Chapter 10: A Small Episode
Chapter 10: A Small Episode
1:45 p.m., the first class of the day, is boring math. The bright sun is shining outside, the occasional wind blowing into the window is also hot, the cicadas are chirping, and the frogs in the pond are croaking from time to time.
Feng Yiping felt his eyelids gradually getting heavy. He habitually propped his chin with his left hand, held a pen in his right hand, and looked hard at the teacher on the podium, who was talking and writing on the blackboard at the same time. However, he felt that the teacher's voice was sometimes in the distance and sometimes by his ear, coming and going, and his eyes drooped unconsciously. But the subconscious mind kept emphasising that he couldn't sleep, so perhaps for just a few seconds, his chin swayed slightly, as if it were going to slip from his hand. But to Feng Yiping, who had fallen asleep, it was like an 8.0 earthquake with its epicentre just a few dozen kilometres from the ground.
The next few moments were a constant cycle of feeling sleepy, dozing off, and waking up with a start. When the class ended, he ignored the teacher and slumped over the desk, falling asleep.
The second class was on ideological and moral education. Feng Yiping flipped through the book himself and saw that Feng Haitao had even underlined the key points. He put the book aside, thinking that he would just memorise the key points during his evening study session.
He still took out an unfinished primary school exercise book from his desk and thought about what else he could 'recreate'. At the age of 12, in the first year of junior high school, he could rule out all the online novels he had read before, as well as TV dramas. What was left? Movies? There didn't seem to be anything suitable. Could it be that he had to rely on those jokes? He couldn't even make 10 yuan a month that way, not to mention the fact that it was unlikely that Story Magazine would use your little jokes in every issue!
Wang Guozhen's poems? No, they should have been everywhere by now, and one or two poems wouldn't be very useful. Yu Qiuyu's essays are really good! Those are the rare books he bought in the genuine version. In particular, he has read the first one, 'A Cultural Journey', many times, and should be able to put together a few essays. But, you're only 12 years old, do you have such a broad knowledge base? Such a strong sense of patriotism? A literary man's passion? And as far as I remember, it seems that Master Yu's essays were already published in the 1990s. In order not to become a laughing stock, I had to give up.
So, how about trying to write a novella for Story Magazine? This is going to be difficult. First of all, it has to be appreciated by both the refined and the vulgar, which is not easy. It also has to be a complete story that is funny but also makes people think, within a very limited length. It's not something that he, an amateur hack, can write at the last minute.
After being influenced by online literature, his current strength, in terms of length, should be a long novel, at least one with more than a million words. If he condenses the famous works of those great gods, draws on the strengths of many schools of thought, takes the essence and discards the dross, and puts together the most exciting parts of several novels into one, the result will definitely be good.
But he is still too young! Even if he is in high school now, he would have more options if he were 15 years old.
He looked at the teacher on the podium with vacant eyes, but his mind was thinking about things unrelated to the lesson. The pencil in his right hand unconsciously tapped on the exercise book. He felt a sense of emotion and wanted to write down, 'The world's longest distance is not between the rich and the poor, but knowing that money is there, but now unable to earn it.' However, as soon as he finished writing 'the world's longest distance', the bell rang for the end of the lesson. He didn't bother to continue, closed the exercise book and prepared to put it in his desk.
At that moment, he heard someone next to him shouting, 'Hey, Feng Yiping.'
He turned his head and saw Huang Jingping. "What's up?'
Huang Jingping's deskmate Wang Jinju leaned over her shoulder, grinning and looking over. Huang Jingping said, "Why aren't you paying attention in class? Get a notebook and get ready to write something?'
When she said this, Feng Yiping remembered that the teacher of moral education, Mr Huang, was her second uncle. She must be speaking out for her second uncle. After all, her second uncle's class was not a matter of reading from the textbook, interspersed with many stories. It was a class that all three first grade classes loved to listen to. Feng Yiping had just been distracted for the whole lesson.
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Feng Yiping easily answered this question, 'No, I've been paying full attention. Of all the teachers' classes, I like listening to Miss Huang's the most. Look, I even took a lot of notes.' He showed Huang Jingping the notes Feng Haitao had originally made in the book.
From a distance, Huang Jingping couldn't see clearly, and she only saw that there were indeed words in the blank space of the tree. She really thought Feng Yiping had written them.
When there was nothing to do, Feng Wen snatched the exercise book from Feng Yiping's hands and pushed Wen Hong over to stand between them. 'I want to see what you've actually written!' He quickly scanned the back, 'The world is a group of distant distances.' What is this? Feng Wen couldn't make sense of it. 'Are you writing a poem?'
Hearing him say that, he went off on a tangent, and no one cared whether he was daydreaming in class or not. Wen Hong also leaned over to take a look. 'Hey, it looks like a poem, but why is this the only line? Where's the rest?'
Huang Jingping was a little surprised to hear this. Her classmate Wang Jinju ran over and said, 'What poem? Let me see. Huh, it's only one sentence!'
Feng Yiping saw that, and thought, "Just write it out, so Huang Jingping won't report her uncle to the teacher.
