On the Xixi Wetlands Park ferry, a very young man heard a girl crying and trying to hide it.  His name was Sheng Ruzhao.  He wore thin gold-rimmed glasses perched on a high bridged nose which could easily gotten him the role of Sherlock Holmes if he were as thin as that detective is supposed to be.  However, Sheng Ruzhao was built like an ox.  A large ox. 

Back to the crying girl. The two of them were sitting toward the back of the ferry, on the seats which faced each other, though she was sitting in the corner while he was in the middle on the other side.  She, like he, was wearing a school uniform.

Some girls can cry beautifully, mainly the White Lotus type, because for them crying is more of a tactic than an emotional response.  Lin Jiaying was not a pretty crier.  Her eyes and nose swelled up when she cried, and her entire face reddened. 

Yet to Sheng Ruzhao, her face made him think of a pink flower drenched in rain. 

Of such stuff is White Moonlight made. 

It helped that after kindergarten, all the schools he went to were all-male private schools, so he often literally went weeks without talking to or even seeing in person a member of the opposite sex who was anywhere near his age.

“Are you all right, Miss?” he asked, greatly daring. “Do you need a handkerchief?” She had a paper tissue in her hands but she was crying it into pieces.     

His heart started beating fast and his face flushed because He! Was! Talking! To! A! Girl!!!   He reached in his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a plain white cotton square which could have served as a flag of truce.  “You can have mine.  It’s perfectly clean.”  

“I—I—thank you, but I couldn’t trouble you,” she said. 

“It’s no trouble,” he said.  “Honestly, I’ve carried handkerchiefs in my pocket for three years now, and I don’t think I’ve used one more than half a dozen times, mostly for when a drink gets spilled or something.”

“Why carry them if you don’t use them?” she asked.

“It’s part of the school uniform,” Shen Ruzhao replied. “’A gentleman should always have a clean, pressed handkerchief in his pocket at the beginning of the day.’  We get demerits if we don’t have one.”  His heart had gone from pounding to racing.  An actual conversation!

“What kind of school—?” she began, and then, for the first time, she looked at him.  As expected, her eyes widened as she took in exactly how tall he was.

“One meter ninety-seven,” he said, because people always asked.  “And I’m eighteen, so I’ll probably add a few more centimeters before I stop growing.”  The average height of men in China was about one meter seventy, although that was creeping up to one meter eighty in urban areas thanks to improved nutrition.   Being tall was usually an attractive and positive attribute, but in his case, it had gotten out of hand years before.  He could not count how many times he had bruised or cut his head on low-hanging light fixtures or door frames, and even his school uniforms had to be custom tailored to fit him.    

“That is very tall,” she agreed.

“My name is Sheng Ruzhao,” he volunteered.  "Sheng as written for 'Life',  Ru as in 'Scholarly' and Zhao as in 'Excellent'."

“I’m Lin Jiaying,  Lin as written for 'Forest',  Jia as in 'Good', and Ying written as 'Intelligent,” she replied, looking at his face rather closely.  “Excuse me for asking, but are you by chance related to Mr. Sheng Jianyu?”

“He’s my grandfather,” Sheng Ruzhao told her.  “People often say I look rather like him.”

“You sound something like him, too.  He’s my family’s advisor—and a very distant cousin of my grandmother’s.  I always call him ‘Greatuncle.’   Have we ever met?  I’ve been to many banquets and gatherings with your family.” 

He winced a little.  “My place in the family is…awkward.”  Anyone in their circle would know what that meant, especially when he looked so much like his grandfather.  He was illegitimate.  “The aunts didn’t want me going to the same schools or socializing with my cousins.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and she really did look sympathetic.

“It’s all right,” he smiled wryly.  “In truth, I’ve done better in school than any of my cousins, and Grandfather made sure I didn’t lack anything.  The only thing I missed out on was…” He almost said, meeting you, but changed it to, “social opportunities. I think those matter more when you get older, anyway.  So—are you all right?” 

That might have been a tactical error, as her pretty face crumpled again.  “No!  Today’s been horrible!  I was going to go on a picnic with my classmates, and I’d really been looking forward to it—I haven’t had a single nice thing happen in months.  Then I found out they didn’t want me there because I ruin the fun.  The girl I thought was my best friend for years actually can’t stand me, the boy I—he doesn’t like me the way I liked him, and he never will!  His mother tricked me into meeting her and she bullied me.”

“Uh—here!”  He reached out and tucked the handkerchief into her hands.  “I’m sorry.  I wish there was something I could do—uh—would you like to go on a picnic with me? Right here in the park?”