Recognition

Teacher Lu and the others did indeed finish marking more than two thousand papers in a single day. Of course, most students had not completed so many questions, and the relatively large number of blank papers and unanswered questions reduced their workload.

In the Sports Room, piled high with canned food, Cao Baoming swung his arms as he unloaded the papers, then slipped away at the first opportunity. Yang Rui, however, opened them on the spot, drew two papers from each year, and sat at a conference table made from several desks pushed together, carefully checking the answers and scores.

Wang Fang, the English teacher who had helped deliver the papers, immediately looked displeased. "The papers have already been checked by teachers."

"I wrote the papers and provided the answers. I'm just checking again for any oversights." Between equals, Yang Rui's words would have been polite enough. Coming from a student speaking to a teacher, they were rather less so.

Teacher Lu had begun to get a feel for Yang Rui's temper. Worried that the young Wang Fang might take offense, he interrupted. "Checking takes quite a while too. Let's sit down and have some water first. Wang, you've worked hard all day too. Rest a bit before heading back. Yang, do you have cups and a kettle?"

It took Yang Rui a moment to realize he meant him. He rummaged around in the back and brought out two enamel mugs. "They've been scalded with boiling water."

The Sports Room was now the Rui Study Group's headquarters. They had stocked it with plenty of supplies and equipment, and held their meetings here as well. Yang Rui also intended to use it as his tutoring classroom. Once the Rui Study Group's membership gradually settled, more in-depth instruction would take place here.

Teacher Lu poured two cups of water himself, one for Wang Fang and one for himself.

He was forty, a veteran at Xibao Middle School. Wang Fang could only thank him and sit down, quietly waiting for Yang Rui to finish checking.

Fortunately, there were no major problems with the sampled papers. The longer questions had also been marked according to the steps shown, with nothing overlooked.

Only then did Yang Rui put the papers down in satisfaction and smile. "The teachers really have worked so hard. Without your help, it would probably have taken several days to calculate the scores for all these papers."

"As long as it's useful. More than ten teachers helped out." Having said that, Teacher Lu had no idea how to continue. Making small talk with his own student felt inappropriate however he looked at it.

Yang Rui noticed nothing. After a couple more polite remarks, he took an envelope from a drawer and handed it to Teacher Lu. "This is an honorarium for the teachers. Please distribute it among them."

"Oh, this..."

"Please do accept it." Yang Rui lowered his head and bowed slightly, adopting a Japanese manner.

In situations like this, Japanese tactics worked very well.

In Yang Rui's view, the Japanese bribed more elegantly than anyone else in the world. Whether they used antiques, famous paintings, or great piles of cash, they always managed to convey sincerity: please accept it, and everyone will be happy.

Not only that, Japanese bribe-givers were generally very conscientious. They could use less-than-explicit wording to lay out the price of a bribe perfectly clearly, and no one would try to fool the recipient with fake antiques or the like. They were relatively particular about integrity.

Most remarkably, Japanese companies bribed outsiders and threw money at politicians like mad, yet always managed to keep their own middle- and lower-level employees in line, refraining from taking bribes. Like a gang that absolutely forbade its own members from taking drugs, they seemed born with an organizational culture suited to building a major enterprise.

By contrast, Chinese bribery rings always tied their own hands when competing overseas, desperate to become paragons of multinational corporate ethics. Yet before they even returned home, they began thinking about obtaining receipts for reimbursement. Like addicts dealing drugs to support their habits, they lived from one day to the next.

In the rankings of gaining advantages through bribery, Japan, the champion, left everyone in the dust, far ahead of comparable Southeast Asian countries. The Chinese art of bribery could not even make the top three.

As a graduate student in biology, Yang Rui had heard senior students boast about such things while he was still at university. He had also fantasized about joining a multinational pharmaceutical company one day, stunning the foreign drug regulator's chairman with money, stunning lawyers and judges with money, stunning the media and juries with money, and then being stunned by his own sales commissions.

With his current limited resources, Yang Rui could only practice the outward formalities first.

