Lin Qile sat in front of the mirror early in the morning, listening to music with the earphones of his walkman, but the words the adults said last night kept surfacing in his ears.
"Look, the child is already nine years old and is so hardworking, but the couple doesn't care about him..."
The mother found a rubber band to tie up Lin Qile's hair. She asked her husband, "What's going on outside so early in the morning?"
Electrician Lin put his work badge around his neck and said, "Manager Jiang's driver, here to pick up his child from school."
"Why drive? It's so close, just let the child walk by himself."
"Didn't you just transfer here?" Father Lin said, and raised his head and looked in the mirror. "Cherry."
"Ah?" Lin Qile quickly took off his headphones.
"Today is the first day your Uncle Jiang's child goes to school. If he has any problems adapting, you have to take care of him at school, okay?"
"I understand." Lin Qile said in a long tone.
She turned off her Walkman, took out the tape of "Revolution and Rotation" and put it in her schoolbag.
Mother Lin looked at Lin Qile through the mirror with a teasing look, and laughed at Father Lin's unnecessary action: "Do I need you to remind me?"
Early in the morning, Yu Qiao and his three friends sent his distant cousin Yu Jin to kindergarten.
Unlike Yu Zhenfeng and Yu Qiao, who were both tall and strong, Yu Jin was frail, with thin and soft hair. He spoke as if he was holding a piece of rice cake in his mouth, with his words being unclear and sticky. Lin Qile stood at the entrance of the kindergarten and wondered several times how this child could have the surname Yu.
"My dad asked me to ask Jiang Qiaoxi to go to school with me," Yu Qiao said as he walked, holding a glass of milk in his mouth. "But when I went to his house, I saw that he actually took the bus to school!"
Duchamp asked Lin Qile: "Did you really show him your rabbit?"
"Yes." Lin Qile bit the straw and drank the box of milk.
Du Shang's face wrinkled up in hurt, and even the band-aid on his forehead was about to lift up: "Yu Qiao, Cai Fangyuan and I haven't seen it yet!"
Yu Qiao threw away the empty milk bag and put his hands in his trouser pockets: "Don't hold me."
Cai Fangyuan drank from his thermos cup of Lego and said, "Don't take me with you. What's so good about rabbits?"
Duchamp sulked to himself.
During morning reading time, the head teacher led a transfer student into the classroom of Class 1, Grade 4.
Lin Qile was originally having a fierce quarrel with a girl in the back row named Qin Yeyun. Qin Yeyun grabbed one of Lin Qile's ponytails and pulled it back. When they saw the transfer student coming in, they both froze.
The transfer student was quite handsome, tall, and stood straight, and his clothes were different from those of ordinary children in Gunsan City.
The class was surprisingly quiet. The head teacher smiled and said, "The new student is from the provincial capital's experimental primary school. He is very outstanding. Come on, introduce yourself first."
The new student stood on the podium and silently wrote his name on the blackboard with chalk. There were many strokes and it was not easy to write. Under everyone's gaze, he put down the chalk and said, "My name is Jiang Qiaoxi."
Lin Qile quickly straightened her braids, put her hands on the desk in front of her, and sat upright like a good student. Qin Yeyun sat behind her, beaming with joy and showing off to the children from the surrounding power plants: "These are the children of our Qunshan Project Department!"
"Qin Yeyun, do you know him?"
"Of course," Qin Yeyun looked down at his secretly painted nails and said, "his father's driver came to my store to buy cigarettes yesterday."
Lin Qile, who was sitting in the front, couldn't help but roll her eyes when she heard this. Du Shang, who was sitting next to her and was her deskmate, also rolled his eyes.
"Jiang Qiaoxi..." Du Shang said indignantly, propping up his face with one hand, "Why is his name so special?"
That morning at Zhongneng Power Plant Primary School, everyone was talking about Jiang Qiaoxi. Everyone had heard that a transfer student from the provincial capital had been transferred to Class 1, Grade 4. He was said to be the top student in the provincial Mathematical Olympiad. But he only scored 10 on the entrance exam.
The girls in the school tiptoed past the door of Grade 4 Class 1 three times. During math class, Lin Qile wanted to look back from time to time.
