Cheng Siyi

Biodata

Background / History

Cheng Siyi joined the school immediately after graduating and is its youngest homeroom teacher. By Pu Yu’s arrival, she has taught Yuan Su for three years and knows both his academic potential and his difficult family circumstances 5 21.

At the beginning of Yuan Su’s second year, she assigned him an outgoing deskmate. The other boy’s mother protested, publicly insulting Yuan Su because of his father’s gambling and his mother’s mental illness. Cheng Siyi repeatedly argued that a child should not be judged by his family; the dispute ended when the year-level director transferred the other student to another class. Afterward, she left Yuan Su without a deskmate to avoid exposing him to further humiliation, though she later questioned whether that decision had reinforced his isolation 23.

She remains in contact with her students after graduation. By the summer before Pu Yu and Xu Suiran’s third university year, she still displays their class photograph on her living room wall and welcomes them into her home 153.

Appearance

• Young-looking: Described as a young-looking teacher when she receives Pu Yu’s transfer documents 4.
• Gentle expression: Frequently wears a faint smile, including when addressing the class and distributing essay copies 21 22.

Personality

Cheng Siyi is gentle, approachable, and attentive to her students’ emotional state. She checks whether Pu Yu’s reassuring smile is genuine, comforts her after learning why she was forced into the science track, and readily grants leave when she appears unwell. Xu Suiran recommends her as someone students can approach with problems 5 8 32.

Her kindness does not exclude discipline or self-examination. She reprimands Yuan Su’s defiant self-reflection, challenges an invigilator’s neglect, and questions whether prejudice has unconsciously shaped her own treatment of Yuan Su. When reconsidering his seating, she also insists that Pu Yu’s education must not be sacrificed out of sympathy for another student 21 23.

Her support extends beyond ordinary classroom duties. When Li Suhua needs surgery, she offers to send Pu Yu revision materials during her absence and later obtains permission for her to leave campus freely to provide care at home. She continues to believe in Yuan Su’s academic potential years after he leaves school 71 77 153.

Her protective intentions also lead her to conceal difficult truths. After Pu Yu’s original university sponsor withdraws, she agrees to keep Yuan Su’s replacement funding anonymous at his request. Maintaining the explanation visibly troubles her, and she eventually apologizes tearfully when Pu Yu discovers the truth 82 86 93.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Pu Yu’s transfer and financial difficulties

• Reviews Pu Yu’s records, recognizes her strengths in Chinese and English, and warns that Tingnan has fewer resources than City No. 1 High School 4.
• Processes the transfer after Li Suhua explains that Pu Yu’s father and stepmother tried to force her out of school and into marriage for a bride price 4.
• Places Pu Yu beside Yuan Su temporarily because no other seats are available 4 23.
• Gives Pu Yu extra time—until the following week—to pay the 860-yuan tuition and textbook fees 6 7.
• Learns that Pu Yu’s father chose her science track while drunk and refused to change it. She encourages Pu Yu to improve her mathematics and physics so that her future choice of university major can be her own 8.

Monthly examination and disciplinary dispute

• Announces Pu Yu’s first-place results in Chinese and English, alongside Yuan Su’s full marks in physics and 148 in mathematics 21.
• Questions Yuan Su over a complaint that he tore another student’s exam paper and threatened him. Pu Yu intervenes, explaining that the complainant had harassed her and demanded answers for cheating 21.
• Challenges Teacher Liu after he admits closing his eyes while invigilating, emphasizing his responsibility for examination discipline 21.
• Promises to investigate, requires Yuan Su to write a thousand-word self-criticism, and states that the other student will also face consequences if responsible 21.
• Distributes Pu Yu’s model essay for the class to study, focusing on its structure and central idea 22.

One-to-one peer support

Yuan Su’s self-reflection combines Pu Yu’s carefully written account with his own declaration that he would tear another paper if someone targeted a classmate again. Although Cheng Siyi reprimands him, his willingness to submit the work prompts her to reconsider his isolation and the effect of Pu Yu’s companionship 23.

