The setting sun.
A schoolyard.
A classroom.
Textbooks.
It was yet another ordinary day.
Ring—ring—ring—
The dismissal bell sounded. Inside the classroom, students displayed the familiar scenes common to any high school: some went off in small groups to the cafeteria, some took out the instant noodles or bread they had bought earlier, some continued diligently working on exam papers, and others secretly pulled out their phones to check social media before quickly stuffing them back into their bags.
Seated in the back row, a boy in a school uniform packed his bag and headed for the door.
Several students looked at him with envy. They knew he was a day student—someone who could go home after school, without staying in the dormitory or attending early morning and late evening study sessions. He had more time to do what he wanted instead of spending every moment sitting on a classroom bench.
However, just as the boy stepped outside, he nearly bumped into a middle-aged man wearing glasses. The man frowned slightly.
"Lillian, don't leave yet. Come to the office."
"Okay."
The boy responded with little emotion and followed the man—his homeroom teacher—into the office.
"You've seen your grades, haven't you?" the teacher said, sitting in his chair and taking a sip from his water cup. He glanced at Lillian. "What do you plan to do about them?"
"I'll leave things as they are."
"Leave them as they are?"
The teacher looked at the boy before him. Whether in physique or appearance, Lillian could only be described as utterly ordinary—a presence unlikely to attract anyone's particular attention. In truth, if not for his recent monthly exam results, the teacher would never have paid special notice to him.
"In two consecutive monthly exams, you ranked last in the class. Once you were fourth from the bottom in the entire grade, and once second from the bottom. And you think things can just go on like this?"
"Mm."
"'Mm'!?" The homeroom teacher stared at him in disbelief, suppressing his frustration. "Then tell me—what exactly are you thinking?"
"I'm not thinking much."
Lillian's expressionless reply caused the man to explode in anger. He slammed his hand against the desk with a loud bang.
"If you're not thinking, then why do you keep getting last place! Look at your test papers! Other students at least guess on multiple-choice questions whether they know the answers or not. But you—you leave even the multiple-choice blank! Aside from the essay, you write nothing at all! You hand in blank papers! And you say you're not thinking? That's deliberate defiance!"
Perhaps because he had been holding in his frustration for a long time, the teacher spoke in a rapid stream without pause. After listening, Lillian finally offered a slightly longer response.
"Teacher, randomly guessing doesn't have any real meaning, does it?"
"And handing in a blank paper does?"
"That doesn't have meaning either. But if neither has meaning, then not writing anything requires less effort."
The homeroom teacher was so angered that he nearly lost control, but with other teachers present in the office, he forced himself to calm down, taking another sip of water.
"Lillian," he said more gently, with a hint of sympathy, "I know your situation is special. You lost your… family at such a young age. That's why I've never been too strict with you. And that permit allowing you to live at home—do you know how difficult it is to obtain one at our school? I worked very hard to secure it for you. Yet look at your performance… The college entrance exam is only a few months away. Are you really going to drift along like this?"
Lillian could not help but smile faintly.
That permit wasn't something I asked for, he thought. Wasn't it the school that decided children from special family backgrounds were more likely to develop psychological problems, or conflict with roommates and cause trouble?
"What are you smiling about?" the teacher frowned. "I'm not joking with you! If you make a full effort now, you might still get into a third-tier university. It's still a bachelor's degree—at least you'd have a qualification when looking for a job in the future. Otherwise, you're last place now, and you'll still be last place once you enter society!"
"Being last place isn't really such a big deal," Lillian said calmly. "As long as 'rankings' exist in this world, there will always be someone in last place. If I'm not that person, someone else will be. What difference does it make?"
The teacher stared at him in astonishment.
"…You sound rather proud of being last place?"
"Not proud. But I don't find it shameful either."
"…Hopeless."
The homeroom teacher watched him silently for a long moment, tapping his fingers on the desk. After a pause, he suddenly said:
"If you're just going to muddle through like this for the next few months and fail everything, what's the point? You might as well start looking for work now."
Here is your smooth, detailed English translation of Chapter 354, keeping the narrative natural and consistent with your previous chapters.
"You should think about whether this makes sense," the teacher continued. "If you don't want to study anymore, then staying in school is just wasting time, isn't it? You'd be better off going out to work early, gaining some experience, earning money, learning a skill. That way, in the future you could—"
"Teacher, I have to take the college entrance examination," Lillian interrupted.
"You—"
"If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving."
With that, Lillian turned and walked out of the office. Behind him, the homeroom teacher's expression darkened terribly. The fingers gripping the glass in his hand tightened, leaving faint prints on its surface.
There was no particular reason for Lillian's decision.
He went to the bicycle shed, took out his bike, and rode out of the school gates. The breeze lifted the long strands of hair on his forehead, bringing a pleasant sense of comfort.
As he himself had said, being "last place" was never something he deliberately aimed for—he simply found everything dull.
As for his homeroom teacher's displeasure, it was only natural. From a teacher's perspective, a student with poor academic performance could affect the entire class's results—and on a larger scale, even the school's college admission rate. Ordinary high schools might not care as much, but for one of the city's top institutions, such matters were taken very seriously.
Students like Lillian were precisely the kind the school least wanted.
Lillian understood this well, so he bore no resentment toward his teachers. It was merely a difference in position.
If possible, he would have preferred to drop out so as not to affect the school—but he had a reason why he had to take the college entrance examination, so leaving was not an option. Yet genuinely devoting himself to studying was something he simply could not bring himself to do.
So he could only let things remain as they were.
The wind trailed behind him as he rode, and his thoughts returned to what the teacher had said about his "special family situation."
When he had been so young that he had not yet formed memories, an accident had taken the lives of his relatives. Left alone, an ignorant child, he grew up in an orphanage—and there, he gradually came to understand the meaning of "ranking."
Those with higher rankings were more easily chosen by new, wealthier "parents." Those ranked lower would not even appear on the candidate lists; not even symbolic photographs would be taken of them.
When Lillian was young, he saw on television how children in orphanages were portrayed as innocent, kind, and naive—so pitiable that anyone would feel sympathy for them. He always wondered why, finding it strange. From what he could see, the children around him were each more clever than the last. The behavior shown on television only appeared when prospective "parents" came to visit.
He remembered a girl—among those of the same age, she was treated like a "princess." It sounded almost ridiculous, but even in a place like an orphanage, girls still liked the idea of being a princess. She was intelligent and beautiful, knew how to avoid punishment, and understood how to ensure her photograph was placed at the very front among all the candidates.
Perhaps because they had entered the orphanage on the same day, she treated Lillian kindly, calling him "little brother" and allowing him into her circle. At that time, Lillian liked her very much.
Later, a couple came to the orphanage. The man and woman often appeared on television and had even taken photographs standing beside the mayor.
Lillian remembered them because he had once seen the girl secretly cut out their photograph from a newspaper.
That day, the girl performed flawlessly, displaying a fragility she had never shown before. The tears at the corners of her eyes looked utterly genuine. The couple was deeply moved and immediately decided to adopt her.
That night, Lillian vomited for fifteen minutes.
At that moment, he suddenly understood that he would never be chosen by "parents." What they wanted were the innocent, pitiable children they saw on television—not "little actors" who schemed and competed from an early age. He could never become such a person.
After realizing this, Lillian deliberately behaved foolishly and slow-witted. What prospective parents disliked most were stupid children. They might sympathize with such children, but they would never want them as their own. And so, Lillian naturally became one of those left behind, sitting on the cold bench for eight long years.
It was only when a new government policy provided compulsory middle school placements that he was admitted into school. After that came high school through allocated quotas.
And that was his brief, incomplete past.