Chapter 31

Zhang Qinxin sat back down and her deskmate leant over. "What did he want you out for?"

They got on well enough, so she said quietly that it was about last month's competition — and before she'd finished, her deskmate had spotted the certificate in her hand. Reading it, she made a small sound of astonishment. "Qinxin, you got a provincial second in maths."

Xing Xiaozhen, in front, had been watching since the two of them were called out, and from the exclamation behind her now understood that it was indeed about last month's maths competition. But why hadn't she been told? Had she not placed?

Surely not. She refused to believe she'd won nothing. Zhang Qinxin was slightly ahead of her and had a provincial second; at worst she'd have a third. And Li Lan hadn't come back either — perhaps it was about something else entirely.

She was consoling herself along those lines when the conversation behind her destroyed it.

"Why hasn't Li Lan come back? Weren't you together?"

"Oh — he's telling her about the winter camp finals next month. Nothing to do with me, so I came back."

Her deskmate was more astonished still. "The finals? Only students on the provincial team go to those. Li Lan?"

Zhang Qinxin thought of what Jiao Wenfu had said: that Li Lan could take a provincial team place in whichever subject she liked, but the winter camps next month clashed, so she had to choose.

Thinking about it, she couldn't help marvelling at the distance between one person and another. "That's right. Li Lan got provincial firsts in all four. The finals clash, so he's asking her which one to enter."

Her deskmate had no idea what to say. Zhang Qinxin's results seemed to her outstanding already — in maths especially, whether in class tests or October's monthly exam, she had barely dropped below a hundred and forty. And that was only a provincial second. So what did a provincial first look like? Presumably only someone like Li Lan, who scored full marks every time.

She came to and said, with feeling, "Well, she is first in the year for a reason. Next to her I'm nothing."

Xing Xiaozhen, listening to all of it, now had it confirmed: they'd been called out about the competition, and since nobody had called her, she hadn't placed.

At which the unfairness and the resentment and the envy and the misery all arrived together, and she put her head down on the desk and cried quietly.

---

In the staffroom, Jiao Wenfu was explaining next month.

Unlike the provincial round, with its assortment of names — maths league, physics second round, biology and chemistry first rounds — the final stage in every subject is simply called the final.

Nor is it a single day's exam. It takes the form of a winter camp of five to seven days, ending with a closing ceremony.

The maths camp ran five days: opening ceremony, two days of exams, a day of academic talks or sightseeing, then the closing — which in practice meant the announcement of results and the prizes.

This was not a matter of eating, drinking and sitting an exam. It gathered the top competitors from every province and municipality, from Hong Kong and Macau, and occasionally competitors from abroad, Singapore among them. Prizes came in three grades — some people call them gold, silver and bronze — and those who took them were that year's national firsts, seconds and thirds.

First prizes were generally held to about a hundred, and the sixty highest scorers among them entered that year's national training squad and won the right to be recommended to Tsinghua or Peking University. Two rounds of training in the squad left six competitors to make up the national team for the following year's International Mathematical Olympiad.

Because every province sends students and the numbers are capped, in general only the top three from each province's league or first round go. Jiao Wenfu hadn't said so in front of Zhang Qinxin; once they were alone he told Li Lan that she had provincial firsts, yes — but she was also first in the province in all of them, and the province's competition committee was waiting on her choice.

Her results were so good that nobody could tell which subject she was actually best at, and nobody could make the choice for her, so it fell to her preference.

He explained that the maths camp came first, starting the fifteenth of December, followed by physics on the seventeenth — and since they overlapped, she could only take one.

Chemistry and biology, presumably because most students pick one of the two as a second subject, didn't clash; they simply finished late, with the biology camp ending only two days before Spring Festival.

Which meant that if her stamina held, she could attend three camps.

As a maths teacher, Jiao Wenfu wanted her to choose maths. As a form teacher he could hardly say so, and had to wait for her to decide.

This was the first Li Lan had heard of the camps; the coaching staff had kept the details vague so as not to distract them. Only now did she grasp that "winter camp" was a name, and that for the country's best competition students each camp mattered no less than the university entrance exam — particularly for those who had abandoned their normal second-year lessons to chase a recommendation.

She could imagine how fierce it would be: competing against nearly four hundred outstanding students from across the country. At the thought of being one of them, on the same floor as the best in the country, she found she was rather looking forward to it.

Though if the camps meant travelling after the end-of-term exams, presumably she needed money ready. She asked outright — she wasn't actually a high-schooler and had no embarrassment about raising it.

And if it were expensive she'd have to work out what figure to tell her parents, and put in some of her own. If she hadn't been afraid of Li Cheng letting something slip, she'd have been ready to say it was free.

