The dragging of heavy wooden desks and chairs produced ear-piercing screeches on the terrazzo floor as the entire class underwent a great migration.
Lu Yang really wanted to tie Xin Hexue up and migrate to Mars together.
That way, no other human could be Xin Hexue’s deskmate except him.
No, what if there are aliens on Mars?
Underground?
But he heard there are subterranean people.
You can’t escape even by hiding 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Lu Yang was very disappointed with this world.
Sun Wuhao was absent in the morning, but he came for the seat change in the afternoon.
“Classmate Lu Yang, I will help you study properly.” Sun Wuhao, who ranked second in the class for the midterm, said seriously. He was wearing the newly prescribed glasses from this morning. “The teacher said we should have good students help weaker students. Xin Hexue asked me before too, so I will definitely supervise you and not let you copy classmates’ homework.”
“Me, copy my classmates’ homework?” Lu Yang said in shocked anger. “If it’s not Xin Hexue’s homework, I won’t copy it.”
He’d rather not do it and not hand it in.
Don’t underestimate the proud backbone of the Lu family.
Lu Yang stared persistently at the pair at the third row in front, practically staring holes into Xin Hexue’s back. Unfortunately, his number one best friend in the world didn’t turn back to give him a glance.
That Lin Oufei next to him said something, and Xin Hexue smiled at him! And he smiled so beautifully!
That despicable bastard, what shameless joke did he tell?!
Lu Yang elbowed his new deskmate. “Hey, what do you think of this transfer student?”
Sun Wuhao clutched his seriously injured arm. “Transfer student? Oh, I heard he transferred from the provincial capital experimental school. Rumor has it he ranked first in his grade at his old school and was in some rocket class… That’s the provincial capital, he sounds very impressive.”
The affiliated elementary school only had regular classes. Lu Yang had never heard of any rocket class. He asked, “Can it send him to Mars?”
Sending this newcomer to Mars was simpler than him and Xin Hexue going to Mars together.
He had endured humiliation and hardship to get the lowest score on purpose! What did it mean for this Lin guy to come and take the ready-made spot?
Compared to Lu Yang, Sun Wuhao had heavier worries.
“Sigh, if I fall out of the top three in the class for the final exam, my mom will nag me endlessly when I get back.”
Perhaps the gaze from behind was too intense, Lin Oufei turned around and found Lu Yang sitting in the sixth row among the group of students
Lin Oufei lowered his eyes slightly, leaned towards Xin Hexue, and put an arm around the back of the chair. From behind, it looked as if he was embracing him.
He glanced at Lu Yang, the corners of his lips curling into a mocking arc.
Only he could put his arm around Xin Hexue’s shoulder!
He was Xin Hexue’s sworn brother who worshipped Guan Gong together during New Year!
Lu Yang was furious beyond measure, his teeth practically grinding to dust.
“I have biscuits, do you want some?”
Sun Wuhao, who was unaware of Lu Yang’s abnormality, shared kindly.
“Xin Hexue gave them to me.”
Lu Yang’s neck turned with a creak, his eyes blazing with flames.
“What. Did. You. Say?”
Xin Hexue noticed Lin Oufei’s movement from the corner of his eyes and asked curiously, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Lin Oufei withdrew his hand, his expression calm. “My eraser seems to have fallen into the aisle on your side.”
……
Even though he checked the weather forecast last night, which said Lingzhou City would be sunny today, by the last class in the afternoon, the sky outside was overcast with dark clouds, the cloud edges fuzzy.
Right at dismissal time, autumn rain began to fall.
The cool wind blew the rain under the eaves, leaving no place for the lingering summer heat of the autumn tiger to hide, sweeping it away completely.
The wind blew the rain sideways. Several students in the class were waiting for the rain to stop or for their parents to pick them up.
However, Xin Hexue always made sure to keep a water bottle on each side of his backpack and a folding umbrella. In contrast, Lin Oufei stood expressionlessly, staring at the rain curtain without moving forward.
“Do you need to borrow an umbrella?”
Xin Hexue opened his own umbrella. It was a black umbrella with a white cat pattern. Zhuang Ping had bought it during a trip to the mall.
