V3C12: First in the Grade

Due to what happened at the birthday party, Zhang Jun and I’s matters spread through the school like wildfire. Yang Jun had laughed his head off when he heard.

At that time, country music was the newest trend amongst us, and many of the guys liked to sit on their desk during break, heels on a chair and messing on a guitar, Yang Jun being one of them. 

Since he didn’t have the chance to sing love songs to Tong Yunzhu, he used all his skill to laugh at me instead. Ever since he heard about Zhang Jun and I, his new favourite pastime was to sing ‘My Old Classmate’ whilst playing his guitar.

“Who married such a sentimental you, who looked through your diary, who plaited up your long hair, who made your wedding gown. Who looked through my letter to you…”

The entire class laughed as they listened. 

At times like this, I had to act as calm as possible and ignore him because any kind of response would only make everyone else laugh even harder, but right before midterms, Yang Jun suddenly wilted and stopped pranking me, stopped singing, and even stopped studying. 

I asked him what happened and he replied that he secretly saw Tong Yunzhu holding hands with that delinquent who opened a video hall.

His sorrow was much heavier than I had expected and he spent his days sleeping on his table. As for homework, he either copied me, or did it badly. 

I couldn’t stand him like that, so during self-study period at night, I called him over to truant together. We ran over to the school’s lotus pond and listened to the croaks of frogs and toads.

I asked him just how much he liked Tong Yunzhu and why he liked her. His replies were all over the place, sometimes woefully bemoaning that he really did like Tong Yunzhu and couldn’t understand why she did not like him, other times saying that he didn’t like her that much and couldn’t care less who she ended up with in anger.

“You think that you’re better than that delinquent, but what allowed you to have that mindset? You have good grades, and will undoubtedly get into a good university, so you have much better prospects, but if you stop studying now because your love life failed then your grades will slip and you won’t get into a top university- maybe not even an average one, and then what will you have to brag about?

Even though Tong Yunzhu fools around a lot outside, her grades aren’t bad. She controls her life extraordinarily well and a girl like her would definitely look down on a boy who can’t even control their own life. If you don’t like her, then you should study hard because she’ll eventually become a cloud that floats past you, so how could you sacrifice your life for something that won’t stay? If you do like her, then you have to study even harder to prove that you’re strong. That way, maybe she’ll end up liking you someday in the future.”

Yang Jun was discomforted by my thought process, and asked, “So what if I hate her?”

I sneered. “Then you have to study hard. Only then can you succeed and live a better life than her, and place her underneath you.”

Yang Jun stared at me dumbly, confused by my words. I waved my hand. “I’m just your friend. I’ve done what I need to, so if you continue being like this, I won’t waste my breath. After all, you’re the only one who can decide what path to take. In this world, if you don’t love yourself, then no one will love you!”

Yang Jun thought in silence for a long time before he suddenly said, “When I first heard that you got together with Zhang Jun, I thought that you would be under a lot of pressure, but now, suddenly I feel like Zhang Jun isn’t off any better.”

I didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”

Yang Jun shook his head and gazed into the darkness, his face no longer hiding his sadness. At this age, because our love was so pure, so was our sadness. Because of this sadness, it seemed as if Yang Jun had suddenly matured and was no longer so easy-going and childish as when I first met him last year.

Why was it that growing up was always accompanied with pain? Was it because it was only after a wound that a scar would form? When layers upon layers of scars had festered on our hearts, we would stop being so easily hurt, so easily moved, and would thus ‘grow up’.

Yang Jun and I stood next to the lotus pond, listening to the frogs in the dark. It was almost ten when we finally started going back.

The next day, Yang Jun became motivated again, yelling that he would surpass Lin Yiran and I. Lin Yiran smiled. “Don’t just say it, come at us,” I replied goadingly.

Amidst this constant chasing and rushing, we prepared for our midterms.

I was careful and comprehensive in my reviews, so much so that I could recite even my most hated politics fluently. I still wasn’t confident with English, but judging by how I felt doing the exercise question, I intuitively thought that I should be able to do better this time.

When the midterm rankings came out, the class teacher was extremely excited. “I have great news for everyone. There are nine classes in the grade, and our class was able to take three of the top ten positions.”

Everyone immediately directed their gaze towards our little triangular section.

“First, I’d like to congratulate Luo Qiqi. She was the first in our class and also first in the grade.”

The class started clapping and cheering. My mouth was open in shock and disbelief. Even though I felt that unlike previously, I completed the English paper quite well this time, I didn’t expect to suddenly reach number one. In a single moment, both of my goals were achieved simultaneously, as if the heavens were testing me on purpose, throwing me from the darkness of despair into the brilliant sun in an instance.

