Du Shang was asleep, and when he heard the phone ring, he thought it was the monitor urging him to vote for Zhou Bichang or someone else. That's not right, he thought, why vote again after the competition is over
Dushan picked up his phone and quickly turned on the bedside lamp.
"Cherry?" He asked in surprise, lifted the quilt and looked at the clock on the wall, "Why are you calling me at this time?"
Lin Yingtao was silent on the phone, and seemed unhappy. It was late at night, and Lin Yingtao was living far away in the South Campus, which made Du Shang very worried.
"Cherry?" Duchamp asked tentatively, and could only hear very light breathing sounds.
"Duchamp..." Lin Yingtao whispered.
"Where are you?" Duchamp said.
"In the dormitory." Lin Yingtao said.
Dushan found it strange. Wouldn’t it disturb other people’s sleep if he made a phone call in the dormitory so late
But it didn't sound like there was anyone else around.
Dushan said, "Cherry, you, do you want to talk to me about something?"
Lin Yingtao said nothing.
"I looked at my report card today. How come you did so well in the midterm exam?" Dushan suddenly raised his voice.
Lin Yingtao chuckled: "Did you do well in the test? I studied for a long time every day!"
Dushan felt a little relieved when he heard her laugh.
"I'm not saying anything, you did too well!" Du Shang said exaggeratedly, "Yu Qiao only ranked around 200! Although he only played basketball, he studied very hard. There are so many talented people in the laboratory! There are more than a thousand people in the whole grade, how did you rank in the top 30?"
Lin Yingtao said: "The first-year high school questions are easy! If I practice them every day, I will be able to do well in the exam."
Du Shang said: "Cai Fangyuan also wants you to come and help us with our homework today!"
Lin Yingtao said: "I won't write to him."
"That's right!" Duchamp said, "Don't write it for him! Just lend it to me to copy."
Du Shang became happier and happier as he talked on the phone. Yu Qiao pushed open the door from outside. He woke up in the middle of the night and heard Du Shang not sleeping well in Yu Jin's room, but talking nonsense.
Duchamp pointed at the cell phone and mouthed: Cherry's call!
"Cherry, how is the South Campus?" Du Shang asked, afraid of being interrupted. "Is the food in the cafeteria delicious? Better than the cafeteria at our Qunshan construction site—"
"Duchamp." Cherry called him suddenly.
"What's wrong?" Dushan's heart ached.
"I miss my mom and dad..." said Cherry.
At night, Dushan was holding his Nokia 110 in his hand. He heard Cherry trying to suppress her sniffling but failing.
Duchamp whispered: "Cherries, cherries..."
Yu Qiao came over, snatched Du Shang's phone and held it to his ear.
"Hello?" he asked anxiously. When he was anxious, his tone would easily sound fierce. "Why are you calling so late?"
Dushan next to him quickly said, Cherry is crying, don’t choke her!
Lin Yingtao sniffed on the phone. When she heard Yu Qiao's voice, she choked up and said, "Why are you so fierce? I'm not calling you."
It was still dark, a little after five in the morning, when Lin Qile woke up. In the darkness, she sat up from her bed, folded her quilt, washed up quickly, tied her hair, put on her school uniform, picked up her water cup, and left the dormitory with her book in her arms while her roommates slept soundly.
There was a small patch of flowers downstairs from the dormitory. Lin Qile walked near it under the stars and heard the tender and delicate sound of a meow, as if it was waiting for her.
During the winter vacation of that year, Lin Qile went to Beijing with her parents again. She showed her final report card and the award certificate from the school to her aunt, uncle and cousin.
The eldest aunt was overjoyed and carefully put the commendation photo of Lin Yingtao wearing the blue and white Provincial Experimental High School uniform and holding a certificate into the large frame of the family photo. As she watched, she couldn't help but hug her niece Yingtao. "Yingtao," she sighed, "how come you are so promising, so obedient and so amazing..."
