Chapter 1

"Have you heard of the 'Superman Paradox' theory?"

Every time the girl in front of him opened her big eyes and enthusiastically started a conversation, Li Pu always felt a sense of admiration, even though he didn't quite understand but felt it was impressive.

Five years ago, when Li Pu was still an eight-year-old boy, he was known in the neighborhood as the most hopeless and unruly elementary school student. He had done everything from bullying classmates to lifting girls' skirts, and was known as the skirt-lifting demon and metal hunter of Changsheng Elementary School. If steel pipes or pliers went missing from nearby construction sites, there was an eighty percent chance that Li Pu had taken them to sell for money to buy arcade tokens. Despite not even having fully grown hair, he imitated others by practicing leg pressing and boxing to improve his martial arts, supposedly to defeat the older students who ambushed and mugged students on their way home from school.

During that challenge, two sixth-grade students, who were much taller than Li Pu, ganged up on him, teaching him a profound lesson about the true essence of fighting: wrist strength and joint techniques. All the boxing and kicking techniques he had learned were useless in such a situation.

After being thoroughly beaten and with a wound on his knee oozing blood, Li Pu felt quite depressed. He knew he would be scolded for a long time if he returned home with these "manly badges," so he decided to take a walk to reduce the swelling and wait for the wounds to scab over.

With his hands in his pockets, the little rascal, bruised all over but indifferent, was ready to head to the arcade to play video games and pass the hot afternoon. The new game board "KOF94" that the owner had just installed was a novel fighting game where three characters represented different countries, and Li Pu was recently obsessed with it.

At this age, wild boys were like mischievous monkeys, and Li Pu, who knew the neighborhood like the back of his hand, nimbly climbed an old wall, his usual shortcut to the nearby arcade.

"Hmm?" Climbing the wall, Li Pu was about to jump down in a suitable landing pose when he suddenly noticed someone below.

To be precise: there was a girl and a dog.

From his vantage point, Li Pu couldn't see the girl's face, but she seemed even smaller than the girls in his class. She wore a small strapless dress, her jet-black hair reaching her waist, and her flawless, snow-white skin appeared almost transparent in the sunlight.

"Woof! Woof woof!" The mongrel in front of her barked loudly, and the little girl, looking like a frightened rabbit, trembled slightly, almost pressing herself against the wall behind her.

Faced with the dog's threat, the girl, with her slender hands, clutched a 16K-sized magazine, retreating while waving it in front of her in a comically helpless manner.

—It seemed she was using the magazine as her last line of defense against the vicious dog.

"I... I'm not tasty," the little girl mustered the courage to say, "If you come any closer, I'll hit you."

Her voice was tinged with a hint of crying, lacking any real threat. The mongrel, instead, bared its teeth triumphantly and continued barking at her.

Li Pu immediately saw that the girl had been chased into this dead-end alley by the dog. The mongrel, a mix of various breeds, was a pet of a reclusive old man nearby. The dog rarely bit people but had a bad habit of barking at lone strangers. If an adult kicked it, it would behave, but children were often frightened by it.

But the little demon of Changsheng Elementary School was an exception.

"Yada zha!"

Imitating the strange whistle from the recent movie "The Little Dragons," the boy leaped down heroically. "Slap!" With the sound of his flip-flops hitting the ground, he crouched, hands on the ground, in a "great hero's grand entrance" pose, landing between the little girl and the dog.

The sudden appearance of a hero stunned both the dog and the girl. The mongrel, which had been barking arrogantly, leaped back a meter, its tail tucked between its legs, whimpering and fleeing in defeat.

Having successfully scared off the stupid dog, the little rascal, who rarely did good deeds, naturally turned to look at the girl with a show of pride.

"Hey, are you a foreigner?" Seeing the girl's face, Li Pu was slightly taken aback.

The girl behind him, holding the magazine to her chest, looked at him timidly. Her features were more delicate and three-dimensional than those of ordinary children, yet she retained an Eastern gentleness. Her large, clear eyes, still shimmering with tears, appeared to have a hint of deep purple in the sunlight.

"Thank you." The girl, recovering, bowed slightly and thanked Li Pu in very standard Mandarin. Her voice was soft and sweet, clearly well-mannered.

"No problem, just a little help," Li Pu said, sizing up the girl. Despite his young age, he could already distinguish beauty. Compared to the class monitor Qin Xia'er, who was always the center of attention in the neighboring class, the unfamiliar girl before him was like a country bumpkin.

Unfortunately, being a little kid, Li Pu's attention was mostly drawn to the magazine the girl held in her arms, even though she would surely grow into a goddess in a few years.

