Chapter 29: Assassination
When we were young, we didn't know what consequences our actions would bring, but now that we're older, we suddenly realize that some things can only be done when we were young.
"What did you say?" The voice of Xiao Yuchen, the study committee member, came from Class 1, Grade 1, Fengmao Middle School.
"Don't you understand what I'm saying? Hand over your notes, or if you'd rather, you can tear them up in front of me." Mr. Luan said this and started collecting the notes from the front to the back. Ouyang didn't think much about it and tore his note apart. Mr. Luan glanced at him but didn't say anything. Almost all the students' notes were torn, some were handed over, one thing was for sure, except for Xiao Yuchen's, all the notes in the class had been destroyed.
"How can you not hand it over?" Mr. Luan said, tearing the paper strip in his hand. Xiao Yuchen didn't respond and walked straight to the classroom door with her backpack on. "You're really unreasonable," she said when she reached the door. "Did I tell you to leave the classroom?" Mr. Luan asked, frowning and leaning against the podium. "Why should I give it to you? We spent money printing those paper strips. Why would I let you tear them up?" Xiao Yuchen turned around and loudly said to Mr. Luan with a confident tone. Mr. Luan smiled, which looked like a victor mocking a loser to Ouyang. He said, "Listen, Xiao Yuchen, if you don't hand over the paper strip today and walk out of this classroom, then next Monday, come to school with your parents." Xiao Yuchen seemed angry and raised her voice even more: "Are you threatening me? I'm walking out right now! See what you can do to me!" After that, she stormed out. Apparently, Mr. Luan didn't expect Xiao Yuchen to actually leave like that. He turned around and said to the whole class, "You don't need to guess who told me about the paper strip incident. Actually, I overheard it at noon from the window in the back of the classroom. I know you all have opinions about this math teacher, but since it's arranged by the school, you should obey. Honestly, I'm really disappointed. The learning committee and student union organization did such a thing. Even if you want to start a revolution, think about whether you have the capital for it." After saying that, Mr. Luan left the classroom with the torn paper strip in his hand.
The classroom was very quiet, and everyone hadn't spoken for a long time. After a long while, Xiao Yuchen's best friend Yang Hongyu stood up and walked towards the door of the classroom, leaving behind these words:
"If I had known the school was like this, it would have been better to leave." Yang Hongyu left, and his classmates also dispersed. Ouyang looked at her watch and said to Wang Lin in front of her, "It's too late, we won't make it to the commuter train today, let's take the bus back." Wang Lin responded with a grunt and followed Ouyang out of the classroom. After a while, Xu Xue Mei also came out, and when Ouyang saw that Xu Xue Mei seemed to be holding something in her hand, she asked, "What are you holding?" Xu Xue Mei let out a sly laugh and said, "I told the teacher I tore it up and threw it away, but actually, it's been in my hands all along." Xu Xue Mei opened her palm, revealing a crumpled piece of paper. Ouyang silently scolded herself for not thinking of this method earlier.
Three people returned home late that day. Faced with their mother's inquiry, Ouyang told the truth. Feng Hongyan smiled and patted Little Ouyang's head, saying: "You're really a honest kid. Actually, you could have hidden the note and brought it back to me. I won't go to school, but I do want to see how much your classmates dislike this math teacher." After dinner, because it was Friday, Ouyang didn't need to do homework. He went straight back to his room, where Max was playing games. Ouyang told Max about what happened that day. Unexpectedly, Max got extremely excited.
"So? Did that Xiao guy in your class scold the teacher?" Mais asked, and his first question was such a surprise. Ouyang said tonelessly: "He just talked back a few sentences, but slamming the door and leaving is still pretty cool, I couldn't do it anyway." Mais looked at Ouyang with disdain, glanced at him, and said: "Please, if it were you, you would definitely apologize to the teacher obediently." Ouyang didn't say anything, he was thinking about how Teacher Zhou would deal with Xiao Yuchen's problem on Monday.
One night passed, and the Clear and Bright Festival has arrived. It is said that during the Clear and Bright Festival, rain falls in a drizzle, but this year's Clear and Bright Festival did not bring any rain. In the morning, Ouyang was doing his homework at home when his phone rang; it was a text message from Xu Yu Jie.
"Dummy, what are you doing? Are you free these two days? Come play in C district."
Ouyang picked up his mobile phone and replied
"No way, I have an extracurricular class tonight and it's Qingming Festival, I need to go burn incense for my grandfather."
"Ah, family matters are still more important. I'm going shopping tomorrow, which one do you think looks good on me, white or pink?"
Ouyang thought for a moment and replied: "Pink, okay. Yu Jie, do you think Xiao Yuchen will be summoned by his parents on Monday?"
Xu Yu Jie's response was "That's for sure, we almost got into a fight, but some parents still received the notes. However, even if they did receive them, I doubt any parent would actually go to school to find the principal. We're just students, after all, and can't change the bigger environment."
After chatting with Yuè Jié, it was already noon. After Ouyang finished lunch, he prepared to go to his English extracurricular class, which was actually from 4:30 to 6:30 in the evening. During the break of the supplementary class, Ouyang asked Xǔ Xuěméi, and unexpectedly, she said something that surprised him: "I don't care about others, I've already discussed it with my mom, and she'll go to school on Monday." Ouyang said: "But what if only your mom goes? The school won't listen, will they?" Xǔ Xuěméi shook her head and said: "If you think that because you can't change something, you shouldn't try, then you'll never be able to change reality." Ouyang stopped arguing with her. He felt that Xǔ Xuěméi did everything very seriously and confidently. Hopefully, some parents would follow in the footsteps of Xǔ Xuěméi's mother and go talk to the school leaders about changing teachers.