Lin Yingtao followed her cousin's family, her parents, and took a bus to climb the Great Wall. Lin Yingtao ran the fastest, rushing in front, leading the family. Lin Yingtao sat in front of the camera, wearing the princess costume from "My Fair Princess", which she loved to watch when she was a child, and a heavy banner head. She opened her eyes wide and took silly tourist photos.
During the Mid-Autumn Festival, my aunt’s workplace issued two swimming experience tickets to a five-star hotel. There were only two tickets in total. My aunt was reluctant to use them and took them out half a year later. In the middle of winter, Lin Qile and his cousin wore down jackets, carried swimsuits, and took the bus with their two children to go swimming in the high-end hotel called Lanzhuang across Beijing.
"Cherry!" my cousin said excitedly. In February in Beijing, people's noses were red and runny from the cold. "We have also been to five-star hotels!"
In the alley, there were vendors with their hands folded, selling pirated CDs on the roadside. Lin Qile came back from swimming and looked at the stall for a long time. There were all kinds of CDs here, and Lin Qile even wanted to call his father to ask if there was anything he wanted to buy.
"Little girl, what do you want to buy?" the vendor said, "Taiwanese idol dramas are only suitable for kids your age!"
"What's the matter?" Lin Qile asked.
The vendor had a cigarette between his lips and spoke in a muffled Beijing dialect: "Meteor Garden, Prince This, Turning into a Frog, and -"
Lin Qile took the money out of her pocket, counted it herself, and said, "I want this!"
The vendor glanced at the few bills in Lin Qile's hand and said, "This copy of Itazura na Kiss is thirty! Thirty!... Okay, okay, take it!"
When she came back from Beijing, it was less than ten days before the start of the school year. Xin Tingting came to Lin Qile's house every day to study. For an excellent student like Lin Qile, Xin's mother now wished that her daughter could have more contact with her and get closer to her, so that she could get into the top 100 in the grade.
The bedroom door was closed. The two little girls threw away their schoolbags and sat in front of the computer screen, eating freshly steamed sweet buns made with jujube flour while watching Naoki Irie with relish - oh no, it was the Taiwanese student Jiang Zhishu who was in a premature relationship with Yuan Xiangqin.
“It’s fun.”
"Ah?" Lin Qile responded.
"Have you ever been in love early?"
Lin Qile was stunned and shook her head.
Xin Tingting turned to look at her.
"Really?" Xin Tingting asked.
Lin Qile was puzzled: "Why would I lie to you?"
Sixteen years old is the age of "awakening", the buds stretch, the stamens begin to bloom, the round cocoons break open, and the butterfly wings are particularly gorgeous and quietly poke out. Lin Qile passed the cosmetics on her mother's desk to Xin Tingting. She opened every bottle and let Xin Tingting try each one. The two little girls were particularly excited. Xin Tingting told Lin Qile that she heard it at the Laishui construction site a long time ago: the son of Manager Jiang from the headquarters was in the Qunshan construction site, and he fell in love with the daughter of Lin Haifeng, a forest worker, and was brought back to the provincial capital by his parents in advance. "I thought it was true!" Xin Tingting laughed.
Lin Qile looked at her and smiled, but didn't say anything. Xin Tingting carefully applied lipstick in front of the mirror, and then asked her: "Is this how you apply lipstick?"
Lin Qile couldn't help but laugh: Xin Tingting could even remember the names of adults, and looked like a little adult, but she had never even put on her mother's lipstick at home. "I'll put it on for you." Lin Qile stretched out his hand.
After the start of the school year, Lin Qile was appointed by the head teacher as the study committee member of the class because of his excellent final results in the previous semester.
When other students were laughing and hanging out downstairs, Lin Qile was studying hard upstairs. When other students were gathered in groups of three or five to chat about TV variety shows, Lin Qile was wearing headphones to listen to English and even memorizing words while eating.
Jay Chou has released his sixth album, but Lin Qile still only likes to sing a few songs from Fantasy. On a weekend in early April, Lin the Electrician drove the Santana to pick up Yingtao and Xin Tingting to take home.
A cheerful song was playing in the car, and the male singer was singing: Sawadee ka!
