Gu Zhuoyan hung up after he spoke, without even a word of goodbye. The screen quickly darkened, leaving the room without a single ray of light. He sat in that inky darkness for a long time.
He sat and thought about how to woo Zhuang Fanxin.
But planning was one thing, and doing it was a whole damn other kettle of fish.
Gu Zhuoyan picked up his phone and fiddled with it aimlessly, unwittingly opening his Wechat Moments. The latest post was from a tutor: "Special Focus Drills for Summer". His eyes lingered for a moment on "Special Focus", and then moved on to the next post.
Zhuang Fanxin had posted a photo two hours ago, after he had left their house. In the photo were two hands: one slender and pale, belonging to Zhuang Fanxin, holding the maths worksheets; the other darker, holding a cake box, probably belonging to Zhuang Fanxin's deskmate, Qi Nan.
The caption read: Scene of the transaction.
Gu Zhuoyan commented: "You get cake for lending your homework for your classmate to copy?"
Zhuang Fanxin's reply came quickly: "There's no such thing as free homework."
Gu Zhuoyan: "Then did I tutor you for free too? Why don't I get cake?"
This line put Zhuang Fanxin in a difficult spot. He had someone solve the difficult parts of his homework, then traded the homework for cake and ate up the profit as the middleman.
Gu Zhuoyan waited for some time, but received no response. Xue Maochen called him down for dinner right then, so he carried his phone downstairs with him. They didn't have a rule against talking during mealtimes; Xue Maochen was insisting that Gu Baoyan have more greens, while Gu Zhuoyan checked his phone as he ate.
Zhuang Fanxin finally replied. "What kind of cake do you like?"
Was he going to buy one? Gu Zhuoyan was just kidding. Instead of explaining, he played along: "I don't feel like eating."
Zhuang Fanxin: "Why? Are you mad?" Next to this was a fear emoji.
Gu Zhuoyan: "I have an exam the day after tomorrow. I'm anxious."
Zhuang Fanxin couldn't help but doubt him. Why would someone with such good results be anxious? Or was he only good at maths? He tried to be empathetic and put himself in the other's shoes. If Gu Zhuoyan were going alone to a strange school for an exam, he'd be quite nervous, wouldn't he?
He sent a text: "I'll go with you the day after tomorrow."
Gu Zhuoyan didn't have any other pleasantries to exchange, replying with a simple "thank you" as if he had reached his goal. He put down his phone and found his appetite quite healthy, taking a second helping of rice. Noticing that Xue Maochen was having problems with his sister, he rapped the side of the bowl and told Gu Baoyan to be less willful.
Gu Baoyan was scared by this and began to eat obediently. Xue Maochen shifted his focus from his granddaughter to his grandson, asking, "Zhuoyan, are you prepared for your exam the day after tomorrow?"
"I'm not preparing." Gu Zhuoyan picked up a green shoot. "The school isn't even in the top ten nationwide. It'll be easy."
"Do you want to come fishing with me tomorrow, then?" Xue Maochen suggested.
"Actually, I just realized that I need to memorize some vocabulary. You should go by yourself," said Gu Zhuoyan, changing his mind.
Early in the morning two days later, Zhuang Fanxin's slight figure paced back and forth before the Xues' gate. When Gu Zhuoyan appeared, he went over to greet him. As promised, he was going to accompany him to the exam.
Gu Zhuoyan intended to have the driver send them to the school, but Zhuang Fanxin proposed taking the metro to familiarize himself with the route, so Gu Zhuoyan conceded. The two left their street, Zhuang Fanxin facing Gu Zhuoyan and walking backwards.
Zhuang Fanxin wore a pair of fitted cropped jeans, his slim legs striding nimbly. His top was a bright red short-sleeved tennis shirt; the contrast made his arms and neck look unusually fair. Involuntarily, Gu Zhuoyan looked at him and smiled.
"What are you smiling at?" asked Zhuang Fanxin, also smiling.
"Your festive look," said Gu Zhuoyan. After this ribbing, he complimented, "But red really suits you."
Zhuang Fanxin pinched the front of his shirt and showed off the small embroidered badge over his left breast. "It's our school's summer uniform, you'll get one too," he said.
Gu Zhuoyan grew glum. He admired it on Zhuang Fanxin, but he wasn't keen on wearing one himself. He imagined what it would look like during morning exercises: a green field covered in red-clad students. What a jarring sight!
