5 Chapter Four
◎Yu Miaomiao, I challenge you to a duel!◎
The next day, when Yu Jinyang arrived at the classroom, out of fear of her fists, he decided to give her another chance to redeem herself. As long as she arrived at the classroom early and took out the trash before the morning reading session, he didn't plan to tell the teacher this time.
"I won't go, I won't go! I'll definitely get scolded by the teacher if I go. I forgot to do my cleaning duty yesterday." Li Yingqiao buried her head under the covers and pleaded with her elderly mother in a muffled voice, "Mom, I have heatstroke! Please let me stay home and rest for a day. School is too tiring! A class is forty-five minutes long, and you can't even move. How can that be possible? I like running the shop, I like selling things, I want to stay home and run the shop! Most importantly, I love Mom! I don't want to be separated from you."
Li Shuli pretended not to hear the last two sentences. This was her usual tactic; she would say anything, no matter how cheesy, as long as she could avoid going to school. Li Shuli put breakfast on her bedside table and decided not to pressure her anymore. "How about this, we'll switch days today. You stay home and watch the shop, and Mom will go to school for you."
Li Yingqiao immediately pulled her head out of the blanket: "Yay!"
Li Shuli nodded: "Then you should eat your breakfast first. When Grandma Tanggao next door opens the door, remember to help her pull down the roller shutter."
"Okay! No problem!"
"Go to the market at eight o'clock to buy a fish, I want to eat it," Li Shuli said. "You have to make lunch before my get out of class ends, okay?"
Li Yingqiao's face fell again. "Huh? I can't cook."
Li Shuli said with a forced smile, "So you have to go to school."
Li Yingqiao immediately pulled the blanket over her head: "They don't teach cooking at school."
Ms. Li Shuli leaned against the door frame, crossed her arms, thought for a moment, and said, "How about I transfer you to New Oriental to learn to be a chef? See what kind of cuisine you are interested in, Chinese or Western? I'll make you a little chef's hat to wear to class, we can't let you lose at the starting line."
"..."
No sooner had the words been spoken than the roller shutter door was slapped loudly, causing the sheet metal to rattle and vibrate. Then, a voice came from the doorway: "Li Shuli, there's a registered letter for you."
Li Yingqiao jumped up from the bed. "Is that Daddy?!"
Li Shuli turned around, and the morning sun cast her slender figure like a pale blue ink stain on the mottled wall. She looked back at her daughter, who was curled up in a ball under the covers on the bed, and emphasized again, "I told you, you don't have a father."
Li Yingqiao: "Don't try to fool me. The uncles and aunts in Xiaohua City all say that Dad is in jail. He's a murderer, right?"
"..."
"No!" Li Shuli walked over and lifted the person off the bed. "I said no, so I mean no. Don't try to be unreasonable! Go to class first. If the teacher scolds you, just bear with it. If you can't stand it, go back and beat up that little rascal. If that rascal dares to say anything, Mom will beat him up."
"Huh?" Li Yingqiao felt that this seemed a bit excessive.
Li Shuli pinched her cheek, picked up her clothes from the side and put them on her, then said, "Don't listen to other people's nonsense. Your father is not a murderer. Your father is a very good person."
Li Yingqiao obediently put on her clothes: "Really? Then why have you always been unwilling to tell me about Dad?"
Li Shuli: "It's not that I'm unwilling, it's just that I don't understand him and don't know how to tell you."
Li Yingqiao asked blankly, "How come I exist if I don't know anything about this? Yu Miaomiao said that his parents love each other so much that they even have to report to each other how many times they go to the toilet in a day."
Li Shuli: "...Come on, you actually believe that? The way he acted at the beginning of the holiday, even your Aunt Tang Xiang was annoyed with him to death."
"No, Uncle Yu is quite handsome, but he's not very bright," she said, then picked up an egg from the breakfast plate, tapped it on her head, quickly peeled it, stuffed it into her mouth, and loudly announced, "Mom, I'm going to school!"
**
As soon as Li Yingqiao entered the classroom, she challenged Yu Jinyang with the thought that "he'll definitely run to the teacher's office like a lapdog to tattle on her." As soon as she walked in, she slammed her schoolbag on the desk and said, "Yu Miaomiao, I want to duel with you."
Yu Jinyang, who had just come back from taking out the trash for her and hadn't even had a chance to sit down properly, was speechless.
Gao Dian turned around as soon as he smelled the gunpowder: "A duel is good! You two haven't dueled in a long time! How about it, what's the stake? After school, I'll call Zheng Miaojia and have her grandpa blow the horn."
Li Yingqiao hurriedly said, "No! Her grandfather has been having stomach problems lately. You should call Miaojia and the other brothers and sisters of the Zi generation, and let them all be witnesses." She looked at Yu Jinyang and said with a sidelong glance, "Yu Miaomiao, today it's either you die or I live."
Gao Dian was incredibly perceptive; he immediately understood and looked at Yu Jinyang with a hint of pity: "Either way, you're the one who dies."
Starting last night, Yu Jinyang decided to let Li Yingqiao, his dramatic deskmate, do as she pleased. He put on his headphones and decided that from this moment on, he would not say a word to her and would quietly wait for the teacher to change his seat.
Li Yingqiao noticed that he had an MP3 player, and it was a foreign brand. Headphones were no longer just a cool accessory for him. She started to feel envious and immediately softened her attitude, "Meow meow, can I listen to it?"
Her Chinese teacher had just said that those who can recognize tens digits are outstanding, but she could still recognize MP3s.
