Chapter 29 Spring Day Green (12) Are you asleep? I want to tell you...
At the end of March, Lin Xia returned to Wangchun.
Wangchun, the reason why it is called Wangchun may be because there is actually no spring here.
It's the worst time of year in Northeast China. The dirty snow, which has accumulated all winter, hasn't melted, exposing the garbage and fallen leaves of last autumn beneath. The streets are slushy and muddy with meltwater. The branches and grass are bare, without leaves or flowers, not even a bud yet. A cold wind from the north wind howls, bringing dust and dirt that freezes people but not water, scratching cheeks painfully. Some wear cotton pants, others thin clothes. Passing each other on the street, each one thinking the other looks foolish.
Today was a terrible day with rain and snow. Lin Xia, wearing her ugly blue and white school uniform and holding an umbrella, walked through the mud and snow into the gate of Experimental High School, one step deep and one step shallow. She looked at everything that was familiar in front of her and suddenly felt as if she were in another world.
It was as if the training camp in Beijing was just a dream, as if she had never left here.
It was half past six in the morning, the time for morning reading. The English class representative of Class 13, Grade 3, led everyone in reading the text. The head teacher, Lu Hong, walked in with a cold face, leading Lin Xia.
Without any explanation or explanation, Lv Hong began arranging seating according to the list she had prepared. Before Lin Xia's return, the class had been arranged in even numbers. With Lin Xia's arrival, someone would have to sit alone. There was an empty table and chair in the front row, near the edge, but it wasn't reserved for Lin Xia. Lv Hong had a detailed and precise plan for everyone's seating. Those who were good at studying were given support, those who were making rapid progress were given separate seats, and those who were talkative and unruly were separated. She had it all figured out, and with Lin Xia's arrival, everything had to be reshuffled.
The classmates in the class did not react at all to the sudden appearance of Lin Xia, nor did they make any statement about the huge group of people sitting together during morning self-study. It seemed that after more than half a year, everyone had been domesticated by Lu Hong and became numb. They had almost evolved away from the biological instinct of responding to external stimuli.
Lin Xia had few friends in this class and had no sense of existence. Many people had no idea where she went or what she was doing. Jiang Yuhua even thought she had transferred to another school. When she met her after class, she casually asked her why she transferred back.
However, Lin Xia didn't care about these things, or she simply didn't have the energy to care about them. After returning, she was about to face a huge test. The next day was a mock exam!
This exam was meaningless to Lin Xia, but she took the opportunity to see if she was good enough at the moment, so she took the exam anyway.
The result was, of course, horrific.
When she left last semester, she had already completed all the high school courses, but due to the lack of a systematic review and the fact that she had forgotten a lot during this period, she ended up getting her lowest score ever and ranked last in the class.
The test papers handed out were all covered with bright red crosses and deductions. No one could help but feel anxious after seeing them.
Many of the questions she had gotten wrong were already unfamiliar, and the teachers in each subject were incredibly fast-paced, skipping over many without explanation, as if they had a tacit understanding with the rest of the class. Lin Xia couldn't help but raise her hand to ask questions, but since these were all common mistakes the teacher had repeatedly emphasized when she was away, her frequent inquiries not only drew ridicule from her classmates but also earned the teacher's displeasure. The history teacher, in particular, would scold her in front of the entire class, telling her to hold it in if she didn't understand, and to switch to a regular class if she truly couldn't understand.
She defended herself, but the history teacher said she was disobedient. The two almost quarreled in class, and then the matter escalated to Lu Hong, and she was finally scolded, saying that the progress of the entire class should not be delayed because of her.
After Lin Xia returned to the classroom from the office, she lay powerlessly on the table, sulking.
Reason told her that Lu Hong was right, and she couldn't be so selfish and waste everyone's time. She could understand Lu Hong's impatience with her. She wasn't a very good student to begin with, and she had ignored her advice and insisted on becoming an art student, even going away for half a year of intensive training. Now she had to return to her class to lower her average grade and make her divert her attention from her. It was a miracle that she could be nice to Lin Xia.
Yet, she still felt a little aggrieved. She'd earned her way into Experimental High School and the designated class through her own merit. She'd paid tuition like everyone else and was here, having received permission from the school to go on training. She hadn't violated any rules. Why couldn't she ask questions? Why had the top-scoring student debated the history teacher for over ten minutes over a question beyond the syllabus, and he'd patiently answered her questions? Was this how a teacher treated students differently?
They were simply certain that no matter how hard she studied, an art student who had been absent for half a year, her grades wouldn't improve much, and she wouldn't be able to get into a good university to bring them honor. That's why they didn't want to waste their time and energy on her. Lin Xia thought with some ill intent, what expressions would appear on these people's faces if they knew she had already set foot in Tsinghua University.
But then she felt discouraged. What right did she have to brag about her art exam? If she failed the academic subjects, she would be nothing and would only attract more ridicule.
Just as Lin Xia was daydreaming, someone gently poked her arm with a pen. Lin Xia looked up blankly, only to see her new deskmate Song Ci pointing at the test paper and saying:
"I ruled out A because the era was wrong. I ruled out D because it wasn't mentioned in the question. Finally, between B and C, I chose B because it says here..."
