Chapter 40

The thirtieth of December arrived, and with it the day Li Lan left for Beijing. The train from Yu city was at noon and Minhe was two hours away by rail, so she set out at seven and was on the eight o'clock train.

Her parents watched her go with some anxiety. They had wanted to come, but she had refused absolutely — she was sixteen, being escorted by one's parents was not a good look, and it wasn't as though she'd never been to Yu city. They gave in, and on the way home couldn't help remarking on how much she'd grown up since starting high school.

Sitting alone in her seat, Li Lan was still turning over their instructions. When had the two of them become so talkative? Once they knew she'd be on the train alone they had kept going from the house right up to departure.

At Yu city she found the supervising teacher at the appointed place, and by coincidence the chemistry party had fallen to Yu No. 1 — and the teacher was the one who had coached her chemistry.

That made things easier, and she went over and greeted him first. "Hello, Teacher Liu."

Unlike Deng Hua, Liu Jianzhong was the classic high school teacher: serious, unsmiling. Two months of working with him had taught her he was cold-faced and warm underneath.

Sure enough he produced a smile, which softened the severity considerably. "Li Lan. How have you been at home? Have you been revising?"

She stopped walking. "That's hardly the first question, sir." Two months of one-to-one teaching had made them informal enough for that.

"What should a teacher ask about if not schoolwork?" He assumed severity. "And you promised Teacher Li and me a first place at the final." Teacher Li being the biology coach.

Li Lan said, quietly, "I don't recall promising."

He pretended not to hear and went on holding up his makeshift cardboard sign to the crowd, and with the traffic of people he didn't notice the three approaching from behind.

The sign was double-sided, and a middle-aged woman running to stoutness read it and spoke first. "Excuse me — we're Zeng Hongshuo's parents. Are you the teacher taking the chemistry party?"

He turned to find three people behind him and guessed candidate and parents; with only two girls including Li Lan in the chemistry group, it took no working out. "That's right. I'm Liu Jianzhong, the supervising teacher."

Then, to the boy between them, "You'll be Zeng Hongshuo. Hello."

The boy, addressed, returned a cool greeting.

His mother spoke, and something in the manner of it was indefinably unpleasant. "Teacher Liu, I didn't mention it on the phone — with Shuoshuo sitting this exam, his father and I aren't happy about him travelling alone, so we're coming to Beijing with you. That way we can look after him properly."

His father nodded. "That's right, Teacher Liu. Our Shuoshuo isn't strong, and we're not comfortable sending him off alone, and we didn't want to trouble you — you being the supervisor, we thought we'd tell you."

Li Lan glanced at the Shuoshuo in question, close to one hundred and eighty centimetres, of roughly corresponding weight and a healthy colour, and could not construct a theory of how he wasn't strong. Then again she knew little about it, and one shouldn't judge by appearances; perhaps his health was genuinely poor.

Liu Jianzhong had years of teaching behind him and had met every kind of parent. Looking at a boy half a head taller and twice as broad as himself, he said, unhurried, "That's possible, but Zeng Hongshuo is here to sit an exam, and there are a number of group activities, so—"

His mother cut across him, knowing, and proud with it. "Teacher Liu, we know how it works. Our Shuoshuo went to the final last year. We know the procedure."

Being interrupted didn't annoy him; hearing that, he simply stopped bothering, said something polite and went back to waiting for the last student.

Meanwhile Li Lan watched the loftily unapproachable Zeng Hongshuo say something quietly to his father, whose expression suggested it hadn't been pleasant.

The last student arrived shortly: another girl, also delivered by a parent — though this parent had no intention of coming along, and handed her over to Liu Jianzhong and went off cheerfully.

---

The tickets had been booked together, so the teacher and three students were seated in a block, with the Zeng parents in another carriage — though they were no sooner aboard than they had swapped with the people next to their son. Which left Li Lan, Liu Jianzhong and the second girl in one row and the Zeng family opposite.

Once the train was moving and the carriage full of noise, Mrs Zeng looked around and complained. "Six hours to Beijing. A plane takes one or two — why are we on a train? It's punishment."

Her son took it up, equally dissatisfied. "Exactly. I hear the maths party flew to Guangzhou last month. Why are we on a train?"

The girl beside Li Lan offered, in a small voice, "But the train to Guangzhou takes over twenty hours."

Mrs Zeng was scornful. "So? Twenty hours can have a plane, and six hours can't? Discrimination, that's what it is. You're young. You wouldn't understand."

