NOVPUBAs soon as the fifteenth of the first lunar month was over, the six friends found their winter break allowance running low, and in the last few days, Xiao Ruawen returned from the military area, bringing each person an empty bullet shell as a gift.
After finishing all their winter vacation homework the day before school started, the new term quietly began.
...
With the sound quality completely lost, the radio played a tune for the long break as Xu Qingfan tightened his shoelaces and followed his class out the back door to line up.
Over the past two months, he had grown noticeably taller, having moved from needing to stand at the front of the line at the start of the school term to now standing at the back.
At a height of one meter seventy, he stood out among the first-year junior high students, especially since their generation, born in the ’90s, didn’t grow as tall as the kids born in 2005 and 2010, who seemed to reach one meter sixty or seventy in primary school as if they had been taking growth hormones.
[The third set of national radio exercises for primary and secondary schools, Dance of Youth, starts now.]
Xu Qingfan executed the radio exercises meticulously to the beat, having been a discipline committee member in primary school, he knew too well that slacking off during the exercises was the ugliest.
However, students of this age always liked to exhibit their rebellious streak, hiding their palms inside their sleeves, their movements reminiscent of the zombie units from Plants vs. Zombies.
[Adjust exercise... eight two three four five six seven stop.]
After the radio exercises, it was time for the routine class leader’s speech, "Tomorrow the school will have leaders visiting for an inspection, each class should tidy up their classroom hygiene and student appearances after returning, dismiss!"
The students left the playground in groups of twos and threes, and Xu Qingfan made his way through the crowd to the front of five girls.
"Today is our group’s turn for cleaning, so we’ll have to stay after school again."
"Brother Fan, you and Yu can go home to cook first, it’s okay if just the four of us stay behind," Xiao Ruawen suggested after a moment’s thought.
"Why can’t we think outside the box? Why can’t we just go out to eat a big meal?" Xu Qingfan, now not any shorter than the girls, easily tapped her on the head.
"Oh yes, I haven’t eaten at Pizza Hut in a long time!" Lin Wanning said happily.
Having grown accustomed to home-cooked meals, having some Western fast food occasionally was indeed a happy affair.
"I’m fine with anything as long as it’s not Sally’s," Xia Xiaoxiao also spoke up.
"What’s wrong with Sally’s, where else can you eat steak, pizza, and French-style baked snails for fifty yuan!"
"If you want to eat, go by yourself, we’re going to Pizza Hut," Xia Xiaoxiao was not about to fall for his trap and retorted immediately.
"Brother Qing Fan, I don’t want to eat at Sally’s either, their pizza isn’t even as good as Wudaokou pies," Lin Wanning said, crossing her arms in a resigned gesture.
"Hear that?" Seeing Lin Wanning stand with her for once, Xia Xiaoxiao said proudly.
"Brother Fan can have the low-tier alone, we’ll go high-tier, gē gē gē~"
Back in the classroom, it were still the familiar classmates and the seat by the window at the back of the room.
During his brief absence, someone had somehow put a love letter and a rainbow lollipop in his desk.
Truth be told, eating that type of lollipop was annoyingly difficult, and the taste was just mediocre; Xu Qingfan greatly disliked it.
But its striking appearance and the popularizing effect of the Zhou Xingchi movie "Kung Fu" had made it a top trend in the world of lollipops.
"Eh~ just skip the lollipop, don’t eat food of unknown origin," Xu Qingfan handed the love letter to Lin Wanning.
As he grew taller and more handsome, he began receiving more love letters, so the five girls and Xu Qingfan had come to an agreement: all love letters he received were to be handed over, and the girls would entrust him with those they received for safekeeping.
After all, junior high was a time to strive in studies, not to get involved in romantic affairs!
"These people are really so idle, not spending their time on the proper track of studies, right, Brother Qing Fan?" Lin Wanning criticized before stowing the love letter in her bag.
She would open it later after school to see which shameless girl it was, and make sure to keep her away from her Brother Qing Fan!
"Absolutely correct, so dear Wanning, have you memorized ’The Epitaph of the Humble Room’ and ’On Loving Lotus’? We’re having a pop quiz this week."
"Of course I memorized it! The flowers of land, water, and plants, the adorable ones are numerous..." 𝖓𝔬𝔳𝔭𝔲𝔟.𝖈𝖔𝔪
"Impressive, Wanning. You just learned it yesterday and you’ve got it memorized!" Xiao Ruawen said in surprise.
"Hehe~ It wasn’t too bad." Lin Wanning was proud inside, having spent her lunch break secretly memorizing these two articles in classical Chinese, since she couldn’t fall too far behind Brother Qingfan.
The bell for class rang, and the math teacher entered with his books.
The next two periods were math classes, which were the hardest for Xu Qingfan to endure because the content was too simple for him.
As for reading extracurricular books to pass the time, that was not an option either, because Lin Wanning still needed to concentrate on studying, and Xu Qingfan reading extracurricular books would distract her.
Under such circumstances, Xu Qingfan typically studied on his own. After all, he might be very busy in high school, and if he could relearn high school subjects in middle school, he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the time he reached high school.
In addition, Xu Qingfan discovered another amazing thing while self-studying: it seemed his thinking ability was becoming better and better.
The analytic geometry problems he had struggled with in high school were now effortlessly solved after relearning them, although this might also have been because he had the foundation from college and doctoral studies in his past life.
...
After school in the afternoon, their Group Eight stayed behind. Since all their classmates were boarders, they rushed out to grab showers and line up at the cafeteria as soon as class ended.
"Okay, let’s just dump the water and mop the floor," Xu Qingfan said as he filled a trash can with water and rolled up his sleeves.
"Mop coming through!" Lin Wanning ran down the hallway dragging four mops.
"Can you not act like a grade-schooler?" Xu Qingfan turned and hit the girl who bumped into his back.
"What’s wrong with grade-schoolers, Brother Qingfan? Are you discriminating against grade-schoolers?"
"Speaking of grade-schoolers, it’s already been a year since we graduated. Time flies so fast!" Xiao Ruan Wen commented.
Xia Xiaoxiao stopped her action of cleaning the blackboard when she reached the words ’Week 11’ written on it.
"It really does."
"It feels like time speeds up when we’re all together," Wu Lingyu added, taking over the mop and nodding in agreement.
"Yeah!"
"We’re not even that old. Stop being so melancholic. ’Happy Girl’ starts at 7:30, right? Let’s hurry up, or we’ll miss it," Xu Qingfan said irritably as he poured the water.
"We can just get takeout from Pizza Hut and eat at home!"
"True."
"Hahaha..."
Outside the window, the sunset was endlessly beautiful. Inside the classroom, Zhang Yiyi and Xiao Ruawen were cleaning the windows, Xia Xiaoxiao was washing the blackboard, and Xu Qingfan, Lin Wanning, and Wu Lingyu were playfully pushing mops around the floor.
Before long, Xia Xiaoxiao joined the mopping crew, and the six of them worked together to tidy up. They left the school chatting and laughing with their backpacks on.
"The last one to leave pays the bill!"
"Haha~ Not me!"
"Run fast!"
Under the glow of the setting sun, the youths ran wildly across the campus, blurring lines between people and shadows.
They were laughing and shouting, in the prime of their youth.
.....