• Consults the physics teacher, who confirms that Yuan Su’s explanations have helped Pu Yu 24.
• Asks Pu Yu privately whether she wants to remain his deskmate and offers a regular seating arrangement if she feels pressured 24.
• Approves another month together, conditional on Pu Yu maintaining her twentieth-place year ranking and completing her homework 24.
• Introduces academically complementary deskmates and groups, encouraging discussion, questions, and mutual improvement during final-year revision 24 25.

Pu Yu’s first publication

• Reviews two manuscripts and praises the town essay’s nuanced emotion and vivid writing 47.
• Offers to recommend Pu Yu’s work to a university friend who edits the Nanhua Daily literary supplement 47.
• Announces that the newspaper has accepted the essay for its forthcoming supplement, with payment and a contributor’s copy to follow 48.
• Unable to wait until the lesson ends, calls Pu Yu out of physics class, hugs her, and celebrates the acceptance 48.
• Later gives Pu Yu the delayed envelope containing three copies of the newspaper and a 160-yuan remittance slip. The published essay is titled “A moss-damp letter” 57.

Hundred-day pledge rally and parent meeting

• Announces the school’s hundred-day pledge rally and the parent meeting immediately afterward. The meeting is intended to cover final revision priorities, mock-examination schedules, and preliminary university choices 65.
• After consulting the subject teachers, selects Pu Yu as the class’s student speaker and asks her to prepare a positive, uplifting speech 65.
• Praises Pu Yu’s academic improvement and Yuan Su’s progress at the parent meeting. When several parents disparage Yuan Su and question his place in the class, she is about to explain when Li Suhua stands up to defend him 67.
• Stops Yuan Su afterward to insist that, whatever his attendance difficulties, he must not abandon the college entrance examination 68.
• Follows Yuan Su downstairs when cries announce Li Suhua’s collapse. She initially calls for the school nurse’s office, then suggests an ambulance after Yuan Su insists that Li Suhua needs hospital treatment 68.

Supporting Pu Yu through Li Suhua’s surgery

When Pu Yu requests extended leave to care for Li Suhua, Cheng Siyi acknowledges that the absence will disrupt her revision but accepts that the circumstances leave little alternative. She asks which hospital they are staying at and offers to mail revision materials and practice papers or have another student deliver them 71.

• Praises Pu Yu after she returns for the first mock examination and ranks seventh in the year and second in her class, despite studying around hospital caregiving 76.
• Makes a special request to the school so that Pu Yu can enter and leave campus without a leave slip while Li Suhua recovers at home, allowing her to provide care at lunchtime and dinner 77.
• Encourages Pu Yu as her rankings rise to fifth in the year in the second mock examination and second in the year, first in her class in the third 77.
• Distributes preliminary university and major preference forms, asking students to consider their third mock-examination results and discuss their choices with their families 78.

University sponsorship and the anonymous remittances

Cheng Siyi tells Pu Yu about an entrepreneur’s student-aid program intended to cover four years of university tuition and living expenses for five academically strong students from disadvantaged families. The school recommends Pu Yu and a boy from Class 1, and Cheng Siyi stresses that Pu Yu must maintain her results because competition for the support is intense. After Pu Yu’s third mock examination, she confirms that she has submitted the application 76 77.

The entrepreneur withdraws the promised funding a week before the college entrance examination. The school keeps the problem quiet to avoid disrupting the students’ performance. Yuan Su overhears Cheng Siyi discussing possible solutions with the head of academic affairs and asks to pay Pu Yu’s tuition and living expenses himself. He begs Cheng Siyi not to reveal the source, believing Pu Yu would refuse the money or sacrifice her university education if she knew what it cost him 93.

• Supports Pu Yu’s decision to apply to Dongzhou University, while observing that her score could secure admission to a more highly ranked university. She praises Dongzhou’s literature faculty and expresses confidence that Pu Yu will succeed there 82.
• Explains that the supposed sponsorship payments will arrive as postal remittances, first in town and later near Pu Yu’s university. She deflects questions about the sponsor’s identity and encourages Pu Yu to repay the kindness by studying hard and eventually helping others 82.
• Receives Pu Yu’s call confirming the first 3,000-yuan payment and promises to pass on her thanks and intention to repay the money 82.
• Is shocked when Pu Yu later reports receiving 5,000 yuan, but explains the increase as additional support for first-year expenses and urges her not to let financial worries distract her from studying 86.