Hearing the worry, Jiao Wenfu remembered that Li Lan's family were rural. Her registration said self-employed, but presumably some small trade — and five days at a camp with accommodation and travel easily ran to a thousand, so two or three camps meant the better part of ten thousand. No wonder she was anxious.

Which raised his opinion of her another notch: occasionally unorthodox, but a sensible girl for all that. "Don't worry about that. You'll be taken by a supervising teacher, and the province covers the costs. You don't pay anything." With the supervisor there'd be only four of them, and the province could manage that.

"Also — four provincial firsts means four thousand in scholarship money under school rules. I've notified the office, so it should come through in a few days."

That was an unlooked-for bonus. She'd heard about the prize money when the coaches used it to spur them on; she hadn't expected the province to cover the camps outright, which saved her a sum.

She'd already decided. "In that case, sir, I'd like to enter maths, biology and chemistry. Would you register me?"

He seemed to have guessed, and wasn't especially surprised, though the warnings still had to be given. "Li Lan, the finals aren't like the first rounds — the questions and the format are different, and teaching yourself rarely gets you far at that level. Beyond a great deal of time and effort, the finals need specialist coaching.

"The school provides coaches, but most students going to a camp hire specialist teachers privately, and some go to Beijing or Shanghai to attend dedicated programmes. You can arrange your own coaching or take the school's."

She answered without hesitating. "The school's, please."

He assumed the family's circumstances had made the decision for her. Which was fair enough — hiring a teacher or travelling to a programme both required money, and Li Lan's background ruled out both.

In maths, Yu No. 1 had only Li Lan in the finals; the other two places went to a student from the city's key high school and one from the foreign languages school. Physics was slightly better: besides Li Lan a third-year had made it, and with Li Lan withdrawing the place fell to fourth, who happened also to be from Yu No. 1 — so barring accidents the school would have two in physics. Biology and chemistry were like physics: Li Lan plus one other student each.

And all of those students had chosen outside programmes or private teachers.

As Li Lan saw it, the family having no money was one thing, but she could have gone if she'd wanted. Never mind that her parents would have wired the money without a second thought — between the publication payment and her subscription earnings there was probably over ten thousand in her account.

The trouble with a programme was that she'd have had to lie about the cost. She didn't want to load her parents any further, and one lie requires another to hold it up, and a coaching course wasn't worth that much trouble.

Chiefly, though, she thought teaching mattered but only up to a point — particularly in a subject like competition maths that needs volume of practice. In the end it came down to her, and she had confidence enough in herself.

Afraid of wounding her pride, Jiao Wenfu considerately didn't ask why, and only nodded. "Right. In that case I'll register you with the province. You'll be told separately about assembly and departure times, and I'll pass those on." While privately thinking he'd better keep visiting the office to get that four thousand moving.

"And the coaching. Several other students from this school are going to finals, but you're the only one taking the school's coaching. Once the coaches have agreed times today I'll give you a timetable, and you can start tomorrow."

She nodded to show she'd understood.

He thought it over, found he'd covered everything, and then looked at her with real satisfaction. "That's everything, I think. One more thing I'd like to say: as far as I can recall, you're the only student at this school ever to take a provincial first in the first year and go on to represent the province at the finals. A great many third-years haven't done as well as you.

"So whatever the result, I don't want you disappointed. If it goes badly, treat the finals as practice. You're in your first year and there'll be many more chances — so don't put too much on it. Prepare calmly, do your best, and that's enough."

For a high-schooler, marks are everything, and he genuinely feared she might collapse over a single bad exam — the more so having reached the finals at the first attempt, which would only make her prouder. Li Lan was excellent, but everyone at a final is a prodigy and four provincial firsts are commonplace there; and Henan being a weak competition province, a provincial first from Yu city carried roughly the standing of a second or third elsewhere.

Afraid she couldn't take that drop, he was inoculating her in advance. Call it undermining her confidence if you like, or a lack of faith — honestly, he didn't think she'd do especially well this time. A national first in her second or third year wouldn't surprise him; as a first-year, against experienced competitors, there was still a gap.

Listening to him work so hard to console her against a failure that hadn't happened, Li Lan felt something warm go through her. Two lifetimes as a student and she'd never had a teacher this conscientious. She looked at him seriously. "Thank you, sir. I'll bring back a national first. Don't worry."

Faced with that, delivered in complete earnest, there was nothing he could do. She hadn't taken in a word. Still, if she was that optimistic, one disappointment probably wouldn't do much damage.

He waved her off, resigned. "All right. Nothing else from me, back to class." And as she nodded and went to the door, he added, "Oh — remember to tell your family the good news."

Coming from a man who was invariably severe, that stopped her mid-step, and she pulled a face at the doorway. Getting the last word in after all that. Jiao Wenfu was plainly in a very good mood today.