[029] Roses and Garden Roses

After Fang Chang'an sat down, he pulled out his English textbook and began to memorize vocabulary. Shen Mo and Wang Ke stopped chatting; one resumed organizing her mistakes, while the other took out a test paper to sort through errors as well.

Shen Mo, while reviewing her mistakes, occasionally turned to glance at Fang Chang'an. She saw him earnestly reciting vocabulary, showing no sign of asking how she ended up going home with the homeroom teacher at noon. Since leaving school at midday, she had been anticipating how Fang Chang'an would question her, what expression he’d make upon learning her relationship with her aunt... Yet, she had arrived at school early, full of excitement, only to find he hadn’t even noticed. A little disappointment crept in.

She doodled absentmindedly on her draft paper with her fountain pen. Just then, she felt a nudge on her arm. Turning her head, she saw Fang Chang'an passing her a homework notebook, as usual, written from the last page.

Beneath his upright thumb was a graceful line of script: "How did you end up going home with Teacher Cheng?"

The young girl glanced at the handwriting on the notebook, then at Fang Chang'an, the corners of her lips curling with a trace of pride she tried hard to conceal. Yet delight overflowed from the arc of her smile and her sparkling eyes. She bent over and carefully wrote two words in the notebook, pushing it back to him.

"Take a guess."

Fang Chang'an looked at her. She flashed him a sweet smile, a shallow dimple in her left cheek, utterly charming.

Fang Chang'an quickly scribbled another line: "Guess whether I'll guess?"

Shen Mo shot him a sideways glance and, with a pout, wrote: "Guess whether I guess you'll guess?"

Fang Chang'an gave her another look and wrote: "Guess whether I guess you'll guess whether I guess?"

Shen Mo kept glaring at him, refusing to back down, continuing to write, her thoughts slowing. She wasn’t sure she could keep up anymore; the repetition of the word "guess" started to lose meaning, and she felt she might have written it wrong. Looking back at the earlier guesses, she became even more uncertain.

Seeing her pause, Fang Chang'an couldn't help but chuckle quietly. Shen Mo heard him, lifted her head with indignation, but soon found herself smiling too. She started a new line: "She’s my aunt."

Before she could hand the notebook over, Fang Chang'an leaned in directly to read it. Shen Mo didn’t shy away, eager to see his reaction.

"It’s time to show my true acting skills!" Fang Chang'an silently encouraged himself, pulling off a somewhat startled expression. Shen Mo saw his genuine surprise and broke into a triumphant smile. Without speaking further, she wrote: "I didn’t mean to hide it, but you never asked."

Fang Chang'an considered what she had written, seeming to digest this new fact before picking up his pen: "Not a lie, just not disclosed voluntarily."

The young girl watched his expression closely and wrote: "So you’re not angry?"

Fang Chang'an smiled at her and wrote: "Not angry, but certainly surprised."

Shen Mo studied him to make sure he wasn’t lying, then gave him another sweet smile. Fang Chang'an smiled back, packed away his notebook, and returned to memorizing vocabulary.

A few minutes later, his arm was nudged again. Turning, he saw Shen Mo whispering, "What did you all do at noon?"

"We went to my uncle’s house for lunch."

Shen Mo had already learned from her aunt that Fang Chang'an’s uncle was a study tutor, so she asked, "Who were those two girls?"

"They’re from our village, same surname as me. One is even my niece."

"Niece?" The young girl's eyes sparkled with amazement.

"Yes, I call her father ‘brother,’ so she has to call me ‘uncle.’"

"Wow!"

Shen Mo marveled, "Does she actually call you ‘uncle’?"

"Uh, no, she just uses my name."

Shen Mo stifled a laugh, "If it were me, I wouldn’t call you ‘uncle’ either."

"What would you call me then?"

"Fang Chang'an."

Wang Ke, seeing the two of them whispering again, pursed her lips and bent over her work, secretly thinking, "Go ahead and chat, I’ll study hard and beat you both in the next exam!"

The first period in the afternoon was biology, the second geography. Both teachers were young. The biology teacher, a woman around thirty, read straight from the textbook. The geography teacher, in his twenties, sported slicked-back hair and looked quite trendy, but also stuck closely to the textbook.

"I might as well read it myself," Fang Chang'an thought, ignoring the lesson to memorize from the book, finding it more efficient.

"Fang Chang'an."

Fang Chang'an, reinforcing his memory of the Panama Canal and Suez Canal with the textbook, was startled when the teacher called his name. He looked up and quickly stood.

He expected the teacher to repeat the question but the man, with his shiny hair, simply stared without repeating himself.

"If you don't say what you’re asking, how am I supposed to know the answer?" Fang Chang'an grumbled internally. Unlike other students his age, he wasn’t afraid to admit he didn’t know. Just as he was about to speak, he heard Shen Mo whisper, "Meridian!"

Instantly, Fang Chang'an understood. He looked up at the globe drawn on the blackboard, put on a thoughtful expression, and answered, "Meridian."

"Good!" The young geography teacher nodded. "Yes, meridian. Sit down, and don’t keep your head down."

"Yes, teacher, I understand."

Fang Chang'an sat down, straightened up, and while the teacher drew on the blackboard, scribbled quickly in his notebook and pushed it to Shen Mo.

Shen Mo sat upright, glanced at the notebook, and saw a peculiar stick figure bowing deeply, with a vertical line of text beside it: "A bow of gratitude to classmate Shen Mo for saving my life!"

It was a popular meme in later years, usually captioned "Bowing to the big boss," but Shen Mo had never seen it before. She found it amusing and pursed her lips in a smile, then composed herself and wrote: "Pay attention to the lesson!"

Fang Chang'an drew a little figure saluting. The young girl grinned, but didn’t reply, focusing on the lesson.

The bell rang.

The teacher announced, "Class dismissed," and Fang Chang'an was first to stand, joining the chorus, "Goodbye, teacher!"

He stretched, then sat back down. Shen Mo leaned over, curious, "Can you draw?"

"No."

"Then how did you draw those?"

She pointed to the two faces Fang Chang'an had just sketched. He answered, "Just random doodling, not real drawing."

Shen Mo said, "That's impressive! I can’t draw like that."

"What can you draw?"

Shen Mo considered, then picked up a pencil and began sketching earnestly in her notebook. Fang Chang'an watched beside her, catching a faint milky scent from her.

She drew slowly, but the outline soon emerged—a rose, its lines flowing and delicate. Fang Chang'an wasn’t sure what flower it was, but praised, "Yours is much better than mine!"

Shen Mo pointed shyly at the upper edge of the flower, "This part isn’t very good, it’s a bit crooked."

Fang Chang'an looked closely, "It isn’t crooked at all. You can’t expect every rose to be identical, right? There are no two identical leaves in the world, and flowers are the same."

Shen Mo glanced up at him, saying nothing.

Fang Chang'an wondered aloud, "Isn’t that reasonable?"

"It is," the young girl pouted, "but I drew a Chinese rose."

"Uh..." Fang Chang'an was taken aback, then bent over to study the drawing. "So that’s what a Chinese rose looks like? I’ve never seen one; I thought any flower was a rose. Don’t laugh at me."

The girl blinked, "Your school doesn’t have Chinese roses?"

"No, our elementary school didn’t have flowers, just weeds."

Fang Chang'an was, of course, making it up. Their village school had plenty of flowers, pots lined up in the school’s only office. He’d been assigned to help move them; whenever leaders came to inspect, they’d distribute the pots to every classroom, then move them back afterwards.