"Look at you," Zhuang Fanxin sighed. "There's a white version too, you can wear either."
They took the metro to Tian High. Zhuang Fanxin pulled out his ID card and entered the school, bringing Gu Zhuoyan over to reception at the office block. Once everything was settled and all the related documents given to the receptionist, he was handed over to the principal to be examined.
Aside from Gu Zhuoyan, there were a few other students sitting make-up examinations, all taking place in the small hall.
Gu Zhuoyan picked a random seat and silently took stock of what he saw. This school had some history—the office block looked newly renovated, but the carpet in the hall was very old, worn threadbare after many a year of use.
Fine then, it wasn't like he had other options.
The invigilating teacher came in and saw the extra person. "Zhuang Fanxin, did you come to watch me invigilate?" the teacher asked.
Zhuang Fanxin smiled. "I came with the new transfer student." He quickly ran over to take the papers the teacher held. "Here, I'll help hand them out."
After distributing the resit papers, there was a single standard evaluation test left. Zhuang Fanxin walked over to Gu Zhuoyan's table, whispering as he put the paper down, "Don't be nervous, it's fine if you don't do well."
Gu Zhuoyan mhm-ed quietly in response. His mind went blank: all these years, through so many exams big and small, nobody had ever told him "it's fine if you don't do well".
Before Zhuang Fanxin said it, he thought he didn't even need such words of comfort.
Light on his feet, Zhuang Fanxin ran out of the hall. The starting bell for the exam rang out at the exact same moment the door shut. All around him, only the scratching of pen on paper could be heard. Half an hour passed, then an hour; he wrote till his hand began to ache.
Gu Zhuoyan paused his writing to drink some water, and heard a "good morning, sir" from outside the hall.
In the corridor, Zhuang Fanxin was leaning against the wall and reading the whodunnit he had brought with him when his class teacher Xia Wei walked past. He greeted the teacher, then asked, "Are you on duty today, sir?"
"Indeed I am," said Xia Wei. "What are you doing in school?"
"I'm here with someone who's sitting an exam," answered Zhuang Fanxin. He felt the other judging him, so he couldn't help but seek his praise, saying, "Sir, I've finished the chemistry homework."
"There's something different about you," said Xia Wei, suspicious.
"Maybe I've become a teeny bit better-looking."
"Vain." Xia Wei was in a rush to return to the office and left, but after a few steps, he stopped, realizing what had been bugging him. He turned back and looked at Zhuang Fanxin as if he was a little monster. "Who gave you permission to perm your hair?!"
Zhuang Fanxin covered his head with his book. "I'm sorry!"
"Straighten it before term starts!" said Xia Wei in a severe tone.
In the hall, Gu Zhuoyan heard it all distinctly. That teacher seems a bit short-tempered, he thought. Those curls look really nice.
Time was tight. After he had finished the maths and language papers in the morning, Zhuang Fanxin brought Gu Zhuoyan to the nearby convenience store to eat. They filled their bellies and went wandering about the school.
Gu Zhuoyan let Zhuang Fanxin lead him around aimlessly. The classrooms were quiet and empty. When they passed the classroom belonging to Year Two Class Three, he looked in. It was bright and clean, and on the blackboard at the back of the class was a realistic drawing of a horse, in the style of Xu Beihong.
He guessed, then asked on purpose, "Who drew that? It's really impressive."
Zhuang Fanxin was easily fooled. He grinned with undisguised pride, adding, after he admitted to drawing it, "It's called The First Horse Leading, but our class is always behind Class One and Two."
At this, his voice carried his contemplation of the future, mixed with some longing. "I wonder what class you'll get into. You might just get put in ours."
"That'd be an incredible coincidence," said Gu Zhuoyan, feigning ignorance.
"True." Zhuang Fanxin nodded. "It doesn't matter, we're in the same year either way."
After walking the whole floor, they went downstairs and left the building. Taking the side door out, they found themselves in a garden with a large banyan tree, with four paved footpaths to the library block opposite.
This was the prettiest place in the school. "What was your old school like?" Zhuang Fanxin asked curiously.
