Chapter 9

Come to My Place

After all, you’re not stupid. You’re just lazy.

On the way home, the weather outside was clearly very nice. But Pang Qian felt like there was a great bit cloud above her head. With a troubled face, she sighed. She wished she would fall off her bike and break her leg. Then she’d have to be sent to the hospital, and maybe her parents wouldn’t scold her.

Pang Qian and Gu Mingxi returned to the Golden Compound and parked their bikes. Gu Mingxi retrieved his backpack and got it on his back, and saw Pang Qian standing by her bike. He called out, “Pang Pang, let’s go.”

Pang Qian looked up at him with her long face and said, “Gu Mingxi, let’s go out for awhile. I don’t dare to go home.”

If you walk down the road in front of the Golden Compound for 10 minutes, you’ll come across a big, bustling street. On that street, there’s a KFC. Pang Qian and Gu Mingxi walked inside and sat down at a corner table on the second floor.

Pang Qian pulled out her test papers from her bag. (Chinese) Language, 78 points. Math, 69 points. English, 65 points. Seeing the shocking large and small Xs all over her paper, she was thoroughly in despair.

There wasn’t a parent-teacher meeting after the midterm exams, but the test papers needed to be signed by your parents. Pang Qian examined the score on her papers for a long while, and then she asked Gu Mingxi, “Do you think if this 6 was changed into an 8, it would be very obvious?”

Gu Mingxi pursed his lips. “Then how are you going to change it back when you hand it to the teacher?”

“Use correction fluid, or white tape… That won’t work?” Seeing Gu Mingxi’s incredulous expression, Pang Qian pouted. She thought for a moment, then said, “Then, Gu Mingxi, how about you sign it for me? Your writing is good, you copy my dad’s signature.”

Gu Mingxi was speechless. “Then when your dad asks for the test paper, what are you going to give him?”

“I’ll just say they haven’t returned it.” Pang Qian scratched her head. In the end, she let out a “ohhh” sound. “Gu Mingxi, what do I do! How did I do so badly on the test?!”

She sobbed quietly. Gu Mingxi also didn’t know what to do, and he could only sit by her side quietly. Then someone came over with a tray and said, “Kids, are you done eating?”

Pang Qian wiped away her tears and then looked up. She realized it was peak mealtime and the KFC was packed full. Some people thought they were taking up a spot without ordering anything, but she still didn’t want to go home. So she said, “We still haven’t eaten yet!”

The person with a tray looked at them suspiciously. Gu Mingxi felt a bit embarra.s.sed and said, “Pang Pang, why don’t we go home?”

“Why, I came to eat.” Pang Qian stood up. There were still some tears hanging on the corners of her eyes. She asked Gu Mingxi, “What do you want to eat? I’ll go down to buy it.”

Seeing her say that, the people waiting for a seat could only walk away. Gu Mingxi looked up at her and asked, “You really want to eat?”

“Mm,” Pang Qian nodded. “When we got here, I wasn’t hungry. But it smells really good in here, so I’m hungry now.”

“Then just buy a little something. I’m not eating.” Gu Mingxi thought again and then asked, “Do you have enough money?”

Pang Qian sniffled, pulled out a 10 dollar bill from her pocket and said, “Yeah.”

Gu Mingxi, “…”

Pang Qian bought a small fries and also an ice cream cone. She looked at the few coins she got back and felt distressed. 10 dollars was her whole week’s allowance. And in an instant, most of it was gone.

The two of them sat there, taking up the table. Pang Qian was licking her ice cream as she compared her test papers to Gu Mingxi’s.

He got full points in math! Full points! Is he really human?! She felt so defeated and frustrated inside, even as she kept on her stubborn facade.

“I could have solved this question. This is what I thought, but I don’t know why, when I was solving it, it ended up being wrong. That was 5 points!” When she finished her ice cream, she picked up a fry, dipped it in ketchup, and then started looking over another question. “Oh, this one was really B? I thought it either had to be B or D. Oh…bad luck.”

Gu Mingxi, “…”

Pang Qian picked up another fry, dipped it in ketchup, and brought it to Gu Mingxi’s lips. “Ah, open up.’

Gu Mingxi’s body recoiled, and quickly took a look around. Only when he found that no one had been watching them did he take a bite, face red.

“Just eat by yourself, I don’t want any,” he said very quietly as he chewed.

Pang Qian glanced at him, “I bought it to eat together.”

He didn’t say another word. When Pang Qian finished looking over his math and language exams, she stared at the English exam. During this process, she very fairly distributed the fries. She would eat one, and then she would feed Gu Mingxi one. But she was still a little selfish. Each time she dipped Gu Mingxi’s fry in ketchup, she dipped very little.

