Outside the porcelain restoration room, a crowd had gathered.
“Oh, just look at these flowers. Aren’t they blooming beautifully?” Shao Hua clasped his hands behind his back, tilting his head to admire the apricot blossoms on the tree.
“Hey, who was it back then who said these trees were either planted by palace maids or eunuchs?”
“You really hold grudges, don’t you? Remembering something said so many years ago.”
Sun Qi Rui snorted and walked off, carrying his tea mug.
“Teacher Shao,” Dou Si Yuan poked his head out and asked, “I heard from Qiao Mu that your neighborhood’s alleyway is going to be redeveloped?”
“That’s right. By October this year, both Teacher Zheng and I will have to move,” Shao Hua confirmed.
“If you need help, just let me know,” Dou Si Yuan grinned. “I can help you drive and move furniture, no problem.”
The new home was set in the northern fourth ring, and the residents of the alley were already busy making preparations. Shao Xue, busy with her upcoming college entrance exams, couldn’t lend a hand. Zheng Su Nian was rarely around, leaving Zhang Qi, who had too much free time, to be bossed around.
Speaking of Shao Xue, her eyesight had been 20/20 for over ten years, but during her second year of high school, she suddenly became nearsighted. Yu Dong Ge wouldn’t let her wear contact lenses, so she had to buy a pair of small round glasses to perch on her nose.
“Shao Xue,” Zhang Qi couldn’t hold back, “do you know who you look like with those glasses? Exactly like the head of discipline at our school—forty-something, early menopause, with a small perm, scolding everyone she sees.”
Shao Xue ignored him. She was about to enter her third year of high school, and her class was notorious for being lazy, so the school assigned them a homeroom teacher specializing in final-year students. This middle-aged woman in her forties shouted at them until her voice was hoarse, standing at the classroom door, yelling: “Look at how lazy you all are! Don’t you have the dignity of final-year students?”
Shao Xue couldn’t stand her and often muttered under her breath, “We still have three months left, don’t we? She lies through her teeth all day long.”
“Shao Xue,” the teacher, having walked from the front of the classroom to the back, stood beside Shao Xue, who sat in the last row near the door, “why are you so sharp-tongued? Come out and have a talk with me.”
After being targeted by her for several days, Shao Xue couldn’t muster any energy for anything.
The three of them reached the entrance to the alleyway just as Aunt Zhang was packing up her shop.
Aunt Zhang had lived in the same alley as them, selling roujiamo for over a decade. Her husband passed away young, leaving her a widow at twenty-five. She opened a small shop, raising her child and, at the same time, helping to feed the children of many working parents in the alley. These kids had grown up on her food, and she even remembered their dietary preferences clearly.
“Auntie, what are you up to?” Shao Xue was surprised, resting her hand on the counter.
This group had been coming and going early and late recently, so they hadn’t bought anything from her in a while. The furniture inside the shop was cleared out, pots and pans were packed into woven bags, and the scene felt strangely desolate.
“What else can I do?” she chuckled. “This place is being redeveloped. I have to leave.”
“Where will you go?” Shao Xue asked anxiously. “You live here, don’t you?”
“I’m going back to my hometown.” She smiled again. “My husband’s been gone for over ten years. I stayed in our old house for the memories. Now, what’s left for me here if I don’t leave?”
The three kids, who had grown up eating her biscuits and porridge, suddenly found themselves at a loss for words. Aunt Zhang saw their expressions and stopped what she was doing to comfort them.
“I wanted to leave quietly, but since you three know, don’t tell anyone else in the family, okay?”
“Why not?” Shao Xue protested. “At least let us give you a proper send-off.”
“Send me off? What’s the point of all that crying? Especially your mom. Even if I don’t cry, she’ll get me to cry.”
Shao Xue had to admit Aunt Zhang was right. She already felt like crying, let alone Yu Dong Ge.
Seeing that they still hadn’t left, Aunt Zhang quickly waved them away: “Go on, get out of here. Don’t just stand around watching me. There are so many shops out there now. Isn’t McDonald’s or KFC better than my biscuits? Go, go.”
Cars zoomed by on the main road, and Zhang Qi and Zheng Su Nian squatted on the curb, watching Shao Xue with concern. They had both been terrified of her crying since they were little—once she started, no one could stop her. It only ended when she cried herself to exhaustion.
“You’ll cry when Aunt Zhang leaves, and when Su Nian and I move, what will you do then?” Zhang Qi sat cross-legged on the curb, looking at her.
“Don’t provoke her,” Zheng Su Nian pulled a packet of tissues from a nearby convenience store, peeling one out and handing it to her. “Wipe your face. You’re an adult now, crying like this on the street.”
“I don’t think it’s just Aunt Zhang,” Zhang Qi frowned, “it’s the pressure of the college entrance exams. She’s letting it all out.”
“Y-yeah, that’s it,” she sniffled. “Can’t I cry? You’re just upset you’re not going to Peking University.”
“Alright, I admit I’m not as good as Zhang Qi.” Zheng Su Nian had been feeling down, but that comment made him laugh. “Shao Xue, you can’t start stressing over your grades and praising Zhang Qi every day. He hasn’t even gotten into Peking University yet. What’ll happen when he starts in September?”
Shao Xue took a deep breath, calming herself down.
The March sun shone warmly on them. The street was quiet, with hardly anyone around. Shao Xue stretched out her legs and pulled the hair tie from her ponytail.
“Hey, do you guys remember when we were kids?” Zhang Qi suddenly asked. “This street wasn’t as wide back then. It was just a small road. After coming down from the park, the three of us would buy Beibingyang soda here and stand by the roadside, seeing who could drink it the fastest.”
“Yeah, and Shao Xue was always the slowest,” Su Nian laughed. “It made her cry every time. What was there to cry about?”
“You two should be ashamed of yourselves—two boys picking on me, the youngest one. Is that fair?”
She stood up, her long hair cascading down her waist like a waterfall, swaying under the sun.
“That shop’s still there, right? Now that you mention it, I want one.”
Zheng Su Nian got to his feet too. “It’s still there. I’ll go buy one.”
A glass bottle, with a blue-and-white polar bear printed on it. Shao Xue grabbed it and gave it a shake, then stood on the curb, lifting the bottle of orange soda, which was filled with memories, toward the sun.
“I toast to Aunt Zhang, wishing her a safe journey.”
“Then I’ll toast too,” Zhang Qi stood up straight, a head taller than Shao Xue, “to our alleyway, and to all the uncles and aunties who live here.”
“Look at you two, drinking Beibingyang like it’s Maotai,” Zheng Su Nian found them childish but couldn’t help raising his own bottle. “I’ll toast to our childhood, to all the memories, to... hey, Shao Xue, why did you start drinking already!”
She muttered something about “I’m going to win this time” and then promptly choked. Zheng Su Nian laughed so hard he almost dropped his bottle, quickly helping her catch her breath.
“That’s all carbon dioxide—what are you trying to prove?”
She coughed for a long while before finally recovering, foam bubbling from her mouth, and wobbled back to her feet, raising the bottle once again.
“No, I have to finish it.”
“Then let’s do it.”
In the warm sunlight of early March, small bubbles floated to the surface of the soda, popping softly at the mouth of the bottle. Their laughter intertwined with the echoes of three children playing and chasing each other years ago, blurring the lines between time and space.
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