So close and so far (1)
As soon as school was over on the afternoon of the 30th, Zhao Shihua rushed to the long-distance bus station, carrying a large backpack. She ended up getting up early and arriving late. Although she managed to snag a ticket for an immediate departure, she was stuck on the highway for more than six or seven hours due to heavy holiday traffic. It was past one in the morning when she got home.
Although she was so tired and sleepy that she could hardly keep her eyelids open, the familiar feeling that hit her as soon as she opened the door still made her feel at ease, as if time and space had jumped through her mind, connecting every minute and every second from elementary school to the present at home, and the time she spent on campus in between was completely cut off.
Grandma was still as energetic as ever, Mom was still as diligent and capable, but Dad was still as... unreliable, still dreaming of getting rich every day, buying lottery tickets whenever he wanted, and lecturing any high school student who had just learned about currency, markets, and prices on about stock markets and funds. He even asked Zhao Shihua to be his financial advisor in the future, hoping to start a new business. Fortunately, the family money wasn't in Dad's hands; otherwise, with his relentless pursuits, he would surely be bankrupt. So, he just "thought a thousand ways at night, and got up early to grind tofu." Although they didn't make tofu, their pickled noodles were still as delicious and authentic as ever.
She spent most of the seven days of the holiday at home, staying within a 100-meter radius. She did her homework during the day, and went downstairs to help out at the store at noon and in the evening. It was Golden Week, after all, and more people were traveling or returning home.
As a child, Zhao Shihua was often reluctant to help out due to pride issues, fearing she would be recognized and embarrassed by classmates passing by. This was especially true because her elementary school at the time was a neighborhood school, and everyone lived in the same area. She had also experienced the "three times of passing by without entering" drama. On one occasion, she was out shopping with some friends and, passing a store, she deliberately turned her head away, not going in to say hello.
Later, after watching the TV series "Wulin Wai Zhuan," Zhao Shihua occasionally put herself into Mo Xiaobei's perspective. Since running a restaurant and an inn had similarities, she began to think that being the restaurant owner's daughter wasn't a bad idea, and gradually she began to unravel her inner conflict. Later, when she entered junior high school, she became even less interested because no one she knew had ever visited.
Her parents were naturally happy to have a free helper at the store. While her mother kept saying, "Go home and study! You don't need to help with adults," she never actually sent her back. But when she showed up on the fifth day, wearing an oversized T-shirt and flip-flops, looking almost like a street vendor, her mother finally stopped caring about her studies and started worrying about her social life: "What are you doing sitting at home all day? Find a classmate to go out and play with!"
It wasn't that she didn't want to, but she couldn't. Zhao Shihua had few close friends in junior high school, let alone keeping in touch after graduation, so she hadn't received any invitations to class reunions.
This situation actually started during winter break of her freshman year. Back then, no one in her class invited her out, and Zhao Shihua assumed everyone was staying home for the Lunar New Year holiday. Only when school started did she realize they were still hanging out, but she hadn't been invited. The feeling of being left out was like being thrown into an ice cellar and then being burned by a fire, leaving her completely lost.
Zhao Shihua was kicked off a cliff from the top of a mountain. She racked her brains at the bottom, unable to figure out what she had done wrong. This inexplicable neglect, even abandonment, plunged her into a long, lingering abyss of self-doubt, like a trapped beast bound by invisible ropes. In just a few months, Zhao Shihua went from a lively child to a taciturn young woman.
By then, her older sister had already left home for college. Her family, assuming she was overwhelmed by academic pressure and the daily grind, didn't ask much about her situation. She couldn't find anyone to talk to, and even her best friends from elementary school had drifted off into new circles. She tried calling Wang Zitong, but even as he excitedly described his new school, she couldn't bring herself to share her own struggles. She could only evade the call with a perfunctory laugh and finally hung up unhappily.
Zhao Shihua was particularly envious of the friends she had grown up with on screen, the ones who had played together without restraint in their childhood and who, as adults, could still look after each other despite their distance. However, at this age, the promise of "auld friendship" had slowly become as unreliable as Santa Claus's gifts. Zhao Shihua sighed, turned off the TV, and returned to her room to continue her homework.
