Chapter Twenty-Five New Semester

  Change is a good thing.

  "Have you finished your homework?" Mrs. Ouyang's voice came from the kitchen.

  "Don't worry, basically everything is ready, this semester's books aren't that many." Little Ouyang was tying his shoelaces. Because he had switched to a smaller commute vehicle, he wouldn't need as much time to get to school, so he could sleep in relatively later. His mother had already prepared and packed lunch into his lunchbox, and Ouyang found that his mother's cooking skills had improved significantly, with some signature dishes now. He remembered that when he was in elementary school, his mother never cooked, but from junior high on, since Ouyang started commuting, his mother's hands hadn't been idle. She must have learned a lot from Grandma Feng Qinglian too. Little Ouyang thought this as he took the bag with his lunchbox and headed out the door. In the kitchen, Feng Hongyan finished up and also prepared breakfast for Max, then went into the room to make a phone call.

  "Hello, is this a decoration company? I spoke with you on the phone before. I'd like to ask when my house will be renovated and ready for me to move in."

  "So you're saying it'll take some time for the smell in the room to dissipate, but I can actually move in now? Thank you so much."

  Hanging up the phone, Feng Hongyan's mouth corners rose with a hint of a smile.

  It's Monday, the weather is great, and Ou Yang seems to have felt the spring breeze brushing against his face. It's not particularly cold, but his mother is still worried that he'll catch a chill, so she made him wear thick cotton clothes. Looking around, everyone else is wearing less, but he thinks it's better to be safe than sorry. The commute bus is much faster than last semester's, and they need to arrive at school early for the new semester's opening ceremony. After getting off the bus, Ou Yang walks quickly with Wang Lin and Xu Xue Mei towards the school. It seems that this time, the commute bus has a deal with the school, so it can drive into the Le Fang residential area. On the way to school, Ou Yang notices that there are more people in the residential area, and music is already playing from the central square. Although there's no fountain, everything feels full of life.

  "Do you have to walk so fast?" Ouyang turned his head and saw that it was Mu Yuhan standing behind him, probably just coming out of her house. Wang Lin smiled and said, "We're not like you, it only takes ten minutes from home to school." Mu Yuhan didn't respond and continued walking towards the school. Ouyang shrugged and followed along, walking beside Mu Yuhan and asking, "What do you think of our new teacher?" Mu Yuhan didn't turn to look at Ouyang and said, "It's just like that, anyway we don't have math class with them, but it seems like the math teacher is also changing, apparently it's a male teacher, not sure if he's good or not." Ouyang nodded and then didn't know what to say, continuing to walk towards the school.

  "You must be very happy." Mu Yuhan suddenly said such a sentence when they were almost at the school gate.

  "What?" Ouyang said in puzzlement

  "It feels great to be with Yu Jie, right?" Mu Yuhan said this without lifting her head, Ouyang clearly saw that Mu Yuhan's head was tilted to the other side, and couldn't see her expression.

  "It's okay." Ouyang didn't know how to respond and could only say this.

  "Well, that's good. If anything happens, be sure to tell me." Mu Yuhan pushed his glasses and kept looking in the direction of the school.

  "Nothing will happen, right?" Ouyang said nonchalantly.

  "Ah, right, I was worried too much, let's hurry up, we'll be late," Mu Yuhan said, quickening his pace. Ouyang turned around and urged Wang Lin and Xu Xue to follow him. Before long, they arrived at the playground, where some classmates were already heading towards the teaching building. They quickly entered the classroom, where Ouyang took out his school uniform from his backpack and put it on. This was a rule at Fengmao School: no matter what the weather was like, students had to wear their uniforms on Mondays during flag-raising ceremonies and regular physical education classes. As a result, many classmates wore thick sweaters under their uniforms, while some even wore their uniforms over their jackets, looking quite clumsy. Ouyang, who was wearing enough layers underneath, simply threw his jacket onto the desk. It seemed that the new teacher was very particular about time, as most of the students in the class had already gone downstairs except for the student on duty. Ouyang glanced around and saw that there was no backpack on the desk next to him, apparently Xiaozhu was also not punctual.

  "Hey, Ouyang, you haven't gone downstairs yet, let's go together." Just entering from the classroom door was Xu Yu Jie. Mo Yu Heng, who was beside her, wanted to say something, but Ouyang knew that Mo Yu Heng had already packed up and wanted to follow him downstairs. So Ouyang said: "I'm going to use the restroom, you can just head down after you're done packing." After saying that, he walked directly towards the door. Xu Yu Jie in the classroom showed a slightly unhappy expression. A few seconds later, Mo Yu Heng also came out and didn't say anything, the two of them just headed downstairs together.

  There were a lot of people in the corridor. In the past, every time Ouyang attended the flag-raising ceremony, he would directly join the queue with his backpack on, but today, Ouyang arrived at school unusually early and found that there were more students than he had imagined. The corridor was packed with students rushing downstairs. Ouyang naturally pushed through the crowd in front of Mu Yuhan, and when they were about to reach the entrance, Mu Yuhan smiled and said, "Thank you." Ouyang didn't think much of it, thought for a moment, and then said, "What are you talking about? It's only natural for boys to protect girls, right?" Mu Yuhan lowered her head and didn't say anything.

  When he arrived at the class queue, Ouyang only discovered that Xiao Zhu was standing at the end of the queue with her backpack on, but Ouyang found out again that Xiao Zhu's height among girls was really high, and wondered why she was arranged to sit in the fourth row of the class, or was it because her own height grew too fast?