The girl flushed and couldn't think how to answer, glanced sideways — Liu Jianzhong was on the phone and Li Lan was reading, attentively — and stopped talking.

Nobody having replied, Mrs Zeng felt no awkwardness and complained loudly to her husband instead. "When we took Shuoshuo to Shanghai for the final training course we flew, and it was so quick — two hours. And now our Shuoshuo has six hours on a train, in these conditions."

Unfortunately her husband was fetching something for their son, her son couldn't be bothered to respond, and neither the teacher on the phone nor the girl attentively reading was going to volunteer. Mrs Zeng was unaffected; but the girl beside Li Lan, apparently wanting to rescue her from being ignored, offered ingenuously, "Oh — did Zeng Hongshuo go to a final training course in Shanghai? I've been twice. Shame we weren't on the same one."

Which had Mrs Zeng holding on to her and asking questions, and even Zeng Hongshuo glancing over. Li Lan, reading attentively, knew the moment the girl spoke that this would not end well. Going to another city for a competition course — Shanghai above all, a strong competition province — costs a great deal, and only the wealthy or well-connected send their children; and the girl had been twice, so it was no surprise Mrs Zeng was extracting her family circumstances.

On learning that the girl's father was a bank president, Mrs Zeng's eyes lit and her warmth redoubled — to the point where the girl looked at Li Lan rather helplessly. Nobody had taught her how to handle this.

Li Lan received the appeal and handed over her book. "There's some good material in this one. Have a look if you're interested."

The girl extracted her hand rapidly. "Thank you. I was feeling nervous, actually, I'd like to read."

Mrs Zeng noticed Li Lan, and finding her finally out of her book, was equally warm. "And where's your family from? This final must have cost your family a great deal of effort too. Don't be like my Shuoshuo, complaining about what your family spends — every parent under heaven wants better for their children."

Li Lan produced a false smile. "Thank you, Auntie. My family are from the countryside, though. It hasn't cost much."

She could feel the temperature drop as soon as she'd said it, particularly beside a bank president's daughter — and even the inviolable Zeng Hongshuo frowned slightly.

He glanced at her. Got into the final on luck, presumably. Not bad-looking, pity she's a country girl — no wonder her clothes are obviously market stall.

It was as well Li Lan couldn't read his mind, or he'd have got both barrels: a boy in counterfeit sportswear had no business calling anyone's clothes market stall.

---

Six hours went quickly, and train or not there were people meeting them at Beijing station. The Zengs boarded the coach in their capacity as accompanying parents, and the teacher meeting them could hardly refuse, there being spare seats and no defensible reason to keep parents off.

The chemistry final was also held at a high school, with accommodation at a mid-to-upper-range hotel not far away — considerably more expensive than Guangzhou's, Beijing prices having stayed high since the Olympics. Hearing it was over three hundred a night, the Zengs winced and tried to persuade their son into the dormitory the school had arranged, at which he lost his temper spectacularly: he wasn't used to sharing a room, it would affect his exam, and so on.

At which they panicked — interfering with the exam was unthinkable — and didn't dare press, and took a second room for him alone, which soothed him.

Li Lan and Liu Jianzhong watched the performance, and she looked at him with sympathy. "My condolences, sir." One phone call had got him out of it on the train. Five days of phone calls seemed optimistic; she suspected this family had a good deal more in them.

He looked at her. "Condolences nothing. You underestimate me. I've met every kind of parent — Zeng Hongshuo is nothing remarkable."

And in fact, over the following days, Li Lan found she'd misjudged it. Zeng Hongshuo was demanding, but mostly of his parents. Someone like Li Lan, who had reached the final on luck and was destined for a national third, wasn't worth a glance. Nor was Liu Jianzhong — a mere supervising teacher with no authority who couldn't arrange anything, not even a room of one's own.

His parents, though, struck everyone as rather pitiable, because from the moment they checked in he was different from everybody: meals had to be bought outside rather than eaten at the hotel, clothes changed daily, and a long list of similar trifles. But since the two of them appeared to be enjoying it, nobody felt able to comment — the more so after a student who couldn't stand watching him work his mother said something and got a dressing-down from her for it, after which nobody interfered at all.

Once the exams began nobody had attention to spare for anyone else. The chemistry camp ran like the maths one, two days of examination — except that the first day was written and the second was practical.