Homemade chocolate

Qin An took one bar of chocolate after another from his schoolbag, in all sorts of flavors. Qin Xiangshan had given him all of them...

"Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, hazelnut chocolate, white chocolate, fresh fruit chocolate... which should I eat first..." Ye Zhulan scratched her head, a little troubled...

"Try this first..." Qin An took out a dark lump of something that looked like chocolate...

It smelled lovely, but it looked more like a lump of black mud. Ye Zhulan hesitated a little. "Why do I have to eat this first... you eat some first and show me..."

"You're too sneaky. This is chocolate I made myself..." Qin An said indignantly...

"You know how to make it yourself? How do you do it? Teach me..." Ye Zhulan was quite interested in this...

"I broke up some chocolate, then heated it in a pot. Once it melted, I poured it into a bowl to cool, and this is how it turned out..." Qin An was rather helpless himself. He couldn't even get cocoa powder in Qingshan Town, so making truly homemade chocolate was impossible...

"Why would you do that... what a waste..." Ye Zhulan said ruefully. Who knew how much chocolate Qin An had ruined to make this huge lump...

"Because homemade chocolate has a special meaning. It means the person giving it to you is working tirelessly to do his very best, thinks every moment spent with you is unforgettable, and hopes you'll treat him as well as he treats you..." Qin An took Ye Zhulan's little hand and solemnly placed the ugly lump of chocolate in her palm...

"I gave you my favorite red shrimp, and you gave me something this ugly, yet you still have the nerve to say you treat me well..." Ye Zhulan let him cradle her hand. Her palm grew a little hot, as though even the chocolate might melt. She lowered her head, her voice growing softer and softer until it was barely a murmur...

"Forget it, then. Give it back..." Qin An seemed deeply disappointed and reached for it...

"No!" Ye Zhulan swung her hand behind her back, hiding the chocolate, her little face bright red. "I'll taste it first and see if it's good. If it isn't, I'll give it back..."

"Then let me watch you eat it..." Qin An chuckled...

"No... it's so black, it'll turn my teeth black when I eat it. I'm not letting you see that... I'll have the white chocolate first..." Ye Zhulan giggled. "Unwrap it for me..."

"You fed me shrimp..."

The autumn southerly winds shifted, the heat gradually receding as the weather cooled...

During the afternoon nap period, Qin An leaned against the wall, looking at Ye Zhulan in front of him. A thin, clear trail of drool gleamed at the corner of her mouth as she slept soundly...

Qin An simply watched her, feeling as though he were in a dream. How many times had he dreamed of a scene like this? Just being with her, quietly watching her, was enough to make it a happy dream he never wanted to wake from...

Now, though, he found himself much greedier. He wanted to hold her hand and keep walking with her, to kiss her lips, to hold her in his arms, to breathe in the fresh, girlish scent of her neck, to narrow his eyes and lecherously watch her little chest gradually fill out...

Qin An wasn't the only one watching Ye Zhulan. There was also Zhao Weiguo, who was using the nap period to prepare for the afternoon exams. He had seen Qin An and Ye Zhulan come in together from outside the school with his own eyes. Clearly, after handing in her paper early, Ye Zhulan had gone off with Qin An. Who knew what the two of them had done? Surely they hadn't done anything shameless? The more Zhao Weiguo thought about it, the angrier he grew. The pencil in his hand snapped under the pressure with a crisp crack...

Qin An looked at Zhao Weiguo, pointed at Ye Zhulan, and made a shushing gesture. Then he took out his slingshot and aimed it at Zhao Weiguo...

There was no doubt that he was warning Zhao Weiguo to be careful. If he woke Ye Zhulan and disturbed her rest, Qin An would shoot him with the slingshot...

Zhao Weiguo had seen how accurate Qin An was with his slingshot. Once, when Qin An took Ye Zhulan out to shoot birds, Zhao Weiguo had secretly followed them. His accuracy had been truly frightening...

Zhao Weiguo swallowed his anger. He fully believed that an undisciplined student like Qin An, who specialized in mischief and troublemaking, was capable of doing things that defied ordinary reasoning. He had no wish to take the afternoon exams with a huge lump on his head...

Qin An had no fondness whatsoever for Zhao Weiguo. He remembered that Zhao Weiguo had later gotten into No. 1 High School, while he and Ye Zhulan had joined the experimental class at No. 2 Middle School. Zhao Weiguo had often visited No. 2 Middle School and spoken to Ye Zhulan with an air of deep regret, as though blaming her for not studying hard enough and losing her chance to be with him...

The first exam that afternoon was chemistry. The invigilator was the town's junior high school principal, Zhu Wenliang, who was also Class 69's chemistry teacher...

Qin An had vivid memories of chemistry. Physics and chemistry had provided the theoretical and intellectual support that made him the king of destruction and mischief in his dormitory building. Making chain guns was one example...

Among children Qin An's age, a toy called a chain gun had been popular at the time... They would remove a section of bicycle chain, knock out the pins between the links, and thread the individual links onto a long steel wire. The other end of the wire would then be bent into the shape of a pistol, forming the rudimentary frame of a chain gun...

Most of the links would be secured to the wire. One end of a short steel wire would be sharpened into a striker and tied with rubber bands to provide launching force like a slingshot. It would be secured to the rear of the chain gun's frame and threaded through the links. Two separate links also had to be tied together, with one end blocked off and gunpowder packed inside, then aligned with the remaining links along the striker's path to form the chamber. When the trigger was pulled, the striker would slam into the gunpowder through the hollow centers of the links, producing an explosive bang...

Qin An and Sun Pao had thought these chain guns weren't powerful enough. They weren't even as loud as firecrackers. The two of them had gotten hold of a motorcycle chain and made an extra-large chain gun with heavy-gauge steel wire. They had even stolen the chemistry lab key and taken some potassium permanganate and ammonium nitrate to mix into gunpowder extracted from firecrackers... Qin An had said that the oxygen released when potassium permanganate decomposed would make the explosion more powerful...

Qin An had successfully built an oversized chain gun. Rather than sealing the muzzle completely, he had plugged it with a clod of dirt, then loaded it with a mixture of gunpowder, potassium permanganate, ammonium nitrate, and fine steel grit...

To test the gun's power, the two of them had specifically sought out a local mongrel. Before firing, both had been extremely excited. Sun Pao was a little less daring, so in the end Qin An had volunteered to take on the important task of firing...

Bang!

The oversized chain gun had been frighteningly powerful. The steel grit had blasted the mongrel's rump into a bloody mess. Frightened, furious, and in pain, the dog had lunged wildly at Qin An and Sun Pao. They had dropped the chain gun, turned, and run, but neither had escaped a vicious bite on the backside. Being made to kneel and whipped after going home, followed by months of vaccinations, had come later...

Even now, Qin An was still a little eager to try. He felt that many childhood pastimes, taken to their limits and combined with an adult's mature, comprehensive skills, could be elevated into something like art, worthy of being called "master-level"-just like his slingshot...

He lowered his head, a smile on his lips, and wrote swiftly. These simple, basic chemistry questions posed no difficulty for Qin An, who had already thoroughly reviewed ninth-grade chemistry...