Chapter 20: Making a cocoon for oneself
Chapter 20: Chapter 20: Making a cocoon for oneself
When Feng Yiping and Wang Changning arrived at the school, it was almost five o'clock, and the third grade had just finished class, so the school was very lively.
When they arrived in the classroom, Xiao Zhijie was already there. His textbooks were spread out on the desk, but they looked like just props. There was a smile on the face of the boy with baby fat, and he was whispering something to Zhang Qiuling. Zhang Qiuling laughed from time to time as she listened, overflowing with youthful vitality. But he didn't forget to study either. At this time, he asked Xiao Zhijie, 'Xiao Zhijie, let me ask you, how do you write "family"?'
Xiao Zhijie was suddenly stuck and was about to look it up in the book, 'Let me see!'
Zhang Qiuling pressed his book down with one hand and said, "What's the point of looking it up in the book and spelling it out? Just write it like this.'
Xiao Zhijie wrote with the pen on the paper with a bit of a sad face, and even wrote a few more. Zhang Qiuling kept saying, "Cut it out, none of them are right.'
Seeing Feng Yiping, Xiao Zhijie quickly called out, 'Yiping, come here, come here.'
Feng Yiping wondered what it was about, but when he saw it was this, it was really simple. He had seen the public service announcement about this word countless times, and even his son had memorised it when he was in the middle class of kindergarten. He first wrote the word, and then wrote the sentence out, 'You should remember this word like this: fatherandmotherIloveyou, right? Their initials add up to that, right?'
Xiao Zhijie looked at it and said, 'Hey, that's really it. First, you break it down into its component parts to form a sentence, and then you remember it by putting it back together again. That way, you won't forget it.'
Zhang Qiuling was amazed. "Feng Yiping, where did you come up with that?'
She added, "No wonder you did so well on the exam!'
Feng Yiping was taken aback. The results hadn't come out yet. "How did you know?'
He knew the answer as soon as he asked the question. "Oh, I forgot you're the principal's daughter.'
'What princess? That's offensive. I'm not the daughter of some ancient rich family.' Zhang Qiuling then asked him, "How did you come up with this method of memorising words?'
'Coincidence, coincidence! Don't we break down Chinese characters? That time I tried to find English words to break down and I came up with this one." Feng Yiping laughed, walked to his seat, greeted Huang Jingping, put the things in his bag on the desk and took out his exercise book. Having finished one exam, he could now think about his creative work. Otherwise, he would have no money and no reason to ask his parents to rent a house for him in his hometown, so that he could escape from dormitory life, which he still found difficult to adapt to.
He was going through some notes he had made, gradually gaining confidence. He was about to start writing when his neighbour Huang Jingping asked him, 'Feng Yiping, you came first in the whole year group in the politics exam!'
'Huh?' Feng Yiping felt that these people were all well-informed. He then understood: this person's uncle was the political teacher of the three first-year classes.
'Really?' He was still a little happy, but he had to be humble, 'Luck, definitely luck! If I perform normally, I won't even be able to beat you.'
'Hypocrite!' Huang Jingping gave him a look, oh, it looked very cute.
'Hey, what were you saying earlier?'
Feng Yiping decided to give Xiao Zhijie a chance. "Xiao Zhijie,'
Xiao Zhijie turned around, he waved at him, "come over here for a second!'
'What's up?' Xiao Zhijie was in the middle of a very interesting conversation with Zhang Qiuling and was impatient, 'what I just said to you, you tell Huang Jingping.'
'Oh, okay,' Xiao Zhijie was happy to hear this, and took a stool from the side, leaning over Huang Jingping's desk. He also wrote while talking. In no time, both Huang Jingping and Wang Jinju said, "Oh, that's really the case!'
'Feng Yiping, are there any other words that can be remembered like this?" Wang Jinju asked, and Huang Jingping also looked at him.
You shouldn't show off, Feng Yiping thought, 'No, I've only come across this one so far.'
'Oh.' The two women were a little disappointed. But they still encouraged him, 'Feng Yiping, you're quite resourceful.'
Xiao Zhijie returned to his seat with a smile, and said a few words to Zhang Qiuling. Who knew that the other party was indifferent to his answers. In the end, he simply turned his head away, with his nape facing him. Even the slowest person knew that something was up. He turned his head and looked at Huang Jingping, and understood why Zhang Qiuling ignored him.
So during dinner, Xiao Zhijie kept making contrived long sighs. Feng Yiping and Wang Changning asked what was going on. He fidgeted for a while, but then told them that the two people he confided in were purely interested in gossip and making trouble. They were like, 'Try the food in my bowl, I'll try the food in your bowl—it's all pickled vegetables,' and were simply ignoring his troubles. They carried on like this for a while, while the two of them leisurely ate their meals, not forgetting to laugh at him.
Wang Changning pointed at him and laughed, 'Serves you right, who told you to try to have your cake and eat it too.'
Feng Yiping added, "Yeah, you made it so obvious today.'
Xiao Zhijie was about to kick Feng Yiping, "You're still talking, it was you who told me to go.'