He added, “We’re on the same way.”
“No need.” Lin Oufei refused. “My mom will pick me up after work on rainy days.”
“Oh…” Xin Hexue nodded. He thought about the power plant’s off-duty time, and added, “But that way you’ll have to wait at least half an hour.”
He shoved the umbrella handle into Lin Oufei’s hand and smiled. “I’ll lend you the umbrella.”
When Xin Hexue wasn’t smiling, the corners of his lips neither curved up nor down, their color pink and moist. But when he smiled, his eyes turned glossy black, and his lips bloomed into a smile like spring cherry blossoms in full bloom.
Lin Oufei stared at his face for two seconds, his grip on the umbrella handle tightening. “Aren’t you leaving?”
Holding the umbrella, Lin Oufei added: “…Since we’re on the same way anyway.”
Xin Hexue blinked, and a big smile spread like fireworks as he waved towards the corridor behind Lin Oufei. “Lu Yang!”
He ran to Lu Yang, who had just come out from being kept after school. “Did the teacher scold you again?”
“Not this time.” Lu Yang also found it strange. He opened his umbrella while speaking, “The homeroom teacher actually told me to write an application to join the Young Pioneers tonight and take the oath at the flag-raising ceremony next Monday.”
“It’s raining today, so I don’t have training. Teach me how to write the application.”
The large blue-checkered umbrella was like a giant mushroom from a fairy tale, with enough space for three people.
Lin Oufei watched them walk home under the umbrella, talking and laughing.
He lowered his gaze and stared at the dark puddle under the eaves.
[He seems to glow when he smiles.]
[…]
Lin Oufei lifted his foot and stepped into the puddle, shattering his own gloomy reflection in the water mirror.
……
The umbrella dripped with rainwater. Mother Lin tilted the black umbrella against the white wall outside the door, which was decorated with small ceramic tiles. Half the wall tiles had colorful, speckled patterns.
“Honestly, how did your shoes get completely wet?” Mother Lin had just returned home. Looking at the shoes in the entryway, she sighed. “Didn’t I tell you to do your homework in the classroom if you didn’t have an umbrella on rainy days and wait for me to pick you up?”
“I used a classmate’s umbrella to come back.”
The bedroom door was open, and Lin Oufei’s cold response came from inside.
“There was standing water on the road.”
Mother Lin breathed a sigh of relief. “As long as you didn’t get wet. Have you showered?”
Lin Oufei: “Mm.”
Not long after, Mother Lin brought a plate of fruit into the room. “Dinner isn’t ready yet. These are crisp pears sent by a friend of mine. Try them, have something to tide you over.”
The peeled crisp pears were cut into segments, and the yellow flesh looked crisp and without residue.
“After dinner, share some with the neighbors. You take it over.” Mother Lin remembered the neighbors who moved in on the same day. “Is the child next door in your class? I went to the school at noon and specially asked your homeroom teacher to put you together to help you adapt faster.”
Lin Oufei’s hand holding a building block paused. “Mm.”
Mother Lin was surprised to find that her son wasn’t sitting at his desk as usual today, but was playing with building blocks on a mat on the floor.
“Have you finished all your homework? What about those extra practice problems? Xiaofei, you’ve just changed your learning environment. Even though the classmates here aren’t as outstanding as those in the provincial capital, it doesn’t mean you have to be like them. You’ve always been a child I didn’t have to worry about since you were little…”
Small plastic building blocks were scattered on the mat, with the packaging box and instructions placed to the side. The colorful cardboard box had a picture of a blue tower, a drawbridge, and a knight on horseback, with a yellow logo in the corner.
The structure built from the blocks was already taking shape.
His fingers gripping the plastic pieces were so tight they left grain-sized indentations on his skin.
Lin Oufei attached the tiny flag to the top of the castle tower.
His mother’s words echoed in his ears like background noise, and he looked at the castle with slight satisfaction.
The princess’s home.
Mother Lin: “Are you even listening to me?”
“Mm.”
Lin Oufei gathered the unused building blocks from the floor.
