Tan Xiujun lived her whole life without children, alone in that dusty gray apartment building beside the Fengtan Orphanage.
In 1997, Liang Mei smashed her kitchen window with a stone—”bang!”—then threw in several rotten eggs, shattered glass scattering everywhere.
To this day, Tan Xiujun never fixed that window.
Liang Mei offered to help her repair it several times, but she refused.
Even if it was put back, it would only be smashed again.
Liang Mei was never the first, and wouldn’t be the last.
Tan Xiujun was a contradictory person.
She volunteered to teach at the orphanage after retirement, and even when local Fengtan middle schools tried to rehire her, she refused.
Yet, unlike the other volunteer teachers, she wasn’t gentle or patient with the children.
Tan Xiujun was a strict teacher with a bad temper.
She often punished students physically, so she was the most disliked teacher and always had her windows smashed by mischievous kids.
Liang Mei did it, Zhu Xiaoliang did it, even Hu Zheng—who later notified Liang Mei of Teacher Tan’s death—had done it…
When Liang Mei was caught, Zhu Xiaoliang and Hu Zheng were actually there too.
Tan Xiujun cooked a bowl of noodles for each of them.
Zhu Xiaoliang and Hu Zheng’s bowls had no eggs—only Liang Mei’s had a rotten one.
Unconvinced, Liang Mei picked out the rotten egg, but Tan Xiujun made her eat it, face stern.
She told her that if she couldn’t swallow it, she’d tell the director and have them all expelled from the welfare institute.
At the mention of the director, Liang Mei hurriedly picked up her chopsticks and choked it down.
Seeing her eat even the stinky noodles, Zhu Xiaoliang and Hu Zheng picked up their chopsticks too.
Once in their mouths, Liang Mei realized the egg wasn’t as smelly as she’d imagined—but Tan Xiujun wasn’t being kind either.
She’d loaded the noodles with chili, leaving the three of them red-faced and panting like pugs, tongues out for water.
Tan Xiujun was the type to repay every grudge.
She never showed a pleasant face to anyone, her words as sharp as knives.
According to Liang Mei, Tan Xiujun looked down on everyone.
She could use the foulest language to curse at a phone service rep over phone bills, yet would spend her own money to recharge the phones of left-behind children’s grandparents just to know why her students hadn’t shown up lately.
Because of that bowl of noodles, the three of them always wanted to find a chance to get back at Tan Xiujun.
But as kids just past ten, how could they outplay an old hand with nearly forty years of teaching experience?
What mischievous kids hadn’t Tan Xiujun seen?
Their attempts always backfired.
Instead, Tan Xiujun often pulled them in to recite lessons—if they failed, she’d smack their palms, make them stand, or hop frog-jumps around the yard.
Her endless methods tamed them completely.
Under Tan Xiujun’s ruler and her constant orders to do wall stands, even their thick heads finally cleared.
Especially Zhu Xiaoliang, who ended up falling in love with math.
After so many years, Liang Mei and Tan Xiujun rarely sat down peacefully for a conversation.
Every meeting ended in a fight.
The most recent was over Li Yingqiao.
Liang Mei picked this “small fish” to bet with Tan Xiujun, trying to prove she was more qualified to be a teacher.
Tan Xiujun looked over Li Yingqiao’s grades and immediately slammed the table, cursing Liang Mei out.
“Liang Mei, is there something wrong with your brain?! Who do you think you are, teaching for a few years and acting like a savior? Can today’s kids be compared to before? The parents don’t care, so why are you pretending? Did you ever think—if she passes, there’s still the college entrance exam later. What if the parents cling to you? If she fails, they’ll blame you for ruining their kid! Do you even have a brain? Don’t mislead the children!”
“Tan Xiujun,”
Liang Mei always called her by name, even as a child, returning the glare with a cold laugh.
“This is what you taught me. You were the one who said women could change their fate through studying, not marriage. And now you accuse me of misleading children?”
Tan Xiujun’s anger blazed.
Her words became even more cutting.
“That’s because you’re an orphan. If you didn’t study, what else could you do? Did you have a family to fall back on? Did I not tell you—studying is never the only way out, but for lazy and stupid people like you, it’s the only way to compete fairly. The smart ones never worry about food and drink wherever they go. It’s the idiots who need to study! If you can’t even get through basic books, what do you expect to contribute to society?”
“I’m an idiot. Right, but Li Yingqiao isn’t. I made her study, and ended up hurting her! And you think you deserve to be called Teacher Tan?”
“She shouldn’t study under you anyway. With your half-baked knowledge, what kind of good student could you teach? Liang Mei, I forced you to study back then because you had nothing but a bit of wit. Studying was your only support. I never expected you to return as a teacher, and you never even wondered why. I, Tan Xiujun, never cared whether you rose to greatness!”
Liang Mei was silent then.
She felt Tan Xiujun had grown more fake with age—more pretentious, more self-righteous.
She loved money, she cared about reputation, but at least before she never claimed it was for others’ good.
Even if she was cursed by students for her bad temper, misunderstood, rumored, or slandered, she never explained herself.
