Chapter 24

Walking back after evening study, Li Lan thought she heard her name. She stopped and listened. "Is somebody calling me?"

Wang Jing looked blank. "I didn't hear anything."

Li Lan turned round; it had seemed to come from behind. Wang Jing turned too, and while her eyesight was five hundred degrees short of good, it didn't stop her seeing Xing Xiaozhen coming up fast, towing someone.

Li Lan's eye passed over Xing Xiaozhen, slightly out of breath, to Zhang Qinxin behind her, who had been dragged the whole way at a run and whose faintly compressed mouth showed a degree of displeasure she hadn't otherwise expressed.

Nobody enjoys being seized and made to run, and Zhang Qinxin disliked sweating at the best of times. It was cooler than the daytime but summer had plenty left in it, and that dash had left her damp.

She shook her arm free. She might not like starting conversations, but that didn't mean she was Jiang Wenyan and had no temper at all. "Xiaozhen, what was the running for?"

Xing Xiaozhen apologised, contrite. "Sorry, Qinxin. I called Li Lan a few times and she didn't hear, and I panicked, and—"

Zhang Qinxin frowned. "Even so you needn't have dragged me along. I've told you I hate sweating."

What was the matter with her. She'd suddenly proposed walking back together after evening study, and since they shared a room and Jiang Wenyan had gone off to see a friend, and Zhang Qinxin was walking back anyway, she'd agreed. And then Xing Xiaozhen had talked about nothing in particular the whole way and broken into a run the instant she spotted Li Lan ahead.

"I only wanted to talk to Li Lan about the Olympiad, since the three of us are the only ones in the room who signed up, and I panicked. I'm sorry, Qinxin." Xing Xiaozhen sounded hurt.

Two apologies in, Zhang Qinxin dropped it. Pressing further would make her look like the aggressor.

Relieved that she seemed appeased, Xing Xiaozhen turned to Li Lan with a note of reproach. "Lanlan, why did you keep walking when I called?"

Li Lan looked at her, genuinely puzzled. After this afternoon she'd assumed Xing Xiaozhen would keep her distance, and here she was again after a single evening study period.

Zhang Qinxin and Wang Jing had arrived late and knew nothing about it, so Wang Jing explained helpfully. "We were talking and didn't hear. Li Lan was the one who said somebody was calling, and then we turned round and saw you and Qinxin."

Xing Xiaozhen didn't believe it. She had shouted; people nearby had looked at her. There was no possibility they hadn't heard.

But she considerately declined to say so. "I see. Qinxin and I thought, since the three of us are the only ones in the room doing the Olympiad, we could talk about it — see whether we could help each other."

Li Lan had never touched an Olympiad problem and would obviously know nothing. If she didn't mind studying with her, perhaps the others would stop looking down on her.

"No, thank you." "No."

Two refusals arrived at once. Li Lan looked to her side; the second had come from Zhang Qinxin.

"Thanks for the offer, but I'm used to revising alone. I don't get on with working with other people."

Zhang Qinxin, restored to her usual reticence, nodded. "Nor me."

Refused by both at once, Xing Xiaozhen bit her lip in embarrassment. At her old school, proposing that the strong students help the weak had always been accepted, and the teachers had praised her for it. Two flat refusals felt like losing face entirely.

Seeing her close to tears, Wang Jing hurried in to smooth it over. "Well, everyone studies differently. I like working with other people — pity I didn't sign up, or I'd have said yes. And you've all entered different subjects anyway, so together or not makes no difference."

Zhang Qinxin and Xing Xiaozhen had been ahead of them in the queue, so their subjects were known: maths for Xing Xiaozhen, physics and chemistry for Zhang Qinxin.

Xing Xiaozhen allowed herself to appear persuaded. "That's true. I like studying with people too — I forgot some don't. I was overthinking it.

"What did you enter, though, Lanlan?" It occurred to her that she still didn't know.

Before Li Lan could answer, Wang Jing couldn't help herself. "Lanlan entered all four." With considerable pride.

At which even Zhang Qinxin, on the far side, turned to stare. "You entered four?"

"Mm, I—"

"Why did you enter four?" Xing Xiaozhen cut across her, forcefully.

Li Lan looked at her, patience thinning. "Why shouldn't I?"