So he took the homework book from Feng Wen and said, "Do you want to see the whole thing? If you want, just give it to me.'
Wen Hong and Wang Jinju both said, 'Give it to him, give it to him!'
Feng Yiping took the notebook, recalled it briefly, and continued writing, using English: 'Is not between life and death, But when I stand in front of you, Yet you don't know that I love you.'
Why did he remember it so clearly? It was because the first text message he sent to Zhang Yan was this one, and he was later repeatedly forced by Zhang Yan to recall it, so there was no way he could not be familiar with it.
When those few saw this, they were a bit dumbfounded. Feng Wen said hesitantly, 'This, is it written by you?'
'Of course not,' Feng Yiping laughed, "it was written by an old man with a white beard in India. I saw it in a bookstore.'
'Oh, then why is it all in English?'
'I translated the first sentence at random, and I wrote down the original text as well.'
He added to his notebook, "The furthest distance in the world.'
'Oh, you have a good memory,' Wang Jinju said.
'Yes, I've always had a good memory.' Feng Yiping didn't need to deny this.
'You're also good at English,' Huang Jingping said, joining in.
'No, I wasn't. I was in a bookstore, and the salesperson was busy. There happened to be an English-Chinese dictionary next to me, so I looked it up,' Feng Yiping continued to make things up.
'Who are you trying to write to?' Wen Hong asked with a smile, her eyes flicking between Feng Yiping and Huang Jingping. 'I don't know the rest, but I know what the last three words mean!' The last three words were 'Iloveyou'. Feng Yiping looked at her blankly. 'I was just fooling around, trying to make you think I was awesome. I really don't know what it means, so you tell me!'
Wen Hong was really embarrassed to say anything after he said that. In this day and age, at this age, those words were too embarrassing to say aloud, so she could only glare at him.
'It's okay, we'll just copy it down and ask the older students when we get back tonight,' Wang Jinju said, bustling around.
'It's okay, you copy it down, and remember to tell me what it means tomorrow,' Wang Jinju said, and really did copy it down. She and Huang Jingping returned to their seats and opened their English textbooks. In a little while, the two of them were lying on their stomachs on the table, heads facing each other, and giggling. Feng Yiping knew that it seemed they had also figured out the meaning of the last three words.
After dinner, Feng Yiping invited Xiao Zhijie and Wang Changning to go for a bath in the river, and Feng Wen followed them. The four of them sneaked out of the school gate and went to the same place as yesterday, stripped naked and rubbed themselves with towels. At the same time, they had to be careful not to get their hair wet, otherwise it would take a long time to dry, and if the teacher saw them, they would know that they were bathing in the river and would inevitably be scolded.
Feng Yiping sniffed the clothes he had taken off. They smelled strongly of sweat, but there was no soap. Xiao Zhijie saw this and said, 'I'll bring soap tomorrow. We'll wash the clothes once every three days, and change them on Saturdays when we go home. That'll be just fine.'
Changing clothes twice a week was actually quite good. The school didn't have a place to take showers, so most people either didn't wash in the middle of the week, and waited until they went home at the weekend, or they just took a basin of water and washed a few times in the evenings. As for doing the laundry, there was nowhere to do that either. The third-year students all took their clothes to the pond and washed them by hand.
The first-year students, with the exception of the naturally vain girls and a few male students, were all unkempt. And they were really unkempt. What do I mean? For example, most of the boys didn't even have a hairbrush, and they never combed their hair unless it was time to wash it. Feng Yiping used to be like that too. At home, he wouldn't wash every day even if he had the conditions to bathe, let alone now at school where the hardware and software are not available. Besides, no one is there to tell him off, so he can just not wash if he doesn't want to.
But he is different now. Even the most dishevelled man will become more attentive after getting married. There's no way around it, if you're dishevelled, your wife won't let you into bed. Feng Yiping is even more impressive. After the birth of his son, he became a bit of a germaphobe, washing his hands dozens of times a day. Zhang Yan can't stand it anymore. There's no way around it, looking at that pink and tender little guy, how can you hold him if you don't wash him clean!
'Okay, I'll change it tomorrow. I think I sweated too much yesterday while weeding the playground,' explained Feng Yiping.
During evening study hall, Feng Yiping reviewed all the lessons he had taken during the day, memorised several key points of ideological and moral education, and then thought about his plans to get rich. However, this time he was more experienced and flipped through the book every few minutes to avoid being noticed by the students sitting next to him.
After much thought, he decided that he could only submit articles to magazines gradually. He felt that he had to find a way to do it from other aspects, so he had to learn other knowledge, such as drawing and music.
In the evening, lying in bed, he silently went over everything he had learned in class that day. He thought that everything else was still in the early stages, and that there was not much knowledge yet. Only the moral character course required him to memorise a few key points, which took some time. If he reviewed it again in the morning, it would be consolidated.
This method is actually known to many people, but few can persevere with it. Feng Yiping persevered for three years of secondary school, and the results were very good, with his grades consistently ranking among the top two in his year group.
After going over everything, Feng Yiping was tired and fell asleep quickly. He hadn't had a good night's sleep the night before and hadn't taken a nap at noon today.