He Said: Nothing Is Going Favourably Today.
Qi Jiahao did not return for a long time, even after the long
break ended he remained nowhere to be seen.
After Li Yu attended the regular meeting for class monitors,
she returned to the classroom with a notebook and a pen. Gao
Tianyang, who was always on the lookout, called out from his
seat: "Little Carp, what did they say at the meeting? Any good
news?"
"Why are you so concerned over every little thing?" Song
Sirui was seated right next to Li Yu. He himself was stretched over
trying to take a look at Carp's notebook, cutting remarks against
Gao Tianyang still flowed out of his mouth nonetheless.
Li Yu had a good temperament, she really did report what
was recorded on the notebook for Gao Tianyang's benefit.
"Something about residential stay, and the adjustment of night
self-study when school officially reopens. Also, our class'
timetable will be slightly readjusted, Teacher He will probably
brief us on that. The Tri-Quality Students of the City's name list is
also going up for submission too."
Song Sirui aimed his words at Gao Tianyang as he said,
"Either ways, none of your business."
"Nah it's my business! How could there be nothing." Gao
Tianyang jabbed his thumb in the direction of Sheng Wang and
Jiang Tian, "Tri-Quality Students of the City's name list has been
taken up by at least two out of the three of us here, I'm in charge
of sharing the honour."
Song Sirui was incredulous. "How can someone as
shameless as you exist in this world?"
Just as Gao Tianyang was about to retort, he felt his thumb
being pressed back down by someone.
The someone was Sheng Wang.
"Keep it, don't point at random," Sheng Wang said, "my
future is still unclear."
"How could it be," Gao Tianyang was completely unaware,
"don't be modest, even though your English scores this time
round may be a little tragic, your improvement has to be the
largest between the weeklies and the monthlies, there's zero
room for doubt!"
Sheng Wang then realised that he had never spoken a single
word about the condition Big Mouth Xu gave him, about
improving by 50 places.
Just as he was about to explain, as well as casually mention
how his English results was nothing to be sorry about either, Li Yu
approached with two pieces of paper.
"Didn't you ask about staying in school before?" She settled a
piece of paper on Sheng Wang's desk. "There, this is the
application form, all you need to do is to fill in your student info."
"Thanks." Sheng Wang gave her a quick smile, lowered his
head and started reading the form. He started spinning a pen out
of habit, as if he was about to fill it up at any moment.
Immediately after two spins, Jiang Tian's low voice came
from behind his ears: "You're staying in school?"
Sheng Wang suddenly felt a little guilty.
"Hm?" He denied out of instinct, "No, I just casually asked the
class monitor last time."
Upon finishing his words he turned behind to look at Jiang
Tian. Just like the last time he hid from Sheng Mingyang, he didn't
know what he had to feel guilty about, he only desperately wanted
to know what Jiang Tian's reaction was.
Jiang Tian's gaze landed on his finger, Sheng Wang glanced at
it along with him. He realised that his hand was still holding onto
the pen. He was quiet for two seconds, and then threw the pen
away with a smack.
Li Yu stood next to the table, feeling that there was a slight
tension in the air.
Her sixth sense told her that now is not the best time to
continue to talk to Sheng Wang about this matter. Therefore, she
used the remaining piece of paper to cover half her face, silently
moved a table forward until she was next to Jiang Tian's, and
carefully placed the paper on his desk.
Both Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang looked at her at the same
time.
Li Yu suddenly regretted her actions a little, but she could
not simply run away due to her responsibilities. As such, she
gestured at the second form: "Um…...Jiang Tian, you mentioned
this to me before too, this is the form. You, uh, the two of you fill
it up as you please, you just need to pass it to me on Friday that's
all."
Sheng Wang's gaze shifted onto Jiang Tian's face.
Jiang Tian did not look up, his lowered eyelids were quite
thin, the corner of his eyes formed a long and yet graceful curve.
The way he looked at the surface of the table was especially
serious.
Li Yu felt as if she accidentally stirred some major trouble,
and scampered away.
The moment the outsider left, the mood became even
stranger. A long while passed before Sheng Wang glimpsed at the
form in Jiang Tian's hand. "Are you filling in the form?"
Jiang Tian instantly put his pen down.
That action of his was nearly reflexive, the exact mirror of
Sheng Wang's earlier.
Sheng Wang suddenly felt that it was kinda funny. He pursed
his lips, trying to look all serious for some moments before he
finally couldn't keep it up anymore, and started muffling his
laughter as he leaned over the back of the chair.