“How come you can get 98 points on English?” Pang Qian couldn’t understand. “Why did I do so much worse than you? We started learning English at the same time.”

Gu Mingxi didn’t say anything. Pang Qian continued, “But, Xie Yi’s better than you. He scored full points!”

This made Gu Mingxi unhappy. He said, “I could have gotten full points, but I just made a small mistake.”

“You’re still showing off!” Pang Qian angrily stuffed a fry into his mouth, saying, “Blame your desk for being so low! I couldn’t see your paper at all during the exam! We sit in the corner. If you just let me see a little, I wouldn’t have done so poorly!”

Gu Mingxi licked his lips. There was a little ketchup there, a little sweet, a little sour. With a rigid voice, he said, “Even if you looked this time and got a high score, what would you do when you’re taking your high school entrance exam?”

“…” Pang Qian pushed away the papers, and in a tone that said she was wronged, “Entrance exam?! I’ll think about that when it comes!”

Gu Mingxi looked at her for a long time. Then he suddenly asked, “Pang Pang, do you do the preview, review, dictation, and recitation exercises that the teacher gives?”

Pang Qian glared at him, “Of course I do them!”

“Really?” Gu Mingxi was still staring at her, his eyes carrying a trace of disbelief. With him looking at her like that, Pang Qian shrunk and said quietly, “You know that I don’t do the previews and reviews. And the dictations… I just copy them. My radio is broken, and the tape won’t go in. My parents can’t read it. As for recitation… Sometimes I’ll do it for a little bit.”

It probably had to do with their family education. Gu Mingxi’s mom finished high school, and his dad finished college. If Gu Guosheng were younger and still working on getting his engineering certifications, he would also have to partic.i.p.ate in professional exams every so often. He even had to prepare academic papers. Gu Guoxiang was always very upright with his studying habits, and his enthusiasm for it was also pa.s.sed on to Gu Mingxi. In their home study, Gu Guoxiang had an innumerable amount of books. When Gu Mingxi was in kindergarten, Li Han started to teach him how to read, by giving him simple books to read. During his year of recovery after his amputation, Gu Mingxi read a lot of books, in addition to learning to use his feet to do things. At the time, although he didn’t recognize that many characters (or words), it still influenced and increased his thirst for knowledge and enthusiasm for learning.

Additionally, Gu Guoxiang and Li Han had told Gu Mingxi many times. Because he didn’t have arms, studying was the only road he could take.

But Pang Qian’s family was different. Pang Shuisheng and Jin Ai’hua both only finished junior high. Jin Ai’hua relied on self-studying to become a cas.h.i.+er. While raising their daughter, the two of them only cared for her results, but never taught her the method or att.i.tude toward studying. Elementary school homework was easy, so Pang Qian got by just on her smarts alone. But now in junior high, she was met with subjects like English that required a lot of effort spent to memorize things. Of course, the lazy Pang Qian wouldn’t get good marks.

There was only one fry left in the paper bag. Pang Qian stared at it for a long time. Then she picked it up, dipped it in ketchup, and then brought it to Gu Mingxi’s lips. Gu Mingxi smiled at her, eyes bright, “You eat it.”

Pang Qian looked at him and blinked. Then she retracted her hand and stuffed the fry into her own mouth.

Gu Mingxi said, “Pang Pang, in the future, do you want to come over to my house and do homework together?”

Pang Qian looked at him absentmindedly. Gu Mingxi continued, “My desk is too low for you to use, but we have a folding table. We can bring it into my room for you to use. We can do the dictations together, and practice speaking in English with each other. When you’re doing math and don’t understand something, I can explain it to you.”

Pang Qian was still a bit hesitant. Because she knew that Gu Mingxi was actually very strict about studying. Usually, he wouldn’t let her copy his homework, but he’d rather explain it to her. Unless there was no more time to get the work done and Pang Qian was so rushed that she went to extremes and forced Gu Mingxi, there was no way that he’d let her copy his homework.

Seeing that she didn’t respond, Gu Mingxi continued more, “That… You might not know yet, but at the end of the semester, they switch up the cla.s.ses. We’re in the fast cla.s.s, but the the bottom ranked students will be moved into Cla.s.s 5. If you’re dropped into Cla.s.s 5, I suspect… Your dad will scold you.”

In that moment, Pang Qian was really given a scare. Being dropped into the next cla.s.s because your scores were too low is really too big a hit to your pride. If she were kicked out of Cla.s.s 6, Pang Shuisheng wouldn’t scold her. He’d just beat her to death!

