Early in the morning, Jiang Qiaoxi took the telephone receiver from his father and answered two calls.
The first call came from his cousin who was far away in Hong Kong. Jiang Qiaoxi was halfway through getting dressed when he heard his cousin say, "I heard that you had a fight with your parents, so you handed in a blank paper for the transfer exam?"
Jiang Qiaoxi didn't say anything either, he just lowered his head and buttoned his collar.
"Since you can take the test again today, you should treat it well," the cousin said seriously, "Show your true level. How do you know there are no good teachers in the mountains?"
The sound of a puppy barking was transmitted through the receiver from his cousin to Jiang Qiaoxi's ears.
Jiang Qiaoxi suddenly felt very sad.
"lassie missed you," said my cousin.
"I miss her too," said Jiang Qiaoxi.
"Study hard over there in the mountains," said my cousin, "Only then can you do what you want to do in the future."
Perhaps it was because Jiang Qiaoxi had remained silent. My cousin asked tentatively, "How is the Qunshan area?"
"Not very good." Jiang Qiaoxi said bluntly.
My cousin was stunned: "Then... did you meet any new friends?"
Jiang Qiaoxi paused and said, "No."
The second call came from the teacher's office of the provincial capital's experimental primary school. Jiang Qiaoxi had put on his schoolbag and was about to go to school when his father stopped him and asked if he needed a driver to take him there.
It was at this moment that the landline rang.
"Jiang Qiaoxi!" The caller was Jiang Qiaoxi's former classmate at the Experimental Primary School, a boy named Feilinger. "I can finally call you! Did you just install a telephone line in your new home in the mountains?"
Jiang Qiaoxi didn't say anything either. He heard a mess on the phone, as if there were a lot of people gathered there.
Felinger said, "Hey, stop crowding, Cen Xiaoman... Cen Xiaoman! Aren't you talking to Jiang Qiaoxi?"
Jiang Qiaoxi held the receiver in his hand, and time passed, minute by minute. A familiar girl's voice came closer to the phone.
"Jiang Qiaoxi..." Her voice was soft and gentle, "When will you transfer back to this school?"
The father then said, "Your little friends are here to see you."
Jiang Qiaoxi raised his head and through the screen door outside the living room, he saw Yu Qiao, Cai Fangyuan and others standing in front of his house, each drinking a carton of milk.
"I don't know either," Jiang Qiaoxi said to his former classmate on the phone, "I'm going to school first."
Yu Qiao was standing outside. When he saw Jiang Qiaoxi coming out, he held a milk straw in his mouth and raised his chin towards him, motioning Jiang Qiaoxi to look next door.
The door of Lin Qile's house was open, and crying sounds could be heard from inside.
“I don’t want…” Lin Qile was crying, crying heartbreakingly, “Don’t demolish the construction site…”
Father Lin couldn't help laughing, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and tried to persuade her in the house.
"Cherry, this construction site was originally built to build a power plant in the mountains. When the power plant is finished, the uncles and aunts will go to the next construction site to build a power plant, and mom and dad will go too. If everyone moves away, there will be no one living here, so it will definitely be demolished."
Mother Lin said: "Why are you telling her this for no reason?"
Father Lin said: "My daughter asked me, I can't tell a lie."
Jiang Qiaoxi walked to the door of Lin Qile's house. He saw Lin's father wearing simple work clothes, squatting in front of Lin Qile. He held Lin Qile's arms with both hands to help Lin Qile stand more steadily. He smiled and looked at Lin Qile's red face and wet eyes.
"Then we will move to the new construction site with uncle and aunt!" Father Lin said to her softly, "There will be a new construction site to live in."
Lin Qile listened and choked up, "Is Uncle Yu also at the new construction site?"
Jiang Qiaoxi heard Yu Qiao sneer from beside him.
Father Lin said: "Of course! If he doesn't come, we will call him and ask him why he doesn't come! We have already moved here!"
Lin Qile bit the milk straw in his mouth, carried his schoolbag, tied a red scarf around his neck, and walked at the front of the "Little Four" as before.
Now Jiang Qiaoxi is also here, and they have become the "Gang of Five".
Cai Fangyuan asked Jiang Qiaoxi whether Lin Qile took him around the compound yesterday.
Jiang Qiaoxi nodded.
Maybe Cai Fangyuan saw the two of them under the street light last night.
Cai Fangyuan said, "I knew it! Every time a new child comes to our hospital, she rushes to be the guide for them, without even asking if they are willing—"
After hearing this, Jiang Qiaoxi continued walking forward with Cai Fangyuan and the others. He looked up and saw Lin Qile's back in front of him.