“Mom found you a new tutor in Lingzhou City. They actually only start learning English in third grade here? That’s too late. The class content is too basic. Mom hired someone who studied abroad. They’ll come to our home for lessons on weekends.”
Mother Lin glanced at the basketball behind the door, her finely arched eyebrows slightly furrowed.
“Since you’ve changed schools, don’t join the basketball team anymore, okay? It delays your studies, and it’s easy to get injured…”
Lin Oufei placed the castle on the bookshelf and closed the outer glass door. “Understood.”
“Mom.” He turned his head. “This building block set was a gift from Dad.”
Only foreign goods stores in the provincial capital sold such building block sets.
Mother Lin: “I see…”
She picked up the packaging box. The expensive price tag was stuck on the back…three hundred yuan, equivalent to several months of her salary.
Only from the number could she measure her husband’s love for her and their child.
“Xiaofei, Dad definitely loves you. You need to strive harder.” She said, “Mom’s family background can’t compare to your older brother’s maternal family. Only by working hard yourself can you catch up to your brother.”
The desk lamp turned on, and the bedroom door was gently closed.
Lin Oufei put down his pen, let out a breath, and glanced at the cleaned umbrella leaning against the wall.
The little white cat on the umbrella surface looked at him, its tail curved.
……
Lin Oufei had seen this little white cat much earlier, on his biological father’s redwood desk. He didn’t know who his father was on the phone with, but Xin Hexue’s photo and information appeared there.
From the phone call he overheard, something about household registration issues was mentioned.
Was this his father’s other family outside their home?
Lin Oufei compared birthdays and suspected this might be his younger brother.
But he felt Xin Hexue didn’t look like his father at all; perhaps he took after his mother more.
Otherwise, why would his father bother with another child’s affairs?
Lin Oufei had no affection for brothers, even less for this one.
……
Saturday, 9:45 AM.
The English lesson reached a break, and the tutor said, “Okay, let’s take a fifteen-minute break.”
It had rained in the morning but had stopped now.
Lin Oufei opened the window still marked with rain traces and fresh air flowed in, dispelling the stuffiness inside.
Laughter and chatter came from below the tube-shaped apartment building.
The Mid-Autumn Festival had passed; it was now the season for osmanthus flowers. There were several osmanthus trees behind the building. While not exaggerated enough to be “fragrant for ten miles,” when the flowers were in full bloom, the neighborhood was immersed in their fragrance.
Lin Oufei saw the princess standing under the osmanthus tree.
Xin Hexue tugged at Zhuang Tongguang’s sleeve and directed, “Big Brother, shake it hard.”
Pale yellow, golden osmanthus flowers then fluttered down.
Like golden, fragrant rain.
Xin Hexue had spread a bamboo mat on the ground to catch the osmanthus flowers.
The osmanthus rain showered over his head and body.
He seemed to notice Lin Oufei standing at the window and looked up. The small pale yellow flowers slid off his soft black hair as he waved at him in greeting.
Like a little angel.
Lin Oufei subconsciously raised his hand too, halfway, then withdrew it.
He closed the window.
“Huh?”
Xin Hexue found this neighbor rather strange.
Zhuang Tongguang picked out small twigs and leaves, cupped his hands, and gathered the osmanthus into a winnowing basket. He glanced at his brother. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Xin Hexue shook his head. “Big Brother, let me help you.”
……
When the weather was sunny, they could dry the osmanthus flowers and collect them in a tin can for making tea.
There would be plenty left to make osmanthus rice cakes.
Xin Zhiying was skilled at this. Taking advantage of her day off, she made pastries with the two children.
…..
“Knock knock.”
A knock came at the vintage green wooden door.
Lin Oufei opened the door.
Xin Hexue was holding a plate of osmanthus cakes. “My aunt asked me to bring these rice cakes.”
As a return gift for the crisp pears.
Lin Oufei accepted it somewhat stiffly.
Mother Lin put down the mop. The floor covering was now shiny with water. She wiped her hands and came out from the living room. “Xiaofei, who is it?”
