Chapter 23

The next six days were gloriously clear without a cloud, which let the first-years of Yu No. 1 enjoy their week of military training thoroughly from beginning to end.

The thirty-first of August, the last day of it, and a good many were willing the time along so they could go home and collapse. Before that, though.

"Sir, give us your QQ." After the last session of the morning, once they'd been dismissed, one of the braver students called it out. There had been no shortage of private complaints about the instructors' severity that week, and a great deal of fun during the breaks.

Adolescents run high on feeling, and they had long since decided the instructors were friends. At the thought of never seeing them again, a number of them were quietly upset.

That afternoon, when the opening ceremony was over and the instructors formed up and marched off, Yu No. 1's students watched their own go with wet eyes.

"Shame. Ours wouldn't give us his QQ." Wang Jing was sorry about it on the way back.

"Nor would ours. He said the higher-ups don't allow it." Jiang Yun was sorry too.

They'd run into Jiang Yun and Xing Xiaozhen on the way, and the four of them walked together.

"Not giving it is the normal thing. Distance makes it fonder." Li Lan said it evenly. Last time round she hadn't understood either why the instructors never gave out contact details, given how attached everyone was by the end.

Later she'd come to see that not giving them was the intelligent move. Two entirely different lives; exchange details, and you gradually discover you have nothing in common, and all you're left with is the sadness.

And for all that these students looked heartbroken now, she'd have guaranteed that a term from now they wouldn't remember the man's face.

At the thought that the ordeal was over and there was a day off tomorrow, Wang Jing hooked an arm through hers. "Anyway, it's finished, and we've got tomorrow. I'm going to pack and go home.

"Oh — Lanlan, do you want to come to mine?" Remembering that Li Lan had said it was two hours by train, she said it before she'd thought it through.

Being around Wang Jing came with unexpected offers. Li Lan had nothing much to say to it. "What would I be doing at your house? No."

Unbothered by the flat refusal, Wang Jing pressed on. "Well, if you're not coming to mine and you're not going home, staying at school will be so boring."

"Not really. It's one day. Wander about near the school and it'll go quickly enough," said Xing Xiaozhen.

Jiang Yun nodded. "True. Go home now and you'd be coming back this time tomorrow, and there's evening study."

"A day at home is still a day. And Mum says we're going out for hotpot tonight." Wang Jing waved it off.

Back at the dormitory the other four had returned at some point and were packing for home. All of them were Yu city girls, and being first-years they were all going.

Xing Xiaozhen sat on her bed and watched the other six with envy. She wanted to go home too, but hers was two hours by coach even without a train, so she couldn't.

"Li Lan, what are you doing tonight?" she asked, tentatively. She'd spent the training mostly with Jiang Yun and didn't know Li Lan well, but the thought of the two of them alone in the room left her at a loss.

"Me? Having a look round near the school with my sister, probably. Want to come?" It had been a week and she still hadn't explored properly.

"Oh — thank you, no." She'd meant to go with Li Lan, and declined the moment she heard it. She barely knew Li Lan, let alone Li Lan's sister.

Quite so. A sister obviously counts for more than a dorm-mate. At the thought of an evening alone in the room, Xing Xiaozhen felt rather sour about it.

Li Lan didn't press. Seeing she had a while before she'd arranged to meet the others, she took the basin from under her bed and went to wash clothes.

The room was empty when she came back. She hung the washing and went upstairs to collect Li Cheng and Zhao Xinxin, whose dormitories, like hers, had emptied except for them.

It was five when they went out and still light. The dormitories were quiet but the campus wasn't; plenty of second- and third-years had stayed.

It was their first chance to look at the place properly, and Yu No. 1 lived up to its reputation — the facilities were in another league from a county high school.

Half an hour of walking covered most of it. "Our school's lovely," said Zhao Xinxin.

The sisters nodded. Unlike the bare sports ground, the paths between the teaching blocks were lined with tall trees, the spaces between them filled with green lawn and beds of flowers in different colours.

Under the trees you couldn't feel the afternoon sun at all. They strolled to the main gate and found it transformed from the empty entrance of a few days ago: food carts and waiting parents, a bustling little street of snacks. Regulation was nowhere near as strict as it would later become, and the road held sellers and stalls of every kind.

Students who hadn't gone home were clustered at the stalls eating and drinking or buying sweets. Li Cheng and Zhao Xinxin had never seen anything like it and stood at the edge, unsure.

Li Lan, by contrast, brightened at the sight. She hadn't expected them to allow stalls at the school gate on a rest day. "Come on. Let's have a look."

Once in, she was in her element and wanted to eat everything. Possibly it was the Stamina — her appetite was noticeably better than it had been.