Jiang Qiaoxi was arranged by the teacher to sit by the window, sitting at the same table with the physical education committee member Yu Qiao.
"Lin Qile," the math teacher said from the podium, "What are you looking back at? Look at the blackboard, look at the blackboard!"
Lin Qile shrank his neck amidst laughter.
Jiang Qiaoxi was sitting in the back flipping through his Olympiad math book. He also looked up at the blackboard, seemingly not noticing the laughter and glances coming from nearby.
After the math class, Lin Qile rushed to Yu Qiao's side almost instantly and occupied the advantageous position in time.
Duchamp was very annoyed and had no choice but to follow.
Cai Fangyuan was sitting in the row in front of Jiang Qiaoxi. He turned around, took the big curling paper and ate it as soon as the get out of class was over, and asked Jiang Qiaoxi if he wanted to eat.
"My name is Yu Qiao," Yu Qiao leaned back in his chair and turned the cover of his math book to show Jiang Qiaoxi, "My dad likes to read martial arts novels, the 'Fisherman and Woodcutter' in 'Fishermen, Woodcutter, Farmers and Scholars'."
Cai Fangyuan said his name was Cai Fangyuan. He made a coin shape with his fingers and then lowered his head to continue eating the roll.
Du Shang said before Lin Qile could speak: "My name is Du Shang!"
He paused and said, "My mother had a favorite painter with this name, so she gave it to me..." Duchamp muttered, "I don't like it. It's like something I picked up."
Lin Qile told Jiang Qiaoxi word by word: "My name is Lin Qile, the Qile of 'Happy Harmony', you should have -"
Yu Qiao interrupted her and said to Jiang Qiaoxi, "Her original name was Lin Yingtao. Do you know why?"
Jiang Qiaoxi listened to so many self-introductions right after class, and he hadn't said a word yet. "Why?" he asked.
I don’t know if he really cares about Lin Qile’s name or if he just follows what these people say.
"When Aunt Juanzi was pregnant with her, she was anemic, so she asked Uncle Lin to get her a big bowl of cherries," Yu Qiao said. "Aunt Juanzi thought they were delicious, and cherries were expensive, so she named her Lin Yingtao."
Cai Fangyuan added, "Fortunately, Auntie didn't like to eat anything else when she was pregnant, otherwise I would have named her Lin Bitter Melon, Lin Celery, Lin Garlic—"
Before he could finish his words, Lin Qile rushed over to him. Cai Fangyuan quickly picked up the math book on the table to block him: "You are crazy!"
Du Shang took the opportunity to tell Jiang Qiaoxi: "Lin Qile is a shrew. You'd better stay away from her."
Yu Qiao then asked Jiang Qiaoxi: "What does your name mean?"
Lin Qile was still in front of them, pulling at each other's red scarves with Cai Fangyuan, and they were both suffocating. Jiang Qiaoxi glanced at the two of them and found that Lin Qile's face was red, round and looked like a cherry. Jiang Qiaoxi told Yu Qiao and Du Shang, "It doesn't mean anything."
Yu Qiao was stunned.
Dushan sat down next to him curiously: "Wow, your name is so cool! It turns out it has no meaning?"
Manager Jiang got off work in the evening and declined the dinner invitations from various people in the project department. His family affairs were now known to everyone on the construction sites across the country, and if he didn't go to the social gatherings, no one would say anything to him.
But he was not used to the food in the canteen of the Qunshan construction site. As a grown man, and not very good at cooking, he had to take his son to the home of Electrician Lin next door to make do.
Lin Qile looked up at the dinner table and asked, "Uncle Jiang, what does 'Jiaoxi' mean?"
Manager Jiang took the bowl of salty porridge from Electrician Lin and looked at Lin Qile kindly.
"I really don't know what 'Jiaoxi' means," Manager Jiang shook his head and glanced at Electrician Lin. "What does it mean?"
Father Lin also served a bowl of porridge to Mother Lin. He laughed and said, "You forgot the name you gave yourself?"
Manager Jiang explained: "He was born suddenly at that time, and Liang Hongfei and I were not well prepared."
Lin Qile noticed from the corner of his eye that Jiang Qiaoxi's long eyelashes were drooping while he was eating.