The class teacher told everyone to quiet down and continued. “Lin Yiran was second in the class and also second in the year.”

Everyone started clapping again. Lin Yiran turned around to look at me, her eyes shining with joy and excitement. Formerly, I was slightly worried about how she would see my victory, but now I knew she felt happy for herself and happy for me.

“Yang Jun was third in class and tenth in the grade. Congratulations to you all! Congratulations!”

Yang Jun clenched his fist and cheered. “I’ve finally reached the top ten!”

Amidst his triumphant crowing, I finally accepted the truth that I had reached the first of the year. For the first time in my life, due to the sheer difficulty of reaching this goal, I felt the joy of success. I was speechless with happiness and could only smile dumbly at Yang Jun and Lin Yiran.

Time flew by so casually, yet so many years had passed in a hurry. I had forgotten so many things, but the exhilaration I felt in that moment still remained in my memory. From then to now, under the blade of time, many of my viewpoints had changed, but I still believed that the only true success was success after hard work, and that it was the only kind of success that would  bring true joy.

After school, Zhang Jun’s face lit up the instance he saw me, looking even happier than I was. I knew that he had also gotten the news and wanted to ask about his grades, but feared that his situation wasn’t as ideal as mine.

“Under the supervision of our dearest little inspector, my grade has also gotten to the highest in history, from 78th to 35th,” he announced happily. “But I’ve barely made any progress and you’ve already jumped to the very front. The pressure…”

I smiled and stuck out my tongue. “Just turn all your anxiety into motivation.”

Zhang Jun sighed, smiling. “This is the first time I’ve realized that you truly are magical.”

“How did Guan He go?” I asked.

Zhang Jun shook his head. “Not very well, she went down a little. Third in the class, ranked twenty-something in the grade.”

“That’s fine, she probably wasn’t able to do her best.”

Zhang Jun smiled. “True, no one can be compared to you, only ascending, never descending.”

I smiled bitterly. “Nothing in the world is that easy. The struggles I’ve gone through aren’t bad enough to complain to others about.”

Zhang Jun laughed, not believing me at all. I wasn’t bothered to explain so I didn’t say anything.

“How do you feel about skipping class tomorrow afternoon to celebrate your score?” he asked.

“Sure!”

The second day, we skipped afternoon classes, went to the newly opened skating rink, ate dinner together, and watched a movie. Even though I had managed to get first in the grade, his improvement was much greater than mine so we were both in high spirits, playing to our heart’s content. 

The happiness from midterms were quickly washed out by the daily life of studying. My life still only consisted of the same old routine, but I was no longer alone.

Over the first year of high school, I had become used to being by myself, neatly organizing my time. This year though, Zhang Jun was there. At first, he only walked me home after school, but as time went on, he would also come to pick me up before school, and we would spend our weekends together too. I didn’t realize it, but he was slowly eating away all my spare time outside of school.

At first, I was also elated to be able to spend every second of my life with him, but as days passed, when my time had been completely overtaken by him, when I realized that I had stopped hanging out with Lin Yiran, Yang Jun, Shen Yuanzhe, Ma Ti and Ma Li, and had instead only been hanging out with Zhang Jun and his friends, when I realized that my entire life was now based around Zhang Jun, I started to feel depressed. 

Sometimes, I would tentatively ask him if I could go out with Shen Yuanzhe and the others during the weekends, and he would say in surprise, “You’re normally so busy with study that we could only talk to each other on the way to school and back home. Now that you’ve finally gotten a free weekend, you’d rather go out with your friends rather than your boyfriend?” 

I could feel his light annoyance and could only get rid of those thoughts.

After New Year’s Day, everyone started preparing for the battle known as finals. 

I was extremely stressed because my results from midterms could be interpreted as a sudden leap from quantitative change to qualitative change, but it could also just be a stroke of luck. I wasn’t certain if I would be able to get such a result again for the end of the year exams and because of this uncertainty, I worked extra hard.

Internal stress and fatigue all made me need personal time more than ever, so I had to talk to Zhang Jun about what my wishes were. Before the yearlies were finished, we would only meet on weekends. On other days, I wanted some alone time.

Zhang Jun couldn’t understand. I tried to explain to him that sometimes, I still needed my friends, my classmates, and maybe some days after school I wanted to talk with Lin Yiran about a few math questions, but because you were there, I couldn’t talk much with her and she was too embarrassed to come find me. And sometimes I felt tired and like I needed some personal space to do nothing, and say nothing, and think nothing, just by myself, to get some fresh air and look up at the stars.

