For the rest of the afternoon, Huang Jingping remained dazed. Whenever Wang Jinju asked her something, she would say, 'Yes!'
Wang Jinju felt that there was something wrong with her and reached out to feel her forehead. 'What's wrong with you? You haven't had a heatstroke, have you?'
'No, I'm just a little sleepy. I'm going out for a bit.' Huang Jingping made a random excuse, glanced at Feng Yiping surreptitiously, and saw that Feng Yiping happened to look up and give her a gentle smile. In an instant, Huang Jingping felt her heart pounding furiously, so she quickly lowered her head and walked towards the back door.
But then she felt like Feng Yiping was always watching her, and she felt uncomfortable even walking. Should I step on my left foot or my right foot? Is my stride too big? Does my posture look bad?
It wasn't until she reached the corridor outside Class 2 that she relaxed. She jogged to the water tap in front of the canteen, scooped up a few handfuls of clean water and poured it over her face, which slightly calmed her down.
Then she wiped her face with a handkerchief with a red flower on a white background, washing her hands while surveying the familiar surroundings.
The drain at the foot of the wall of the canteen still had a rancid smell of sewage; the tung trees behind the house were still green, and from here you could still see that there were several cicadas perched on the branches swaying in the wind, chirping; by the pond, the soft water plants swayed left and right, and a few of the dense reeds had already bloomed. The wind blew, it only bent slightly in the direction of the wind, and then immediately straightened up; on the surface of the pond, the wind rippled the water into sparkling waves, one after the other; a frog, with a 'croak,' jumped from a clump of cattails onto the bank; from the classroom, there was no loud sound of the teacher lecturing, only the constant sound of 'buzzing' could be heard, and occasionally the sharp and short 'creaking' sound of chair legs moving on the ground...
It was all the same as usual, but why did it seem so different today? There was a sudden feeling of joy.
She thought of what Teacher Wang had said the other day about the three realms of the master of Chinese studies Wang Guowei.
Had she already reached the third realm?
The afternoon before the start of the school year, the last lesson turned into a labour class. The school had decided to make some adjustments to the classrooms of the three third grade classes.
Class 2 would remain in place, while Class 3, which was opposite, would move to this side. Feng Yiping's class would move to the frontmost classroom. Xiao Zhijie, the foodie, said that the best thing about this was that it was close to the cafeteria.
During this classroom move, Wang Yumin took the opportunity to rearrange the seating. A seating chart was drawn on the blackboard. Feng Yiping was moved to the second row in the middle, just next to Xiao Zhijie and Zhang Qiuling, who were sandwiched between them.
Behind Feng Yiping was Huang Jingping, and two rows behind them sat Hu Junting.
Feng Yiping felt that the scene was very familiar. On second thought, this seating arrangement was a bit like the one in the movie 'Those Years'.
Zhang Qiuling was very happy, as was Xiao Zhijie. As for Huang Jingping, Feng Yiping wasn't sure if she was happy or not.
Zhang Qiuling happily hummed a song, and placed the books she couldn't put down in front of her desk to form a small city wall. 'Feng Yiping, if you have any more questions, it'll be much more convenient,'
Feng Yiping lazily replied to her, 'It's not that it's not possible, it mainly depends on your attitude. Is your attitude respectful? Do you usually show filial piety? Ugh, I'm tired and thirsty, if only there was a bottle of cold soda!'
'Humph!' Zhang Qiuling pretended not to hear and continued humming, "Ah! What a painful realisation, you were my whole world...'
Feng Yiping laughed and added, "Hey, I was never as helpless as a child!'
Zhang Qiuling thought about it for a while before she understood, and, ashamed and annoyed, she took a book and smashed it over Feng Yiping's head, "You want to die!'
Xiao Zhijie, who looked puzzled, came up from behind Zhang Qiuling and asked Feng Yiping, "What do you mean?'
Feng Yiping nudged Zhang Qiuling and said, 'I don't know what's going on either. Ask her why she's gone crazy.'
Huang Jingping in the back row had been careful not to look at the front row, bowing her head and tidying up. Now she too pricked up her ears, ready to hear what Zhang Qiuling had to say. Zhang Qiuling, of course, refused to say anything, so both the people in the front and back rows were a little disappointed.
On the first day of school, from the first class onwards, there was a lot of noise outside, as the teachers were busy welcoming the new students. The same was true in class, where two new students, both repeaters, were welcomed.
It's a bit awkward to call them classmates. These two are clearly much older than the rest of the class. In particular, Song Weize, who stood at the front of the class, looked like the class monitor. Judging from his shaved jaw and the expression on his face, if he really was only seventeen years old, as the class monitor had said, then he had grown up a bit too quickly.
Feng Yiping felt that he should be in his twenties. Fortunately, he was short, otherwise he would have really embarrassed the people at the police station.
The other one, Su Yong, was slightly better, a bit awkward, and said he was sixteen. Of course, he should be around eighteen.
This kind of situation actually happens every year. It's normal to fail the entrance exam the first year and continue studying the next year. These two are the abnormal ones.
After graduating from junior high school, they probably went out into society to gain some experience for a while, and then thought about coming back to study. But of course, they couldn't go back to the same middle school. Everyone knows your real age, and even if you don't say it normally, after the college entrance exam, if you get in, and someone reports it in a letter that you've long passed the age of 18, then all that hard work will be for nothing.
So they must have also gone through a lot of trouble to be able to come to Liangjiahe Middle School to study.
First, they had to go to the police station and find someone to change their ages. Then, they had to go to the education department to find someone to change their student records or make up a new set of student records. At the same time, they had to find a receiving school that was far away from home.
In short, all of this, not to mention the debts they owed people outside, would not be cheap. For ordinary families, it was really a case of being unable to do what they wanted to do.
When they saw these two new classmates, most people thought about Feng Yiping slapping Zhao Xing during the summer vacation, and wondered if there would be more excitement.
However, these two students were very mature and handled things in a mature way. After a day or two, they got along well with the other students around them, and two new small circles were formed.
Moreover, since their families would go to such great lengths to send them back to school, their foundations would not have been too bad. Presumably, their families usually put a lot of pressure on them, and they have probably studied very hard in recent months, so their grades are also quite good.
Song Weize in particular had done well in class over the past two days, answering questions from all the teachers. The maths teacher had asked him and Tang Shaokang to work out a geometry problem on the blackboard together, and he had solved it before Tang Shaokang.
Tang Shaokang, the perennial second in the class, was in danger of becoming third.
However, as the saying goes, you can't judge a book by its cover. Within a few days, Su Yong, who seemed dull, showed a different side. After class, he always came to Huang Jingping and took the initiative to ask her if there was anything she didn't understand.
At these times, Huang Jingping was like Shen Jiayi in 'Those Years' and poked Feng Yiping with a pen from behind, asking him about his homework and ignoring Su Yong.
Su Yong is not discouraged. He stands there smiling, and when Feng Yiping is explaining, he likes to interject a few words. Sometimes he simply squats next to Huang Jingping's desk, and whether they are listening or not, he laughs and tells them about some of the things he has seen in the big cities of the south. Although he doesn't say so explicitly, everyone can hear the kind of boasting in his words and actions.
Feng Yiping, of course, could not respond with a cold stare like Huang Jingping, so from time to time he would nod or smile in agreement, but inside he was really sick of it.