"The classrooms are about the same," said Gu Zhuoyan, "but the students in my school are pretty unruly: you'd find people line-dancing in the canteen, or having a party in the laboratory block. We're all quite hard to control." A few sentences weren't enough to explain it, but they were enough to make him think of home. "There was a time when it was fashionable to start bands, but there weren't enough music rooms, so a band took over the gym. Someone from the gym came and asked the fencing team for help, so I went over with a few others."
"Did you fight?" asked Zhuang Fanxin.
"No," said Gu Zhuoyan. "The frontman for the band turned out to be my childhood friend. We ended up watching them perform live for us in the gym."
Zhuang Fanxin thought of the group photo he'd seen in Gu Zhuoyan's Moments. That childhood friend was probably one of the four horse-riders. Gu Zhuoyan nodded. "The one in the band is Lu Wen, the other two are Lian Yiming and Su Wang."
In adolescence, friendships were the most precious of relationships. Afraid that dwelling upon this would bring his mood down, he brought Gu Zhuoyan eastward, to a staircase at the corner. Under the staircase was an empty space, sheltered from the elements.
The stairs led to a balcony, but entry wasn't allowed. "This corner is the only security camera blindspot in the whole school, besides the classrooms," said Zhuang Fanxin.
Gu Zhuoyan looked at the few fallen leaves on the ground. "It's pretty clean."
"Of course it is," said Zhuang Fanxin, annoyed. "I cleaned it every day before the holidays began."
Seeing the other's slight surprise, he began to build the suspense. "One night last term, I was hiding here during self-study period and got caught by the class teacher. Guess what I was doing?"
Expressionless, Gu Zhuoyan said, "Kissing your girlfriend."
Zhuang Fanxin was taken aback, his face reddening instantly. "No way, I don't have a girlfriend…"
Gu Zhuoyan laughed. "What were you doing, then?"
"I was eating noodles with Qi Nan," said Zhuang Fanxin. "They were a bit salty, so Qi Nan went to buy drinks at the tuck shop. The teacher passed by when it was just me."
The noodles had been too fragrant; the teacher followed the smell and caught Zhuang Fanxin red-handed. His punishment was to keep the area clean for the whole term.
Listening to this tale of woe, Gu Zhuoyan laughed so hard he grew dizzy. He put his hand on Zhuang Fanxin's shoulder in sympathy and walked him back to the hall. The afternoon papers covered natural sciences and English, and the invigilator took pity on Zhuang Fanxin, letting him wait in the air-conditioned hall.
Zhuang Fanxin curled up in the back row. Feeling the afternoon drowsiness, he couldn't keep his eyes open, finally falling asleep during the English listening exam. When the bell rang, the papers were collected, and everyone else left, relieved to escape. Gu Zhuoyan stood and looked behind him. The distant back row looked empty, but when he scanned again, he saw a shock of curly hair waving about.
Gu Zhuoyan walked over. Pursing his lips, he sat next to Zhuang Fanxin, soundlessly opened the music player on his phone, then searched for "The March of the Athletes" and played it.
Not ten seconds later, Zhuang Fanxin woke up with a start. "Is it time for inter-period exercise?"
Gu Zhuoyan turned the music off. "I'm done."
Zhuang Fanxin sighed in relief. Side by side, he and Gu Zhuoyan faced the spacious hall and the podium at the front of it, like two classmates listening to a lecture together.
"Ahh," he sighed, "it'd be great if you joined our class."
Gu Zhuoyan smiled wordlessly. His heart was clear as a mirror and his acting skills as convincing as Tony Leung, pretending not to know what would happen next.
—
1. Special Focus - it actually says 特攻 (tè gōng), which can mean especially good study materials, or… strong attack/gong/top.
2. Not sure if I need to explain this, but red generally symbolizes happiness and good fortune and celebration etc in Chinese culture. Red is heavily used at weddings and Chinese New Year. Side note: white is considered something of the opposite — the colour of mourning.
3. The First Horse Leading (一马当先 or Yi Ma Dang Xian). It's an idiom meaning to take the lead (coming from the way someone on their horse would lead the charge against an enemy in battle).
4. LuWen pronounced "loo-one".
5. SuWang pronounced "soo-wung", to rhyme with hung.
Glossary
– invigilating: supervising an exam to make sure nobody breaks the rules/cheats.
– resit papers: written exams taken to make up for exams you previously failed.
– tuck shop: a small shop selling snacks in a school.