AOI 13

After the Waking of Insects, Qiushi was about to face one of life’s big events: starting school.

His student registration, tied to Zhou Yingying’s household registration, was transferred back to Beijing from Heilongjiang. After all sorts of complicated procedures and many twists and turns, the paperwork was finally sorted. The school was Chunfeng Number Two Primary, just two streets away—the very school Xu Minghai attended. All the neighbourhood kids were assigned there by catchment area, every last one of them.

The day Zhou Yingying took Qiushi to Number Two Primary to handle the transfer, Xu Minghai sneaked over to the administrative office door during recess and stuck his head in. When he learned that the school had placed Qiushi in Class 3, Year 1, he finally let out the breath he’d been holding.

“As long as it’s not Class 5,” Xu Minghai said. As a veteran of the school, he knew all the ins and outs, both the official rules and the unspoken ones, as well as all the shady characters.

Qiushi, being new, pressed him for the reason.

“Ah, you don’t know. Class 5 has these two troublemakers who are always picking fights—super annoying.” After explaining, Xu Minghai added, “Worst of all is their homeroom teacher. She’s always acting like she’s just swallowed gunpowder and has it in for everyone.”

“Xiaohai,” Zhou Yingying said, sorting through some books while not forgetting to correct him, “don’t talk about teachers like that.”

“But it’s true.” Xu Minghai took the initiative to help Zhou Yingying carry things. “Auntie, you don’t know. Cao Yunfeng is famous among the teachers at our school—you can’t reason with her, you can’t bribe her, she never cracks a smile. Students get chewed out the moment they open their mouths. Getting made to stand in the corridor or run laps is getting off easy. Her specialty is ear-twisting—one twist and your ear feels like it’s about to fall off, swollen for days. To put it this way: compared to her, my mum’s basically a gentle, refined lady.”

Qiushi couldn’t help but shudder.

“But Teacher Sun from Class 1 is great. At last year’s assembly, she led her whole class in singing ‘Tomorrow Will Be Better.'” Xu Minghai turned to reassure Qiushi. “And besides, you’ve got me at school! Don’t worry!”

Qiushi felt like a man adrift in a boundless ocean who’d spotted a great ship flying a flag marked “Xu.” His unsettled heart immediately steadied.

Finally, the first day of school arrived. Zhou Yingying walked Qiushi to the school gate early in the morning, gave him a few words of advice, and then handed him over to Xu Minghai’s care.

Through the red gate, Xu Minghai led him straight towards a grey building further in. Along the way, boys kept running up to greet Xu Minghai.

“Hey, Master Hai, what’s up?”

“Master Hai, who’s this next to you? Looks like a little wife.”

“You’re the little wife! Mind your own business!” Xu Minghai’s expression was profoundly serious.

And so, under Xu Minghai’s escort, Qiushi arrived at the door of Class 1.

“I’ve got to head upstairs. Year 5, Class 2, on the fourth floor.” Xu Minghai handed Qiushi his little satchel. “I’ll come find you during first recess. And at lunch, don’t move—just wait right here for me, and we’ll go home to eat. Also…”

Xu Minghai made a point of telling him: “If anyone in class gives you the stink eye, hold your temper. I’ll deal with them later.”

Qiushi nodded, then watched Xu Minghai’s back disappear down the corridor.

The bell finally rang, and the students filed in noisily, chattering away. Qiushi took a deep breath, called out “Report” at the door, then walked into the classroom with his satchel on his back and said to the person standing at the podium: “Good morning, Teacher.”

“Hello,” the woman said, looking confused. “You are?”

Qiushi felt a sudden wave of intense unease, just like the first time he’d heard Zhou Yingying say they were going back to Beijing. After he gave his name, the teacher seemed to remember something. “Oh, right! You’re the transfer student, aren’t you?”

Qiushi nodded.

“The admin office made an adjustment—you need to report to Class 5.”

The effect was like America dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Everything Xu Minghai had said exploded in Qiushi’s ears.

“Can’t reason with her.”

“Can’t bribe her.”

“All sarcasm and snide remarks.”

“Chews out anyone she lays eyes on.”

Teacher Sun must have noticed Qiushi’s helplessness by then, because she stepped down from the podium, took his cold little hand, and said: “Come on, I’ll take you.”

And so Qiushi was led along, his legs feeling like lead, following Teacher Sun out the door, turning right, and heading towards Class 5.

Later, whenever he had nightmares, no matter what they were about, the setting was always a long corridor. And at the end of that corridor always stood a figure—from a distance she looked like Mei Chaofeng, up close she was Cao Yunfeng.

The door to Class 5 was open. Teacher Sun stood at the entrance and said to the woman inside: “Teacher Cao, this is your student—the transfer from Heilongjiang.”

Qiushi swallowed reflexively.

“Mm,” a voice that was neither high nor low quavered out of the woman’s nose. “Got it.”

“Have a good class.” Teacher Sun gave a brief instruction and then turned and left.

