Chapter 25 One flower after another, year after year
"Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap, holy crap—!" Jiang Yueming wailed.
I was so focused on learning new knowledge that I didn't even touch those three brand-new, brick-thick summer homework books at home!
He stared at the thick stack of blank test papers in front of him, feeling like jumping into a river. There were still two days until school started, and his homework progress was only 0.1%.
The 0.1 was still Jiang Yueming's name, but the name wasn't written in full; it was just the character "Jiang".
In the middle of the night, he ran to Li Leshan's door and shouted for help. Li Leshan really thought something had happened to him. He hurriedly opened the door and glanced at Jiang Yueming. The man did look very anxious. He came wearing a vest and shorts. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that he wasn't wearing the right shoes either. One side was slippers and the other side was sneakers.
"You...were robbed?" Li Leshan asked, his expression somewhat puzzled.
"I'd rather be robbed! Just take my homework while you're at it!" Jiang Yueming said with a mournful face as he entered the room, lowering his voice.
Entering Li Leshan's house is now a normal thing, just like entering his own home; he can come in without even knocking. Li Leshan said there's a key outside the door, placed on the door frame, because his grandmother is old and often forgets to bring her keys when she goes out.
"Aren't you afraid of having your things stolen?" Jiang Yueming asked him at that time.
There has to be something stolen first.
The family's money was mostly kept in a savings account, the only thing his mother left them. It totaled over 20,000 yuan, and his grandmother wouldn't spend a single penny of it, saying it was for Li Leshan's college education. The savings account was locked in a cabinet with three locks, making it the safest thing in the house.
Oh, Li Leshan knew why he'd come. He closed the door, and Jiang Yueming had already slipped into the room and was hunched over his desk looking for his summer homework. Although he didn't want to expose his immoral side in front of Li Leshan, who cared about morality when death was imminent? He couldn't worry about that now; saving his life was the priority. If he couldn't save his life, no matter how good his character was, it wouldn't matter.
"Is Grandma asleep?" Jiang Yueming asked as he turned over the doorknob. She must be asleep. He had rushed out of the house at ten o'clock, and Lin Cuiqin was already getting ready for bed. Hearing the noise outside, she thought a "thief" had broken into the house.
Pushing open the door, I saw it was the "traitor in the house"—Jiang Yueming, carrying a schoolbag, looking like he was about to fly away, I wondered where he was planning to go.
"What trick are you up to now, my dear?" Lin Cuiqin squinted, feeling sleepy.
"I'm going to Li Leshan's house to finish my homework, so I probably won't be home tonight," Jiang Yueming said. "I'll be back first thing tomorrow morning to buy breakfast for you and Tiantian."
"Be careful! It's so late." Lin Cuiqin was a little worried and wanted to see him off.
"What are you afraid of?" Jiang Yueming waved his hand at her without even putting on his shoes. "It's just a few steps. You can stand on the balcony and watch me run all the way to his building..."
So Jiang Yueming arrived. He had no time for anything else; if he didn't finish his homework soon, it would be too late. He'd experienced this scene many times before; Han Jiang usually sat next to him while he did his homework. But Han Jiang's words were useless; he didn't even dare to copy, knowing he might not even get as many right answers as he could by guessing. The two of them complained as they wrote, their progress incredibly slow.
Li Leshan found him three summer homework books, neat and clean, and thoughtfully turned on a small desk lamp.
Jiang Yueming copied with both hands. He'd heard that left-handed people were very intelligent; after all, Einstein was left-handed, wasn't he? Jiang Yueming was too, though he wasn't exactly known for being intelligent. He copied English with his left hand and math with his right. He saved the words he wrote the longest for the daytime.
Anyone who didn't know better would think that Jiang Yueming was diligently preparing for the middle school and college entrance exams.
"Quick, stop staring at me," Jiang Yueming felt a gaze on him. He couldn't care less about anything else now. He tossed a Chinese textbook to Li Leshan and said, "Lele, can you copy some for me?"
Jiang Yueming's status in the friendship has risen significantly, almost dramatically, without any hesitation; he can now even order Li Leshan around.
“Your handwriting is ugly, really ugly.” Jiang Yueming stammered, “Don’t worry about me, it can be as ugly as you want.”
If it weren't for the fact that Xiaobai and he were different species, Jiang Yueming would have really wanted to bring Xiaobai over to help him with his summer homework. The handwriting would probably be about the same, and it would be even more credible than Li Leshan's.
Jiang Yueming, who had been writing furiously until 3:30 a.m., finally collapsed onto his desk with dark circles under his eyes. He even saw Li Leshan's image was slightly doubled. He groggily wondered, "Why are there two Li Leshans?" Finally, his eyes snapped open and closed, and he slumped onto his desk. He didn't even feel the pain when his head hit the table hard; he was too tired to feel anything.
The noise startled Li Leshan, who was helping Jiang Yueming copy his summer homework. He looked to the side and saw that the man had fallen asleep, still holding a pen in his hand.
