Prologue
“What is she better than me at?”
“She’s no better than you.”
“Then why are you staying with her?”
“Because in her eyes I feel like a man she admires and needs.”
A sharp sound came from inside that house as a little boy returned from school carrying a fifth grade Mandarin textbook under his arm. Once he arrived at the front door, he reached out to ring the bell; but after hearing the voices coming from inside, he silently withdrew his hand and then brought it together with the other to cover his ears.
He hoped that gesture would prevent him from listening to that argument.
Suddenly the door was thrown open, but the two people left the house and the boy didn’t understand what had happened. He only knew that his father spent less and less time at home and his mother, once always cheerful and with her smile, several times she had hidden away to cry without being seen.
Now only alienation and indifference reigned in that house.
“Now you’re looking at me like that too?!” At that question, he instinctively backed away from the man and backed away with fear in his eyes.
The man who had made a fool of himself had forgotten about his ten-year-old boy and how he might react and think disparaging things about him. For a moment he had stopped to look at that child but then, without any hesitation, he had left that place which no longer had any value for him and which he would never feel nostalgia for in his heart.
For the first time he had seen, standing outside the door she hadn’t dared to enter, his mother, who had always been a strong woman, sitting on the living room couch trying to hide her tear-stained face. He didn’t know how to comfort his mother, so he closed the door softly, turned around, and walked back to the school he knew best.
Along the quiet corridor of the school were empty classrooms where stacks of chairs and desks had been stacked waiting to be replaced. On the steps at the end of that great corridor, the boy who sat burying his head between his knees was weeping secretly. He didn’t even have a handkerchief with him.
Suddenly, a strange voice came from someone in front of him. A boy, half Taiwanese and half Japanese, dressed in shorts and a black shirt was approaching him and climbing the steps, he spoke curiously to the boy who strangely had stayed at school after class.
“Are you OK?” It was a simple question, asked by a 10-year-old boy. “Why are you crying?”
The boy pulled a handkerchief out of his trouser pocket and sat down next to him, ironed the fabric well and handed it to his peer.
“Here. What happened? Are you hurt?”
“None of your business.”
“Stop crying, you’ve mixed snot with tears. It’s ugly.”
After he lifted his head and looked at the other person, the boy buried his face in his arm again, letting his tears soak the sleeves of his blue shirt.
“My father doesn’t want me and my mother anymore.” He limited himself to saying as he stubbornly continued to wipe away his tears with his sodden sleeve.
“But you still have your mom, unlike me.”
The crying boy looked down, saw that the other was holding his hand; maybe he knew his life would never be the same again.
A classmate from a single-parent family once told him that divorce meant that mom and dad would separate. Could the children choose to stay with their father or mother? He was small and didn’t know love yet, but he knew the meaning of the word divorce.
The boy looked at the other’s sad expression, and finally pulled away the hand intertwined with the child’s to pat him on the shoulder, just like an adult did when he tried to comfort you.
“My mother has already become an angel!”
“What does it mean to be an angel?”
“It means you can still see your mom and dad; but sad as I am, my mother will never come back.”
The crying boy sniffed and smiled through his tears. The other boy looked at him and when he finally saw his smile, he said, “Otherwise I can give you my father if you want. It’s not good for me anyway.
“How can you offer your dad to others so easily?”
“Right. How about this, on my offer. If you’re sad, come to me!”
The boy listened to his new friend’s statement and nodded in agreement: “Ah-ah.”
Then the other took a white handkerchief out of his pocket and handed it to the boy: “Now wipe your nose and dry your tears.”
The boy listened to her words even if he didn’t understand well, so he looked at the person sitting next to him with perplexity.
“You may cry, but if you smile the whole world will smile with you.”
“Shall we smile together?”
The two children were talking when suddenly a man’s voice was heard in the distance calling for someone.
“Shu Yi, where are you?”
“I am here!”
The boy got up, brushed the dust off his trousers, walked down the school steps and ran in the direction from where the voice was coming. He suddenly stopped, turned his head and looked at the boy who was still sitting in his seat.
“Zhou Shu Yi, San Qiao Elementary School. I’m ten years old, what about you?” After she finished speaking he waved to Gao Shi De.
“My name is Gao Shi De.”
Zhou Shu Yi nodded and smiled at the young man he had just met.