  "Alright, Ouyang." The speaker was Zhou Feng. Ouyang greeted him and looked around before saying, "Where's Zhao Junyi? He didn't come late again, did he?" Zhou Feng chuckled and said, "I wouldn't have thought you'd be so concerned about him. I don't know either, my relationship with him isn't that great. But I'll advise you to be careful, you made him unhappy last semester." Ouyang suddenly remembered the text message Zhao Junyi had sent him when he first got his phone, and then said, "Can he still find someone to beat me up?" Zhou Feng continued, "It won't come to that. If anything happens, I'll let you know in advance since we sit next to each other. Please take care of yourself."

  The loudspeaker in the teaching building started broadcasting, and the two people stopped talking. This semester's flag-raising ceremony was much faster than last semester's, as there were no new students joining, and the weather was also quite cold, so it ended in less than 20 minutes. Ouyang watched as the national flag slowly rose, suddenly remembering the flag-raising ceremonies in elementary school. Although he had never been a flag-bearer, he recalled introducing friends during one of the ceremonies, similar to introducing the flag-bearer, saying some good words as a friend of the flag-bearer. He remembered standing on the balcony of the fourth floor office building in elementary school, facing all his classmates, with legs that were still shaking slightly. I wonder if there's any hope of going up to raise the flag this year, even just as a guard. Thinking back to last semester, when the class first raised the flag, Xu Xue Mei had already become the flag-bearer, and Teacher Liu said it was to reward Xu Xue Mei for getting first place in the class. If that's how it works, then Ouyang is really far from becoming a flag-bearer.

  After the flag-raising ceremony, we returned to class. Mr. Luan was still talking on the podium about some things, mainly about not allowing early love, not reading extracurricular books, and making sure homework is completed. However, everyone was concerned about the first math teacher's problem. Mr. Luan said: "The new teacher, Mr. Cheng, will be in charge of your math class for this semester. He has also been teaching math at our school for a long time and has rich experience. I hope you all cooperate with him to learn math well."

  Before long, it was time for the first class. Mr. Cheng entered the classroom, and overall, Ouyang felt that the class was not very good. Not only did Ouyang feel this way, but all of Class 1's students thought so too. The teacher spoke with a flat tongue and didn't enunciate clearly; in kid language, he was a bit "tongue-tied". When speaking, his mouth would open really wide, giving off an exaggerated impression that made everyone feel uncomfortable. They all thought that maybe after a few more classes, it would get better. Next up was English class, and the teacher still had Ouyang act as her English class representative, which made Ouyang very happy. As for Chinese class, Ms. Pan's voice was as magnetic as ever, drawing everyone in. After class, when asked about Mr. Cheng, Ms. Pan said something that Ouyang remembered: "If you can't change some things, then change yourself to adapt to them." Ouyang thought this made a lot of sense.

  Xu Xue Mei really disliked this math teacher. During lunch, Xu Xue Mei said bluntly: "If he's still teaching us math, our class won't do well in math." Wang Lin was indifferent, while Ouyang didn't like math anyway and didn't comment. In the afternoon, they received new exercise books. Ouyang found out that this semester's exercise books were called "Black Horse Exercise Books". To his surprise, he discovered that the authors of the exercise books were their own teachers. When Xu Xue Mei got her hands on the exercise book, she sneered and said during recess that she wouldn't bother doing the exercises properly. She complained that private schools just wanted to squeeze every penny out of them, printing exercise books that were compiled by their own school. Ouyang thought it was okay, but if the textbooks were also written by their teachers, that would be ridiculous.

  That evening after school, Xu Yu Jie found Ouyang and said: "Do you bring your lunch every day? Have you ever thought of eating out?" Wang Lin, who was standing beside them, didn't wait for Ouyang to speak and interrupted: "His mom doesn't dare give him money, afraid he'll waste it." Xu Yu Jie glanced at Wang Lin and continued: "Okay then, starting tomorrow I'll bring my lunch too, we can eat together at noon." Ouyang smiled and said: "But aren't you always with Mu Yu Huan and the others? Isn't that not good?" Xu Yu Jie shook her head and said: "It's nothing, of course you're more important than them. Besides, even if those two didn't have me, I wouldn't be affected." Ouyang didn't say anything.

  That night, when Ouyang returned home, she told her mother about the new teacher and the practice book. Feng Hongyan was very understanding and said: "Since everyone is not satisfied, we don't need to force it. City schools are like this, so if they give you a practice book, just do it." Ouyang reluctantly nodded. This Cheng teacher loved assigning homework, and basically, the homework in the first year of junior high was just post-class exercises and preview reviews. However, most of them were changed to practice books this semester. Luan teacher was very clever and asked everyone to tear off the answers to all the exercises and hand them in. However, the students still came up with a solution. There was a bookstore near the school that sold these practice books, so they pooled their money to buy one book, photocopied the answers, and each person got a copy. The money came from the class fund. Ouyang couldn't believe this was an activity organized by the class cadres. It was said that the learning committee, led by a student surnamed Xiao, made the decision. This showed how much everyone disliked these practice books. Of course, the learning committee also didn't like the new math teacher and even said that if it were still this teacher at mid-term, he would do something about it. Ouyang suddenly felt that city students had a lot of character and ideas, and she wondered what he would do next.

  New semester, new atmosphere