writing on the blackboard
The September wind blew the sycamore leaves across the corridor, blowing the chalk words "270 days left until the college entrance examination" on the blackboard into dust.
Xu Yang was walking towards the office with a stack of physics homework books in his arms. When he passed by the door of Class 2, Grade 3, he heard Lu Jinyu's voice coming from inside. He was coughing as if choked by chalk dust, and was arguing with someone about the value of gravitational acceleration in the formula for the period of a simple pendulum.
"The question doesn't say to ignore air resistance!" Lu Jinyu's voice hit the glass window, shaking it. "Last time in the lab class, when we were measuring the length of a pendulum, I didn't calculate air resistance, and the error exceeded two centimeters. Teacher Li punished me by making me copy the formula."
Xu Yang stopped and saw Lu Jinyu standing on tiptoe to draw a diagram of a simple pendulum on the blackboard. The sleeves of his school uniform were rolled up to his elbows, revealing chalk dust on his forearms, like a thin layer of snow.
The boy next to him was rushing to wipe the blackboard. The eraser was rubbing repeatedly on the four words "air resistance". The chalk dust rose up and choked Lu Jinyu, making him frown.
"Okay, stop erasing," Lu Jinyu reached out and pressed the eraser, his fingertips tapping on the blackboard. "If we use the ideal model to calculate this problem, it will definitely be wrong."
He turned around to pick up the chalk. There was a speck of white on the back of his hair, probably from when he jumped up to reach the top of the blackboard.
Xu Yang continued walking forward with his homework book in his arms. A group of people gathered in front of the bulletin board at the end of the corridor.
The newly posted list of candidates for the physics competition rematch was curled up by the wind. His name was at the top, with "provincial team candidate" marked in red next to it, while Lu Jinyu's name was in the middle, followed by a small asterisk - indicating that he needed to take a make-up test.
"Xu Yang!" Someone tapped him on the shoulder. It was the boy in the silver-rimmed glasses at the table in front of him, holding a freshly printed practice test paper. "Is the last big question similar to the competition semi-final questions? I calculated it three times and it's wrong every time."
Xu Yang looked down at the test paper. The slider in the picture was moving at a constant speed on the conveyor belt. He suddenly remembered the physics class last week. Lu Jinyu used an eraser as a slider and pushed it on the desk, saying that this would allow him to "intuitively feel the friction." As a result, the eraser slipped into the aisle and was flattened by Teacher Li who passed by.
"The conveyor belt's acceleration is in the wrong direction." He fished a pen from his pocket and drew a simple force analysis diagram on the edge of the paper. "Here we should use Newton's second law to calculate the relative displacement first."
The boy with glasses exclaimed, "Ah!" and tapped the diagram with his fingertips. "No wonder! I was wondering why there was a minus sign in the answer. By the way, did you see the list of candidates for the semi-finals? It seems Lu Jinyu needs to take a make-up test. I heard that the make-up test will include additional experimental operations. He even connected the sliding resistor incorrectly last time..."
Xu Yang's pen tip paused, and the ink dot spread out in a small circle on the paper.
"He will pass." He put the pen back into his pocket, turned around and walked towards the office with the homework book. Behind him, he heard the mumbling voice of a boy with glasses, who probably said, "Only you think he can pass."
There was a faint smell of tea in the office. Teacher Li was grading papers in front of the computer. The blue light from the screen made half of his white hair look blue.
"I'm feeling a little sick," he said, looking up and adjusting his glasses, the red pen between his fingers dangling in the air. "Fill out the registration form for the provincial team training camp and submit it before next Wednesday."
Xu Yang placed his homework book on the corner of the table, and hovered his fingertips over the "Do you want to participate" column on the registration form.
There was a small schedule on the upper right corner of the form. The training period started in October, which just covered the midterm exam. In other words, if I went to the training, I would not be able to take part in this exam known as the "first battle of the senior year" with everyone else.
"Let me think about it." He folded the registration form and stuffed it into the cover of his physics textbook. "Teacher Li, when is Lu Jinyu's make-up test?"
Teacher Li said "Oh" and took out a notice from the drawer: "This Saturday afternoon, in the laboratory.
He's good at theory, but he's clueless when it comes to practical application. Last time, when we were measuring the resistivity of metals, he actually used copper wire instead of iron wire, saying, 'It's all metal anyway.' I was so angry that I made him copy the lab manual three times."
Xu Yang took the notice. The handwriting on it was very flamboyant. It was probably the registration information filled out by Lu Jinyu himself. The last four digits of the ID number were blurred by ink, as if it was accidentally dripped with pen ink.
"Can I go and observe?" He folded the notice into a small square. "I just happen to want to review the experimental operation."