"Dad, did you buy Jay Chou's new tape?" Lin Qile asked curiously.
"Yes," Lin the electrician said in the front with a smile, "Cherry is sixteen years old today!"
Xin Tingting was surprised and said: "Qile, it's your birthday!"
Lin Qile realized belatedly that today was April 9th.
Electrician Lin said as he drove: "Yu Qiao and Du Shang ordered a big cake for you, but it seems that Cai Fangyuan paid for it. Cherry will thank the children later..."
Xin Tingting secretly said to Lin Qile: "Your dad always seems to treat you like a child, and even calls you 'little kids'!"
Perhaps because they discovered that Lin Qile, this shameless man, had no reaction to the rumors about "mountains", "countryside", "love letter", "coming to the provincial capital to pursue Jiang Qiaoxi", etc., the classmates around him made a fuss for a while, but gradually no one mentioned it anymore.
It may also be that due to her position as a study committee member, she dare not bring it up in person.
In early June, perhaps squad leader Feng Letian mustered up the courage and finally started to talk to Lin Qile again.
"Student Lin!" As soon as school was over at noon, students from upstairs and downstairs rushed to the cafeteria, but Feng Letian chased after Lin Qile.
This semester, Feng Letian signed up for the school's Mathematical Olympiad class. There were two rounds of exams a month, and students who failed three times in a row would be screened out. The harsh assessment system was incompatible with the relaxed and free campus atmosphere of the Experimental High School.
"I got the last place in the exam again..." Class monitor Feng held his lunch box and stood next to Lin Qile in the cafeteria line. "If I don't get eliminated in the next exam, I might go to this school in my second year of high school. Then I'll go to study with you!"
Lin Qile looked up and asked, "Is Mathematical Olympiad really that difficult?"
Feng Letian smiled bitterly and scratched his head: "It's not difficult for geniuses... But for mortals like us..."
As the team moved forward, Feng Letian helped Lin Qile to block the way from time to time, because some students were not careful when carrying their plates and always bumped into others, getting splashed with vegetable juice.
"You... you should know Jiang Qiaoxi." Feng Letian said in a low voice.
Lin Qile felt that Monitor Feng was a good person. In South Campus, there were very few people who were as friendly and enthusiastic towards her. She nodded.
"He and I went to the same junior high school and attended competition classes together," Feng Letian said. "When we were in junior high school, our teacher often said that Jiang Qiaoxi's level was good enough to directly participate in the high school league."
"He should have participated in the preliminaries in his freshman year, and then in the league in his sophomore year, and directly entered Tsinghua's summer camp, and was guaranteed admission to Tsinghua."
Feng Letian put the prepared rice on the dining table. He listened to his parents and ate properly with the bowl and chopsticks he brought with him.
Lin Qile sat down opposite him with his plate, ignoring the noises from the people around him. Lin Qile said stiffly, "Wow, he's amazing."
Feng Letian asked tentatively: "Student Lin, you and Jiang Qiaoxi..."
Lin Qile said: "I was his classmate in primary school for two years, but we didn't know each other anymore."
Feng Letian was stunned: "Oh..."
At the end of June, Lin Qile was concentrating on preparing for the final exams when the news came out in the school's commendation column.
The results of the provincial preliminary round of the 2006 National High School Mathematics League were announced. More than 100 students from the Provincial Experimental High School passed the selection and officially entered the semi-finals. Among them, Jiang Qiaoxi, a student from Class 21 of Grade 1, and Wang Shuran, a student from Class 5 of Grade 2, won the provincial first prize and received special commendation.
In mid-July, several families from the "Old Mountain Base" of the Power Construction Company gathered together and booked a private room at a restaurant near the headquarters community. Manager Cai Yue had just finished his construction project and was temporarily transferred back to the provincial capital, and Manager Jiang Zheng was officially promoted to the second-in-command of the group, so there was a lot to celebrate.