I didn’t know if Zhang Jun had truly understood what I wanted, but he agreed to my request.

The results for the yearlies came out. I was still first, Lin Yiran dropped back to seventh, Yang Jun was thirteenth, and Zhang Jun kept up his rank of thirty-something but Guan He’s grades dropped down to thirty.

On New Year, Zhang Jun and I went to visit Ms Gao together. She was very happy. “I was always hoping that you two could visit me at the same time so that us three could get together again and have a nice conversation.”

My face became warm instantly and I lowered my head. Zhang Jun, seeing that I was blushing, lowered his head and smiled. 

Maybe Ms Gao’s original meaning wasn’t what I had thought it was, but after seeing our reactions, she understood immediately. She didn’t appear terrified of us dating at such a young age like the other teachers but rather felt happy for us. She cut us apples and laughed. 

“I always thought that there was something weird going on between you two. You went to coaching together and did the competition together, so technically the relationship between you two should be better than other students, but even though you two seemed to ignore each other, you always manage to leave just as the other is about to arrive, as if you had planned it out. And when you were chatting with me, you two were always trying to sneak some information about the other one. If I’m not wrong, you’ve probably managed to meet each other ‘accidently’ every year.”

I didn’t feel the need to keep my guard up around Ms Gao. “There was no such thing,” I responded. “It only happened twice- once in your house, I was about to leave and he was about to come, and once when we were downstairs, and he was parking his motorcycle and I was going down.”

“You remembered so well. Qiqi has such a good memory but even she wouldn’t memorize the details of every encounter, don’t you agree, Zhang Jun?” Ms Gao teased. 

Zhang Jun didn’t say anything but he was smiling. 

We talked freely with Ms Gao, just like many years ago. When speaking about our grades, I said, “I was a bit scared that it was just luck that I got so well for my midterms but now that the finals are over as well, I’ve got nothing to worry about anymore.”

“When I heard that you were the first in the grade, I was so excited for that entire day and I told every teacher in the office that the number one of First High was my student,” Ms Gao replied. 

I smiled, embarrassed.

Ms Gao smiled and asked, “You two will be split into the literary and science classes next semester. Have you thought about which university you would like to attend?”

I looked at Zhang Jun who said, “I’ve never thought about it much. My dad brought it up twice and he wanted me to either do economics or computer.”

“Qiqi, do you like Tsinghua better or Peking?” Ms Gao asked. 

“Huh? I’ve never thought about it.” My eyes were only focused on getting the first in the grade.

“Whether you’re the first in the state or not, if you’re first in First High, then it would be your choice between Tsinghua and Peking. If you have time, try to consider which school and subject would suit you better.”

I smiled and remained silent. 

Ever since coming out of Ms Gao’s house, Zhang Jun had remained silent. “What is it? Why are you suddenly so quiet?” I asked. 

He smiled. “Nothing.”

I could feel that he wasn’t feeling very happy, but if he didn’t want to speak about it, I wouldn’t ask. As I walked, I wracked my brain for something happy to tell him.

Passing in front of a small shop, Zhang Jun suddenly stopped walking. “I have a question for you.”

“Sure.”

“Last year, on the same day as today, what were you thinking about when you were staring at my motorcycle outside that shop? Why were you standing there for so long?”

I felt slightly dazed. “That motorcycle really was yours?”

“Yeah.”

“You were in the shop at the time?”

“Yeah.”

Remembering that I was staring dumbly at his motorcycle, I was embarrassed and squeaked out, “Nothing much, just… I was just thinking about you.”

I didn’t know why, but I felt that Zhang Jun’s mood had been lifted suddenly.

“Ever since we got into high school, you stopped coming out to play. I didn’t have any chance to see you at all during the winter break, but I knew that you would definitely come to pay Ms Gao a visit for New Years so I waited here on purpose for you. I just wanted to see you.”

My heart throbbed gently, so warm, so wholesome. “It wasn’t a coincidence when I saw you that year downstairs parking your motorcycle, was it?”

“Qiqi, have you had this many ‘coincidental encounters’ with any other primary school friend? Once might be a coincidence, but for it to happen three times, four times, it takes more than a coincidence. For the entire third grade of middle school, how many times did you see Guan He? How many times did you see me? Don’t you think that you ‘encountered’ me way too many times during that year?”

I said dumbly, “I… I thought that it was just my eyes that were following you.”

