(1)
“Brother Luqiao, several more Japanese died last night. Were they your people? Tell them to hold back a bit. Our intelligence work is getting hard to do, and for such shitty pay.” A young man yawned, pouring a mouthful of cheap tea into his mouth before spitting out a few black tea leaves with a *pui*.
“Those people with no professional ethics are not my kind,” Luqiao Jingye replied solemnly. “They like to use methods like kidnapping and threats that hurt the innocent. They simply—”
“Don’t you Japanese like doing that?”
“A mission is a mission. As long as the mission doesn’t specify a target, no one should be harmed. Completing it exactly as required is basic professional ethics.” Luqiao Jingye picked up a can of Sanlu Milk Powder. “Is there no bag for this?”
“Just carry it.”
“Walking around with poisonous items will get me reported.”
“It won’t. It’s just a can of shitty milk powder. Who the hell is bored enough to report you?”
“The people of this land are truly strange.”
“You just get used to it. Hey, when are you going to finish the mission?”
“It will take some time. One must have patience; that is basic professionalism.”
“Well, if you’ve got nothing to do, teach me Japanese. I can’t stay in this godforsaken place for another day. The boss docked my pay again yesterday. I need to get the hell out of here — damn it, if he really pushes me, I’ll report him. At worst, I’ll go to jail with him! Anyway, it’s just some worthless intel. They won’t lock me up for long.”
“Every country has its good and bad,” Luqiao Jingye frowned. “Everywhere will have parts you dislike.”
“Che, if that were true, why are so many people immigrating and refusing to come back? Brother Luqiao, teach me. It’ll make it easier for me to get intel for you later, hehe.”
“Do you know English?”
“No, I just want to learn Japanese.”
“Learn English. That is the more common international language. It allows you to survive in more places.”
“I’m not learning that bird language.”
Luqiao Jingye shook his head and looked at the pile of old books on the broken wooden shelf behind him. Among them was a set of yellowed, old Little Red Books.
“Can I borrow those books to read?”
“Which ones? These? What’s so good about these old rags?”
“I won’t know if they’re good until I’ve read them.”
“They’re just decorations anyway. Take them if you want.”
“Alright.” Luqiao Jingye nodded. He watched the young man pull the set of books from the shelf and shove them toward him carelessly without even dusting them off.
“Brother Luqiao, teach me Japanese.” He began pestering him again.
“I will teach you after I finish these.”
“Holy crap, can you actually read those? We don’t even like looking at them. They’re obscure and hard as hell to understand.”
“Are they hard?” Luqiao Jingye opened the first page. After reading the first sentence, he couldn’t help but continue. “No… I find it quite easy to understand.”
“That’s a first. A Japanese person reading this stuff…”
“Thank you. These books are very good. I will return them when I’m done.”
“Whatever. The boss doesn’t care which books are missing from the shelf anyway.” The youth scratched his head and shouted at Luqiao Jingye as he turned to leave. “Brother Luqiao, remember to teach me Japanese when you’re done!”
“Okay,” Luqiao Jingye answered without looking up, his eyes fixed on the open Little Red Book. He walked straight into the door frame but showed no reaction. He simply used his head to push open the slightly ajar wooden door and continued walking out.
‘Departing from actual investigation leads to idealistic class estimations and idealistic work guidance, and then, the results…’
(2)
Tuesday afternoon. The bell for the end of lunch break had just rung, but there were still 10 minutes before the first class of the afternoon. Many people were still slumped over their desks, not getting up immediately.
Lately, the teachers hadn’t been following the schedule. It seemed they were busy with many things, so changes happened frequently.
“What’s the first class this afternoon?” An Jing pulled a math book out of her desk. “We already had three math classes in a row this morning. It won’t be math again, will it? Although it’s supposed to be math class…”
“Maybe they still won’t follow the schedule this afternoon…” Wang Xinru said softly.
Sun Wei, who was Wang Xinru’s desk mate and not far from An Jing, pressed his face against his desk and called out to her. “Hey, An Jing, I heard it’s because a lot of teachers were pulled away to write questions. Questions for the High School Entrance Exam.”
“Doesn’t that mean the questions could be leaked?”
“It can’t be that simple. Probably a lot of people write them and then they pick a few.” Sun Wei spun his Chinese book in his hand. “When I went to the bathroom at noon, I looked into the office. There were almost no teachers. I heard the class next door had two self-study sessions in a row today!”
“Then could it be our turn for self-study this afternoon?” Zhu Ying leaned over and muttered. “In that case, will there only be math homework today?”
“Holy shit, that would be awesome. I definitely have to go play at the arcade for a couple of rounds after school!”
“It’s only Tuesday… and you don’t usually do your homework anyway.”
“But I have to wake up early. This way I can sleep in. What do you know?”
“You really are something… racing against the clock.”