Manager Cai stood up and raised his glass first: "Today, the four of us old friends and families are gathering together! Let's hold a welcome party for our former mountain god of wealth, Lin Yingtao! Yingtao will be moving back to the headquarters next semester, so you kids should stick together. Also, this Yu Qiao, ah, was elected as a VIP in school!"
"MVP!" Cai Fangyuan said as he sat next to him, disdaining his father, "It's also an MP3 player..."
"Dushan, you should also be praised," said Manager Cai, who was used to big things and not particular about small details. He then called out the names of the students one by one, "He found a wallet with 20,000 yuan in it at the entrance of our headquarters, Construction Bank! He is honest and trustworthy! He is the first child from our Qunshan construction site to be featured in the newspaper. Everyone knows that he is from our Electric Power Construction Corporation!"
Lin Qile sat next to Duchamp and applauded loudly with Yu Qiao.
Dushan was embarrassed. He asked, "Cherry, where is your kitten?"
Only then did Lin Qile realize that the cat in her arms had run away, and she quickly lifted the tablecloth and went underneath to look for it.
"Finally, this is my son Cai Fangyuan." Uncle Cai's feet were wearing a pair of shiny leather shoes, which could be seen from under the tablecloth. "He won a small and insignificant prize in the provincial middle school computer competition. He has some talent, but he can't be proud!"
Lin Qile lay under the table and whispered, "Mimi...Mimi!" She tried to imitate the cat's meow: "Meow~"
Manager Cai was about to finish his speech when he suddenly remembered, "Oh yeah, I almost forgot, there's a big prize! Our manager Jiang's son, Jiang Qiaoxi, is a well-known talent in the headquarters! He won the first prize in the provincial Olympic Mathematics Competition! Manager Jiang, what kind of blessing are you to have such a gifted scholar!"
Manager Jiang smiled and waved his hands, but it was obvious that he was in a good mood.
Electrician Lin asked, "Where's Qiaoxi? Why didn't he come?"
Manager Jiang said to his old neighbor, "He went to his Olympiad class."
"Are you still going?" Squad Leader Yu asked from the opposite side.
For four years, Manager Jiang's child has been going through a lot of hardships in this Olympiad class.
"Aren't all the exams over?" he asked.
"Uncle Yu, that was the preliminary round," Cai Fangyuan explained, "He still has to take the semi-final in September."
"There's a rematch?" Squad Leader Yu peeled a peanut, "You... Fang Yuan, why didn't you take the exam? Aren't you studying together?"
Cai Fangyuan quickly distanced himself from the question: "Forget it, who wants to take the exam in the first year of high school? We all take the exam in the second year of high school, and we may not be able to pass even in the second year of high school!"
"That's a pretty tight schedule," said Lin, the electrician, as he sat next to Manager Jiang. "Do I have to study for the entire summer vacation?"
"Let him learn it," Manager Jiang smiled, but frowned. He clinked his glasses with Manager Cai's and started drinking. "Come on, brothers, let's have a drink!"
The adults were drinking at the table, and the children were finally able to have fun during the summer vacation. Lin Qile was going to return to his school, from the first year of high school to the second year of high school. The former "Little Four|Gang" all chose science subjects, so maybe they could be assigned to the same class.
Cai Fangyuan was playing PSP under the table, while Lin Qile was sitting next to him, hugging the cat and watching. Cai Fangyuan said, "You've never played it before."
Lin Qile said: “No!”
Cai Fangyuan pressed the game console and turned to glance at Lin Qile.
When he was in primary school in Qunshan, he remembered that Lin Qile loved to wear flowery skirts, red leather shoes, and dress up. At a very young age, she changed the flowers on her hair every day. She was very vain and loved to show off.
How come when I grew up and moved to the provincial capital, I started wearing loose sportswear, my hair was as thick as plain noodles, I just tied it up casually, and I didn't even wear a hairpin when I went out.
"Lin Yingtao, I think you are becoming a country bumpkin in South School," said Cai Fangyuan.
Lin Qile glared at him, and his big eyes looked quite majestic.
Cai Fangyuan smiled, lowered his head to play the game, and suddenly said something.
