Chapter 13

Chapter 13

After dinner, I cleared the coffee table, Zhao Linfeng washed the dishes, and Yuan Lina wiped down the kitchen counters. The three of us split up the chores and made quick work of the mess.

Zhao Linfeng said, “I used to think rich young ladies never did housework.”

I looked at Yuan Lina and said, “I used to think the Fashion Pioneer never did housework either.”

Yuan Lina rolled her eyes at us. “Well, I used to think top students were worshipped like household gods at home and never had to do chores.”

After that, I don’t know who started it, but all three of us burst out laughing.

“All right. We’re fed and watered, so let’s get down to business, classmates!”

Zhao Linfeng had said before that she had yet to find anything she wasn’t good at. Today, we finally discovered her weak spot.

She couldn’t teach to save her life.

For a top student like her, every problem was as simple as “1+1=2.” But if you asked her to explain why 1+1 equaled 2, she had no idea where to begin.

At first, Yuan Lina had merely been blankly ignorant about solving problems. After Zhao Linfeng explained two questions, her attitude changed. It became deep, heartfelt loathing.

While Zhao Linfeng went to the bathroom, Yuan Lina whispered to me, “She teaches worse than any teacher in Class 16.”

“You can’t say that. At least… she’s a little better than the PE teacher.”

Just as we were talking, Aunt Li opened the door and came home.

She hauled a huge insulated box full of ingredients upstairs on her shoulder, and when she set it down, it hit the floor with a muffled thud. Just from the sound, you could tell the thing was heavy.

“Hello, Auntie.”

Aunt Li greeted us with a beaming smile. “I’m going back down for another trip. You kids sit tight.”

She went downstairs again to carry up more things. Uncle Lin, who had been in the bedroom, wheeled himself out too. He wanted to move the ingredients Aunt Li had brought back into the kitchen, but Aunt Li’s bright, booming voice came in from the stairwell. “Old Lin, don’t touch that! I’ll move it myself in a bit!”

When Aunt Li came back upstairs, she was carrying two burlap sacks of potatoes.

Those potatoes were obviously even heavier than the box of ingredients, and I had no idea how she’d managed to haul one sack in each hand all the way up.

Zhao Linfeng tried to help, but Aunt Li shoved her away at once. As Aunt Li carried the things into the kitchen, she still didn’t forget to apologize to us. “Sorry for disturbing your studying! Linlin, go do homework with your classmates. Studying comes first!”

After a few more thuds, Aunt Li dumped everything on the floor, opened the fridge, took out a bottle of beer, and expertly popped the cap with one hand. She tipped her head back and, glug glug glug, downed it in a matter of seconds.

Sweat clung to the ends of her short hair. She panted heavily, let out a beer burp after finishing the bottle, and shouted, “That was fucking great!” As she let out that long sigh, droplets of sweat flew from the tips of her hair and splattered onto the greasy, yellowed kitchen floor.

Even the heroes of Liangshan had nothing on her.

Uncle Lin entered the kitchen, took the empty beer bottle from Aunt Li, and put it into the cardboard box in the corner. Then he handed her a handkerchief-his handkerchief had been tucked into his breast pocket, a spotless gray-white piece of linen. When he took it out from over his heart and offered it to Aunt Li, it was as if he were presenting her with something precious.

“Rest for a while. I’ll peel them.”

Aunt Li waved a big hand. “No need. I’ll finish this little bit of work in no time. You go rest.”

“I’ve been resting all day. You go take a shower. I’ll do it.”

Aunt Li forcibly pushed Uncle Lin back out. Sitting in his wheelchair, Uncle Lin looked up at Aunt Li as she moved back and forth between the kitchen, living room, and bedroom. His eyes shone, and the corners of his mouth stayed lifted. It was as though the moment Aunt Li came home, he himself had been switched back on.

Until Zhao Linfeng started teaching us again.

Uncle Lin frowned. “Linlin, put that down.”

Uncle Lin’s tone was exactly like Fourth Aunt in “The New Year’s Sacrifice” saying, “Xianglin’s Wife, put that down!”

However disgusted Fourth Aunt had been when Xianglin’s Wife touched the sacrificial vessels, Uncle Lin was that disgusted by Zhao Linfeng’s teaching.

Uncle Lin pushed up the sleeves of his knit sweater and wheeled himself over to the coffee table. He snatched the gel pen from Zhao Linfeng’s hand and, with a swift stroke, drew an auxiliary line in Yuan Lina’s exercise book.

“Look at this line. Can you figure out which angle you should set?”

I saw the light at once.

Yuan Lina still looked utterly lost.

Uncle Lin fell silent for a moment. “It’s all right. This happens easily when your foundation isn’t strong. Come on, I’ll start by reviewing the concept of the sum of interior angles with you.”

What did professionalism look like? This was professionalism!

The moment Uncle Lin picked up his pointer-his gel pen-it was like he became a different person. In that tiny living room, he wheeled back and forth with the force of a general commanding the field, gesturing grandly as he went. From sums of interior angles to free radicals, from acidity and alkalinity to Lenz’s law, his explanations were vivid and concrete. Even Yuan Lina could understand most of it.

After he finished, he still didn’t forget to sigh. “Linlin never wants to listen to me explain any of this…”

His aggrieved expression was exactly like an empty-nest elderly parent complaining that their child never came home.