"Three yuan for a portion of tofu, that's steep." Li Cheng heard the price at a fried tofu stall and said it quietly. A provincial capital, all right. Prices well above Minhe.

Li Lan pushed her own stinky tofu at her sister and stepped up to the cart. "One fried tofu, please."

Li Cheng tugged at her covertly. "You're buying more? Mum gave us five hundred for living costs and you've spent a tenner already."

Li Lan patted her. "Don't worry. I've got money."

Watching her spend so freely, Li Cheng got annoyed. "Don't come to me for a loan when it's gone."

Zhao Xinxin joined in. Li Lan really had spent rather a lot today.

Seeing her sister was genuinely cross, Li Lan took the tofu and offered it round. "All right. Last one. You two try it."

Which stopped the glaring, and after one mouthful Li Cheng's eyes went round. "It's good. Xinxin, try it."

Headed off by the pair of them, the three toured the remaining stalls with their eyes only, and went back to the dormitory satisfied.

---

Li Lan was up early the next morning, before Li Cheng could come and find her. She needed to get to the internet café and write — a whole week gone, and at that rate the buffer wouldn't last to the end of the book.

She stayed until noon and banked nearly twenty thousand characters before going back, and if Li Cheng hadn't said she'd come at lunchtime she'd have spent the whole day there.

In the afternoon she wandered about near the school alone. Yu city hadn't developed the area around Yu No. 1 yet, but Li Lan knew that for all the handful of scattered shops now, in a few years this ground would be fought over — and there was a key high school next door.

Looking at the empty lots, she sighed inwardly. What a position. School catchment, too. All of it money — and her family couldn't afford waste ground.

Passing a phone shop, she stopped and looked in. Her editor had said again that morning that having no way to reach her was inconvenient. Buy a phone?

Saying she had money yesterday hadn't been bravado. The publication payment hadn't arrived, but the subscription earnings from two books came to several thousand in her account, easily enough.

The problem was hiding it afterwards. A teacher finding it was the small risk; explaining how she could afford one was the large one. Until she left school, at least, she wasn't having her family know she was writing.

Having thought it over, a phone would be genuinely useful, and she turned in.

The owner got up warmly at the sight of her. Student or not, in his years of selling phones every student who came in wanted one, and a nudge would close it. "Looking for a phone?"

"Which of these can go online?" Which confirmed his diagnosis entirely.

"All of them do QQ. Now, flip or bar? For a flip, look at this Motorola, newest model, best seller — girls mostly take the white, it's prettier."

Under the flood of sales patter, Li Lan's head began to ache. She hadn't had a phone of her own until university last time, by which point smartphones were everywhere, so she'd barely used the older sort and had wanted a recommendation. She hadn't wanted this.

She cut in. "Just the most basic one. If it does QQ, that's fine." New models were the same soup in a different bowl, and smartphones were a few years off; there was no point buying well.

"Basic, then it's these. Bar-type Nokia, last year's model, on discount — only in black, mind, but I'll do you a price." He produced one from the side and demonstrated.

Li Lan recognised it: the brand later famous for a battery that lasted forever and a chassis you could use as a brick.

"That one. How much?"

Delighted by the decisiveness, the owner beamed. "Three thousand list, twenty per cent off makes twenty-four hundred — call it two thousand for you."

Li Lan considered. Not haggling always feels like losing. "Fifteen hundred."

He pulled a face. "Fifteen's too low. Eighteen."

Which told her there was room, and she didn't budge. Several exchanges later he gave in. "Fifteen it is, then. Seeing as you're a student."

She smiled. "Thank you. Wait here, I'll go and get the money."

"There's a bank right there." He pointed the way helpfully.

Money fetched and handed over, Li Lan took her brand-new phone next door for a SIM, turned it on, logged into QQ and sent her number to her editor.

By then it was three, and with nothing else to do she went back. Evening study was at six, and on the way she saw students beginning to trickle back.

---

She was mildly surprised to find Jiang Yun already in the room, talking to Xing Xiaozhen. The conversation paused when she came in.

Jiang Yun broke it, smiling. "Afternoon."

Xing Xiaozhen's eyes went to what Li Lan was carrying. "Li Lan, have you been out shopping?"

Li Lan went to her bed and dropped the bags on it. "Mm. Had a wander after lunch."

Xing Xiaozhen sounded concerned. "You've bought a lot these last couple of days. That must have cost a good deal — is what your family gives you enough?"

Jiang Yun frowned at that. Li Lan's family were from the countryside; how much could they be giving her, and why was she spending so freely?

Li Lan sat down on her stool and started tidying her desk, and considered it a moment. "It's fine. Enough for the month."