Zhang Jun dragged my hat down for me. “The wind is too strong here, what if you catch a cold? Let’s go find somewhere warm.”

We went to eat lamb skewers. Sitting in front of a furnace, my body warmed up immediately, but into a skewer, my mind was still filled with things from before.

Zhang Jun asked me, “Why haven’t you talked this whole time, what are you thinking about?”

“Mhm… mhm.. I have a question for you, just how many girlfriends have you had in the past?”

His face turned red, a rare sight on him. “Which ones have you heard of?”

“Two, the kindergarten teacher and the dancer. There was also Chen Yinan and Tong Yunzhu, but I’ve never seen you together with Chen Yinan so it was probably another false rumour.”

“I’ve hung out with Chen Yinan a few times so my friends kept making jokes about us and somehow the rumours sounded truer and truer as they were spread. I’ve never gone out with her alone, she’s never asked me out either. Sometimes she wrote letters to me, but they were all old Chinese poems and I couldn’t understand any of it. Tong Yunzhu always had an easy relationship with the guys but the one she liked was always He Lian. Our relationship was completely, definitely pure friendship.”

“Then… What about the other two? Did you like them?”

Zhang Jun looked embarrassed but he kept speaking. “That kindergarten teacher you were talking about, I had fun with her but the one she liked wasn’t me, but this buddy of mine. He was a little flirty so she would appear close to me on purpose to make him angry. That time you saw her crying was also because of him. It had nothing to do with me. Afterwards, she gave up and stopped hanging out with us.”

Now that I thought about it, in those few images that still remained in my memory, that girl’s eyes were always looking elsewhere, never truly landing on Zhang Jun.

“I’ve only ever had one true girlfriend, the one that had a fight with you. She’s called Lin Yue.” Zhang Jun was abashed. “Can we stop talking about this?”

“Nope.” The one that I cared about the most was her. That flying red skirt had kept me up for many nights.

Zhang Jun had no choice but to keep explaining. “Do you remember, once, I went to the karaoke bar and you were singing a love song with Xu Xiaobo?”

I thought about it. “I remember.” That was to celebrate you being ‘abandoned’.

“I thought that you got together with Xu Xiaobo. Lin Yue was kind of interested in me, and she was pretty and my buddies all thought she was on point, so we got together. She was able to fool around with us until dawn, and enjoyed it…” Zhang Jun looked around and asked for a smoke from the shop owner. “You know what happened afterwards. I don’t want to talk about the past, so please don’t ask again.”

Amidst the swirling smoke, Zhang Jun’s expression was cold, like the Little Zhang-ge from before and it made me feel a moment of heartache.. 

“Okay, I won’t ask again.”

I didn’t know what he had done when he was with Little Six, nor did I know what he had experienced in that visit to the police station. All I knew was that he cared very much about his past and refused to speak of it. Maybe he would be willing to tell me when the pain had truly subsidized into memories but until then, I was willing to wait patiently. 

His expression slowly softened. He snuffed out the smoke in the ashtray, stared at me and said solemnly, “You’re not my first girlfriend, but you will definitely be the last.”

That night, I wrote down on my diary for the first time: I think Zhang Jun actually likes me. I feel very, very, very content.

Back then, I was drowning in euphoria from the knowledge that Zhang Jun liked me, enjoying the bliss called dating. Now though, when I looked back at this section of the diary, I could only feel an aching in my heart, both towards that young Luo Qiqi, and towards Zhang Jun. 

Zhang Jun probably would have never dreamt that despite them being together for so long, despite him loving Luo Qiqi so carefully with all his heart could offer, she had only now truly believed that he loved her. If he could understand this, then maybe he would understand Luo Qiqi’s shell of strength and pretend nonchalance.

Qiqi loved deeply when she was young, but it was because of how deep she loved that she was scared. Her self-loathing was magnified infinitely and she constantly felt that Zhang Jun could fall in love with another girl at any given time. After witnessing first-hand the tragedies Ge Xiaofei and others had experienced in love, her sense of self-protection was strong, her logic reminding her time and again that love came hand in hand with sorrow, making her like a nervous snail, always ready to shrink back into its shell. But Zhang Jun didn’t understand her complicated psychology, and he could only guess from what he could see. And in the end, come up with the conclusion that Qiqi didn’t really like him. 

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Vera’s Notes:
So many big paragraphs in this chapter… they’re scary to edit. ;-; A giant paragraph of Chinese on top, a bigger paragraph of Chinglish preliminary translation on the bottom… (Luci: ;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;-;)
Luci: sanity deteriorating. Ah if only they communicated.

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