Chapter 2
After the final exam, I had classes for ten consecutive days before the school finally let me go on vacation. Because Taoxi Bay is far away from the county’s No. 1 Middle School, Taoxi usually lives in the school and goes home once a month.
He put his study materials and clothes into a large snakeskin bag and took the county bus, which ran twice a day, back to Taoxi Bay.
Taoxi Bay is the farthest village in Qingshui County. It has beautiful scenery but poor land. Tea trees and green flags are reflected among the mountain terraces. When the spring rain comes, hundreds of peach trees on the banks of the Qingshui River in the valley are a dazzling sight, and fallen flowers are floating on the stream.
But most of the local villagers do not have the leisure to enjoy the scenery and flowers. In recent years, the Internet has attracted some idle people who come here to sketch and take photos. Several wealthy farmers have opened farmhouses. With the improvement of county roads, more and more guests are coming here.
Tao Xi's home is on the hillside next to the Qingshui River, in a low brick house with white walls and gray roof. His mother Guo Ping and father Tao Jian are both native villagers of Taoxi Bay. Tao Jian works outside the province all year round, and Guo Ping occasionally does odd jobs in the village's farmhouses and tea factories during the slack season. His younger sister Tao Le is thirteen years old this year and just had her summer vacation in the first grade of junior high school.
Tao Le had sharp ears. When he heard the noise in the main room, he ran out quickly to greet Tao Xi. He was so excited that he almost tripped over the fertilizer bag on the ground.
As soon as Tao Xi saw Tao Le coming out, she grabbed her arm and hurriedly took her into the room.
"Don't come out. The sun is too strong today." He put down his luggage, closed the wooden door, turned around and looked down at Tao Le's face carefully.
The little girl was a little chubby. She was wearing a tight long-sleeved shirt and long pants. She had a shiny natural curly hairstyle and a pair of lively almond-shaped eyes. However, there was a large butterfly-shaped red spot on her face, which spread from the bridge of her nose to the left side of her cheek.
Tao Le suffers from lupus erythematosus and has been taking medication to maintain his health.
"Brother, I heard from my classmates that you are the first in the county this time! You will go to Wenhua City to study when school starts!" Tao Le had a holiday early and helped Guo Ping with farm work at home. He looked forward to Tao Xi's return every day.
The news spread quickly, and I guess Guo Ping also knew about it, so I didn't have to tell her.
Tao Xi nodded, but his face did not have the excitement he had when he first found out. If it weren't for Tao Le, he wouldn't want to return to this home at all.
After sunset, the brother and sister put the tea leaves that were drying in the Taoist temple into their pockets. Later, Guo Ping came back from the tea factory after work, and Tao Xi was cooking in the kitchen.
She picked up the enamel cup on the chopping board and took a few sips of cold tea, then walked into the kitchen. When she was young, Guo Ping was well-known in Taoxi Bay for her hot temper. After ten or twenty years of wasted time and years of hard work, her skin became dark, yellow, dry and wrinkled, her once beautiful almond eyes had become dim and droopy, and her personality had become taciturn.
Guo Ping looked at her son in front of her. He was born with fair skin. He had grown up in the countryside for many years and had done a lot of farm work, but his skin was still as fair and clean as those art students who came to Taoxi Bay from the city to paint and sketch.
"I heard from Sister Zhang's son that you are going to Wenhua City to study next year?" Guo Ping sat on the stool next to the stove facing the fire, her tone unfamiliar, not like Tao Xi's mother.
Tao Xi held the spatula and didn't look at Guo Ping. He didn't like the way Guo Ping looked at him, which always reminded him of his ridiculous fate behind this look.
"Wenhua No. 1 Middle School will provide me with living expenses, 1,500 yuan per month. I will keep 800 yuan for Lele's medical treatment and medicine." Tao Xi said with his eyes downcast, his tone flat.
Guo Ping was silent and used the tongs to pick up a piece of wood and put it into the stove.
Tao Xi's irritability suddenly surged up like a stove fire with more firewood. What he hated most was Guo Ping's seemingly tolerant and forgiving silence, which made him unable to help but say something unpleasant.