Teacher Li smiled, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes forming furrows. "Do you still need to review? But it's good to come and take a look. Maybe I can help him. Don't burn down the lab."
He lowered his head and continued grading papers, his red pen making long hooks on the papers. "By the way, how's your class cat doing? Last time I heard Lu Jinyu say it gave birth to three kittens. Do you want me to ask the General Affairs Office for a cat bed?"
"It's already done." Xu Yang thought of the cat bed Lu Jinyu had made from a cardboard box. It was wrapped in blue cloth cut from an old school uniform, and the corners were stapled crookedly. When he passed by yesterday, he saw Fatty Orange stuffing three kittens into it, his tail rustling the box. "It's under the sycamore tree in the southeast corner of the playground."
Teacher Li nodded, pausing his red pen on the paper. "That's a great spot; it gets plenty of sun. The students I taught back then loved memorizing their lessons under that tree. One couple even carved their names into the trunk. Now they've probably blended in with the grain of the tree."
He suddenly sighed, "It's great to be young. Even if you make a mistake, you still have a chance to try again."
When Xu Yang left the office, the bell for class had just rung. The corridor was empty, with only the wind blowing chalk dust into countless tiny white whirlpools.
He walked to the door of Class 2, and Lu Jinyu just came out. He was probably punished by the teacher to stand. He was leaning against the wall and kicking the stones under his feet. There was a small sycamore leaf on the back collar of his school uniform.
"What are you doing?" Lu Jinyu looked up and saw him, his eyes lit up, and he kicked a stone to his feet. "Are you going to complain? Saying that I quarreled with someone in class?"
"No." Xu Yang handed over the make-up test notice, "Don't forget the make-up test on Saturday afternoon."
Lu Jinyu took the notice and pinched the words "experimental operation" with his fingers, until his knuckles turned white.
"Got it." He crumpled up the notice and then unfolded it again. "I can't pass it anyway, so I'll just fool around when the time comes."
"No." Xu Yang took out a small notebook from his pocket. He had bought it at the stationery store last time. The cover was printed with simple drawings of various experimental instruments. "I've organized the experimental steps that are often tested for you. For example, in the volt-ampere method for measuring resistance, you always confuse the internal and external connections of the ammeter. In fact, just remember 'big inside, small outside'..."
Before he could finish his words, Lu Jinyu suddenly reached out and pressed the notebook.
The other person's palm was a little hot, with the rough feeling of chalk dust, and it felt like a piece of warm sandpaper pressing against the back of his hand.
"Xu Yang," Lu Jinyu's voice was a little muffled, "Do you think I'm really stupid? I can't even do an experiment properly."
The window at the end of the corridor was rattling in the wind. Xu Yang saw Lu Jinyu's eyelashes drooping, casting a small shadow under his eyes. "No."
Xu Yang thought to himself, if you were really stupid, you wouldn’t be able to study in this school.
He gently pulled his hand back and stuffed the notebook into the other man's uniform pocket. "You just get distracted easily. Last time we observed the motion of a simple pendulum, you stared at the ball for ten minutes and said, 'It swings like a fat orange chasing its tail.'"
Lu Jinyu laughed out loud, but his ears turned red. "It's like that. By the way, do you want to go see the kittens? I went to feed them right after class, and the third one seemed to be sneezing a little. Maybe he caught a cold."
The two walked along the corridor toward the playground. Sunlight streamed through the windows, casting long specks of light on the ground, like a patch of broken gold. Lu Jinyu kicked a small stone, which rolled back and forth in the spot of light, occasionally hitting the bricks at the base of the wall with a crisp sound.
"My mom told me to sign up for a lab class," he said suddenly, his voice a little hazy from the wind. "She said I could pass the exam if I paid a little, but I think those classes are just rip-offs. I heard someone say one teacher was teaching how to secretly manipulate data, saying, 'As long as the result is right, the process isn't important.'"
Xu Yang remembered the slogan on the laboratory wall: "Data is the conscience of the experiment." It was written by Teacher Li in red paint. The handwriting was crooked and looked like a struggling earthworm.
"Teacher Li said that people who change data should learn magic." He kicked a sycamore fruit on the roadside, and the shell cracked, revealing the round seed inside. "I'll help you practice on Saturday."
Lu Jinyu stopped and the wind lifted the corner of his school uniform, revealing a T-shirt with a cartoon cat printed on it - probably bought from a night market, the cat's eyes were embroidered crookedly, one round and one flat.
"Don't you need to prepare for the provincial team?" He twirled his fingertips on the corner of his clothes. "I heard from Glasses that the training schedules have been distributed."
"No rush." Xu Yang looked up at the sky. The clouds were like torn cotton wool, floating slowly. "I want to review the textbook before the midterm exam."
