Chapter 28

Chapter 28

As for whether Master knew more than Master Cao?

Of course she did!

She was no ordinary mortal, after all.

But because I would be attending middle school in town, she could not teach me in person. She also believed specialists should handle their specialties. When it came to coffin bearing and funerary-paper arts, Master Cao–whose family had practiced them for generations–understood more than she did…

Master Cao showed me around his two-story coffin shop as he explained its layout.

“Xiao Wu, the front hall downstairs is about a hundred square meters and mainly holds coffins. My bedroom is in the back.”

“The rear room upstairs is larger. That’s where I keep the spirit money, paper effigies, paper horses, and other things I make. There’s a small street-facing room by the window in front. You can use it as your bedroom. Sound good?”

Naturally, I agreed. I carried my luggage and clothes into the upstairs room overlooking the street.

It was only about ten square meters, dilapidated and covered in dust and cobwebs. A stale, musty odor filled the air.

Who knew how many years it had stood empty!

My face fell. Cleaning it would take a tremendous amount of work.

I had to report to school the next day, yet instead of resting properly tonight, I would have to do hard, dirty work. What rotten luck.

Seeing my expression, Master Cao said mysteriously, “Xiao Wu, think cleaning the room will be tiring?”

“No, no! That’s not what I meant, Master Cao.”

I hurriedly denied it.

Complaining while someone was giving me free room and board would be terribly rude.

He chuckled. “It’s fine. I’ll let you see what I can do. You don’t need to clean it. Someone will do that after dark. By the time you return from evening study, it’ll definitely be ready.”

Huh?

I was surprised.

Did the coffin shop earn so much money that Master Cao could hire someone just to clean a room? That seemed unlikely!

But since the owner had said so, I did not ask questions and followed him downstairs.

When Master Cao learned that I had left the village early and walked to town without breakfast, he brought some food from the kitchen out back.

He boasted as he set it down.

“I pickle these salted eggs myself. I buy farm-fresh duck eggs specially from Liu the Lame, who raises ducks. Try one, Xiao Wu! Aside from carrying coffins and making funerary paper, the thing I’m proudest of is my skill at pickling salted eggs.”

In the Sichuan-Chongqing dialect, salted duck eggs were called “salt eggs,” while “the Lame” simply meant a person with a limp.

Breakfast was a large bowl of rice porridge, one salted duck egg, and a bowl of pickled vegetables–mostly radish and ginger.

It was a common, simple breakfast in the towns of the southwest.

“Thank you, Master Cao.”

I was still growing and had eaten nothing that morning, so I was ravenous. Forgetting all restraint, I wolfed everything down in no time.

His salted egg truly was delicious!

The white was tender, while the grainy yolk oozed rich oil. It tasted wonderful without being overly salty.

I soon emptied the large bowl of porridge.

“Master Cao, I’ll go report to school now. When I come back tonight, I’ll help with chores around the shop. If you need anything, just tell me. Master said that if I’m eating and living here, I have to work too.”

“All right. Off to school with you, Xiao Wu. We’ll talk after you return.”

Lianghe Town had two middle schools, one in the west and one in the east: the district school and the town school.

Back in the 1970s and ’80s, the area had been Lianghe District. The district was later abolished and its towns consolidated, but Lianghe District Middle School retained its old name.

That was the school I had passed the entrance exam for. Its teaching was better than the town school’s, and every year it sent more students to the city’s key high schools. I had also heard that the town school had more delinquent troublemakers…

Lianghe District Middle School stood at the far western edge of town, a long way from Old Cao’s coffin shop. I had to cross the entire town to reach it.

Although I often came to market and helped my mother sell things, I had never visited the district school before.

On opening day, I had to ask directions as I searched for it.

The school actually lay beyond the main part of town, beside a suburban road. A smaller road branched into a mountain hollow, climbing gently for three or four hundred meters.

At its end stood the main gate of Lianghe District Middle School.

It was only a small-town school, yet the name above its gate had been personally inscribed by a famous national leader!
One look from the school gate left me astonished.

Not by the famous inscription, but by the school’s feng shui… It was superb!

“Is this the Three Stars Attending the Moon formation? The Classic of Dwellings says it’s extremely rare and extraordinarily auspicious. I never expected my middle school to stand in such a place. No wonder a little town school has produced several famous people.”

Understanding dawned on me.

What was Three Stars Attending the Moon?

As its name suggested, three stars accompanied a crescent moon.

The stars represented Mercury, Mars, and Saturn.

An ancient saying went: One dragon sweeps spring and autumn; three mountains carve a half-moon!

The school stood where the main town met its outskirts, close enough for convenient living but far enough to avoid the noise. A small road connected it to town.

That road curved toward the school gate in the shape of a crescent, while also resembling a dragon–a perfect embodiment of “one dragon sweeps spring and autumn.”

The school buildings occupied the foot of three great mountains enclosing a hollow.

It was an unusually level plateau. From there–especially the roof of the teaching building–one could see almost all of Lianghe Town.

The three mountains behind the school naturally represented Mercury, Mars, and Saturn.

Looking up from the gate, I saw terraced fields holding water on the leftmost mountain, along with several streams resembling tiny waterfalls.

The central mountain was the largest and looked thick and solid. Its deep soil marked it as Saturn.

The rightmost mountain was red sandstone and shale. Digging into the ground revealed its crimson earth, so naturally it was Mars.

It was a flawless Three Stars Attending the Moon feng shui formation!

