Confession to You in Early Summer - Chapter 3

“What’s going on with Jiang Youyi? Did you two have a fight?” Zhou Xiaoxiao belatedly realized that things seemed more complicated than she thought.

Earlier, she had rushed to send Yan Wei to the infirmary faster than anyone else, but now she suddenly wasn’t speaking to her.

Yan Wei pursed her lips and sighed. “I upset her.”

“Huh?” Zhou Xiaoxiao looked confused.

Yan Wei didn’t elaborate. She set down her lunch tray and took a seat at the spot where Jiang Youyi had been eating earlier.

During the lunch break back at the dorm, Yan Wei found an excuse to walk to the end of the hallway, deliberately passing by Jiang Youyi’s room. She glanced toward Jiang Youyi’s bed but could only see a drawn curtain.

Yan Wei didn’t get a chance to speak with Jiang Youyi all afternoon. The two were seated far apart, unlike last semester when it had been much more convenient.

At the start of the first semester of their sophomore year, when the arts and sciences tracks were divided, Yan Wei and Jiang Youyi had been desk mates for a term.

This semester, their homeroom teacher, Mr. Xu, rearranged the seating based on last semester’s grades. As a struggling student, Jiang Youyi was mercilessly placed in the back three rows, while Yan Wei, a top student, remained in the front three.

Moreover, boys and girls couldn’t be desk mates. Many students had voiced complaints about this seating arrangement at the time, but after two days of futile protests, things quieted down.

After evening self-study ended, Yan Wei picked up a copy of “Five-Three” and had just stood up when the class monitor stopped her.

“If you don’t have time to eat in the morning, have some snacks.” The monitor shoved a bag of snacks into Yan Wei’s hands and then ran off.

At the same time, Jiang Youyi slowly walked past Yan Wei’s seat.

Yan Wei: “…”

She glanced at the bag of snacks in her hand and handed it to Zhou Xiaoxiao. “Help me return this to the class monitor. If he won’t take it, you can have it.”

By the time she left the classroom, Jiang Youyi was already gone.

Yan Wei leaned against the hallway railing. Students who had just finished evening self-study passed by in twos and threes behind her. Zhou Xiaoxiao came over and asked if she wanted to walk back to the dorm together. Yan Wei shook her head. “You go ahead.”

Zhou Xiaoxiao said “okay” and left first.

Yan Wei stepped onto the small ledge beneath the railing and leaned over to look down at the neatly trimmed shrubs and flowers in the garden below.

On the evening of March 27, 2013, Jiang Youyi had confessed to her here.

Looking back from this moment, it had only been twenty-four hours ago, but in Yan Wei’s memory, it felt like seven years had passed.

That confession felt so distant, yet in this instant, it seemed as if it had truly happened yesterday. She could recall every detail.

The teaching building was empty now, with only a few office lights still on. The two of them—one standing, the other sitting on the floor—had been there in the hallway, feeling the night breeze.

“Aren’t you going back to the dorm? The lights will go out soon.” Yan Wei lowered her head and gently kicked the railing beneath the handrail. A thud echoed through the quiet night, carrying far into the distance.

Jiang Youyi held a small gift box in her hand, turning it over and over. Hearing this, she brushed a strand of hair behind her ear with her left hand. “What’s wrong with staying a little longer?”

“Nothing. It’s your birthday, you’re the boss.” Yan Wei also sat down, leaning against the railing beside Jiang Youyi.

Jiang Youyi reached over with her right hand and took Yan Wei’s left hand. “Then I want to sing. Will you listen?”

“Go ahead.” Yan Wei let her hold her hand, leaning against the railing and closing her eyes.

In the silence, Jiang Youyi began humming softly:

“Sending a letter with no address

This feeling has a certain distance

Whose song are you playing?

What kind of mood is it?

Can you tell me about it?”

Yan Wei didn’t understand music. She had heard the original version of this song before, but she felt Jiang Youyi sang it better. Exactly what was better, she couldn’t quite put into words.

“I can accompany you to look at the stars…”

Jiang Youyi’s voice was low, soft, and light, like the cool breeze of that night, as if whispering something.

Yan Wei sensed something was off.

Jiang Youyi’s emotions seemed strange, and Yan Wei felt an indescribable tension and restlessness.

After the song ended, Yan Wei withdrew her hand, stood up, and applauded, “That was really nice.”

Jiang Youyi took a deep breath, then looked up at Yan Wei.

Silence lingered for one second, two seconds…

Yan Wei pursed her lips and turned her face away. “We should head back. If we don’t leave now, the dorm supervisor will mark us down.”

She wanted to leave, but Jiang Youyi stopped her.

“Yan Wei, I like you.” Jiang Youyi suddenly cut straight to the point, wearing an expression of someone who had thrown caution to the wind, ready to succeed or face defeat. “I want to be your girlfriend.”

Yan Wei wasn’t sure how long she remained silent. It felt so long that when she finally spoke, she even wondered if she was hallucinating: “I’m sorry, I don’t like girls. I have no interest in that. I think we can only be friends.”

Her words left no room for negotiation, not even allowing a chance to try.

Jiang Youyi had probably anticipated this outcome. She wasn’t too disappointed, just let out a long sigh and forced a smile that looked worse than crying. “Alright then, Yan Wei. Let’s end it here. I won’t bring it up again, and I don’t want to be friends with you either.”

After saying that, she grinned again. “Shall we go back together? I want to enjoy my birthday today. Let’s just pretend you rejected me tomorrow.”

Yan Wei’s memory of that night ended there. From then on, Jiang Youyi deliberately distanced herself, and Yan Wei let it happen. They never spoke properly again.