Xing Xiaozhen bit her lip and said quietly, "Even so, it's better to be careful. Neither of us is from the city — our families haven't got money, and spending like that puts a lot of strain on them."

Li Lan looked at her until she couldn't hold it and dropped her eyes, and then laughed once. "Thanks for the concern. My family aren't rich, but my living costs aren't going to be the ruin of my parents."

"That isn't what I meant," Xing Xiaozhen said, low and awkward.

Jiang Yun stepped in to smooth it. "She's only worried about you, that's all. Doesn't want you wasting money."

Li Lan looked at Xing Xiaozhen's reddening eyes with genuine curiosity. It was her first time in a shared dormitory this life, but between two lifetimes she'd shared with more people than she could count, and this was the first time she'd met one of these.

She said nothing. Xing Xiaozhen sat on her bed feeling thoroughly wronged: she had only meant kindly, telling her to spend less — her family must have paid a great deal to send her and her sister here — and Li Lan wasn't grateful in the slightest.

Nobody spoke, and the room sat in silence until the door opened again and Deng Yi and Zhu Ranran came in together.

That broke it. Neither of them registered the atmosphere, and they greeted the room. "Afternoon, everyone. Jiang Yun, when did you get back?"

Jiang Yun greeted them as though nothing had happened. "Not long ago. How come you two arrived together?"

"Ran into each other at the gate. What are the odds," said Deng Yi, smiling.

Li Lan played along and greeted them too. Xing Xiaozhen, on her bed, still hadn't made a sound.

Zhu Ranran, opposite her, happened to notice her reddened eyes while unpacking, and asked without thinking. "Xiaozhen, what's wrong?" Afterwards she could have slapped herself for it.

At which Xing Xiaozhen, apparently unable to hold it any longer, turned over and lay facing the wall without a word.

The room, which had just recovered, went silent again.

Listening to the small sounds of crying from across the room, Zhu Ranran had no idea what had happened. What unforgivable thing had she just said?

She looked wildly at Deng Yi and found her equally blank, then at Jiang Yun, who tipped her chin towards Li Lan — and there was Li Lan, looking distinctly unimpressed. That seemed to explain it.

Deng Yi and Zhu Ranran exchanged a look and started unpacking quietly, not daring to talk above a murmur.

Li Lan had not expected a performance like this. Anyone who didn't know better would think she'd done something. Two lifetimes, and today she'd learned something new.

Xing Xiaozhen cried for a while and, finding that nobody came to comfort her, felt worse. At her old school, teachers and classmates alike had taken her side. Since coming to Yu No. 1 nobody had taken any notice of her at all.

Her mother was right about city people being snobs — they'd obviously worked out she came from a small county town and looked down on her for it. She'd thought she and Li Lan would have something in common, but Li Lan wasn't grateful either.

Zhang Qinxin and Jiang Wenyan arrived around four, by which time Xing Xiaozhen had dried her eyes and was quietly unpacking, though still nobody was talking. Both newcomers registered that something was off the moment they came in, and went silently to their own places to put away what they'd brought from home.

Wang Jing was last, arriving with half an hour to spare before evening study, crashing through the door when only Li Lan was left — Jiang Yun and Xing Xiaozhen had gone first, then Deng Yi and Zhu Ranran, then Zhang Qinxin and Jiang Wenyan, in pairs, to the classroom.

Finding Li Lan still there surprised her. She'd run the whole way and was out of breath. "Lanlan, it's so late, why are you still here? I thought everyone would have gone."

Li Lan stopped what she was doing and looked at her, panting under an assortment of bags. "I was about to. Why are you only just here?" She'd assumed Wang Jing would go straight to the classroom.

Wang Jing got her breath back. "I've brought loads of stuff, it'd be awkward in the classroom, so I ran." Cars weren't allowed in, which had meant sprinting from the gate — but she'd made it.

They reached the classroom practically on the bell: seats first, bell second.

Wang Jing got her books out of the desk and onto it, and whispered, "Two minutes to spare, thank goodness."

Li Lan glanced at her and didn't bother replying. Late and a procrastinator; if she hadn't timed it herself, they'd have been late.

Not long after the bell, there was a commotion outside, and Wang Jing, by the window, leant out. "Why is everyone from next door coming out?"

She found out soon enough, because Jiao Wenfu came in and explained: with the training over, lessons started properly tomorrow, and before that they needed a seating plan.

Wang Jing was unhappy about it. Li Lan was the person she knew best in this class and she didn't want to be separated.

Fortunately he said on the way out that seats would go by height rather than entrance results, which reassured her — and being much the same height as Li Lan, she quietly positioned herself next to her in the queue.