In fact, what he didn't say was that when he passed by the blackboard newspaper of Class 3 yesterday, he saw the words "Keep going, senior year" written by Lu Jinyu. The chalk words were crooked, but at the end there was a kitten holding a pencil, which looked very much like the one on the draft paper.
He suddenly felt that something more important than the provincial team training was hidden in these clumsy strokes.
The laboratory on Saturday was filled with the smell of disinfectant, and the sunlight filtered through the blinds, cutting bright streaks on the ground.
Lu Jinyu stood in front of the operating table, frantically assembling the circuit. The wires were tangled in his hands like an unruly snake.
"Should we connect the power supply first or the electrical appliances first?" He turned around and asked Xu Yang. There was a hint of rosin on the tip of his nose, which he had touched when he was soldering the circuit just now. "Teacher Li mentioned it last time, but I forgot."
Xu Yang, who was drawing a wiring diagram in the lab manual, looked up when he heard this. "Connect the electrical appliances first, then the power supply, to prevent short circuits. You see, it's like giving medicine to a kitten. You have to mix it in the cat food first, you can't force it down the cat's throat."
Lu Jinyu said "Oh" and paused his finger on the color of the wire - red to the positive pole, blue to the negative pole. He remembered this clearly because Fat Orange's collar was red and blue.
"Oh, yes. Last time I was forced to drink the medicine, Fatty Orange scratched me and left three marks. They are still there." He turned his wrist to the side, and there were indeed three light pink marks on his fair skin, like a string of mini ellipsis.
Xu Yang's gaze paused on the trace for two seconds, then he looked away at the voltmeter: "You chose the wrong range. It should be 0 to 3 volts, but you dialed it to 15 volts. No wonder the needle didn't move."
Lu Jinyu exclaimed "Ah" and hurriedly adjusted the knob. His fingertips touched the dial, leaving a faint rosin mark.
"It's over. I definitely won't pass." He threw the screwdriver onto the table, and the metal handle hit the beaker with a crisp ding. "Actually, I didn't want to go to the semi-finals. It was my mom who insisted that I sign up, saying, 'Going with Xu Yang will give me motivation,' but I can't keep up with you at all..."
"Look at this." Xu Yang suddenly handed over his lab notebook. On the last page was a simple table. On the left were the areas where Lu Jinyu often made mistakes, and on the right were the corresponding "mnemonics": for example, the "up and down" terminals on the sliding rheostat could be memorized as "like a kitten's paw, one needs to be on the high side and the other on the low side for stability."
Lu Jinyu's fingers slowly slid across the form, and suddenly he said without thinking, "Do you think I'm particularly troublesome?"
The ceiling fan in the laboratory was turning slowly, filling the room with the smell of disinfectant.
Xu Yang recalled that the first time he met Lu Jinyu was in a physics class in his freshman year of high school. He read the physics book upside down, saying, "This way the formulas look like musical scores." The teacher punished him by making him stand at the back of the classroom. However, while the teacher turned around to write on the blackboard, he drew a puppy with its tongue sticking out in the corner of the blackboard with chalk.
"No problem." He took the notebook back and readjusted the scales. "It's like solving a mechanics problem. You have to take it one step at a time."
On the day of the make-up test, Xu Yang stood outside the laboratory window and saw Lu Jinyu wearing a white coat, carefully pouring liquid into a beaker.
The sunlight fell on his slightly drooping eyelashes, and the cuffs of his white coat were stained with blue ink, probably from his school uniform.
Teacher Li stood by, holding a stopwatch in his hand and a faint smile on his lips.
Later, Lu Jinyu said that he was the last one to finish the experiment, and his legs were shaking when he walked out of the laboratory, but he saw Xu Yang standing under the sycamore tree, holding a small thermos cup with warm milk in it - he knew that Xu Yang would have stomachaches when he was nervous, so he brought it from home.
"Teacher Li said that although I was slow, all the data was correct," Lu Jinyu said, his eyes curved into crescents as he sipped his milk. "He also said that it was much better than some people who copied the wrong data because they were in a hurry to hand in their papers."
Xu Yang leaned against the tree trunk and watched Pangju carry the three kittens into the cardboard box. The smallest one always came out from the gap, and Pangju gently pushed it back with his claws.
"Midterms are next week," he suddenly said, "Do you want to review together?"
Lu Jinyu nearly spit out his milk and coughed twice. "Are you sure? Review with me? I mixed up the historical dates last time and wrote the Opium War as 1940, and the teacher read it out in front of everyone."
"You help me with physics and math, and I'll help you with history and English." Xu Yang pulled out a timetable from his schoolbag. It was written in red and black pens. The red ones were his strong subjects, and the black ones were Lu Jinyu's strong points. "Review for an hour every day in the library after evening self-study."
