Chapter 6
JIANG CHENG SAT with his arms crossed and legs stretched out in front of him, a little irritated.
The guys who’d been playing before were mediocre at best; if he were wearing the proper shoes today, he could easily partner up with Pan Zhi and take them on two against five. It was still kind of fun to watch them play, though. He enjoyed the feeling of superiority, as though he was looking down from the highest peak.
But once Gu Fei and his friends joined, the whole atmosphere changed.
Gu Fei was…very good. If this had been his old school, Gu Fei would be on the receiving end of deafening cheers from all the girls during inter-high tournaments. Beside him, from the Fresh Out of Jail group, Fresh and Jail also played pretty well. Their teamwork on the court was surprisingly smooth, in stark contrast to the way they’d slouched and slumped like hooligans all over the chairs in the convenience store. It made the remaining two players on their team seem almost redundant.
Watching a game like this didn’t make Jiang Cheng feel good about himself at all.
He didn’t necessarily dislike Gu Fei, but he definitely didn’t like him, either. He was torn between thinking, Heeey, that fucker’s pretty good at this, and forcibly correcting himself with, Pretty good, my ass! More like a pretty big show-off…
“That guy’s pretty good, huh?” Pan Zhi said, clearly not on the same wavelength as his best friend. “How do you know him?”
“He’s just about average compared to our team,” Jiang Cheng said.
Before Pan Zhi could answer, Li Yan spoke up beside them, his voice taunting. “Ooh, you’re on the basketball team? Maybe you can swap in for someone on the other side.”
Jiang Cheng turned and gave him a look. “No.”
“No?” Li Yan blinked. He’d clearly assumed Jiang Cheng would rise to the challenge; he didn’t expect him to flat-out refuse. “Why not?”
“Guess.” Jiang Cheng stood up and walked toward the exit.
Pan Zhi raised his arms in a stretch before following him out, leaving the others sitting on the bench in confusion.
“This mood of yours certainly came out of nowhere.” Pan Zhi turtled his neck in the cold as they stepped outside. “You got beef with that guy?”
“This is only my third day here,” Jiang Cheng said.
“True—you haven’t been here long enough to make any enemies.” Pan Zhi sighed. “You just get pissed at anyone who crosses your path, that’s all.”
Jiang Cheng glanced at Pan Zhi. “You’re all right.”
Pan Zhi laughed. “But hey, for real, how do you know that guy? Is it because he’s a junior too?”
“…He’s a neighbor.”
“Same building?”
“The next street over,” Jiang Cheng answered simply.
“Ah.”
Jiang Cheng thought that Pan Zhi might not be able to immediately grasp the concept. They both grew up in typical gated residential compounds, where there were only two types of neighbors: ones who lived in the same building, and ones who lived in the same compound. The first type you’d nod to in passing, and the second type you’d spare only a glance.
And as for the next street over… They’d never even meet those neighbors.
Jiang Cheng sighed softly. He felt almost as if he was here to film a reality show about city-to-country identity swaps.
Pan Zhi clapped his hands together. “You got mountains here? Let’s go look at the snowy view.”
“Hiking on a day this cold? Aren’t you afraid your brain will freeze over?
Not that it works that well normally,” Jiang Cheng said. “Haven’t you seen snow before?”
“But there’s more snow here than back home.” Pan Zhi slung his arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulder. “Cheng-er, my dude, let me take you out to get some fresh air. You’ve had a change of setting, so what’s the big deal? You’ve had a change of parents, so what’s the… Okay, that one’s kind of a big deal.
Give me a second to rephrase this…” Pan Zhi made Jiang Cheng laugh. “All right, let’s go hiking.” He flung his arm up. “Hell, what’s the big fucking deal.”
After a basketball game, Gu Fei felt like his whole body had been warmed up. The lethargic feeling that had been plaguing him for the last couple of days was finally gone. He put on his jacket and looked back at the guys on the court, whose eyes were shining with joyous relief that he’d finally decided to leave.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Leaving already?” one of them asked, probably out of habit.
