Chapter 64

Li Jingyu came out the second time with a certificate. This was only the audition venue, so he'd have to take it to the Beijing branch office and sign there before the trainee contract took effect — and being under age, the contract needed a guardian's signature, which meant his parents.

None of them was in the mood to look round after that, and they went back to the hotel with the certificate. They reached the room just as their parents came out of the grandparents'. Chen Ying was surprised. "Back already? We told you it was hot out there and you insisted."

Behind Li Lan, the other two jostled each other. Li Cheng nudged him with her shoulder. "Go on, tell them."

He dodged her and said, quietly and guiltily, "Maybe in a bit." Thinking about how they'd take it, he didn't feel ready. Wouldn't it be better coming from Li Lan?

Li Cheng found his caution funny. "Where's all that talk you gave me and Li Lan? Besides, they're in a decent mood. Get it over with. Go on."

Which was fair. Wasn't it in the primary school textbooks — the first roll of the drums raises the spirit, the second weakens it, the third exhausts it? A man answers for his own affairs. And above all she was right: get it over with. Watching his parents chatting to Li Lan in the doorway, he gathered himself, decided he was about as ready as he was going to be, stepped up and produced the certificate. "Mum, Dad, there's something I want to tell you."

Called into the room and seeing how serious he looked, they assumed it was something major. Hearing he'd passed an audition, Chen Ying took it for some small competition at the shopping centre and was pleased — and then he got to taking leave from school and going to Korea as a trainee, and she was lost. How does a trip out end in Korea? Li Quan looked equally blank.

With Li Cheng filling in the gaps, they understood it was real, and before he'd finished Chen Ying cut across him. "No. I don't agree. Your father won't either." Li Quan said nothing at all, though his face agreed with her.

Li Cheng gave her brother a look — there, what did I say. He'd braced for it and wasn't surprised, and went on with the arguments he'd used on Li Lan, including the three conditions. Chen Ying took none of it in and started working on him instead.

"Son, let's not make trouble for ourselves. Go to school, graduate, find a decent job, marry a nice girl and give your father and me a couple of grandchildren. That's all. We're an ordinary country family. What do we want with Korea? And you're young and you don't know a soul there. How are your father and I supposed to be easy about it?"

He knew she wasn't wrong, and that it was what most people chose, and for reasons he couldn't name he disliked the speech. He kept his patience. "Mum, I've told you. I really don't like school. And the teacher didn't tell you last term — I skipped classes all the time. I just don't like it."

To prove the point he came out with the truancy he'd been hiding, exaggerating slightly; he'd skipped two evening study sessions, and said it that way on purpose.

Before she could get angry about the truancy, Li Quan opened his mouth. He'd have liked a cigarette, but Lanlan had told him on the first day that you can't smoke in a hotel, so he settled for a mouthful of air. "Here's a thought, son. You don't like school — then wait until you're at university. After that you can do what you like, Korea or anywhere else, and neither of us will stop you. All right?"

Chen Ying backed him at once. "Yes. Your father's got the answer. Talk about it when you're at university."

He didn't waver. He knew perfectly well that the retreat was only apparent: at university it would become it's only four years, we shan't stop you after you graduate, and after graduating it would become you're getting on now, find a job first. He had to hold the line from the start to avoid conceding over and over.

Having said everything reasonable and got nowhere, Chen Ying lost her temper. "Why won't you listen? Go, then. Your father and I won't give you any money — let's see how you get there. And we won't be signing that contract." Li Quan, forgetting Li Lan's rule about smoking indoors, put an unlit cigarette between his lips.

He was angry too. He'd never had much to put up with in his life, and adolescent tempers run high; he stood at the end of the bed with his neck stiff and shouted, "I'm going. And if you won't let me, I won't go back to school either. Beat me to death, then."

That made it worse. "Don't, then. Is school something you do for my benefit? You can come home and farm — I won't let you do that either." And she sat down on the edge of the bed and wiped her eyes. If the family had millions she wouldn't be standing in his way. What else could she do?

Li Quan pulled off his belt and pointed at the floor in the middle of the room. "Come here. Beat you to death and you still won't go to school? Fine. Then I have no son."

"You're asking for it. Never laid a hand on you in your life, and look at you."

Seeing his arm actually go up, Chen Ying was between them, crying and blocking and finding room to scold her son as well. "Enough. You're far too strong, what if you really hurt him? And you, boy — is this what a rebellious phase looks like? You'll be the death of me. Don't you know to run? Standing there like an idiot letting your father hit you."

---

Li Cheng, watching for entertainment, was frightened stiff by how quickly it had turned. She had never in her life seen her father angry enough to hit anyone.

Watching her mother cry and block, she prodded Li Lan and hissed, "You said you'd handle it. They're about to come to blows and you haven't said a word."

Li Lan wasn't worried. From where she stood it was plain that the only two genuinely angry were her mother and her brother. Her father, apparently the angriest and the one with the belt, wasn't remotely as angry as he looked; the belt was theatre, and a roundabout way of soothing his wife.

Honestly, of the two of them only Chen Ying had ever been immovable about university. Li Quan was easier — perhaps because most of the neighbours and relatives had dropped out somewhere along the way, he wasn't stubborn about it the way she was. University was best, obviously; but nobody who'd dropped out had starved.

So he wasn't as angry about Korea as she was, and only kept quiet to avoid adding fuel. Naturally he'd have been glad to see the boy talked back into school.

Judging that her mother had got most of it out of her system, Li Lan spoke. "Mum, Dad, hear me a moment."

