Chapter 38

Li Quan heard his wife and Li Cheng laughing on the third floor before he was through the door, a good deal livelier than the house usually was with only three of them in it. Picturing the scene upstairs, he smiled, and found himself going up faster than usual — and sure enough all four of them were on the sofa, talking and laughing. "What's all this? What's so funny?"

Chen Ying looked up, ostensibly complaining. "You're back at last. These two daughters of yours — I've been asking all evening and they won't tell me. They insisted on waiting for you."

He put the keys on the table and stood at the coffee table, smiling. "Quite right too. It wouldn't do to say it while I was out."

"Well, your father's here now, and you've seen the new house. You've been stringing this out the whole way — you can tell us."

Li Lan didn't keep them waiting any longer. She took something from her bag and handed it over. "Mum, look at this."

Chen Ying took it, puzzled. "What is it?" And then saw the gilt lettering on the cover.

Not connecting it with the final, she opened it. "An award certificate. Let me see what sort of certificate has the two of you being so—"

She didn't finish, because she was reading it: the Chinese Mathematical Olympiad, certifying that Li Lan had taken a first prize in 2008.

Before she could work out what an Olympiad first prize was, Li Cheng couldn't hold it any longer — she'd been holding it for days. "Mum, your Li Lan is in the training squad for the maths final. The top sixty. She can be recommended to Tsinghua or Peking."

There was a small clack as the certificate hit the floor.

Chen Ying didn't appear to notice. She was looking steadily at Li Cheng. "Chengcheng. What did you say?" Not her usual carrying voice at all, but light and soft, as though afraid of waking something.

Li Cheng didn't know why — the excitement, or something else — but hearing that, her eyes stung, and she opened her mouth to repeat it and no sound came. The more she hurried the less she could speak, and she despised herself for it: two sentences in and unable to talk, when this was a happy thing. Why did her eyes sting like that?

Li Lan picked the certificate up off the floor, put it back into her mother's hands, and looked at her. "Mum. I'm in the training squad."

Then she turned to her father, standing there stunned, and said it again — and this time there was a catch in it. "Dad. I'm in the training squad."

Li Cheng took a huge breath, trying to steady herself and hold the tears back. "Yes. Mum, your Li Lan's in the training squad. She can be recommended to Tsinghua or Peking."

Only then did it land, and Chen Ying looked between her daughters with her lips trembling. "Lanlan, you—"

At the emphatic nod she looked down at the certificate that had been put back into her hands. There were only a few dozen characters on it, and she read them over and over, until they blurred.

Was it tiring? It was tiring. Leaving three children behind to go out and find work after Li Jingyu was born; years of collecting scrap; the supermarket just opened — not one moment of it had not been tiring.

Was it hard to bear? It was hard to bear. The pressure after two daughters; sending Li Cheng and Li Lan away to school to keep things fair, into the teeth of the talk; being gossiped about behind her back — not one moment of it had not been hard.

Was it worth it? It was worth it.

So what did tiring matter, or hard to bear. Chen Ying looked at the red certificate and cried and laughed at once, and felt that everything she'd done had been worth doing. So the business was hard work. So she'd had two daughters. Her daughters were not one bit less than anybody's.

Li Quan came over and patted her shoulder without saying anything. He knew what she'd swallowed over the years. He wasn't good with words; what he had was his back. In recent years, scrap or supermarket, she had made nearly all the decisions, and the effort hadn't been wasted — things at home had steadily got better.

She put her face against his chest and wept properly, as though trying to get all of it out at once, and he patted her shoulder and tipped his head back, working hard not to let anything out of his eyes — with limited success, given the two tracks down his face.

Watching them, both girls felt their own throats close, Li Cheng especially, whose eyes had filled at the sight of them. She hadn't expected the news to take her parents apart like that.

The only person outside all of it was Li Jingyu. Li Cheng had said a few sentences and now every other person in the room was crying and laughing at the same time in a most peculiar way.

His mother above all: he was old enough now and had almost never seen her cry like that. Not knowing what had happened, and alarmed by everyone around him crying, his own mouth went unsteady and he asked, thickly, "What's everybody crying for? Everything was fine a minute ago."

Which brought Chen Ying round, more or less cried out. She wiped her eyes, looked at her red-eyed family and snorted a laugh, thick-voiced. "Look at us. Crying over something this good. Not one of us any use at all. Stop it, now."

Li Cheng said, equally thick and thoroughly annoyed with herself, "It wasn't supposed to go like this. It's supposed to be a happy thing."

Seeing her husband still quietly wiping his eyes, Chen Ying nearly went again, got hold of it, and stood up quickly for the bathroom. "Right. No more crying, all of you come and wash your faces, and then we're going to your grandparents' to tell them."

When she came out he went in, blew his nose, made a hard noise of assent, stood alone in the empty bathroom crying quietly for a while, and then pulled himself together and washed.

By the time she was done she had it under control, and sat back down on the sofa holding the certificate, stroking it carefully.

Li Lan came out to find both parents on the sofa looking at it together, each with an enormous smile — and in two lifetimes of memory she couldn't recall ever seeing them look that happy.

For all the red eyes around the room, she didn't dislike the feeling.

Once the excitement subsided they entered a phase of real animation. "Come on, come on, let's tell your grandparents," they urged, while Li Lan was still digging through her bag.

"Wait. I haven't got out the things I brought back from Guangzhou for you and for Grandad and Grandma."

Neither of them had any interest in what she'd brought. "Never mind that, bring your grandparents' and let's go. They'll be delighted."

