The Home You Waited For

CHAPTER 1 - The First Ni Hao

Beijing Minghua Senior High School – Mid Fall of 2013

Beijing Minghua Senior High School is a public school founded in 1985 but academically prestigious for grades 11–12 only, and it is highly competitive when it comes to the Gaokao track. The said school is located in Haidian District near universities like Peking and Tsinghua. A traditional red-brick academic building with modern interior renovations and a rooftop garden for quiet reading and journaling. It has one central courtyard with a gingko tree rumored to have been planted the year the school opened in 1985. Dormitories are available for out-of-province or rural scholarship students, and a four-story school library with a reserved "Silent Hall" is popular among Gakao students.

Jia Liora Velasquez, sixteen and newly arrived from the Philippines, stood nervously in the polished corridor of the Administration Building. The hallway, lined with old school plaques and the faint scent of disinfectant, felt both intimidating and impossibly quiet. Beyond the frosted glass door, her parents were still in conversation with Principal Wen Yucheng—a tall, composed man whose reputation for academic excellence preceded him. Any moment now, they would step out and escort her to her new classroom, and the next chapter of her life in Beijing would begin.

She had been placed in Senior 2—Class 5, a section informally known as the Phoenix Section, though Jia wasn’t sure why. According to her cousin—and now classmate—Li Yuhan, “it was the section where all the smart kids with messy pasts get dumped together.”

Yuhan had said it with a lazy shrug and a half-smile, like he didn’t really mean it. Jia couldn’t tell if it was a joke, a warning, or just one of those vague things people say to make things sound more interesting.

“You’ll fit right in,” he added with a grin. “Kind of poetic, right? Phoenix—burned down first before it flies.”

But the name stuck with her. Phoenix Section.

It sounded dramatic, almost poetic—like everyone in that room had risen from something. She wasn’t sure if she belonged there.

Her mind drifted again, back to that summer afternoon in Manila, not long after her Junior High School moving-up ceremony. The memory was sharp, suspended in the thick heat of June: her father had walked into the living room, briefcase in hand, and announced with calm finality that he had accepted a position as a business consultant for a Chinese-Filipino joint venture. The job was in Beijing, and the contract had a clause—one that ensured their family would relocate with him.

Her mother had cried—but from joy.

“It’s home,” she had whispered, half in Chinese, half in Tagalog. Her mother’s entire side of the family was in Beijing. Uncles, aunts, cousins, grandparents. Moving to China was a return.

But for Jia, it had felt more like an uprooting.

She was half Chinese and half Filipino—her mother a native of Beijing, her father proudly Filipino. Born and raised in the heart of Manila, she had always known the rhythm of the city: the chatter of jeepneys, the scent of street food in the afternoon air, the comfort of Taglish jokes at every corner.

That was why the move felt like a rupture. For the first time, she was leaving the only country she had ever called home. As the plane descended over Beijing’s endless sprawl, a weight settled in her chest. China—her mother’s homeland—was unfamiliar terrain to her, a place tied to stories and family names but not to her own memories.

Now, standing in the quiet hallway of Beijing Minghua Senior High’s Administration Building, waiting outside the principal’s office in an unfamiliar uniform, she felt the weight of it. The strangeness of starting over. She couldn’t help but feel nervous. Here, she would have to begin again. New school, new language, new rules. The ache of a language still too heavy on her tongue. And though she understood Mandarin, she often stumbled over the tones, her accent betraying her origins. And the slow, dawning truth: she wasn’t just a transfer student. She wasn’t sure if she belonged—too Chinese for the Philippines, too Filipino for China. She was a stranger in what was supposed to be a home.

But still, she carried her father's warmth, her mother's quiet strength, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, she could find home again in this foreign place.

LU CHENXI stopped walking along the hallway of the Administration Building. He had been on his way to the faculty room to submit his section’s assignment to their Math teacher when he noticed a female student standing outside the principal’s office. Another new transfer student, he guessed.

He didn’t know why, but his feet refused to move.

The girl was leaning against the wall, bathed in sunlight streaming through the wide hallway windows. As the light fell on her face, everything around him seemed to slow—the footsteps of passing students, the faint clatter of lockers, even his own heartbeat.

He tightened his grip on the folder in his hands, as though something unseen was holding him still.

Her eyelashes, long and curved, cast faint shadows across her smooth cheeks. Her eyes were closed, as if listening to a world only she could hear. And her lips—pale pink, slightly parted—seemed to be whispering words that never reached the air.

Her shoulder-length hair, naturally black with warm brown undertones, shimmered under the sunlight as if brushed with gold.

Before he could stop himself, a word slipped past his lips—soft, unguarded.

She’s beautiful.

JIA slowly opened her eyes, as she felt someone watching her from a distance. And there, their eyes met.

A moment of silence.

For a moment, it felt like the world had stopped. The surroundings were quiet, but the space between them seemed to have its own rhythm—a slow beat of time that seemed to revolve only around the two of them.

In the distance, a male student was standing—carrying notebooks, just staring, seemingly rooted to the spot.

He had a defined, oval-to-heart-shaped face, with soft yet structured cheekbones and a slightly pointed chin, giving him that rare balance of youthful innocence and quiet confidence.

His eyes were almond-shaped and expressive, slightly upturned at the outer corners—as if they were always on the verge of curiosity or wonder.

Jia noticed his eyebrows—naturally thick, straight to slightly arched, well-groomed, and giving a masculine softness to his entire face.

His nose was straight and proportionate, with a narrow bridge and refined tip—not prominent in an attractive way, but just enough to add character.

His lips were medium-full, with a defined cupid's bow—the kind you wouldn't immediately notice, but when he smiled, his lower lip was slightly fuller, giving him a soft, boyish charm that wasn't expected from a man who was so quiet.

He has a firm but not overly angular jaw, perfectly balanced with his chin.

And even though it's simple—a buzz cut, clean, straight, no fuss—it suits his quiet presence perfectly.

He doesn't look like a typical popular boy.

He doesn't look stuck-up either.

But there's something.

There's depth to it.

It's heavy.

And in Jia's eyes, she didn't know whether to be afraid, to think, or... to smile. She didn't know why either, but there was something comforting about that young man's presence, even at first glance.

And between the gaze and the silence, a word almost simultaneously escaped their lips—“Ni hao.”

They both fell silent at the same time, and both smiled slightly.

And that's where the moment they'll never forget began.