“Xiaoxue?” Mother Lin’s eyes lit up. “These are the rice cakes made by Sister Xin, right? You’re really too polite. Thank you, thank you. Come in quickly. Auntie happened to make butterfly pastries.”
So Xin Hexue stayed for afternoon tea.
The house was tidied extremely clean and spotless. The balcony at the back was tended with flowers and plants, with red pots of various sizes blooming in a riot of colors.
A round sandalwood table was covered with a finely crocheted white tablecloth. Auntie Lin picked out four white porcelain cups with embossed floral patterns from the full glass cabinet.
The cup in front of Xin Hexue had an iris climbing along the rim. Dark brown liquid poured from the spout of the coffee pot, swirling into a small hot vortex in the cup and making the blue of the iris seem to tremble slightly.
She added sugarcubes and fresh cream in turn, then held a pale pink shell-shaped spoon, stirred it a few times against the cup wall, and pushed it towards the little guest.
Xin Hexue lifted his eyelashes, feeling a bit restrained from the elaborate process. “Thank you.”
The table was set with golden butterfly pastries and cookies, plus some candies Xin Hexue didn’t recognize.
He carefully took a sip of the dark brown liquid in the cup. “So bitter.”
It was so bitter his eyelashes were about to fall off.
Mother Lin was amused by him and laughed. “It’s supposed to be bitter.”
“Auntie, what is this?” Xin Hexue asked.
Mother Lin; “This is called coffee.”
Xin Hexue remembered; it was mentioned in books, but no one around him drank it.
“Since you’re here, why not listen to the lesson with Xiaofei this afternoon?”
Mother Lin suggested.
Xin Hexue was eating a butterfly pastry to counter the bitterness; it was crispy and sweet. Hearing this, he looked up in a daze, just in time to meet Lin Oufei’s eyes.
Why was he staring like that?
Did he have sugar crumbs on his mouth?
While Xin Hexue was wiping away the possible sugar crumbs, Lin Oufei looked away.
He agreed to stay at Mother Lin’s request, but the lessons Lin Oufei took were completely incomprehensible to Xin Hexue.
He had only started learning English this semester, while Lin Oufei’s tutor taught entirely in English. Apparently Lin Oufei had been learning English since kindergarten.
After the lesson, his head was full of jumbled words.
Mother Lin said he could come over every weekend to listen to the lessons with Lin Oufei but he shook his head.
Lin Oufei spoke up: “He is too verbose. I can teach you.”
He swallowed, his throat less dry, and said to Xin Hexue, “We can start from the basics, alphabet phonetics.”
The affiliated elementary and middle schools had a flaw: the elementary school teachers didn’t teach the phonetic alphabet. When they got to middle school, the teachers said, “You must have learned it in elementary school,” and so they didn’t teach it either, leaving students struggling with pronunciation.
Moreover, the English teacher for Xin Hexue’s class was from Northeast China.
When she speaks English, her Northeastern accent is as thick as sweet and sour pork.
Xin Hexue had brought a plate of osmanthus rice cakes; when he left, he took a plate of butterfly pastries and a set of English picture books.
Lin Oufei stared at him. “…See you tomorrow.”
“Wait.” Xin Hexue stopped him. “Lin Oufei, you haven’t returned my umbrella yet.”
“Oh.”
Lin Oufei went back to his bedroom to get the umbrella and handed it to Xin Hexue.
“This isn’t my umbrella.”
Xin Hexue wrinkled his nose in distress, looking at the brand-new umbrella in his hand.
He gestured to describe it to Lin Oufei. “My umbrella is black with a white cat printed on it.”
“The ribs broke. It was very windy that day.” Lin Oufei explained. “The umbrella broke. I’m giving you a new one as compensation.”
Xin Hexue pursed his lips, a bit unsure what to do. The new umbrella was also very pretty, but it looked more expensive than his old one, so he handed it back. “It’s still not necessary. Please return the broken umbrella to me. I’ll ask my uncle to see if someone can fix it.”
Lin Oufei: “It was broken, of course I threw it away.”
[Of course I won’t return it to you.]
The other party’s inner voice and spoken words overlapped.
Xin Hexue’s eyes showed a bit of confusion.
