Morning reading

The September autumn morning was a little chilly. Li Xinlan had changed out of the little floral dresses that had brightened her summer. Her faded jeans were still quite fashionable, and her clean white shirt held none of the allure of a uniform, but the blue-and-white No. 2 Middle School jacket draped over her shoulders made her look pure and lovely...

Li Xinlan pushed her bicycle while Qin An hummed a tune she had never heard. Sun Pao looked at him with considerable astonishment and admiration...

"How could you smoke!" Li Xinlan found it unbelievable, and rather distressing. Qin An had actually sunk this low. To her, smoking was the defining mark of a bad student...

Qin An said nothing. Some ideas would gradually change with age, after all, and he was not about to overstep his bounds and lecture Li Xinlan. After walking with her for a while, he looked back and saw that Tu Gang had not followed. He put an arm around Sun Pao's shoulders and cut through another path toward school...

"Teach me that trick..." Sun Pao knew Tu Gang too. He was the sort of person every parent in their apartment building warned their children not to play with. Qin An had actually managed to intimidate Tu Gang, which Sun Pao thought was remarkable. He imagined how good it would feel if he could blow a faceful of smoke at Tu Gang...

"If your dad found out, wouldn't he tear your mouth off?" Qin An ignored his request. Many years later, Sun Pao would naturally become a heavy chain-smoker, but there was no need to let him learn early...

Sun Pao was rather displeased. "I haven't settled the score with you over yesterday. What kind of stupid, show-off idea was that!"

"You actually plucked them?" Qin An burst out laughing...

Sun Pao shot Qin An a fierce glare, undid his belt, and stood on Gao Bridge to piss down from it. "Let's see who can piss farther..."

Qin An looked around. In the end, he could not be as uninhibited as children this age. Seeing no girls around, he followed Sun Pao's example and stood on Gao Bridge to piss down...

"You two little bastards!"

Cursing rose from the dry riverbed beneath the bridge. They had clearly splashed someone. Sun Pao was about to lean over for a look, but Qin An grabbed him and hurried away...

When they reached school, morning reading had not officially begun, but waves of reading aloud could already be heard. Morning reading in the third year of middle school was fairly flexible: students could memorize their Chinese and English texts, or their politics and history lessons. Qin An dropped his schoolbag and saw that Sun Sun was not in her seat. She was reciting a text to her group leader...

Group leaders shouldered the important duties of collecting homework and checking recitations. Beside the classroom blackboard hung a recitation chart listing every student's name and the titles of the texts. After a student recited a text to a group leader, the leader would mark it on the chart. For the students who memorized the most texts the fastest, it was like having their honors displayed there at all times, quite an impressive achievement...

Naturally, Sun Sun currently ranked first. As a rule, she could recite a text the day after it was taught...

The bell for morning reading rang. Sun Sun finished her recitation as well, walked up to the front, and announced the school's enrichment classes...

There was a music class, an art class, and a dance class. Qin An had already agreed with Ye Zhulan to sign up for art. He knew Sun Sun would definitely choose music, but still could not help asking, "Sun Sun, which class are you signing up for?"

"Music. Teacher Liao Yu is teaching it... you wouldn't dare sign up..." Sun Sun pursed her lips, seeming rather unhappy...

She wore a sweet, lovely ensemble: a black sleeveless dress beneath a white short-sleeved, open-front jacket with a bow, with a black ribbon attached to the front. Sun Sun's beauty was particularly dazzling. Sitting beside Qin An, she earned him wave after wave of jealous, envious looks...

Ever since they had entered middle school, boys and girls had sat separately. Sun Sun was so beautiful that none of the boys had even hoped to share a desk with her. They all admired her from a distance, never expecting Qin An to get so close to her as soon as he joined Class 69. It was hardly surprising that others envied him...

Qin An had not expected Liao Yu to be teaching music. In an era when exam results were everything to teachers and students alike, Town Middle School naturally would not put much effort into finding a specialist music teacher. Liao Yu had graduated from the city's teacher-training college and was reasonably good at singing and dancing. She had a nice voice and some knowledge of music theory, so teaching middle school students would not pose much of a problem...

Qin An could imagine that the teacher for the art class he and Ye Zhulan planned to join would probably know little more than the basics of sketching. He remembered, though, that Liao Yu's husband was a professional art teacher and should still have been teaching at County No. 1 Middle School...

His original aim had not been to learn to draw, so he did not particularly care how skilled the teacher was. Now, however, he began to understand why Sun Sun was unhappy...

Sun Sun had been kept in suspense by "Lightly Painted Eyebrows," the song Qin An had written. If Qin An signed up for music too, she would have a perfectly legitimate reason to learn the song from him in music class. At any other time, though, the especially bashful Sun Sun was too reserved to take the initiative and ask him to teach her. That would mean spending time alone together doing something unrelated to their studies, and she clearly could not bring herself to make such an approach...

"You want to find out when I can teach you to sing 'Lightly Painted Eyebrows,' don't you?" Sun Sun had always been like this, a little awkward and shy. Qin An chuckled...

Sun Sun blushed, lowered her head, and gave an almost imperceptible nod, wondering how Qin An had seen through what was on her mind...

"I'm the worm in your belly..." Qin An added with another grin...

"Disgusting..." Sun Sun rolled her eyes at him and held herself back from asking again...

"After school, then... I'll make a detour through the south of town and walk you home. I'll teach you on the way..." Qin An knew he had to take the initiative. Otherwise, Sun Sun would rather burst from holding it in than ask him to teach her the song again...

Qin An was not about to let this chance to improve his relationship with Sun Sun slip away so easily...

"I don't want you walking me home..." Sun Sun answered softly, so softly that only she could hear it. If Qin An insisted on following her when the time came, that would have nothing to do with her. She had already said she did not want him to...

After Qin Huai arrived at school, he announced during morning reading that there would be a diagnostic test in all seven subjects next Monday, causing an uproar. Having to prepare for a test just as school began meant that the tense third year of middle school had officially begun. Those students still savoring their long summer vacation would have to face their miserable lives...

Qin An looked miserable too. With less than a week left, he could brush up on physics, chemistry, and mathematics, while English needed no work. But history and politics, subjects that required rote memorization, offered him absolutely no shortcuts. There were a full ten textbooks between the two subjects. Picking out the key points and memorizing long passages would be difficult, and time was too short...

Seeing Qin An like this, Sun Sun could not help wanting to laugh. She thought that since Qin An was teaching her to sing, she ought to help him too. As class monitor, she also had a responsibility to help classmates who were falling behind. Wasn't that precisely why Teacher Qin had arranged for her to sit beside Qin An?

"We have enrichment classes on Saturday. Come to school on Sunday, and I'll help you study..." Sun Sun worked up her courage. This was the first time she had ever taken the initiative to suggest spending time alone with a boy...

"I'm going out to have fun on Sunday..." Qin An had quite a headache over this. "Let's forget it..."

Frustration at his failure to improve was exactly what Sun Sun felt at that moment. She had offered to help him, yet he had actually turned her down with an excuse like going out to have fun...

"Fine, I won't bother with you. Let's see what marks you get..." Sun Sun propped up her textbook to hide her face. Out of sight, out of mind...