Now she always put on that lofty teacher’s pose, acting as if she wanted nothing but peace of mind.
It made her old vengeful self more endearing in comparison.
“So tell me, what do you want?”
Ignoring Zhu Xiaoliang and Hu Zheng’s stiff expressions, Liang Mei braced herself for a final showdown with Tan Xiujun.
“I’m an orphan, no parents, earning a measly wage my whole life. I lived honestly. I ate your noodles, accepted a few years of teacher-student ties—I’ll return it all to you. Say what you want.”
When Tan Xiujun heard this, her face turned pale.
After the heated argument, she lay limp on the hospital bed, lips trembling but unable to speak a word.
For someone as sharp-tongued as Tan Xiujun, it was rare to be choked silent.
Zhu Xiaoliang, of course, couldn’t bear it.
He pulled up the blanket and tried to comfort her.
“Teacher Tan, Liang Mei has a sharp tongue but a soft heart—you know that. Don’t take it to heart. I’ve seen that student, she’s promising. I’ve promised Sister Mei, if Li Yingqiao really gets into Tan Zhong, for the next three years of high school, we’ll both do our best to send her to a top university.”
“…1+4.”
Tan Xiujun opened her mouth in surprise.
Zhu Xiaoliang said,
“Do you remember the three questions you asked me? The ones from Tolstoy’s ‘What Men Live By’—the three questions God asks the angel: ‘What is in men’s hearts’, ‘What is beyond man’s power’, ‘What do men live by’. The angel’s answer was love. We know you’ve always lived by the third question. You never expected us to become great, you just wanted us to survive—whatever the reason.”
It was hard to live back then.
Tan Xiujun never figured out, in her whole difficult, contrary life, why she was the way she was.
Even reading Tolstoy, she felt only scorn and contempt.
Love?
Something so empty and vague—who lives for that?
She felt hate was more real.
Hating those who deserved no good end, seeing them punished, was what kept her going.
So she thought hate, not love, kept people alive.
If it hadn’t been for Tan Xiujun’s bowl of noodles, Liang Mei, Zhu Xiaoliang, and Hu Zheng, with their rebellious natures, would’ve long been street punks, headed for juvenile detention.
What did they know of right or wrong?
At just over ten years old, they dared to smash a teacher’s window with a stone.
No one pitied them, but Tan Xiujun had seen too many such troublemakers.
Liang Mei, Zhu Xiaoliang, Hu Zheng—they weren’t even the worst.
She knew she could put them on the right path.
She also knew exactly how capable Liang Mei was.
If she made it this far, it was all from sheer stubbornness.
She decided not to fight with her anymore.
Tan Xiujun slowly closed her eyes.
Tears trickled down her face.
Her lips trembled harder.
She never thought, in her life, she’d hear these words from “math dummy” Zhu Xiaoliang—even he understood.
As for Liang Mei, she hated her so much she wouldn’t even give her a kind word at the end.
“You should go.
I’m tired.
Don’t bring so much fruit next time—I can’t eat it all alone.”
That was their last conversation.
Liang Mei never visited again.
Last week, Hu Zheng asked if she wanted to go see Teacher Tan together.
Liang Mei thought, with the exam results not out yet, it would just end in another argument—she didn’t want to upset her further.
So she told Hu Zheng she’d wait until Li Yingqiao’s results were out.
She even went to the fruit store downstairs and pre-ordered lots of seasonal fruit—all expensive and ones she didn’t like.
But she wanted to carry them all, fill the entire hospital room to the brim.
She pictured herself sitting at Tan Xiujun’s bedside, eating fruit with loud slurps, making her curse loudly, and not fighting back, not arguing.
She’d just place her phone with the results system at her bedside and casually say:
“Tan Xiujun, this is my student.”
She loved seeing Tan Xiujun at a loss for words.
Tan Xiujun would definitely say:
“Brainless. What does one exam prove? Can you take care of her for a lifetime?”
Speak!
Tan Xiujun, why aren’t you talking?
***
On the day the results were released, Fengtan was as hot as a kiln, ready to fire people like porcelain.
Li Shuli had just returned from the bank, buying groceries at the farmers’ market downstairs, planning a big dinner to celebrate Qiaoqiao’s hard work, regardless of the results.
Carrying a fish, she was about to unlock the door when Auntie Liu next door also came out.
Seeing Li Shuli, she eagerly said,
“Meili, want to go for a scraping? There’s a new scraping shop downstairs, opening promotion—spend five hundred, get two scraping boards free!”
Cheapskate.
You could buy five hundred scraping boards with that.
Li Shuli kept her face calm, turning the key.
“No, thanks. Qiaoqiao’s results are out soon—I need to cook for her. You all go ahead.”
Auntie Liu tried again, “You really never spend a cent on yourself. Shuli, don’t blame me for saying this, but Qiaoqiao’s almost in high school. You could consider finding someone to share life with. Otherwise, when she goes to college, you’ll be alone at home—lonely. You should take care of yourself, too.”
Living alone with her child in this feudal Fengtan nest, Li Shuli had heard such things since Li Yingqiao was five.
