The person I want to talk about this time is my elementary school classmate Lin Zixuan. We got along well before graduating from elementary school and often played soccer together during our free time. However, after graduation, we went to different middle schools and only bumped into each other once while shopping in the first year of middle school, but we didn't have much to talk about.
After graduating from middle school, there was a friend network on QQ at that time. If we added each other as friends there, we could connect on QQ. Compared to middle school and elementary school, we used computers to surf the internet more frequently in high school. I managed to add Lin Zixuan as a friend on QQ again, and through chatting, I learned that he went to the former No. 110 Middle School for high school, which is now an art school. However, since we were both busy with our studies, we rarely kept in touch, and QQ friends were replaced by classmates we interacted with daily. I remember that in the early days of QQ, there was a limit on the number of friends you could add, and once it was full, the system would automatically delete friends you didn't contact often.
Fortunately, in my second year of university, a "Friend Network Certification" window popped up on QQ in the dormitory. Even more fortunately, I added Lin Zixuan on WeChat, and from our chat, I learned that he was studying at Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute.
Lin Zixuan and I have a common point: we are both art students. So I thought of my high school classmate Nie Lishan, who also studied at that university, and I asked if they knew each other. But Lin Zixuan explained that he was currently in his first year of university and had to repeat a year due to not performing well in the first year, so he didn't know the person I mentioned. After that, we had gatherings during every holiday. After I graduated and started working, he still had one more summer vacation, so we basically met once a week during that time.
In the second year of my work, he graduated as well. At that time, I changed my career path, which is to say I switched jobs and changed fields, working as a staff member at a café called Wutong under the Guangzhou Tower. Besides mixing cocktails at the bar, I spent the rest of my time serving dishes and cleaning plates, even wiping tables and mopping the floor. So that year, I only met him once, and it was during a time when the office workers could come to support and gather on weekends. Indeed, that day was Saturday, and it happened to be a less busy time. I was also fortunate to introduce him to my colleague Bao Jiehui, yes—the later owner of "Sido Coffee," who went to support Bao's innovative coffee creations. We didn't gather again that year because he worked at Chimelong every day, and he witnessed how hardworking and busy I was.
It could have been said to be a bustling area, close to the Guangzhou Tower subway station, but due to differing opinions among the store's shareholders, it eventually closed down. After experiencing a long period of unemployment, I re-entered the workforce at a store called "Guanren Tea" located in Jiangnan West, Haizhu District, which specializes in lemon tea. Interestingly, he came to meet me quite a few times, but the topics were still the same, and he was quite reserved with his words, most of the time it was me talking.
Later, after he was transferred to the Shanghai branch by the company, our meetings became even less frequent. All the employees in the company had at least a bachelor's degree, and he felt a sense of crisis. Originally studying animation, he decided to focus on teaching and research and went to Japan for further studies. After that, he could only return during holidays to meet up, but due to the pandemic, he didn't come back during that period.