"Jiang Qiaoxi said he would come after class."
Manager Jiang drank too much at the table. He was the oldest among the colleagues present. If Jiang Mengchu had not had an accident, he would not have been able to sit at the same table with these guys who were ten years younger than him to reminisce about the past because of the next generation. "It's not worry-free, no one is worry-free," Manager Jiang said after listening to Cai Yue's flattery all night, "My child, you watched him be obedient, when he was in junior high school," he drank until his cheeks were red, his eyes were half open, and he was drunk, and he lowered his voice, "premature love."
"He was halfway through writing a letter when his mother found out. She made a scene at home and tore up the book. The neighbors in three or four buildings around him heard it," Jiang Zheng blinked, holding his wine glass. "I don't know what he wrote, but I just heard Liang Hongfei getting angry. To put it bluntly, the child is a worry-free person."
"That's why I didn't want him to come over today." Manager Jiang said, then raised his glass.
After three rounds of drinks, it was already eight o'clock in the evening.
Squad Leader Yu, who was drunk, said, "Yu Qiao, you and Yingtao, go outside and order some noodles!"
Lin Yingtao held the cat in her arms and walked out with Yu Qiao. Du Shang asked from the side: "Is this really a stray cat from South Campus? How can there be such a cute stray cat—"
It was Cai Fangyuan who first said, "Hey, here they come!"
Yu Qiao raised his head.
At the entrance of the hotel, there stood a person who was not a stranger but certainly not very familiar.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked like he had just finished class. He was standing there alone, carrying a schoolbag and wearing a gray and black T-shirt.
When Lin Qile saw him, the cat in his arms suddenly meowed softly.
"You..." Du Shang stuttered, very surprised, "Why are you here?"
Yu Qiao asked, "Have you had dinner?"
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at his elementary school desk mate and shook his head.
Yu Qiao patted Lin Qile on the back and said, "Let's go and order some food."
A group of five high school students stood in front of a wall filled with fish tanks and colorful recipes printed on the wall.
Lin Qile was originally beside Cai Fangyuan, she was concentrating on looking at the photos of the sample dishes, listening to the sound of the oxygen pump in the fish tank, and hugging her kitten. Cai Fangyuan suddenly went to Yu Qiao to order food.
Jiang Qiaoxi stood beside her.
Lin Qile's breathing stopped.
"You're going back to school for your second year of high school?"
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly asked.
His voice changed, became unfamiliar, more like an "adult" voice than when he was a child.
Lin Qile couldn't make a sound. She nodded.
"Which class are you assigned to?" Jiang Qiaoxi asked.
Lin Qile shook her head, she didn’t know.
Yu Qiao ordered all the dishes and noodles by himself. He was about to leave. Lin Qile wanted to follow him quickly, but suddenly Jiang Qiaoxi called her from behind: "Lin Qile!"
Lin Qile stopped where he was.
A young man who had been waiting silently at the door just now suddenly spoke loudly. Many people around him fell silent and looked at him.
Jiang Qiaoxi slowly walked back to Lin Qile. His skin was white, which made his eyes look darker, making him look like he was always in black, white and gray. Lin Qile raised his head and looked at Jiang Qiaoxi's face.
Jiang Qiaoxi also looked down at her, his brows slightly furrowed, his hair hanging down, half covering his eyes, and his lips pursed.
It was as if he had more questions to ask and he hadn't finished asking them yet.
Lin Qile didn't want to answer anymore. She walked forward. Jiang Qiaoxi stood there motionless with his schoolbag on his back.
Lin Qile raised his head.
"I want to tell you something." Lin Qile said suddenly.
"You say." Jiang Qiaoxi said.
"I didn't come to the provincial capital just for you." Lin Qile looked at him.
From a distance came the laughter of Uncle Yu and his friends toasting.
"Me neither. I transferred to this school because of you," said Lin Qile.
The little kitten was in her arms, meowing at Jiang Qiaoxi, but he couldn't reach out to hug it.
Jiang Qiaoxi looked down at her: "I know."