“Did you wanna go again?” Gu Fei said.
They all went quiet at that, awkwardness spreading across their faces.
Gu Fei laughed and zipped up his jacket. “Let’s go.”
Outside the gym, Liu Fan leaped up and hopped for a few steps. “That was no fun. I told you we should’ve rented a court in the sports center, but you just had to come to your school.”
“How much more fun were you looking for, exactly?” Gu Fei asked.
“What’s the point of playing with high schoolers?” Liu Fan said.
Li Yan eyed him sideways. “You’re only two years out of high school yourself.”
Gu Fei gave Liu Fan the middle finger. “If you can beat me one-on-one, you can keep saying that all you want.”
They all laughed.
“Shit.” Liu Fan slapped his hand away. “Let’s go eat something, I’m hungry.”
“Count me out.” Gu Fei glanced at his phone. “I’m heading home.”
“Back to the store?” Li Yan asked. “Isn’t your mom there today?”
“I have to take Er-Miao to the hospital. They asked for a follow-up last time, and the appointment is today,” Gu Fei said. “I have to coax her out every time she goes to the hospital. It’s time-consuming.”
“We’ll come over tonight and hang out,” Liu Fan said.
“We’ll see.” Gu Fei pulled out his keys. “Bye for now.”
“Don’t you usually just shut up and leave?” Li Yan said. “What’s with allthis mushy stuff today? I’m not used to it.”
“You looking for a fight or what?” Gu Fei turned and walked away.
Time passed slowly when the days were meaningless and bleak. But as soon as they were imbued with even the slightest meaning, the days thundered by like a crashing waterfall—utterly unstoppable. The happiness and ease Pan Zhi brought with him quickly came to an end.
Jiang Cheng stood in the departure hall of the train station, watching departure and arrival times scroll by on the giant screen. “You’re really not gonna take that pile of snacks back with you?”
“If I say yes, will you go back to the hotel right now and grab them for me?” Pan Zhi said.
Jiang Cheng glanced at him. “Don’t take it seriously. I was just making conversation.”
“I brought the snacks for you, anyway. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to find anywhere to buy that stuff yet.” Pan Zhi sighed. “So, will you be coming back for the week of the May 1st holiday, or should I come over again?”
“I’m not going back,” Jiang Cheng said. “I already said I’m never going back there again.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re being so stubborn for,” said Pan Zhi.
“I’ll come here then, and bring those fuckers from our class, too—how about that?”
“We’ll see when the time comes.” Jiang Cheng leaned against the wall.
“It’s not like we were all that close to begin with. A few months from now, who knows if anyone’ll be bothered to travel all the way here. It’s not like this is a tourist destination or anything.”
Pan Zhi nodded. “Okay, we’ll talk about it later.”
The two of them were quiet for a moment. Then, Pan Zhi, who had been sitting the entire time, abruptly stood and came face-to-face with Jiang Cheng.
“What are you doing?!” Jiang Cheng pointed at him, startled. “Keep your mouth to yourself! Or I’ll smack you.”
“Give me a hug.” Pan Zhi spread his arms.
“Shit.” Jiang Cheng didn’t know what to say, but he opened his arms and hugged Pan Zhi.
“Don’t forget about me,” Pan Zhi said. “I’m serious.”
Jiang Cheng let out a quiet sigh. “Come visit me in May, and I won’t.”
Pan Zhi laughed. “All right.”
***
In the days leading up to the start of the new semester, Li Baoguo had cooked a total of one meal. He was away from home for all other mealtimes.
Jiang Cheng thought he’d try to make some noodles on his own, but his motivation died as soon as he walked into the kitchen and saw the mess of pots and pans piled all over the place and all the seasoning bottles covered in a thick coat of grease. Over the next few days he tried all the interesting-looking places within a mile radius on the food delivery apps, and managed to survive the rest of winter break.
The day before school started, to Jiang Cheng’s surprise, his new homeroom teacher called.
“Your dad hasn’t been answering his phone,” the teacher said.
