BSS - Chapter 29
Chapter 29
The winter break was only a short fourteen days in total. Xu Wei and Yang Jing had taken a road trip to Xi'an, rushing back just in time for the Spring Festival, deliberately shortening their stay at home. Everyone coexisted peacefully, maintaining a veneer of calm.
In the Lingnan region, the concept of clan is strong, and the older generation holds deeply ingrained traditional values. Xu Wei was a girl working far from home, so this time, she couldn't escape the prying questions and subtle digs from her clan relatives.
During banquets and house visits, many relatives took advantage of their seniority to criticize her. It was impossible to avoid hearing some rather unpleasant remarks. A girl running off so far is restless. She can't be earning much. When is she getting married? She should find a local man with good prospects and settle down properly.
Her own family probably agreed, but knowing her personality and circumstances, they usually didn't say so. This time, they simply stood by and listened in silence, letting the others have their say.
Having heard these same arguments since childhood, Xu Wei knew there was no reasoning with them. She had grown indifferent, feeling neither sad nor wronged. Usually, she would just endure it. When she couldn't, she would offer a firm but non-confrontational retort.
In any case, once the New Year passed, the heavens would be high and the emperor far away-no one could control her then.
That night, Deng Chuan called her-or rather, it was just before that, when she sent the doodle. Xu Wei had just left a New Year's Eve dinner party. Leaving early was a breach of etiquette that would surely draw criticism, but her mood that night was so foul that she simply didn't care and walked out.
She stood on her family's balcony, gazing down at the tops of the banyan trees, which remained lush and green even in winter. Withered ivy vines clung to a nearby wall, and the surroundings were perfectly still.
A wave of exhaustion suddenly washed over her.
It felt as if she had traveled through all these years, yet nothing had changed at all.
She stood there quietly for a while, her mood gradually calming as she inhaled the damp, earthy scent of the plants.
Then her phone chimed. Xu Wei saw the doodle from Deng Chuan.
Unexpectedly, she felt a little flustered, unsure how to reply. Perhaps she should just pretend she hadn't seen it.
She could see the thought Deng Chuan had put into it. So she typed and deleted messages in the chat box, and by the time she went back inside, Xu Wei still hadn't found the perfect response.
With a touch of melancholy, Xu Wei answered Deng Chuan's call.
Deng Chuan's voice came through the receiver, filled with a vitality completely different from everything Xu Wei had been dealing with. It was as refreshing as a night breeze. She called her "Teacher Xu" and wished her a Happy New Year.
Xu Wei's melancholy was strangely soothed.
She found herself speaking to Deng Chuan with more patience than usual. The "Little Friend" was very well-behaved; her words never crossed the line, and her attempts to test the waters were cautious. Even the phrasing of her final sentence was incredibly considerate. Xu Wei simply couldn't find a reason to refuse.
And so, Xu Wei indulgently allowed the call to go on for much longer. She analyzed the review plan for the next semester and the trends for this year's exam questions with her, and they even chatted about choosing a university major and future plans.
As for what selfish impulse she was acting on, she probably couldn't have explained it herself.
Finally, she hung up the phone just before her grandmother pushed the door open. She could guess what the old woman was about to nag her about. She didn't want Deng Chuan to hear those words-such things belonged only to the world of adults, unlike the pure, untainted affection of the "Little Friend."
Xu Wei had hung up quickly, only realizing later that Deng Chuan wouldn't have understood the dialect anyway.
She couldn't help but laugh at herself. In the mirror, late at night, she saw her reflection. The face and expression were incredibly familiar, but the light shining in her eyes was strangely foreign.
The woman stood barefoot, her long hair unbound, revealing the smooth, delicate nape of her neck. She stared intently at her reflection for a moment before looking away.
Xu Wei left home soon after the Spring Festival. The preparatory work the school had arranged for the teachers was far more extensive than she had imagined. As she went about these tedious tasks, she inevitably found her thoughts drifting to Deng Chuan. It was something she couldn't control, no matter how rational she tried to be.
Thinking of her, and knowing that the work she was doing was to prepare the students for the Gaokao, filled her with motivation.
Deng Chuan would undoubtedly have a wonderful future. Xu Wei was certain of it.
It was for this very reason that she had even planned out how she would act when she next saw Deng Chuan-what attitude she should adopt, what expression she should wear, and what words she should say to keep things on their proper track.
This was her responsibility as the older one.
Unfortunately, plans rarely survive contact with reality, as was the case now. Deng Chuan had suddenly pushed open the door and walked right up to her.
The very first step of her plan was shattered. They had met. And Xu Wei was not nearly as calm as she had imagined she would be. Her first reaction was to carefully study the girl before her.
The "Little Friend's" expression was calm, her eyes bright. Her hair had been cut a little shorter and was tied back in a low ponytail.
She still possessed that same simplicity and self-assurance that set her apart from her peers, but now her eyes shone with a new luster, as if they'd been polished by some other experience. Though only half a month had passed, Xu Wei felt as if she were looking at someone completely transformed.
Their gazes met. Xu Wei didn't speak. Deng Chuan, composed as ever, took the initiative and nodded to her. "Teacher Xu."
She was more at ease in her presence than before. Realizing this, Xu Wei's heart skipped a beat. She answered softly and stepped aside to let her pass.
Deng Chuan navigated past the desks, dropped her things at her seat without organizing them, took off her jacket, and walked over. "Is there anything I can help with?"
A student wringing out a rag to wipe the blackboard said, "The lectern still needs to be wiped."
Deng Chuan acknowledged with a sound. She rolled her sleeves up to her elbows, revealing her toned forearms, and went to tidy the scattered chalk fragments on the lectern.
