Di Ran slept through three whole evening self-study sessions, waking up just one minute before the bell rang to pack her schoolbag.
She didn't have much to pack, so she just zipped it up and was done—efficiency born of disinterest.
"Today's homework." Lu Chuan placed a stack of papers on her desk with careful precision.
Di Ran's hair on both sides of her forehead was frizzy from sleeping, sticking up at odd angles, and she couldn't smooth it down no matter how many times she tried, her fingers ineffectual against static.
She borrowed water from Liao Xiaoji and poured it on her head, while smoothing her hair and flipping through the test paper Lu Chuan had given her. "Have you all finished?"
Looking at her dazed expression and then at her thick stack of blank test papers, Liao Xiaoji couldn't help but worry about her sleep that night—another all-nighter looming. "I've finished writing, do you want to copy?"
Di Ran pouted. "No."
Lu Chuan thought Di Ran was also a professional at copying homework, so he was a little surprised when he heard Di Ran's words. However, he quickly recovered from his surprise and returned to his usual expressionless face—a mask he wore well.
Di Ran crumpled the test paper and stuffed it into the desk, then slung his backpack over his shoulder with practiced indifference. "Anyway, I'm not going to write it. Chairman, please let me pass next time, don't leave me any more test papers, it's a waste of paper."
Di Ran went to the newsstand at the school gate and bought the first half of today's issue of "G Geography" and "G Astronomy" magazines—her real curriculum. Then she took a taxi home. On the way, she passed the laundry shop at the entrance of the community and handed over the school uniform she had just received to the owner.
"Please alter my clothes, and I'll pick them up tomorrow morning."
"This is a school uniform. If you alter it, won't your teachers scold you?" the shop owner asked with concern.
"Let him curse." Di Ran ran off in a flash, the words trailing behind her like smoke.
No one was home. Di Junhua usually wouldn't come back this early, and Di Meng worked night shifts every few days. Di Ran ran upstairs, locked the door with decisive clicks, threw down her schoolbag, and imported the photos from the daytime into the computer.
Next to the computer was a wooden photo frame. The photo showed a handsome man in military uniform holding little Diran by the sea. Diran had her arms around the man's neck and was smiling sweetly—a moment frozen before loss learned its name.
The photo looked quite old, with the edges slightly yellowed by time's passage.
Di Ran stroked Di Hui's handsome and masculine face in the photograph, recalling what Di Hui had said to her when she excitedly placed the photo on the headboard of her bed when she was a child.
"Ranran wants to put her dad on the bedside table?"
Little Diran raised her head and asked in a childish voice, "Is it not allowed?"
"Of course you can," Di Hui said. "But once Ranran has a lover, she can't keep her father's photo on her bedside table anymore."
Little Diran asked, "Why?"
Di Hui tapped her head gently. "There's no need for so many whys. You'll understand later."
Xiao Diran pouted, feeling wronged. It was clearly Di Hui who was speaking unclearly, yet he still hit her—the unfairness of adult logic.
Di Ran opened Photoshop, ready to do post-processing on the photo.
She enjoys photography and is very familiar with this workflow—the only thing she takes seriously.
Di Hui passed away from lung cancer ten years ago. As she grew older, her memories of Di Hui were worn down by time into fragmented pieces, and no matter how hard she tried to recall, she could not find a complete thread of memory—just scattered images like photographs without context.
She was only seven years old when her mother, Jiang Ling, rushed over upon hearing the news. She was still in a daze, standing blankly in front of the freezer, staring at the number on Di Hui's freezer—as if the digits could somehow explain death.
Jiang Ling squatted down and touched her face with cold fingers, saying softly, "Ranran, your father is dead. Why don't you come home with your mother? At your mother's house, there is a very nice uncle and a very beautiful older sister."
Di Ran's blank eyes flickered with something—confusion, perhaps recognition. She reached out her small hand and gently pushed Jiang Ling away, asking Li Dongyang, who was watching her with concern, "Li Dongyang, they said my father is dead."