“You bet. Besides, my mom is busy today and can’t watch me. I can play for a bit longer, hehe — just thinking about it feels great!”
“That’s only if the entire afternoon really is self-study.” An Jing leaned her full weight against the back of her chair, sliding down slightly as if she were about to stuff herself into the drawer.
“If it’s all self-study, then there won’t be any worksheets to write.” Zhu Ying tilted her head, pressing her small face against An Jing’s shoulder. “That seems kind of boring, too.”
“It’s fine. We can write questions for each other to do then.”
“That’s a good idea!”
“I just don’t know if the whole afternoon will be self-study…”
(3)
The sky outside the classroom was pitch black, and a sudden thunderstorm was raging.
There was no teacher on the podium; only the class monitor, Zhang Qiqi, sat there maintaining order.
However, the sound of the thunderstorm acted as a cover, allowing the students below to be even more boisterous. Sometimes, even if she shouted at the top of her lungs, she couldn’t get everyone to quiet down — a rare occurrence.
The classroom was noisy, but this actually allowed An Jing to calm her mind completely. She was currently writing math problems for Zhu Ying. Some were found by flipping through worksheets, while others she came up with herself.
Zhu Ying’s side was much simpler. Almost everything was taken from worksheets, with the only changes being a few modified numbers.
In fact, the process of writing the questions was a form of review in itself. After all, one had to ensure the questions were correct to avoid spending ages calculating only to find the problem was wrong…
“Hahaha — holy shit!”
“Thunder Tiger, can you do it or not?”
“How the hell are you so strong?”
“I have no choice; life forced my hand!”
Fang Qiang’s loud voice was exceptionally clear even amidst the thunderstorm.
The boys burst into laughter, seemingly playing a game of arm-wrestling.
Sun Wei didn’t join the fun. He was busy playing with his phone under his desk, seemingly sending text messages. He wasn’t playing constantly; he would play for a bit, look up at the others, and then go back to staring at the screen…
Wang Xinru was memorizing English words, but the noisy sounds nearby made it difficult for her to settle down. Every now and then, she would frown and give a helpless, bitter smile.
Actually, most of the time her smiles looked like bitter smiles. But after seeing her true bitter smile, one would know that when she really felt bitter, it was truly full of a harsh flavor — a feeling as if she had truly bitten into a bitter melon.
Don’t think the boys were the only noisy ones. In fact, the girls’ screams were just as loud, perhaps even more piercing than the boys’ shouting.
“Aaah — !!”
“The Bixian moved!”
“A ghost is coming!”
“Whoa!!”
In this chaotic atmosphere, there weren’t many who could stay focused.
Aside from An Jing and Zhu Ying, who were writing questions for each other, only a few boys sitting in the back row could manage it.
They were all reading novels — the kind of pirated books sold at street stalls with yellowed pages. They were thick, nearly 600 or 700 pages long. Although there were always typos, they were definitely satisfying to read in one go.
Most of these guys didn’t have great grades, but they were exceptionally focused when it came to reading novels. Although they weren’t reading the works of sages, they truly managed to ‘hear nothing of what happened outside the window…’
“I’m finished on my end. Ten questions. Ying, do you want to try doing them?”
“I wrote twenty!”
“Holy crap, why did you write so many?”
“They’re all questions from other worksheets. Here, Jing!”
An Jing looked at Zhu Ying’s delicate handwriting and felt a bit embarrassed as she pushed over her own writing. “Ahem, if there are any words you can’t read, just ask me.”
“What is this word?” Zhu Ying asked the very first second she got it.
“Ah, that’s ‘the kitchen in the cafe’…”
“Eww, it’s so crooked.”
“Cough, I wrote it a bit fast.”
*Bang!* At that moment, a loud crash suddenly came from the back row, followed by a series of thunderclaps outside. Many people turned to look back and saw a boy had tumbled to the floor. But when he scrambled up, his eyes never moved from the novel. He remained exceptionally focused.
To be able to read a novel to this extent… that was probably a talent in its own right.
“That’s impressive.”
“Yeah.”
“If he put that level of focus into studying, he would definitely be amazing.”
“It’s probably because he can’t put it into studying that he has such high focus in other areas.” An Jing clicked her tongue. “Like Qiang. He’s actually quite hardworking. He often goes to work part-time, and it’s heavy physical labor, but he just can’t be diligent when it comes to studying.”
“So he works hard physically but is lazy mentally.”
“But if you made me do physical labor, I definitely couldn’t handle it. It’s too tiring… People are just different. It’s impossible for everyone to be the same.” An Jing scratched her head. “Qiang is escaping from studying, while I study hard to escape from working. Anyway, I just don’t want to go to work so early.”
“Jing, you actually say things that make sense once in a while.”
“Cough! It’s just my own thoughts…”