After nearly two years and twenty-one remittances, Pu Yu identifies Yuan Su as the sender and confronts Cheng Siyi by telephone. Cheng Siyi admits the deception, apologizes, and explains the original sponsor’s withdrawal and Yuan Su’s plea. She reveals that Yuan Su calls her monthly from different public telephones but refuses to disclose his exact address; she knows only that he is in Rinzhou 93.

At Pu Yu’s request, Cheng Siyi agrees not to tell Yuan Su that the secret has been discovered. Pu Yu fears that he will move somewhere even farther away if he learns she is searching for him 93.

Preserving school memories

Cheng Siyi takes candid photographs of her students, later supplying many of them to Xu Suiran for Pu Yu’s handmade birthday album. The album includes Pu Yu’s shy smile after her first monthly examination and a pre-entrance-examination class photograph capturing Yuan Su repeatedly looking toward her. Xu Suiran also includes an image she believes came from an examination-room security camera, explaining that Cheng Siyi said it was meaningful to Pu Yu 88.

Guidance on Yuan Su’s return to the entrance examination

Before Pu Yu and Xu Suiran begin their third university year, they visit Cheng Siyi at her county-seat home. Pu Yu asks about the process for independent candidates taking the college entrance examination, and Cheng Siyi appears to recognize whom she is asking for 153.

• Explains the online application and in-person verification stages, including the need for an identity card, household registration booklet, and high school diploma or equivalent educational certificate. She notes that the school can help provide certain documents and that registration dates depend on provincial notices 153.
• Emphasizes the scheduled medical examination in April and the official examination in June 153.
• Warns that preparing outside school requires exceptional self-discipline and resilience because there is no classroom atmosphere or daily teacher supervision 153.
• Affirms Pu Yu’s confidence in Yuan Su, saying that she does not consider anything impossible for him 153.

Relationships

• Pu Yu — Student and aspiring writer whom she supports through transfer difficulties, academic planning, and publication submissions 4 8 47 48. She arranges academic accommodations during Li Suhua’s recovery, handles the university-aid application, and conceals Yuan Su’s replacement sponsorship until Pu Yu discovers it. Their contact continues after graduation, including Pu Yu’s request for guidance on independent entrance-examination registration 71 76 77 93 153.
• Yuan Su — Long-standing student whose talent, disengagement, and social isolation concern her; she balances discipline with efforts to reconnect him to classmates 21 23 24. She becomes his confidante in secretly financing Pu Yu’s university education and receives his monthly calls without learning his precise address. She later expresses strong faith in his ability to return to academic study 93 153.
• Li Suhua — Pu Yu’s grandmother; supplies the family circumstances that help Cheng Siyi understand the transfer request 4. Cheng Siyi witnesses her defense of Yuan Su and subsequent collapse, then helps Pu Yu continue studying while caring for her 67 68 71 77.
• Xu Suiran — Student comfortable approaching her; Cheng Siyi declines her request to sit beside Pu Yu because both need help in physics 24. She supplies photographs for Xu Suiran’s birthday album for Pu Yu. Years later, Xu Suiran visits her with Pu Yu and affectionately says that she has not met another teacher as wonderful since starting university 88 153.
• Teacher Wang — Physics-teaching colleague. She urges him to accept that Yuan Su cannot be forced into the Physics Competition and later consults him about Pu Yu’s progress 17 24.
• University friend at the Nanhua Daily — Literary-supplement editor through whom she recommends Pu Yu’s writing 47 48.

Notable Quotes

“You can’t judge a child by his family.” 23

“We’ve assigned deskmates and groups so you can complement each other’s strengths. I hope you’ll discuss more, ask more questions, and improve together.” 25

“Congratulations, our little writer!” 48

“I believe in you. You’ll shine wherever you go.” 82

“Little Rain, I’m sorry. I lied to you.” 93

“If it’s Yuan Su, I don’t think anything is impossible.” 153

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