“Then what now?
I still have some New Year money left.
After spending bit by bit, I still have about thirty thousand.
I can lend it to you.
I was originally going to buy a speaker for my great-grandma but figured I’d lend you the money first.”
Yu Jinyang said this with painful resolve.
Li Yingqiao leaned on the sofa backrest, propping her head up with her fist, squinting at him mischievously.
“Meow? Hmm?”
Yu Jinyang felt there was deep meaning behind that expression.
“What do you want to say?”
“I didn’t say anything.” She smiled indifferently.
“Then do you want my New Year money or not?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Yu Jinyang, I promise you, even if I go to Ximing Middle School, I’ll work hard to get into a good university.
Is that okay?”
“Forty thousand yuan is nothing, Li Yingqiao.
You don’t have to…”
Li Yingqiao was about to say, “Master, forty thousand yuan is your whole year’s New Year money, but it’s money my mom has worked three years of sunup to sundown to save.”
From the kitchen, Li Shuli came out carrying dishes and called, “You two, come eat.”
Shaking her head, she pulled Yu Jinyang up from the sofa.
“Come on, let’s eat.
Try my mom’s cooking.”
After dragging him a few steps, she leaned close and whispered in his ear, “If you dare mention money again, watch out for your precious back of the head.”
Zhu Xiaoliang, with his fiery temper, hadn’t considered that it was mealtime.
Though Li Shuli didn’t ask, she had already prepared food for the two of them.
The meal was very quiet.
Only Li Yingqiao tried hard to liven up the atmosphere, winking at Zhu Xiaoliang and Yu Jinyang alternately.
With their help, she lavishly praised every dish on the table, even giving high marks to pickled mustard greens, which she usually didn’t like.
Li Shuli said nothing, only eating with her head down.
Zhu Xiaoliang began to blame himself for his rashness.
Little did he know Li Shuli was just tired of eating with men after so long, annoyed, wanting only to finish quickly and wash the dishes.
Zhu Xiaoliang sensed her awkwardness, hurriedly finished his food, and took Yu Jinyang aside to leave.
“Think about Tancheng again, okay?” he urged as they left.
Li Shuli was washing dishes, water running loudly in the sink.
She glanced back through the kitchen door at Li Yingqiao at the entrance, about to say goodbye to the two.
“Do you want to get into Tancheng?”
Li Yingqiao was startled, about to speak.
Yu Jinyang, having just changed shoes, stood up straight and immediately said loudly, “She wants to!”
Li Yingqiao nodded and said, “Mom, I really do.”
Li Shuli turned back to washing, silent.
After a while, the water stopped running.
The last bowl was placed upside down in the drying rack.
The room fell silent.
“Then we’ll buy it.”
***
That year, the opening day at Tancheng was particularly lively, with a long banner stretched at the entrance—Welcome the Class of 2013 New Students to Fengtan Middle School.
Li Yingqiao got up, packed herself, slung on the new backpack her mother had bought her, and bit into a fried dough stick as she headed downstairs early to wait for the bus at the farmers’ market.
Before she left, Li Shuli stuffed two eggs and twenty yuan into her backpack, patted the bulging bag, and sent her off.
She even raised her wrist to check her watch, saying, “Let’s see what time you come home this time. If you’re still like in elementary school, then this money was wasted.”
“I’m slower than before now. Getting old, getting old,” Li Yingqiao said, disappearing down the stairwell with a leap.
Only the sound of quick footsteps remained, then quickly faded.
Li Shuli thought, did she give birth to a rubber ball, bouncing right out like that?
Zheng Miaojia had chosen to board at school and waited for the three of them right at the gate.
Gao Dian and Yu Jinyang sat inside a secondhand car Yu Renjie had recently bought, yellow in color, shaped like a big bumblebee.
Li Yingqiao and Zheng Miaojia watched from afar as the car rolled slowly by, nearly the same speed as a passing bicycle.
Because it drove so slowly, the bicycles beside it pushed ahead disdainfully, unwilling to be seen in the same group.
The two sat in the back seat, windows wide open, like mascots on a Disney sightseeing car.
Every passing student glanced their way.
Gao Dian said, “Festival bro, what do you think?”
Yu Jinyang replied, “I don’t know. I just told him not to drive that Maybach.”
Yu Renjie was nervous, sweating profusely, and muttering to himself, but still tried to stay calm as he turned and said, “Son, quick, I’m opening the door now. You two jump out.
At this speed, you’ll just scrape the paint. You’ll be fine, trust dad.
See? That’s why I said never buy these secondhand cars. The brake pads are shot.”
Yu Jinyang and Gao Dian:
So, that big bumblebee car just kept circling in front of Li Yingqiao and Zheng Miaojia.
Each time, Gao Dian hung out the window: “Idol, save me!!!”
Li Yingqiao said, “How am I supposed to save you? I’m not Superman.”
Fortunately, the traffic police arrived and saved them from disaster.
Gao Dian got out, checked himself head to toe, bowed repeatedly to the officers, and kept bowing as he walked away, still shaken, swearing never to ride in Festival Bro’s car again.
Li Yingqiao took the opportunity to say, “Don’t call me idol anymore. We’re all in high school now, Gao Dian. The police are your idols.”
“All right, all right, class is about to start.
Your dad held us up. The four of us are gonna be late!”
“Come on, forty thousand yuan, let’s run.”
“Come here, Yu Jinyang, back of the head.”
“Warning, Liang Laoshi said in high school, if you touch my head once, you have to write a self-criticism using the Fibonacci Sequence.
First time is a free pass.
Second and third times: 50 characters each.
Fourth time: 100 characters, and so on…”
“Is Liang Mei biased toward you? Why punish only me?”
“I don’t have someone else’s hands always itching.”
“All right, self-criticism it is then.
Yu Meow-meow, wait and see, I’ll write you a love letter.”
“Li Yingqiao!”
“What are you yelling? Go back to your special class, let’s go!
Don’t forget, after school today, we’re going to see Tan Laoshi.”
***
Tan Xiujun was much younger than they expected, and didn’t look like a black-faced ogre at all.
At least, the photo on her tombstone looked too much like one.
In reality, she seemed very gentle.
Looking at her, her features were like a calm lake.
When she smiled, ripples gently spread, carrying the warmth of spring breezes.
Li Yingqiao could also imagine that when Tan Xiujun’s temper flared, she’d be like Liang Mei—tightly furrowing her brow, the swiftest currents in the lake’s waters.
Li Yingqiao always thought older women were like rivers.
Most of the time, calm and unruffled, but sometimes vast and turbulent.
They rushed onward to broader seas, yet also quietly flowed between towering mountains.
Li Shuli was like this.
From what she heard, Tan Xiujun seemed to be as well.
They looked at each other silently—
“Tan Laoshi, hello, finally we meet.
From now on, we’ll see each other often.
My name is Li Yingqiao.
I’m Liang Mei’s most troublesome student.
But I will get into my dream university, and come back to bring you lots and lots of fruit you can never finish eating.
I heard you like fruit the most.”
—End of Volume One—