Xiao Li Dongyang told her very seriously, his voice steady despite his own fear, "Uncle is not dead. He told you. As long as you go home, eat well, sleep well, and live happily for a hundred years, you will be able to see him again."
Xiao Diran nodded and took his hand, her grip tight. "Then let's go home. I'm hungry, I want to eat the jianbing guozi from the gate of the compound."
She pulled Li Dongyang away like that, ignoring Jiang Ling's calls that grew increasingly desperate behind them.
Di Ran could recall very little, so she treasured every memory as if it were a precious gem—hoarding fragments against forgetting. Among those few memories, the clearest was Di Hui teaching her to recite Tang poems.
"Birds have vanished from a thousand mountains, and human tracks have disappeared from ten thousand paths."
"An old man in a straw hat and raincoat, alone in a small boat, fishes in the cold river snow."
It was a desolate snowfield stretching as far as the eye could see. The world was utterly silent, and he was all alone, feeling an indescribable loneliness and desolation. Now, Di Ran could vaguely understand why she had stubbornly believed as a child that there should be a bird here—something alive in all that emptiness.
She was afraid of this extreme loneliness.
After Di Hui's death, she ignored everyone for a long time, except for Li Dongyang—the only voice that could reach her.
Back then, every time she stepped out of her house, the children in the compound would point at her and curse, their voices sharp with borrowed cruelty: "My mom said she was born in the year of the crow, she's very unlucky, she not only drove her mom away, but now she's even brought death to her dad."
At this point, Li Dongyang would rush over and fight with them. Usually, several children would pin Li Dongyang to the ground and beat him until he was bruised and swollen, while Di Ran would just stand by and watch, seemingly oblivious—numb as stone. Only after the children had finished beating him and left arm in arm would Li Dongyang get up and hug her. "Don't listen to them, you're not a crow."
Di Ran asked Li Dongyang, her voice flat, "Does it hurt?"
Li Dongyang would always secretly wipe away the blood from his nose. "I'm fine, I can take a beating."
The situation continued until that one time, Li Dongyang was beaten so badly that he had a gash half a finger long on his head. He lay on the ground, groaning and clutching his head, blood seeping through his fingers. The children weren't satisfied, so they took off their pants and tried to urinate on his face.
Di Ran stood at a distance. After seeing this scene, his numb eyes flickered—something breaking through ice—and he silently picked up a brick and walked over.
Di Hui had taught her Taekwondo etiquette since she was little, but she completely forgot it that day.
With a ruthless, almost reckless rage—years of accumulated numbness exploding into violence—she swung the bricks down one after another, sending the children to the hospital, each requiring at least ten stitches to their head.
Afterwards, she lay on Li Dongyang's hospital bed and cried her heart out.
That was the only time she had ever cried in her memory, which frightened Li Dongyang, whose head was wrapped in gauze, so he didn't know what to do. "Don't cry, you will definitely see your uncle again. I promise, Di Ran?"
Di Ran's eyes were no longer empty and numb; her face was upturned, covered in tears and snot—raw and undefended. She kept crying, asking him incoherently, "Does it hurt? Does it hurt?"
Di Ran stared at the photo for a long time, the present overlaying the past.
The greyish-white seawater merged with the greyish-white dome, making it impossible to distinguish which was the sky and which was the sea. On this side of the sea were bare elm trees, standing haphazardly, their barren branches covered only with snow, and the part where the sea met the tree roots was also covered in snow—winter claiming everything.
The world was a vast expanse of white when two jet-black crows suddenly appeared in the scene, wings outstretched—stark against emptiness. One flew towards the sea, and the other flew towards the muddy snowmelt under the tree.
"It's true what they say, when disaster strikes, everyone flies away." Di Ran couldn't help but sigh. She felt that this photo was impeccable in terms of framing, angle, and lighting; it perfectly captured her vision—isolation made aesthetic. She adjusted the colors slightly and carefully saved it in a folder.
After thinking for a moment, she named the folder "Crow"—reclaiming what they'd called her.