Lin Qile wore a light yellow skirt today, which was different from the one she wore yesterday. There was a red string under her red scarf, hanging around her neck. The red was set off by the white, and it was very conspicuous, like a thin line of amber.
Her two ponytails hung down, swinging back and forth on her shoulders. Just like her, she was very restless.
Cai Fangyuan said, "On the day I first transferred here, it was midday and the sun was scorching! She was still walking so fast!" He muttered, "She walked all afternoon and I was so tired..."
When he arrived at school, Jiang Qiaoxi was called to the principal's office before the first class. The principal asked him to find time today to come and take the test again so that the fourth-grade teacher would have an idea of his learning progress.
I don’t know about other subjects, but the math teacher of Grade 4 Class 1 was already quite familiar with Jiang Qiaoxi’s math level. When Jiang Qiaoxi was called to the blackboard to do a question, the teacher wanted to walk around, but as soon as he stepped off the podium, Jiang Qiaoxi had already written the correct answer.
In contrast, Lin Qile, the music representative in the class, was in a very bad state. She held a piece of chalk in her hand and sat on the podium with a very serious attitude, but her ears were perked up to listen to the movements behind her.
"Five!" Cai Fangyuan said in a low voice, "Lin Qile, five!"
Lin Qile finally heard it, and regardless of what the question was, she quickly wrote "5" in the brackets.
Yu Qiao said: "Six!"
Duchamp covered his mouth with his math book. "Don't listen to them! Seven!"
"Eight!" Cai Fangyuan followed closely.
When the math teacher coughed, all the students covered their mouths and dared not laugh.
The final answer was indeed "eight", but as soon as the math class started, Lin Qile and Cai Fangyuan started fighting each other to the death.
Jiang Qiaoxi sat in the row behind Cai Fangyuan, reading during the break, even though his desk was often affected by the war. His deskmate Yu Qiao was reading a sports newspaper.
Just a few days ago, on September 5, at the 20th FIBA Asia Championship, the Chinese men's basketball team defeated South Korea with a score of 63 to 45.
"Hey, hey," a group of boys gathered around and read the newspaper next to Yu Qiao. Yu Qiao called Jiang Qiaoxi, "Look at Hu Weidong, he's amazing!"
The boys kept discussing the following names: Hu Weidong, Wang Zhizhi, Bartel, Gong Xiaobin.
Lin Qile also leaned over at this time, and her two ponytails were about to fall on Jiang Qiaoxi's pencil case.
"Wow, who is this person?" Lin Qile asked in surprise.
"Which one?" Cai Fangyuan asked behind her.
"This." Lin Qile said seriously. She pointed at the newspaper, which contained a group photo of the Chinese men's basketball team. Lin Qile looked up at Yu Qiao.
Yu Qiao glanced at the photo. The big, stupid guy that Lin Qile was talking about looked unfamiliar and he didn't recognize him.
Looking at the news again, this guy is only 18 years old, and it’s his first time joining the national team. He didn’t have any outstanding performance in the game.
"What's wrong with him?" Yu Qiao didn't know why Lin Qile was suddenly so curious.
Lin Qile exclaimed: "He is so tall!"
Cai Fangyuan turned around and said to Jiang Qiaoxi: "I told you, she is just a fool."
Yu Qiao took the newspaper back, seemingly disdainful of being disturbed by a jumpy amateur like Lin Qile on his precious reading time.
It happened that Lin Qile's classmate at the radio station came to the door of the classroom to look for her. After Lin Qile left, Du Shang came over and asked, "Who did she just ask?"
Yu Qiao was reading a newspaper and didn't even raise his head: "I don't know him, what's his name... Yao Ming?"
The school radio station distributed throat lozenges to the young members. Although Lin Qile no longer participated in the work of the radio station, the teacher in charge of the radio station still remembered her and wanted her to go back to broadcast a program about historical and cultural trivia about Macau's return at the end of this year.
Lin Qile had several pieces of candy in his mouth, his cheeks puffed up: "Hasn't this been broadcast before?"
"That was Hong Kong's return, and now it's Macau," the teacher said helplessly.
Lin Qile held a small bag of throat lozenges in her hand and ate them happily when she returned to class. Cai Fangyuan had just finished wiping the blackboard in front of her. When he saw her, he wiped the blackboard and threw it away: "Lin Qile! You don't even give me a cent!"
Jiang Qiaoxi was writing a question when he suddenly asked Yu Qiao, "Why are you playing with girls?"
Yu Qiao finished reading the newspaper and saw Lin Qile eating candy. He stood up and seemed to be planning to exchange the newspaper for candy.
Hearing Jiang Qiaoxi's question, Yu Qiao turned around and was stunned.
