Day 1 of Summer Camp
On Monday, there was light rain in Huai'an City. In her last English class before leaving, Teacher Mina gave the students some instructions about boarding the bus the next day.
“…Lu Er, hey, Lu Er.” Ruan Xiyan heard the voice calling him from behind, and tilted his head slightly to indicate that he should speak.
Tao Yangnian's soft voice came through, tinged with a hint of coyness: "Um... could you make it a little easier to pursue me? How about lowering it from 100 to 80, or 85?"
Ruan Xiyan raised an eyebrow slightly, just as the bell rang to signal the end of class. Amidst a long string of cheerful ringing, he replied, "Okay."
Before Tao Yangnian could even beam with joy, she saw the person in front of her raise her chin towards a distant figure. She glanced at herself sideways, her laughter carrying a hint of foxy cunning: "If someone is as handsome as Ruan Xiyan, I might consider it."
"...!"
More than twenty students from several tutoring centers signed up for the summer camp. According to the meeting time mentioned in the group chat, the students boarded the bus early Tuesday morning.
Lu Er had only mentioned this matter to her family the night before. Cui Feng complained a little about why she had acted first and informed them later, but soon calmed down after hearing that she wasn't the one who paid for it.
After the black and white cat's stitches were removed, it remained at Ruan Xiyan's house for the time being because Lu Er was currently too busy to take care of it.
Lu Er packed a small bag of luggage. After getting on the bus, she looked around and saw that the bus seemed to be full. Only in the double seat closest to the driver was a girl occupying the seat next to her with her bag.
As Lu Er lowered his eyes to ask a question, he suddenly felt his arm being tugged. Turning around, he saw Ruan Xiyan wearing a baseball cap and headphones around his neck. He said, "There's someone next to me."
Lu Er followed him to the back, to the second-to-last row of two seats. Ruan Xiyan casually stuffed Lu Er's bag onto her head.
"What are you playing?" Lu Er sat down inside and saw Ruan Xiyan's phone screen.
“Oh, this is a WeChat mini-program game,” Ruan Xiyan smiled. “It’s called Happy Little Chef.”
Lu Er asked curiously, "Is it related to cooking?"
“…Indeed.” Ruan Xiyan rubbed the bridge of his nose, his baseball cap pressing down on his black hair, with some ends drooping down from the edge. “A little game where a raccoon is cooking in the kitchen.”
Lu Er didn't say anything. The bus started moving, and Teacher Mina said the journey would take more than two hours, so everyone could take a nap on the bus. Hearing this, Lu Er felt relieved and gradually closed her eyes.
There were all sorts of noises coming from the bus. The closest ones were a group of boys playing video games, with kill sounds and angry laughter filling the air. They probably knew Ruan Xiyan and had played a few rounds with him before inviting him to join them. Ruan Xiyan ignored them, and someone peeked at his screen and exclaimed in surprise, "Ruan Xiyan, aren't you childish? Playing this kind of game."
“…Because it’s fun.” Ruan Xiyan pushed his head away. “Be quiet, you guys are hurting my eyes.”
Lu Er rested her head against the window, her consciousness hazy, and the noise around her seemed to gradually fade away.
-
Besides the students from Mina's tutoring center, the summer camp participants also included students from other tutoring institutions, totaling about two hundred people gathered on the playground.
After a headcount, the two hundred students were randomly divided into five classes: A, B, C, D, and E. Each class had two foreign teachers, consisting of one tutor and one foreign teacher. Class B consisted mostly of students from Teacher Mina's class, including Lu Er and Ruan Xiyan. After the assignments were completed, Teacher Mina created a group chat and posted the dormitory list, instructing everyone to return to their dormitories to drop off their luggage.
The summer camp is located in the junior high school section of an international school in the central urban area of Qingdao. The students are mainly of mixed Chinese and foreign descent, and occasionally there are joint activities with international students from the School of Foreign Languages at Qingdao University. The students are not academically strong, so the tuition is naturally not cheap. The dormitories are newly renovated, bright and spacious, and are four-person rooms with bunk beds and desks, each with a private bathroom and air conditioning. The facilities are complete, and the student care is excellent.
"The accommodations for 1200 students are even better than those at Qingdao University," one student exclaimed. "This trip was definitely worth it!"
Lu Er was assigned to room 206. When she entered the dormitory, the other three students were already there. There were two students from Class A, one from Class C, and one from Class B. One of the students from Class A was very outgoing and hadn't stopped talking since she arrived in the dormitory. She joked, "I heard that everyone next door is a homozygous, either four A's or four B's. We're AABC, a mixed bunch."
The students in Class C picked up on her joke: "It feels like we put together a multiple-choice answer key. Other dorms probably didn't even have as high a correct answer as us. What kind of test paper is designed like this for 4A and 4B students?"
They chatted and laughed for a while, quickly becoming friends. Compared to them, Lu Er was more reserved and quiet. After greeting a few girls and adding them on WeChat, she didn't participate in the conversation much further.