She flipped open the political textbook, her fingers brushing over the densely packed notes. Suddenly, a flashback flashed through her mind: Shao Yifu's exaggerated gesture of clasping the book tightly. Zhao Shihua quickly shook her head. Although he was one of the people she had known the longest besides her family, she wouldn't accept a childhood sweetheart like him even if he offered her a huge gift package.
Forget it, just cherish the present moment. So she sent messages to both Zhu Miaoyan and Zhuo Siqi, asking how they were doing, where they'd been, and so on. A moment later, Zhu Miaoyan sent back a photo of herself in front of the Disney castle. She was wearing a Minnie Mouse headdress, her hands clasped together, making a scissors sign beside her eyes—presumably she'd been to Hong Kong. She hadn't even applied for a Hong Kong and Macau Pass, let alone a trip to Disneyland. Zhuo Siqi, seemingly preoccupied, didn't respond for a long time.
Zhao Shihua finally understood why some people longed for the holiday to end early. It was because being alone was too lonely, and it was more lively to be around classmates on campus.
However, once back at school, Zhao Shihua found it incredibly noisy. Everyone seemed still caught up in the excitement of the long holiday, and during breaks, the noise was as chaotic as a market. Even speaking required raising her voice several decibels to be heard clearly. She'd heard the same person's name repeated several times.
"Shao Yifu, someone's looking for you." After a while, "Hey, Shao Yifu! There's a girl looking for you!"
"Shao! Aunt! Husband!" The classmate who helped to pass the message was about to collapse.
Zhao Shihua was packing up her books. After hearing no movement from behind for a while, she glanced back in confusion. Shao Yifu was listening to music through headphones, his head bobbing gently to the beat, seemingly singing along quietly. She waved her hand in front of him, pointing toward the back door, indicating someone was looking for him.
Shao Yifu glanced toward the back door and suddenly panicked. He quickly took off his headphones, but the cord had gotten tangled around his neck, and he nearly strangled himself when he pulled it so hastily. Zhao Shihua wondered who could have caused Shao Yifu to be so flustered. Looking closely, she realized it was Jian Tingting who was looking for him.
After entering school, everyone was curious about who would be the top student in the grade, as well as who would be crowned the class flower and the class beauty. As for the class beauty, the girls were still undecided, comparing them like trying to pick a tall man from a group of short men. Perhaps it was because they'd watched too many idol dramas and had become picky. As for the class beauty, military training had just ended, and both boys and girls unanimously agreed that Jian Tingting from Class 5 was the undisputed winner.
Jian Tingting doesn't have the sweet, girl-next-door charm of a girl; her beauty is distant. When Zhao Shihua first saw her, she felt as if she were enveloped in a membrane similar to the surface of an egg. Later, with the guidance of Xu Jiamei, a master of both painting and makeup, she realized this sensation stemmed from Jian Tingting's pale complexion. She seemed destined to live on a stage illuminated by spotlights, or to dwell in a distant forest as an ethereal elf princess. Even with a simple ponytail, Jian Tingting stood out from any other girl who wore one. For example, if Zhao Shihua tied her hair up completely, it would only highlight her large face.
Therefore, Zhao Shihua could fully understand Shao Yifu's panic in front of Jian Tingting. After all, everyone loves beauty. In this respect, he was exactly the same as when he was in elementary school. He would stutter after talking to Wang Zitong for two or three sentences.
Shao Yifu leaped over in two steps, no matter what Jian Tingting said to him, but he just nodded like an obedient sheepdog. He took a few papers from her and wagged his tail. He still had a silly smile on his face as he turned back to his seat.
"Hey, did you receive the love letter?" Zhou Xin came over and joked.
"Pah, does your love letter look like this?" Shao Yifu shook the paper in his hand, but couldn't suppress his smug expression.
"Registration form for the school sports meet? Registration is starting so soon? The question is, why did she deliver it personally?"
Shao Yifu sat down and answered while flipping through the form: "I was unable to attend the last meeting due to something. She said that she is temporarily in charge of the Cultural and Sports Department of the Student Union. Maybe that's why."