"Don't worry, I won't go looking for your son and ruin his life. Wenhua City is so big, where can I find him even if I want to?"
"That's not what I meant." Guo Ping said.
That's what you mean.
Tao Xi sneered silently, but ultimately said nothing more.
Tao Xi was not idle during the only 30-day summer vacation. In addition to some farm work, he set aside a fixed time every day to review what the teacher of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School had taught before, and also helped Tao Le with her homework. The little girl was somewhat excluded in school and could not concentrate on her studies.
Whenever he had the chance, he would serve as a nude model for art students, charging them 100 yuan each time. Because he had a sweet mouth and good looks, the art students would sometimes give him some extra tips.
He would also serve as a model for some photographers, but the fees would be much higher, because these photographers liked to pry into his family situation, under the pretext of recording different lives. Tao Xi knew what they were thinking, and catered to their wishes by making up some tragic stories, such as his father was dead or his mother was gone.
Occasionally I would paint with art students, who generously lent their brushes and paints.
"Wow, little brother, have you really never learned to paint? How come your paintings are better than the ones we have learned?" Several girls from the art academy were originally painting landscapes, but now they all gathered around Tao Xi to look at his paintings.
Tao Xi paused with the paintbrush in his hand. He didn't really want them to see it because he was painting Lin Qinhe.
In the painting, a young man in a white shirt is leaning sideways and reading a book. Outside the window, branches are full of peach blossoms, casting a bright moon.
He no longer knew how many pictures of Lin Qinhe he had drawn. He had a sketchbook, and every picture in it was of Lin Qinhe, sitting or standing, reading or writing. In fact, the real Lin Qinhe he could see was very limited, and these paintings were all the moon he imagined.
"So handsome, who is this guy?" the girls asked in amazement.
Tao Xi smiled and said a few perfunctory words. After finishing the painting, he thanked them and ran away with the painting.
In fact, he loved painting since he was a child, and he was born to be better at painting than others. But one time, when Guo Ping saw his paintings, she went crazy and stuffed all the paintings into the stove and burned them. He was scared that time and dared to paint only secretly afterwards.
Later he finally understood why Guo Ping lost her composure like that.
The summer vacation passed quickly. Tao Xi kept most of the more than 2,000 yuan he earned for Tao Le to buy medicine, leaving only 500 yuan as extra expenses for going to Wenhua No. 1 Middle School.
At the end of August, Tao Xi packed her luggage and prepared to leave. Tao Le insisted on seeing him off, but he rubbed his sister's natural curls and flatly refused.
Without saying a word to Guo Ping, Tao Xi took his luggage and boarded the bus to the county's No. 1 Middle School. Several school leaders and many teachers came to see him off.
The teachers surrounded Tao Xi and gave him encouragement and advice like an old mother, as if they were sending a child to the battlefield, telling him not to put too much pressure on himself, that it was normal for him not to be able to keep up, and that he should adjust his mentality and get along well with his teachers and classmates.
The Chinese teacher was an old man who had always liked Tao Xi. He stuffed a bag of homemade sesame candy into Tao Xi's arms and encouraged her: "Child, you are very good, no worse than the students of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School. You should be neither humble nor overbearing, and be more confident!"
Tao Xi held the candy, nodded and said thank you. He has always liked eating candy, but even if there was any at home, he would give it to Tao Le. He knew that the old man's words of being neither humble nor arrogant were actually telling him not to feel inferior.
But in fact, he has never experienced inferiority in his life. Even when he saw Lin Qinhe, he was crazy about getting close to him, standing beside him, and becoming a person as good as him, instead of feeling inferior to him.
Feng Yuan, who had been silent, suddenly said, "Don't fight if you have a conflict with your classmates. There may not be anyone to protect you there."
Tao Xi suddenly opened her eyes wide and looked at Feng Yuan.
You should know that he never fought in Qingshui No. 1 Middle School and was always a good student, at least in front of the teachers.
Feng Yuan coughed and whispered, "Don't worry about your sister. She will be transferred to Teacher Ding's class soon, and no one will dare to bully her in the future." His wife Ding Fang is a Chinese teacher and class teacher at the county junior high school.