Teacher Lu and Wang Fang had never seen anything like this. Yang Rui's attitude left both of them bewildered, especially Wang Fang, who had only recently started working. She thought, This fellow even makes giving people money feel rather pleasant.

"Then I'll accept it..." Teacher Lu felt that was a little inadequate, but had no idea what else to say.

"Thank you, teachers. I hope you'll continue to look after us." Yang Rui had completely entered into the role.

"All right, all right... I'll be heading back..." Once again, Teacher Lu could not find a response. He chuckled twice and hurried away with Wang Fang.

Once outside, Wang Fang could not help muttering, "You didn't even count it."

"How could I?" Teacher Lu's forehead was covered in sweat. He had never done private work in his life.

Wang Fang was younger, after all. She smiled. "We're outside now. Hurry up and count it."

"Are you that impatient?"

"I said at New Year I'd buy Dawei a bicycle, but I still haven't saved enough. With this payment, it should be about enough." Wang Fang felt no embarrassment. In a state work unit, anyone who cared knew how much everyone earned. Those who did not know simply could not be bothered to find out. There were very few rich second-generation children back then either. Everyone saved up to buy things.

Around Xibao Town, an official's son like Yang Rui was already considered well-off, yet he only received a few yuan more than others each week for food. Had he not earned money himself, he would still have been unable to afford meat.

Teacher Lu handed the white envelope to Wang Fang. "You might as well count it and distribute it to everyone."

Without standing on ceremony, Wang Fang tossed her braid, took the envelope, and pulled out the money. Then she gave a surprised "Oh!" and said, "I wouldn't have guessed this boy was so thoughtful."

Teacher Lu looked. The envelope contained two stacks of money, one in five-yuan notes and one in one-yuan notes. They were all new bills too, which meant he had specially exchanged them.

At the previously agreed rate, there were fourteen teachers receiving six yuan each: exactly fourteen five-yuan notes and fourteen one-yuan notes.

Even if he had simply paid the total, it would have been easy enough for Teacher Lu and the others to make change afterward. Still, two crisp new notes per person made a different impression.

Teacher Lu even felt a little warmth inside, and his slight unease about accepting an honorarium vanished with it.

It was still lunchtime when Yang Rui announced that the scholarships would be awarded that afternoon.

Some students clamored for him to hand them out immediately. Yang Rui ignored them all, and when his gaze fell on them, even the students jumping around obediently sat back down.

Even Hu Yanshan merely kept his head lowered, not daring to provoke him again.

The fates of Leopard and Huo Laosi stood like two warning signs behind Yang Rui.

Not only had Huo Laosi's gang fallen apart, its members had informed on one another, turning brothers into enemies who found no peace even after going to prison.

Leopard had been smeared all over with an unidentified substance and hung naked at the county town's busiest intersection, accompanied by a catchy rhyming couplet. It was humiliation taken to its limit.

Before it happened, Hu Yanshan had never known that getting caught could end so miserably for a thug.

All that talk about how execution was no worse than a head hitting the ground, or becoming a brave man again eighteen years later.

After being humiliated like Leopard, people would probably still be pointing and gossiping eighteen years later.

After hearing what had happened to Leopard, Hu Yanshan had nightmares for several days. He carried a sharpened little knife everywhere, not to stab anyone, but to kill himself.

He was not afraid of a beating. Whether it was a famous figure on the streets or a hero in a film, who was afraid of brutal torture? But to become someone famous or a hero, one first needed a good reputation.

Several times, Hu Yanshan woke in terror from a nightmare and thought, If I were dumped in the latrine for a bath, then hung from the playground flagpole for everyone to see, what would the students say about me? What couplet would Yang Rui hang on me?

Dong Cunrui gave his life to blast a bunker; Hu Yanshan boldly entered a pit of shit. The horizontal inscription: a yellow strip in the wind? I'd be better off dead.

After frightening himself for several days, Hu Yanshan took a detour whenever he saw Yang Rui. It was naturally a little embarrassing, but compared with Leopard's and Huo Laosi's endings, it could practically be called happiness.