When Pang Qian and Gu Mingxi went home, it was already dark. Standing outside Apt. 501, Pang Qian was very frightened, and she grabbed onto Gu Mingxi’s sleeve, refusing to let go. “Gu Mingxi, does this exam really need to be signed by my dad?”

He shook his head, “No.”

Pang Qian was ecstatic, “Really?”

He said seriously, “You can have your mom sign it.”

Pang Qian was depressed.

“Gu Mingxi, I’m dead. Come back later to pick up my corpse.”

Her shoulders dropped in defeat as she readied herself to walk through the door. Gu Mingxi stopped her, “Pang Pang.”

“Hm?” Pang Qian turned around.

Gu Mingxi walked in front of her, his shoulders moving slightly. He turned to the side and nudged her with his damaged shoulders, “Listen to me. In the future, come to my house to do homework. I promise, you’ll never score as badly on your exams again.”

Pang Qian raised her head to look at him. Gu Mingxi looked as he always did, calm eyes, standing in front of her, a light smile on his face. Although Pang Qian spent every day with him, but she realized that she’d never actually taken a close look at his face. Her eyes traveled across his face as she looked at his features. Suddenly, a though popped into Pang Qian’s mind. It seemed that there weren’t any problems with the girls in her cla.s.s after all. Gu Mingxi was really rather good looking.

Gu Mingxi watched as Pang Qian’s face started to turn red for some reason. He was very confused, and called out to her. Pang Qian came back to her senses and asked, “Will I be able to rank in the top 20 on the final exam?”

“Yes,” Gu Mingxi nodded satisfactorily, like he was cheering her on. “But you have to listen to me. You can’t be lacy and try to copy my homework.”

“…” Pang Qian asked, “What if I don’t score well enough?”

“That won’t happen,” Gu Mingxi shook his head. “After all, you’re not stupid. You’re just lazy.”

Pang Qian, “…”

That evening, Li Han carried some grapefruit into Gu Mingxi’s room. She asked, “Mingxi, is Qian Qian having some trouble at school?”

“No,” Gu Mingxi said. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

“I was just hanging some clothes to dry on the balcony, and I heard your Uncle Pang scolding her. Qian Qian was crying very loudly. It sounded like she was even beat.”

The words had just come out of her mouth, and Gu Mingxi already ran out. He stood on the balcony, and faintly heard “pa, pa” sounds from next door. There was also faint sounds of an angry Pang Shuisheng and the wah-wah cries of Pang Qian.

Gu Mingxi wasn’t sure where Pang Qian was getting beaten. Her bottom? Her palms? Or was he slapping her? He recalled the time that Gu Guoxiang had slapped him. That was the first, and the only, time that he’d hit him. That slap had really hurt. His face was swollen for two days. Gu Mingxi lowered his eyes, thinking of how much pain Pang Qian must be feeling that she would cry so loudly.

—

The next day, after Pang Qian finished dinner, she brought her backpack over to Gu Mingxi’s house.

Gu Guoxiang looked coldly on at Gu Mingxi’s “warm-heartedness.” Li Han was very welcoming to Pang Qian though. She thanked this little girl from the bottom of her heart. Ever since Gu Mingxi’s injury, this girl had always stayed his side. It was really like something between blood siblings.

Li Han brought the folding table into Gu Mingxi’s room. She even prepared a comfy chair for Pang Qian. Lastly, she brought in a plate of cookies, a bowl of cut up slices of dragon fruit, and two cups of hot orange juice. Then she backed out of the room with a smile.

This kind of treatment made Pang Qian feel very flattered. Her attention was already on the plate of cookies. Not waiting for Gu Mingxi to start talking, she’d already grabbed one and started eating.

“This cookie is really good.” She sat on the chair, happily swinging her legs back and forth. She took a sip of the orange juice and frowned, “Aiya, hot, hot!”

Gu Mingxi looked at her silently. Suddenly he raised his legs onto very low desk. With his big toe, he opened his ca.s.sette player and put in the English tape. He said, “Stop eating, let’s do the diction exercise first.”

Pang Qian, “…”

Gu Mingxi turned to look at her, “Take out your English book. First, write down what you can. Whatever you can’t write out, go back to memorize it until you can write it out. Then we’ll practice conversing, then do our English homework. Then we’ll do math last. You can do your Chinese homework when you go home.”

Pang Qian was in a daze. Gu Mingxi turned and leaned back in his chair. Using his foot, he opened one of his desk drawers. Then he pulled out a new English workbook. He tossed it to Pang Qian’s table with his right foot. Then he picked up a pen with his toes.

“Listen and write. Get ready, go.”

Pang Qian held half a cookie in her left hand and a gla.s.s of orange juice in her right. She saw as Gu Mingxi pressed down on the tape player’s play b.u.t.ton with his heel.