Liao Yu

The early autumn days were still brilliantly sunny. A breeze carried refreshing coolness from the swaying bamboo groves in the distance, brushing across the sports field built by leveling a low hill and sending dust flying everywhere...

The yellow-and-white tiles of the new classroom building gleamed. A booming voice rang out over the loudspeakers, and the teachers stood in the corridors, watching the boys and girls on the field who could not behave even when lining up...

"The seventh national radio calisthenics routine for primary and secondary school students begins now. March in place!"

Qin An swung his stiff arms to the beat. At his mental age, doing something like this again was far too childish and ridiculous, but he had no choice...

The classes stood apart, each with one line of boys and one line of girls. The boys of Class 69 stood beside the girls of Class 68, and right next to Qin An was Ye Zhulan, who was not particularly short among the girls...

Ye Zhulan had begun puberty a year before Qin An, but he had started shooting up over summer vacation and was now slightly taller than her...

"Ye Zhulan, I like you..."

Ye Zhulan turned her head, her face scarlet with embarrassment. What was with him? The moment he changed classes, he started saying it over and over. He never used to say this. What had gotten into him? Was he serious or joking? Was he telling me because he wanted an answer, or was he just talking to himself?

"I know. Stop saying it..."

Afraid someone else would hear, Ye Zhulan hurriedly lowered her voice...

Qin An nodded, but his heart would not settle at all. It felt as though a heart filled to overflowing had suddenly poured itself out and been left empty...

In his memory, he had never confessed to Ye Zhulan, but that did not mean he had not wanted to. He had simply been afraid of what he might gain or lose, worried that she would reject him, worried that she would say they were still students and she did not want to think about such things, worried that they would not even be able to stay friends, worried that she would say she had always regarded him as a good friend, worried that she would say she liked someone else...

So this was how she would answer his confession...

A question buried in his heart for so many years had been answered just like that...

He had an adult's mind and soul, yet Qin An felt nothing remotely unnatural or wicked about confessing to a genuine thirteen-year-old girl. In his memory, Ye Zhulan had always looked like this young girl, firmly lodged in his heart. He had grown up and matured, but his image of Ye Zhulan had remained unchanged year after year, like an eternal statue of those tender, awkward days...

The exercises began. The two lines were close together, and the movements were broad, so Qin An's fingers inevitably brushed Ye Zhulan's hand. Every time, he could feel her shrink back and dodge, then lower her head, not daring to look at him...

Qin An felt that he had indeed fulfilled a wish, but had also messed something up...

Part of the reason he had never forgotten Ye Zhulan over all these years was naturally that he had been intoxicated by the carefree happiness of being with her. They had been very close; calling them innocent childhood sweethearts would not have been an exaggeration. They had occasionally had more substantial physical contact, too. Sometimes they would exchange a smile, their eyes brimming with sweetness, then look away with the faint ache of a racing heart. But things had never been like this...

"Qin An, focus on the exercises..."

From his other side came Sun Sun's authoritative voice, her brows furrowed. As class monitor, she had the right to supervise students who were not taking the exercises seriously...

From the very beginning, this Qin An had not done the exercises properly. His movements were either exaggerated or incomplete, and he was often half a beat behind everyone else. They would finish one section while he was still doing it, or he would go too fast, finishing eight beats while everyone else had only done five...

Qin An was just reflecting that stories of people becoming all-capable or all-knowing after getting a second chance at life were apparently pure fantasy. At least he had already stumbled over eye exercises and radio calisthenics. Who knew what else there might be?

After the break-time exercises ended, Ye Zhulan and her best friend He Yu left with Class 68. Sun Sun and the sports representative straightened Class 69's formation, while Qin An trailed slowly behind everyone else...

"Qin An, wait..."

