"What I want to say is, after class, which classmate is willing to help me clean the office? I heard there will be an inspection tomorrow. That's great, thank you so much." He raised the corners of his mouth and smiled at me.
“… It’s not reading words, it’s cleaning?” I asked.
"Every time I come, I ask you to read words. How boring. Teaching should be innovative. Only innovation can arouse students' interest. Interest is the best motivation for learning, right?" He smiled again.
"Yes, Teacher Mu said it well." Xiaobai was the first to applaud.
Immediately, there was applause from the audience.
Mu Chenghe finally noticed his fellow villager Xiao Bai: "The one with braids in front of the class representative, the student from the mathematics department. Yes, that's you."
Xiao Bai stood up flattered, with a happy expression on her face. Although she came here just to get a seat, she was crazy about Mu Chenghe in every class and was unwilling to waste any time, always studying seriously.
But what puzzles me is why Mu Chenghe knew that she was in the Department of Mathematics.
Mu Chenghe said to her amiably, "Student, please read the dialogue on page 55 again."
After all this time, his so-called teaching innovation was to ask a transfer student from the mathematics department to read dialogues instead of reading words, and then asked me, who finally mustered up the courage to read words, to clean the office instead...
If someone asked me at this moment, what kind of feeling in this world is more profound than love and more lasting than family affection
I would answer without hesitation: It must be my hatred for Mu Chenghe.
The office used by Mu Chenghe is at the end of the corridor on the seventh floor of the Fourth Teaching Building.
The office is not big, with a usable area of only ten square meters. There are three desks and two computers, as well as a row of filing cabinets, which contain the league files of all the league members in the college. A signboard with the words "Foreign Languages College League Committee" hangs at the door.
This semester, Chen Ting is not only our Russian teacher, but also the deputy secretary of the Youth League Committee of our college. Don't underestimate the Youth League Committee, it handles everything from the small matters of the Student Union to the big matters of recommending outstanding students to join the Party.
Mu Chenghe now occupies this office.
I stood at the door, looked around, and asked fiercely, "Teacher, where do you want me to sweep?"
Mu Chenghe put down his textbooks and folders: "It's not much, just take out the trash."
So simple
My mood suddenly lightened up, I gathered the plastic bags in the trash basket together, and happily took them to throw away. When I came back, he was using the computer, his fingers dancing quickly on the keyboard. After noticing my return, he stared at the screen without moving: "You're back?"
"Yeah." I nodded.
"Send me a sound." He said as he typed.
I accepted this task even more happily and showed off my achievements proudly.
His fingers stopped, he turned his head to look at me and smiled: "You learn very quickly."
I turned my head away with disdain: "It's all thanks to my cleverness."
“It’s commendable,” he said.
I started to feel smug: "That's it."
"During the last exam, I thought you must be a good kid, but you just went astray, so I didn't sign you up." He said suddenly.
My heart skipped a beat.
Last exam...
He actually remembered that incident and also remembered me. No wonder he was so sarcastic to me.
"Oh, so you are the invigilator." I pretended to be surprised so that he wouldn't think that I was pretending not to know him, and secretly cursed him several times.
"I thought you would recognize me even if I turned into ashes."
"No way." I said guiltily.
He stared at me seriously for a long time and said calmly, "You must study hard in the future."
I looked over. His light-colored pupils were dark and serene, like a landscape painting in light ink.
Now that I think about it carefully, I was wrong first.
As a student of a prestigious university and a person who actively pursues progress in thought, I actually cheated in the Mao Zedong Thought exam. I was caught by him. Although it was a bit unfair, the evidence was solid and irrefutable. The teacher did not report me, but just let him handle it, allowing me to continue studying on the university campus with a clean record. After becoming my Russian teacher, he knew that I had pronunciation defects, and he always supervised and encouraged me, and taught me by example.
But I was ungrateful and held a grudge against him.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Teacher, I'm sorry for not being able to appreciate your kindness before." I felt guilty and moved. I raised my head with tears in my eyes and found that he had unconsciously left his seat, stood up, and walked to me.
"It's okay, just understand my feelings as a teacher."
"Yeah." I decided to reconcile with him.
