Beyond the Zenith

The sun came out for the second half of the journey. The midsummer sunlight was scorching, even in the early morning. Both the road and air dried quickly, like a sudden change in a person’s mood.

Han Qingyu still had his big black umbrella on his back, but he deliberately slowed his pace.

He figured arriving before 9:30 was more than early enough. The reason he’d set out so early was that he feared Wen Jifei might have gone to his father’s place in the city if he got there too late. With time to spare, however, he could take it easy.

After all, even if Wen Jifei were thinking of heading to the city, he knew that fellow absolutely would not be up this early when there was no school. Even back in school, he had been late on multiple occasions.

Wen Jifei had actually attended middle school in the city. This was back when his parents were still together. Later, his father made money in business, found himself a mistress, and his parents divorced.

His mother then took him back to their town for high school, where he and Han Qingyu became close friends.

Later still, his mother was introduced through relatives to a local official in the county Agricultural Bureau and remarried. Wen Jifei happily attended the wedding banquet but had no interest in moving in with them, opting to live on his own instead.

Of course, both his father and mother still managed his living expenses, food, and schooling, and both still gave him money.

Wen Jifei was not the brooding type, going on with his life carefree and untroubled. He was neither diligent nor wayward, neither good nor bad.

It was 9:20 in the morning when Han Qingyu arrived at the county seat, Nanmen Village, where Wen Jifei lived.

Wen Jifei stayed in an old courtyard house that his grandfather left to him. The old man, while still alive, had reportedly been the most renowned barber in the county.

Han Qingyu pulled up outside the gate, propped one leg up on the old mud-brick courtyard wall while still mounted, and called out twice, “Plague Chicken, Flying Plague Chicken. Where are you?”[1]

The world always had people with inherently unfortunate names, ones that came with nicknames built in, inescapable wherever they go for the rest of their lives. Wen Jifei was one such person. Moreover, his nickname was twofold, with his given name alone creating a static image, and the addition of his surname adding a layer of movement.

It was the image of a sick old speckled hen suddenly hurling itself into the air with a flurry of squawks.

Being as carefree as he was, Wen Jifei had long since gotten used to it and was completely unbothered.

When no response came to Han Qingyu’s calls, he raised his voice, this time using Wen Jifei’s actual full name as he called, “Wen Jifei!”

Still no response.

He sleeps like the dead. Han Qingyu was just about to get off and climb over the wall when he heard the ringingof a bicycle bell from an alleyway to the side.

“I’m over here!” Wen Jifei shouted from the alley.

At that moment, his bike came drifting around the corner, a military-green satchel slung across one shoulder and an imitation camouflage military cap on his head.

“Good thing you shouted, Little Qing.” He pulled up in front of him, panting hard. “Or we probably would’ve just missed each other.”

“Oh? Where were you going?” Han Qingyu asked.

Inwardly, he thought to himself, Remarkable! You actually managed to wake up early!

Wen Jifei hopped off his bicycle and, while fishing out his key to open the gate, said, “I was heading out to find you at your place.”

“To find me at my place?” Han Qingyu asked. “All that way? What’s going on?”

“Something big, of course.” Wen Jifei gave a smug smile as he pushed open the gate. “Good thing you came. Saves me the trip. Come in, and I’ll tell you.”

Pulling back the bicycle leaning against him, Wen Jifei gave it a push. The unmanned bicycle rolled smoothly on its own and wedged itself to a stop between two old yellow bamboo stalks in the courtyard.

Han Qingyu rode in after him and parked his bicycle.

***

Inside the house, Wen Jifei pulled two bottles of orange soda[2] straight from his satchel, bit off the caps, set them on the table with a clink.

“Here, let’s use soda in place of liquor and have a toast first,” Wen Jifei proposed with a smile.

Han Qingyu puzzled over that for a moment. “What exactly is going on? Don’t tell me your Gaokao score was miscalculated, and it turns out you scored higher than 230 and actually got in somewhere.”

“Shut up. Would a miscalculation even be enough? I left several hundred points’ worth of questions blank.” Wen Jifei scratched his head with an awkward laugh. “Although... 230 really isn’t my actual ability. I had pretty bad luck in the English multiple-choice test this time around.”

Han Qingyu smiled. “True. If your luck had been better, you probably could’ve scored another 20 points.”

“Shut your mouth,” Wen Jifei scolded as he sat down.

He gazed at Han Qingyu in silence for a moment, allowing himself to build an air of theatrical mystery.

“Your buddy is going to enlist,” he finally said with deep solemnity.

Raising his hand, he gave a casual military salute. It was clearly learned from a foreign movie and was not very accurate.

Han Qingyu said nothing.

“Didn’t see that coming, did you?” Wen Jifei looked pleased with himself. “Well, since I only got 230—40 fewer than last year, I think everyone already knows that school and exams just aren’t happening for me. A few days ago, my old man came back for a visit, pulled a few strings, and got me an enlistment slot.”

“That’s great. Enlisting is a good option,” Han Qingyu said sincerely.

The army Wen Jifei was joining was completely different from Han Qingyu’s own. Not to mention, with his family’s connections, a post in some public institution after discharge would probably not be hard to arrange. Han Qingyu was genuinely happy for his friend.

