The blue earring

The story begins in early September 2011.

  The university I attended was located in a city called Brandon in the central part of Canada. This city was as small as a village in China, but the university, named after the city, had a history of a hundred years. The music department, in particular, was renowned as the "Berkeley of Canada," standing tall like Mount Tai, calmly content with its distance from the hustle and bustle of the world. Due to a partnership, every September, a group of exchange students from Tamkang University in Taiwan would come to spend two semesters here for their studies.

  September 2011 showed no unusual signs. On a rather drowsy afternoon, sunlight crept slowly across the blinds like a snail. My older brother called and said, "Some Taiwanese students are coming tonight. If you're not working, come to the school to pick them up." As a member of the Chinese Student Association, I rarely participated in such activities. At the time, all the activities of the student association seemed boring and artificial to me. Even the meetings of student association members felt like a gathering for boasting, full of empty words and no efficiency. Nevertheless, I agreed to take on this task. First, because I held a position in the association and felt obliged to do something, and second, because my older brother was the association president, and I couldn't refuse to help him.

  Apart from my older brother and me, there was a friend we called Xiao Hei (Little Black). The three of us arrived at the school around 9:30 PM, chatting in the glass corridor outside the dormitory while waiting for the Taiwanese exchange students to arrive.

  "How many people are coming?" I asked my brother while smoking outside.  "Just one," my brother replied, checking his phone.  "Only one person, and the three of us are here to pick them up? Are we picking up your mother-in-law or something? Is this necessary?" I choked on a puff of smoke and coughed a few times after saying that.

  Haha, it's a girl, and she looks quite pretty in the photos. I felt a bit embarrassed to go alone, so I called you guys," my brother said with a mischievous smile. He looked like a child, with smoke escaping into the night as he laughed, disappearing without a trace.

  Xiao Hei had just extinguished his cigarette and was about to turn towards the corridor when he heard my brother's words. He abruptly turned back, saying, "We don't know when she'll arrive. How about you two go back and get some sleep? I can wait; I'm used to staying up late."

  My brother and I didn't respond to his suggestion and walked straight into the glass corridor. Xiao Hei reluctantly followed, and we all sat on the ground, passing the time with idle conversation.

  We waited in the corridor from 9:30 PM until 11:30 PM, and we were starting to doze off when we finally saw the headlights of a bus arriving. It was an airport shuttle. We rose like zombies, having wandered in the desert for days and finally seeing signs of life.

  A clean and neat girl with a medium build appeared. She had jet-black long hair and clear, bright eyes that shimmered in the moonlight. She looked a bit tired but still full of vitality, embodying the gentle and reserved nature characteristic of Taiwanese girls. Her name was Ann, a fact I would only learn about a month later.

  At the end of September, I and Xiao Hei received a call from my brother inviting us to a party at his place that evening. When we arrived, my brother's small home was filled with people, around ten to twenty of them, mostly Taiwanese exchange students, a few Koreans, two Caucasians, and Ann. Everyone sat around makeshift tables, and the air was filled with the scent of alcohol and smoke. People with different accents were playing various drinking games in the dimly lit room. After a few rounds of drinks, music started playing, and Xiao Hei and I were sitting in the corner, sipping our drinks and chatting, watching them dance in the middle of the room."Haha, look at my brother acting all crazy!" Xiao Hei put down his glass and pointed at my brother in the crowd, laughing.