Chen Zhuo woke up very early.
He sat on his bed, listening to a few sparrows CHIRPING on the tree branches outside his window.
The dorm room was quiet. He had turned off the ceiling fan in the middle of the night, and now, only an occasional breeze drifting through the window stirred the few scraps of paper on his desk, causing them to rustle softly.
He got out of bed and went to the bathroom to wash his face.
The cold water splashed against his face, washing away the last traces of morning grogginess.
Chen Zhuo dried his face and walked back into his room, his eyes falling on the international airmail envelope on his desk.
Chen Zhuo walked over, picked it up to feel its weight, and casually slipped it into his spacious pocket. Then he grabbed his water bottle and headed out the door.
Breakfast at Cafeteria No. 2 was the same three options as always. Chen Zhuo bought two steamed buns and a cup of soy milk, eating as he walked along the path toward the administration building.
The university’s large mailbox stood at the crossroads in front of the administration building.
With summer break underway, the campus was deserted. You could look down the entire main road and not see a single person for ages.
Munching on his bun, Chen Zhuo walked at a leisurely pace.
As he neared the small plaza in front of the administration building, someone appeared, walking toward him.
The person was carrying a black briefcase and wore a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. Their gait was steady.
Alchemist.
Alchemist had come to the administration building early in the morning for a summer seminar. He had been lost in thought, head bowed, when his peripheral vision caught sight of a figure sauntering along. Looking up, he recognized Chen Zhuo.
On the vast, empty campus, any student would stand out, let alone this particularly memorable young man.
"Xiaozhuo?"
Alchemist stopped, a gentle smile on his face.
Chen Zhuo swallowed the bite of bun in his mouth, switched the plastic cup of soy milk to his left hand, and offered a polite greeting.
"Good morning, Dean Fang."
"Out and about so early?"
Alchemist looked him up and down, taking in the water bottle in his hand and his light-colored short-sleeved shirt.
"You didn’t go home for the summer break? I saw the dorms for the gifted youth program are basically empty."
"I’d just be idle at home. It’s more peaceful here at school."
Chen Zhuo shrugged.
"Plus, the library’s empty these days. No need to fight for a seat. It’s nice and spacious."
Hearing this, the smile on Alchemist’s face deepened.
He had a soft spot for students who weren’t flighty. To have the patience to stay and read in a ghost town of a campus at this age was, in itself, an exceptionally rare gift.
His gaze swept over Chen Zhuo, landing on the half-visible envelope sticking out of the pocket of his shorts.
The envelope was somewhat thick, and the red and white stripes of an airmail border were visible at the edge.
"Mailing a letter?"
Alchemist asked casually.
Communication wasn’t as advanced back then as it would later become. It was perfectly normal for students to write letters home to let their families know they were okay, or to correspond with classmates in other cities.
Chen Zhuo nodded. He slid his hand naturally into his pocket, using his thumb to push the envelope further down, turning the side with the long string of English letters to face his inner thigh.
"Yeah, mailing some things I wrote this summer."
Chen Zhuo’s voice was steady, his face wearing just the right amount of youthful earnestness.
"For an elder in your family?" Alchemist asked with a smile.
"For a pen pal who lives far away."
Chen Zhuo replied gently.
"I just jot things down from time to time. I send them over for him to take a look and give me some feedback."
After hearing this, Alchemist couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
Having a pen pal was indeed quite popular among young people at the time.
He just took it as a hobby for a kid to pass the time during summer break.
"Having a pen pal is good. It’s better to practice your writing than to spend all day playing games at an internet cafe."
Alchemist raised a hand and patted Chen Zhuo’s shoulder lightly twice.
"But don’t just hole up in the library all day. You need to take care of your health. Remember to balance work and rest. It’s been hot these past few days, so drink plenty of water and stay cool."
"I will, thank you, Dean Fang."
"Alright, you go on ahead. I have a meeting to get to upstairs."
Alchemist waved at him, then turned and walked through the main doors of the administration building with his briefcase in hand.
Chen Zhuo stood still, watching Alchemist’s back disappear behind the glass doors. He then turned and walked toward the old, green, slightly paint-chipped mailbox at the crossroads.
The mailbox stood silently in the sunlight, the flap of the mail slot swaying slightly in the wind.
Chen Zhuo walked over and double-checked the denomination of the international airmail stamp affixed to the top-right corner of the envelope.
’No problem.’
He raised his hand and slid the envelope into the mail slot.
Those five pages, dense with algebraic graph reconstruction, now lay among a pile of letters that were likely filled with longing, complaints, or mundane daily chatter, waiting for the mail carrier to arrive.
Chen Zhuo dusted off his hands.
He turned around, retraced his steps, and ducked into a small lane that led to the university’s mailroom.
The mailroom was in a single-story building next to the south gate. There was no air conditioning inside, only a floor fan WHIRRING away.
The old man in charge of mail, wearing a pair of reading glasses, was sitting on a small stool, fixing a transistor radio with a screwdriver.
The room was piled high with all sorts of cardboard boxes, letters, and packages. The air was thick with the smell of damp cardboard, mixed with a hint of the burlap sack scent from the outer packaging of some parcels.
"Sir."
Chen Zhuo knocked on the open wooden door.
The old man looked up, squinted at him for a moment, and put down his screwdriver.
"Oh, Xiaozhuo, perfect timing. I was just about to call your dorm manager to hurry you along."
