The biology competition that Ruan Mian participated in that year was not very difficult, and the awards did not carry much weight either. At the end of October when the list of award winners was announced, there were over a dozen first prize winners, and Ruan Mian was among them.
On the day the award certificates were sent to the school, the leaders of No. 8 Middle School notified all the homeroom teachers of the winning students and asked them to bring the students to the front of the Ideology and Politics Building to take photos.
It was still during the lunch break at that time. Ruan Mian was lying on the desk half asleep when Zhou Hai suddenly called her to stand with the school teachers and other students to take a group photo. She was completely disoriented.
In the bright and warm autumn afternoon sunshine, the photography teacher snapped several shots in a row, then stopped to look at the photos and said with a laugh to Vice Principal Wu Yan standing next to him, “The girl on the far right in the front row is too pale, she’s overexposed in the photo, we can’t use these shots.”
Wu Yan leaned over to look at the lens. In the photo, half of Ruan Mian’s face was completely washed out. He looked up and waved his hand in the air, “Ruan Mian, come stand on the left.”
“Oh, okay.”
Ruan Mian moved to the far left position where the light was not as bright, and they were barely able to get a few usable shots.
After taking the group photo together, there were still individual photos of each student to be posted on the bulletin board display windows in the school.
The teachers gradually returned to their offices, leaving the chattering students standing in the shade of the trees, waiting for the photography teacher to call out their names.
The freshman photos were all taken first before the sophomores. Following class order, Ruan Mian was the first. She held her certificate and stood on the steps in front of the building, smiling especially stiffly at the camera.
The next day at noon, this photo was posted on the first bulletin board at the entrance to the campus. After eating lunch outside of school, Meng Xinglan and Liang Yiran passed by the bulletin board on their way back and used their phones to take a picture of Ruan Mian’s photo through the glass.
Back in the classroom, Meng Xinglan showed her phone to Ruan Mian and laughed uncontrollably, “Why were you smiling so blankly?”
Ruan Mian: “…”
Meng Xinglan kept laughing with shaking shoulders. Ruan Mian was truly embarrassed but couldn’t help taking a look at the phone screen.
At that time most people used keypad phones like Nokia with small screens and low resolution, but it didn’t affect viewing.
Ruan Mian saw that the left edge of the photo also captured a few lines of small black words, she zoomed in for a closer look, and it was a familiar name.
Chen Yi.
Grade 10 (1) Class.
Seeing Chang’an’s flowers in a day1.
Not long after the new school year started, the award winners for the physics competition Chen Yi participated in over summer break were announced, and he won first prize. At that time, the school also took a one-inch photo of him and put it on the bulletin board, and Ruan Mian had gone to take a photo of it afterwards.
It was about over a month between those two times. Ruan Mian did not expect that one day she would appear in the same place as him in this way.
She thought to herself, she was actually happier about this than winning the award herself.
That afternoon during the last self-study period, Ruan Mian went to Teacher Zhou’s office. On her way back to the classroom, from the 3rd floor hallway she saw the school gate in the distance, and her footsteps gradually slowed.
A few seconds later, Ruan Mian turned back and ran down the stairs on the other side of the teaching building, sprinting straight ahead until she stopped in front of the bulletin board near the school gate.
The edges of Chen Yi’s blue one-inch photo in the display window had started to yellow. The boy had handsome features and pitch-black eyes, with little expression on his face, forming a stark contrast with the silly smiling girl beside him.
There was no one around except for the security guard in the gatehouse. Ruan Mian took out her phone and carefully snapped the first “photo together” of her and Chen Yi.
She had a solemn expression as if she was capturing some precious treasure. After she left, the security guard from the gatehouse ambled over here and glanced left and right.
The window was full of photos of outstanding students, expressionless boys and blankly smiling girls among them, just passing glances for others.
On the weekend, Ruan Mian went to the Xinhua Bookstore downtown and bought a pile of books according to the list Chen Yi gave her. She also picked up two books “How to Read a Book” and “1000 Reading Comprehension Essays” in case she didn’t know where to start with these books.
After leaving the bookstore, Ruan Mian found a printing shop nearby and printed out the photo she took earlier. Later when she couldn’t find a place for it at home, she simply put it between the cover and first page of her diary.
Ruan Mian was not good with words. She didn’t write in her diary every day, only occasionally when she remembered, and it was just a few sentences. But every sentence was about him – only then could she truly get to the point.
With Chen Yi’s help, Ruan Mian stopped attending the essay tutoring classes. The underclassman who had added her on QQ before asked why she wasn’t coming to class anymore.
Ruan Mian only said that she found another tutoring class, and also forwarded the book list Chen Yi gave her, saying it was recommended reading from the teacher.
The underclassman expressed her gratitude, and later when they ran into each other at school, she shoved a few lollipops into Ruan Mian’s hands before she could refuse, then immediately ran off.
Ruan Mian laughed out loud watching her run away. She casually put the candy in her bag, and later said thanks on QQ.
On the last Friday of November, No. 8 Middle School had no evening self-study as usual.
During the last self-study period in the evening, Ruan Mian finished the reading comprehension essay to hand in this week in the classroom. She planned to give it to Chen Yi after class, but halfway through, Zhou Hai was called away to a meeting. With no teacher supervising anymore, Chen Yi and a few boys ran off to play basketball and didn’t come back until the end of school.
