BSS - Chapter 12
Chapter 12
The water on the desk was still steaming.
Xu Wei lowered her eyes, staring at the steam curling up from the rim of the cup, waiting for the other person to speak.
The physical weakness made her thoughts sluggish. Rarely, she let her guard down. Certain boundaries she always held firmly in place were unconsciously relinquished.
In the bustling office after class, no one noticed the small, momentary silence in this corner.
Deng Chuan leaned over slightly, resting her hands on the desk. The warmth of her voice was close, and its volume was low, like a whisper. Her tone was calm and composed. "Teacher. We noticed you seemed a little unwell. I happened to have some medicine on hand, so I brought it for you."
Xu Wei pondered, then hesitated for a moment before saying, "Thank you. I've taken medicine." In her daze, she didn't refer to herself as 'teacher'. Deng Chuan noticed this small detail, and her heart stirred. She continued to stare at Xu Wei intently.
Xu Wei lifted her eyelids, her gaze meeting Deng Chuan's. The kid's eyes were burning with intensity, as if she were anticipating something.
She forced her groggy mind to think. "...Still, thank you."
She added a word of praise, "That was thoughtful of you all."
She glanced at Deng Chuan's hand resting on the paper. When she spoke, her lips moved, but her voice was very hoarse, little more than a breathy whisper.
She looked extremely weak.
"Well, Teacher, I'll be going then," Deng Chuan said, pressing her lips together slightly. "Remember to take your medicine, okay?"
Xu Wei was still propping her head up. Hearing this, she raised her eyes. "Okay. Go on."
Her eyes were sharp, and she immediately noticed the red rims of Deng Chuan's ears. But her thoughts were reacting with unusual slowness. It was only after Deng Chuan had left that the realization dawned on her. She curved her lips into a faint, amused smile and put away the bag of medicine on her desk.
The math teacher at the next desk saw her movement, turned his head, and asked, "Teacher Xu, you seem quite familiar with Deng Chuan?" He had been Deng Chuan's math teacher in her second year and recognized her. Seeing their somewhat awkward yet strangely harmonious interaction, he was overcome with curiosity.
Xu Wei had intended to say, "We're okay." But the words changed as they reached her lips. She just gave a faint smile.
She opened the box of herbal lozenges, took one out, and put it in her mouth.
The middle-aged man was particularly chatty. Xu Wei didn't pay him much mind, but he continued to muse to himself, "Deng Chuan is a good kid. Just a bit proud and arrogant. She never used to pay much attention to people. Now she even shows concern for her teachers. She's grown up, huh."
He spoke with such familiarity that Xu Wei felt she had to respond. She hummed an "Mm," her voice a bit nasal.
The math teacher next to her immediately realized she was still sick, so he stopped talking and said no more.
She finally made it through the morning. Just before lunch, Qin Shu came looking for her.
Xu Wei looked terrible. She had no classes in the afternoon, but as the homeroom teacher, she couldn't just not show up. Qin Shu pleaded and cajoled until she agreed to take a half-day off to rest in her dorm.
Xu Wei rarely got sick, so she naturally lacked the instinct to rest and recuperate. While Qin Shu was at class, she slept for a while and felt her headache had subsided. She sat up, planning to drink some water and then read for a bit.
She opened WeChat out of habit. She had intended to check work messages, but unexpectedly, after replying to them and scrolling down, she found a message from the contact saved as "Younger Brother."
Xu Wei froze, unconsciously biting her lip.
She usually didn't contact her family. If they did contact her, it was only ever about that one thing.
Sure enough, Xu Hao had sent her a WeChat message. He said their mother's death anniversary was approaching and asked if she was coming back.
Xu Wei was silent, lost in thought for a long time.
Zhou Liu watched her quietly. Seeing her motionless, he swished his tail, walked over, and curled up in her lap.
Qin Shu had given him the name. She had agonized over it for half the night before finally giving up on trendy cat names and settling on the day he and Xu Wei had met.
Xu Wei stroked his back. The soft, smooth texture helped her muster a little strength to think.
But her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long time, typing and deleting words at the cursor. Xu Wei noticed that Xu Hao's message had been sent shortly after twelve noon. She had already been resting then. After more than three hours without a reply, he had surely figured out her answer.
She admitted that her first instinct was also to avoid it.
But perhaps being sick had made her defenses especially fragile. Even though so many years had passed, staring at the message from a relative thousands of miles away, Xu Wei felt a long-forgotten sadness.
She felt down for a long time. In the end, she decided not to reply to Xu Hao.
She would find her own time to visit her mother, but not with them.
Zhou Liu looked up at her, his eyes round, his pupils a translucent, deep yellow-green, as if they could see right through her vulnerability. Xu Wei cupped his face and smoothed his whiskers. Seeing him turn his head away uncomfortably, she couldn't help but bury her face in the top of his head and let out a long sigh.
Her mind was in turmoil. She lay down in her clothes but couldn't fall back asleep.
In the evening, Qin Shu returned, bringing back takeout containers of plain congee and a few side dishes for her.
Xu Wei had no appetite, but knowing she needed to take her medicine, she forced herself to eat a little.
After taking her medicine and washing up, she felt a bit refreshed. Thankfully, she didn't have a fever. Xu Wei's mood lightened slightly, and she went back to bed to rest.
