Chapter 9: 8. His Heart Went Thump, Thump
Originally, it only took twelve minutes to ride to school, but because he was carrying Zhou Hengyu, the trip took nearly twenty minutes.
By the time Zhang Luo parked the bike and the two of them hurried to the classroom, their homeroom teacher, Xu Shuiyun, was already standing at the classroom door.
“Good morning, Teacher Xu.”
“Good morning, Teacher Xu.”
The two entered the classroom one after the other.
Xu Shuiyun watched them enter with a stern expression. Only after everyone had gone inside did she step to the doorway and glance in. Seeing that every student was sitting properly in their own seat, she finally turned and left.
Zhang Luo had a very deep impression of Xu Shuiyun.
Because this teacher—how should he put it—was actually a very good teacher.
Although she was stern all year round and rarely smiled.
In an ordinary class, she was the only one who cared about every single student’s grades.
Unfortunately, when the humanities and sciences classes were divided in the second year of high school, she went to teach a humanities class, while Zhang Luo chose science.
The first class was English.
English was Zhang Luo’s weak point.
During the college entrance exam, English had been his shortcoming.
If he had scored just twenty points higher in English, he would have been able to get into a fairly decent university.
However, a score of 105 had been far too tragic.
To Zhang Luo, the reason his English was poor was not only because he didn’t like the subject itself, but also because of one very important reason: he hated his English teacher in the second and third years of high school.
She was a snob.
If a student’s parents gave her gifts, she would take better care of that student; if they didn’t, she would treat them coldly and indifferently.
Many people thought teachers who beat and scolded students at every turn were the bad teachers. But no. There was actually another kind of bad teacher—one who treated you as if you were nothing. On the surface, it seemed like she had not harmed you, yet through her every word and action, she expressed her disregard for you.
When you took a question to ask her, she would lower her eyes, letting her gaze pass through the lenses of her glasses to look up at you from below, then say in a sarcastic tone, “Wasn’t this already covered in class?” before turning and walking away.
By contrast, their English teacher in the first year of high school had only just graduated from university and was actually still a young girl. Although her teaching was rather inexperienced, she was genuinely good to the students.
Zhang Luo had always felt that the reason he had done poorly in English was because he had never met a good teacher.
Though later, after he grew up, he also realized that in life, you could not expect everyone you met to be a good person. A person had to be capable of holding their ground even when they encountered bad people.
Their first-year English teacher’s surname was Chu, and her name was Chu Xing. This was the first class of students she taught after graduating from university. In June of this year, she herself had still been a university student; by September, she had become a teacher.
Zhang Luo no longer had many impressions of Chu Xing. The only thing he still remembered was that twice, she had been angered to tears by unruly students in the class, and halfway through the lesson, she had rushed straight out of the classroom.
Later, when Zhang Luo heard news about her again, it was already many years afterward. They said that Chu Xing had become one of the backbone teachers at City No. 2 High School.
At that time, he found it very difficult to connect the image of a backbone teacher with that girl who had once been driven to tears.
-
“Zhang Luo, did you watch the game over the weekend?” his deskmate Xu Da asked him in a low voice.
Zhang Luo shook his head.
Xu Da said, “Holy shit! You actually didn’t watch the game? Wang Zhiliang was freaking amazing! He scored in the last minute and sent our Xuyang City into the top four!”
Xu Da’s voice was far too excited.
Everyone around them looked over.
So did Chu Xing.
Chu Xing glanced in their direction.
Zhang Luo felt a little awkward at that moment.
“Let’s talk after class,” he said quietly.
But Xu Da seemed completely unconcerned. “It’s fine. She doesn’t dare get mad.”
Zhang Luo glanced at him but said nothing. What he was thinking, however, was:
—So boys at this age were this hard to like?
The Xu Da in his memory had never left him with such an impression.
Zhang Luo was also shocked. In that moment, he actually subconsciously felt that this brat Xu Da was way too rude.
“I want to listen to class.” Zhang Luo tossed out that sentence and ignored him.
Xu Da’s eyes widened in shock as he stared at Zhang Luo in disbelief.
Although the first year of high school had only started not long ago, quite a few people in the class seemed to have already become familiar with one another.
Because Zhang Luo was tall, he sat in the last row.
He discovered that there were hardly any people around him listening seriously to the lesson. Some were flipping through magazines, some were lying on their desks asleep, and some were secretly whispering.
There were even several moments when Zhang Luo wanted to lose his temper and tell them to shut up.
He held himself back.
He listened seriously for a while and found that Chu Xing’s teaching was indeed very average. All kinds of technical terms—he was listening earnestly and still couldn’t understand them, let alone those who hadn’t wanted to listen in the first place.
Even so, Zhang Luo still tried hard to take some notes.
Fortunately, he vaguely remembered what the key exam points were. He also knew that for a subject like English, even if you really couldn’t understand the lesson, it didn’t matter that much. As long as you knew every word, you could still get quite a few points.
As soon as English class ended, before Chu Xing had even left the classroom, Xu Da asked with an earth-shattering look of shock, “Zhang Luo, what are you doing? Why are you suddenly studying so seriously?”
Zhang Luo capped his pen and shrugged. “What? You got a problem with it?”
Xu Da said, “Awesome. You’re awesome. Then are you still playing soccer this afternoon?”
Playing soccer?
That was another memory from long ago.
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
Zhang Luo immediately grew a little excited. After he started working, he knew all too well how hard it was to arrange a game of soccer. It was nothing like when they were students—if you wanted to play, you just did, and there would always be someone around to play with you.
-
The second period was still English.
What Zhang Luo was especially grateful for now was that, fortunately, English classes at this time were not taught entirely in English yet. Most of the time, introductions and explanations were still given in Chinese.
Otherwise, he really might not have been able to understand.
However, perhaps because he had been too focused and serious during the first period, he was unbearably sleepy during the second period—
This really shouldn’t have been the case, since he had slept a solid eight hours at the very least yesterday.
After the second English class ended, during the break.
Zhang Luo heard a classmate in front say, “What the hell was Chu Xing talking about? I couldn’t understand a thing.”
“You couldn’t understand either? I thought I was the only one.”
“Attributives, adverbials, complements—who can even tell them apart? I can’t even figure out these terms in Chinese, let alone in English.”
……
His first day back in a high school classroom.
Listening to the voices of the students around him complaining, Zhang Luo felt an inexplicable sense of novelty.
Then the march began playing over the broadcast.
It was time for broadcast calisthenics.
Zhang Luo: “……”
Zhang Luo had completely forgotten about this.
Everyone filed out as if it were perfectly normal.
No one felt embarrassed about doing broadcast calisthenics. Only Zhang Luo, whose body housed the soul of a thirty-year-old, would.
However, Zhang Luo soon saw Jiang Xiaoyu at the very front of the neighboring class, leading the exercises.
Her hair was tied in a ponytail. Standing beneath the sunlight, her waist held straight, she was talking to the girl in front of the line, smiling brightly and full of vitality.
Zhang Luo heard his own heartbeat quicken.
Thump, thump, thump-thump.
Old book recommendation~