“Right? I feel the same way. I dreamed of carrying a rifle in the army as a kid, but I didn’t let my willingness show to my old man. I put on an act of reluctance for two days.” Wen Jifei grinned, reached into his satchel again, and this time pulled out a stack of bills, which he set on the table. “This is a thousand bucks right here. I argued it out of my old man. He wouldn’t give it to me, so I threatened to refuse to enlist unless he did.

“I’ll skip the sentimental speech. Take the money. Use 300 to find a proper university student to tutor you in English over the break. Put the rest toward repeating a year and sitting the exam again. You can definitely make it,” he said, pushing the money across the table to Han Qingyu before casually tossing the now-empty satchel onto the tabletop.

It seemed the satchel had only held two bottles of soda and a thousand yuan. Han Qingyu felt a mix of emotions as he sat there, unmoving.

“Consider it a loan. Hey, relax. This sum really isn’t a big deal to my old man.” Wen Jifei persuaded, thinking Han Qingyu was too embarrassed to accept. “My little stepmother is already using a Big Brother phone[3] up in the city. It’s perfectly reasonable for me, his actual son, to ask him for a thousand yuan.”

Han Qingyu nodded, smiled, and picked up his orange soda. He didn’t touch the money.

Seeing this, Wen Jifei became annoyed and pushed harder. “Take it. What’re you being so polite for, damn it? I said it’s a loan. I know what your family’s situation is like. Not to mention, my mom will definitely give me extra money to take along, and once I’m in the army, I probably won’t spend much anyway—

“Wait, you haven’t given up, have you? Little Qing. Don’t do that. Your math and science are solid, and you put in the work. You have a chance. Don’t give up, Little Qing. Don’t give up.” Wen Jifei grabbed hold of the money and insistently shoved it at Han Qingyu.

Han Qingyu reached out and took the bills before setting them back down on the table. Staring at Wen Jifei with an easy smile, he asked, “Hey, do you know why I came to find you first thing this morning?”

“Oh, right, you were looking for me?”

“I came today to tell you something.” Han Qingyu slowly pushed the money back toward his friend. “Your buddy... is also going to enlist.”

Wen Jifei went completely blank. “What? How did that happen? You’re not going to take the exam again?”

“No more exams. My mind’s made up,” Han Qingyu explained, leaving the money back in front of Wen Jifei. “Enlisting is a good path too, right? I just barely got this chance. Of course, I could let it go and retake the exam, but if that still doesn’t work out, this opportunity may not come again.”

“That’s a fair point.” Wen Jifei thought for a moment. “But how did you manage it?”

“Luck. A chance encounter with a platoon leader.”

“Tsk, really?!”

“Yeah. Anyway, there’s nothing for me to hesitate over. But what about you? That girl from your middle school days in the city, what happens to her now?” Han Qingyu deflected, shifting the topic to the girl Wen Jifei had been quietly infatuated with since middle school. “Didn’t you say you two had a plan to go to the same university together? So you’re not going to wait for her to like you back in university anymore?”

“Don’t even mention it.” Wen Jifei sighed, expression falling. “She’s not like us. She didn’t even want to go when she got into an ordinary key university [4] last year. This year, she finally got what she wanted. She managed to get into Yue University. The only way I could stake out at a place like that would be to lug boxes to the front gate and sell popsicles.”

Wen Jifei deflated at the end of his speech.

After about five seconds, he perked up again. “But I’ve already figured it out. If I can’t marry her by getting into university, I’ll become a general, then come back and marry her that way instead.”

Han Qingyu said nothing.

“Oh, right,” Wen Jifei said, straightening up. “Do you know which military district you’re going to? Maybe we’ll end up in the same unit!”

“We won’t.” Han Qingyu thought for a moment, then said plainly and without heaviness, “My posting is apparently somewhere on the front lines. And there may be some risk involved...”

With that, he said everything he had planned to say to Wen Jifei, about entrusting his family to him.

Wen Jifei turned Han Qingyu’s words over in his head, then said dismissively, “Who are you scaring? There’s no war right now. If there actually was a war, that’d be even better. I’d go to the front lines and get promoted to general faster.”

“I’m just mentioning the worst-case scenario,” Han Qingyu said. “If it came to that—”

“Okay, okay, okay, if the worst ever actually happened, I’ll be like a second son to your parents,” Wen Jifei scoffed. “Look at you leading me into a ditch. There won’t be any worst case. Stop it.”

Wen Jifei looked visibly worked up. After taking some time to settle down, he tilted his head back in lament.

“You know what, Little Qing, help me ask your officers if I can go to the front lines too,” he whined. “That’s what enlisting should be about. That would be interesting.”

Han Qingyu snorted. “Oh, shut up.”

1. 温继飞 (Wen Jifei) sounds similar to 瘟鸡飞 (also Wen Jifei), which translates to Flying Plague Chicken. This is a wordplay on his name. ☜

2. Orange soda used to be commonly sold in glass bottles in China. ☜

3. The term ”Big Brother phone” typically refers to the iconic first-generation, brick-style mobile phones popularized in the 1980s and 1990s (like the Motorola DynaTAC), which became major status symbols. Originally, early massive cell phones were dubbed ”Big Brother” phones (or Dà Gē Da in Chinese) due to their association with powerful, wealthy businessmen who could afford them. ☜

4. ”National Key University” (国家重点大学) is a historical term used to refer to elite institutions in China that receive preferential funding and government support. ☜