Lu Jinyu looked at the schedule and suddenly reached out and drew a kitten in the "Physics" column. He said, "We have to add this. Whoever gets distracted first will have to change the cat litter for Fatty Orange."
The setting sun stretched their shadows far out, overlapping beneath the sycamore tree like an unfinished sketch. Xu Yang looked down at the crooked cat paw prints on his timetable and suddenly realized that the seemingly long road of senior year could actually be so lively—with the smell of chalk dust, the coolness of lab tables, incorrectly written formulas, and someone willing to correct mistakes with him late into the night.
When the bell rang for evening study, the library was already packed. Xu Yang spread out his physics notebook. Lu Jinyu was sighing over his history textbook, his fingertips poking at the words "Xinhai Revolution." "Why is Sun Yat-sen called Sun Zhongshan? Isn't his original name good?"
Xu Yang didn't look up, writing "Force Analysis" next to the wrong question with his pen. "Just like a physics formula, it always has to have a code, otherwise it would be very troublesome to write it down."
Lu Jinyu said "Oh" and suddenly tapped his notebook with his pen: "You got this question wrong too? I thought you never made mistakes."
Xu Yang's pen paused. It was a multiple-choice question about celestial motion, and he remembered the value of the gravitational constant incorrectly.
"Everyone makes mistakes sometimes." He highlighted the reason for the mistake, "Just like last time you wrote 'Wuxu Reform' as 'Wuxu Reform', adding an extra horizontal line."
Lu Jinyu's ears turned red. He snatched his notebook and tried to correct it: "That's a typo! And I remembered later that 'Wuxu' is a horizontal stroke and 'Shu' is a dot, like a kitten's paw and tail."
Their fingers touched on the notebook, a flicker of electricity running through them. Moonlight from the window crept onto the table, casting two shadows on the notebook: one with neatly written formulas, the other with a crooked drawing of a kitten. It looked like a strange landscape.
When the library closed, the administrator came over yawning to turn off the lights. Seeing the books still spread out on their desks, she muttered, "Students these days are really working hard."
Lu Jinyu hurriedly stuffed the books into his schoolbag and accidentally knocked Xu Yang's physics textbook to the ground. The spine of the book hit the corner of the table, making a light snapping sound.
"Sorry," he bent down to pick it up, but found the provincial team registration form tucked inside the textbook cover, and the "Whether to Participate" column was still empty.
"Are you going or not?" Lu Jinyu handed over the textbook, tapping the word "yes" with his fingertips. "They all said you'd definitely make the provincial team, and maybe even win a national award."
Xu Yang pulled out the registration form and looked at it in the hallway light. In the distance, the lights-out bell from the senior high school building rang out. The long, lingering sound carried by the night wind seemed to be urging something.
"I'm not going." He folded the registration form into a paper airplane and threw it out of the window at the end of the corridor. The paper airplane flew through the moonlight, hit the glass, and fell gently.
"Why?" Lu Jinyu's voice was a little surprised. "That's the provincial team."
Xu Yang didn't say anything, but just bent down to pick up the paper airplane where it fell, unfolded it and put it back into the textbook.
He remembered what Teacher Li had said: It’s great to be young, even if you make a mistake you still have a chance to try again.
But some choices are never about right or wrong, but about who you are willing to walk with.
The night wind brought in the fragrance of osmanthus flowers through the window and landed on their school uniforms.
Lu Jinyu suddenly smiled, took out a White Rabbit candy from his schoolbag, peeled off the candy wrapper and handed it over: "That's perfect, you have to protect me during the midterm exam, otherwise my mother will use you as an example to scold me again."
Xu Yang took the candy, the wrapper rustling against his fingertips. "You can only remember it if you do it yourself. It's like doing an experiment. No one else can help you."
The two walked side by side towards the dormitory building, and the street lights made their shadows shorter and longer.
When passing by the sycamore tree in the southeast corner of the playground, Fat Orange suddenly crawled out of the cardboard box, rubbed Lu Jinyu's trouser leg, and there was a dry sycamore leaf on its tail.
"Look, it also thinks what I did is right." Xu Yang stopped and looked at the kittens sleeping in the cardboard box. The moonlight fell on them through the gaps in the leaves, like a layer of broken silver.
Lu Jinyu looked down at Fatty Orange, and suddenly reached out to ruffle Xu Yang's hair, his palms filled with the sweet taste of candy: "Silly Yang."
The lights-out bell rang again in the distance. This time, neither of them spoke. They just walked slowly forward, letting their shadows slowly overlap under the street lights, like a blackboard note written on the ground, unfinished.
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