The room was quiet. It was three or four in the morning, and everywhere was eerily quiet. There wasn't even a sound of birds chirping or insects buzzing; all you could hear was your own heartbeat. Summer was still quite hot, especially for this small town, which wasn't particularly far north, as evidenced by the recent heatwave where you could fry an egg.
There's an old fan in Li Leshan's room, a long time ago, it's been there since his parents got married, even older than him. His grandmother put it in his room so he'd remember to plug it in and turn it on when he got hot, but he's never turned it on, it just sits dusty in the corner.
It's not really dusty. Li Leshan cleans the house every now and then, from the living room to his grandmother's and his own rooms, and he always wipes down the places that are prone to dust.
Jiang Yueming was a bit taller and heavier than him. Li Leshan carefully helped him up, half-dragging and half-carrying him to the equally old wooden bed. The bed was covered with only a thin mattress and faded white sheets. Li Leshan was used to sleeping there and didn't find it uncomfortable, but Jiang Yueming probably would. However, given how soundly he was sleeping, it probably didn't matter where he slept.
He gently moved the electric fan to the side of the bed, plugged it in, and after hearing the sound of the fan blades running, he sat back down at his desk. This desk, made from a sewing machine, had been his companion for many days and nights spent studying diligently, but at his current rate of growth, he estimated that in another year or two, this small desk would no longer be big enough for him.
The desk lamp was dimming, its light now a hazy yellow. Li Leshan opened Jiang Yueming's half-finished homework and began to write. Occasionally, a night breeze would slip in through the window, brushing past his ears. The hum of the fan and Jiang Yueming's soft breathing mingled together in the quiet of the night. A strange, unfamiliar sense of peace, like a warm tide, silently washed over Li Leshan's heart.
He'd always been the only one in this room. It was sparsely furnished: a bed, a sewing machine, a makeshift wardrobe made from a few clothes hangers—that was about it. There were hardly any decorations. So it felt rather unwelcoming, not like a child's room. Magazines, comics, toys, celebrity posters—none of those were there. Instead, there were stacks of test papers…
Li Leshan carefully collected all the books and test papers he had used from childhood to adulthood, piling them higher and higher in the corner, taking up a large space. It wasn't for reviewing or reminiscing; he just planned to sell them all to the scrap collector after graduation. He'd heard they could fetch a higher price as used books, a few cents a pound, but who would buy a primary school student's used books? It wouldn't make sense.
Selling scrap metal earns him four cents a pound. Li Leshan doesn't know exactly how many pounds he's collected, nor does he expect to make much money from it. He just keeps it at the scrap yard, which is the greatest value he can think of for these used textbooks, workbooks, and test papers.
After copying for a while, his hand started to ache. Li Leshan put down his pen and looked at the water tank on the windowsill. Xiaoming was sleeping peacefully and quietly.
For a very long time, this room received no visitors except for Grandma, who would occasionally come in. There were no cats or dogs. Later, even Grandma came less and less.
Back then, the old locust tree outside the window hadn't grown so lush and leafy, and the ivy and trumpet creeper on the wall were far from covering the red bricks. Li Leshan counted the locust blossoms on the tree, one by one, and then another. Days slipped by in this silent counting, year after year.
As dawn broke, the birdsong began. He still didn't know what kind of birds were calling by the window—was it a cuckoo? Or a sparrow? There were too many, too varied, to tell them apart. Three completed summer homework assignments were neatly stacked to the side. He slumped wearily onto the cold table, his eyelids too heavy to lift.
Later on, he was no longer the only one in the room.
First there was Xiaoming, then there was Jiang Yueming.
With a cool summer breeze, Li Leshan drifted off to sleep and had a rare dream. In his dream, sunlight streamed through the locust trees onto his desk, and the air was filled with the fragrance of locust blossoms. Li Leshan sat alone by the window, staring blankly at the locust blossoms outside, lost in thought for a long time—a day, a month, a year.
In a daze, he heard a shout. Li Leshan opened his eyes, not knowing where he was, only remembering that the voice had traveled a long distance, through the streets and crowds, to reach him.
They seemed to be separated by a bridge. That bridge, like the Lijiang Bridge with its constant flow of traffic. It was as if one of them was standing on this side of the bridge, and the other on the other. The sunlight stung Li Leshan's eyes, making him squint. He tried to open them wide, attempting to make out what the person on the other side of the bridge looked like.
In his dream, Li Leshan saw the man's lips moving as if he were saying something. He still couldn't make a sound, but for some reason, this time it was also a bit hard to hear clearly. He could only guess what the man was saying from the faint lip movements. When he looked more closely, he found that there was no one on the other side of the bridge.
"Lele!"
The dream is over.
Li Leshan suddenly opened his eyes, and what came into view was Jiang Yueming's face, which was a little worried and a little embarrassed.
But the person in front of me is still here this time.
A note from the author:
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The way someone is addressed has changed slightly [glasses].
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