The library was being painted, so the old boxes had to move. Lin Xi volunteered to carry the heavy ones, and on the last shelf she found a wooden crate with no label at all. Inside were hundreds of photographs, mostly sports days and music evenings, faces blurred by motion. Near the bottom lay a boy standing alone in front of the school gate.
图书馆要粉刷，旧箱子都得搬走。林溪自愿搬重的，在最后一层架子上，她发现一个完全没有标签的木箱。里面是几百张照片，大多是运动会和音乐晚会，人脸被动作晃得模糊。最下面压着一个男孩，独自站在校门前。
On the back, in faded blue ink, someone had written a name and a year: Chen Shuming, 1968. Lin Xi turned the photograph toward the window. The boy looked serious and a little frightened, as if he had been told to stand still and was afraid of disappointing someone. She showed it to the librarian, who shrugged. 'That was before my time,' she said.
背面用褪色的蓝墨水写着一个名字和年份：陈书明，1968。林溪把照片转向窗边。男孩看起来很认真，又有点害怕，好像有人叫他站好，而他怕让谁失望。她拿给图书管理员看，管理员耸耸肩。“那比我来的年代还早，”她说。
Lin Xi did not want to put the photograph back. After school she searched the yearbooks, but 1968 was missing, and the office had only a thin folder with three names. She wrote to two addresses and heard nothing. The third letter she gave to her grandfather, who knew a retired teacher living near the river.
林溪不想把照片放回去。放学后她翻遍年鉴，可1968年的不见了，办公室只有一个薄薄的文件夹，里面写着三个名字。她往两个地址写了信，都没有回音。第三封她交给了爷爷，爷爷认识一位住在河边的退休老师。
The teacher remembered a Chen Shuming who had been good at mathematics. A week later, a woman called the school. Her father was eighty, she said, and he had been asking about a photograph he lost long ago. Lin Xi wrapped the picture in paper and carried it to a small apartment above a shoe shop.
那位老师记得一个数学很好的陈书明。一个星期后，有位女士打电话到学校。她说父亲八十岁了，一直在问一张很久以前丢失的照片。林溪把照片用纸包好，送到一家鞋店楼上的小公寓。
'I thought it was gone,' Chen Shuming said at last. 'My mother kept it in a drawer. When she died, the drawer was emptied, and I never asked where things went.' He turned the photograph over and read his own name as if it belonged to a stranger. Then he told Lin Xi about the morning it was taken.
“我以为它早没了，”陈书明终于开口。“我母亲把它放在抽屉里。她去世后，抽屉被清空了，我也从没问过东西都去了哪里。”他把照片翻过来，读着自己的名字，像在读一个陌生人的名字。然后他跟林溪讲起拍照那天早晨的事。
He had arrived early because he was afraid of being late, and the photographer found him standing alone at the gate. 'I was nobody important,' he said. 'But someone wrote my name on the back.' Before she left, he gave Lin Xi a notebook filled with his handwriting. 'Names matter,' he said. 'Write them down while people are here to correct you.'
他到得很早，因为怕迟到，摄影师就发现他一个人站在校门口。“我不是什么重要人物，”他说，“却有人在背面写下了我的名字。”临走前，他送给林溪一本写满字迹的笔记本。“名字很重要，”他说，“趁人还在、还能替你改正的时候，把它们写下来。”