School is over at 8:10 in the evening. It is already dark and the campus is dotted with lights from street lamps.
A group of people walked together, and Che Ming poked his phone and said, "I pulled you, but there is no teacher in this group."
Xie Lan's cell phone vibrated.
"Cherry" has invited you to join the group chat "Class 4 is bright and energetic"
He was considering saying hello when Che Ziming sent another message right after.
-Cherry: Let’s start the welcome ceremony for new students!
The phone immediately vibrated wildly. The screen scrolled down, and the whole class typed the same emoticon package in unison—
Owl watching.jpg
Xie Lan almost threw his phone away.
A round of emoticons has been released.
-Crystal: Welcome, Boss One Hundred and Fifty.
-vincent: Class 4 welcomes the strong!
-Croissant: The nickname should not be Renaissance, it should be Gauss in the World.
The people below started posting all kinds of charming and laughing emoticons of owls rolling around.
Che Ziming held his phone in his hand and laughed, "Do you think our classmate is a bit like an owl?"
Xie Lan looked at him silently and nodded.
"That's right. Owl is the signature of Class 4. This is the aura we want. Our class slogan is two words - Spirit!"
"… oh."
Dou Sheng walked beside Xie Lan with his schoolbag hanging on his left shoulder. A gust of wind blew towards him. He stretched out his hand and grabbed the air, and between his fingers, he caught a piece of sycamore tree blown by the wind.
Dai You said with a smile: "It's almost time for new buds to sprout, but there are still dead leaves. How rare."
There was a faint smile in Dou Sheng's eyes as he gently pinched the dry and slightly curled leaf.
Che Zimingshui finished the group and asked again, "What is the level of mathematics in British high schools?"
Xie Lan pinched her fingertips that were cold from the wind and said, "It's actually not as good as in China. I studied AMC, so I can adapt."
"What's that?"
Yu Fei rolled his eyes at him and said, "I don't know that. The high school math competitions in Europe and America are graded. Xie Lan must have reached AMC12 at least. The difficulty is about the same as in China, but China focuses on more advanced math knowledge, while AMC focuses on abstract math principles."
Xie Lan listened to the general idea and nodded in agreement.
Dou Sheng turned his head and looked at him: "May I ask about the ranking?"
“The top 1%.”
Yu Fei took a long breath and said, "Awesome."
Che Ziming hissed, "Hey, do you think this comprehensive science exam is difficult?"
Xie Lan answered hesitantly: "Physics... OK."
Che Ziming nodded. "It means it's not difficult. Awesome. What about chemistry?"
"…" Xie Lan was silent for a while, "I don't know."
"ah?"
Xie Lan sighed, "I don't understand the question."
Dou Sheng beside him turned his head to the other side. Xie Lan glanced at him and found that his mouth was tightly pursed, as if he was trying to hold back a smile.
Xie Lan withdrew his gaze indifferently.
"Ah..." Che Ziming immediately comforted him, "Maybe the chemistry progress in China is faster. It's okay. You have a good brain."
Xie Lan didn't want to recall the science test paper with a large blank space, so he tugged at his schoolbag and said nothing more.
"Hey, Herring, look at the school gate." Che Ziming went to poke Yu Fei again: "Chen Ge has packed everything."
People were coming and going outside the school gate. The car was clearly referring to the boy who sat by the back door during the day. He was thin and sharp. Xie Lan had made eye contact with him in the morning. His eyes were obviously very handsome, but very dark.
"He has to go this time when the classes are divided." Dai You said with some regret: "He ranked second in the city in the high school entrance examination that year, and he and Douzi were known as the two heroes of Class 4."
Che Ziming lowered his voice: "I still remember how high-spirited he was on the first day of high school. Who would have thought... I hope he can also bounce back, just like our... "
Dou Sheng suddenly interrupted, "Why are you talking about others? You can just die of idleness."
He raised his hand and stuffed something into Xie Lan's palm, "I'm giving you a gift. Don't tell my mom about the fight today."
Xie Lan spread out his palms and looked at the dead leaf with a cold face.
Absolutely not, just write a letter to your mother. In both Chinese and English.
However, the fact is that Zhao Wenying did not go home at all. It is said that he had three consecutive social events that night.
Xiao Ma bought some Cantonese dim sum for the two of them as a midnight snack. Dou Sheng didn't eat in the restaurant. He took a box of puffs and went back to his room.