Feng Yiping ate his rice slowly, 'I know you like Huang Jingping, so I created an opportunity for you, so in that case, I won't try to create opportunities for you in the future!'
Xiao Zhijie hurriedly said, 'No, let's talk about the future later. First, help me think of a way to make her not angry.'
'Easy,' Feng Yiping winked at Wang Changning, 'We can think of a way to make Zhang Qiuling not angry with you, but what's in it for us?'
'Yes,' Wang Changning chimed in, 'We won't do such a favour if there's no benefit.'
'You guys are really not being nice,' Xiao Zhijie said, 'Okay, what do you want?'
Feng Yiping indicated that Wang Changning should speak, 'Creamy melon seeds, in a big bag.'
Xiao Zhijie let out a small sigh of relief, 'Okay, no problem!'
Feng Yiping and Wang Changning were teasing him on purpose. This kind of big bag of creamy melon seeds was probably about three times as much as the big bag of melon seeds in the supermarket, but it only cost 1.5 yuan.
'What's the solution?'
Feng Yiping waved his hand, and the three of them gathered their heads together to plot. When he was finished, Xiao Zhijie was beaming, but Wang Changning looked at Feng Yiping and said, 'How come I feel that you're also a womanizer? How else could you come up with all those words?'
Xiao Zhijie gave Wang Changning a shoulder bump and said, 'You don't know, he's just a womanizer.'
When Zhang Qiuling returned to the classroom after dinner, Xiao Zhijie quickly got up to make way for her, but Zhang Qiuling lowered her head and went in the other way. Feng Yiping couldn't help but laugh when he saw this, and when he turned to look at Huang Jingping, he felt that there was something unnatural about her face as well.
Evening study was Chinese, and Wang Yumin came in with the exam paper in her arms. With the sound of her high heels clicking, the whole classroom fell silent.
She placed the exam paper on the teacher's desk with a thud and said, 'This time the exam was so easy and the volume of questions was not large, but there are still people who failed! Have they been goofing off all day? How can they get such a low score on such an easy exam, and how can they possibly pass high school? Instead of wasting their time playing around at school, they might as well go home and help their parents with the farm. At least they would be considered half-decent farmhands!'
The classroom fell silent. Many students lowered their heads. Wang Yumin changed the subject. 'Of course, several students have made great progress this time and deserve praise. Here are the test papers. Feng Yiping, 98.'
Feng Yiping walked up to the podium. Wang Yumin smiled at him. "Not bad. Keep it up!'
'Second place, Tang Shaokang, 91." This is the monitor.
After handing out the test papers, Wang Yumin said, 'I will first read out the overall results of this exam. First place, Feng Yiping, 98 in Chinese, 99 in maths, 99 in English, 99 in physics, 99 in chemistry, 99 in politics, 99 in history, 98 in geography, 95 in biology. Classmate Feng Yiping ranked first in the year with an overall score of 885 in the eight subjects except biology.
After Wang Yumin finished speaking, the class fell silent again. Looking at it this way, in fact, apart from biology, he got almost full marks in the other eight subjects. Everyone knows that the principle of marking by the school teachers is that even if you answer everything correctly, they won't give you full marks. They will always deduct one or two marks on the grounds that your handwriting is sloppy and the answer sheet is not clean, so as to prevent you from becoming complacent.
In general, Wang Yumin was satisfied with the exam. Class 1 was the top class in the year, and four of the top ten in the year were from Class 1, in particular Feng Yiping, who had only ranked third in Class 1 in the quiz, but now had jumped to first in the year, and had almost full marks in all subjects except biology. Although the exam was not difficult, it covered a wide range of knowledge, and basically all the key points of the past two months were involved. Moreover, she knew that outside of class, Feng Yiping also studied knowledge unrelated to the exam. Those three supplementary subjects were also crammed in the last two days, and yet he still managed to learn so solidly. As long as he can keep it up, by the time of the high school entrance exam, not to mention the county's No. 1 high school, with hard work, the city's No. 1 high school is not unattainable.
Therefore, after the end of the study period, Wang Yumin deliberately called Feng Yiping outside the classroom. 'Feng Yiping, you did well in this exam, but in fact it's not much. You know, this exam was very easy, nothing difficult. If you don't do well, then there's a problem. So you mustn't be proud, and you must work hard next time.'
Feng Yiping nodded repeatedly, 'And, this result must be maintained. If you fall behind and let others catch up, then you don't need to go to see Teacher Zhu anymore. Do you remember?' Feng Yiping froze upon hearing this, but Wang Yumin walked away with a smile.
I'll be damned, this is like tying a cocoon around oneself! Feng Yiping finally reacted.
Hey, why did you become so honest? I didn't know that the teacher was so cunning in this regard! It would have been enough to test a class for first, second or third place as appropriate, but you went and got the whole year's first place, and you have to maintain it, otherwise it will affect your plans to get rich.
Feng Yiping felt bad all over again!
At this time, Xiao Zhijie walked over and put a hand on his shoulder, 'Teacher Wang praised you, didn't he?'
Feng Yiping twisted and broke free of his hand, went back to the classroom to collect his things, and Xiao Zhijie shouted after him, 'Aren't you going back to the dormitory?'