Even his few lackeys understood him perfectly. By unspoken agreement, they said nothing and asked nothing, simply keeping their heads down and hiding with him.

Xibao Middle School's foremost troublemaker had surrendered without a fight, so there was no need to mention the others. Whenever they noticed Yang Rui looking serious, they did not dare joke around.

When classes ended that afternoon, even the day students went to the playground of their own accord. The principal vanished as usual, leaving only curious teachers chatting as they watched.

The school loudspeakers began playing the Athletes' March.

If a tenth of a cent had been charged every time this song played, the world's most valuable company before the twenty-first century would unquestionably have been Chinese.

Yang Rui listened helplessly to the music, standing behind the earthen mound that served as the dais as he waited for everyone to line up.

On the dais sat the 125 cans being used as prizes this time.

The canned meat unpacked from the wooden crates came in tinplate cans. Having only recently left the factory, they still gleamed like new in the light. The packaging alone looked extraordinarily high-end.

The canned fruit in glass jars looked even prettier. Both the mandarin oranges and yellow peaches looked tender and juicy, bobbing in sweet syrup. The mere thought made mouths water.

In those days, people in the countryside did not give canned food as gifts. A packet of pastries was already quite good, and sweets were reserved for holidays. Only when they needed a favor would they buy one or two jars of canned fruit.

Some households simply displayed canned fruit in their living rooms. The more particular ones even put it in glass cabinets, just as modern people displayed red wine in their living rooms as decoration.

Many children might have seen canned food coming and going through their living rooms, but few had eaten much of it. At over a yuan a jar, in a household with an annual income of a little over a hundred yuan, it held the same status as Moutai in a household earning a hundred thousand yuan a year. It could be given as a gift, shown off when important friends visited, or opened to celebrate a happy occasion. One could hardly open it quietly and let the children eat it.

For something so expensive, failing to find a suitable occasion to eat it in front of others counted as waste.

Most students probably had yet to encounter that suitable occasion.

Now they had a chance to win a can as a prize, and its appeal was truly on a par with ten yuan.

It took about twenty minutes for a measure of order to emerge on the noisy playground.

Yang Rui then walked steadily onto the dais with a thick stack of envelopes in his arms. He pressed both hands downward in the air and said, "Now, I declare the Rui Study Group's first scholarship award ceremony open..."

The Athletes' March sounded again.

The students below cooperated by applauding.

Yang Rui had rarely appeared at such large events before. He closed his eyes briefly, opened them again, and said, "The Rui Study Group Scholarship was established to recognize outstanding academic performance and encourage students' enthusiasm for learning. Its funds come primarily from the Rui Study Group's earnings and public donations. For this first round, the total scholarship fund is 1,350 yuan, and the prizes are sixty cans of meat and sixty-five cans of fruit."

There were ten more cash awards than cans, intended for the Rui Study Group's ten members. Since this was the Rui Study Group's scholarship, no one objected to Yang Rui designating the recipients.

The students treated Yang Rui's words as platitudes, and few paid attention until he reached the specific rewards, when their eyes widened one after another.

Only Yang Rui and a very few others vaguely realized that the recipients of the scholarships and the source of their funding were important...

There were no speeches by leaders and no further explanations. Yang Rui shifted his position slightly and said, "Students whose names I call, please come up to the dais to collect your prizes..."

"Wait..." An abrupt shout rushed onto the playground, accompanied by the rattling of a bicycle chain.

Spurred on by the Athletes' March, politics teacher Qi Yuan charged straight to the foot of the dais with the air of an urgent imperial messenger crying, "Stay the execution!" Only then did he pant out, "Section Chief Xiong from the county Education Bureau's Infrastructure Section is here. He says awarding scholarships like this is against regulations."

Yang Rui frowned. "What does our awarding scholarships have to do with the Infrastructure Section?"

But Liu Shan, the class monitor helping below the dais, showed a slight change of expression. She often delivered documents to the teachers and had heard some rumors.