After finishing her lesson plans, Qin Shu came into the room to check on her. She found Xu Wei calmly looking at past midterm exam questions on her tablet while writing an analysis of them.
She couldn't stand it and made a move to take the tablet away. "Sister, you're still sick. Can you please not be so dedicated to your job? Does the school pay you double?"
Xu Wei held on tight and didn't let go. "I know what I'm doing."
"Don't give me that. When do you not know what you're doing? You can foresee everything." Qin Shu said irritably, then teased, "Too bad you didn't foresee catching a cold, huh."
She often joked with Xu Wei like this, but she didn't expect Xu Wei to pause in a daze for a moment before replying, "I can't foresee everything."
After speaking, she turned off the tablet and pushed it into Qin Shu's hands. "I'm going to sleep now," she said coolly. "Remember to close the door on your way out."
Qin Shu didn't understand, but she still headed out good-naturedly, asking, "Do you want some water?"
Xu Wei replied, "No."
The only answer she received was the sound of the door closing.
Xu Wei did not sleep soundly that night. Some terrible memories from many years ago invaded her nightmares. The things she thought she no longer cared about had not been forgotten, nor had they faded.
The tightly shut doors and windows, the medicine box on the table, the blank walls all around, and her father's vicious glare. They had similar faces, yet he looked at her with such eyes.
Xu Wei, he said. If you insist on having your own way, then you might as well have no feelings at all.
This sentence jolted Xu Wei awake. Despite the late autumn weather, she had broken out in a thin layer of sweat, her pajamas sticking clammily to her back.
She was in a daze for a long time. The feelings in the dream had been too real, forcing her to re-examine herself. Comparing that past to her present, was it a failure? Something she couldn't bear to look back on? Or regret?
Xu Wei sat up, her head bowed, strands of hair falling beside her face, obscuring everything. It was so quiet around her; it felt as if she were the only person left in the world.
None of them. She heard herself answer her own question. Every decision she had made was a last resort born of strange twists of fate, but also the result of following her heart, leaving her with a clear conscience. Even if the final outcome wasn't what she had hoped for, she didn't regret it.
It was pitch-black all around. Reaching out, she could only see a faint light filtering in from outside. It was the dead of night; the world was asleep. Yet Xu Wei's mind felt unprecedentedly clear. Perhaps her illness was mostly gone. Feeling a little relieved, she wrapped herself in her blanket, rolled over, and drifted back into a deep sleep without realizing it.
When she woke up the next day, she felt refreshed as expected. Her cold was mostly gone, though her throat was still a bit sore, making it difficult to speak with any force.
Xu Wei went to the classroom. She was early today; morning reading hadn't started yet, but the room was already mostly full of students, each focused on their own books and homework. Xu Wei stood in the hallway, quietly observing these young faces. Every profile was exceptionally serious. They were in the prime of their youth, their lives still holding infinite courage and possibilities.
Am I envious? she asked herself.
She couldn't give an answer.
Being sick seems to make one feel down, Xu Wei thought to herself.
These sentimental, melancholic thoughts would never appear on a normal day. However, since it was because she was sick, she allowed herself to be vulnerable for a little while.
But only for a little while. Soon, morning reading began. Today was Chinese morning reading. The Chinese teacher came by, gave instructions from the podium, and seeing that Xu Wei was there, went to supervise the class next door.
The students' reading voices were loud and clear, weaving into a dense net from all directions.
At the beginning of the school year, the Chinese class had distributed a small booklet of classical poems and texts that had to be memorized. They were reading aloud from the booklet, first finishing the required poems and then choosing a few classical texts to read.
Xu Wei listened as they recited them, one by one.
As she listened, Xu Wei suddenly wondered, What are the students thinking when they recite these? The words are so grand—ambition, lovesickness, sorrow, dialectics, philosophy, and nature. How much can these half-grown kids truly empathize with these phrases?
When she was a student, her own Chinese grades weren't particularly good. She felt her aesthetic sense was far from adequate; she could barely manage to pass the exams, and anything more was beyond her. By the time she could truly understand these classical poems, she was no longer a student.
The first time you hear the song, you don't understand its meaning; by the time you listen again, you've become the person in the song.
Xu Wei later came to terms with it. Perhaps this was the true meaning of Chinese language education. To impart enough importance to these classics during the best period of one's life, allowing students to gain knowledge, was sufficient. Learning to respect them today and being moved by them tomorrow was not too late.
That being said, she still felt it was a bit of a pity. Chinese was different from mathematics; there was no clear right or wrong, only the presence or absence of understanding in a single moment.
She then thought, Perhaps the measure of a good teacher is how much they can inspire their students to be moved.
These unprompted thoughts and realizations made Xu Wei laugh at herself. Was this really an aftereffect of her cold? She, who was supposed to be all about mental efficiency, was constantly engaging in useless efforts.
To distract herself, her gaze began to unconsciously scan the classroom, finally landing on Deng Chuan.
Deng Chuan was propping her head up, looking to be in high spirits. Her eyes were bright, and her hair was tied back in a jaunty ponytail. A few stray, downy hairs at her temples had been tucked behind her ear.
She was reciting, "Guan-guan cry the ospreys, on the islet in the river," with a slight smile on her lips.
Xu Wei's heart suddenly stirred.
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