Chapter 69: The Strange Student Zhao Who Took a Leave of Absence from School.
In just one night, Xia Zhu made her decision.
She woke up in a panic last night and couldn't fall back asleep. The dormitory lights wouldn't be on until six o'clock. She drew back the curtains and opened the window, and in the silvery light, she began to pack her things little by little, putting her summer short-sleeved shirts and the cotton-padded jacket that Feng Ye had given her into her suitcase.
School starts tomorrow, and she plans to talk to her homeroom teacher about taking a leave of absence.
Before everything is over and the truth is revealed, she doesn't intend to remain indifferent at school or go to some university to live the same monotonous life year after year.
But this doesn't mean Xia Zhu will forever remain a high school graduate. She has seriously considered it and still wants to be a human being.
An ordinary person.
They are neither descendants of gods nor high above gods.
She used to immerse herself completely in books, believing that the boundless knowledge would fill the emptiness in her body. She wanted these words to tell her what the world should be like, how infinitely vast and boundless the universe was.
She thought she knew a lot, but when she actually went out, out of the mountain village and out of the school, she found that what she had heard was as thin as paper and could not support the beauty and cruelty of the real world.
Following this step-by-step approach, taking the college entrance examination to enter university, one might be able to complete four years of study with the help of poverty subsidies, and then continue to take this exam and that job exam, summarizing one's more than 20 years of life, including what kind of person one is, into a few short lines of text on a resume, peddling oneself like selling a basket of fresh, big eggs.
Giving everything to wallow in the mire of the city, ending up covered in dust and looking utterly miserable, will only result in moving from a smaller predicament to a larger one.
How lucky and hard-working must she have been to truly change her fate, all on her own? She was an orphan with no one to rely on, a woman who struggled to make ends meet on the yellow earth.
If she simply grows up step by step like this, her inner world will remain pitifully shallow.
So she wanted to go out, at least to get to Feng Feng's side. With each step forward, a small light would slowly illuminate the world before her, a world whose edges were always blurry and dark. She thought that if she made friends in Shushan Town, her world would be as big as the area from her dilapidated house to Shushan Town; if she made friends in Riyue Mountain, her world would be as big as three mountain peaks. What she saw and heard on her journey from "here" to "there" was far more useful than sitting under an oil lamp reading all day.
Traveling thousands of miles is more important than confining yourself to one corner and understanding the world through imagination.
But how lucky she was to step into that completely different world and discover that within the stable and orderly social framework there was a group of unconventional and unconventional people, and there she did not feel lonely.
She was given a chance to choose, which is already much better than what people in her hometown have had. She doesn't want to comment on how others live.
Emerging from the dreams of five different people, she only understood one truth.
Life is only once, so make the most of it and experience it. Whether you study, enjoy yourself, or do nothing, whether you spend a whole day studying a book or just lie on the sofa watching the sun gradually set and the shadows lengthen, it's all good. Experience and feel it, be like a summer candle.
So she won't give up exploring this vast world, but she's also made a promise to the other part of herself: when Xia Zhu matures, she'll find the missing part and become a completely self-reliant, upright person with a strong heart. She'll return to this familiar society, perhaps to retake the college entrance exam, or perhaps to find a job. She believes in lifelong learning, but by then, she might face it with a different mindset.
Once you've made a decision, just do it.
She planned to go to the homeroom teacher's office after the first period.
Ten minutes after class, she collected the winter vacation homework and wiped the blackboard. But when she rushed out of the classroom, she was stopped in the corridor.
"Happy New Year, Xia Zhu."
She looked at the person in front of her, whose nose and mouth were clearly defined, but whom she just couldn't remember no matter what she did. She could only awkwardly reply, "Same to you, same to you." She was anxious. She couldn't go during the break and would have to attend another class. Taking a leave of absence was no small matter, and the process would definitely take several days. But she couldn't wait to go back to Shushan Town.
"Xia Zhu, was the milk tea good this morning? If you like it, I'll bring you more next time."
Milk tea? Xia Zhu looked up again, pushed up her glasses, and felt that this person looked vaguely familiar; perhaps a classmate. She had indeed found a cup of milk tea on her seat when she returned to class this morning. But she only thought about it for a few seconds before being interrupted by the classmate next to her who was asking her a question. If this person hadn't reminded her, the milk tea would probably have remained forgotten on her desk.
"Oh, that's your milk tea." Xia Zhu gave a knowing smile; after a holiday, she had mastered using a smile to cover up any awkwardness. "Wait a minute."
Since there was no time to spare, she went back to the classroom, rummaged through the lockers at the back of the classroom, and then carried a cardboard box back to the corridor.
"These are all yours, aren't they?" She carefully placed the box at the man's feet.
The polite and confident smile on Zhao Bingzhi's face froze. He saw that the cardboard box was full of snacks he had given to Xia Zhu last semester, and of course, the cup of milk tea.
"Don't buy so much next time if you can't finish it." Xia Zhu moved the box closer to him. "It's too wasteful." She said earnestly.
The school bell rang over the loudspeaker, and Xia Zhu clapped her hands and went back to school.
Someone was left standing there dumbfounded, clenching their fists.
After the second period, without any obstruction, Xia Zhu successfully intercepted the homeroom teacher in the office.
To her surprise, after hearing her request to suspend her studies, her homeroom teacher, Ms. Dong, simply pondered for a few seconds with a solemn expression before patting Xia Zhu on the shoulder.
"It's a beautiful spring day, a good time to rest," her teacher told her.
