While Lin Feiran was furtively poking his head through the doorway of the second-years’ teachers’ office, he was startled by the voice of the Chinese literature teacher. “Oh, you came on your own? I was about to look for you.”

Lin Feiran jumped in fear when he heard the literature teacher speak. Because he had not looked in the literature teacher’s direction at all, he considered turning and running as if he had not heard. But then he heard the literature teacher’s shout that was capable of toppling the mountains and overturning the seas, “Lin Feiran! I’m calling you! Come over here!”

Lin Feiran immediately squeezed out a fake smile and diligently ran over. “Ah, Ms. Li, I’m here.”

Ms. Li frowned and pushed up her glasses, a cold light glinting off the lenses. She said severely, “Don’t grin so cheekily. What do you think you were doing during the midterms? I see that your grades in your other subjects are good. Do you not care about Chinese literature?”

“No, Ms. Li. Actually, I think that I improved from last time...” Lin Feiran tried to appeal. “I pay attention in literature class.”

“You pay attention?” Ms. Li pulled out Lin Feiran’s paper from the pile with perfect accuracy and pointed to a multiple choice question circled in red pen. “I explained the meaning of this word in the lesson a few days before the exam. I’ll give you another chance. What is the correct answer?”

“Teacher, let me think about it.” Lin Feiran’s face scrunched like a bitter melon as he looked at the question. He was stalling for time, eyes drifting to the other papers on the desk as he tried to peek at another classmate’s answer. But Ms. Li, with sharp eyes and agile hands, swiftly moved the stack of papers away.

Lin Feiran: “......”

Just as Lin Feiran was about to go bald from anxiety, the little girl’s ghost suddenly ran over carrying the rabbit plushie. She stood on tiptoe and looked with wide black eyes at the question Ms. Li was pointing to with her red pen, then craned her neck and looked at another student’s paper. Timidly, she said to Lin Feiran, “Pick A, big brother.”

Ms. Li prompted, “Have you decided? I think you’re just...”

Lin Feiran glanced at the little girl’s ghost gratefully and replied in a loud voice, “I pick A!”

The second half of Ms. Li’s sentence caught in her throat. She pointed at another question Lin Feiran had gotten wrong. “What about this one? I went over it too.”

The little girl’s ghost looked over at the other paper again and whispered, “Pick C, big brother.”

The corner of Lin Feiran’s mouth quirked. “I pick C, Ms. Li.”

Ms. Li did not believe in ghosts. She pointed at a fill-in-the-blank for a classic poem that Lin Feiran had not answered and asked, “What goes after ‘We lament that our lives last only such a short instance’”?

The little girl’s ghost frowned as she looked at the other paper. She seemed to be in about her first or second year of elementary school at most, and probably did not know enough vocabulary. After hesitating, she said softly, “I don’t know the first word, ‘the long river that has no...’”

Lin Feiran surreptitiously gave the little girl’s ghost an ‘OK’ sign with his hand under the desk. The little girl’s ghost ignored him and ran back to Ms. Zheng’s side with the rabbit plushie in her arms.

Having escaped calamity, Lin Feiran was all smiles as he acted cute towards the teacher. “Ms. Li, I’ve always been bad at Chinese literature, so I was nervous when I took the exam. I really did listen in class...”

Ms. Li’s temper had subsided, so she chided Lin Feiran a little more before dismissing him with a wave.

When Lin Feiran left the office, he looked back at the ghost of the little girl, who was still playing with the rabbit plushie. As the ghost and the human’s gazes met, Lin Feiran winked suavely at the little girl’s ghost, then smiled. His looks and manner were both very pleasing to the little girl, and his actions could have knocked over an entire crowd with their cuteness. The little girl’s ghost froze before she shyly lowered her head and clutched the rabbit plushie’s ears.

Seems like she’s not as wary of me any more? Lin Feiran felt momentarily gratified as he ran across the ghost-filled corridor to return to class. Under the severe gaze of the old principal with half a head, he gently touched his fingertips to Gu Kaifeng’s cheek and absorbed some Yang energy. Then, as if nothing had happened and he was just like everyone else, he lowered his head and pulled out the chemistry exam that they would likely be reviewing the next class. This left Gu Kaifeng, who had been teased without an outlet through which to vent his feelings, to go crazy where he sat.