Now that wasn’t a surprise; Li Baoguo didn’t have the greatest hearing, and he was always preoccupied with mahjong, anyway. Jiang Cheng sometimes passed by the building where Li Baoguo played, and he could always hear the clamor all the way from the street.
The homeroom teacher’s surname was Xu. He sounded middle-aged, and very warm and welcoming. It alleviated some of the unease Jiang Cheng was feeling about facing a brand-new environment.
On the first day of school, snow began to fall first thing in the morning. It was just as Pan Zhi said—he’d never seen snowfall as heavy as this before. The sight of it was somehow satisfying.
As he walked through the gates, Jiang Cheng took note of the students around him. They didn’t look all that different from the students at his old school, but although a crowd of high school students whose faces he didn’t recognize was hardly a new sight, there was still an irrefutable sense of foreignness to them. He took special care to seek out Gu Fei’s face among them, but he had no luck.
“Jiang Cheng, not a bad name.” The middle-aged-sounding Mr. Xu, the homeroom teacher, was indeed middle-aged, and apparently the type of uncle who’d already had something to drink this morning. “My surname is Xu, full name Xu Qicai. I’ll be your homeroom teacher—I teach your Chinese class. My students all call me Lao-Xu, or Xu-zong.”(5)
“Lao-Xu…zong.” Jiang Cheng gave a polite little bow as he acknowledged his teacher, but he couldn’t help feeling weird about this style of address.
“Let’s chat for a bit. The first class after the morning self-study period is Chinese class. I’ll walk you over.” Lao-Xu gestured to a chair nearby. “Have a seat.”
Jiang Cheng sat down.
“It’s pretty rare to see transfer students in second year.” Lao-Xu smiled.
“Especially to a place like this… I looked at your old report cards; you get pretty good grades.”
“Not bad, I guess,” Jiang Cheng said.
“Not just ‘not bad,’ they’re very good! No need to be humble.” Lao-Xu laughed, then sighed. “It’s a pity you came here,” he added in a quiet voice.
Jiang Cheng didn’t respond, just watched Lao-Xu in silence. His old homeroom teacher had said the same thing: It was a pity that he was moving to a city like this one, where the quality of the teachers, the students, and the education were all lacking… Jiang Cheng was a little surprised to hear Lao-Xu say the same thing.
“I noticed that your STEM subjects are stronger than your humanities,” Lao-Xu said. “Why did you choose to go into the humanities stream?”
It wasn’t an easy question to answer. “Because my parents wanted me to pick STEM” was so embarrassingly immature and contrarian that he couldn’t bear to say it aloud; even though he’d already done it, admitting to it would make him feel like the biggest clown in the circus.
After a great deal of hesitation, he finally said, “I liked our homeroom teacher, and the homeroom he led was in the humanities stream.”
“Ah, is that so?” A little surprised, Lao-Xu paused for a moment.
“Hopefully you’ll like me, too. It’ll be hard to transfer to the STEM stream now.”
“Oh.”
Jiang Cheng stared at him. Lao-Xu stared back for a while, then started laughing, and Jiang Cheng laughed along with him. This homeroom teacher was an interesting guy, at least.
After the early bell for the first class sounded, Lao-Xu stuck a briefcase under his arm and a USB key into his pocket, then said to Jiang Cheng, “Come on, I’ll take you to our classroom.”
“Okay.” Jiang Cheng slung his backpack onto his shoulder and followed Lao-Xu out.
Lao-Xu might not have thought much of Fourth High as a school, but it had a big campus with creatively arranged buildings. All other classes were grouped by grade level, except for second- and third-year classes in the Humanities stream, which were singled out in an old three-story building. The stairs in the center served as a divide, with the second-years to the left and third-years to the right.
Jiang Cheng was quickly becoming a believer in destiny. Even when transferring schools, he had the luck to end up in a run-down building. It even had wooden floors—the floorboards were so old and worn that the original color was no longer discernible, and it made him worry that a couple of hard stomps would be all it took to fall straight from the third floor to ground level.
