For a while after waking up in an unfamiliar room, Chi Tang couldn’t react properly. She laid there, motionlessly staring at the ceiling before she recalled that this was the new residence.
It seemed to be raining outside the window. Nanlin City likes to rain a lot. She has been here for just a week and it has rained almost every day. Chi Tang never liked rain, and every time it rained her mood turns foul.
The earphones she had plugged in before going to bed held their places, just that there was no sound. She ripped them out and rubbed her aching ears. She sat by the bed for a long time without moving until her father started banging on the door incessantly, losing patience because of all his unsuccessful attempts at opening it. “Why did you lock the door? Hurry up and get ready. Go to class yourself later, I’m leaving.”
"Chi Tang, do you hear me?" The lock was rattling from all the twisting, and the door made a disturbing noise as if it was about to be knocked down from the violent treatment.
Chi Tang laid down without answering and put on her earphones again. The increasingly loud music veiled the noise outside, just like the countless other times she used this method to cover up the endless arguments between her parents.
The sound stopped, the rain did not, and the house was quiet, left empty once more.
Chi Tang left the house with her bag. She didn't like using an umbrella and the rain was light outside. She just pulled up her hood to cover her head and walked into the wind and rain.
…...
Year 1 Class 2 of Nanlin No. 1 High School. One month after the start of the new semester, the class of fifty-ish students pretty much all knew each other and most of them formed cliques, having found friends to hang out with. But with so many people in one class, it’s pretty inevitable that there would be one or two lone geeks avoided by everyone else.
Chi Tang is one of them. She had transferred to this school only a week ago. She was not interested in making friends and sat in the back of the classroom, cold and aloof. She's that kind of girl, pretty with thin eyelids, thin lips, a high nose bridge, and always has this world-weary laziness when she lowers her eyes.
Most of them in Class 2 were still good kids; the teacher didn’t allow bringing phones to school, and few dared to do so. But Chi Tang brought it every day, even using her earphones to listen to songs. Having an indifferent look, arriving late was not an unusual occurrence for her too.
Normally the ones acting like this were students with poor grades squandering away their days, but in the monthly examination she entered the top ten in class and the top fifty in her grade, far ahead of the other frivolous residents of the back row.
Apart from Chi Tang, there is another “alien” in Class 2 — You Yu.
Entering the school with the second-highest grade in the entrance examination and first in the monthly exam this time, the thing about You Yu that was a stark contrast to her dazzling academic performance was how poor she was.
Of course, it wasn’t as if everyone in class came from wealthy backgrounds, there were some who were relatively poor, but it’s quite unbelievable for one to be as poor as You Yu. Even someone like Chi Tang who never really cared about what’s going on around her has heard some rumors, thanks to the gossip enthusiast sitting beside her.
You Yu came from a very remote village in the mountains. It was a miracle for her to be admitted to Nanlin No. 1 High School and it was said that she was waived tuition and accommodation fees by the school.
Although the school uniform jackets were the same, the clothes beneath the school uniform that You Yu wore was a round neck T-shirt that she washed so many times it had its color faded and the hem curled up, evidence that it has been worn for many years. She also wore a pair of fabric shoes on her feet — in this day and age where people generally had on sports shoes or leather ones, they immediately separated her from everyone else.
You Yu sat near the windows in the third row. She was not short and because of that, she looked really thin. Her long black hair was neatly braided and placed behind her head—the tacky sort from rural areas.
"Oh my God, I can't bear living in the same dorm with her, not saying a word all day. The others in our dormitory too. We don't want to talk when we see her. Her clothes are already in that state but she still keeps them. And her shoes — she hasn't washed them after wearing them for so long. Did you know that she doesn’t even buy shampoo and shower gel? Just soap. She even washes her hair with soap!"
"No way, is she really that poor? How much does it cost to buy some clothes, some toiletries, and a pair of shoes? I don’t believe it, how are there still people this poor now? I thought the school gave her financial aid."
"She also brought porridge and steamed buns back to the dormitory, just beside her bed, and ate that for two days. Seriously, like she doesn’t care if it turns bad. I’m just afraid that she would continue doing this. How can we live with her if she brings spoiled food to the dorm?"
The girls’ endless complaints rang in her ears. They were noisy so Chi Tang glanced at them, got up, and went to the bathroom.
There were too many people going to the toilets on this floor and Chi Tang disliked having to wait in line. She would rather walk a little longer to the toilet south of the classroom block, where there were fewer people.
Immediately after going in, she came face to face with You Hu, the top scorer in the grade who had been the subject of complaint just now, washing her hands. Chi Tang has never interacted with her, nor has she studied her features before. Running to her here, perhaps because of the conversation she had just overheard, she gave her an extra glance.
It just so happened that You Yu raised her head, and the two gazed into each other’s eyes briefly.
This was the first time Chi Tang looked at You Yu's face properly.
You Yu has a pair of beautiful eyes, dark in color and in a pretty shape. It was just that she was too thin and had a poor complexion, and that made her lose her youthful luster. She was always silent, quiet but not timid, just immersed in her own world, doing her own things.
The two did not say anything; they merely brushed past each other.
……
Chi Tang was a day student and went back home every night. Due to a sudden power cut in the campus, the upperclassmen studied with candles and lamps while the first years were dismissed early. Chi Tang took the bus home. She actually had motion sicknesses, so she leaned on the back of the bus seat and closed her eyes to rest.
A nimble auntie squeezed into the bus and stood near her. Every once in a while she would cough intentionally, making oblique verbal accusations: "What’s with youngsters nowadays, not even willing to give up their seats when they see an elderly standing right next to them."
