Chapter Ninety-Two: Naive and Foolish

“Why, would I hold you and still push you away?” Ren Jiaxuan said with an amused smile. “Your homeroom teacher is such a dull, useless fool. What are you afraid of him for?”

“He may be useless, but he’s still our teacher. I have to show him respect. Haven’t you heard that a teacher for a day is a father for life?” Dong Yanyan shook her head, smiling. “I’m not staying with you. I have to hurry back, maybe I can still make it in time for lunch.”

“You really do honor your teachers. Hey, get me a portion too, will you? I haven’t eaten this morning either,” Ren Jiaxuan said with a grin.

“No problem. Wait for me!”

Only on the way back, carrying her lunch pail, did Dong Yanyan suddenly realize something was wrong: wasn’t it supposed to be the boys getting food for the girls? How had it become the other way around? It seemed she really was growing more and more backward with age.

Ren Jiaxuan was leaning against the classroom door, head tilted, watching her drift along with the lunch pail in her arms. Seeing her wander around so long without even noticing him, he couldn’t help laughing. “Hey, what are you daydreaming about? I’m over here!”

“Oh—your breakfast.” Dong Yanyan handed it over, then said gloomily, “I don’t quite get it. Shouldn’t boys be getting food for girls? How did we end up the other way around? I think that’s unfair.”

“Yanyan’s here, Brother’s got candy for you!”

Before Dong Yanyan even saw who it was, a soft candy had already been stuffed into her mouth. She bit down and found it was orange-flavored.

Ren Jiaxuan was displeased. He turned back and said to Li Zhe with a laugh, “She’s spoken for, so keep your hands to yourself.”

Li Zhe shrugged it off. “I gave her candy, not rat poison. Is that really necessary?”

The moment Dong Yanyan heard “rat poison,” she felt suddenly uneasy. She made a pained face and asked Li Zhe doubtfully, “Li Zhe, are you sure you didn’t give me rat poison?”

Now it was Li Zhe’s turn to be speechless. He turned to Ren Jiaxuan and asked in confusion, “Is she all right?”

“She’s been doubting everything since this morning,” Ren Jiaxuan said, laughing as he pushed Dong Yanyan back into their classroom. “Go back to your class and think it over slowly. When you’ve figured it out, come find me!”

***

There was no show on Friday night, so Yang Lili and Leng Haoyang went out to rent a few videotapes and brought them back to the classroom to watch. The first two rows of desks were packed with students, and all the lights were off. Only the television screen was glowing, casting its faint blue light. Dong Yanyan loved this atmosphere—lively, relaxed. More than ten years later, she would still sometimes long for those nights spent with her classmates: so many nights, yet so brief; only four years. Such a short span of time, over in the blink of an eye, and yet the memories of those four years seemed endless, as though all of her youth had been contained within them.

When Ren Jiaxuan came looking for her, the TV was showing “A Chinese Odyssey Part Two: Cinderella.” Ever since he had gotten entangled with Dong Yanyan, his biggest change was that he had become increasingly fond of making conversation for the sake of it.

“Yanyan, what are you watching?” He slipped into the pitch-dark classroom, glanced at the television, and asked.

Hearing his voice, Dong Yanyan turned and smiled. “A tragedy caused by a single boot. Aren’t you and your class going out to have fun tonight? That doesn’t sound like your style at all!”

“It’s no fun hanging out with them. Better to come keep you company and watch a video.” Ren Jiaxuan shoved Liu Qiang aside and sat down next to Dong Yanyan. “Move over, Liu Qiang.”

“I’m glad you came,” Dong Yanyan said half-jokingly. “Liu Qiang’s been grinning like an idiot nonstop. I was starting to worry he’d laugh himself into a fit. I was even thinking of getting him a heart-saving pill.”

Just then Liu Qiang pointed at the TV and laughed so hard he could barely breathe. “Hahaha—trying to be Anita Mui? S-she is Anita Mui! Hahaha—hahaha!”

Dong Yanyan really couldn’t take it anymore. She clutched her head and moaned, “I can’t stand this. Somebody save me.”

Without another word, Ren Jiaxuan put an arm around Liu Qiang’s neck, dragged him to the back of the classroom, and gave him a thorough beating. Liu Qiang flattened himself over the desk and fell silent. Ren Jiaxuan dusted off his hands and returned to Dong Yanyan’s side as if nothing had happened.

“You didn’t silence him for good, did you? How brutal,” Dong Yanyan said with a laugh. She knew he and Liu Qiang were always roughhousing like this. It might count as bullying, but that was simply how boys got along—big ones picking on little ones.

Ren Jiaxuan slipped an arm around her shoulders and laughed. “Who told him to make all that noise? I’m just doing the public a service.”

From the front row, Song Mingcheng turned around at that and said with a half-smile, “Let me ask you something: if there’s a Room No. 1, is the room next to it Room No. 2?”

Ren Jiaxuan reacted quickly. “No. Room No. 2 is downstairs.”

“Wrong! If the room next to Room No. 1 isn’t Room No. 2, then it must be Room No. 3. And if the room next to Room No. 1 is Room No. 3, then Room No. 2 must be directly across from Room No. 1. That’s the rule,” Dong Yanyan said with certainty.

