Sandbag throwing and dodgeball (1)
Another event that was equally unavoidable was the heavy rain that occurred in my second year of junior high school.
Because the fast food restaurant at home mainly provides three meals a day other than midnight snacks, among which the pickled noodles and rice noodles for breakfast are especially the highlights, the adults usually go to the store to prepare the food at four or five o'clock. Although Zhao Shihua will not be woken up by the sound of them going out, he always sleeps restlessly, so he usually gets up obediently before six o'clock, eats something in the store, and then goes to school.
Since she was usually the first one to arrive at school, the homeroom teacher gave her the door key to keep. Zhao Shihua took it doubly seriously, arriving even earlier, rain or shine, as if shouldering a heavy responsibility for her family and country.
That morning, the weather forecast predicted a typhoon would make landfall, yet the school hadn't announced a holiday the day before. Zhao Shihua woke up on time, looking out the window to a gloomy sky, as if a storm was brewing. Her mother told her to bring a piece of sweet rice cake for the journey, lest she get soaked if she arrived late and the rain started. A typhoon making landfall is no fun.
By the time Zhao Shihua arrived at school, the sky was still gloomy, with little sign of dawn. Rows of dark clouds, like a smudge of ink, piled up above the trees at the edge of the playground, as if they could no longer be contained and would burst forth with a roar. Zhao Shihua wondered why this year's typhoon had arrived so early as he pulled out his key and inserted it into the lock.
The key only turned half a turn before the door opened. Perhaps the last person to leave yesterday forgot to lock the door. Similar situations happened from time to time, and Zhao Shihua didn't think too much about it. His left hand skillfully reached for the switch next to him, and with a click, the classroom was instantly bright as day.
After her eyes adjusted to the brightness, Zhao Shihua noticed a figure draped in clothes, hunched over a table in the corner. She knew it wasn't a ghost, but she was still terrified. Her legs gave way, and she took a step back, bumping against the corner of the table with a harsh scraping sound. The figure shifted slightly, as if irritated by being woken, covering themselves more tightly with clothes. After another half minute, they reluctantly pulled their coat off their heads.
It’s Wang Xingming.
Zhao Shihua was among the top students in her class, having held positions from second to tenth. However, first place was a mountain she could never climb—that mountain was Wang Xingming. Like most characters in novels, he had a somewhat frail, scholarly air, usually wearing glasses and speaking in a polite manner. Zhao Shihua had always favored quiet people, perhaps because she couldn't match that.
Zhao Shihua was still quite surprised that someone had arrived earlier than him, after all, it was only a little before 6:30. Countless questions popped up in his mind, and his heartbeat quickened. After struggling for a long time, he finally just said a dry greeting: "Good morning."
Wang Xingming rubbed his eyes, and after recognizing Zhao Shihua, he replied, "Good morning."
Zhao Shihua walked back to his seat and asked casually, "Hey, why are you here so early today?"
"Oh," he hesitated for a moment, but just said, "Nothing."
He didn't even bother to put on a perfunctory front. Zhao Shihua, feeling a little frustrated at being so completely shut out, fell silent, put down his schoolbag, and walked to the side of the classroom to open a window for ventilation. Unexpectedly, the draft was so strong that it blew the empty soy milk cup on the desk to the ground.
The soy milk cup rolled over to Wang Xingming's side. Zhao Shihua ran over to pick it up in a panic. When she stood up, she heard Wang Xingming pick up the conversation again and asked her, "Do you come this early every day?"
"Yeah," he replied hypocritically, not saying he got up early or that he lived nearby, "to catch up on homework."
Another silence fell. Wang Xingming remained silent, putting on the school uniform that had covered his head. Zhao Shihua, feeling overly pretentious, quickly changed the subject: "What a strong wind! It looks like it's going to rain."