The boy with red eyes from crying; he looked at his new friend, standing in the sun and replied: “Gao Shi De, it was nice to meet you. I’ll go home first!”
The standing boy had the rays of the setting sun illuminating him from behind. He looked like one of those angels in picture books, warm and kind. Gao Shi De, still sitting on the steps, watched the figure turn and slowly walk away until it disappeared, leaving him dazed.
Ten years later.
In the dressing room, Zhou Shu Yi, standing in front of the mirror, was arranging his bathing suit and cap. He took the necklace that was on his chest and lifted the pendant to kiss him.
‘If you fail in life it’s fine, but if you succeed you are a real man.’
My father often told me that it was his attitude that won my mother over. He told me how from Japan to Taiwan, he had chased her, until he became her wife.
In this game I am destined to win.
If I finish first today, expect to accept my statement Jiang Yu Xin!
Fang Zheng Wen, sorry man, but I want to get off the singles list before you.
If Zhou Shu Yi had won that day, finishing first in the PK competition for the freshmen of the swimming club, he would have confessed his feelings to the girl he had a crush on for many years.
He put the necklace back in the cabinet and, having closed it, looked at himself one last time in the self-confident mirror.
“Here is our senior! He’s coming out! Senior!”
At the entrance to the school swimming pool, in the bleachers where a small crowd had gathered, a large blue banner was displayed on which appeared in large white letters the words: “Selections for new recruits of the PK swimming club who will carry on the history”.
And it was true, Zhou Shu Yi and his classmates hadn’t graduated yet yet they were already part of history, attracting the envy of everyone on campus.
In the audience in the stands, Jiang Yu Xin shouted with her hands together to form a megaphone. Zhou Shu Yi, in love with Jiang Yu Xin and willing to confess his feelings after the competition, was convinced that the girl was rooting for him,; so when she winked at him from the top of the tribune, he smiled back.
“Force! Come on, victory!” A confident smile was her response to her promptings.
Poolside Liu Bing Wei, in charge of organizing the competition, was a fourth-year law student who, seeing how popular his good friends were among the students, couldn’t help but raise his megaphone.
“The PK Swim Club senior and freshman competition is about to begin.
Seniors of the swim club, please show all your strength and compete to the best of your ability.” Announced Liu Bing Wei.
Once again Zhou Shu Yi turned his gaze to the stands, and when he finally saw the smiling, familiar faces of his childhood friends, with whom he had grown up, his eyebrows relaxed; especially looking at the girl he had secretly loved for many years.
A radiant smile crept onto his face.
He took his place at the trampoline in his lane and as he got ready for the start by positioning his body in the natural C-position, ready to dive into the water, he felt comfortable being treated like a superstar.
The shouting, cheering and attention of everyone present… Zhou Shu Yi was born for that.
“Zhou Shu Yi! Zhou Shu Yi! Zhou Shu Yi!”
“Come on senior!”
All the competitors gradually took their respective places, ready to dive into the water.
Liu Bing Wei raised the choke in the air and raised the megaphone to his mouth and shouted, “Ready!”
Standing on the platform, Fang Zheng Wen, Jiang Yu Xin’s and Zhou Shu Yi’s great childhood friend, nodded and smiled shyly at the girl’s cheers of encouragement.
A moment before the start of the race, a person entered the pool, exploding cheers and applause from the stands. It was a participant who, self-confident and with a blue towel on his shoulder, reached his position by the pool.
Suddenly, among all, a cry was clearly heard: “Gao Shi De! I love you!”
It can not be. Gao Shi De!
That sudden confession from a girl, not only caused laughter from the students sitting in the audience; but it also attracted the attention of Zhou Shu Yi, standing on the platform, who turned his head in surprise at hearing that name and immediately cast his gaze to the poolside, beyond the lanes.
“What is Gao Shi De doing here?!”
Seeing that someone standing on the starting block, ready to compete, Zhou Shu Yi suddenly jumped to his feet; but because of his sudden move he lost his balance. He tried not to fall, but his feet slipped on the wet, frictionless platform, and before he could even finish his sentence, he fell into the pool making a lot of splashes.
Zhou Shu Yi hadn’t really dived, on the contrary. Once in the water he hurriedly tried to get back up, but unexpectedly realized that something was wrong with one of his legs!