"What's wrong?" Zhou Xin's tone suddenly rose eight degrees. "Why did I remember you forgot to go because you were playing football?"
"Get lost! Don't interrupt me from doing my work, Sports Commissioner—I'm going to start preparing for the school sports meet!"
Hearing the words "school sports meet," Zhao Shihua turned curiously, only to see Shao Yifu, ready to fill out a form, pause after writing his own name in the "class leader" column. Zhao Shihua took a closer look and saw that the top column also required the name of the "grade leader," but Jian Tingting had only written "Jian."
"Which ting is Jian Tingting's ting?" Shao Yifu nudged his deskmate with his elbow.
"You ask me? Of course I don't know." Li Xuping shook his head.
"Uncle Master, do you know?"
Zhao Shihua glared at him and said, "I'm not your uncle-master. My name is Zhao Shihua." She wanted to tell him, but after being teased like that, she swallowed her words back.
"Oh, sorry, I spoke too quickly, don't mind. But do you know how to write her name?" Seeing that the usually good-tempered Zhao Shihua suddenly turned against him, Shao Yifu became anxious and grabbed the tip of her ponytail. "Zhao Shihua, Zhao Shihua, Zhao Shihua! I'll call you that from now on, okay?"
Zhao Shihua sighed. It was his fault, so he had to give in to him: "...I remember it was Tingting, who was graceful and elegant." The reason why it was so memorable was that when he saw her in person for the first time, he deeply understood what it meant to be as the name suggests.
"Slim and graceful? Oh! I see. Thank you."
But Zhao Shihua seemed to have overestimated Shao Yifu's Chinese proficiency, because a few seconds later she heard Li Xuping correct her from behind, "Hey, it's not Ting with the female character."
"It can't be a single person, right? Didn't Zhao Shihua just mention Tingting, who is graceful and elegant?"
"The character 'ting' doesn't have a radical." Zhao Shihua turned around helplessly again. If he had known earlier, he would have said 'ting' as in 'pavilion', or simply said 'a dot, a horizontal stroke and a mouth', which would be more in line with the literacy level of the children who returned home.
"But I clearly remember that the word '婷婷玉立' was written on the test paper."
"Test paper? How is that possible? You must have made a mistake." Zhao Shihua didn't think that a Chinese teacher who had taught for twenty years would make such a mistake.
"I'm sure I'm not mistaken. If you don't believe me, I'll find it and show you." Shao Yifu pretended to pull out last month's papers to prove his point. He might have just been talking, but Zhao Shihua and Li Xuping looked like they were expecting something interesting. So he reluctantly reached into the drawer to look for evidence.
Zhuo Siqi, who had been silent until then, interrupted with a comment like an authority, instantly resolving everyone's doubts: "...That should be the question about correcting typos."
With this one sentence, Zhuo Siqi once again solidified the impression of her as a top student among the people around her. Zhou Xin even jokingly called her the "Book of Answers": she not only remembered the correct answers, but also the wrong ones.
Her powerful aura did indeed intimidate some of the immature boys in the class. Although they were already fifteen or sixteen years old physically, their mental age was only five or six. Zhao Shihua felt that every time Shao Yifu, Zhou Xin, and the others spoke to Zhuo Siqi, it was like kindergarten children explaining to their teacher why they had knocked over their lunch boxes or couldn't sleep during nap time.
"Zhuo Siqi, what project are you planning to participate in?" Kindergarten kid Shao Yifu asked Teacher Zhuo respectfully.
"I'm not participating." Zhuo Siqi completely met Zhao Shihua's expectations for the top student in the grade - turning a deaf ear to the outside world and focusing on reading the books of sages.
Shao Yifu was choked and asked her why. Zhao Shihua was really worried that her deskmate would say something like "Because I don't have time and need to concentrate on studying."
Zhuo Siqi closed the book, turned sideways, and answered in a standard broadcasting voice, "Because I have to go to the radio station for duty that day."
When did Zhuo Siqi join the radio station? She had no idea, and she had assumed he wouldn't join any clubs. Zhao Shihua felt a flicker of disappointment. She had thought the mooncake she'd given him was some kind of goodwill gesture, but perhaps she'd overthought it; Zhuo Siqi continued to act as he always had.