As if to prove her words, the floating clouds were blown away by the spring breeze, the sun shone brightly and shone into the window, birds chirped and flew out of the tree canopy, and the yellow-green new buds were also trying to rustle.
Xia Zhu walked out of the office, sunlight shining at her feet. Looking out into the corridor, birds were singing and grass was growing, everything was full of vitality. It was as if a huge stone had been lifted from her shoulders, and her body felt light and airy.
The teacher is right, the spring scenery is so beautiful.
*
Just as she had guessed, the process of taking a leave of absence would take at least a week, requiring her to submit an application, prepare supporting documents, and then endure a lengthy approval process. Before that, Xia Zhu continued attending classes as usual.
In PE class, she was even appointed as the temporary sports committee member and asked to go to the equipment room to move some things out so she could do some weight training. The equipment room was filled with a strong smell of plastic. Xia Zhu rolled up her sleeves and found the cart containing basketballs and soccer balls that the teacher had asked her to use. She also found a cardboard box and took out some small ball equipment.
Prepare to hold the box with your left hand and push the cart with your right.
"Let me help you." A figure backlit by the sun stood in front of Xia Zhu.
I knew it was that person again without even looking up.
Without any hesitation, she handed him the box she was carrying and pushed it towards him.
"Thank you... um..." She scratched her head, unable to recall the name. "Thank you, classmate." Then, empty-handed, she left the equipment room while doing stretches.
A sneer suddenly came from a dimly lit corner.
"Who?" Zhao Bingzhi jumped in fright, the cardboard box in his hand tilted, and the ping-pong balls and badminton shuttlecocks scattered all over the floor. The equipment room was poorly lit, and he didn't want to check what was making the noise behind those huge stacks of things. He quickly squatted down, packed everything back into the cardboard box, and jogged away with the cart.
After exercising under the scorching sun for an entire class, Xia Zhu was so hungry that her stomach was practically sticking to her back. As soon as the PE teacher blew the whistle, she took off running, swinging her arms and rushing out like a cannonball.
The teacher shook his head regretfully as he watched her disappearing figure.
"What a pity, he was a promising talent."
Although the playground was very close to the cafeteria, by the time Xia Zhu ran over, long queues had already formed at some of the better-tasting food stalls. While she was still debating whether to go to a less crowded spot, two girls ran past her hand in hand, announcing that the cafeteria was serving large meat rice noodles today.
Xia Zhu's eyes lit up, and without further hesitation, she followed behind them and joined the queue at the rice noodle window.
As the cafeteria became more and more crowded, she suddenly remembered that she had eaten here with Feng Feng and Feng Mian before, sitting in the same spot by the window. Back then, the siblings had racked their brains to subtly inquire about her family situation.
Time really flies.
She shook her head. They'd see each other again soon; right now, the most important thing was: big! meat! rice! noodles!
Xia Zhu stared intently at the steam rising from the window with an almost reverent gaze!
After a long wait, it was finally her turn. She took the rice noodles from the aunt with one hand and was about to pull out her school card hanging around her neck to swipe the card.
"drop--"
A hand reached out from behind and preemptively paid at the card reader.
Xia Zhu turned around and saw that it was still Zhao.
She sighed, pushed the rice noodles in her hand into Zhao Bingzhi's arms, and without looking at him, walked to the back of the line to rejoin the queue.
"Are you that hungry?" she muttered under her breath.
Xia Zhu found it strange that she kept running into Zhao Tongxue wherever she went lately, and she had never noticed him before.
Two days later, she took leave and went back to town to get a certificate of leave of absence and collect her quarterly stipend. When she returned to submit her documents to the grade group, she ran into Zhao Bingzhi again.
"Xia Zhu, what a coincidence." His tone of voice always rose lightly, which made Xia Zhu feel a little uncomfortable, but she thought that no matter how unpleasant Zhao's voice was, she shouldn't show it, so she forced a smile that she thought was particularly polite.
Zhao Bingzhi held up two tickets and waved them in front of Xia Zhu.
“My dad has a friend who works in the special collections department of the city museum. They’re currently organizing a batch of newly acquired artifacts that are being shown to the public for the first time—Liangzhu culture artifacts. You seem quite interested in history and mythology, and tickets are hard to get. I happen to have two tickets; would you like to go together this weekend?”
Xia Zhu had only been to a museum once, when her history teacher took the whole class there in her first year of high school. She loved visiting historical relics that spanned thousands of years, so she was very interested in Zhao Bingzhi's suggestion.
I remembered that I had borrowed some relevant materials from the library and put them in my desk, so he probably saw them.
Seeing that Xia Zhu did not immediately refuse, Zhao Bingzhi thought he had a chance, and his face wrinkled up.
"How much?" Xia Zhu asked as she reached into her pocket for change.
"You don't need to pay, just come with me."
She figured Zhao wasn't handsome, his voice wasn't pleasant, and he always did strange things. She guessed he probably didn't have many friends, just like her. So, visiting a museum together wouldn't be a problem.
So she nodded solemnly.
"However, I still have to pay for my own ticket."
Zhao Bingzhi couldn't refuse Xia Zhu, so in order to achieve his goal, he gave her the tickets and received a few bills, some in small print and some in large print. Watching Xia Zhu's departing figure, he crumpled the money, which he rarely used these days, into a ball and stuffed it into his school uniform pocket.
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The author says: Learning goes against our nature, but it can reshape our brains. It may not truly get you out of trouble, but it will certainly benefit you for life.
However, I'm still dominated by laziness. I feel like I have no energy every day. I'm fed up. [Cracks]
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