“This is an old building,” Lao-Xu explained, “but don’t let its age fool you! It’s very well designed. In these classrooms, the teachers don’t have to use a mic or raise our voices to be heard even by the back row.”
“Oh.” Jiang Cheng nodded.
“Our classroom is on the third floor. Despite the height, there’s not much of a view, but at least we can look out onto the field.”
“Mhm.” Jiang Cheng kept nodding.
“So, our school…” Lao-Xu kept talking as they walked, but after a turn in the stairwell, he harshly whispered, “Gu Fei! You’re late again!”
Jiang Cheng raised his brow reflexively and lifted his gaze. A guy who’d been slowly walking up the stairs ahead of them turned around, a small bag of milk dangling from his mouth. He had his back to the light, but Jiang Cheng could still see that it was indeed Gu Fei, not just someone with the same name.
“Morning, Xu-zong.” Gu Fei mumbled around the milk pouch as he swept his eyes over Jiang Cheng’s face. At this point, he was probably just as unsurprised as Jiang Cheng at their impromptu meetings.
“Why are you still loafing around when you’re already late?! Might as well crawl up the stairs while you’re at it!” Lao-Xu pointed at him. “School only just started, and you’re already slacking off!”
Gu Fei didn’t speak, just turned and ran up the stairs in a few large strides before disappearing down the third-floor walkway.
Fourth High really couldn’t compare to Jiang Cheng’s old school. The second bell had already rung and the teachers were already inside the classrooms, and yet the walkway was still filled with students leaning against the railing and chatting. They didn’t seem to have any intention of going to class.
Everyone seemed to slack off on the second years’ side of the building, and the third years’ side was filled with much of the same idleness. He looked a little harder, but there was no sign of the newly-arrived Gu Fei among them.
Lao-Xu entered the classroom right by the stairs. As Jiang Cheng followed behind him, he checked out the nameplate on the doorframe. It read: “Year Two (8).”
Eight—not bad. Finally, a good omen, even though he had no idea how this lucky eight was going to make him a fortune.
There were quite a few people loitering outside Class Eight as well. They didn’t stir when they saw Lao-Xu walk into the room, but when Jiang Cheng walked in behind him, curiosity seemed to finally spur them to go inside.
Lao-Xu stood at the lectern looking out at the dozens of loudly talking students, apparently waiting patiently for everyone to settle down. The whole time, Jiang Cheng stood there beside him, on the receiving end of all sorts of stares and hushed discussions.
It was uncomfortable. Normally Jiang Cheng would stare back at whoever was staring at him—the typical rebuke of “what are you lookin’ at?!” never did have any effect on him. But right now, under the weight of dozens of pairs of eyes, he was somewhat at a loss. There were too many people, and therefore there was no one to focus on; all the faces blurred together.
Irritation writhed inside of him. He held back his temper as he glanced toward Lao-Xu, who still stood there, calmly watching the uncalmable students.
Jiang Cheng suddenly realized his judgment of his homeroom teacher might have been a little off. He wasn’t the affable uncle type—he was the kind of easygoing pushover who held no sway over his students at all.
The noise in the room showed no sign of stopping. Struggling desperately to pull himself back from the edge of an outburst, Jiang Cheng finally couldn’t help asking, “Are we supposed to wait until all of them are quiet?”
Lao-Xu turned to look at him. At the same time, the persistent buzz in the room, almost like demonic chanting, suddenly died down.
It was a little difficult for Jiang Cheng to control his temper once it flared.
He usually tried to suppress it before he got really worked up, but if that didn’t work, it sucked to be on the receiving end of it. And right now, being left standing like a fool for upward of three minutes as all these people stared and blatantly discussed him… It was no different from setting off a pack of dynamite right between his legs. Like his balls had been blown off and there was no trace of him left.
Lao-Xu smiled and clapped his hands. “All right, let me introduce—” “Jiang Cheng. Transfer,” Jiang Cheng interrupted him in a dark voice.
“Can I sit down now?”
Lao-Xu blinked.
Someone in the room whistled, suddenly setting off another round of commotion, with a few louder voices breaking through the din. “Cocky, isn’t he!”