She stayed in the classroom waiting for Meng Xinglan to finish cleaning. They went out together to eat dinner before returning to the dorms. Passing by the Li Family Supermarket, Ruan Mian saw Chen Yi wearing a black basketball uniform standing at the store entrance.
At that time, it was already deep winter. The highest daily temperature in Pingcheng was only eight or nine degrees Celsius, and even lower at night. Ruan Mian was afraid of the cold and had already put on a thin down jacket early on, but the boy seemed unaffected by the cold, with his arms and calves exposed.
Squatting on the steps, Li Zhi’s back was facing the intersection while Chen Yi saw Ruan Mian first. Li Zhi squatted on the ground without moving. When he spoke, there were puffs of white mist around his lips, “I heard you got first place in the biology competition, congratulations.”
This was something from so long ago, it was impressive that he still remembered. Ruan Mian poked her chin out from her coat collar and said thank you.
Li Zhi smiled and stood up from the ground.
Chen Yi had already turned around when he started speaking. His bangs were damp from the rain and froze into clumps in the bitter cold.
He raised his hand to fluff his bangs apart. As his hand lowered, he casually scratched the back of his neck and asked, “Did you write your reading reflection this week?”
“I wrote it,” Ruan Mian said as she held onto her backpack strap. “Do you want it now?”
Chen Yi nodded, “Yeah, give it to me.”
Li Zhi turned and walked inside, “Let’s go in and talk, it’s so cold out here.”
The three of them walked into the store one after another. Li Zhi went to the backyard while Chen Yi grabbed his school uniform jacket draped over a chair and put it on.
Ruan Mian had brought back quite a few textbooks this week, so her bag was a bit heavy. She set it on the counter and flipped to her biology textbook. The reading reflection was tucked between the pages along with other miscellaneous items.
When she took it out, something that was clipped to the very bottom of the textbook fell out and hit the glass countertop with a “dong” sound.
Ruan Mian glanced over and saw that it was a lollipop a younger female classmate had given her. She had just left it in her bag and forgotten to eat it.
Chen Yi, who was standing to the side looking down at his phone, heard the sound and looked over. “What happened?”
“Oh, nothing. Just something fell.”
Ruan Mian found the reading reflection and handed it over. Her other hand reflexively went to grab the lollipop that had fallen onto the table.
Chen Yi glanced at her actions, casually flipped through a couple pages of the reflection, and said, “I’ll take this to school on Monday for you.”
“Okay.”
With the reflection handed over, Ruan Mian had nothing else to do and was not comfortable being alone with Chen Yi. Since Li Zhi was taking so long to come back, she hesitated and prepared to head back.
Chen Yi could sense her unease and anxiety. He placed the workbook on the table and said again, “Go back early.”
Ruan Mian had a trauma associated with those words. As soon as she heard them, her entire body tensed up slightly, her eyes blinking twice. She held out the candy and said, “I gave the book list you gave me to a classmate I take writing lessons with. This is candy she gave me afterwards. Here, have one.”
Chen Yi took the candy and said, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I’m going to head back first then.”
“Mm.”
Ruan Mian walked to the door then seemed to remember something. She turned back.
The lighting was bright and the boy’s features were especially clear in the interplay of light and shadow.
She pursed her lips slightly and said slowly, “Chen Yi, thank you.”
The boy was stunned for a couple seconds before looking up to say, “You’re welcome.”
Ruan Mian revealed an exceptionally faint smile. She retracted her gaze and walked out of the store.
The nightscape was tinged with hazy golden light. The girl’s figure quickly disappeared into the crowds.
Chen Yi stared at the misty nightscape for a moment before lightly retracting his gaze.
In fact, regarding the writing lessons, he could only be considered a bridge. The one truly teaching Ruan Mian was his grandmother, Ms. Shen Yunmao.
Ms. Shen graduated from Pingjiang University’s School of Humanities. After graduation, she continued teaching at the university. Two years ago, she was invited back by Pingjiang University. She currently teaches in the Chinese department (formerly known as the School of Humanities).
She had taught and nurtured students for most of her life. Her students have achieved much success in the field, truly embodying “peaches and plums everywhere, spring breeze reaching the four corners.”2
That day when Teacher Zhao asked Chen Yi to teach Ruan Mian, after coming back Chen Yi handed the task to Ms. Shen. He asked her to take on an outside student. She didn’t need to teach anything too advanced, just enough so Ruan Mian could write compositions without going off topic.
The reading lists and reflections after that were also homework Ms. Shen assigned Ruan Mian. Chen Yi was afraid Ruan Mian would feel burdened, so he didn’t tell her the truth. He would copy Ms. Shen’s comments onto Ruan Mian’s reflections beforehand.
After studying for so long, although there weren’t huge changes, Ruan Mian did make some progress. At the very least, she didn’t write off topic on the composition for the midterm exam that had just ended.
Thinking of this, Chen Yi unwrapped the candy and put it in his mouth. A sweet and cloying fruity flavor spread. He frowned slightly and chewed it up before swallowing.
- The last line was not fully captured, the full line was “Proud stallion galloping, seeing Chang’an’s flowers in a day”, from Tang dynasty poet Meng Jiao’s poem “Climbing the Height after Success in the Imperial Examination”. ↩︎
- ???????????: a line frequently used to praise the accomplishments and impact of a great teacher. ↩︎
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