Finding all three of them looking at her, Xing Xiaozhen realised she'd been sharp and moved to repair it. "No — I mean, you said you'd never done any Olympiad work. Won't four at once get in the way of your studies?" Yes, that was it. She was concerned for Li Lan's sake. The more she said it the more right it sounded.

Wang Jing took the concern at face value and defended her. "It won't. Li Lan came first in her whole city, she's clever — and it's only a fortnight. If she doesn't pass in a fortnight she can't enter anyway, and if she does then there's obviously no problem."

She said it breezily, and both the others got another surprise. "First in her city?"

Xing Xiaozhen heard nothing after that. First in her city went round and round. Wasn't Li Lan from the countryside? How could she have come first in a city? Had she cheated? Were their papers easier? Several theories arrived at once.

Zhang Qinxin, by contrast, looked impressed. It was only a week into term and nobody had felt able to ask about exam results, but nobody who got into Yu No. 1 had done badly.

Zhang Qinxin considered her own decent: her entrance mark put her a hundred and second in the school, two places off a fast class, and she was confident of getting into one at the next reshuffle. Which, across Yu city as a whole, was merely somewhere in the top four hundred.

Shang city might not match Yu city, but first in the city was first in the city, and Li Lan's result was beyond argument.

"That explains it. You shouldn't have much trouble, then." Zhang Qinxin paused, then offered some actual information. "The early Olympiad problems are really only a bit more flexible than the textbook. Work through some questions, get used to the way they're set, and you'll pick it up quickly. The first round and the preliminaries after the coaching are the real Olympiad." It was more than she usually said at once.

They reached the dormitory about then. Li Lan thanked her; Xing Xiaozhen was still lost in her own thoughts.

That night, staring at the underside of the bunk above her, Xing Xiaozhen turned it over. She had quietly asked everyone else about their exam results, and apart from Zhang Qinxin nobody had done better than she had — and the one person she hadn't asked turned out to be first in a city.

Then again, what did that amount to? A result from a small place had no real weight, or they wouldn't deduct marks at registration. Her own county came directly under Yu city and sat the same paper, so her marks were the genuine article. Next term she'd move up to a fast class, and she'd pass the Olympiad qualifier too.

Having consoled herself for a while, she managed to get to sleep.

---

Unlike middle school, on the first proper day of term every subject teacher — as if by agreement — gave their name, contact details and office, and then started teaching.

They even set homework at the end. Not much of it, but on the first day of term. A good many students got their first taste of the legendarily punishing high school life.

Though that feeling owed something to having only middle school to compare it with. Li Lan, veteran of postgraduate entrance exams and of working hours that ran from nine to nine, six days a week, considered it nothing at all.

Which was why Wang Jing found her alert and apparently enjoying herself incomprehensible. Perhaps that was simply the difference between a top student and a hopeless one, she thought glumly.

In fact Wang Jing's marks were fine — you couldn't get into Yu No. 1 otherwise. It was that she found it hard to get into a new rhythm, plus a touch of procrastination, and the first year's pace, nothing like Year 9's, was proving hard to adjust to.

There were plenty like her, which is why a good many students with respectable middle school results collapse on reaching high school.

Once they adjust they get up to speed quickly — provided the adjusting doesn't take too long. Too long, and the students who adapted fast have opened a gap, and closing it costs a great deal of effort, since everyone is about as clever as everyone else.

Fortunately Wang Jing sat next to Li Lan, who noticed on the Monday of the second week that she was mildly off studying, and that most of what she said after a weekend at home was about how things had been at middle school.

Li Lan had a fair idea of the cause. It could go either way — given time Wang Jing would come round on her own — but she was the first real friend Li Lan had made at Yu No. 1, and Li Lan liked her.

Beyond which, coming back last weekend, Wang Jing had made a point of bringing her own Olympiad material from home. For that kind of thoughtfulness, Li Lan wasn't going to let her waste her time.

She'd meant to use some of evening study to help Wang Jing catch up with the first-year pace, and got a look that said are you unwell. "The Olympiad selection is on Sunday. You haven't got time to worry about me. Obviously once the exam's over you don't get a choice."

A week as her deskmate had shown Wang Jing what a genuinely high intelligence looked like: read the words through once in morning study and get every one right in the English lesson; maths problems that appeared to have no difficulty in them; physics and chemistry the same.