"When I was going to register my name on the birth certificate, I really couldn't think of one," Manager Jiang smiled, "and then I saw a poem in the newspaper that day. It was called, 'Jiang Qiaoxi, the man in every household'."
After finishing the meal, Jiang Qiaoxi picked up his schoolbag and took his keys to go home. Lin Qile hurried to the kitchen and asked her mother, who was washing dishes, to advance her ten yuan for pocket money. She ran out quickly.
"Jiang Qiaoxi!" she shouted.
The construction site dormitories were long, one-story buildings built in rows, with ten households in each row, and the distance between the doors was only two or three meters.
Jiang Qiaoxi had already walked up the steps to his home and was using his key to open the door.
Lin Qile walked over wearing her little red shoes. She rubbed her hands, looked up and asked, "Do you want to drink Coca-Cola?"
"Where's Jianlibao?" Seeing that Jiang Qiaoxi didn't say anything, Lin Qile asked randomly, "Xurisheng iced tea?"
Lin Qile said, "What do you want to drink? I'll go buy it. Let's go play together, okay?"
Jiang Qiaoxi turned around and looked down at Lin Qile: "Don't you need to study?"
Lin Qile's round eyes widened.
"Isn't it tiring just to study?" Lin Qile said softly.
"I noticed that you've been doing math problems for the whole day," Lin Qile didn't shy away from her concern for Jiang Qiaoxi, "Don't you have a headache?"
Jiang Qiaoxi stood there, as if he couldn't understand what Lin Qile said.
Whether it's seeing him working on his homework all day or just feeling tired from studying, I get a headache.
"I won't have a headache." Jiang Qiaoxi told her.
"But there's no exam, and the teacher won't check or correct the wrong answers," Lin Qile tilted his head and looked at him curiously, "Who are you doing this for?"
At eight o'clock in the evening, Team Leader Yu came to Electrician Lin's house with a lunch box of smashed cucumbers and pork head, smoking a cigarette. He was accompanied by Driver Liao, a young staff member of the car team, and others, who came to play cards with Electrician Lin.
Mother Lin took off her apron, carried a basket of wool, and went to Squad Leader Yu's house with Du Shang's mother to watch TV series with Yu Qiao's mother and Grandma Yu, and learn how to knit sweaters from each other.
Lin Qile walked in front. "Why are you walking so slowly?" Lin Qile grabbed Jiang Qiaoxi's hand and pulled him forward.
Jiang Qiaoxi's reaction is always a few beats slower than hers.
"There's no exam, and the teacher won't check..." Her voice seemed to be still asking him, "Who are you doing this for?"
The house was dark and empty. No one cared whether Jiang Qiaoxi was studying or not. There was no cousin's family, no grandparents, no tutor. Jiang Qiaoxi walked on the cement road of the construction site in the mountains, and only Lin Qile was around him, chattering and urging him on.
"We've reached the first row!" Lin Qile held Jiang Qiaoxi's hand and stood in front of the single staff dormitory. She pointed to him and said, "From the first row to the fifteenth row at the back, they are all single staff dormitories!"
Even in the provincial capital, Jiang Qiaoxi had never seen such an active girl. He had only been at the Qunshan construction site for two days. He had lived in a building since he was a child, never a bungalow, let alone a low brick house with seven or ten households in a row.
The single dormitory was almost entirely occupied by men, who were workers who came to the construction site in the mountains alone to do odd jobs. In early September, when the weather was still hot, many young people sat around at the intersection with their backs bare playing poker.
In the provincial capital, even though Jiang Qiaoxi was a boy, his teachers taught him not to come to places where poor people gathered.
Lin Qile, however, was wearing a small skirt and moving around inside, and she didn't seem to feel scared at all. When she passed by the card games of those young men, Lin Qile would stand beside them and look over for a while.
Jiang Qiaoxi thought that according to their original teacher's standards, Lin Qile also lived in a slum, and Lin Qile was most likely a poor person.
"Cherry," a young man at the card game looked up and said, "Do you understand?"
Lin Qile shook his head: "I don't understand!"
"If you don't understand, ask Engineer Lin to teach you!" Another young man scratched the mosquito bite on his calf and threw down three cards. "Team Leader Yu's son can guess the cards."
