Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Later, when I got a little older, I learned that the check mark wasn’t just some ordinary check mark. It was called Nike, a big foreign brand.

The same T-shirt, without that logo, sold for nineteen or twenty-nine yuan. With the logo, it would be hung in a bright display window, and even the most ordinary one could sell for one or two hundred.

By fifth or sixth grade, quite a few kids in class were wearing Nike.

That was when I found out the logo wasn’t just printed on chests. It could also be on pants pockets, on the sides of shoes.

The boys in class had feet that stank to high heaven, and they still had to show off their Nike shoes during recess.

One after another, they took off their shoes and lined them up on their desks-red ones, black ones, white ones. All of them reeking.

“Yours looks fake!”

“What the hell do you know? Mine’s Adi Wang.”

“Bullshit. Mine are the awesome ones. These are Nike Star, see? The newest model.”

I walked past them with my chin held high.

Then, when I got home that night, I quietly took my mom’s scissors from the table and cut the check mark off the chest of my school uniform, little by little.

My mom came out carrying a plate of shredded potatoes and told me to eat.

I said I wasn’t eating.

I was saving money to buy Nike.

My mom exploded on the spot.

She grabbed me by the collar and raised her hand.

But she tugged once and couldn’t move me.

My dad was tall, nearly six foot three, while my mom happened to be skinny and small. I don’t really remember what my dad looked like anymore. I only remember that he was especially annoying, always grinning with his big teeth showing. Every time my mom tried to get money from him, he would hold his wallet way up high and refuse to give it to her.

I took after my dad. By fifth grade, I’d already shot up to about five foot three, almost the same height as my mom.

She was skinny, so naturally she couldn’t pull me around.

I was stubborn too. I stood up and put my face right next to her hand.

“I just want Nike!”

“You don’t study properly, and all day long you’re thinking about this nonsense! I feed you and clothe you and wait on you hand and foot…”

“Then from today on, I won’t eat! Everyone else in class has Nike except me. I want it!”

That night, my stomach growled from hunger, but I still held out.

I held out for seven or eight days.

I got thinner, and my mom visibly got thinner too.

Just when I was about to give in to the shredded potatoes, the trend in class changed again.

My classmates stopped talking about Nike, Adi Wang, or Kappa. Instead, with Zhao Lingling leading the way, each of them held a little metal box and hummed along.

I asked my deskmate what that little metal box was.

My deskmate was a fatty who was always copying my homework, so even though he knew my mom was a shrew, he was still willing to talk to me a little.

“Bumpkin. What little metal box? This thing is called an MP3 player!”

“Do you even know what an MP3 player is? It plays music. Do you know what ‘Peninsula Iron Box’ is? Have you heard ‘Love for a Thousand Years’? Do you know what ‘Love Even If I Die’ means?”

I stared at him with my mouth open.

I understood every word he said, but once they were put together, I couldn’t understand a thing.

On the way home, I passed by Zhao Lingling. She had earbuds in her ears and was humming as she listened.

“Love, even if I die.”

“If it doesn’t go all the way, it doesn’t feel right.”

I was walking fast and only heard half of it, but that melody felt like it had been carved into my brain. No matter what, I couldn’t get rid of it.

That night, lying in bed, I made up my mind in secret. I had to buy an MP3 player too.