After class, Ouyang didn't choose to go home directly. When he arrived at the building, he called his mother. After a while, his grandmother, mother, and Mais walked down together. The four of them went to the entrance where they burned paper during Chinese New Year. Feng Qinglian still walked into that warehouse and came out with a stack of spirit money after a while. Everyone was silent. His mother drew a circle on the ground with a fire stick, saying that each deceased person needs their own place. Feng Qinglian put the spirit money in the circle, took out a lighter from his pocket, and lit the paper. Mais slowly stirred the burning paper with a stick. On the side, Feng Hongyan spoke up first: "Dad, your grandson is here today. You won't be angry that he didn't come last time, will you? Today is Qingming Festival, but it's not raining. Mom always says she wants to come along, and I couldn't stop her. Chenxi, say a few words to your grandfather." Feng Hongyan looked at Ouyang after speaking. Ouyang looked at the burning spirit money and said: "Grandfather, are you doing well in heaven? Everything is fine here. Soon my brother and I will move into a big house with high floors. You'll be happy too, Grandfather." Mais, standing beside Ouyang, walked back and forth a few steps before saying: "Grandfather, don't worry. With me around, Grandma won't be bullied." Feng Qinglian remained silent throughout.
After returning home, Feng Qinglian washed up and went to sleep without saying a word. The Qingming Festival passed like this, on Sunday, Ou Yang followed Mai Si to see the house that would be moving in soon, Mai Si asked Ou Yang at the bottom of the building: "Do you think Grandpa will be happy if he knows Grandma is living in such a good house?" Ou Yang said: "He must be." In the afternoon, the two children went to the stadium and played basketball for an afternoon. Then Mai Si invited Ou Yang to eat ice cream. Ou Yang could see that Mai Si was in a very good mood today. Before, every time they finished playing basketball, it was always Ou Yang who paid the bill and bought two egg rolls at a store near the stadium that specialized in selling ice cream. Mai Si's reasons for doing so were always convincing to Ou Yang, because Mai Si scored more points than Ou Yang when playing basketball. But this time, although Mai Si still scored many points, he unusually offered to pay the bill himself, probably because they would be moving into the new house soon. Seeing Mai Si's new home, Ou Yang thought of his own happy community house and wondered when it could be moved in.
On Sunday, Ouyang went to bed very early, which made his mother, Feng Hongyan, very puzzled. In her impression, although Ouyang slept early every Sunday, he had never gone to bed as early as 8:30 pm before. What she didn't know was that Ouyang was looking forward to the quick arrival of Monday. On one hand, he wanted to see how Mr. Luan would handle Xiao Yuchen; on the other hand, he also wanted to see how many parents would go to school to react to the change of math teacher.
That day finally arrived, Monday. Ouyang got up very early, or rather, he woke up excitedly. On the commute to school, everyone was discussing Xiao Yuchen's issue. Li Jun and students from other classes had already known about what happened in Class 1 on Friday. They all thought Xiao Yuchen was too awesome, at least they didn't dare confront their teachers directly. Ouyang, however, felt it was no big deal. He believed that as long as he thought something was right, regardless of the other person's status, he should argue with them. This was also why when he was a kid, he always talked back to his mother and got punished for standing still but refused to admit his mistake. Ouyang attributed this behavior to his personality problem.
Here is the translation:
When he arrived at school, Ouyang entered the classroom and took a glance, then smiled. Wang Lin knew that Ouyang was smiling because he had finally arrived earlier than Xiao Zhu today. So he walked up to Ouyang with a mischievous grin and said, "But wasn't this milk tea bought in vain?" Only then did Ouyang remember that he had thought he would arrive later than Xiao Zhu, so when he came, he had bought a bottle of milk tea at the warehouse outside. After thinking for a moment, Ouyang casually put the bottle of milk tea on Xu Yuejie's desk. The one who said this was Xu Xuemei, who had just put down her backpack and was changing into her school uniform. There were only three people in the class, so Ouyang immediately looked around and made a "shh" gesture, and Xu Xuemei laughed.
"Oh, right, Wang Lin. If Mu Yuhan comes later and asks, don't say I bought it." After finishing speaking, Ouyang took out a box of Crystal Love jelly from his backpack, which was the same as what he had bought for Xu Yujie last time. Wang Lin didn't know why Ouyang wanted to buy it for Mu Yuhan, so he accepted it and put it on Mu Yuhan's desk, nodding his head.
"Hey, Ouyang." As soon as Ouyang turned around, a bottle of Coke flew towards him. He caught it with his hand and looked in the direction of the voice to see Mu Rong Xiao Zhu panting heavily. Ouyang revealed a triumphant smile: "See, I knew you'd be late today, didn't even prepare a drink for you." Xiao Zhu didn't seem to care, tidying up her things before saying to Ouyang: "Really? Then I'll just go ahead and drink that bottle of milk tea!" She was about to head over to Xu Yue Jie's seat to grab the milk tea when Ouyang hastily stopped her. "You win, okay, let's not do this." Xiao Zhu smiled and walked out of the classroom.
"Look what you're looking at, don't laugh." Although Ou Yang said so, Wang Lin and Xu Xue Mei couldn't help but burst out laughing. Ou Yang didn't have the heart to care about them, "Xiao Yu Chen, when will he arrive?" This was the only question in Ou Yang's mind.