"No wonder you write such good essays!" Shao Yifu flattered her and then asked her, "Can you also write a cheering piece for our class?"
While there's no logical connection between good Mandarin and good writing, for most Cantonese, speaking fluent Mandarin generally implies a strong Chinese language score. Shao Yifu may appear nonchalant, but he actually seems to have a good grasp of personnel management, perhaps due to his extensive experience playing strategic games and mastering the art of deploying troops.
"Okay, got it." Zhuo Siqi nodded solemnly.
"Then thank you for your hard work." Shao Yifu said, and suddenly straightened his back. His serious look almost made Zhao Shihua think that he was saying "Thank you for your hard work, Chief."
Zhao Shihua had just turned around when Shao Yifu poked her back with a pen. He asked her what competition she planned to enter, but she didn't know how to answer. It wasn't that the sheer number of events was overwhelming, but the mention of the school sports meet reminded her of the jokes the boys in junior high had made, saying she looked so imposing and majestic that she should sign up for something like "breaking rocks with her chest." They even entered her name in the shot put category without her consent. She finally went ahead and took third place, but the memories of sports meets were haunted by her, and she wanted to pull out a handkerchief and pretend to be the frail Lin Daiyu to avoid disaster.
"I'll think about it."
After two days of consideration, there was no result.
The school sports meet has always been based on the principle of "participation is the most important thing". Almost two-thirds of the students in the class have signed up, and I have all the necessary limbs, so I am actually a hidden "martial arts expert". There is no reason for me to be responsible only for logistics, running errands and cheering.
"Let me see," Shao Yifu flipped through the list. "The women's sprint, relay, long jump, and shot put events have all been signed up. There are still vacancies in the high jump, hurdles, and long-distance running. Uncle Master, which one do you want to choose, Zhao Shihua?"
The enthusiasm of her classmates completely surprised her. Zhao Shihua had assumed that students at the provincial key university were all about studying, but she wasn't surprised that most of them were well-versed in balancing work and rest. The school sports meet was, in fact, a grand celebration, a chance for everyone to enjoy the sports and work up a sweat before focusing on midterm review. After all, whether it's sports or exams, the essence is the pursuit of better grades.
"Can you repeat it again?" If I heard correctly, someone has already signed up for the shot put competition?
Zhao Shihua recalled the shot put competition in her second year of junior high, when most of the competitors were stronger girls. She suddenly realized how the boys perceived her. No wonder they chuckled when she learned the term "huge back and bear waist." At the time, the trend in the class seemed to be to consider fragility as beautiful, and displays of strength were avoided. Even warm-up exercises in physical education class were awkward.
But she didn't have the confidence to admit that she was simply different, not an anomaly. It just so happened that the physical education section of the high school entrance exam included an 800-meter run, so she went to the playground every day after school to run a few laps. She eventually scored full marks on the optional physical education test and lost a few pounds from the weight she'd gained during puberty.
“How many meters is long-distance running?”
"There are 800, 1500, and 3000. No, for girls, there are only 800 and 1500. The 800 is full."
"Then I'll sign up for the 1500 meters." Zhao Shihua saw Shao Yifu take off the pen cap and quickly reminded him, "Hey, don't write my name wrong."
"I know, Shihua Shihua Shihua."
"Okay, okay, as long as you know it." After finishing his own affairs, Zhao Shihua turned back to prepare the textbooks for the next class, and his eyes inadvertently swept across the other end of the classroom where Pei Nachuan was.
Ever since he helped carry her things back to the dormitory during the last Mid-Autumn Festival, Zhao Shihua hadn't spoken to him alone for more than a few words. What event would he sign up for? Pei Nachuan's thin build ruled out shot put; perhaps high jump or long jump would be a better fit for him. Perhaps he'd also sign up for long-distance running. If so, they could train together. It would be nice to run and chat together.
The more Zhao Shihua thought about it, the happier he felt. He had no idea that he was exactly like Shao Yifu when he saw Jian Tingting. He was so focused on dreaming that he forgot about reality.
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