“Have a seat, then. You can sit…” Lao-Xu shifted his gaze toward the last row. “Right there. Gu Fei, raise your hand for me.”
Starting from the first row and moving back, the heads swiveled around one by one like the passing of a baton. Jiang Cheng’s eyes followed theirs all the way to the back. Finally, his gaze landed on a desk at the end of the classroom, where Gu Fei had his foot propped against his desk drawer, with half a piece of fried dough still between his teeth.
Jiang Cheng suddenly felt like there was a powerful force screaming inside him, compelling him to write a novel, the title of which would be “King of Tropes: The Proud Owner of Every Coincidence on This Planet.”
Gu Fei raised his hand halfheartedly in response.
Jiang Cheng used to sit in the last row at his old school. Every week, the seats in the class would rotate to ensure everyone had a chance to sit at the front, but he’d always managed to switch back to the last row. He liked it there. It was quiet, with no one to disturb him. It was also easy to take a nap or sneak out the back door.
But sitting in the last row here wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable. None of the desks and chairs were lined up properly, and as a result, there was very little space to move; his back was practically pressed up against the wall. On top of that, not a single person was quiet. People chatted and played on their phones;
not to mention the guy sitting beside him was leisurely munching on a fritter.
Jiang Cheng didn’t know what to make of it. Back in his old school, the only thing his teachers found acceptable about him was his grades. However, at the end of the day, he was still in a school that went head-to-head with other top high schools when it came to graduation rates and elite university acceptance.
He had truly never experienced an environment where going to class felt like attending a tea and chat session.
He took out his textbook. As he flipped it open to follow Lao-Xu’s lecture, he could feel himself being judged as a freak by the people around him.
Gu Fei wasn’t chatting with anyone, nor was he asleep. He only took out a pair of earbuds, stuffed them into his ears, and started listening to music.
A guy in the row in front of them started leaning back and pushing their shared desk. Every time he bumped it, he would turn and call out, “Da-Fei.”
The desk lurched.
“Da-Fei.”
The desk swayed.
“Hey, Da-Fei.”
The desk swayed again.
“Da-Fei?”
Jiang Cheng stared at the words on the page, pondering the answer to the multiple-choice question of whether to smack this guy’s head with his hand or his book. He eventually reached over and yanked out Gu Fei’s earbuds.
When Gu Fei glanced at him, he stared back without a word.
The guy started pushing their desk again. “Da-Fei! Hey, Da-Fei.”
“Yeah?” Gu Fei answered, still looking at Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng held his gaze, unperturbed.
“Let me borrow your camera, okay?” the guy asked. “I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”
“No,” Gu Fei said, and turned away.
“Shit, don’t be stingy! I just need to take a couple of photos.”
“Fuck off,” Gu Fei said simply, then put his earbuds back in and went back to his music.
“Just for one night.” The guy bumped the desk again. “I’ll give it back first thing tomorrow.”
The desk wobbled.
“Damn it, Da-Fei. Da-Fei—!”
He kept on bumping the desk. Jiang Cheng didn’t understand why he had to talk about this during class, or why he had to bump his desk while he did it, for that matter. And why was he so persistent, even after being told no? He also couldn’t figure out why Gu Fei refused to lend out his camera, why he was being so stuck-up, or how he was able to tolerate their desk having a seizure.
Jiang Cheng lifted a leg and kicked it hard against the chair in front of him. The impact sent the guy careening forward to slam abruptly into his own desk.
He whipped his head around. “The fuck?”
All the eyes in the room were suddenly focused on them.
“Please don’t bump against my desk,” Jiang Cheng said calmly, looking him in the eye. “Thank you.”
The guy seemed a little shaken; he opened his mouth, but no words came out.
[5] Lao- is a prefix attached to a name, used to refer casually to someone older and suggesting a closeness with the other person; it literally means “old.” -Zong is a suffix attached to a name when referring to the other person as boss or CEO. When used between students and their teacher, it also suggests a casual closeness.