This question was exactly the one that caused the argument between her and the history teacher in the history class just now.
Song Ci's tone was calm and indifferent. After her clear and organized explanation, Lin Xia suddenly understood.
"So that's how it is!"
"Do you understand?"
"Uh-huh."
"If you don't know anything else, just ask me. Although I don't know how to do it myself, that old man is narrow-minded and holds grudges. He will definitely not treat you well in the future."
Lin Xia was also worried about this matter, but was too embarrassed to keep interrupting:
"This is too much trouble for you."
Song Ci didn't care: "Nothing, I just consolidated my basics."
Lin Xia couldn't help laughing and said to her from the bottom of her heart:
"Thanks."
In this class where everyone is just studying hard and even the teacher doesn't want to pay much attention to her, she is really grateful that someone is willing to take the time to help her and explain the questions to her.
Song Ci is a very special girl, and you can only discover her after spending a long time with her.
She was thin, wore frameless glasses, and looked gentle and aloof. Although they were in the same class before, they had never spoken to each other, but Lin Xia secretly liked her name.
The two of them only became familiar with each other after sitting at the same table for several days. The opportunity for them to get acquainted was that Song Ci accidentally asked Lin Xia why her accent sounded a bit strange.
Lin Xia immediately thought of He Chuan, because he had asked her the same question. So far, only these two people had noticed the change in her accent, not even Lin Xuedong or Zhao Qianyi. How strange.
Song Ci is as smart as He Chuan. She doesn't have to study hard and still has good grades. She is always in the top ten in the class. Unlike other students who have been domesticated to numbness, she still has a silent rebellious streak and retains the most basic joys, sorrows, anger, and curiosity of being a human being.
She also enjoyed reading extracurricular books, but not romance novels, but classics, biographies, and poetry collections. Her handwriting was meticulous, and every liberal arts exam was circulated throughout the class as a sample. Her essays were exceptionally well-written, often copied as model essays for the entire school year. Due to a disagreement with her Chinese teacher, she ignored a single word in class for an entire semester, preoccupied with poring over the Xinhua Dictionary. Yet, she still scored high on the final exam. When Lu Hong urging her to focus and improve her grades, she bluntly retorted, saying she wasn't suited to high-pressure education and asked her to stop watching her so closely. Despite the intense pressure of her senior year, she still composed her own poems in her notebook during breaks from studying. She said it was her only respite.
The more Lin Xia got to know Song Ci, the more she envied her. She envied her independence, her erudition, her brilliant mind. It turned out that even top students could be like this. It turned out that high school life could be like this.
However, that was destined to be something that Lin Xia could not envy. She thought she was not stupid, but she was not very smart in studying. Her talent did not lie here, but if she wanted to achieve her goal, this was the only way.
It is definitely not enough to just attend regular classes, each subject needs to be supplemented separately.
In fact, when Lin Xia first returned, Lin Xuedong approached Lü Hong, hoping she would give her math tutoring, but was rebuffed. Lü Hong replied indifferently that she never gave private tutoring to students. So, Lin Xuedong found another experienced math teacher on campus who had taught the previous liberal arts class and was also very capable. Later, teachers for Chinese, English, and liberal arts were also found, and thus began Lin Xia's intense tutoring life.
Every day she goes to school in the morning, has private tutoring with her English teacher at noon, goes to the tutoring teacher's home to take liberal arts lessons in the afternoon, and takes math lessons in the evening. When she returns home, she does two sets of mock tests, one set for school and one set for the tutoring class.
Is this study schedule more intense than the grueling studio classes she'd been in before? Perhaps not, but for Lin Xia, the torment of academic subjects was a thousand times greater than painting. Endless books to memorize, endless tests to complete, endless mistakes to make. I couldn't do it, and I was anxious. The more anxious I got, the worse I got, and the worse I got, the more mistakes I made. And if I missed, I'd make more mistakes. It was so hopeless, so powerless!
One quiet night, Lin Xuedong had already gone to bed, but Lin Xia was still at the desk in her room, memorizing politics while comparing her wrong questions. For some reason, her emotions reached a critical point and she suddenly broke down, tears streaming down her face uncontrollably.
She cried so hard that she could hardly breathe. Trembling, she took out her phone and sent a message to He Chuan. She typed a lot of words at first, but deleted them all. In the end, she only sent one message:
【Are you asleep? I want to talk to you. 】
The other party replied:
【Hold on. 】
Lin Xia held the phone tightly, suppressing her tears while waiting.
A few minutes later, the phone vibrated and a familiar name flashed on the screen.
Lin Xia took a few deep breaths, pressed a button, and put the phone to her ear:
"Hello?"
"Xia Xia?"
"He Chuan, I think I might have to repeat a grade..."
Originally, she didn't want to cry to him, but when she heard his voice, grievance and sadness surged up like a tide. Before she finished speaking, Lin Xia started crying again.
A mobile phone, separated by thousands of miles between Northeast China and Hong Kong, she was crying on this end and he was listening on the other end, without any urging or impatience.
Of course he knew she had returned to Wangchun and that she was studying hard. Although he didn't say it out loud, he understood her feelings. This was the same path he had taken, and the same hardships he had tasted. But when he couldn't bear it anymore, no one could help him share his burden. So now, he would walk with her.
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