Chapter 15 Ordinary Kids, Genius Kids, and Stupid Kids

The incessant chirping of cicadas filled the alleyway in the summer heat. Jiang Yueming followed behind Li Leshan, her school uniform collar soaked with sweat. This was the fifth time Jiang Yueming had struggled with how to begin the conversation.

"plum……"

The sixth time.

Li Leshan turned to look at him, wanting to wait for Jiang Yueming to finish speaking and explain what he was hesitant to say.

"It's nothing," Jiang Yueming said, sounding deflated.

He didn't say anything was wrong, but the moment he said nothing was wrong, Li Leshan felt something was amiss. He carefully examined Jiang Yueming from head to toe, making sure there were no stains on his body or any injuries on his face.

The two stood facing each other in silence for a full two minutes. Li Leshan then used sign language to express what he felt was the most accurate guess: "You failed again?"

The word "again" struck Jiang Yueming's heart hard.

"Can't you think of me in a better light?" Jiang Yueming sighed, feeling as if her heart was bleeding.

"So you passed?" Li Leshan readily agreed, recalling some of his good points.

He's now a classic example of digging his own grave. Anyone who doesn't know how to do that could learn from Jiang Yueming; he's a self-taught master at it.

"No," the man was quite honest and readily told Li Leshan that he had failed. Jiang Yueming touched his nose. "Two points short."

They weren't that honest either.

Because it's more than two points.

Upon hearing this, Li Leshan nodded, not caring whether Jiang Yueming's two points were true or false, and said, "Then you've improved."

"Yes!" Jiang Yueming suddenly cheered. He had made progress! He had indeed made progress, slowly climbing from the bottom of the class to thirtieth. Although it was a slow climb, at least he was climbing, at least he wasn't falling behind.

He followed behind Li Leshan, steeled himself, and finally asked, "Are you free on Friday afternoon?"

Li Leshan felt that he looked like he was going to his death, as if he was about to be taken on a mission to blow up a bunker. Even so, he shook his head.

“Cui, my aunt said she wants to…” Jiang Yueming changed her mind again, feeling that she had to ask others to come to her house herself. “Why don’t you come to my house to play and have a meal?”

“Look, I’m practically treating your house like my own home, so we should reciprocate, right?” Jiang Yueming racked her brains and managed to use a four-character idiom that she found quite difficult to do correctly.

Li Leshan stopped and seemed to be thinking seriously for a while.

Then they said no.

"Why, why?" Jiang Yueming felt like the sky was falling the moment she saw the sign language.

"Because of Grandma?" Jiang Yueming remembered that Grandma was home alone. "I'll ask my aunt to cook early, and then I can bring it home for Grandma to eat while it's still hot... or, well, I might as well!"

Li Leshan shook his head, saying it was because he had never been to anyone else's house.

His reason was so simple and straightforward: he had never been to anyone else's house.

But he'll have to go eventually, Jiang Yueming thought. He's still young now, but he'll still go when he grows up. Even if it's not him, someone else will. Perhaps in the near future, someone will take him into "someone else's home."

Besides, someone else's family. This word was so unfamiliar, as if he had never heard it before. Was Jiang Yueming someone else? This thought briefly flashed through his mind before he dismissed it.

“I’m not just anyone,” Jiang Yueming said, his tone a little urgent, with the stubbornness typical of a young man. “I’m a friend, a buddy, and my family isn’t just anyone’s family.”

The word "others" made him feel that there was a huge distance between him and Li Leshan, while Jiang Yueming felt that he and Li Leshan were not that far apart.

Li Leshan looked at him quietly, not because he was convinced by Jiang Yueming's twisted logic, but perhaps because he had no other choice. So, under the man's persistent gaze, he could only nod.

Jiang Yueming was immediately overjoyed, completely forgetting about the homework he had just been complaining about to Cao Fan. He quickly said, afraid that Cao Fan might change his mind again in the next second, and then he would really be unable to explain himself, "Okay! It's a deal, come home with me later."

He said those four words, "Come home with me," with a particularly strong and resonant voice, as solemn as the "I do" in a wedding vow.

Of the seven days a week, Jiang Yueming's favorite is Friday. Before, she looked forward to playing and eating; now, she looks forward to being with Li Leshan. Han Jiang doesn't understand Jiang Yueming. He thinks Li Leshan is a quiet, reserved person. Although he can understand that Li Leshan can't speak, he thinks Li Leshan is too cold.

His face, which had been indifferent for years, showed no extra expression. In fact, Han Jiang always felt that the corners of his mouth usually turned down naturally, like a villain in a comic book when he was young, but his behavior and mannerisms were just like an adult's.

Xu Qing could understand Jiang Yueming. She thought Li Leshan was incredibly handsome, more handsome than anyone she'd ever seen. This suggests that public aesthetics haven't changed much in the 90s, 2000s, or beyond; the aloof, handsome, and cool type like Li Leshan remains consistently popular. It's a bit early for a girl this age to say she's experiencing first love. While she didn't have those budding feelings for Li Leshan, her heart would still flutter when she saw him.

However, Jiang Yueming's infatuation was different from hers. Li Leshan was handsome, but he didn't hang out with Li Leshan because of his looks. He probably knew Li Leshan a little better than Han Jiang and Xu Qing. He had seen Li Leshan smile and could understand him when he spoke. In fact, he was no different from other children his age, except that he was exceptionally smart.

He jokes, he gets scared, and he's not invincible. He's just an ordinary kid.