“You think that I don’t dare kiss you in class, do you?” Gu Kaifeng poked the ticklish flesh at Lin Feiran’s waist.

Lin Feiran pulled away from him immediately, his clear eyes glowing with a hint of shyness. “No ah, what’s this about kissing?”

“Wait till the high school exams are over.” Hot breath slipped between Gu Kaifeng’s teeth and lips to wash over Lin Feiran’s ear, his voice low. “I’ll push you against the podium and kiss you, and I’ll kiss you on stage.”

Lin Feiran bit his lip but couldn’t hold back his smile. He had to use one hand to cover his mouth as he asked, “Why don’t you just kiss me in the principal’s office? That would be thrilling.”

Gu Kaifeng immediately decided, “Then let’s do that, too.”

Lin Feiran: “......”

Lin Feiran coughed lightly and put on a stony expression. He opened Gu Kaifeng’s chemistry exam as he said seriously, “Can you think more healthy thoughts? Who wants to kiss you? Look at the questions you got wrong. We’re about to go over them.”

“Just you wait.” A devilish, all-knowing grin surfaced on Gu Kaifeng’s lips, and he bowed his head to look over his exam.

The second class that afternoon was physical education. Today, the P.E. teacher was miraculously neither taken ill nor busy with something else, and P.E. proceeded as normal.

The students jogged twice around the field, then the teacher announced free activity time. Lin Feiran was going to play basketball with Gu Kaifeng and Wang Zhuo, but when he got to the basketball court, he scanned his surroundings with his Yin-Yang eyes and found that Ms. Zheng’s daughter’s ghost was playing by the side of the court. So, he changed his mind and told them that today he would just watch from the sidelines.

Wang Zhuo had to find another guy to play 3v3. At first, Lin Feiran stood by the side of the court. But once he saw they were fully immersed in their game, he secretly slipped away to another hoop where the little girl’s ghost was. There, several third-year seniors were playing basketball. The little girl’s ghost was following their example and trying to throw her ball into the hoop, but she did not always have the strength to throw the ball high enough, and even when she managed to throw it high, it went off to the side.

Lin Feiran was entertained by the sight of how the little girl’s ghost was attentively throwing the ball, and the remaining fear he had of her dissipated. He circled in front of her and beckoned when her shining dark eyes landed on him. He mouthed, “Come over.”

After the incident in the office that morning, the little girl’s ghost behaved less distant towards Lin Feiran. She quickly ran over while holding the ball, stopping about two meters from Lin Feiran. She called out politely, “Hello, big brother.”

“Hello.” Lin Feiran smiled and waved at her. Behind the little girl’s ghost, a student who happened to be glancing in this direction pointed at himself, perplexed.

Lin Feiran quickly waved his hand. “Nothing, nothing.”

The little girl’s ghost noticed the small misunderstanding she had caused and clapped a hand to her mouth in laughter.

Lin Feiran laughed too. In order to stop himself from looking like a fool, he covered his mouth with his hand before he whispered, “Big brother shoots baskets very accurately. Do you want to learn?”

The little girl ghost hesitated, then pointed to the third-year seniors beneath the hoop. “Really? More accurately than those big brothers?”

Lin Feiran waved his hand with a proud flourish. “In front of your Ran-ge, all of them are garbage.”

The abyss-like eyes of the little girl’s ghost seemed to light up. “I want to learn.”

“Then you have to promise me something.” Lin Feiran lifted an elegant eyebrow slyly. “You have to tell me what your unfulfilled wish is. I want to help you.”

The little girl’s ghost tugged uneasily on her skirt. After a moment’s hesitation, she whispered, “Okay.”

Lin Feiran added calmly, “If you break your promise, you’re a puppy.”

The little girl’s ghost nodded gravely. “Mm.”

Lin Feiran exhaled softly. “So, tell me, what is your wish?”