"Who are you talking about?" he asked.
"Lin Qile." Jiang Qiaoxi said.
Yu Qiao looked at Jiang Qiaoxi as if he was hearing about him for the first time.
"Lin Qile is a girl?"
Jiang Qiaoxi discovered that only under one circumstance would Yu Qiao and the others admit that Lin Qile was a girl.
Qin Yeyun and Lin Qile, two female classmates in the class, wrestled with each other. The fight was so fierce that they even ended up crawling under the desks.
Cai Fangyuan sat in his seat and watched the fight, and said with emotion: "There is no room for two tigresses on this mountain."
Suddenly Lin Qile yelled. Jiang Qiaoxi raised his head while writing the questions.
Qin Yeyun's hair was disheveled and her face was scratched several times, but she smiled triumphantly under the gaze of everyone. Qin Yeyun rode on Lin Qile like a pony, holding something in her hand, and two thin red ropes hung down from her palm.
"Give it back to me!" Lin Qile was pressed to the ground by her, and he shouted at her anxiously, "Give it back to me!"
Qin Yeyun glared at Lin Qile and said, "You'll just ask Yu Qiao to help you fight! Ask him to help you!"
As soon as she said this, everyone in and outside the class, whether they were watching the fun or not, fell silent.
The quietest one was Yu Qiao. Cai Fangyuan turned around to look at him, and saw Yu Qiao's face full of "Who did she call? Who called me? Who am I? What the hell does it have to do with me?"
Du Shang bravely spoke up at the side: "Qin Yeyun, you... don't go too far!"
"What's it got to do with you? Shut up!" Qin Yeyun raised his head with a look of disgust.
Lin Qile tried to get up from the ground several times but failed. She was so angry that her eyes turned red: "Give me back my amber!"
Qin Yeyun proudly shook his head left and right, rode on Lin Qile and shook the amber to show off, and stuck out his tongue slightly at Lin Qile.
A few minutes later, Lin Qile was standing by the wall of the corridor outside the classroom, and he and Qin Yeyun were pulled over by the head teacher to stand as punishment.
Lin Qile held her amber in her hand, her eyes were red, her lips were pouting, and she looked very unhappy.
The head teacher first scolded Lin Qile and Qin Yeyun in public and asked them to stand in the corridor.
Then he walked into the classroom with a pleasant face and gently told Jiang Qiaoxi not to attend the next physical education class and to go to his office with him to take a short test.
Lin Qile raised his head unconsciously.
She walked past the classroom door and turned to peek into the classroom. Jiang Qiaoxi had been studying quietly just now, but now he stood up next to Yu Qiao.
Most of the physical education class is free time.
Lin Qile was sitting on the parallel bars and got angry: "You guys don't help me, and you still want me to help you... Humph, I won't help..."
Cai Fangyuan stood under the parallel bars and explained to her: "No, you two girls are fighting. No matter who we help, we are bullying the girls, right?"
Lin Qile said depressedly: "Then you just watch her bully me like that!"
Du Shang licked his lips and said in embarrassment: "Cherry, it's not that I don't want to help you, it's just that Qin Yeyun is too unreasonable."
Yu Qiao spoke up at this time, bluntly: "You and Qin Yeyun had a fight, and Qin Yeyun didn't ask anyone else for help."
After hearing what he said, Lin Qile let out a sigh of unhappiness.
"And look at her face," Yu Qiao said, "what has she done to it after you grabbed her."
Lin Qile jumped off the parallel bars and put the broken Amber into her skirt pocket. What Yu Qiao said seemed to make sense. Lin Qile thought that if she and Qin Yeyun fought alone, it would be unfair if others helped.
"Let's go!" Lin Qile said.
Seeing that Lin Qile was finally willing to leave, Cai Fangyuan excitedly chased after him.
"I'm telling you, my book is on the second filing cabinet in the row against the wall next to the old principal—"
Jiang Qiaoxi was absent-mindedly writing his test paper on the principal's desk. The principal gave him one class period, and in ten minutes, Jiang Qiaoxi had almost finished reading the questions and writing down the answers.
Jiang Qiaoxi had learned this when he entered the provincial capital's experimental primary school's Olympic Games tutoring class. After he finished writing, he still felt uneasy in his mind.
"We must study hard even in the mountains."
This is what his cousin said to him on the phone.
“Only in this way can you do what you want in the future.”
Jiang Qiaoxi looked at the paper carefully again and again, and he was done. Fortunately, the principal only let him take the math test, which saved the most time. He put down his pen and was about to leave when he heard a voice from outside the window.
It's a girl.
"Stand still, Cai Fangyuan!"