---

The seating took a whole period. Jiao Wenfu stood at the front afterwards and looked at them, and didn't need to look to know they were still vague and slack, with no real notion of what high school was. That was true of every first-year intake, every year. A strong dose would fix it.

He tapped the board with the eraser for quiet. "From tomorrow, lessons begin properly. Which is to say your high school life starts tomorrow.

"What I want to say to you is that unlike middle school, the pace here is much faster than you're used to. I want you to get used to it quickly, so you don't fall behind."

He said a little more, and saw that alongside the anticipation there was finally a thread of nervousness. Not enough, though.

So he administered the dose. "Two more things, both important.

"First, Yu No. 1 holds a monthly exam at the end of every month, on top of the mid-terms and finals. Which means there is one at the end of this month."

The quiet room went off like water into hot oil. For a student, exams are the great terror — and being told about one before lessons had even started, the alarm and the frantic muttering were hardly surprising.

"Quiet." He tapped the desk, and when it settled: "The second thing is the Olympiad sign-up. I know a number of you want to enter. This year's first round is the twentieth of October. Anyone interested can come to my office after class to register. In a fortnight the school runs a qualifying exam, and those who pass will be coached by our teachers and go on to the provincial first round in October.

"That's all for today. Read your textbooks tonight and prepare for tomorrow's lessons." And he walked out with his hands behind his back.

The room started up again — some worried about the exam, some interested in the Olympiad. Wang Jing put her chin in her hands and muttered, "A monthly exam in a month. That's much too soon."

Li Lan was mildly surprised too. Her memories of high school were mostly gone; she vaguely recalled constant exams in the final year, and had no idea whether monthly exams were a Yu No. 1 thing or standard.

The exam didn't worry her — she'd read the whole first-term syllabus over the summer and it wasn't especially hard. What interested her was the Olympiad. She'd heard it could add marks to your university exam. Her pen moved absently on the paper. Perhaps she'd try.

Wang Jing sighed and got her textbook out. "I thought the first year would be easier. It's the same as Year 9. What's the final year going to be like? I'd better start reading — Mum'll have something to say if I come last."

First period tomorrow was maths, and having done a summer tutoring class, she got out the maths book she'd used and started on it.

Li Lan left her to it, and looking up found the classmates who had been talking a moment ago all bent over their work. No wonder parents want a good school, she thought. There are reasons the good ones are fought over — the atmosphere alone, everyone working without being told, is streets ahead of an ordinary school.

---

After the second period Li Lan got up to find Jiao Wenfu. She wanted to enter the Olympiad — something to set herself against.

Wang Jing, seeing her stand, assumed the toilet. "Are you going to the loo? I'll come."

"No. I'm going to see the form teacher."

Wang Jing blinked. "The form teacher? You're entering the Olympiad?"

Li Lan nodded.

"Have you done it before?"

"No. That's why I want to try," she said, frankly.

Wang Jing thought about it. "I'm decent at maths, and I did maths Olympiad practice for a while. The questions are a long way from the textbook. And you're entering without having practised?"

"I'll try. There's a qualifying exam in a fortnight anyway — if I don't make it, no harm done."

Seeing she'd decided, Wang Jing let it go. "All right, I'll come with you to the teacher, and then you can come with me to the loo."

His office was on the ground floor of the opposite building, and to their surprise it was full of students — seven or eight around every form teacher, a dozen around some, all wanting to register.

His desk was at the back with a dozen students around it, and among the classmates Li Lan still barely knew were two familiar faces: Zhang Qinxin and Xing Xiaozhen, one behind the other in the queue.

Zhang Qinxin was waiting quietly as usual. Xing Xiaozhen had seen them too, and after a night looked much better, chatting and laughing with the girl beside her.

She skipped over Li Lan entirely and spoke to Wang Jing. "Jingjing, are you signing up for the Olympiad too?"

Wang Jing, knowing nothing of what had passed, answered breezily. "No, I'm here with Lanlan."

Which Xing Xiaozhen had plainly not considered. Her instinct was that a girl from the countryside would never have encountered Olympiad problems — so why was she registering?

She turned to Li Lan and said, gently, "Oh. Have you done Olympiad questions, though, Lanlan? County middle schools don't have Olympiad classes, do they. My mother coached me through it separately, and it is quite difficult. If you haven't done any—" and she left it there, with an expression that said don't push yourself.

The unsaid part landed, and the students nearby nodded along. Almost everyone registering had met Olympiad problems in advance, or taken classes specifically; they knew she wasn't wrong that it was hard without.

