Chapter 1: The Conflicted Heroine

Early summer had arrived, but the weather was not yet oppressively hot. A gentle breeze drifted through the air, making everything feel pleasant. The classroom windows were flung wide open. Above the chalkboard, painted in bold, contradictory characters, was the slogan: “Unity, Tension, Seriousness, Liveliness.” The remnants of the morning’s English lesson still lingered on the board, and during lunch, someone had mischievously drawn an apple with legs—wearing underpants, no less.

There was still some time before afternoon classes began. By the window, a girl with pigtails knelt on her seat, munching on an apple while gazing outside. Suddenly, she seemed to notice something and turned to call out to another girl in the class, “Yang Liusan! Your Wen Xiaocheng is being cornered by them again. Aren’t you going to rescue your prince, brave heroine?”

Yang Liusan was the belle of Class Eight—if there were a school-wide vote, she might have been crowned the school beauty as well. She was used to these jibes from Liang Qing’er. In truth, there was nothing between her and Wen Xiaocheng; she simply couldn’t stand to see him bullied all the time.

“What do you mean, ‘my’ Wen Xiaocheng? What does he have to do with me?” Yang Liusan retorted with a pout. Yet, despite her protests, she crawled over to the windowsill and followed Liang Qing’er’s pointing finger to look outside.

By now, there was no one in sight. Liang Qing’er, her pigtails swaying, explained, “Just now, Qiu Hui, Lu Qi, and Zhang Peiyue had him cornered over there. Qiu Hui snatched his backpack, then they all started shoving him toward the back hill behind the school. Liusan, aren’t you going to save your little prince?”

“I keep telling you, there’s nothing between us!”

At fourteen or fifteen, when feelings begin to stir, but no one dares confess them, nothing delights students more than teasing about who likes whom, or who is secretly a couple. Liang Qing’er was clearly fond of such gossip, but for Yang Liusan, it was sometimes overwhelming. To emphasize that nothing was going on, she even made a point of acting cool toward Wen Xiaocheng.

“If you don’t care about him, why are you so concerned? Still, Xiaocheng is pretty handsome—you, the class beauty, fancying him, he’s really struck it lucky! But shouldn’t he be the one to rescue you? Why is it always you saving him? Well, never mind. The beauty rescues the hero—no, the heroine rescues the beautiful boy, and then the beautiful boy swears his eternal devotion, hahaha!” Liang Qing’er burst out laughing.

Yang Liusan had half a mind to go down and take a look, but Liang Qing’er’s teasing made it impossible. Blushing, she bantered back, telling her to stop talking nonsense, then returned to her seat, pulled out her English textbook, and pretended to study vocabulary.

How many words Yang Liusan actually learned, she couldn’t have said. Time slipped by, and after a while, Liang Qing’er called out again from the window, “Liusan, they’re back, but your Xiaocheng isn’t with them!”

Yang Liusan wanted to go and see. She even stood up, but forced herself to sit back down, pretending not to have heard. She muttered softly to herself, “It’s none of my business. It’s none of my business!”

As class time approached, students began trickling back in—one group from playing soccer, another from basketball. The days were growing hotter, so the girls usually preferred to stay indoors and chat, while the boys returned drenched in sweat, rinsed off under the cold water taps, and came back dripping wet.

Zhang Peiyue nearly missed the bell, but rushed in just as the warning sounded. Still, he kept chattering to the boy behind him, bouncing on his toes and throwing mock punches in the air. “That jerk’s all talk. As soon as you hit him, he just covers his head. Lu Qi didn’t even get a swing in—my combo alone had him laid out!”

The short boy behind him was Yang Rui, who idolized Zhang Peiyue for his bravado and his connections with the local toughs, so he was always tagging along.

“Guess what?” Zhang Peiyue bragged. “Na-jie even joined in today! Usually, she’s just there for the show, never gets involved. But today, that brat mouthed off, and Ding Sina went right up and kicked him in the gut. Her heels are so high and pointy—man, just watching made me wince!”

“Na-jie hit him too? Too bad I missed it!” At the mention of Ding Sina—infamous as the school’s dark beauty—Yang Rui put on a lecherous expression, as if he wished he’d been kicked himself.

Though the Second Middle School of Dongfeng Town didn’t have the best academic record, it was strictly managed. Girls weren’t allowed to grow their hair long, let alone wear high heels. Ding Sina was the only exception—she wore high heels and black stockings, and carried herself with the poise of a queen bee. Cold and rebellious, she had become the school’s undisputed big sister. If Yang Liusan was the obvious choice for school beauty, Ding Sina was the goddess of every boy’s late-night fantasies.

“That jerk’s got no shame. His family owes so much money but he’s still got the nerve to buy a new backpack? Even if Hui-ge hadn’t started something, I would’ve. It’s been a whole week since we taught him a lesson! Just wait—let’s see if he dares bring that bag to class again. We all took a piss on it, ha!”

Zhang Peiyue was gloating, but Yang Liusan, unable to bear it any longer, frowned and snapped, “What’s so great about bullying your own classmates? You guys are just…” She wanted to mention the backpack, but thought better of it and changed her words: “You’re just too much!”

“We’re too much?” Zhang Peiyue laughed. “Qiu Hui’s dad—his own dad slashed him, now his right hand can’t even lift anything heavy! Ding Sina’s dad drags a lame leg around the house, can’t work anymore. Lu Qi’s uncle got lucky—a slash across the back, but no lasting harm. As for me, my own uncle was killed by that man’s dad! One blow, dead on the spot, eyes wide open—couldn’t even rest in peace! Three families—one dead, three injured, homes destroyed. And that man’s father is still alive in prison. You tell me, shouldn’t we beat him? So what if he’s our classmate? This is a son paying for his father’s debts! This is justice!”

Faced with that, Yang Liusan struggled to reply. Though she tried to argue, her tone was much less forceful than before. “But that was the last generation’s business. And his father’s been punished by the law.”

“One dead, two crippled, and he gets just twenty years? I’ll bully him as much as I want. I’ll beat him until he drops out, make him lose his chance at an education, so he spends his life selling candied hawthorn with his grandmother! What are you going to do—tell on me? See if the court gives me twenty years? Don’t think being class president means anything. Even the principal wouldn’t dare get involved!” With that, Zhang Peiyue snorted and strode off to his seat. Yang Liusan frowned but said nothing more, only glancing now and then toward the window, as if she could see right through the rows of desks to the world outside.

The bell rang. It was supposed to be art class, but instead, in walked Mrs. Yan, the physics teacher—a woman in her fifties, severely nearsighted, a firm believer that strict teachers make excellent students. So she often seized periods meant for art or music and turned them into something else.

“The art teacher is busy today, so I’ll be taking over. We’ll have a little quiz this period.”

This pretense fooled no one; the art teacher was actually idling in the office—many students had seen her at lunch. But it hardly mattered what the truth was. No one cared.

Groans rose from the class, sighs and muttered complaints, but such protests were pointless. The quiz papers had already been passed down each row.

This kind of arbitrary rule was nothing new—the students were used to it. Soon, the only sound left in the room was the soft scratching of pens on paper. In the farthest corner, Wen Xiaocheng’s seat was still empty, a solitary test paper lying on his desk, but nobody paid it any mind.

Yang Liusan looked up again, gazing out the window. The sunlight outside was dazzling.

———

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