Yu Jinyang ignored her and continued reciting the text, writing poems from memory with a "swish swish swish" sound on his pen.
Li Yingqiao, shameless as ever, persistently called out to him, "Meow~"
Just as Yu Jinyang was about to speak, the homeroom teacher came in through the back door and knocked on Li Yingqiao's desk, saying, "Come to the office for a moment."
Li Yingqiao knew it must be him, so she glared at Yu Jinyang again, then obediently stood up and went out with the teacher.
The new homeroom teacher, surnamed Liang, was a female teacher. She was pretty and spoke softly, with two dimples when she smiled. However, she was fierce when she scolded people, a stark contrast to her usual gentle demeanor. At this moment, she asked in a nonchalant tone, "Li Yingqiao, I heard your mother can drive a truck?"
Li Yingqiao was slightly taken aback, not expecting that this was the question. She hadn't asked about her duty yesterday. She nodded hurriedly and said, "Yes, my mother used to transport goods in other places, and she drove her own big truck."
“Then your mother should have a C…” Liang Mei paused here, afraid that she wouldn’t understand, and was about to change her words.
"A C1 driver's license, right? My mom has one—"
Liang Mei was temporarily transferred from the city to Xiaohuacheng, a remote suburban primary school. She was feeling frustrated and didn't like the child's "cleverness." The child was clueless about academics but overly clever and impulsive in other matters. So she interrupted without hesitation and said, "The school knows your family is struggling financially. We'd like to ask if your mother would be willing to help the school cafeteria transport refrigerated trucks for two days. The previous driver is on leave. It will only take about a week, and the payment will be on a daily basis."
Li Yingqiao wanted to say that her family was not in financial difficulty, and that her mother would definitely help even without money, but she was afraid that the teacher would think she was causing trouble, so she nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go back and tell my mother."
Liang Mei then took out the Chinese language test paper she had just graded yesterday, spread it on the table, and pointed to the dense checkmarks and crosses on it, wanting to give her a good talking-to. Her tone was inevitably a bit stern: "It's a pity that you have such good handwriting, but you haven't memorized a single poem, and your idioms are all jumbled up. You're in fourth grade now, Li Yingqiao, and you'll be going to junior high in two years. Are you still planning to continue like this? I know that the kids in Xiaohua City all have parents who received compensation for their land expropriation, and their families are all well-off, but you're different from them, aren't you?"
"..."
“Your mother works so hard, and I heard that the grocery store you're staying at is also your uncle's house. What if he doesn't let you stay there? Where would you and your mother go? And yet you still don't study properly. You rush home like a monkey as soon as the school bell rings. I deliberately didn't change your seats so that you and your deskmate could study together. Yu Jinyang's father owns so many factories, but he doesn't slack off in his studies, and he manages all the class affairs very well. Go back and think about it. Your teacher is doing this for your own good.”
Just as Li Yingqiao turned to leave, Liang Mei slapped the table again, "Take the test paper away."
The other teachers in the office watched Li Yingqiao walk away, then whispered to Liang Mei, "Teacher Liang, don't worry about her. Be careful she doesn't go back and tell her mother. Her mother is mentally ill; the hospital has a certificate saying it's bipolar disorder. She's the kind who hits people when she has an episode. Teacher Xu was beaten by her mother before. Besides, Li Yingqiao's father is still in jail. I know you mean well, but she's hopeless; she's exactly like her mother."
"Her mother is a big tank, and she is a small tank," the other person added.
Liang Mei's temper flared up again. She slammed the remaining test papers on the desk with a "bang," causing the desk to shake and spill half a glass of cold water. The test paper by Yu Jinyang on the back was soaked.
She quickly pulled it out, shook it to remove the water stains that hadn't yet seeped into the paper, not caring if any water splashed on anyone's face, and said as she shook it off, "Don't talk nonsense. Bipolar disorder and mental illness are not the same thing. Li Yingqiao is only a few years old, how can you tell she's beyond help? To be honest, although I don't particularly like this girl, I'm sure she'll do well in the future. I know you mean well, but you should focus more on preparing your lessons."
The other person pursed their lips, smiled awkwardly, and pushed the chair back, thinking to themselves: No wonder you were seconded here. With your emotional intelligence, how could the teachers in the city tolerate you?
Li Yingqiao didn't say a word to Yu Jinyang for a whole week, nor did she pay attention to whether he was wearing headphones or had an MP3 player plugged in. The only exception was when he wasn't around, she would retrieve the exam papers he had finished last week and place them on his desk without saying a word.
When she got home, she was munching on snacks with her cheeks bulging, and shouted as usual, "Mom, I'm home!"
As usual, she loudly announced to her mother before leaving the house, "Mom, I'm going to school!"
Before leaving, he didn't forget to roll up the shutter of Grandma Chunzhen's sugar cake shop next door, and then slowly made his way towards the school, swaying from side to side.
He was still humming a popular song from that year—
"The crows are singing."
The sparrows chirped.
No one is more noble than anyone else.
The river flowed, shimmering.
Ask me where my little boat is going.
My little boat longs to see the moon.
...
Rivers are the backbone of forests.
No one was more panicked than anyone else.
Falsehood, falsehood.
This is how the world is—
Even a single slap makes a loud noise.
Of course, she added the last sentence herself.
After adding it, she nodded vigorously with great satisfaction: Li Yingqiao, a genius! Go be a singer!
[Author's Note]
The lyrics are made up, please forgive me.
Qiaoqiao's Chinese is indeed terrible right now, but she's so smart, so don't worry.
Happy reading.
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