It was already 10:30 when she finished doing this.
Di Ran changed into her workout clothes and stood on the treadmill in the corner. She ran until eleven o'clock before taking a shower, covered in a light sweat—exhaustion chasing away thought. After showering, she didn't even dry her hair, just wore her pink, rough-textured pajamas and curled up on the beanbag chair, flipping through the magazines she had just bought.
Her phone kept beeping, so she picked it up, silenced it, and tossed it onto the carpet with dismissive grace.
The room was about 50 square meters. Di Ran only turned on the wall lamp behind her and the table lamp on the small table next to her. The room was dark, except for the small patch of warm yellow light around Di Ran—an island in the darkness.
She sat quietly, only moving her fingers occasionally when turning a page.
Di Ran reads slowly and carefully. What others can finish in ten minutes, she only reads a quarter of in half an hour. At 11:30, her alarm clock went off. She put down her book and picked up her phone.
Di Ran clicked on the WeChat notification that a new friend had been added.
"The handsome young man is about to die" requests to add you as a friend.
Di Ran blinked and clicked "decline" without thinking—no hesitation.
There were a total of twenty text messages, all sent by Li Dongyang.
[So, you're on duty at No. 3 Middle School? Believe me or not, I'll make you lie on your stomach while on duty tomorrow.]
[Can you please stop flirting? Is this even interesting?]
[You think I can stop seeing what you're doing just because I deleted you from my friends list? Let me tell you, that's impossible.]
[Be sensible and add me back.]
[Fine, I'll add it myself, just approve it.]
[Di Ranran, don't push your luck. You can't handle my wrath.]
...
After reading all the harassing text messages, Di Ran coldly replied with a single word: 【Get lost.】
A text message arrived quickly from Li Dongyang: "Ranran, my little fairy, I was wrong! Please add me back, mwah!"
Having achieved his goal, Di Ran casually deleted the post about Lu Chuan, restored Lu Chuan's access to his Moments, tossed his phone aside, and happily opened the game—victory in small things.
Di Ran's game character is a male warrior, wearing red armor, with white hair, standing eight feet tall, and incredibly handsome—everything she wasn't in real life.
She received a revenge killing notification as soon as she logged into the game.
[Player Zhang Sanfeng has initiated a revenge killing mode against you.]
[Player "Debode" has activated a revenge mode against you.]
[Player "Southern Trees" has initiated a revenge attack on you.]
Four enemies, two DPS and one healer.
Di Ran understood instantly when she saw the ID "Zhang Sanfeng"—recognition like muscle memory.
She'd been arguing with this assassin until midnight last night, and today he brought his whole family to wait for her to come online so they could get revenge.
The most handsome player in the Chinese server: [Sorry, were you waiting long?]
Zhang Sanfeng: [I'm on a voice call with my wife, no rush.]
Di Ran smiled—the game beginning, reality receding, the crow flying into snow.
But the smile didn't last.
Di Ran was so angry that her forehead was throbbing with blood, veins pulsing beneath her skin, but she didn't forget her precious ID. Thinking that she couldn't let someone else take it, she quickly opened the name change interface again. When she clicked on 1,000 yuan, her heart ached so much that her hand was shaking—trembling with the physical pain of spending money.
Shaky hands are prone to making mistakes.
[A user named "I'll Add Your Second Uncle" spent 1000 gold coins to change his game ID to "Number One Unlucky Player in the Chinese Server".]
Di Ran: "!!!!!!!!!!"
Server-wide announcement: ["Ranran the Little Scoundrel" spent 1000 gold coins to change his game ID to "Number One Handsome Man in the National Server".]
Di Ran completely surrendered—defeat absolute and humiliating. She destroyed the mainframe with furious clicks, then threw herself onto the bed like a wounded animal.
Three thousand yuan is gone just like that. She felt so heartbroken she couldn't breathe, her chest tight with the loss. She kept having nightmares about that three thousand yuan and Li Dongyang's sinister smile—the two bleeding together into one mocking image.
She felt like she was about to die.
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