"Stop laughing already." Jiang Tian crooked his pointer finger
and knocked on the back of his hand.
Sheng Wang's eyes, crescent with laughter, shifted up. He
saw Jiang Tian teetering on the edge of laughing and not laughing,
and so his laughter got more hysterical.
"Enough already." Jiang Tian lowered his voice, but when he
reached the last word he finally completely gave up, and started
laughing along.
Gao Tianyang was the face of confusion, why did the two
people behind lose it all of a sudden?
"The hell? What are you two doing, why aren't I invited?" It
was the first time he has ever seen Jiang Tian laugh uncontrollably
with his head looking aside. It was a little novel, but he was more
bewildered than anything.
Jiang Tian gave a cough, by the time he turned back his
expression was under control once more. Still, a trace of laughter
remained at the corner of his eyes.
"None of your business." He said.
Gao Tianyang sat back down feeling as if he was wronged.
He wistfully sighed, how time flies and people become
unrecognisable, 10+ years of childhood friendship changed like a
fleeting thought.
His lament was too obvious, Sheng Wang felt the remorse of
stealing his bro for some mysterious reason. Even though this
remorse made zero sense at all, he went on to explain anyways:
"It really wasn't anything, just something kinda awkward."
"Awkward?" Gao Tianyang couldn't help himself, "You guys
managed to laugh this hard over something awkward? Did you
two eat something wrong?"
"Yeah yeah yeah, super wrong." Sheng Wang waved him off,
and turned around again.
Jiang Tian scanned the form that was still on his table, and
abruptly asked: "Why did you want to stay?"
"When I asked the class monitor about this, I wasn't exactly
getting along with you." Sheng Wang half jokingly said, "I was just
scared that you get annoyed whenever you see me and launch a
sneak attack on me at night. Who would have thought..."
Time barely passed, yet Jiang Tian somehow became the
person he was closest to in Fuzhong.
That wasn't exactly it either, "closest to" wasn't the most
accurate term. Gao Tianyang spoke to him more, joked around
with him more, and when they messed around they were
absolutely unbridled. They fit the traditional description of "close"
even better, but that was just in school.
In other more private places, in the spaces beyond test
papers and reports, where the classmates and teachers didn't
exist, Jiang Tian was still there.
If he had to define it, then it would only be "special".
Jiang Tian was the most special person to him that he got to
know in Fuzhong.
"Then do you still plan to apply?"
Sheng Wang snapped out of his thoughts, he briefly paused
before he said: "Nope, can't think of a new reason."
When he grinned as he spoke he was the image of fresh and
cool, unrestrained energy of youth flew off between his brows. He
was like the birds that leapt around the tree branches during
summertime, he always had the ability to make the people
around him brighten up and become genial too.
Jiang Tian listened, and nodded after a while.
"You?" Sheng Wang asked, "You also asked the class monitor
a long time ago?"
"Mn." Jiang Tian grunted.
"Then do you still plan to apply?" Sheng Wang asked again.
This time round Jiang Tian did not immediately answer. As
he lowered his eyes, staring at the form, the black pen on his table
already made its way back within his fingers at some unknown
time. His pointer finger shifted, and the pen spun one round
without warning.
After what seemed like ages, he said: "It will probably be
filled up at some point in the future."
Someone left a window half opened in the classroom, the
wind snuck in with the remnants of the summer heat, fiery and
stiflingly hot. Sheng Wang's throat was parched all of a sudden.
He dug out a can of cola from the stomach of his desk, his head
lowered, pulled open the can tab and took a drink.
When he bought it in the morning, there was even a layer of
frost outside the can. Two periods of classes passed by, and the
frost melted into water, dampening a good portion of the inside
of the table. The ice cold drink was no longer ice cold, when he
drank it it was neither exhilarating or thirst quenching, there was
only a sticky sweetness.
Sheng Wang was momentarily silent as he held the
aluminium can, and let out an "oh".
*
Qi Jiahao only came back to class with his head hung low
when the school bell rang for class to start. After that, he did not
speak a single word to anyone for an entire morning. Gao
Tianyang and co were all mystified, and their tongues wagged.
Despite calling him "Old Qi" for a while, they did not manage to
cheer him up.
The English paper came back in the afternoon, and it was
then that they knew the reason behind Qi Jiahao's low spirits. Out
of the famous three bigshots of English in Class A, he was the
only one who flunked so disastrously, to the point that other
people didn't even know where to start to comfort him.
