Chapter 14

"Li Lan, what have you been doing lately? You're never around."

Li Cheng asked it on the way to the scrap station.

"Nothing. Out." Li Lan kept the internet café and the typing to herself. Li Jingyu walked alongside and said nothing. He had a fair idea she'd been going to the café — ever since he took her that once, she'd been slipping off there most mornings.

He was in some distress about it. She had been the one who suggested going, but he still felt he'd led her astray. He kept wondering whether to tell his parents, and then being afraid she'd get hit for it — he'd nearly been hit himself when they caught him.

Then again, she didn't play games there. Maybe she'd just been curious, never having been. He privately hoped she wouldn't get hooked.

Whatever was going on in Li Jingyu's head, Li Cheng hadn't really been curious about her sister's movements; it was something to say. She had other things on her mind — chiefly that tomorrow was a week since the exam.

Which meant tomorrow the results came out. They'd checked their answers straight afterwards and her estimate had been decent. But an estimate is an estimate, and she had no idea what the real figure would be, or how far off she was.

"Results are out tomorrow," she said, and sighed.

"Are they? Has it been a week already?" Li Lan was mildly surprised. With no lessons and her mornings spent sneaking off to write, she hadn't been keeping track.

"Yes." Li Cheng had been watching television as much as anyone, but she'd been counting the days.

The three of them arrived at the scrap station each preoccupied, and found that Chen Ying had just had a text from their teacher: half past eight tomorrow at the school for the results, parents encouraged to come with their children and hear about choosing a high school.

There was still the rest of the flat to clear, so Li Quan borrowed a car from a friend, and the four of them would drive over.

Li Jingyu did the arithmetic: five people going, which left him at home — an excellent opportunity for the internet café. He wrestled with it for a while and decided he'd rather go with them.

Chen Ying, reasoning that one more in a car made no difference, agreed when he asked. It might do him good to see it, in fact. Give him something to aim at.

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At half past six the next morning Song Qiulan woke the three of them for breakfast, and Li Lan came out to find her parents already standing in the courtyard.

After breakfast, and a good deal of instruction from their grandparents, they set off, and being in a car they reached the county town at eight exactly.

Li Lan had assumed they were early. Zhao Xinxin's family were earlier, and there were already students and parents waiting at the gate.

At half eight the school opened on time. Being the holidays, only the small pedestrian gate was unlocked, and the parents filed through it like sand through an hourglass, then followed their own children to their classrooms.

The two families went in with the crowd and separated inside. Zhao Xinxin took her mother into her room, and Zhao Shu found somewhere in the grounds to sit among a good many other waiting parents — the rooms only held one parent each, so families who'd come in twos had to split up.

The sisters had no such problem. Li Lan took her mother into Year 9 Class 3 and Li Cheng took their father to hers.

Instead of the usual recitation, the room was unusually lively; nearly every student had brought a parent. The teacher hadn't arrived yet, so Li Lan sat her mother in her own seat and stood beside it like everyone else.

Only now did Chen Ying discover how far back her daughter sat. She looked towards the front from it. "Lanlan, you're right at the back. Can you see the board?"

Li Lan hadn't expected that and paused a beat. "Yes. My eyes are good, I can see it fine."

"I suppose so. You're not short either. Still, the front's better. Where do the good students in your class sit?" Chen Ying looked along the rows. She'd been to few parents' evenings this year and had no idea who was who.

"Where you're sitting. First in the school." Li Lan said it without a blush.

Chen Ying laughed. "Well, quite. My girl's come first in the school too." No mother thinks her child plain, and truthfully she did consider her eldest very clever.

Towards nine, while Li Lan was filling her mother in on her classmates, the teachers began setting off from the staffroom one after another with something in their hands. A few minutes later Meng Qinghua came in with a sheaf of slips.

Every eye in the room went to her, and to the slips — and a good many parents realised at once what they must be.

The noise fell away, replaced by a roomful of eager attention. Under it, Meng Qinghua looked slightly under pressure herself. She cleared her throat. "Good morning, everyone, and thank you for waiting. What I have here are the exam results. I won't waste your time — I'll hand them out, and students or parents can come up as I read the names."

"...Li Qing. Yang Xue. ...Li Lan."

They weren't in name order but shuffled, and Li Lan's luck was poor: she was among the last few called.

She went up to take hers, and instead of simply handing it over Meng Qinghua waited until she was at the front and then said, in a distinctly raised voice, "I'd like to say a little more about Li Lan. As we all know, with seventy marks for PE and thirty for practicals, the total is seven hundred. Li Lan's result is six hundred and ninety-seven — three short of full marks. Which makes Li Lan first not only in Minhe county but in the whole of Shang city. Let's have a round of applause."

She got it all out in one breath, handed over the slip, and started the applause herself, unable to keep the excitement off her face. It wasn't fuss for its own sake: in all her years of teaching, Li Lan was her first city-wide first place.

Shang city had seven or eight counties under it, plus the city's own schools. In a good year the best result from here was somewhere around thirtieth in the city, and having one or two Minhe students in the city's top ten counted as luck. And now this.

Second in the city, reportedly a girl at Shang No. 1, had six hundred and ninety — a full seven marks behind.

When the results came through, it wasn't only Meng Qinghua who was astonished but the headmaster and the county education bureau as well. She'd known Li Lan's mocks were good; she hadn't expected the level to hold in the real thing. And this year's papers were hard — apart from Li Lan, most students had come out well down on their mocks.

Below, Chen Ying was too delighted to think. The applause brought her round, and then, regardless of who she did or didn't know, she clapped and told everyone within reach, "That's my daughter. My daughter came first in the city. My daughter's first in the city."

Heads turned to see what the parent of a city-wide first looked like, and under all those envious eyes Chen Ying suddenly regretted not having dressed better. What a day to be seen on. If she'd known, she'd have bought Lanlan something nice to wear as well.

And Lanlan, honestly. Asked what she thought she'd scored, she always said not bad; asked for a number, about the same. And so her mother had come unprepared.

While Chen Ying was regretting her clothes, Li Lan stood at the front smiling awkwardly. The mark had surprised her too.

By her own reckoning anything above six hundred and ninety was certain, but beyond that she couldn't say, because with history, politics and Chinese in the mix she had no idea how the marking would go. She had written everything there was to write. She hadn't expected them to be quite this generous.

The other thing she hadn't expected was Meng Qinghua making an occasion of it. She didn't remember the details of collecting her results last time, but she was fairly sure you took the slip and left, with none of this.

What she didn't know was that last time the school's first place had been a good Minhe result and, as usual, nothing to show off city-wide. Coming first in the city was another matter entirely, and of course Meng Qinghua was going to announce it properly.

Li Lan's fixed smile was nearly at its limit when Meng Qinghua finally indicated she could go back — and walking through all that curiosity and appraisal, Li Lan resented her seat at the very back of the room for the first time in her life.

She let out a breath on reaching her mother, who took the slip out of her hand before she'd properly stopped moving. Two marks off Chinese, one off history, and full marks in everything else.

Meng Qinghua was still handing out the rest, but Chen Ying had entirely lost interest in the room. Her whole attention was on the paper in her hands, and looking at that near-perfect column she couldn't hold it in any longer. "Oh, my girl. However did you do it?"