Qin An looked up. Before him stood a young married woman full of mature charm: his former homeroom teacher, Liao Yu. She had a classic oval face, a shape that would become sought after years later when Korean trends swept in, and smooth, long hair in large waves. Her breasts, especially full while she was nursing, swelled prominently. Her slightly full waist was voluptuous without any flab, making it all the more alluring, while her broad pelvis gave her hips an exaggerated, enticing lift and curve. At 168 centimeters tall, with high heels accentuating her long legs, she stood on the steps, leaving Qin An at his current height no choice but to look up at her...

Liao Yu was secretly annoyed. For an instant, she had the impression that the way this boy had just looked her over, and something in his expression, were remarkably like those male colleagues at school who secretly swallowed at the sight of her. Although there had been no blatant suggestion of anything else, this manner of appreciation had already startled her a little...

"What are you looking at?" Liao Yu demanded angrily...

"Nothing... Teacher Liao, you've recovered well after giving birth. Make sure you exercise, eat more fiber-rich whole grains, and do more waist twists. That'll help you keep your figure... The autumn winds are here, but lingering toxins haven't cleared. Make sure the baby gets help clearing toxins and internal heat. Add some Qinghuobao to the water..." Qin An had always harbored some resentment toward Liao Yu. As he grew older, he had naturally stopped taking it to heart, but seeing her again now, he somehow found his tone turning flippant and casual...

"Heh, you certainly know a lot!" Instead of getting angry, Liao Yu laughed. "You'd be better off putting that thought into your studies. I'd like to see just how much you can amount to by changing classes!"

"You needn't trouble yourself over that..." Qin An replied blandly. This was the very teacher who had kicked him out of Class 68. Apart from the defeat and humiliation of being shown the door, Qin An felt that perhaps he ought to thank her. If he had not changed classes and had kept getting tangled up with the carefree Ye Zhulan, who forgot everything once she got carried away making a racket, whether his grades would have shot up like a rocket in his final year of junior high remained an open question...

Qin An remembered that when he first joined Class 69, he had ranked below 150th among the two hundred-odd students in his year. By the midterms, however, he had entered his class's top ten, and in the end-of-term seven-subject competition for all the town's junior high schools, he had placed fiftieth in the town and among the top ten in his year...

Back then, Qin An's best ranking had been fifth in his year. His father, Qin Huai, had stepped down as homeroom teacher because he taught English to several classes, and Teacher Deng, the Chinese teacher, had taken over. What had made Qin Huai feel vindicated was that Liao Yu had actually asked for Qin An to transfer back to Class 68. Naturally, Qin Huai had refused...

Qin An felt that if he had managed such a reversal before, turning from dead weight into a rocket, he was even more capable of it now. Math and foreign languages posed no obstacles. With a quick review of physics and chemistry, it would all come back to him. As for politics and history, they were simply a matter of rote memorization, so he was not particularly worried. Chinese, the last subject remaining, did give him something of a headache. Still, for the essay, he would not claim he could get full marks, but scoring at least thirty-five out of forty would definitely be no problem...

"Stop pestering Ye Zhulan. If that child works harder and makes a final push, she still has a chance of getting into No. 1 High School... As for you, you'll be lucky to get into a vocational high school or a specialized secondary school..." Liao Yu was finally angered by Qin An's attitude. She had never seen a student so disrespectful toward a teacher, so utterly indifferent to a teacher's authority...

Qin An shook his head and stopped paying attention to Liao Yu. She was a teacher, but she was not his homeroom teacher. His father would not spoil him, but he did stand up for his own, so offending Liao Yu was no big deal. In any case, after Qin An's year graduated, his father would probably follow the established course of events, take unpaid leave, and set out on the path toward founding a private secondary school. He would no longer be working with Liao Yu...

In most people's minds, only students with absolutely no prospects attended vocational high schools and specialized secondary schools. Qin An knew, however, that after students of their generation entered university, they would be among those cohorts graduating after enrollment expansion, when finding work was extraordinarily difficult for university graduates. They would fare even worse than vocational high school and specialized secondary school students who had mastered a practical skill...