"This is completely different from what I thought I'll have to
do." Gao Tianyang said to Sheng Wang, "I've always thought that
you'll be the one who needs comforting, I freaking even planned
my speech, and you're telling me you scored 110?"
"OP!" Song Sirui admired him to the point of nearly
prostrating before him.
"You didn't even, fucking listen to listening compre, and your
English score, is seriously 8 marks higher than mine?" Gao
Tianyang received a giant blow. "Did I learn, my fucking English,
with my feet?"
"You're so OP!" Song Sirui said again.
"Screw off, scram, leave." Gao Tianyang kicked him aside.
"No wonder Old Qi wanted to shut himself down, who wouldn't?"
With Sheng Wang's score, anyone would have happily
passed away with a smile, and yet out of all things, he was the
face of calmness when he received his paper. Not only was he
calm, he looked like…...he wasn't feeling particularly pleased.
It wasn't only him who was acting unusual, Jiang Tian was
acting off too. This person scored the highest for 4 out of 5
subjects out of the entire level, yet he looked like he came in
behind everyone in the level.
The PE lesson in the afternoon was taken over by the
homeroom teacher, He Jin, for the first official class meeting in
September.
"How did it go? I see that everyone is looking a little down."
The moment He Jin entered, she could feel how dispirited the
entire Class A was. She spreaded the notebook wide open on the
teacher's desk, and flattened it with her hand. "Pull yourself
together a little, yeah? Theoretically, new term, new beginnings.
Every bigshot here should be showing me, the homeroom
teacher, a little face for my sake, right?"
Bits and pieces of laughter came from the class, and finally
things looked a little lively again.
"Let me quickly go through some things." He Jin said as she
gave a quick glance at the notebook: "The first thing would be
about the Olympiads, in this upcoming semester that just began
——don't give me this mocking look, I know you already had
lessons for the past month or so, please try to play along."
Song Sirui led by giving a round of applause, a bunch of boys
said with a forced smile: "Yay, school finally started, I'm so happy.
Teacher, please continue."
"Shoo!" He Jin waved in annoyance. "Either way, this
semester, the preliminary competition for math, chem and
physics will all come one after another. Same old rules, our class
is Class A after all, Class A is also known as the competition class,
so every single one will be participating, that's all. Those who
make it past the preliminaries, there will be some training camps
in the winter and summer breaks, winter camps summer camps
and stuff. After the camp, you will be going to the semi finals."
"According to past observations, the minimum requirement
for application for advanced admissions into top schools would
be the second prize. Remember, second prize. Don't seriously
listen to that student affair's office's Dean Xu run his mouth. It's
not that there aren't schools with a minimum requirement of a
third prize, it's just few in numbers, and I figure that you guys
wouldn't happily settle for those either."
The tall stage that Dean Xu built outside was completely
dismantled the moment He Jin shut the classroom doors. Class
A's teachers were all individually someone to be reckoned with,
they were all well known in the city, none of them was afraid of
the school leadership.
She observed the looks on the students' faces, then smiled
as she said: "When I said that a second prize is the minimum,
most people turned green. How about this, let's talk about data
——"
"I've been in charge of Class As for six years in total, if I recall
correctly, for competitions on the provincial level every year, 90%
of the students have gotten a second prize, 9.99% of the students
got the first prize."
The entire class was shocked for several beats, and
commotion began to stir.
"Spot the problem now?" He Jin said, "That's right, I've only
ever seen two third places up till today. What does this imply?
This means that after our series of training, scoring a third prize is
much more difficult than scoring into Tsinghua and Peking U,
whoever that manages it would be a clown."
The whole of Class A guffawed, even Sheng Wang started
laughing along.
He Jin winked at him in the midst of chaos, and retracted her
gaze again as she said: "Therefore, youths, let's work hard."
"No problem." Class A's bigshots all dragged their voices in
reply.
"These three Olympiads would be our class' major task for
year two. As such, from this semester onwards, every last lesson
in the afternoon would change into pre-competition coaching.
Monday-Tuesday: Physics. Wednesday-Thursday: Math. Friday-
Saturday, Chem. We would arrange for some special teachers to
help, I'll pass out the timetable as well as the list of teachers in a
while, so you will be prepared."
"The second thing would be about the Tri-Quality Students of
the City nominations." She made five copies of the timetable, and
got every student at the front to pass it behind. She then picked
up a stack of blank slips and said: "I've said it before, one would be
based on their grades, one from recommendations within the
class committee, one from the degree of improvement, and one
from a democratic election. Fill these up now, I'll get the class
monitor and the study rep to count later, and settle on the list
today, ok?"