"I don't understand." Han Jiang sat on the playground folding paper airplanes. "What's the difference between me and Li Leshan?"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Yueming's lips twitched slightly. Torn between his conscience and his brotherhood, he was now hanging precariously on the edge of a cliff, with no hope of salvation; he was doomed either way.

"Nose, eyes, mouth..." are all terrible.

Han Jiang glared at him.

Jiang Yueming quickly changed his words, "They're all the same."

It must be Xu Qing who's been talking about Li Leshan to Han Jiang every day. Whom is she talking about? Of course, it's Li Leshan. Her feelings for Li Leshan are a bit different—not quite love, but something else entirely. Jiang Yueming thought she didn't like Li Leshan, and even if they asked, the girl would definitely deny it. But then, after thinking about it again, they all realized that her feelings were more like admiration and longing.

“It’s alright,” Jiang Yueming comforted him, but her words missed the point. “Xu Qing has quite a few favorite people; she changes her idols every day.”

He really does change his favorites every day, rotating between the four main characters from Meteor Garden. Today it's Dao Ming Si, tomorrow it's Hua Ze Lei…

"Sigh!" Han Jiang sighed heavily, feeling that what Jiang Yueming said was too unpleasant to hear.

What else could Jiang Yueming say? He had already gone against his conscience by speaking like this. Did he really have to tell Han Jiang the truth before Han Jiang would admit it?

"Do you think Li Leshan would like Xu Qing?" Han Jiang suddenly wondered.

"No way." Jiang Yueming couldn't imagine it. The image of Xu Qing baring her teeth and brandishing her claws flashed in his mind. If she were with Li Leshan, Li Leshan would really have no way to express his suffering, in every sense of the word.

"Why not? Don't you think Xu Qing is pretty?" Han Jiang asked.

Although Jiang Yueming was unwilling to admit it, he had to ask himself honestly, Xu Qing was indeed tall and beautiful. Xu Qing's mother was a dance teacher, a famous beauty in the alley, the kind who walked with a breezy fragrance and turned heads wherever she went. Jiang Yueming was also captivated by her mother, but Xu Qing didn't inherit her mother's gentle nature; she was quite outgoing and carefree.

"She used to steal my marbles and fight with me when we were little, how can you expect me to think she's pretty?" Isn't that a bit too much to ask? Even Xu Qing wouldn't admit that Jiang Yueming is handsome?

He couldn't reason with Han Jiang; they couldn't see eye to eye, and talking about it only made him feel worse. Jiang Yueming stood up and patted his school uniform pants. "I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I haven't done my homework yet."

"What did Yin Guiying say in the last class?" Han Jiang also stood up. He was no longer surprised that Jiang Yueming could actually do his homework. He had become numb to these things. Their dreamlike "No. 1 Middle School Plan" was still taking root in their hearts.

"Ask questions to help students recite the text," Jiang Yueming said. "They asked questions from the seventh row and second column."

Han Jiang pondered for a moment, then decided on seven rows and two columns...

"Isn't it all your fault anyway?"

“Yes,” Jiang Yueming said, already used to it, “You’d better be careful.”

Han Jiang said "Oh," and nodded. "I'll take a gamble..."

“Stop gambling, well,” Jiang Yueming slowly distanced himself from Han Jiang, “your homework was used as a classroom demonstration.”

Of course, this is a negative example.

"No," Han Jiang raised his voice, thinking he had seen a ghost or that someone was plotting against him. He asked in surprise, "I didn't hand in my homework this time?"

He knew perfectly well what kind of mess his writing was, and that it would only make him a laughingstock and subject him to criticism. Targeting the fact that Yin Guiying didn't check the number of assignments, Han Jiang once missed an assignment. It was a sentence exercise and a language application exercise. For these two types of questions, Han Jiang would just write whatever came to mind, writing something completely unrestrained, which was his weak point.

Jiang Yueming touched his nose, his eyes a little unfocused, "I put it in my homework and handed it in."

Well, the problem is, you can't really blame Jiang Yueming himself. It's all because Han Jiang left his homework lying around. Mixed together with Jiang Yueming's, their handwriting was just as ugly, so ugly it was shocking. Just looking at the handwriting, even their own mothers couldn't tell whose was whose.

"Damn it!" Han Jiang shouted desperately without hesitation and ran away from the playground. He couldn't even recite the text properly, let alone read it aloud.

Doing homework with Han Jiang and doing homework with Li Leshan are completely different experiences. With Han Jiang, it would take three hours to finish one subject, and finishing half a subject would be a stroke of good luck. But with Li Leshan, you could finish three subjects in an hour.

Li Leshan is a quiet and unassuming person. He finishes his homework at school long ago and does extra practice problems at home. Jiang Yueming once glanced at him and, by sheer coincidence, stumbled upon Li Leshan working on competition problems—the Mathematical Olympiad, which is ten times more difficult than the Chicken and Rabbit Problem.

He couldn't understand a single word, not even the question itself; it was like looking at astronomy.

Thinking of this, Jiang Yueming silently withdrew her earlier thought of him as an "ordinary child".

How could Li Leshan be an ordinary child? He couldn't speak, yet he was so intelligent, knowing what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do. Jiang Yueming thought, Li Leshan is a genius, only temporarily buried by the sands of fate. When he grows up a little more, a little more, and breaks through the soil, no amount of sand can cover him.

He was different from Li Leshan, and he was far inferior to Li Leshan. Li Leshan was a buried genius, while he was a complete slow learner.

A note from the author:

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