As she uttered these words, a ripple of emotion welled up within her. Such a commonplace sentence was unlikely to be uttered in normal times. With no one patient to listen, no friends to share her complaints about homework or the weather, she habitually conversed with herself, imagining playful scenes with friends.
"Hmm." His inner response overlapped with the other person's voice. Wang Xingming also looked out the window. The trees were all blown to one side by the wind. Thunder rumbled faintly in the distance, and a gloomy sky enveloped the surroundings.
In just a few seconds, the wind and rain suddenly became violent, and several thunders seemed to explode right above his head. Zhao Shihua was so scared that he quickly closed the window. The raindrops as big as beans hit the glass violently, and the scenery in the distance instantly blurred into a gray-green block.
At that moment, Zhao Shihua suddenly had a strange feeling, as if she and Wang Xingming were the only two people left in the world, trapped in a dark but safe corner. They were like two little insects, powerless against the downpour and could only hide and wait quietly for it to pass.
For some reason, she suddenly mustered up courage and turned around to ask him with a smile, as if it were just a casual chat between good friends. She adopted the tone of a movie heroine, "Sometimes I really want to get caught in the rain! When I was a kid, I loved running outside whenever it started raining."
“…You’ll probably catch a cold.”
"What about you, Wang Xingming? Don't you like rainy days? Are you the kind of person who stays at home and reads books on rainy days?"
Zhao Shihua leaned against the window, the sound of rain pattering in her ears. She wondered if he had heard her. Her gaze drifted from the blackboard to him, and she saw Wang Xingming propping his chin with one hand, staring intently at the scenery behind her.
"...I guess so." After a long while, he answered vaguely, "I used to..."
"Hmm? What did you say?" The heavy rain outside the window had turned into a downpour, and Zhao Shihua couldn't hear clearly even if she leaned over. So she took advantage of the situation and moved closer to Wang Xingming. As she passed her desk, she saw a tea egg in a plastic bag. "By the way, did you have breakfast?"
That day, I don’t know if it was because the typhoon blocked the influence of the outside world, or because the egg that was still warm somewhat rekindled the existence of the emotion of friendship, which made Zhao Shihua ignore the distance of several galaxies between the two people, and also made Wang Xingming forget that Zhao Shihua was an unpopular person in the class.
In short, on that stormy morning, Zhao Shihua and Wang Xingming unexpectedly struck up a conversation. They chatted about everything from childhood games to the current pressures of studying, and then discussed social hot topics in a serious manner, finally bringing up gossip about their teachers.
Typhoons always come unexpectedly, just like her unexpected heartbeat. But why did the ending of such a beautiful memory end so cruelly?
Zhao Shihua still clearly remembers all the details of that rain, including the smell of earth coming in through the window cracks, the content about the spring solar terms on the blackboard, Wang Xingming's hair that was half flattened, and his curved eyebrows that seemed to sparkle when he smiled... It was a rare and beautiful scene in her memory, like a movie.
But before she could savor the sweetness of that moment or experience the secret love, several things happened in quick succession, making Zhao Shihua realize that she wasn't the heroine in the movie after all. She didn't have the halo above her head, so the angel of luck couldn't find her and grant her precious favor.
I remember that day, it wasn't until after 7:30 that the rain gradually subsided that students began to arrive. Xiao Ren, the first boy to arrive, probably thought he was the only one late. He flung open the door, letting in a gust of damp air.
Zhao Shihua and Wang Xingming were the only ones present in the class, sitting side by side, talking. They stared at each other blankly for a few seconds before reacting. Xiao Ren breathed a sigh of relief, slowly putting down his schoolbag and casually asking if they had slept over at school last night.
Although Wang Xingming immediately silenced the man with a "You're sick!" and he brushed it off with a laugh, Zhao Shihua was still quite embarrassed and immediately returned to her seat. She naively thought the story was over, but the rumors spread like a virus, and within a week, the entire grade was spreading rumors about the two of them.