"That kid Yu Qiao," said another person, "can play billiards now! I think he will be very wild in the future!"
—It turns out that they all knew each other.
Jiang Qiaoxi thought.
I know everyone on this construction site.
Lin Qile didn't know what Jiang Qiaoxi was thinking. As they walked, she introduced the people and events on their construction site to Jiang Qiaoxi. In Lin Qile's young mind, these events in life were probably more clearly remembered than the multiplication table.
"Dushan's family lived in the 11th row of single dormitories. He lived with his mother. Dushan's father was transferred to the Pucheng construction site."
"The house next door to Du Shang's is Qin Yeyun's. Qin Yeyun is also in our class. She lives with her father. Have you met her father? Uncle Qin who runs a small shop."
The two of them walked through more than a dozen rows of single dormitories, through the sunflower and strawberry fields planted by the workers in front of the dormitories in their spare time, and past the brightly lit workers' club and workers' library.
"Qin Yeyun's father was injured at work and one of his legs can't walk anymore," Lin Qile told Jiang Qiaoxi softly, "Cai Fangyuan's father let him stay at the construction site and contract the store. Uncle Qin is amazing, he practices Qigong every day to heal his leg!"
The two stopped in front of the leadership team’s house at the Qunshan construction site.
Although they are called leadership housing, these rows are still brick bungalows, with only one more bedroom than ordinary double-family dormitories. Such simple living conditions are really not proportional to the generous salaries that state-owned enterprise workers receive.
Lin Qile introduced, "This is row 32. The first household is Yu Qiao, your deskmate. He lives with his father, mother, grandmother Yu, and his younger cousin Yu Jin. Yu Jin's mother was sick, so she sent Yu Jin to their house. In fact, Yu Qiao's house is already very crowded, and there is no room for anyone else, but Uncle Yu is a model worker and the big brother on the construction site, and he will agree to anything."
"The second household is Grandma Zhang, the director of our construction site kindergarten. She was very kind to us and even gave me a little rabbit, but her husband passed away several years ago and she lives alone now."
"The third household in row 32 is occupied by Cai Fangyuan. He lives with his parents, but I don't see his mother very often—"
Jiang Qiaoxi listened to Lin Qile whispering beside him and introducing the project in detail. It seemed that every brick and tile, every blade of grass and tree, every person and animal on the construction site in the mountains, even a dusty beehive under the eaves and an abandoned bird's nest on the treetops, were deeply engraved in Lin Qile's young mind.
Rows of street lights were on at the construction site, illuminating the family compound hidden in the factory area on the outskirts of the mountain city. Many children gathered at the end of the road, sitting on the heating pipes wrapped in black insulation material, playing the game of pretending to be Maoshan Taoist priests.
"But there are bad guys on the construction site too," Lin Qile turned around and told Jiang Qiaoxi seriously, "Wei Yong who lives in row 14 is a little rascal, a stinky hooligan who likes to spit everywhere. Don't talk to him if you see him."
Jiang Qiaoxi had received enough information that night, although he didn't understand what the point of knowing it was.
"He looks like Andy Lau who is several times uglier," Lin Qile added, "You will definitely recognize him the first time you see him!"
Jiang Qiaoxi had no choice but to nod.
Lin Qile was still holding his hand. From the time he left home until now, Jiang Qiaoxi could clearly feel the sweat on his palms, and he didn't know if it was Lin Qile's sweat or his own.
In the dark night, Lin Qile's hands were the only thing he could feel. They were not as rough as his father's hands, not as dry as his mother's hands, and not as wrinkled as his grandmother's hands.
Lin Qile's hands were like a little rabbit's ears, rubbing softly on the back of Jiang Qiaoxi's hands.
"Let's go to school together tomorrow!" Lin Qile suddenly said to Jiang Qiaoxi under the street light.
Jiang Qiaoxi was still carrying his square leather backpack.
"You all know the way?" he asked.
"Of course." Lin Qile's eyes opened wide, and she suddenly raised one hand and pointed to the dark sky in the west.
There were twinkling lights in the sky, like stars, indicating that night construction was still in progress.
“The place with three water towers in the mountains,” Lin Qile said, “is our home!”