Chapter 9

Chapter 9

After daytime classes ended, the students got a little over an hour to rest before the long evening self-study session began. Some students would even stay later after evening self-study ended at ten-thirty, all for the sake of squeezing out even one or two extra points on the college entrance exam.

But I had no need to improve my college entrance exam score. Strictly speaking, I did not even need to take the exam at all, so from the very beginning, I had applied to the school to skip evening self-study.

As soon as afternoon classes were over, I could go home.

Zhao Linfeng called out to me. “My mom told me to bring you to the stall. She wants you to try the shredded potato pancakes she just came up with.”

Zhao Linfeng did not attend evening self-study either. The reason sounded ridiculous, but on a top student like her, it somehow made perfect sense-at night, she had to help her mother set up and close down the stall. She could finish self-study on her own at home.

Faced with Zhao Linfeng’s enthusiastic invitation, I thought back to that night when I had been so wrung out from diarrhea I could barely stand, and the doctor’s sour expression. It was not that I did not like the food. My body simply could not take it. I could only turn her down.

How should I put it? Staying alive came first.

“I’m going to West City District tonight for some private-kitchen food. Oh, right, you don’t have evening self-study either. Want to come with me?”

“I still have to help my mom with the stall. Business is good around this time.”

It seemed I would only be able to make plans with her when all the students were on break.

Zhao Linfeng’s family seemed full of love, and Zhao Linfeng herself was so healthy. Her flaw was that her family’s finances were terrible. Xu Woruo, on the other hand, was a girl who had been absolutely well-off in material terms, but she lacked her family’s love, and her body had always been tortured. Sometimes I could not tell which of them, Zhao Linfeng or the former Xu Woruo, was more unfortunate.

Or rather, which of them was the fortunate one amid misfortune.

I went to West City District and got takeout of a few of my favorite dishes, then brought them home. I had the nanny heat them up first thing the next morning, pack them in a thermal container, and bring them to school.

Yuan Lina had not come to class again. I heard Pan Li chatting with a few classmates, saying that Feng Wendong had won first place in a race last night and had even brought Yuan Lina along. When they got to that part, the students exchanged knowing looks and started giggling.

I did not know what was so funny. Were they laughing at the downfall of two minors?

I was gloomy the entire morning, until lunchtime came and I invited Zhao Linfeng to eat the private-kitchen dishes I had brought: scallion-oil braised chicken, blanched choy sum, salted-pork bamboo-shoot soup, and the restaurant’s most delicious steamed pork ribs.

The portions were all small, just enough for each of us to have a few bites. After Zhao Linfeng finished eating, she was still savoring it. “These are the best ribs I’ve ever eaten in my life. Every single piece has cartilage. I love cartilage the most!”

“It’s their must-order dish. They say the ribs are coated in taro paste and sticky rice, fried first and then steamed. When they steam them, they wrap them in lotus leaves. They’re so good.”

She asked me, “This meal must be really expensive, right?”

I did not know, because that restaurant was one of the Xu family’s businesses. I did not pay when I ate there.

I casually guessed a number. “It’s fine. Around three to five hundred yuan, I think. Let’s go eat there again this weekend.”

“Sure. My scholarship for this year is about to be approved. I’ll treat you this weekend.”

“Zhao Linfeng… you’re honestly amazing.”

“I think I’m super amazing too.”

“Let me ask you something. In the eyes of people with good grades like you, is studying a really easy thing?”

Zhao Linfeng thought for a few seconds before answering, “For me, it really is easy. Ever since I was little, no matter what kind of material it was, as long as the teacher explained it once, I understood. Everything felt very effortless. But there are also good students who study in a lot of pain. Back when I was in the Rocket Class, there was someone who came to the classroom a little after six every morning with breakfast to do morning reading. After evening self-study ended at ten-thirty, she would study for another hour. Even on weekends, when we had time off, she wouldn’t go anywhere. She just stayed in the classroom doing practice problems. That classmate could usually rank in the top twenty in class and around fiftieth in the grade. That was her limit.”

It was a very cruel truth. Some people exhausted themselves just to make the top twenty in class, while Zhao Linfeng had to help her mother run a stall after school and could still easily rank first in the class.

“But I don’t think I’m better than her,” Zhao Linfeng added, “because she was competing with me in a field she wasn’t naturally good at. She relied on self-discipline and persistence to chase higher scores. Only someone truly exceptional can do that. If it were a field I wasn’t good at and she was very good at, I might not be able to catch up to her.”

“Then what fields are you not good at?”

Zhao Linfeng honestly shook her head. “I haven’t found any yet.”

I thought to myself that Zhao Linfeng would definitely grow up into an incredibly capable and incredibly gentle adult. Definitely.

In the afternoon, Yuan Lina came to class barefaced. She had left with Feng Wendong yesterday and come back without makeup today, so a few foul-mouthed boys started shouting that she definitely had not gone home last night and had spent the night outside, which was why she had not put on makeup today.

She cursed and snapped back at them for a few rounds, then returned to the last row and went to sleep.

I realized that she either did not come to school at all, or when she did, she slept. Normally, a student like that would have been advised to withdraw long ago, but she had Feng Wendong behind her…

Feng Wendong, Feng Wendong. Feng Wendong again. He was a poison pill coated in sugar. The sweeter things looked now, the crueler they would be in the future.

If he dumped Yuan Lina one day, he would lose nothing. But what would happen to Yuan Lina’s life?