Later, she regretted that her reaction at that time was a bit too obvious. If she had calmly taken the book and pretended to discuss the homework, would the subsequent trouble have been avoided?
In middle school, driven by curiosity, rumors of pregnancy and abortion seemed to circulate in every school. These groundless rumors fermented in secret, eventually becoming a terrifying, demonic entity. The fabricated details were so horrifying that everyone felt as if they had been there. The irony was that few actually believed these rumors, but that didn't stop them from discussing them passionately.
At first, Zhao Shihua was able to calmly deny it, but she found that everyone was still making a fuss; later, she cursed hysterically, but the response she got was "We were just joking, why are you taking it so seriously?" It was like a punch hitting cotton, the other party was unharmed, but she was thrown out by inertia and fell with a bruised face.
She also wanted to find someone to talk to, but her closest sister was far away in another city, busy preparing for the professional level exam. She wanted to say something but stopped herself several times on the phone, and finally hung up the phone in dismay.
As for her parents and teachers, she couldn't bring herself to speak. The rumors were too filthy to be shared, and she wasn't sure the teachers would actually believe her explanation. Zhao Shihua had heard the saying, "It takes two to tango," before. Her homeroom teacher had used it as a subtle sarcasm about a close couple in the class. Coupled with her previous test scores being less than ideal, she was almost certain the teacher would blame it on a supposed premature romance.
That week was the most difficult week in Zhao Shihua's life. So this is what the saying "gossip can melt a piece of metal, and repeated criticism can destroy a person" means. She truly didn't even have the strength to get out of bed. Her bones felt like they had melted, unable to support herself to face anything.
The rain brought by the typhoon lasted for three or four days, and Zhao Shihua's mood was also desperate for three or four days.
On the day the typhoon cleared, everyone returned to outdoor gym class. A rare chance to get some fresh air, the class perked up. During team passing practice, everyone chattered away, like cicadas chirping at naptime. The rumors surrounding Zhao Shihua and Wang Xingming were still top of the conversation, with some students even joking directly in front of the two of them, regardless of the individuals involved.
Zhao Shihua remained silent with a sullen face. Gradually, no one passed the ball to her, so she walked to the edge of the basketball court to rest. She heard a burst of laughter erupt from a group of boys. She looked over, and the boys across from her all stared back at her, each one seemingly harboring ill intentions.
Wang Xingming stood in the middle of the group. He also looked over, a faint smile on his face. Seeing that he remained silent, Xiao Ren, who was standing next to him, shouted to Zhao Shihua, "Wang Xingming said he's not gay."
"What do you mean?" she muttered.
Xiao Ren raised his hand and pointed directly at Zhao Shihua, deliberately raising his voice so that the nearby girls could hear him: "He said he doesn't like boys."
One of the mottos Zhao Shihua copied in elementary school was "There is no best, only better." She never imagined that her life would later be like "There is no worst, only worse."
From the "one-night stand" to the "transgender" rumor, Zhao Shihua didn't know which one was worse. She only knew that Wang Xingming, with just one sentence, had freed her from the rumors, but it had also pushed her into an even deeper abyss.
She silently lowered her head, looking at her not-so-delicate hands, then her gaze fell on her rather sturdy calves. Many students had changed into shorts for sprinting practice in physical education class. She wished she had a piece of cloth to cover the muscles in her legs, the fuzzy mustache at the corners of her mouth, everything that belonged to her.
If before this, Zhao Shihua still hoped that one day she could get along well with her classmates, then probably from then on, she completely broke with the so-called collective in her heart.
She no longer cared about anything, and at one point, she even stopped studying. She wanted to take a mace and beat them all up after school to vent her anger, but in the end, it was just a thought. To stay in school, to have a reason to live, she had no choice but to close her eyes, plug her ears, and study hard, desperately hoping to gain the teacher's favor and protection that good students deserve.
Who knew that just when I opened my heart a little bit, I would encounter another storm.
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