Wang Jing frowned. The words were unobjectionable — much what she'd said herself — so why was it so unpleasant to listen to? "It's fine. There's a qualifying exam anyway. If she doesn't get through, she doesn't. It won't cost her anything."

Li Lan swallowed what she'd been about to say. "Right. Jingjing's got it."

Xing Xiaozhen was about to continue when Zhang Qinxin finished her form and it was her turn, so she gave Li Lan one last disapproving look, turned round and told the teacher she wanted to enter the maths Olympiad.

Jiao Wenfu checked her entrance result — maths 115 — nodded, and said, "Your maths is decent. Are you sure?"

For the sake of efficiency and not wasting study time, he generally discouraged students with ordinary marks unless they insisted.

She nodded. "I'm sure. My mother had me practise Olympiad problems, and I did well."

That interested him. "Is your mother a teacher too?"

She nodded, a little shyly. "She's a high school teacher."

He wrote her name down. "That explains it. In that case you'll have thought it through — I'll put you down."

Registered, she turned to go, with one more weighted glance at Li Lan on her way out.

Li Lan ignored it and queued with Wang Jing.

He looked at the last two. "Both of you registering?"

Wang Jing waved a hand. "No, I'm with Li Lan. I'm not entering."

Li Lan stepped up to the desk. "Hello, sir. I'm Li Lan. I'd like to register."

She'd expected him to look up her entrance result as he had for Xing Xiaozhen, and instead he seemed to know exactly who she was. "Ah — yes, Li Lan. I've been meaning to talk to you."

"?"

He was entirely genial. "The admissions staff mentioned that Shang city's city-wide first had come to us — that you'd have been in a fast class but the deduction put you in a parallel one. The teachers were all guessing which class you'd landed in, and I only found out at the training roll-call that it was mine."

That explained it.

Behind her, Wang Jing was stunned, and would probably have shouted if they hadn't been in a staffroom. Good grief. First in her city. No wonder she was confident enough to enter.

"Which one do you want? Maths as well? I remember you got full marks in it." Maths had the most entrants.

Li Lan blinked at him. "Sir, I'd like maths, physics, biology and chemistry."

Wang Jing prodded her covertly. All four? Was she mad?

He missed the byplay and objected at once, frowning. "Four is too many. You won't manage."

Of all those students, the most anyone had taken was two, and even in the fast classes most took three. Four could be counted on one hand.

"I'll manage." She looked at him steadily.

Seeing the set of it, years of teaching told him immediately what Li Lan was: the kind of student teachers both love and dread.

Clever and stubborn.

He felt a headache coming. Those were the hardest to handle — one wrong move and it goes badly — and the only approach was to go along with it. "All right. Four it is." There was a qualifying exam in a fortnight; she'd find out how hard it was then.

He wrote her name down, and added, "But if you don't pass one of them in the qualifier — you know the rule."

Li Lan nodded obediently. "I know. Thank you, sir."

Looking at her, meek again as though the last minute had been a hallucination, he felt a distinct twinge. Clever, stubborn, and knowing exactly when to give ground — Jiao Wenfu had a feeling his teaching career was about to face a considerable challenge.

Out in the corridor, the third period had already started. Finding it deserted, Wang Jing grabbed her hand to run back. "It's started, quick, get in."

She pulled and nothing moved. She looked back.

"Weren't you going to the toilet?"

Wang Jing hadn't expected that. "Class has started. Never mind the toilet, I'll hold it till the end."

Li Lan reversed the grip and towed her towards it. "We're late anyway, and there's no teacher in there. A few minutes won't matter."

"Er — I don't think we should." Wang Jing was torn. Going to the toilet during a lesson felt wrong.

The toilets weren't far, and while she was agonising they arrived, and Li Lan pushed her in. "It'll take two minutes. Go on. I'll wait."

Walking back to her seat through a room of silently working classmates, Wang Jing was scarlet, with the distinct sense of having played truant. She considered herself fairly thick-skinned and fairly bold, and next to Li Lan she was plainly an amateur.

Watching Li Lan get out her textbook and start reading, Wang Jing couldn't resist a note. Lanlan, the form teacher said you were first in your whole city. What did you get?

Having recovered from the excitement of her first misdeed, her appetite for gossip was blazing.

Li Lan took it. 697. It was all right.

The Wang Jing of twelve years later would have pointed at her and howled about false modesty. This one simply sat in continued shock. Three marks off full?

She knew nothing about deductions. On the number alone — Wang Jing had never scored that highly on the easiest paper in her life. So the deskmate and bunk neighbour she'd found by pure chance was a hidden top student?

No wonder you're entering four. My deskmate's a monster. If I'd come first in my city, I'd have entered four as well.