AOI 17

Although Qiushi’s first day of transferring schools had been harshly battered by reality, leaving him resentful toward his teacher and most of his classmates, it hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm for learning itself.

From Heilongjiang to Beijing, the people around him constantly made Qiushi feel angry and confused. There was his biological father, Qiu Jiawang, and what he’d done; Li Yandong’s inexplicable hostility toward Zhou Yingying; Cao Yunfeng’s daily roaring, morning and evening; the senseless provocations from the “Great King” and “Second King” in class.

Compared to all of that, Qiushi felt that 1+1=2 was the most predictable thing in the world. Especially since the day Xu Minghai had painted that grand picture of a beautiful future, Qiushi had imbued “studying” with an even more radiant glow, and from then on embarked on the great journey of “looking toward money.”

He went straight home after school every day, did his homework seriously after dinner, and never gave his mother any worry. Meanwhile, because Xu Minghai was facing the pressure of advancing to sixth grade, he too was imprisoned in his room every night by Li Yandong to read and do practice problems—a state of utter misery and despair.

As the saying goes: one person’s red is just a single spot; everyone’s red makes a whole patch. For a time, the courtyard at night actually took on a scholarly atmosphere of daytime tilling and evening studying, and anyone who saw it had to admit it wasn’t easy.

Qiushi generally finished his homework and then previewed the next day’s lessons according to the class schedule. If he came across something he didn’t understand, he’d ask Zhou Yingying. But some questions—especially abstract things like classical poetry and literary Chinese—Zhou Yingying couldn’t explain all that clearly either.

Qiushi ran through everyone in the courtyard in his mind, eliminating them one by one, and finally decided to take his textbook to Uncle Jiu. He knocked and went in, finding Uncle Jiu wearing a pair of round glasses and reading a thick book with a cover full of pinyin.

“Hello, Uncle Jiu,” Qiushi said obediently, sitting on the hard wooden chair.

“Little Guozi, you’re here?” Uncle Jiu smiled warmly as he put down the book, then raised the very topic Qiushi didn’t want to discuss: “How’s school been lately? Got into any more fights?”

Qiushi had only told Uncle Jiu this secret—to everyone else he’d said he’d tripped and accidentally busted his lip. Feeling guilty, Qiushi glanced outside and said quietly: “No more fighting. The teacher said fighting is wrong, and if it goes on, it becomes a crime. When there’s a conflict, you have to go to an adult—you can’t solve it yourself.”

“Dream on. Adults aren’t going to be by your side your whole life,” Uncle Jiu said, getting up to pour him a warm glass of water mixed with pear syrup, smiling. “As long as you’re alive, some battles you have to fight on your own. Like when you stood up to those ‘Great King’ and ‘Second King.’ Counting on teachers, counting on Xiaohai, counting on your parents—none of that beats counting on yourself.”

After saying this, Uncle Jiu looked at Qiushi through his reading glasses: “So what did you come to see me about?”

Qiushi held a mouthful of pear-scented sweetness in his mouth, pondering Uncle Jiu’s words. When asked, he quickly swallowed the syrupy water, took out his Chinese textbook, and asked Uncle Jiu to explain the meaning of “You see that leaf-like boat, bobbing in the wind and waves.”

Uncle Jiu drew on various references and explained it clearly, expanding to include two other ancient poems: “Their fingers never touch mud, yet they live in lofty mansions” and “Those draped in silk and satin are not the silkworm raisers.”

After listening, Qiushi felt that Uncle Jiu’s explanations were far more interesting than Cao Yunfeng’s. Satisfied, he closed his textbook and picked up the book Uncle Jiu had set on the table. Flipping it open, he found it was full of pinyin, long and short.

Qiushi: “What are you reading?”

“It’s like the comic books you kids read—no different.”

“Why is it all pinyin?”

“It’s not pinyin—it’s Western script,” Uncle Jiu replied with a smile. “A foreign language.”

Qiushi’s heart stirred, and he asked bluntly: “If I learned a foreign language, could I make money someday?”

Uncle Jiu couldn’t help but laugh heartily. “Guozi’s a smart one—perhaps you could. If Xiaohai had asked, I wouldn’t even bother answering him. But then again, Xiaohai would never think to ask that. Haha.”

“How about you teach me foreign language too?” Qiushi offered himself up like flour, urgently needing more water to knead into the big pie Xu Minghai had drawn for him.

From then on, Qiushi began “extra lessons” every evening. In addition to Chinese texts and arithmetic, there appeared pronunciation, intonation, words, and sentences unlike the familiar bo, po, mo, fo.

Qiushi studied quite diligently—especially when he discovered that he and Uncle Jiu could use this as a secret code in front of Xu Minghai, exchanging meanings that others couldn’t understand. That gave him a small sense of pride.

The days passed one after another, and before they knew it, it was the season of warm spring and blooming flowers.

Beijing sits in North China with four distinct seasons, but spring and autumn always slip by in the blink of an eye, never lingering long enough for a proper look. So every year around this time, in order to catch the rabbit’s short tail, the school would organize a spring outing.