Back when she ran a grocery store in Xiaohuacheng, neighbors pitied Qiaoqiao for sleeping between shelves and urged her to remarry, to buy a house, to give Qiaoqiao a father.
But Li Yingqiao would rush under the covers at night and say,
“Mom, don’t listen to them. I don’t need a dad. Adults don’t know kids’ happiness. Sleeping among shelves is the best! I roll over and snacks fall down. I love this little bed so much—I want to sleep here forever.”
Of course, Li Shuli knew.
She knew how happy Qiaoqiao was then.
Auntie Liu was always matchmaking, annoyed that Li Shuli spent everything on her daughter, never on herself.
She never got any benefit from her.
So Li Shuli just let her words go in one ear and out the other.
But today, she was in a good mood—she’d finally saved thirty thousand yuan for Qiaoqiao, just fixed-term at the bank.
By the time Qiaoqiao graduated university, twenty thousand should be enough for her to start a small business if she wanted.
So, unusually, she told Auntie Liu,
“Next time, next time. Today is for celebrating Qiaoqiao.”
Auntie Liu’s eyes lit up.
“Qiaoqiao really got into Tan Zhong? Amazing! But you promised—next time. You haven’t even bought a new dress in years, you’re too thrifty. Women should be good to themselves! By the way, Shuli, if you have extra money, you could—”
“No!”
Li Shuli’s face changed and she slammed the door.
She would never lend out a cent of Qiaoqiao’s store money.
Elsewhere in Fengtan, another kiln was burning, but the mood was somber.
Zhu Xiaoliang looked at the tightly closed bedroom door, then at the little head on the sofa, drooping as it hugged a pillow.
“Based on this year’s estimated cut-off, Li Yingqiao might be just five points short. But Tan Zhong’s final admissions line isn’t out yet, and the acceptance ratio is unclear. According to her usual ranking, she’s just below. But she’s improved a lot. In three months, her score rose over six hundred points. That’s already a miracle.”
He was updating Hu Zheng on the results.
Hu Zheng had never met these kids, but he knew how much Liang Mei cared.
On the phone, he sighed.
“Then you have to comfort Liang Mei. It’s a double blow for her. What about the other three kids?”
Zhu Xiaoliang said,
“One is also on the line, the other two should be fine.”
Sure enough, a week later, Tan Zhong announced the year’s admission line.
Zhu Xiaoliang’s estimate was exact.
Li Yingqiao missed it by five.
Gao Dian barely made it.
Zheng Miaoji and Yu Jinyang’s scores were similar, both far above the line—possibly even entering Tan Zhong’s special class.
On the day the cut-off was announced, Zhu Xiaoliang decided to visit Li Yingqiao’s house.
He asked Zheng Miaoji and Gao Dian, but neither knew the address.
Only Liang Mei knew, but she was busy with Tan Xiujun’s funeral.
He hesitated, then called Yu Jinyang.
“Do you know where Li Yingqiao lives? I want to talk to her mom, or we can go together.”
Li Yingqiao gave Yu Jinyang the address, but their home wasn’t a regular apartment, hard to find.
She’d lived there for years and still couldn’t remember the door number.
So she told them to take the bus to the farmers’ market stop, and she’d meet them there.
It was Yu Jinyang’s first time on a bus.
He sat on Zhu Xiaoliang’s lap.
The farmers’ market stop was crowded.
Before the bus even reached the stop, a wave of people, bags in hand, surged to the door like a flood about to burst.
Yu Jinyang, trying to be polite and make way for the elders carrying chickens, ducks, and geese, was shoved onto Zhu Xiaoliang’s lap by a grandpa’s elbow.
Zhu Xiaoliang was used to it.
As long as your shoes stayed on at the farmers’ market stop, you were being treated well.
But Yu Jinyang had never seen such chaos.
He didn’t even have time to shout.
The chickens and ducks were louder than him.
As he was about to stand, holding the seat, he saw Li Yingqiao’s head at the window, almost level with the glass, sticking in.
“Yu Meow Meow! Look how tall I am! My head fits through! Wow, you’re sitting on Teacher Zhu’s lap!”
Yu Jinyang hurriedly pushed her head out.
“…Are you crazy? What if the driver starts moving and your head gets left behind? I was shoved!”
“Who shoved you?”
Li Yingqiao’s eyes scanned the bus like a searchlight.
“Which two eggs should I beat up?”
When Yu Jinyang finally got off, he trailed behind Zhu Xiaoliang, bending to look at her eyes.
He kept glancing over.
“You can still joke, so not making Tan Zhong isn’t a big deal?”
“What else? Should I cry in your arms?”
Li Yingqiao said, rubbing her head on his elbow, then dramatically started fake-crying, using his sleeve to wipe imaginary tears.
“Yu Meow Meow—I’m so pitiful, just five points short! Five points! I’m done for—my life is over. Dance for me, I need some joy—”
“Let Zhu Xiaoliang dance.”
“…Stop messing with him.”
Zhu Xiaoliang scooped up the two of them.
“Come on, I need to talk to your mom.”