“You’re wrong too! Who says Room No. 2 has to be next to Room No. 1? The room beside Room No. 1 could be any room, and the one across the hall could be any room too. I can write whatever number I want on the door,” Ren Jiaxuan said, smiling.

“How do we normally count? Either one, three, five, seven and two, four, six, eight, or one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. That’s the common pattern. Have you ever seen anyone count in utter chaos? Everything would be a mess,” Dong Yanyan argued.

Song Mingcheng nodded emphatically, looking at Ren Jiaxuan with righteous disdain. “Classmate, life isn’t a movie. Life is reliable. Movies aren’t.”

Dong Yanyan refused to agree. “I think life is even less reliable than movies! In life, there’s only what you can’t imagine, never what you can’t encounter.”

“Same here! Dong Yanyan, I think I have more in common with you than with him. How come?” Song Mingcheng asked pointedly.

“Hey, little rice grain, go back to your movie!” Dong Yanyan said with an amused scold.

Ren Jiaxuan was unhappy. “I say, you two are deliberately provoking me! Dong Yanyan, if you keep this up, I’m really going to be upset.”

Dong Yanyan mumbled in great grievance, “What does this have to do with me? I don’t know what’s got into him today, talking so much. Usually he doesn’t say more than five words to me at a time!”

Ren Jiaxuan curled his lip and gave a cold laugh. “He doesn’t say more than five words? He can drone on all night in the dormitory without repeating himself once. He just acts cool in front of you. He goes all out showing off in front of the teachers—otherwise why do you think the teachers all like him so much?”

“Really?” Dong Yanyan asked in disbelief. “Good heavens! That’s truly shocking!”

“Please speak proper Mandarin,” Ren Jiaxuan said, tapping her forehead in dissatisfaction.

“If you don’t like listening to me, go back to your class. Don’t disturb me while I watch the movie,” Dong Yanyan said carelessly, smiling.

“Fine. I like everything you say, as long as you’re talking to me,” Ren Jiaxuan said good-naturedly.

***

After watching movies in the classroom half the night on Friday, Dong Yanyan struggled out of bed Saturday morning, her head dizzy and heavy, too exhausted to move. She had no choice but to call Xu Cheng and ask him to deliver newspapers for her for one day. Xu Cheng naturally agreed at once. After hanging up, Dong Yanyan fell back onto the bed and slept again. She didn’t know how much later it was when noisy voices began rising around her, louder and louder, until they finally woke her. She poked her head out from under the covers and looked from the head of the bed. Everyone was gathered around Leng Yue’s bed, talking about something. On the desk in front of Leng Yue’s bed, Dong Yanyan saw a large travel bag, with several photo frames, lipsticks, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and the like scattered beside it. Most striking of all was the big bundle of loose buttons next to it. That bundle of buttons looked horribly familiar.

She froze instantly.

Oh, sister—why did you buy it back again?

Back then, a middle-aged woman in her forties had once come knocking with a suitcase, claiming she was a factory worker of some kind and had taken some products from her leaders to give as gifts. She had some leftovers and wanted to turn them into pocket money, selling everything for just twenty cents apiece, individually. The woman even shook the big pile of buttons to show them off; even the smallest button cost more than twenty cents, for heaven’s sake. The children were all innocent in those days. Seeing each item sold for only twenty cents, they thought it was practically free money. Only the third sister, Liu Ying, happened to have some spare cash on hand, and without counting carefully, she was talked into buying the whole lot.

Only after the woman left did they realize the photo frames and lipsticks and such had all been bait. What she had really wanted to sell was that pile of buttons. One button at twenty cents, a thousand buttons came to two hundred dollars. Add the twenty dollars for the big bag and the other bits and pieces, and the total came to two hundred and sixty. When they finally counted everything carefully after she had gone, they discovered there were fewer than five hundred buttons, and nobody would buy them if they tried to resell them outside. After calculating the market value of the other items, they found the total still didn’t come to one hundred dollars. Only then did they realize they’d been swindled. The amount lost wasn’t much, but for poor students in those days, it was half a month’s food money.

At this moment, Liu Ying was sitting on Leng Yue’s bed with her head drooping, endlessly regretting it.

“Third Sister, don’t get so worked up. There are so many schools nearby. We’ll help you sell them, and we’ll definitely get rid of them,” Lu Tian comforted her beside her.

“Then thank you all,” Liu Ying sighed.

Dong Yanyan knew perfectly well that these things could never be sold. Back then, they had run all over the nearby schools and spent an entire afternoon to no avail. This was not the way. So what should they do? She thought hard for a long while, and suddenly remembered a rather devious idea.

“No, there’s no way you can sell them like this. I have an idea—do you think it’ll work?” She sat up in bed and looked at them.

“Huh? Fifth, when did you wake up? Hurry up and tell us what to do—we’re all nearly dying of worry!” Leng Yue said.

“If you want to get your money back quickly, there is one way: a prize drawing. Have you seen those prize events in the square? People buy raffle tickets for two yuan apiece all the time. We can make some tickets, sort these things into first, second, and third prizes, then rent a place and set up a drawing booth. From the look of it, these are all household and daily-use products—some sort of promotion by a household goods company. What do you think?”

“Will that work?” Liu Ying asked hesitantly.

“I think it’s worth a try! Anyway, these things won’t sell as they are. Why not?” Li Hui said eagerly.

Leng Yue frowned and asked with some worry, “But what if someone drives us away?”