Longing for Home

Their whole class, however, kept the chance of watching movies in music class a closely guarded secret.

If the other classes found out and reported it to the discipline director, they would never get that perk again.

After English class, Lin Er had an extra meal before heading back to the dormitory.

She had been growing lately, and her knees hurt badly. She collected all the school milk her classmates didn't want: one portion for her pen pal, one for herself, and one for her younger sister.

Most of the rejected milk was malt- or chocolate-flavored. Lin Er had disliked the malt flavor too, but now, to avoid worrying about whether she stood 1.6 meters tall without her shoes, she drank it all regardless.

Milk wasn't enough on its own. Four meals a day were the main source of her nutrition, and the rice cooker she'd received when she bought her phone was proving very useful.

She cooked rice and steamed vegetables at the same time. Like a weight-loss meal, it filled her up without giving her too much nutrition.

Once her classmates had all left, Lin Er headed straight for the computer room. She had only just remembered that, while she wasn't good at explaining things, she could download anime for her young pen pal to watch.

For that, she had even bought a high-capacity memory card.

By the time she finished and returned to the dormitory, everyone who had queued for a shower had finished.

Grandma Lin and the others no longer went out to sell river snails every day, partly because they still had things to do at home and partly because there weren't many snails left in the river.

Lin Er went back to check every other day. In any case, if the snails weren't clean, her grandma wouldn't stir-fry them.

As time passed, people eventually found out about her leaving school to shower and bringing back hot water. After all, there was no keeping relationships between teachers and students at school a secret. They only had to ask Ying Yuecheng and the others whether she had any relatives at school.

So Shi Meng refused to let her bring hot water anymore and took her kettle to the cafeteria for her every day instead.

Lin Er couldn't very well explain, and the two of them went from one supplying hot water and the other cold water to one supplying cold water and the other hot water.

They had switched the order around.

After all, Lin Er could now carry two buckets of cold water up to the sixth floor in one go. With a single Levitation Charm, carrying a bucket of water was much like holding a hydrogen balloon by its string.

The days passed leisurely, and when PE classes finally began starting on time, they also had to prepare for the winter sports meet.

The sports committee member went around the classroom begging everyone to sign up for the 3,000-meter run. Lin Er felt sorry for him, but the instant their eyes met, her heart skipped a beat.

His eyes lit up. "That's right, Lin Er! I heard you've been taking martial arts classes all this time. I think we can leave the girls' 1,000 meters to you. You can definitely do it, right? You definitely can, right? Please!"

When Lin Er refused, he kept hovering beside her instead of leaving, his eyes full of grievance.

"All right, all right, I'll do it. But I can't guarantee I'll place. I'm learning martial arts, not turning into a superhero."

He jumped for joy.

"No problem! Friendship first, competition second. What matters is that our class takes part!"

As soon as she wrote down her name, he dashed around the classroom in delight.

"Comrades, even a female comrade has been the first to sign up. Aren't you ashamed? Not a single one of us boys has signed up for the 3,000 meters yet..."

The provocation worked well enough that they soon found runners for both the boys' and girls' long-distance events. The sports committee member was practically ready to cry with joy.

He had been calling for volunteers all morning. Brotherhood wasn't nearly as useful as a little provocation.

"Your great kindness leaves me no way to repay you, so I'll throw in this shot put sign-up form as a buy-one-get-one-free gift for you, Lin Er. I hope you won't disdain it."

Once his excitement had passed, the sports committee member suddenly realized that shot put was another major problem. Nobody had ever tried it, and no one wanted to sign up and make a fool of themselves.

So he slowly edged his way over to Lin Er and began clowning around.

Lin Er kept working on her math paper without looking up.

"I do disdain it, comrade. This isn't repaying kindness. You're repaying a grudge with kindness."

She had already volunteered for a 400-meter relay with Shi Meng and the others. Did he want her running back and forth across the field all day?

"Come on, it's really easy. All we need is someone to throw the shot without hitting anyone!"

Lin Er was unmoved. She knew what it was like: in her previous life, she had competed in shot put and come in last. Then another student had thrown a shot straight into the crowd, striking a classmate and splitting their head open.

This time, she had no desire to go and watch the spectacle again.

Seeing how firm she was, the sports committee member had no choice but to leave, sighing as he went.

Shi Meng tugged at her from behind Yan Jingting, then leaned over and whispered, "Our homeroom teacher said anyone who doesn't finish their essay during evening study has to run laps afterward. Should we go practice together?"

Before Lin Er could say anything, Yan Jingting tapped on the desk.

"What are you whispering about back there? Come around front, come around front!"

The three of them put their heads together over the desk.

"Sure! Even if we don't practice the relay, we can still get some exercise. I've put on a little weight lately!"

The other two looked at Yan Jingting, speechless.

"You don't even live at school. Why are you joining in? Won't your family say something if you get home late?"

"What's the problem?" Yan Jingting's eyes sparkled. "My home is in the building right behind the field. If I can climb over the wall, I'll be right by the window of the place my family rents. I can just tell my mom from there!"

With that settled, the three began discussing problems again.

Soon, the group grew to four.

That was how an atmosphere of studying took shape. When everyone around you was studying and even their conversations were about problems, you naturally studied too. Otherwise, you couldn't even get a word in.

The two evening study periods were both Chinese classes. The papers from their previous in-class test were handed back, and great, Lin Er had scored in the seventies again.

Their in-class tests lasted only one period, so they didn't write an essay. With the sixty points for the essay removed, only ninety points remained.

Lin Er's Chinese scores were consistent, always between seventy-five and eighty.

It mainly depended on the reading comprehension section.

If she came across a question she had done before and remembered the model answer, she could pick up a few points, though that didn't happen often.

On new reading comprehension questions, she could get only one or two points at most.

That was because what she got from reading seemed to be different from what everyone else got.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, it's 'expresses the author's longing for home' again. Lin Er, are you challenging our homeroom teacher?"

Whenever Yan Jingting and Lin Er exchanged papers to mark them, Yan Jingting ended up laughing.

When it came to prose comprehension, Lin Er always read too much into things, and her answers were often completely unrelated to the question. With classical Chinese, she always gave overly shallow answers, never digging deeper and looking only at the words.

"But all I can read into it is his longing for home! And he hoped someone would put him in an important position? With all that beating around the bush, nobody could understand him, so who the hell would give him an important position?" Lin Er snatched her paper back, somewhat embarrassed and angry.

That was how she was with reading comprehension. She really found it hard to analyze several layers of meaning in an ancient poem or an essay.

Really, she simply hadn't built up enough knowledge. She knew very little about the authors' lives and hadn't paid attention in class, so when the test came, she could only rely on the literal meaning.

"Pfft! All right, all right, stop. What does being indirect mean to Lin Er? It means you don't want something. Otherwise, why wouldn't you just say so!"

Shi Meng laughed when she heard them from beside them. Whenever Lin Er couldn't understand something and didn't want to leave the answer blank, nine times out of ten, she'd write "longing for home" when asked what emotion the poet was expressing.