All those past conflicts, disagreements, and unpleasant moments suddenly felt like things from another lifetime.

Yan Wei stayed alone in the teaching building until very late. A security guard spotted her during patrol and shooed her back to the dormitory.

The lights in the dormitory building were already off. The dorm supervisor stood guard at the staircase entrance and stopped her. “Where have you been so late?”

“I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to the school clinic.” Good student Yan Wei lied without hesitation.

The supervisor eyed her suspiciously. “You and Jiang Youyi went to the school clinic yesterday too.”

Caught off guard, Yan Wei had genuinely forgotten about that, but there was still a way out. “Yesterday, I went with her. Today, I wasn’t feeling well myself.”

After dealing with the dorm supervisor, Yan Wei felt utterly exhausted, both physically and mentally. Unconsciously, she walked past her own dorm room and stopped outside Jiang Youyi’s door. Her steps hesitated for half a second before she was startled awake by unrelated chatter from inside the room. She hurriedly turned and walked away.

All seven girls in the dorm were lying in bed secretly playing on their phones. Zhou Xiaoxiao heard the noise and poked her head out from under the covers. When Yan Wei reached her bedside, she whispered, “Why are you back so late?”

Yan Wei tossed her unused “Five-Three” review book onto the bed and, hearing the question, lowered her head and replied just as quietly, “I lost track of time.”

Zhou Xiaoxiao thought Yan Wei meant she had gone back to the classroom to study and forgotten the time. She immediately nodded and gave a thumbs-up. “A top student is a top student, so dedicated you forget to eat and sleep!”

Knowing she had misunderstood, Yan Wei didn’t explain. She slipped into the laundry room, washed up in the dark, and climbed into bed.

Unlike her roommates who were glued to their phones, Yan Wei didn’t have one. Her parents were strict disciplinarians who believed phones would inevitably harm her studies, so they never bought her one, forbade her from saving up for one herself, and would occasionally go through her belongings.

At home, she had no privacy. Her bedroom contained nothing but study materials and reference books—not even a single novel.

That’s why she never kept a diary growing up. All the way through high school graduation, she never wrote one. Ironically, it was the rebellious troublemaker Jiang Youyi who had this uncharacteristically delicate habit.

No one knew what was going on in Yan Wei’s mind except herself.

Lying on her side with one arm tucked under her head, Yan Wei found it hard to fall asleep. Closing her eyes only brought a chaotic rush of memories; the quieter the night grew, the more jumbled her thoughts became.

Where would she wake up tomorrow after falling asleep? Would she return to the neon-lit KTV private room, or would this dream of returning to the past continue?

If she had truly traveled back in time to relive her life, would everything she knew about the future still happen?

In Yan Wei’s memory, after she rejected Jiang Youyi, their friendship ended. Although she would still feel a tug of attention whenever Jiang Youyi’s name came up in conversations, she never tried to mend their relationship.

After that semester ended and they entered the first term of their senior year, Jiang Youyi grew even more withdrawn.

Isolated by classmates for her aloof and rebellious nature, she completely gave up on herself—skipping classes regularly to go to internet cafes, playing games, smoking, drinking, and befriending all sorts of unsavory characters from outside school. Even after being publicly criticized by the school, she remained defiant toward her teachers, and her grades plummeted until she ranked at the very bottom of her grade.

Teacher Xu contacted Jiang Youyi’s parents, but the result was that her father, feeling deeply humiliated, slapped her across the face in the hallway in front of everyone.

Not long after, rumors spread through the school that her mother had died—killed by her husband’s domestic violence. Her head had struck the corner of a coffee table, and by the time she was rushed to the hospital, she had stopped breathing and couldn’t be saved.

The court trial classified the incident as an accident, and her father wasn’t sentenced.

Classmates would cross the street to avoid her when they saw her; no one wanted to talk to her, treating her like a curse.

Back then, Yan Wei was deeply shocked by the news. She wanted to reach out to Jiang Youyi, but when she stopped her in the hallway, Jiang Youyi told her she was fine and didn’t need anyone’s pity.

Yan Wei had already been categorized as “anyone else.”

Faced with a Jiang Youyi as still and lifeless as stagnant water, Yan Wei ultimately couldn’t find any meaningful or comforting words to say.

After that, Jiang Youyi died.

A few days before the college entrance exams, during a weekend break, Jiang Youyi returned to school in a visibly unstable state. On the night before the exams, she was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on sleeping pills.

At first, Yan Wei refused to believe it. Defying school rules, she climbed over the wall late at night to see Jiang Youyi one last time.

But until her heart stopped beating, Jiang Youyi never opened her eyes.

The doctor said there were two things in Jiang Youyi’s pocket: a diary and a letter.

Using the excuse of delivering the belongings to Jiang Youyi’s father for the doctor, Yan Wei intercepted them. To her surprise, she saw her own name written on the envelope.

It wasn’t a suicide note—it was a love letter from a year ago.

The diary explained why the letter had never been sent, and its pages clearly documented Jiang Youyi’s gradual descent into despair and self-destruction.

At the end of the diary, a few lines were written in a chaotic scrawl:

He drank, like a madman—no, he was always a madman.

He hit me, cursed at me, mistook me for the woman he killed, pulled my hair, tore my clothes…

I can’t go on living.

Perhaps what made Jiang Youyi despair the most was not her father, but the three words written on the diary’s title page:

She is the light.

Yan Wei curled up, burying her head in her arms.

That light came and went, no less than an executioner.

But in truth, she was not the light—she was the shadow.

The three words “Jiang Youyi” were her light.

On March 27th that year, she personally abandoned the light that should have belonged to her.