After Xie Lan had his midnight snack, he went upstairs and passed by Dou Sheng's door. The door was not closed, so he inadvertently glanced into the room.
Dou Sheng's room was much bigger than his. The furniture was just a simple bed and table. There were several studio lights of different heights on the open space. The largest one was estimated to be more than 1.2 meters in diameter. A small cart beside it was piled with a variety of lenses, pan/tilts, tripods, some tangled power strips, and a large box of batteries.
Dou Sheng was adjusting the light stand with his back to the door. There was a puff next to him. He picked one up and put it into his mouth. Three seconds later, he tilted his neck back and the puff disappeared.
Xie Lan suddenly had a flash of inspiration and clicked on the pink TV icon that he had just downloaded.
Dou Sheng turned back to get something and was startled again, "Oh my god, why are you walking so quietly?"
Xie Lan asked: "Are you making eating videos?"
Dou Sheng was stunned, "What?"
“Something like this—” Xie Lan picked out the words he recognized on the screen and read: “Deep… what huge mouth, human flesh… ti, is it pronounced ti, a human flesh deboning machine? Iron pot hoard, no, stew, the iron pot stews itself?”
“…” Dou Sheng looked a little confused.
"Today, the car clearly said that you have a million..."
“Ah!” Dou Sheng suddenly realized, his Adam’s apple moving, “Yes! Yes… Even if it is, it’s called eating broadcast in China.”
Food broadcast with millions of fans.
Xie Lan held the phone tightly in his hand. What he cared about most was actually his cousin's affairs.
"So yesterday at the airport convenience store, were you... uh, livestreaming?"
Dou Sheng: "Live broadcast?"
"Um."
Dou Sheng shook his head decisively, and explained slowly to take care of his hearing: "I never do live broadcasts. I just happened to reply to a few voice messages yesterday. I am a very shy person. I only eat and don't talk in front of the camera. I don't say anything to fans."
Xie Lan fell silent after hearing this. He was deeply skeptical about the word "shy" and even suspected that he had misunderstood the word.
"Bilibili, right? I installed it. What's your ID?"
Dou Sheng's expression froze for a while, and after a long while he managed to utter a few words, "Mr. X who loves to eat."
Xie Lan typed in the search, "There is no such name."
Dou Sheng frowned, thought for a moment and said, "It was a slip of the tongue. Mr. X, who loves to eat, forgot the word 'food'."
This time I found it.
Xie Lan glanced at the number of fans and said in surprise: "It turns out that there are 1.48 million followers. This can't just be counted as a million."
"Hmm..." Dou Sheng paused for a few seconds, "My followers have been increasing rapidly recently."
Xie Lan casually clicked on a video.
It is indeed a food broadcast, and it is a professional ASMR recording of chewing sounds. Only the sound is recorded, and the face is not shown. The camera is facing down at the food on the table. It can be seen that he is a bit camera-shy. Even the action of reaching out to take the food will be cut out. Not to mention the face, no physical features will be captured.
Xie Lan flipped to the latest dynamic preview again, "Is this weekend going to record drinking a whole pot of meat sauce?"
Dou Sheng lost his expression: "... Really? I forgot."
"Go to bed quickly." He came over and put his hand on the door, "Get over the jet lag, good night."
The door was closed just as the conversation was about to begin, and the rest of the conversation was heard through the door. As soon as the sign fell, the business was closed for the day.
Xie Lan didn't care about these details. His cousin's affairs had nothing to do with the millions of fans. He felt a lot more relaxed at once. He casually clicked on the follow button and went back to his room.
There were some clean clothes folded on the bed, along with a small note.
- I bought it based on your style, and then I downloaded it from Taobao (smiley face)
The signature is "Aunt Zhao".
Xie Lan looked at the small note, and after a while he opened the drawer and put it away.
When he was taking off his clothes, the dry sycamore leaf fell out of his pocket. He was about to throw it away, but when he picked it up, his fingertips touched the protruding veins on the leaf, and he stopped.
My mother’s illness was discovered four years ago. She was treated for two years without success and then she passed away.
During the two years she was hospitalized, she would occasionally talk to him in Chinese about her hometown. In the 1990s, there were sycamore trees growing outside Wangjiang Lane, and the same was true on the campus. Every autumn, there were falling leaves everywhere.