Actually, a democratic election would be super easily
affected by the mood of the day, different days may produce
different results.
Most students of Class A were relatively simple, but they
actually brought a lot of factors into consideration:
There were plenty of people who generally got along with
everyone in class, but Jiang Tian was nailed in the first place of the
level, Sheng Wang was improving at a frighteningly speedy pace,
Gao Tianyang, Li Yu, Song Sirui were under the rank of class
comm members, a whole other battle altogether. Therefore, the
votes of the democractic election would have to go to the people
who belonged to neither three categories.
For example, Little Chilli, the bigshot unemployed person
who was in touch with the common people, Small Mouth Xu who
was a people pleaser, or even the person who made it in all the
way from the normal classes, the somewhat smarmy but not
unforgivably flawed person, Qi Jiahao.
The votes were mostly concentrated amongst these three
people, and in the end, due to how pitiful Qi Jiahao was today, he
won some sympathy votes, and defeated Small Mouth Xu by a
small margin.
At this point, Qi Jiahao finally smiled for the first time that
day.
"Ok, then the first Tri-Quality Students of the City has
basically been settled." He Jin led by clapping, "Then let us
welcome our English rep, do you want to come up here and make
a small speech?"
"No need, no need." Qi Jiahao grinned as he frantically
rejected, and yet he was sent out of his seat by a kick from Song
Sirui beside him.
He stumbled, and managed to go onto the stage. He cleared
his throat with his hands behind him and said: "Um, I didn't think
I'd get this slot either, thanks guys."
When he got to that part, he revealed a trace of how pleased
he felt at last. The score of 92 for English was left at the back of
his mind, Yang Jing's words went out of his ears. He scanned
around; most people were happy for him, with the exception of
two of them——
One was Sheng Wang. He lazily clapped his hands, but his
eyes were on his table instead, like he was analyzing the
timetable. What's so good about that dumb timetable anyway.
The other one was Jiang Tian. This person did not even clap
at all, he just coldly glared at him with his back leaning against the
chair.
Qi Jiahao's heart skipped a beat, the smile on his face turned
stiff for a second before he quickly recovered from it.
No matter what, he got a nomination in this competition
first. As for other matters? They all aren't important.
He returned to his seat in a chorus of heckling. After He Jin
finished going through some other matter, she finally started to
give out the thing most students were the most concerned about:
the monthly exam's result slips.
The first student of each group took the slips, found their
own and passed it behind.
Sheng Wang was analyzing the timetable. There would be
two weeks of extended physics this semester, starting from next
Monday onwards. The teacher's name was labelled next to the
timeslot. The teacher's name was Zhao Xi, the exact same first
and surname as the Boss Zhao from the BBQ shop, "In Those
Years".
Just as he was puzzling over it, Song Sirui let out a soft "ah"
next to him.
"What's wrong?" Sheng Wang looked up and asked.
Song Sirui passed the slip to him, saying: "Badass, your total
score went up by 40+ marks, if you convert your score for physics
and chemistry they should be A grade by this point, your level
placement went up by 47."
As Sheng Wang expected, the higher up he goes, the harder
it would be to jump.
Song Sirui was still helping him do the math next to him: "If
you didn't miss English listening compre, you could have gotten 7
more marks…...lemme think, I just saw Chen Cheng's result slip,
he scored 4 more points than you, and there was a equal sign
next to his placement. I reckon that with your 7 marks, your
placement could have gone up by 8-9 more."
No such thing as 'what-ifs' in the world.
The reality was he spent an entire week busy working hard,
and yet he did not meet Big Mouth Xu's requirement of improving
by 50 places. His nomination for the Tri-Quality Students of the
City went up in flames.
He didn't care for the nomination itself, he just didn't
particularly like the feeling of wasting his efforts all for nothing.
That night, Jiang Tian, who usually never bothers looking at
friendship circles in WeChat, spotted a red dot in the early
morning. He tapped on it for the first time ever, and the interface
changed for a few seconds before it refreshed. At the very top, a
new status appeared, coming from the person next door over,
posted a minute ago.
He said: Nothing is going favourably today.
Jiang Tian tapped into the chat, the other person's profile pic
changed from a small red can to a patch of darkness. His WeChat
name became 'Shop's Closed'.
Jiang Tian sent a question mark over. He waited for 20
minutes, but there wasn't a single response.
The shop really was closed.