---

The old courtyard held only Li Tieshi and Song Qiulan, and hearing the door, Song Qiulan looked out and recognised her younger son's family. "Why are you so late? I've reheated dinner once. Weren't you home at five?"

Only as the five of them came under the walkway did she notice something. She was nearly seventy and her eyes were still perfectly good, and by the light at the door she could see that every one of them was red-eyed and had plainly been crying.

"What's happened to you all?" She turned to get them inside, where the light made it more obvious still.

Li Quan answered thickly. "Nothing, Mother."

Had his voice not been quite so blocked she might have believed him. "You and Yingzi haven't been quarrelling again? I know the supermarket is a strain, but the children are home. The two of you might show some restraint."

Beyond a quarrel, she could think of no other explanation.

Chen Ying laughed, equally blocked. "We haven't quarrelled, Mother. We've something wonderful to tell you."

Li Tieshi, who hadn't spoken, said from the sofa, "Sit down and say it, then. What's the good of standing about?"

She settled her mother-in-law on the sofa, and Li Quan pulled Li Lan in front of him and announced it, radiant. "Father, Mother — our Li Lan can go to Tsinghua or Peking."

Song Qiulan had never been to school and had still heard of Tsinghua and Peking, and her mouth widened. "Has she?" — without a trace of doubt.

Li Tieshi lost his composure considerably more. He'd had a few years of school and been a soldier, and had always been strict with his children; the family had been too poor then and he'd got no further than primary, so his hopes had gone into the grandchildren. The eldest son's boy had been a disappointment — for all his strictness the child had skipped lessons for arcades and internet cafés and finished with a middle school certificate.

The second son's three were his last hope, and when Li Lan came first in the city on entering high school he'd begun to feel his family might produce its first university student. He had not expected his son to drop something on the scale of a bomb on him tonight.

He got up off the sofa. "Quan. What did you say?"

Li Quan repeated it, beaming. "I said our Lanlan is going to Tsinghua or Peking."

At which he became calm instead, sat slowly back down and fixed both of them with a look. "Lanlan's only in her first year. How can she be going to university?" It didn't occur to him that they might be lying; a lie like that collapses at a touch, and his son was not a fool.

Chen Ying produced the certificate and handed it over carefully. "Father, look at this."

His heart missed a beat — he half thought it was an offer letter — and opened it to find a first prize in some Olympiad. "What competition is this?" He knew the Olympic Games. An olympiad was another matter.

She went over and explained what the exam was, and what placing brought a recommendation to Tsinghua or Peking. When she'd finished he stroked the certificate over and over as she had, and said nothing for a long time.

In the quiet, she and Li Quan looked at each other and were unsurprised to find fresh brightness in each other's eyes.

He looked at it a good while, let out a long breath and turned to Li Lan, his expression serious. "Lanlan. Is what your mother says true? You've come in the top sixty, and you can be recommended to Tsinghua or Peking?"

Once upon a time, that look would have made her quail. She met it squarely and nodded. "Yes, Grandad."

At which Li Cheng came forward with an addition, having not dared interrupt while the mood was so grave. "Not just that, Grandad. Li Lan came first. There's a banner up at our school."

And he laughed out loud. "Good. Good."

Her parents were hearing that part for the first time too, and pulled at Li Cheng. "The top sixty — how is it first now?"

Li Cheng grinned at them. "It's the same thing, isn't it? First goes to Tsinghua or Peking and sixtieth goes to Tsinghua or Peking. Much the same."

Chen Ying gave her a look and scolded her, smiling. "It is not the same thing. The pair of you, never finishing a sentence."

Li Quan nodded along. The important part was Tsinghua or Peking either way — but first did sound better.

His laugh over, Li Tieshi started giving orders. "Quan, go to old Zhao's on the street and buy two strings of firecrackers. Set one off at our gate, and we'll take the other when we go to the graves." And then, turning to his wife, "Woman, set out what needs setting out, and let Lanlan pay her respects."

Li Quan nodded and went straight out for the firecrackers.

Li Lan was somewhat startled and rather embarrassed. Firecrackers and the graves? Surely not.

Her father was out of the gate in three strides, and turning round she found her grandmother and mother setting out the ancestral tablets that normally came out only at Spring Festival.

Within a few minutes something close to a full altar stood on the table in the front room, and Song Qiulan lit the candles. "Lanlan, come and pay your respects to the ancestors."

Li Lan felt faintly ridiculous, but with both grandparents looking at her so hopefully she could hardly refuse, and awkwardly knocked her head twice.

Her father was back with the firecrackers shortly after, and lit them and threw them out at the gate, and the family stood in the doorway watching them crack and flare, every face lit and unlit and lit again, and smiling.

When they'd finished, Li Tieshi waved a hand. "Right. Quan, get the car. We're going out to the land."

Li Quan hadn't expected it immediately. "Father — dinner."

He was thoroughly animated. "Afterwards. Woman, lock the door."

None of this escaped the neighbours; several had come out during the firecrackers, and now saw the Li family locking up and driving off, and wondered privately: it isn't Spring Festival yet. What's happened?

Once the door was locked, all seven of them drove out in the new minibus to the family plot beside the town. It was night, and there was nothing around but bare trees. Under her grandfather's direction Li Lan dutifully burned paper, the three children took turns paying their respects, and only then did he nod, satisfied, and get back into the vehicle.

For all that commotion in the cold, the family had worked up a thin sweat between them — and Li Tieshi was thoroughly pleased, and spent the drive home earnestly instructing Li Cheng and Li Jingyu to work hard at school.