Thirteen-year-old Yeming stands on her own by the window of an empty classroom at Zhangqiu No 4 High School, Shandong. She looks out across the vast school campus, which hosts 9,900 students in huge red-brick buildings. She watches other students walking between yellowing trees beneath her, their footsteps echoing, towards a lake in the centre of campus. It is autumn but unusually cold and windy, and many of the children wear padded jackets over their uniforms.

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After a long day at school, Zhu Zihan, 17, returns to her family home in an ordinary apartment building in Zhangqiu, Shandong Province. She climbs the plain concrete stairs to the sixth floor and knocks on the last door. Her father, Zhu Chulin, welcomes her. It’s a bitingly cold autumn evening but warm and cosy inside. The small apartment is decorated with paintings of lotus flowers and red Chinese characters for good luck. Soft toys from Zihan’s early childhood, including the purple starfish from Spongebob, still sit along the back of the sofa.

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