Lu Er didn't have much luggage, and after tidying up for a while, she sat down at the table to memorize vocabulary. Another girl from Class A rushed into the bathroom to shower as soon as she got back to the dorm, seemingly drenched in sweat from the journey. After everyone finished unpacking, she came out, wrapped a towel tightly around her hair, and was about to climb into bed when she saw Lu Er. She was immediately stunned: "Lu Er?"
Lu Er turned to look at the girl, whose eyes swept over her: "It really is you, what a coincidence. Do you remember me? We were in the same class in junior high, my name is Li Xianjing."
With a vague recollection, Lu Er nodded, his expression as detached as his words: "What a coincidence."
The girls from Class A and Class C looked at the two of them and said, "You two know each other? That's great, we're in the same dorm again."
"Yes, it's quite unexpected, because I transferred schools in my third year of junior high." Li Xianjing seemed interested in Lu Er, walked over, and saw the screen where Lu Er was memorizing vocabulary. "You're still the same as before, you little bookworm."
“She was a top student in our class before, always ranking first in the class.” Li Xianjing smiled at the two girls and said, “She could get more than 100 points in English, maybe 115, back then the full score for English was 120.”
Lu Er remained noncommittal and made no response to these words. She was always a woman of few words, especially with people she didn't know well.
Li Xianjing stared at her for a while, then suddenly asked, seemingly unintentionally, "Are you very familiar with that boy named Ruan Xiyan?"
"..." Lu Er raised her eyelids and heard her say, "I saw him greet you in the car, and you were sitting together. Are you two acquaintances or friends?"
Although he didn't know if Li Xianjing had ulterior motives, Lu Er still answered calmly, "Not really close."
"You must have his WeChat, right?" Li Xianjing persisted, "I saw him in my friend's art class a long time ago, and I just wanted to get to know him. If you have his WeChat, please send it to me."
Lu Er felt a small thorn lodged in her eyebrow, and she couldn't help but furrow her brow. She shifted her gaze back to the screen: "We're not close. It wouldn't be good to just give him your WeChat. If you really want to get to know him, you can go to Class B and ask him for it." With that, she put on her headphones.
Lu Er's attitude remained stubbornly entrenched, and Li Xianjing, seeing that she couldn't persuade her, had no choice but to give up.
The word "sensitive" was still playing in Lu Er's headphones. She was still listening, but her mind couldn't help but drift off for a few seconds.
This was one reason why she didn't want to have too much contact with people like Ruan Xiyan. If there's one Li Xianjing, there will be a second, and a third.
Lu Er simply didn't want to be disturbed.
-
After the opening ceremony in the afternoon, the students returned to their respective classrooms one after another. Each class had a single desk, and on their first day at school, everyone was noisy, whispering and quite restless.
The other foreign teacher in Class B was a blond, blue-eyed British man named Ono. His Chinese wasn't as fluent as his English, and the students at the front of the class who talked to him were amused and couldn't stop laughing.
After Ms. Mina entered, the classroom quieted down a bit. Ms. Mina asked everyone to take out their phones and gave them an instruction: "Students, search for the app 'Star Hook English' in your app stores and download it."
"After you register your accounts, join the class number I sent you. There is a requirement for our summer camp activities: each of you must be assigned an English partner and complete the daily tasks and check-in requirements posted on the app during the ten-day summer camp. Those who do well will receive a reward on the last day."
On the last day, everyone should create a personalized English test for their English partner. There's no limit to the number of questions or the content, but it should ideally be meaningful to both of them.
The whole class looked at Ms. Mina, who continued, "To ensure fairness, the assignment of English partners will be decided by drawing lots among the forty students in the class. The results will be announced in the group chat."
Ten minutes later, Teacher Mina sent a form in the WeChat group. Lu Er clicked on it and found that her English partner was a boy named Yan Songqi. After looking at the form, Yan Songqi immediately added her on WeChat: "Hello, I'm Yan Songqi, your English partner."
"Hello." Lu Er accepted the friend request.
A message came through the other end: "Hey, I thought you were a boy. Your name sounds like it."
Not knowing what to say, Lu Er sent a shrug emoji to brush it off.
At the same time, Ruan Xiyan also saw his partner in the group. Listed alphabetically by first letter, he noticed Lu Er first. Oh, not him, Yan Songqi… he didn't know him.
Ruan Xiyan's English-speaking partner was a talkative girl named Xu Ting. After adding her on WeChat, Xu Ting started digging into Ruan Xiyan's profile picture and online name.
【Xu Xu Ting Lan】: Your username is really strange, it doesn't sound like a sheep, it doesn't sound like a person.
【Slow Momo】:?
【Xu Xu Ting Lan】: I guess this is the name of your pet. Judging from your profile picture, you probably don't keep rabbits at home, right?
【Slow Momo】: Guessed half right
【Xu Xu Tinglan】: What? Is that your nickname?
【Slow Momo】: ...
[Slow Momo]: My family has a dog.
【Xu Xutinglan】: Oh
While the two chatted, Teacher Mina spoke up again on stage: "Everyone has found their partners, right? Next, we'll be dividing everyone into English groups. As usual, we'll draw lots to decide who gets assigned, with five, six, seven, eight, and nine people in each group. The results will be announced in the group chat."
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