Double shot

The streets in the south of town were old lanes weathered by the years. Long stretches paved with bluestone twisted and turned, while dripping eaves and beast heads extended from stone beams, blocking the sunlight and casting strange shadows...

Sun Sun stood at the entrance to the lane, her long, alluring eyes fixed on Qin An. Where light met shadow, they shimmered with a hazy radiance, especially enticing...

The boy smiled with his teeth showing, his schoolbag slung diagonally across his back. He was tall and thin, yet brimming with energy...

Sun Sun gazed back at Qin An for a while, then smiled so brightly that the setting sun paled in comparison. Lifting the hem of her black silk dress to reveal her slender, delicate calves, she walked away, her white dance shoes treading through the dust on the bluestone and leaving footprints...

It felt like meeting for the first time, and like meeting again. Qin An could not distinguish between those feelings, yet it all seemed so unreal. When had he ever dared hope to see Sun Sun smile again?

Sun Sun was easily embarrassed. Letting Qin An follow her as far as the lane entrance was already her limit. Perhaps only once Qin An had become familiar with her parents would she feel a little more natural about letting him walk beside her into this lane, with its weathered, unhurried air...

Qin An made a circuit of the south of town and bought several rubber tubes used for bicycle tire valves from a repair shop. After running home, he found a pair of worn leather shoes under the bed and cut off their cowhide straps...

He worked until dinner, and at last the slingshot was finished...

The grip was wound with nonslip cord, and the frame was wrapped in wear-resistant electrical tape. The eight strands of rubber tubing were secured at either end to the frame and a cowhide pouch...

Holding the slingshot in his left hand, he drew it back with his right. The eight linked strands of rubber tubing stretched to nearly a meter. Qin An shot a marble into the sky. It streaked straight upward until it vanished above the evening sun, which was not dazzling, without showing any sign of curving downward...

To test the slingshot's power, Qin An ran out of the courtyard, loaded a small stone into its pouch, and fired at a roadside watermelon stall...

"Crack!"

A watermelon burst open, exposing flesh rotten as cotton wool. Several people buying the last batch of watermelons after autumn began jumped in fright, but no longer wanted to buy any...

The fat watermelon seller cursed loudly. Qin An hid nearby and chuckled to himself. Just a little earlier, Li Qin had been complaining that the fat man sold nothing but bad, rotten melons...

Qin An went around behind the northern dormitory building, searching for Liao Yu's window. He could not remember exactly where she lived, nor could he deliberately ask, worried about leaving clues that might arouse suspicion...

Qin An narrowed his eyes, estimating roughly where Liao Yu's apartment was. When he spotted a maternity nightdress and a creamy-white bra with cups at least a G, he could be sure...

Liao Yu liked tending flowers and plants in her spare time. A large cactus stood on her balcony in an earthenware pot...

Qin An hid behind a tree and took careful aim...

"Crack!"

The earthenware pot shattered at once, and broken shards, soil, and the cactus all tumbled down...

Liao Yu leaned out from the balcony. Without her solemn, stern teacher's expression, her oval face looked somewhat bewildered and startled, and was not quite so objectionable. Her pink nightdress exposed her fair shoulders and collarbones, while her high, full breasts held the fabric out so that it hung rather loosely below...

Seeing Liao Yu, Qin An gave her an innocent smile and shook his head, indicating that it had nothing to do with him...

Liao Yu did not believe for a moment that Qin An really had nothing to do with it. Her cactus was completely ruined, and Qin An just happened to be standing there watching?

But she had no evidence. Judging by his manner, a little intimidation would not make him confess. Suppressing her anger, Liao Yu glared at Qin An and left the balcony, but kept the door open a crack to watch secretly. If Qin An did anything else, she could catch him in the act...

Qin An chuckled, unzipped his fly, raised his proud little bird, and began to pee...

Liao Yu took one look and immediately blushed. Cursing inwardly, she moved away from the crack in the door and leaned against the wall, actually feeling a little flustered...

Qin An had no scruples about teasing a young married woman like her. He was, however, unwilling to casually provoke those little girls as pure as blank paper and as tender as flowers...

Giving it a shake, Qin An looked down and saw that his thing was already quite sizable, with thick hair around it, nothing like Sun Pao's hairless little bird. No wonder Liao Yu had run off after one look...

Qin An felt rather embarrassed... If it had only been an immature little bird, he could have passed it off as childish behavior, nothing much. But with it already this big, had he not just been blatantly harassing her and acting like a pervert?

Filled with regret and no longer in the mood to test the slingshot's power, Qin An ran home to continue writing his "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"...

Only when Qin Huai came into his room and asked how his preparations for the assessment exam were going did Qin An realize that the pressing matter was his bet with Li Hao. If he really lost, he would thoroughly disgrace himself...

Qin An decided to abandon history, politics, and Chinese outright. A quick look through mathematics would do; after all, he had never let his mathematics slide from high school through university. His knowledge of physics was still fresh in his memory, so he only needed to review the theorems and familiarize himself with the symbols and names. Chemistry was even easier. They had only started studying it during the month of supplementary classes over the summer after the second year of junior middle school, so there could not be much on the exam...

After working out how much time he had, Qin An felt it was more than enough. He drew up a study plan and began reviewing in an orderly fashion...

"If there's anything you don't understand, don't be afraid to ask. With so many teachers in these two buildings, it's even more convenient than at school..." Qin An reminded him. The vast majority of the children in the education commission's school-district dormitory buildings had excellent grades. Each year, the few top students from the town's junior middle school who got into County No. 1 Middle School were almost all children from these buildings. One important reason was that they could find teachers at any time to solve difficult problems and clear up their confusion...

On Saturday, Qin An took his enrollment fee and attended the drawing class. Unexpectedly, its teacher turned out to be Liao Yu's husband, Luo Bofu, an art graduate of Xiangnan Normal University...

Luo Bofu had supposedly even held an exhibition. When Qin An first heard about it, he had thought Luo Bofu was quite impressive, but from his current perspective, that was another matter. Luo Bofu's exhibition clearly had not been much of a success; otherwise, he would not have remained tucked away in a high school teaching art...

Even County No. 1 Middle School could not attach too much importance to "miscellaneous subjects" like art. It merely needed a qualified teacher to keep up the school's image...

Luo Bofu came to the town's junior middle school to teach on Saturdays as a part-time job for extra money. With Liao Yu teaching a music class as well, the couple had added considerably to their income...

Luo Bofu had arranged the drawing classroom and displayed several works he was proud of. An oil painting of a fully nude woman hung on the main wall, immediately drawing a flurry of hushed exclamations from the students...

The girls turned away shyly, while the boys stole looks, probably blushing with their hearts racing, and feeling a few urges too...

Qin An walked over beneath the oil painting and examined it closely. Why did this nude woman, whose nipples and pubic hair were not visible, this image of a voluptuous young married woman, look so much like Liao Yu's figure?

Could he have put one of the products of their private marital amusements on display too? People who studied art really were unfathomable...

"Ah!"

A little stone struck his backside, stinging him. Qin An rubbed his butt and turned around. Ye Zhulan stood with her little fists clenched, putting on a fierce expression, clearly very displeased that Qin An kept staring at the nude painting...