Tao Xi looked at Feng Yuan in silence for a while, then suddenly bowed very solemnly to all the teachers present and said thank you.
"I will definitely be the first student in Qingshui County to be admitted to a key university."
This time he was not perfunctory.
The teachers sent Tao Xi to the school gate. Feng Yuan took Tao Xi with him, carrying large and small bags. They took a bus for half a day to the nearest prefecture-level city. They ate two buckets of instant noodles at the train station and waited until midnight before getting on the high-speed train. After sitting all night, they finally arrived in Wenhua City at noon the next day.
Tao Xi had never been on such a long journey before, and Feng Yuan seldom went out either. The two were confused for a while at the high-speed rail station, and didn't quite understand the bus and subway routes. In the end, Feng Yuan gritted his teeth and took a taxi to Wenhua No. 1 Middle School. Tao Xi wanted to pay the taxi fare, but Feng Yuan refused with a stern face.
The moment Tao Xi got off the car and saw the gate of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School, he felt like he was dreaming and his legs went weak.
The two people, one big and one small, standing at the school gate with their bags looked quite out of place and desolate. Feng Yuan was stunned for a long time before he took out his cell phone and made a call. Tao Xi looked up greedily at the gate of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School.
The tall building has simple lines and the seven big characters "Wenhua No. 1 Middle School" are engraved on the white marble. Looking past the automatic metal gate, there is a wide asphalt road with green leaves on both sides and the sound of cicadas rising and falling, shading the deep red building at the end.
Tao Xi sighed inwardly, this is much more impressive than the rickety rusty iron gate of Qingshui No. 1 Middle School.
Soon a short and fat middle-aged male teacher walked quickly on the road. Tao Xi had seen this teacher on the screen for nearly a year. He was Zhou Qiang, the head teacher and math teacher of Class 1. He saw with his own eyes that the man's hairline was receding step by step.
It felt quite strange that the person on the screen suddenly became alive. Tao Xi narrowed her eyes, and when Zhou Qiang came up to her, she raised the corners of her mouth to reveal a shy and obedient smile.
"Report! The number one student from Qingshui County is here in our class! He's five hundred meters away from the classroom!"
Early in the morning on the first day of school, a boy rushed from the corridor into the last classroom on the third floor of the teaching building of Wenhua No. 1 Middle School. All the students in the classroom who were working on their homework looked up instantly.
"Xiao Feizi, male or female?"
"A man!" The boy who reported the news was called Bi Chengfei. He flew back to his desk in an instant and continued copying his English homework.
The boys immediately expressed their disappointment. Their class was already dominated by boys and lacked girls, and they had been fantasizing about having a beautiful and innocent farm girl.
"Is he handsome?" asked Jin Jing, the English class representative who was urging students to hand in their English homework, while she impartially took out the English homework book from Bi Chengfei's pen who was writing furiously.
"Wait! There's only one blank left!" Bi Chengfei wrote down an option and finally breathed a sigh of relief and said, "I didn't see it clearly, but she seemed quite thin and fair."
Jin Jing glanced at the empty seat behind Bi Chengfei and sighed.
Bi Chengfei knew who she was thinking of, and said in a sour tone: "Even if he is handsome, so what? Can he be more handsome than Lin Xueshen?"
Jin Jing rolled her eyes at him and said, "As long as I'm more handsome than you, that's enough."
Tao Xi, who was imagined to be a farm girl, was wearing a new school uniform that had been washed last night and luckily dried in the morning, and was following Zhou Qiang to the classroom.
Yesterday, after Feng Yuan sent him to the dormitory and settled him in, he rushed back without stopping.
Because school had not started yet, roommates had not come yet, and Tao Xi slept alone in a four-person room all night. Early in the morning, Zhou Qiang attentively took her to the cafeteria for a free and hearty breakfast.
Along the way, Zhou Qiang patiently introduced the school and class situation, and from time to time he encouraged us with words like "Don't be nervous", "Relax", and "You can do it".
Tao Xi has always been a person who speaks differently to different people. In the beginning, he was very cooperative in responding, but later he could hardly hold on.
He was not used to other people being too attentive to him, and finally understood why Zhou Qiang's nickname was Aunt Zhou.