Xu Wei, who had been leaning against the lectern, moved to give her space.
The lectern hadn't been wiped yet, and the air was thick with chalk dust. Deng Chuan tilted her head slightly, meticulously arranging the pieces of chalk before tidying the messy pile of pens and rulers.
After finishing, she turned to get the rag from the student wiping the blackboard, only to realize that Xu Wei had been standing beside her the entire time, watching.
Her makeup was light today, the shade of her lipstick soft. She gave off a gentle impression, her expression serene as her focused gaze fell upon her.
Deng Chuan met her gaze and broke into a brilliant smile.
Seeing that no one nearby was paying them any mind, she mouthed silently, "What are you looking at?"
The corners of Xu Wei's lips finally curled into a smile she couldn't suppress, the composure on her face cracking for just a moment. Deng Chuan thought she was about to reply, but instead, Xu Wei averted her gaze, acting as if nothing had happened.
Alright, then, Deng Chuan thought with a sense of resignation. She wasn't disappointed, though. It wouldn't be Xu Wei if she didn't look away. She understood that.
Deng Chuan lowered her head and meticulously wiped the lectern clean. She returned the rag and went to the restroom to wash her hands.
As she was washing them, she saw Xu Wei walk in behind her in the mirror's reflection.
She came to a stop beside her. The air was still as they washed their hands in silence.
Time trickled by quietly with the sound of running water.
Xu Wei finished rinsing one hand and reached for the soap dispenser, then suddenly asked, "What happened to your arm?"
She asked so naturally that Deng Chuan reacted just as quickly. "You mean this?"
She showed her elbow. There was a coin-sized scrape, still oozing blood and not yet scabbed over. It looked rather nasty. "I slipped on the stairs last night and scraped it against the wall."
Xu Wei's brow furrowed, but she said nothing more and went back to washing her hands.
Deng Chuan didn't leave. She waited beside her and said quietly, "Aren't you going to ask if it hurts?"
Xu Wei straightened up and dried her hands without a word. A moment later, as they both reached the doorway, she finally spoke. "Come to my office. I'll put some Yunnan Baiyao on that."
Deng Chuan didn't think the scrape was serious enough for medication and instinctively felt she would be troubling her. "There's no need," she refused. "It'll heal on its own soon enough."
Xu Wei glanced at her. "Didn't you say it hurts?" Before Deng Chuan could reply, she added, "Just let me put something on it. It'll heal faster."
Deng Chuan fell into step behind her, explaining cautiously, "It doesn't hurt that much. Only a little when my clothes brush against it. I figured it would scab over soon, so I didn't pay it any mind."
As Xu Wei listened, she nodded, her gaze softening unconsciously.
They walked in silence for a moment. Suddenly, Xu Wei turned to look at Deng Chuan's shoulders and called out her name thoughtfully, "Deng Chuan."
Being called by her full name made Deng Chuan inexplicably happy. She couldn't quite pinpoint why, but she answered eagerly, "Yes?"
"Have you..." Xu Wei's gaze measured her from the shoulders up. "You seem to have grown taller."
"Have I?" Deng Chuan hadn't really noticed, though she supposed she might have grown a little. She had always been taller than Xu Wei, but now, when she raised her eyes slightly, she could see the soft crown of Xu Wei's head.
"I guess I have grown taller," she said.
A small smile played on Xu Wei's lips, clearly amused by the discovery. "Since you're still growing, you're not allowed to stay up late at night anymore," she said.
"Besides, pulling all-nighters isn't a very efficient way to study."
Deng Chuan nodded in complete agreement. Then, a thought occurred to her, and she admonished in return, "You too. You need to sleep earlier."
The words were spoken so naturally that Xu Wei couldn't help but glance at her. Deng Chuan's expression was open, her clear eyes gazing back at her without reservation. In their depths, Xu Wei saw her own reflection.
Xu Wei had no choice but to be the first to look away.
By the time she returned from the office, the classroom was already crowded. Deng Chuan sat down and began sorting her test papers and notes into neat piles. Her sleeves were rolled down, and her arm was hidden beneath an ordinary school uniform jacket.
There was no hint of the secret it concealed.
Behind her, Wu Fuwu complained about his endless homework as he organized his desk. He'd been working on practice tests until late last night. He let out a sigh and changed the number on the sticky note on his desk that read "X days until the Gaokao."
The number dropped by more than ten days all at once.
Just looking at it filled him with anxiety. "Let's just take the Gaokao now and get it over with!" he wailed.
Quite a few others felt the same and chimed in:
"Reviewing is so tedious, and there's way too much homework."
"It's just one test after another. I'd rather just take the Gaokao already."
This was a common sentiment.
The final sprint before the Gaokao was a battle of mentality. Faced with repetitive review sessions and a dense schedule of exams, students would grow anxious, lose their balance, throw in the towel, or even give up entirely. It was always those with the patience to endure who made it to the end. After all, even though they had reviewed the material time and again, nothing was set in stone until the very last moment.
Deng Chuan understood this well. She focused completely, blocking out all external distractions. First, she reviewed the vocabulary words and political concepts she had memorized that morning before moving on to the next section of her history review.
The first mock exam was scheduled for not long after the start of the semester. Deng Chuan looked forward to seeing what kind of results she and her classmates could produce after a winter break of focused study.
Exams were always the ultimate measure of academic progress. For Deng Chuan, this first mock exam was the starting gun for the final sprint toward the Gaokao. It was also the first bold, rich stroke of color she would mix on her palette before painting the blueprint of her future.
After all, she knew that Xu Wei was watching.
Get instant access to all chapters now.
Comments
Post a Comment