Leisure

After returning home from his walk, Liu Chang'an realized there was a text message on the phone he'd left behind.

It was from his deskmate, An Nuan.

An Nuan was an eighteen-year-old girl with a tall, slender build. In a southern city like Junsha, girls over 1.7 meters tall were rare, which made her stand out at school. On top of that, she was the captain and a key player on the school volleyball team.

Unlike the stereotypical female athlete, with masculine features and a muscular build, An Nuan was known as Xiangnan University High School's Altynbekova Sabina.

Sabina was a volleyball beauty with tremendous international popularity. An Nuan was a volleyball beauty too, but she had never competed internationally, so she wasn't as well-known. Still, she had plenty of followers on social media and was one of the most popular volleyball beauties at Xiangnan University High School.

Liu Chang'an and An Nuan got along well. They'd been classmates for three years and deskmates for one. Besides, An Nuan really was beautiful. Though Liu Chang'an thought beauty and decay were separated by only a thin line, a rare beauty like An Nuan was still a pleasure to look at.

"Coming to class tomorrow?"

"Sure."

Liu Chang'an replied, then turned on the TV. He watched a variety show for a while, but found it rather boring. After all, he couldn't appreciate many of the jokes, which relied on people having a special attachment to the identity of a "celebrity."

He switched to the news. It was covering the birthday celebration of an old revolutionary, one of the few surviving members of his generation.

The report was brief, but it mentioned all the names that needed mentioning, reminding people that these old men were still respected and still wielded considerable influence.

People were forgetful, though. Outside their student years, as they gradually entered society, started working, and began facing the pressures of life, they forgot much of what did little to help with their jobs or daily lives. That included history that should never be forgotten, and people who should never be forgotten.

Liu Chang'an laid out a sheet of paper, picked up his brush, and wrote: "An immortal strokes my crown; my hair tied back, I receive eternal life."

He was quite pleased with his calligraphy. He wasn't especially gifted at it, but with enough practice, one's handwriting wouldn't end up looking bad. And if you practiced far more than the average person, it was only natural that it would look good.

"Xiao Liu, come play mahjong."

"Sure."

Someone called from outside. In Junsha, after lunch and dinner, people were always inviting one another to play mahjong. Mahjong parlors lined the streets and alleys, and older residential neighborhoods were packed with little ones.

The popular game in Junsha was Zhuanzhuan Mahjong. You could only claim a discard to make a pung, not a chow. You could win off someone else's discard or win by drawing your own tile. Once someone won, they sat out, and another player took their place.

Everyone playing Zhuanzhuan Mahjong here was elderly. It was one yuan per discard win, and two yuan from each player for a self-drawn win—an exceptionally small stake. They'd been playing for such low stakes for ten years. In the old folks' world, time seemed to have stood still, unaffected by the economy or inflation. After all, it was just for fun.

"Hey, it's Xiao Liu. Go easy on us, will you?"

"Don't worry, don't worry. When I was his age, I was much better. I'm still going strong, too."

"You old liar! You couldn't even afford pants when you were young, and you still played mahjong?"

Liu Chang'an sat down and played at an unhurried pace. The old folks took their time: slowly drawing a tile, pondering, then picking it up a little at a time. They'd glance uncertainly at the tile the player before them had just discarded, think it over some more, then put it back. They'd study their own hand, look at the tiles on the table, and think again. Then they'd pick the tile back up, take another look, and slowly return it to their hand. They'd carefully sort their tiles, study the game on the table, and hesitate over one tile for a long while. After deliberating over their options, they'd finally discard another tile, nervously watching the others' faces. Only then would they release it with some trepidation. When nobody called a win, they could finally relax, relieved they'd avoided feeding someone a winning tile.

Most young people wouldn't have the patience to play mahjong with the elderly. Only Liu Chang'an could sit there so calmly, as if he were one of them, matching their slow, composed movements.

After playing all evening, Liu Chang'an had won twenty yuan. One of the old men was indignant, grumbling that Liu Chang'an had won at least fifty yuan from him this year. He went through the games he remembered losing to Liu Chang'an, one by one, then wiped the foam at the corner of his mouth. After that, he forgot what he'd been about to say. In the end, he could only glare indignantly at Liu Chang'an and challenge him to a rematch, swearing he would win so thoroughly that Liu Chang'an would have to pawn his pants.

Who pawned their pants these days? Pawnshops only accepted things they could resell. Liu Chang'an smiled.

When he got up in the morning, the first faint light of dawn still couldn't reach his room. Liu Chang'an nevertheless got up right on time and went out for a run.

As he passed Baolong Center, he spotted the girl called Zhu Juntang in the distance. She was holding the leash of a black Rottweiler and gazing around aimlessly. Liu Chang'an figured he'd have to change his running route from now on.

After returning home and eating breakfast, Liu Chang'an rolled up the calligraphy he'd written the previous night, put it in a tube, and sent it by courier. Then he went to school.

Liu Chang'an attended Xiangnan University Affiliated High School, a nationally designated key school directly administered by the Xiangnan Provincial Department of Education. It had excellent teachers, an outstanding reputation, and a high rate of students going on to higher education. Its management was strict, too, and it was uncommon for a student like Liu Chang'an to skip an entire day of class over a two-hundred-yuan job.

The homeroom teacher, Huang Shan, was standing at the school gate, apparently waiting for him.

"You skipped class yesterday just to earn two hundred yuan?" Huang Shan stared at Liu Chang'an in disbelief. "Have you lost all sense of priorities? Compared with the college entrance exam, which could shape the rest of your life, how important is two hundred yuan?"

If it weren't the second semester of senior year, with the college entrance exam just around the corner, Huang Shan would have made him copy the school rules ten times.

His explanation was that someone had paid him two hundred yuan to do a job? What was two hundred yuan compared with the exam that could affect the rest of his life?

"Two hundred yuan is a lot, and I studied and did practice problems at home afterward," Liu Chang'an said apologetically.

Huang Shan knew about Liu Chang'an's family situation. He'd never been particularly well-behaved or good at following the rules, but his grades were decent, so Huang Shan couldn't be bothered to lecture him at length. These days, the school was paying more attention to the mental and physical health of students facing the college entrance exam. It wasn't as strict with them as it was with first- and second-year students, to avoid adding to their stress and negative emotions.

Although it was one of Xiangnan's flagship high schools, several other key schools in Junsha had comparable teachers and university admission rates, and some were even pulling ahead. The school was under considerable pressure to perform well in this year's college entrance exams.

No matter how you looked at it, admission rates and the number of students accepted by prestigious universities at home and abroad decided everything. With the college entrance exam approaching, Huang Shan didn't intend to make too much of an issue over a student like Liu Chang'an, who could help maintain the school's admission numbers at prestigious universities.