The old man stood up, walked over to a shelf in the corner of the room, and laboriously lifted a cardboard box.
The box wasn’t large, but it looked heavy. It was wrapped all over with wide packing tape, and its corners were slightly misshapen.
"This package came yesterday afternoon. In this heat, who knows what’s inside. It’s heavy as lead."
The old man placed the box on the counter, grabbed a logbook and an old pen tied to it with a string.
"Here, sign for it."
Chen Zhuo took the pen and signed his name.
He placed a hand on the box and tested its weight.
’It really is heavy.’
A crumpled postal form was stuck to the surface of the box. In the sender field, two words were scrawled crookedly:
Liu Xiuying.
"Thanks, sir."
He picked up the box, walked out of the mailroom, and sat down on the edge of a shady flowerbed.
The box was sealed tight. Chen Zhuo took a small utility knife, which he usually used for cutting scratch paper, from his bag and sliced along the seams of the tape.
The inside was stuffed with wads of crumpled old newspaper for cushioning. Chen Zhuo removed the newspaper, revealing the contents.
There were four cylindrical glass jars.
They weren’t in any fancy store-bought packaging, just the kind of glass jars used for canned goods. Each was wrapped in several layers of bubble wrap, tied up securely.
Chen Zhuo carefully took out one of the jars.
He didn’t need to open it. Just through the glass, he could see the bright red, oily sauce within, mixed with large chunks of diced meat, crushed peanuts, and finely chopped chili peppers.
Tucked between the four jars was half a page torn from a notebook.
The handwriting on the paper was a bit sloppy, clearly written in a hurry by Liu Xiuying at their old dining table back home.
"Xiaozhuo it’s hot and with the summer break the school cafeteria food is probably bland so Mom made you some meat sauce I put in the shiitake mushrooms and lean pork you like mix it with noodles or eat it with rice don’t be stingy with it it’ll go bad otherwise is your money enough call home if you need anything take care of yourself don’t put too much pressure on yourself every day"
It was just a few short lines, with no punctuation and a couple of typos.
Chen Zhuo sat on the edge of the flowerbed, holding the thin slip of paper, and looked down at the rough cardboard box filled with meat sauce at his feet.
Chen Zhuo folded the note and carefully put it in his pocket.
He put the glass jars back in the box, hugged it to his chest, and stood up.
By now, the sun had fully risen, and the cicadas had begun their daily BUZZING. Cradling the box, Chen Zhuo’s steps were even slower and steadier than when he had gone to mail his letter.
To him, the letter sent across the ocean was merely an intellectual pastime.
’But this meat sauce in my arms... this was made by my own mom.’
「Noon.」
Chen Zhuo took a jar of the meat sauce and went straight to Cafeteria No. 2.
He got a serving of cabbage and tofu and a hefty portion of white rice. Sitting at a table in the corner with his meal box, Chen Zhuo twisted off the metal lid of one of the glass jars.
The rich aroma of meat and the sharp scent of chili peppers instantly filled the air.
Chen Zhuo scooped out a large spoonful of the glistening red sauce and spread it over the steaming white rice. The sauce seeped down between the grains, staining the white rice a tempting, brilliant red.
He began to eat with gusto.
His mother, Liu Xiuying, was a master at making sauce. The diced meat was chewy, and the chili had just the right amount of kick.
Chen Zhuo finished the entire portion of rice in one go. A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead, and a warm, indescribably comforting feeling settled in his stomach.
Full and satisfied, he packed away the jar of meat sauce, picked up his water bottle again, slung his bag over his shoulder, and headed for the old library.
The afternoon reading room was just as he remembered: stuffy and silent.
Chen Zhuo pushed open the door.
Su Wei was still in her usual seat by the window. Her left hand was on her calculator, while her right hand flew across a sheet of scratch paper, rapidly recording data.
Chen Zhuo walked to his own seat and sat down, placing his water bottle to the side.
Su Wei heard the noise and glanced at Chen Zhuo’s desk out of the corner of her eye.
Usually, at this time, Chen Zhuo would have already pulled out his scratch paper filled with matrix derivations to continue his work. But today, his desk was clean, holding only a blank notebook.
"Finished nailing your planks?"
Su Wei’s pen didn’t stop moving. Her eyes remained fixed on her scratch paper as she asked casually, still thinking about the little topic Chen Zhuo had brought up yesterday about building blocks and wooden planks.
Chen Zhuo pulled out his chair and settled comfortably into his seat. He nodded at her question.
"All finished."
"It didn’t collapse?"
"Nope. It looks pretty sturdy."
Chen Zhuo’s tone was mild and casual.
"I put it in an envelope and mailed it to my pen pal this morning. I’m having him check if any of the planks aren’t nailed down tight."
When Su Wei heard the two words "pen pal," her fingers paused on the calculator.
She looked up, a hint of clear exasperation in her eyes.
In this day and age, it was trendy for high school or middle school students to have pen pals to discuss the troubles of adolescence or share a few lines of poetry.
But Chen Zhuo, who usually looked like a stuffy old scholar when he read, with a mind full of nothing but the Discrete Matrix, actually had a pen pal?
"You mail math problems to your pen pal?"
Su Wei raised an eyebrow.
"Are you sure your pen pal can even understand it? They might think you’ve sent them a pile of gobbledygook."
"He can probably understand it."
Chen Zhuo smiled.
"If he can’t, it’ll just get sent back. I’ll just be making a contribution to the postal service."

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