomical Observatory in the future.”

Yi Shang ended up buying a box of mints. As she left, she bumped into the shelf, and several pink-packaged children’s chalks rolled to her feet. The packaging bags were printed with “Starry Sky Series”, exactly the same as the ones Jiang Wan’yuan used at the grave today.

Her phone vibrated again. Her father’s name flashed on the screen, like some kind of warning. Yi Shang took a deep breath and pressed answer, while stuffing the cemetery ticket into the cigarette box.

“Where are you?” Her father’s voice was like sandpaper rubbing against glass.

“Just out of the library.” Yi Shang looked at the internet cafe sign across the street, “Waiting for the light.”

She heard the sound of paper turning on the other end of the phone. She knew her father must be flipping through her calendar, with every page filled with detailed plans according to his requirements.

“Professor Zhang has been waiting for forty minutes.” Each of her father’s words was like an ice pick, “You immediately…”

A muck truck roared past, crushing the second half of his sentence. Yi Shang took the opportunity to hang up, pouring the mints into her mouth. The cool stinging sensation exploded on her tongue, and she remembered the faint smell of tobacco on Jiang Wan’yuan’s fingertips when she stuffed chocolate into her mouth today.

She had to transfer buses twice to get home. Yi Shang spotted a familiar figure in the back row of the second bus – Lin Jichuan, the physics representative, was doing practice problems, poking small holes in the paper with the tip of his pencil. When he looked up, Yi Shang quickly turned away but still heard the sound of a chair moving.

“Yi Shang?” Lin Jichuan’s glasses reflected the blue light of the carriage’s advertising sign, “The competition class list is out, and you’re not on it…”

“I know.” Yi Shang interrupted him. The window reflected the mint crumbs on her lips, like frosted glass.

Lin Jichuan pushed up his glasses: “Jiang Wan’yuan didn’t get selected either.” He deliberately emphasized the word “either,” “But she wasn’t qualified anyway.”

Yi Shang clenched her backpack straps. Inside was the note Jiang Wan’yuan had given her, with a crooked rabbit drawn on it, a five-pointed star pinned to its ear. Today at the cemetery, Jiang Wan’yuan said that her sister taught her how to draw it, “Closer to the truth of the universe than all the physics formulas.”

Lin Jichuan still wanted to say something when she got off the bus, but Yi Shang suddenly pointed into the distance: “Your mom’s waiting for you.” While he turned his head, she quickly slipped into the alley. Dandelions grew in the cracks of the wall, their fluff faintly glowing in the twilight.

Professor Zhang’s black Audi was parked at the entrance of the community. Yi Shang went around to the backyard and climbed onto the fire escape, stepping on the air conditioning unit. The bedroom window was unlocked, and a newly bought “Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics” was placed on the desk, with her father’s neat inscription on the title page: To the future astrophysicist.

Yi Shang took out the cigarette box from her backpack and stuffed it into the cover of “5 Years of Gaokao, 3 Years of Mock Exams”. The spine of the book was labeled with her father’s handwritten number: 7-3-9, representing the ninth book on the third shelf of the seventh row. The entire numbering system had been implemented since she was in junior high school to “cultivate the discipline of scientific researchers.”

As she was wiping grass stains off her school pants, a knock sounded. Her father pushed the door open directly, holding a fruit plate in his hand. The apple slices were carved into rabbits and arranged neatly, which was her favorite cutting method when she was in elementary school.

“Professor Zhang has left.” Her father put down the fruit plate, his eyes sweeping over the desk, “Where did you get to today?”

Yi Shang squeezed the wet wipe: “The Bohr atomic model.”

“Wrong.” Her father picked up “Fundamentals of Quantum Mechanics,” “You finished that last week.” As the pages turned, Yi Shang saw dense annotations, the red writing like spider webs crawling across the blank spaces.

The laughter of children came from outside the window. Yi Shang looked out and saw several girls skipping rope downstairs, colored rubber bands tied to the ends of their braids. She suddenly thought of the hair tie on Jiang Wan’yuan’s wrist, always wrapped around a few strands of long hair – “My sister’s,” she would say, pulling the hair tie very long, “She wore it in a ponytail the day she left.”

“Starting next week, you’ll be working on a project with Professor Zhang.” Her father’s voice pulled her back, “I’ve withdrawn you from the chemistry class in the international program.”

Yi Shang suddenly looked up: “Why?”

“Waste of time.” Her father tapped the spine of the book with a pencil, “Your older female cousin was like this back then…”

“Older female cousin, Older female cousin!” Yi Shang heard her voice crack, “She already had a MIT offer when she…”

The fruit plate was placed heavily on the table. An apple rabbit fell over, covered in dust.

“Already what?” Her father’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses, “Like Jiang Wan’yuan’s sister?”

Yi Shang’s breathing froze. She remembered Jiang Wan’yuan’s trembling shoulders as she drew stars in the cemetery today, the date on the tombstone that was ten years younger than her actual age, and when she asked “How did she die?”, Jiang Wan’yuan crushed the entire chalk in her palm.

“You know?” Yi Shang’s voice was as light as a feather.

Her father took off his glasses and wiped them: “A top student from a key high school, who jumped off a building because she failed the physics competition.” He paused, “I don’t want you to make friends like that.”

Yi Shang stared at the Einstein poster on the wall. Her father had put it up when she was in elementary school, and now the corners were curled. Below the poster was tiny writing in pencil, which she had secretly added last year: “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

“Her sister’s drawings are very beautiful.” Yi Shang suddenly said, “Her notebook is full of nebulae and rabbits.”

Her father frowned: “What?”

“Nothing.” Yi Shang opened the problem set, “I’m going to do some problems.”

After her father left, Yi Shang took out the long-distance bus ticket from her backpack. Jiang Wan’yuan had stuffed it into her hand last week: “Let’s go see fireflies together during the summer vacation, there’s a swamp in my hometown…” The date on the ticket was July 15th, which should have been the reporting date for the physics summer camp.

The phone screen lit up. Jiang Wan’yuan sent a photo: a physics test paper torn up and glued back together, with a rocket and stars drawn next to the 26 points. “My mom said my sister also got 26 points on her first monthly exam,” followed by a crying-laughing emoticon.

Yi Shang opened the calendar. Next Wednesday was circled in red with “Professor Zhang’s Project Starts,” and her father had added “Bring Telescope” below it. She opened the weather app, and the best viewing time for the Perseid meteor shower was displayed as 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM.

Her fingertip hovered over the dialogue box for a long time, and Yi Shang finally replied: “Is the astronomical observatory open for night sessions on Wednesday?”

The “typing” prompt flashed for a full minute. What was finally sent was a blurry screenshot of a reservation, the time column clearly reading “19:00-24:00,” with a line of small print in the remarks column: “Guardian’s signature required.”

Yi Shang stuffed the bus ticket into “5 Years of Gaokao, 3 Years of Mock Exams”. As the pages turned, a piece of paper floated out – the draft from last year’s physics competition, with a rabbit wearing headphones drawn on the back by Jiang Wan’yuan. At the time, she passed a note saying: “Listening to rock music increases the accuracy of writing problems by 20%.”

The sound of skipping rope downstairs faded away. Yi Shang pushed open the window, and the night breeze carried a faint scent of osmanthus. She remembered Jiang Wan’yuan saying in the cemetery today that her sister liked to draw formulas as constellations: “She said the universe is actually a waltz.”

The desk lamp suddenly flickered. Yi Shang looked up and saw her blurred outline reflected in the window glass, overlapping with the small print on the Einstein poster behind her, like some kind of secret revelation.