Author notes: ◢*text*◢ represents MC thinking, since Inkstone won't let me use italics.

"The wind blows cool across my face

I can smell the taste,

A trace of lace…."

Zhuge Lian woke up to the sounds of last night's music ringing in his ears. How are my arms so heavy? Last night's drinking was too much for even his stable head. How are my thoughts so light? He turned down the volume on his headphones and, like every other day, realized that he was late for morning classes. His feet rammed through the mess on the floor like they were bowling balls, knocking down cans of Red Bull from weeks ago. ◢How did things get like this?◢

Ever since he had received the fateful letter of rejection from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, he had become an aimless zombie in his senior year. After practicing all his life for Gaokao and college, reality crushed his dreams. Now, he drowned his sorrows in cheap spirits and sleep. He understood very well that intelligence and education were the main methods of social mobility in this era, and he no longer had the qualifications to rise to the top.

Life didn't give Zhuge Lian a chance to lament his fate. Could life be called so if it didn't screw you over once in a while? Test after test and essay after essay hit his plate, and the stress became too much, even for an optimist like Zhuge Lian. What had he done to deserve this? He had worked all his life, sending in countless emails, letters, and qualifications to join his top three schools.

Perhaps that was his downfall.

Perhaps he was his downfall.

Zhuge Lian had never wanted to hide in a hole so much in his life. Countless messages from people who used to support him now turned on him, calling him worthless. The phone rang, and Zhuge Lian picked it up with a resigned sigh.

His melancholy was quickly interrupted by screaming from the phone. "Zhuge Lian! Get over here this second!" It was his mother. Ever-present in his life, she had been overbearing and over-scheduling from the start. Whenever he made a mistake, he was immediately yelled at and scolded that his mother didn't have the time to deal with him. He shrunk in his seat, just thinking about the memories.

"Zhuge, I am very disappointed in you. I thought you would make this family proud, but instead, you have cast it into the garbage bin. How many thousands have we spent on your education? How many thousands have we spent on your development, housing, food, and emotional support? Only for you to fail at the last minute?"

He shrunk in his seat. The only words he could muster up were an "I understand," which only made the mother angrier.

"Why do you show no remorse? I didn't ask for you, you know, but I spent 18 years of my life caring for you and spending for you all the same. I did everything in my power to help you, wasting my dreams for it… how could you be so careless? How could you be so wasteful of my time?"

For the second time, Zhuge Lian wanted to scream out in pain and pressure, yelling out into the receiver that he had tried his best and that he was just afraid of failure and afraid of embarrassment and afraid of his mother… but he knew it would only make it worse.

◢One day I'll prove it to you.◢

Zhuge Lian opened the window for a fresh breath of air, and the pure sharpness of the wind hit him like a bullet, knocking him back afoot. "I haven't been outside in weeks," he realized. He grabbed a bottle of erguotou and a pack of cigarettes like he did every day since the rejection and went to sit out on the balcony. He looked down at the emptiness below him. 26 floors of air. Was he worthy of life? He had wasted so much time, so much life, so much of other's resources...

He took in a drag of smoke from his cigarette.

◢Soon I'll be twenty years old.◢

He took a large sip of his erguotou.

◢Soon my friends will be in college.◢

Another sip.

◢Soon my peers will be starting families.◢

Another drag of his cigarette.

◢Soon my siblings will make their parents proud.

Soon I'll look back and notice that I've done none of those things.◢

He looked over the edge and realized he was void of purpose. Everything that once made him happy now didn't. He was freer than ever. How was he sad? It was then that he realized that he was worthless. He had no purpose, no dreams, no goals. A man without dreams and goals is nothing more than a salted fish, and a salted fish without purpose might as well not exist. He looked over the edge for what he thought would be the last time and jumped off his balcony.

The sharp gust of wind on his way down from the twenty-sixth floor caught him by surprise. Time seemed to slow down, and moments from his life began to replay in his mind. His first crush, the first time she told him that she loved him, and he turned her away crying to focus on schoolwork. He never got to apologize. His parents looked down at him in the second grade, disappointed at his failure to score first in a math test—a thousand regrets and disappointments. But now, unlike ever before, he felt a desire to change.

Suddenly, Zhuge Lian realized all of his problems had solutions, but the one issue that he had no possibility of finding a solution to was that he was now falling to his death!

On the fourteenth floor now. He could see the bustling city beneath him, the pedestrians already turning to look up at him. One took their phone out to record. Zhuge Lian raised a hand towards them, and they put it away hastily.

On the seventh floor now.

◢How could I be so stupid?◢

Zhuge Lian saw more memories. Happy ones this time. His sister was playing with him on a Saturday morning. His friends were clamoring in a soccer game organized outside of the classroom, right in the middle of the schoolyard. Sneaking out with his friends on a junk boat and feeling entirely free for the first time. On the second floor now.

Time slowed down to a tenth of the normal speed. He saw the frightened children right below him in a kindergarten classroom. The littlest details were now available to him, and it felt like anything was possible. For the first time in years, Zhuge Lian cried. All the missed memories, all the missed memories that would have belonged to him had he not jumped…

One meter away now.

One foot away now.

His nose touched the ground, and everything turned white.

"The wind blows cool across my face

I can smell the taste,

A trace of lace…."