Even at the edge of the pool, the astonished spectators were waiting for the star of the swimming club to emerge from the water, but thinking that perhaps the whole thing was part of a well-orchestrated joke, they weren’t immediately alarmed; indeed they waited for the next twist.
But the campus star was slowly sinking to the bottom of the pool. A severe cramp in the calf of his right leg immobilized him underwater. Several times he had tried to relieve the pain, pinching and massaging the muscle with his fingers, to be able to go back up.
Jiang Yu Xin, sitting in the audience, also muttered something with an uncertain expression on her face. Only Fang Zheng Wen, who was standing on the starting blocks, frowned as he stared at the other boy in the water muttering to himself, “Knowing when he’s proud, he’d surely die of embarrassment, so I wouldn’t have to dive at all, right? “
The sound of diving reverberated throughout the building, and while everyone was discussing how to beat opponents, Gao Shi De entered the water and swam towards Zhou Shu Yi, who was still underwater.
When Zhou Shu Yi saw that the one who was going to his rescue was his bitter enemy, he ferociously yanked the arm that the latter had grabbed with one hand. Gao Shi De, however, did not give up and embracing Zhou Shu Yi tightly by the life kicked the water to rise to the surface.
That was his old adversary, the only one who had always prevented him from achieving his goals, the one who had never made him feel fully proud of himself, the one who he considered his thorn in his side because it reminded him of his every failure. His name was Gao Shi De, the personification of Virtue!
No wonder the saying went: Frustration comes from the heaviness of failure in life.
When Zhou Shu Yi surfaced, coughing and staring at the person holding him as he swam towards the ladder, he couldn’t help but think of the past as he clenched his jaw, gnashing his teeth.
It’s not right.
****************
Beginning of flashbacks.
Elementary school auditorium.
“Congratulations to Zhou Shu Yi for finishing first in the entire school.”
Everyone cheered him in encouragement: “Congratulations to Zhou Shu Yi.”
Zhou Shu Yi had just finished elementary school and was smiling as he clutched the certificate of honor given to him by the principal for being the best student to pass the final exam to enter middle school. He was standing on the right side of the stage when the director rushed over and, after approaching the principal, began to whisper something to him.
Zhou Shu Yi saw an embarrassed expression gradually appear on the face of the principal as he clumsily took the certificate out of Zhou Shu Yi’s hands and, after verifying the name written on it, handed it to the dean of academic affairs who kindly asked another boy to swap places with Zhou Shu Yi to receive the award, and let him stand on the highest podium.
The principal raised the microphone again, in front of the teachers, students and parents in the audience who had come to watch the ceremony, and said, “Sorry, I made a mistake. The name of the boy who finished first in the school this time is Gao Shi De. Let’s congratulate Gao Shi De by giving him a warm round of applause. Congratulations. Congratulations!”
Thunderous applause rang out from below the stage. Zhou Shu Yi, forced to change his position and observed by all with pity and compassion, was surrounded by applause that did not belong to him. Since that hateful day, Gao Shi De had become like a specter that he couldn’t get rid of. From elementary school to middle school, then from middle school to high school; regardless of whether it was academic performances, art competitions, language competitions, national science exhibitions, everything … from that day on that boy had been present, always coming first and relegating him to an eternal and disconcerting I get off the place. Always the first, always the winner even in ten thousand years!
Gao Shi De, you are the first person on my hate list! You’ll pay me, I’ll sink you!
So Zhou Shu Yi swore to himself that one day he would get rid of the shameful title of runner-up to Wannian*, that a beautiful and dazzling U-turn would come, and that he would trample on Gao Shi De’s pride; thus finally managing to obtain the place that belonged to him.
(*N/T: Wannian County (万年县, Wànnián Xiàn) is a county in China, located in Jiangxi Province and administered by Shangrao Prefecture.)
The throne of the victor, that of first place! Because his name was under great pressure and Zhou Shu Yi could not accept this.
End of flashbacks
****************
For that reason, even though he had just brought him to the side of the pool, 20-year-old Zhou Shu Yi abruptly pushed Gao Shi De away, even though the latter was massaging his calf.
Zhou Shi Yi gritted his teeth staring at the boy who seemed to be the same child in his memories; and after standing up, albeit dragging his right leg still stiff from the cramp, he ran away from the pool in anger.