"Classmate," he lowered his head and smiled at me, "It's rare that you finally understand the teacher's painstaking efforts. Then go mop the floor of this office, and then wipe the doors, windows, cabinets and desks." He pointed around and added softly, "If possible, take down the curtains and take them back to the dormitory to wash them."
After saying this, he returned to his desk and continued fiddling with his computer.
I was stunned and couldn't digest the orders he had just given for a while.
"Student," he said with a rising tone, "hurry up, the power will be turned off in Building 4 after 10 o'clock."
Classmates! Classmates! Classmates again!
You know, I hate being called classmate the most.
It is not popular to call girls beautiful or handsome in college. People usually address them as “classmate, how are you…” or “classmate, you are so and so…” Under normal circumstances, I can tolerate it, but if a boy calls me that a few times, I will get nervous.
But Mu Chenghe keeps talking about classmates in a down-to-earth way all the time. If it weren't for the relationship between teacher and student, I would have punched him long ago.
At first, Bai Lin and the others didn’t understand why I was so disgusted by this pure and friendly title. It was not until one day when they accidentally read my name backwards that they understood.
Because of a slip of the tongue by my primary school teacher, it became my exclusive nickname. The word "classmate" once became a psychological shadow in my primary and secondary school years.
Mu Chenghe, however, seemed to be deliberately trying to stir up my sorrow. Normally, he would address me in three ways: classmate! class representative! and class representative classmate!
Staring at his back, I wished I could cut two pounds of flesh off his body.
Recalling what he did, I really want to ask him: "Teacher, did you forget to bring your humanity when you went out to work?"
One day in mid-November, a strange atmosphere filled the campus.
After class in the afternoon, the counselor personally came to our department’s dormitory building to inspect. It was said that he had received a notice from the school to see if any students were illegally hiding alcohol in the dormitory.
In the evening, the Chinese football team will have its last group match in the World Cup qualifiers. Whether they win or lose, they may lose their last hope of advancing to the World Cup.
Bai Lin in our dormitory is a football fanatic, and naturally the other three people are also inspired to watch the Bundesliga and Serie A games every week.
Each dormitory in the girls' dormitory is equipped with a 21-inch TV. On weekends, the cable TV signal is always on, so you can watch TV programs until the lights go out. But on weekdays, there are only two periods of TV signal every day: from 12:00 to 1:30 noon and from 5:00 to 7:30 pm. As soon as the time is up, the school's main control room automatically cuts off the signal source.
However, there are always exceptions.
Many games of extraordinary significance are not always played when we can watch the live broadcast, either there is no wired signal, or it is lights out. Moreover, at this time, computers are not yet widely available to every student in the school.
That's when the students rose up in resistance.
Often, everyone would go to the balcony and shout loudly into the dark night: "Call, call quickly." or "I want to watch the game, call quickly."
Some even picked up spoons, lunch boxes, and wash basins, hitting each other to make loud noises and protesting rhythmically. Suddenly, all the sounds merged into another symphony of pots, pans, and bowls.
Generally, your request will be met within ten minutes.
This method is always effective for students on important days.
So even though today is Sunday, the school notified us in advance that there would be TV in the evening so we could watch the game in the dormitory.
In the evening, the game entered the halftime period.
Commentator A said: "In order to ensure fair competition, the AFC arranged all the final rounds of the group stage to be held at the same time. But I didn't expect this scene."
Commentator B said: "Yes. According to the rules of the World Cup Asian qualifiers, the group ranking is based on points first, and if the points are the same, the goal difference is considered. There is no suspense that the Chinese team and the Kuwait team will win today's opponents. The key is to look at the goal difference. We are currently at a disadvantage in terms of goal difference."
Commentator C said: "But the news from another competition venue before the game is very unfavorable to the Chinese team."
Commentator A smiled helplessly: "The Chinese team may be tacitly defeated unless a miracle happens."
Commentator C said: "We can't blame anyone else at this moment, we should blame the Chinese team itself. Maybe the fans will have to wait for another four years in vain."
At this point, the commercial started again and I glanced at Bai Lin.
Her eyes were already filled with tears.