Primary school kids had zero resistance to the words “spring outing.” Though the required several-hundred-word travelogue afterward inevitably forced them into agonizing mental gymnastics, the process of preparing snacks in advance and the joy of playing and picnicking with classmates on the day itself was more than enough to offset that pain.

Since the spring outings for first and second graders were organized separately, and sixth graders were deprived of the right to go out due to the pressure of the middle school entrance exam, only grades three, four, and five went on the trip together.

Once the date for the spring outing was set, Xu Minghai became unusually excited. He kept telling Qiushi how big and fun Taoranting Park was, how thrilling the Big Snow Mountain slide was, and Qiushi himself began to feel antsy.

Since coming to Beijing, he hadn’t really been out to play much. Chen Lei had pulled some strings and found Zhou Yingying a job as a warehouse keeper after the new year—though the pay wasn’t high, it was a formal position. So working six days a week was unavoidable. That left only Sundays as a day off. Qiushi felt for his mother and never pestered her to take him out.

Wednesday morning, Xu Minghai and Qiushi headed to school with bulging backpacks. The contents were priceless—all sorts of snacks bought from the state-run grocery store at the street corner: Yili fruit bread wrapped in wax paper, chocolate wafers, ham sausages, hawthorn rolls, and more.

Each of them went to their own classroom, waited for the teacher to take roll, then headed to the playground to board the big public bus the school had rented. The convoy rolled out in grand procession and arrived at Taoranting Park on the South Second Ring Road.

The students got off the bus at the east gate, lined up by class, waited for the teachers to buy tickets together, then entered the park. Qiushi walked at the tail end of the line, craning his neck to look for Xu Minghai, but after a long search, came up empty.

Once through the gate, they were on the park’s wide asphalt main road. Cao Yunfeng led the way, delivering patriotic education as they walked, telling them about the significant activities various leaders had conducted at Taoranting around the time of the May Fourth Movement.

The park was radiant with spring light, the breeze soft and warm, the air perfumed with sweet floral scents. Birdsong trilled in delicate, melodious notes, filling the ears.

Qiushi walked along with the group and saw a very wide expanse of water gradually open up on the left—green and serene, with small boats occasionally cutting across the lake’s surface, leaving long trailing wakes.

Just then, a few boys suddenly darted out from some class’s line. They ran to the shore and started heckling a young couple sitting in one of the boats. The boys scraped their fingers down their cheeks and chanted in unison, laughing: “They’re dating! Give ’em a big shout! Oh-ho! Oh-ho!”

The young woman in the pink floral dress immediately hung her head. The man hurriedly grabbed the oars, trying to paddle away. But the more he rushed, the more he failed—the boat spun aimlessly on the lake, his face flushing red with embarrassment. Passing tourists and onlookers all enjoyed the free spectacle.

Then a teacher rushed over, grabbed the little hellions by the scruffs of their necks, and ordered them back in line. They looked downcast on the surface, but couldn’t hide the excitement in their faces.

Everyone laughed and giggled as they continued on.

The next stop was the willow-shaded pavilion in the middle of the lake. As they were about to turn left at the intersection, someone up ahead shouted: “Xu Minghai’s on the Big Snow Mountain!”

The words hit like boiling water poured into a hot oil pan—an explosion. A swarm of boys immediately bolted toward the amusement area, and Qiushi’s class was no exception, caught up in the rush.

Faced with a scene that had instantly spun out of control, the teachers were dumbfounded. They shouted hoarsely, desperately: “The spring outing doesn’t include climbing the Snow Mountain! Come back! Come back now!”

When shouting alone proved useless, they split up to intercept the kids left and right, like exhausted sheepdogs fretting over their flock. But still they couldn’t stop the children from charging toward that distant, snow-mountain-shaped white slide.

By the time Qiushi had run close enough with the crowd, he looked up and spotted Xu Minghai’s tall, lean figure. Though he was wearing the same standard three-stripe synthetic fibre tracksuit as everyone else, on him it looked particularly dashing and spirited.

Xu Minghai was standing at the very top of Beijing’s tallest and most famous Big Snow Mountain, waving to the growing crowd of Chunfeng Number Two Primary students gathered at the “foot” of the mountain.

“Xu Minghai!”

Zhang Chun, the homeroom teacher of Class 3, Year 5—normally a pleasant-faced woman—had now lost her composure. She looked up, hands on her hips, and howled: “I’m counting down from three—you get down here!”

“On it!” Xu Minghai immediately sat down on the slide.

“I didn’t say slide down!” Zhang Chun raged. “Walk down the steps at the back—properly!”

“Huh? What?” Xu Minghai cupped his hand to his ear, playing disabled. “What did you say?”

“I SAID WALK DOWN THE BACK STEPS!!!” Zhang Chun began the countdown. “Three!”

Xu Minghai slowly stood up.

“Two!”

He turned toward the steps.

“One!”

At that very moment, Xu Minghai put on a performance of truly atrocious acting. He deliberately stumbled, shouting “Whoa, whoa!” as he tumbled back onto the top of the Snow Mountain. Then he pushed off hard with his front foot, and a dark blue blur came hurtling down the ten-metre slide at breakneck speed