The little ghost turned away her pitch-black eyes. Her slender and pale fingers nervously dug into the seams of the ball as she whispered, “I died from illness. While I was sick, Papa and Mama worked very hard to take care of me. Especially Mama, she worked the hardest. Papa did a lot too. He looked everywhere for doctors for me, and went out early and came back late because he was working hard to earn money to buy medicine for me...” As the little girl’s ghost spoke, tears fell from her eyes, two narrow streams of blood that slid down her porcelain-white face, both strange and sorrowful.

Bitterness flooded Lin Feiran’s heart. He looked around to see that nobody was looking at him, then held back his fear and reached out his hand to gently touch the ghost of the little girl’s head. Awkwardly, he consoled, “Little girl, don’t cry. If you cry, you won’t be pretty...”

The little girl’s ghost wiped away the tears of blood on her face and continued, “But the one who couldn’t let me go the most was my mama. The day I died, she cried so bitterly. I couldn’t bear to leave, and after two years, Mama gave birth to my brother... but I knew that Mama still missed me. Even now, she sometimes hugs my photo album in the middle of the night and cries...”

The little girl’s ghost paused, turning upwards her face that was both innocent and terrifying, and asked Lin Feiran carefully, “Big brother, can you tell Mama for me? Tell her not to be sad any more. Every time I see her secretly crying in the middle of the night, I can’t bear to leave. Tell Mama that the pain medication the big sis nurse gave me was very effective. When I died, I wasn’t in pain at all. I didn’t suffer at all. I know that Mama can’t let this go in her heart, and thinks that I suffered. Tell her I really didn’t... Tell her too that you brought me toys and snacks. I’m very happy and have no regrets.”

The little girl’s ghost held her chin for a moment as she thought, then nodded to herself and said, “Just tell Mama these things. Thank you, big brother.”

Lin Feiran squatted like a mushroom on the ground, his back to the seniors playing basketball. He wiped his runny nose with one hand and his tears with the other, his voice hoarse as he said, “Got it.”

The little girl’s ghost had been dead for a long time and had come to terms with these things much more than had Lin Feiran, so she only cried at the beginning when she began to talk about these things. Now, her mood was much calmer than Lin Feiran’s. She even comforted Lin Feiran with the same words he had used on her earlier. “Big brother, don’t cry. If you cry, you won’t be handsome...”

The tip of Lin Feiran’s nose was red. Through his sobs he retorted, “Who said that? I’m handsome even when I cry!”

The little girl thought a bit and said, “Right, also tell my mama that I want the whole family to go to the aquarium and the amusement park again. My unfulfilled wish is tied to my mama. Where my mama is, I can go too.”

“Got it.” Lin Feiran agreed, then pulled out a tissue, blew his runny nose, and wiped his tears. “I can’t endure any more. It’s too horrible. How pitiful...”

The little girl’s ghost showed a smile that indicated she had become accustomed to matters of life and death. She said softly, “Everyone will die. I just left a little early, but I had such a good Papa and Mama, so I’m very happy. My little brother is very cute too. When he was young, he could see me. When I made ghost faces at him, he would laugh. But when he grew up, he couldn’t see me any more.”

Yes, when the little girl said “make ghost faces,” she literally meant ‘make ghost faces’!

The little girl’s ghost acted with the self-importance of an old lady as she sighed, “I, now... if I don’t go back and reincarnate, in two years, my younger brother will be bigger than me.”

Lin Feiran worried that people would notice him acting strangely, so he did his best to calm his emotions. He wiped the snot and tears from his face and said hoarsely, “I’ll find a chance to tell your mother... Give me five minutes to calm down. Once I’m calm, I’ll teach you how to shoot baskets.”

Five minutes later, Lin Feiran, who had regained his spirits, jumped to his feet and said, “Let’s start!”

The little girl balled her small hands into fists and stretched them into the sky, following Lin Feiran’s cry with a loud and clear, “Start!”

Coach Lin covered his mouth with his hand and furtively instructed the little girl, “I’ll start by covering the basics you need to pay attention to. When shooting the ball, don’t rely on the strength from your hands. Instead, start from the soles of your feet. Let the energy...”