Now Xie Lan lives in the former Wangjiang Lane and goes to the same school that Xiao Langjing attended. Time flies, and he feels as if he has traveled through time and space and returned here to walk the same path his mother walked.
He stared at the dead leaf for a while, and finally put it into the drawer.
The first class on the second day was Chinese.
Xie Lan attached great importance to it. He went to the Academic Affairs Office early in the morning to get the textbooks. Before class, he looked up all the unfamiliar words in the first three paragraphs of the first lesson and marked them carefully in English.
Dou Sheng slept beside him all morning and didn't even move when the bell rang.
The Chinese teacher's surname is Qin. He is a male teacher. He stepped onto the podium with a stack of papers under his arm, which made the students in the class turn green with envy.
Dai You asked faintly, "Are you that hardworking? You got the Chinese language score in one night?"
Lao Qin smiled and said, "No, you guys should prepare for the "Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng" in this class, and I will continue marking the papers."
There was a sigh of relief below.
"But before that, there was something." Old Qin changed the subject. "I heard that a new student in Class 4 made Teacher Ma ten years younger overnight. I was very excited when I heard about it last night, and I quickly took out his paper in the hope of regaining my youth in advance."
There was some good-natured laughter from the audience.
Che Ziming leaned back with a book covering his mouth, "Here I come, the second teacher who is shocked by your strength."
Xie Lan: “…”
Hope was not shattered.
Lao Qin took out a test paper from the pile, "Student Xie Lan—"
The whole class held their breath.
Old Qin lowered his eyes and looked at the test paper. After a while, he turned the page back, seemed to be about to say something, but stopped himself, and after a while, he turned the page again.
He flipped faster and faster, and the audience became quieter and quieter. When he turned to the last page, he finally stopped. "The essay topic this time is actually about universal love. Mozi's words are difficult to understand, but the poet's are very popular. Everyone basically ended the essay with the argument that 'no man is an island, isolated from the rest of the world.' Let's listen to how Xie Lan interprets it."
Xie Lan froze.
He didn't understand what universal love was. He only knew that he didn't know either "isolation" or "isolated island", so he only focused on the first half of the essay.
A more complete death than expected.
Lao Qin came over and handed over the paper himself, "Read it."
"… "
After half a minute, Xie Lan slowly stood up.
The composition seemed to be half a page long, but in fact only the first paragraph was in Chinese. His handwriting was extremely poor, and he could recognize most of the words but not write them, so he just turned to the front to find what was in the reading and copied it down. The exam time was limited, so after finishing the first paragraph, he gave up and switched to English.
"No one is self-contained. This is a point of view that everyone agrees on." Xie Lan lowered his head and read, "We look independent, but in fact we are composed of two halves—"
Che Ziming was pounding on the door frantically. "Fuck, write it down quickly. I feel like a great metaphor is coming out."
Xie Lan: "... half is mom, half is dad."
Che Ziming quickly wrote a few words, and the tip of his pen suddenly froze.
He turned his head slowly: "?"
The owls slowly turned their heads: "?"
Dou Sheng woke up, sat up straight, and looked up at Xie Lan.
Xie Lan continued to recite as if he were a dead person: "No one is self-contained. We should be grateful to our parents, just like the ancient Chinese Confucius who gave away his pears, demonstrating traditional culture and filial piety."
In fact, he didn’t know how to write the word “filial duty” and didn’t find it in the reading material, so he temporarily changed it to English word “filial duty” in the exam room.
There was deathly silence in the classroom for ten seconds.
Until Dou Sheng suddenly pouted—
"I'm so filial."
Then the owls lifted the roof off the house, and Che Ming hit the table, and his butt tilted, almost flipping over with the person and the stool.
“Absolutely amazing, hahahaha!!”
"Boss Xie Lan, you are so proud of your filial piety!"
"What's so difficult about writing an essay? Xie Lan can do it with a simple act of filial piety!"
"Confucius gave away his pear tree to a large grass, and Kong Rong was filled with filial piety in the afterlife."
"… "
Xie Lan moved the paper away and looked at Dou Sheng with hatred.
Dou Sheng smiled happily, and got a piece of sycamore leaf from somewhere. He raised his hand and quickly wrote a line of small words, and slapped it on Xie Lan's desk.
—Xie Lan, filial piety leads to strength.