Chi Tang looked up at her but didn't move. She didn't even move when the bus arrived at the station where she should get off. She waited until the woman left the bus; only then did she get out of the car and strolled back slowly, swinging her bag after her. She walked the distance between a whole two extra stops to go back.
As the new house was still unfamiliar to her, she only found the correct one after searching through rows of similar looking ones, and took out the key to open the door. Chi Tang had just inserted them when she heard the laughing and moaning of an unfamiliar woman inside, as well as her own father's vulgar teasing.
He took a new woman home again, and she didn't know if it was a new girlfriend or a moll he had called over. With a blank expression, she pulled out the key, turned around, and left.
By the time she returned, close to midnight, there was no longer anybody there, but there was this strange, revolting stench that lingered in the living room. Chi Tang was just standing there when all of a sudden she retched, feeling extremely nauseated.
Disgusted and sick.
……
"It's been one month since school started. Now you are saying you want to live on campus?" Form teacher Old Fang placed the application form he was holding onto his desk. "Did something happen? Did your parents agree to this?"
...When Chi Tang returned to the classroom, she had the key to dorm room 501 in her hands.
"Chi Tang, you are going to live in the dormitory? Why do you want to live on campus so suddenly?"
Chi Tang leaned on the chair. "I suddenly wanted to."
The girl who previously badmouthed You Yu also came over: "You are living in 501? Same room as me. Sigh, the only vacant bed left in our dorm is above her bed. You definitely won’t be able to stand it." She pointed to You Yu in the front row, her hostility clear.
The girl was obviously waiting for her to respond, but Chi Tang didn't want to talk anymore. She rocked her chair upwards and put her earphones on without a single answer.
Expression dark, the girl whipped around and returned to her seat. The snippets of conversation between her and her elbow partner soon came."Why is she so snobbish? Just because her family is well to do, she thinks she’s a princess or something."
Listening to music, Chi Tang opened the textbook and picked a random pen to mark key points.
……
Her father did not stop her from moving into the dorms. He just scolded her routinely. He probably thought that if his daughter was not around, he could indulge himself even more so quickly transferred her a sum of money afterward."Buy what you need for your dorm room yourself."
Chi Tang went to school by herself with a suitcase. She has lived in a dorm before, not for long, but the school dormitories are probably about the same.
A room for six, upper and lower bunk beds, desk cabinets, a separate bathroom, the laundry room, and larger bathrooms on both sides of the floor.
Sure enough, there was only one vacant bed left in 501. Below the bed was You Yu’s. Compared to other people's brightly colored quilts, hers was bleak and she seemed to own very few things.
Chi Tang took one look, then arranged her own bed and put her belongings in the cabinet.
Someone has occupied her cabinet.
"Whoever owns this stuff, take them away."
There is only one person aside from her in the dormitory at this moment. You Yu, holding her lunch box and eating quietly at the table, looked back at her, "It's Luo Zhengli's stuff."
Luo Zhengli, the girl who was very keen to talk about others behind their backs from earlier on.
Youyu's voice was deep and slightly hoarse. She continued to eat after speaking.
Chi Tang took everything out, threw them onto the table, put her own in, locked it, and headed towards the cafeteria for food.
When she came back, Luo Zhengli was complaining, of course, about her.
"Anyhow throwing my things out like this, what’s this supposed to mean, she’s got something against me? We already have You Yu in our dorm, but now we have a high and mighty lady as well."
Chi Tang pushed the door open. The voice came to a halt.
You Yu followed suit and came in not long after, making the room even quieter. It seemed that You Yu was long accustomed to this reaction, though. She packed her lunch boxes and took her textbooks to the classroom block.
The atmosphere in the dormitory was far from pleasant, but it was way better than going home to receive her father’s cussing.
After the self-study period in the evening, Chi Tang followed the buzzing crowd out. Making this group of restless teenagers have enough self-discipline to study on their own accord was obviously a difficult job, and no matter how many times the teachers told them off, the moment the dismissal bell rings, they still gush out of the classroom like wild horses off their leash.
Chi Tang went to buy a bottle of water. Unscrewing the lid, she took two sips. The drink was freshly out of the freezer, its coolness spreading all the way from her stomach to her heart. She wandered around the field aimlessly, noticing how the lights in the windows of the classroom block went out one by one until only a few were left open.
The lights were on in Class 2, and there was a shadow by the window. Chi Tang had to look twice before she recognized that it was You Yu. She walked back to the dorm.
The dormitory was lively, people chatting while using their phones. Someone just came out of the toilet and was about to use the hairdryer.
"I'll shower first."
Seeing Chi Tang come in, Luo Zhengli immediately ended the conversation and stood up, as if she was afraid Chi Tang would go first.
Without raising her eyelids, Chi Tang took another sip of water and sat on her bed, drowsy in the buzzing of the hairdryer.
Lights out time was at 11 pm in the dormitory, and she went to shower at 10.40 pm. Hot showers required a card; she had topped up the new campus card, a blue one, with a lot of money.
When she finished, You Yu was finally back. She put down her books and went to the bathroom to shower. Chi Tang noted the change of clothes she was holding, an old round neck T-shirt, and a pair of uniform pants.
She didn't pay much attention, but before switching the lights off, she went into the toilet again and found the floor and walls chilling wet. There was no trace of heat, not even the poles.
You Yu took a cold shower just now?
The lights went out. Chi Tang returned to the bunk bed with her phone flashlight and saw You Yu on the lower bed facing the wall. Her hair was still wet, but she seemed to be sleeping already.
She laid down on the unfamiliar bed. Yet again, insomnia struck her. It was only around 3 am did she put her phone down, drifting into sleep amidst soothing music.
No comments:
Post a Comment