Qiushi watched Teacher Sun’s back depart with reluctant eyes, then mustered his courage and took a look at the legendary Cao Yunfeng. The teacher before him was in her forties or fifties, with black-rimmed glasses and a neat, immaculate pageboy haircut so glossy and smooth that if a fly landed on it, it might slip and throw its back out. Qiushi felt a wave of tension, standing there unsure of what to do next.

A long moment passed.

“Come in,” Cao Yunfeng said without even looking up. “First, introduce yourself to your classmates.”

Qiushi walked in, moving his arms and legs stiffly, and stood at the edge of the podium. Facing a sea of unfamiliar faces, he couldn’t find anywhere to rest his gaze. Finally, he fixed his eyes on the colourful blackboard bulletin at the back, with its chalk message “Learn from Lei Feng, Cultivate New Values,” and began his introduction.

But before he could get more than a few words out, a rustle of whispers rose from below.

“What’s that accent?”

“Country bumpkin accent,” someone laughed in reply.

Qiushi stopped talking immediately, his lips pressed tightly together, his teeth clenched hard inside his mouth. Those laughs felt like a thick wall, instantly dividing him from his new classmates into two separate worlds. Qiushi wanted nothing more than to bolt right then and there, run all the way up to the fourth floor, find Year 5, Class 2, find Xu Minghai, and just sit next to him in class.

“Done?” Cao Yunfeng looked up at him.

Qiushi pressed his chin low and nodded.

She pointed: “Go sit over there.”

Qiushi looked up and followed her finger to the very back of the two middle rows, where there was still an empty seat. He walked over silently.

He’d barely sat down when someone from the admin office arrived at the classroom door. Cao Yunfeng put down what she was holding and stepped out to talk.

Qiushi’s deskmate was a plump, robust little boy. Qiushi could feel the boy’s gaze roaming excitedly over his face and body. Finally, the boy opened his mouth and announced loudly: “Country bumpkin comes to town…”

“…wearing corduroy!” Many of the classmates shouted back the second half in unison.

Immediately, a dense chorus of laughter, high and low, erupted from all sides. For some children, ganging up to dissect and magnify a stranger’s discomfort in an unfamiliar environment was perhaps the cheapest pleasure on earth.

Qiushi’s heart tightened sharply, his cheeks burning hot.

“Hey,” a boy in the first row turned around and called out, “Wu Zheng, I suspect this newbie’s a girl in disguise. Go check if he’s got a dick!”

Wu Zheng perked up immediately. Mimicking the fat translator from Zhang Ga, the Soldier Boy, he squinted, leered, and reached his arm out to grab between Qiushi’s legs.

Qiushi frowned, immediately caught Wu Zheng’s hand, and shoved him away with a sudden burst of force. Wu Zheng hadn’t expected the new kid to fight back and nearly toppled off his chair.

That got the rest of the boys who loved watching trouble stirred up, and they all stood up, egging Wu Zheng on.

“Hit him! Go!”

“Pull his pants down!”

Fortunately, Cao Yunfeng walked back in at that moment. Seeing the commotion, she picked up the wooden side of the blackboard eraser and rapped it hard against the board, making a harsh, grating sound.

“Class is in session! You’ve got so much to say now, but when I ask you to raise your hands and speak up, you all go mute?” She flipped open her Chinese textbook noisily. “Pop quiz on reciting the text. Starting with you.” She pointed at a bespectacled kid in the front row. “Last class’s assignment—recite the second paragraph of Lesson Five, ‘Song of the Sea.'”

The bespectacled boy, who’d been laughing and enjoying the show just a moment ago, froze. His mouth, missing a front tooth, let out a whistle of air as he gaped.

“Can’t do it? Then stand.” Cao Yunfeng said crisply. “Next, Zhou Miao.”

The kid next to the glasses immediately closed his textbook, scratched his head, and stared at the ceiling: “We boarded… boarded…”

“Stand. Next.”

One by one, the students who couldn’t recite the text stood up in a zigzag pattern. After the chubby boy also got to his feet, looking sheepish, it was finally Qiushi’s turn.

“You don’t have to recite. Open your textbook to page 14 and read it aloud,” Cao Yunfeng said with a sideways glance, her tone cool. “Any characters you don’t know have pinyin next to them.”

Qiushi stood up, holding his Chinese textbook, his eyes on the text but his head full of his classmates’ mocking laughter. He struggled to open his mouth, but no sound came out.

“Stand.”

Cao Yunfeng continued moving towards the back of the classroom, muttering under her breath: “The admin office will take in any old rubbish these days. At this rate, what’s going to happen to our advancement rates?”

The words stung Qiushi’s heart like a great big hornet.

“Wang Yan.” Cao Yunfeng signalled for the student behind her to stand up.

Just then, a “country bumpkin accent” suddenly rang out in the classroom. Soft, with a fine, lingering tremor.

Everyone looked over. There stood the dark blue corduroy jacket, its stand-up collar like two little palms lifting Qiushi’s pointed chin. His two pupils were like thick ink dots in his face, grave and earnest. And his Chinese textbook lay properly closed on the desk.

“We boarded a light blue ocean liner. The engine started, the liner swayed with the waves, sailing quietly in the harbour. The captain invited us up to the bridge to look out…”