I shook my head in admiration. “I wonder what feng shui master chose this site for the district school. Truly impressive. Even an ordinary university could have been built here. Remarkable, absolutely remarkable…”

As I marveled at the gate, a discordant voice suddenly spoke beside me.

“You call this remarkable? Village bumpkins really haven’t seen anything. What’s so special about a little town? The county and the city–those places will open your eyes.”

Hm?

Frowning, I turned.

A boy in jeans and a plaid shirt stood nearby, with two or three followers behind him.

His clothes and manner suggested that he came from a wealthy town family.

He probably had not heard what I said earlier. Catching only my final words of admiration, he mistakenly thought I was praising the school for being grand and luxurious.

There was no point explaining anything to such a person.

I gave him a cool glance and walked away without answering his mockery.

My family was not well-off, but by village standards we always had enough. Most of what we needed was self-supplied.

My mother was excellent at raising chickens, ducks, and pigs. Hers simply tasted better than anyone else’s, so they sold for good prices.

But my silence only encouraged him.

He blocked my path. “Oh, the country boy has attitude. Didn’t you hear me talking to you? You could at least answer.”

Many adults might find this absurdly melodramatic and idiotic. I did too.

But honestly, many teenagers–boys especially–really did say and do idiotic things!

Why else would people talk about edgy teenage syndrome?

This spoiled brat had picked on me for no reason, then felt offended when I ignored him.

Maybe my worn clothes and the shoes my mother had sewn by hand gave him a sense of superiority.

“Move.”

“No! Not unless you apologize.”

“Exactly! A country brat dares act so cocky? Apologize to Brother Chun, or your next three years at the district school are going to be rough.”

“Brother Chun was already the top dog in his grade at elementary school, got it?”

His followers chimed in, but their words made me laugh.

“Top dog? He certainly looks like one. Hahaha!”

The spoiled boy looked puzzled, unable to understand why I was laughing. After repeating the phrase to himself a few times, his expression changed. He spun around and glared furiously at the follower who had spoken.
Then he reached for my collar. I stepped back and shouted, “Teacher! Someone is bullying another student!”

I had spotted a man who looked like a teacher walking nearby. They outnumbered me, and I saw no reason to fight them head-on. Nor did I feel guilty about reporting bad people to a teacher…

“What are you doing? Trying to earn a disciplinary mark on the first day of school?”

The teacher came over and scolded them.

The boys slunk away.

The teacher looked me over. He probably realized I came from the countryside, but showed no prejudice. Instead, he asked warmly, “Did you come alone? Your parents aren’t with you?”

I nodded. “There’s a lot of work at home. I didn’t want to trouble them.”

“You’re a considerate child and a good student. Come on, I’ll take you to the academic office to register.”

As we talked on the way, I learned that his name was Chen Xue. He taught mathematics and served as a homeroom teacher. He would be taking a new seventh-grade class that year and said he hoped I would be assigned to it.

I hoped so too.

He seemed upright, not the kind of bad teacher who judged students by wealth and favored the rich.

Perhaps it was fate. After I submitted my documents and completed registration at the academic office, I discovered I had been assigned to Class Three of the seventh grade.

And the homeroom teacher really was Chen Xue!

…

Skipping over the other tedious parts of enrollment, school formally began that afternoon.

After a casual lunch in the cafeteria, I entered the Class Three classroom and found nearly every seat occupied.

I had no particular preference, so I chose an empty seat by the window. The adjoining seat appeared taken because textbooks lay on its desk, but the window seat itself was free.

Our middle-school desks seated pairs of students. Four pairs stretched across the room and eight rows ran front to back, meaning a class normally held sixty-four students.

I sat down and set out the textbooks and stationery I had collected that morning. Then I noticed the classroom had grown quiet.

It seemed… many people were looking at me.

I found that strange but thought little of it.

Two minutes later, I understood.

What a narrow road enemies walked!

A pretty young girl approached me. Clearly, the seat beside mine belonged to her, making her my future deskmate.

The spoiled brat who had deliberately provoked me at the gate followed behind her, grinning ingratiatingly.

Do not imagine only today’s children mature early. It happened back then too.

Of course, as new seventh-graders, we merely felt a vague attraction toward girls. At twelve or thirteen, there was little more to it.

“Hello, my name is Yao Nan. Since you’re sitting here, I guess we’re deskmates.”

“Cradle?”

Someone was really named something that odd?

I froze.

Apparently used to the misunderstanding, she smiled and explained, “Yao as in the surname, and Nan as in the nanmu tree–not yaolan, the cradle a baby sleeps in.”

“Oh! Sorry, sorry…”

I apologized and scratched my head, shifting my books closer to my side so they would not take up too much space.

The spoiled brat and one follower sat behind Yao Nan and me.

“Yao Nan, you wouldn’t let me sit beside you, but you’ll let this penniless country bumpkin? That doesn’t seem right.”

“What’s wrong with it? Wang Dachun, you’d better behave. If you make trouble at school, I’ll tell your parents!”

“My parents don’t have time to care about me.”

Wang Dachun pouted, then slapped my shoulder rudely. “Hey, brat, trade seats with me. Then I won’t hold your disrespect at the gate this morning against you.”

What?

He would not hold my disrespect against me!

The shamelessness was staggering.

He had deliberately provoked me, yet somehow I was at fault?

“No.”

“I’m giving you a chance here!”

“Get lost!”

That enraged him completely. He jumped up and rolled up his sleeves, apparently intending to hit me.