"Wow! The latest issue of 'King of Comics'?" Li Pu's eyes lit up. This "King of Comics" magazine was a sensation among primary and middle school students across the country. Li Pu had been collecting it, but his father forbade him from reading such wild books, tearing them up whenever he found them, which was a great regret for Li Pu.

Girls were nice, but games were better, and if it was for comics, he would give up both! Li Pu, who had originally planned to go to the arcade, changed his mind.

"Thanks, but can I borrow your comic book to read?" Li Pu tried to look as sincere as possible, "Don't worry, I won't take it home. I'll return it after reading it here. Okay?"

If she doesn't agree, I'll just take it and run. I just saved her, so using a book to repay me would make us even. The little troublemaker, already half in the criminal world, secretly planned.

Fortunately, the little girl blinked her watery eyes and, like a well-behaved little animal, nodded and handed the book to Li Pu. Li Pu, overjoyed, picked up the book, looked around, and found two red bricks, which he stacked to use as a seat. He found a shady corner, sat down, and began to read with full concentration.

Li Pu, the wild monkey, could sit on the ground without a care, but the girl hesitated. She thought for a moment and then squatted next to the boy. Li Pu, noticing her, perhaps feeling it was unfair to enjoy the magazine alone, moved the magazine closer to her, indicating they could read together. He even offered her the red brick he was sitting on.

"Sit down. If you squat for too long, your legs will go numb." Li Pu, trying to show a bit of gentleness, added, "This is from my experience squatting in public toilets!"

The girl initially didn't sit down, but after a short while, her legs indeed went numb, so she quietly moved her small bottom to the red brick, then placed her hands on her light dress, and stretched her white legs forward.

At that moment, the corner of the alley was like a warm, summery oil painting. The wild boy and the well-behaved girl, who would never normally be together, were now huddled in the shadow of the wall, reading the comic magazine with the chirping of cicadas and the gentle breeze.

"Awesome!" Li Pu sighed, looking at the story "Leiming Zeki" he had read twice, still feeling unsatisfied, "It's a pity that Seito Shou no longer has a series. This story is good, but it's not as cool as the divine humans."

"I also really like that comic," the girl added, a bit regretfully, "Gaining power through evolution is more convincing than the light-speed punches of the cosmos."

"Hey, I can't let that go!" Li Pu stood up abruptly, "What do girls know? The cosmos is the coolest!"

"But, but..." To Li Pu's surprise, the seemingly gentle and quiet girl seemed to have her own opinion and began to argue with him.

"Evolution and absolute zero are not depicted like that in comics. The episode 'Dawn Goddess's Forgiveness' is just nonsense..."

The girl listed several physics terms that Li Pu didn't understand, making him feel a sense of "I don't understand but it sounds impressive." Li Pu was at a disadvantage in this discussion for the first time.

Embarrassed and angry, Li Pu suddenly slapped the girl's shoulder. She, who was about to press her advantage, shrank back and fell silent.

Looking at the frightened girl, Li Pu grinned, "You're amazing. The girls in my class don't understand these things, and even the boys don't talk about them as deeply as you."

"I'm Li Pu, what's your name?" Li Pu returned the "King of Comics" magazine to the girl, lifted his chin, and asked, "Are you new here? I've never seen you before."

"I just moved to this city with my mom..." The girl, looking up at the boy who was a head taller, a dimple gradually appearing on her delicate face, raised her white, tender arm and pointed to her small nose, her voice as gentle as a breeze, "My name is Chen Xian."

—It was the summer solstice of 1994, with cicadas chirping incessantly, when he first met the girl named Chen Xian.

Since they had introduced themselves, for a boy of Li Pu's age, it basically meant "You're not bad!" The two children chatted casually as they wandered. Unconsciously, they reached the entrance of the community.

Just crossing the slightly sticky old asphalt road and turning into a small alley would lead to Li Pu's destination. If they parted ways here, the budding strange friendship between the wild boy and the well-behaved girl might have ended.

Perhaps it was fate, or just the natural friendliness of children at this age, but Li Pu, who usually prided himself on being a lone wolf, asked Chen Xian, "Hey, do you want to come play?"

If they were a few years older, such an invitation between a boy and a girl would be hard to make casually. But for children of this age, "Let's play together" was a natural and casual suggestion.

Chen Xian, with her bright, sparkling eyes, nodded gently. In the summer sunlight, the boy held the girl's hand, and they ran out of the community, one after the other.

---

This is the story of their first meeting on that endless summer solstice in 1994.