Chen Ying remembered she was there and went straight over and took her arm. "Lanlan, help me talk your brother round. He's tiny. What's he going to do without school?"

He muttered, "I'm not tiny."

Li Lan glared at him, and when he'd subsided, patted her mother's hand to steady her. "Mum, it isn't as bad as you think."

She sat her down and worked through it patiently. "Mum — do you want him to study, or to go to university?"

Chen Ying didn't follow. Weren't they the same? How do you get to university without studying, and how do you study without going to university?

"I want him at university so he can find a halfway decent job afterwards, and not go off labouring or farming."

Li Lan put it plainly. "If what you want is university, then Korea changes nothing. Going doesn't stop him getting there. And a job can wait until after."

That alarmed her. "How does it change nothing? He said it himself — he'll be gone for years. Of course it does."

Li Lan let her finish. "You may not have heard, in the middle of everything. He's agreed to three conditions."

When she'd laid them out unhurriedly, her mother was half convinced. "It can work like that? You're sure?" This wasn't some story the two of them had made up to get him to Korea?

Li Lan raised an eyebrow. "Mum. I'll be coaching your son. If you don't believe him, don't you believe me?"

"Well, of course. He isn't deficient." And then, catching up: "The pair of you had this arranged, didn't you?"

She said it, but her face was a great deal better than before. Knowing he still had a route to university, Korea seemed much less unacceptable. If he was going to get there, how hardly mattered — so what had she been arguing about? Which prompted, "Why didn't you tell me you and your sister had a plan? Letting me get worked up on purpose."

Li Jingyu: "…"

"Mum, I said so at the start." He felt thoroughly wronged.

She was slightly embarrassed. "Did you?" She'd been too worked up to hear it, presumably.

Li Lan breathed out as the temper drained away. All that mattered was that her mother could see it; had she insisted on the ordinary route there'd have been nothing to be done, and fortunately she wasn't rigid.

Chen Ying thought about it. "No. He agrees to one more condition.

"Saying it isn't enough — what if he denies it later? Chengcheng, fetch some paper and have him write the three of them down, and sign it. And if you don't come back to sit that exam, don't come home." By the end she was looking at him to make clear she meant it.

Getting his way at last, he breathed out too, and then, calm again, thought about how childish he'd been and how he'd made his mother cry, and the guilt came up. "Mm. Sorry, Mum. I was stupid just now. I'll definitely sit the exam." It started as a catch in his voice and by the end he'd stopped being able to hold it.

Watching him howl, she was somewhere between exasperated and amused. "Honestly. I've agreed, and now you're crying — and I'm not the one losing out. All right. Stop. Wash your face, we're going to the Bird's Nest with your grandparents shortly."

Watching her daughters supervise the writing of the agreement, Chen Ying sighed inwardly. It was impossible not to mind. But how many parents ever out-stubborn their children? Presumably Li Quan had worked all this out, which was why he hadn't really been angry; looking back at his performance, she saw something distinctly fishy in it. That man, who spoiled them rotten — hit anyone?

Catching the look she gave him, Li Quan knew he was rumbled, produced an ingratiating smile and came over. "It only occurred to me while you were arguing. Think about it — the three of them came back together, so he'd obviously talked to his sister first, and Lanlan's clever enough to have a way round it. And look, you've got it out of your system and you've agreed, haven't you?"

She pinched him. "And you couldn't just tell me? You had to wind me up."

---

It was half past four by the time the signing was done. Chen Ying folded the paper carefully into her bag. "Right. The contract can wait till tomorrow. It's about time we went out — and don't give the game away in front of your grandparents. Your grandfather especially. He's old, he can't take shocks like this."

Li Jingyu was glowing. "Don't worry, Mum. It won't slip out."

Seeing his face lit up like that, she felt slightly better. If only everything went the way Lanlan said it would.

With the two of them preoccupied, the evening's sightseeing took some effort, though they did the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube properly. Fortunately the grandparents had the other two with them and didn't notice the distraction.

The next day at lunchtime, while their grandparents rested, the five of them went to the DS branch office. A branch it might be, but its Beijing premises made a considerable impression, and the smartness of the place gave the parents some further reassurance.

They'd looked the company up carefully the night before and knew it was one of the largest agencies in Korea — a "largest" they had privately doubted, given how casually it had taken their son. Seeing how professionally the place ran, they minded rather less.

Having signed with mixed feelings, Chen Ying didn't know whether to laugh or cry. They'd come to see Lanlan into university with a family holiday attached, and look what had happened.

Afterwards, the trainee manager told them his details would be entered in the next few days and passed to the head office system, and that once the visa and the rest were done he could go to Korea, where a manager there would take him through the remaining formalities.

Coming out of the doors, Li Jingyu felt unmoored. In a few months he'd be in Korea? Days ago he'd been worrying about how to get his summer homework done.

Looking at the contract in her mother's hand, Li Cheng couldn't take it in either. Her brother was going abroad in a matter of days? She'd got as far as Beijing, and everything she knew about abroad came off the television.

Li Lan had been abroad twice for competitions in the last two years; now Li Jingyu was off to Korea; and she was the only one still at school. When she got home she'd work properly. Abroad? She could manage that too. She closed her fist on it.

After that came Li Lan's enrolment. On the day, her grandparents stopped minding the heat, walked the whole of Peking University, went next door and walked Tsinghua as well, and went home satisfied with a great many photographs. They'd seen Tsinghua and Peking. Nothing left to regret.

Her parents had meant to stay a couple of days after term started, but with leave from school and a visa to arrange, there was a great deal to do, so once she'd enrolled they bought tickets and hurried home.