And although Li Lan spent Chinese, politics, history and geography working Olympiad problems, the dates history wanted and the policies politics wanted still came off the top of her head.

What Wang Jing wanted to know now was what could actually defeat her — presumably only the Olympiad. Which was why, this Saturday, she suddenly didn't want to go home; she wanted to know how it went.

Li Lan was mildly surprised to be refused, and then understood. From living alongside her she guessed Wang Jing's family were comfortably off and that she'd been brought up well. She had no idea how Wang Jing got on with her parents day to day, but she spoke about them more as equals than anything else — and probably only that sort of household produces someone as untroubled as Wang Jing.

Since she'd said so, Li Lan didn't press. There were only five days to Sunday and they'd go quickly, and as Wang Jing said, after the exam would do.

She had worried whether Li Cheng might have the same trouble, and having asked, found both her sister and Zhao Xinxin doing well — presumably because of the forced training before the exam and over the summer.

And so it got to the Saturday of the second week, the day before Yu No. 1's Olympiad selection exam.

---

"Lanlan, are you sure you don't want me to stay with you?" On the way back after Saturday's last lesson, Wang Jing checked again.

Li Lan had run out of responses. "No. That's the twenty-third time you've asked today. Go on — your parents are waiting at the gate."

Only the two of them were in the room. Wang Jing picked up the bag she'd packed the day before. "All right. Tell me how it went when I'm back tomorrow."

Down from the bunk and about to leave, she remembered something. "Oh — you haven't given me your phone battery. I said I'd take it home to charge."

Which reminded Li Lan, who had nearly forgotten. She got two batteries and a universal charger out of the cupboard. Not having had a phone in high school last time, and having had sockets at university, she'd forgotten to buy a spare battery or a charger, and the phone had died on Wednesday with no way to charge it in the dormitory.

The previous weekend, buying Olympiad reference books in the city, she'd bought two spare batteries and a charger; three batteries in rotation saw her through a week comfortably. As for charging, the dormitory couldn't but the shop downstairs could — fifty cents a battery, with the risk of it going missing and no compensation, and even so the sockets were oversubscribed.

Hearing about it, Wang Jing had given her an earful and taken the job over. She went home every week; charging batteries was nothing. And if Li Lan felt awkward about it, she could lend her the phone to play with.

Li Lan handed them over, and Wang Jing took them. "There. Charging's my department now." Only then did she head out — and Li Lan had barely shut the cupboard before her voice came from the corridor. "Lanlan, your sister's here."

Sure enough, Li Cheng appeared in the doorway a moment later.

"What time do you start tomorrow?" She'd come specially to ask, having only learned about the Olympiad entry last weekend when Li Lan went out for books.

"Eight."

"Is it hard?" She was curious. Classmates of hers who'd entered made it sound very hard, and a lot of them had done training for it at middle school.

Li Lan thought about it. "Not hard, exactly. Interesting."

That wasn't boasting. The more she studied since term began, the more she could feel what memory and comprehension were doing, and she genuinely found the Olympiad problems more interesting than the textbook.

Reassured by how untroubled her sister looked, Li Cheng offered some awkward encouragement. "Good. Don't be nervous, though. It doesn't matter if you don't get into the Olympiad class, it won't affect your work." Not being in the habit of saying such things, she found it distinctly sentimental coming out.

Li Lan, thus clumsily comforted, laughed. "Don't worry. My nerves are fine."

Li Cheng had come to fetch her to go down and ring their parents about the exam, and Li Lan produced a phone and said they could ring from that. Li Cheng assumed it was borrowed from a room-mate, so she rang, hung up, and had their mother ring back.

That was the practice, because outgoing calls cost money and incoming ones didn't — borrow someone's phone to ring home and you let it ring twice, hang up, and let them call back, so as not to waste your classmate's credit.

They talked to Chen Ying for nearly half an hour, and handing the phone back Li Cheng worried they'd used too much. Li Lan produced the Wang Jing shield and said it didn't matter.

"Good luck tomorrow, then. What are you doing now — going out to eat?"

Li Lan shook her head. "Canteen, then the classroom to do some questions."

Li Cheng clicked her tongue. Evening study on a Saturday. Apart from the third-years, only the seriously keen would be there.