When passing by the lobby on the first floor of the teaching building, Aunt Zhou, oh no, Zhou Qiang also pulled Tao Xi to stand in front of the tall glass curtain wall to admire the honor list.
"Look, there are many students from our class here. They will all be your classmates in the future." Zhou Qiang looked up and down at the photos and names of his students with great pride. Under each photo, there was an aphorism such as "If you study without thinking, you will be confused; if you think without studying, you will be in danger."
Tao Xi saw Lin Qinhe's photo at a glance. First, he appeared most frequently, and second, he was the most handsome. However, there was only a name under the photo, without any sentences.
Seeing Tao Xi staring at the photo in a daze, Zhou Qiang secretly said that it was not good, thinking that this student from the mountains felt inferior when seeing the outstanding classmates. He turned around and led everyone upstairs, saying kindly: "The students in this class are all lively, enthusiastic, modest and cheerful. You will definitely fit in well!"
This is the third time that Tao Xi has listened to Zhou Qiang's lively and enthusiastic speech.
Tao Xi smiled and said for the third time: "I will get along well with my classmates."
Well, he was a little nervous at first, but after Zhou Qiang's behavior, he lost all his emotions.
Even when I walked to the classroom door, I felt a sense of relief.
The sound of English recitation during morning self-study could be heard from a classroom. The moment Zhou Qiang and Tao Xi walked in, the sound stopped as if it was a cassette tape.
Tao Xi instantly felt all eyes directed at him. He didn't have the energy to figure out what they meant, so he gritted his teeth and quickly glanced at the audience amid the dense attention.
No.
Tao Xi suppressed the doubts and disappointment in her heart, and after Zhou Qiang's passionate opening remarks, she was asked to introduce herself to the whole class.
"Hello everyone, my name is Tao Xi, I am from Qingshui County No. 1 Middle School, and I am very happy to study at Wenhua No. 1 Middle School."
In fact, he had thought about his self-introduction over and over again on the way, but now he suddenly lost the mood.
Zhou Qiang was stunned. Is that the end?
It's nothing. Kids nowadays like to act cool. Or maybe they are too nervous. Zhou Qiang considerately found an excuse for Tao Xi. He pointed to the last row of the classroom and said kindly, "The last seat in the fifth row is yours. It was packed yesterday."
The whole class turned around and looked at the last row. There were two empty seats next to each other. One of them was added yesterday, and the other one...
Tao Xi nodded, and just as she was about to step down from the podium, a tall figure suddenly walked into the classroom door.
He subconsciously turned his head to look over there, and was instantly nailed to the spot.
"Lin Qinhe, why are you late on the first day of school!" Zhou Qiang said to the boy who walked in the door with great sorrow, as if he was looking at his unfilial son who had gone astray.
The rebellious son was carrying a black schoolbag on his back, with one hand casually hooked on the bag strap, and the other holding a bottle of ice mineral water. There was no expression on his stern face, and he said indifferently: "I had a car accident on the road."
Tao Xi sneered inwardly, but his facial expression did not change. He looked at Lin Qinhe silently.
No matter how clear the live broadcast screen is, distortion is inevitable. After seeing the real person, I found that my painting still has many flaws and is not half as beautiful as the real person.
Zhou Qiang's expression froze, and he obviously believed the lies. He scanned Lin Qinhe from top to bottom, left to right, and after confirming that he was fine, he smiled ingratiatingly, pulled Tao Xi and said to Lin Qinhe in the tone of a supermarket salesperson selling new products:
"I'm glad you're okay! But you just missed the new classmate's self-introduction. Come, let me introduce you to this classmate. His name is Tao Xi, and he's the top student in Qingshui County! Do you think he can be your deskmate in the future?"
Zhou Qiang asked for opinions, but in fact he had already put the desk next to Lin Qinhe without consulting him first. He was confident that Lin Qinhe would not refuse such a small matter.
"No." Lin Qinhe glanced at Tao Xi, his voice emotionless.
The whole class suddenly fell silent.
The smile on Tao Xi's lips also froze.
The author has something to say:
Decided to post a few more chapters
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