The story began in the morning. Miss Yu, after agonizing over it all night, felt overwhelmed. She worried that her translation might not be precise enough—making a fool of herself would be one thing, but if she left a bad impression on the foreign visitors, with county officials and accompanying leaders present, she couldn’t bear that responsibility. After a sleepless night of worry, she rushed into the principal’s office first thing in the morning to declare she couldn’t do it.
Her backing out was one thing, but when the other English teachers heard they might be selected as last-minute replacements, none of them were willing. Never mind that the visitors were arriving that afternoon and they had no time to prepare—just hearing that this group had caused numerous issues at Jinlong Middle School was enough to make them feel they couldn’t handle it.
Then, after some discussion, Miss Yu directly sold out Qing Ye, saying her student’s oral communication skills were perfect, practically native-level, and she had come from an international school with extensive experience interacting with foreigners.
The principal considered that having a student as an interpreter might be a good thing. If there were any shortcomings in the work, everyone would be understanding since she was just a student. If Qing Ye did well, even better—it would show that any random student from Anzhong could communicate with foreigners without barriers, which would reflect well on the school.
So the principal made an immediate decision, leading a grand procession to find Qing Ye. What could Qing Ye do? Could she tell the principal she still had half a practice paper to finish? She couldn’t—the principal would probably lecture her about collective honor.
Thus, the script she had personally edited ended up back in her own hands.
Qing Ye had a compulsion—she disliked reading from scripts. So during lunch, she spent fifteen minutes memorizing the content, then tossed the script aside.
At one o’clock sharp, she appeared beside the principal, accompanying the foreign parents, county leaders, and school officials on their tour.
Since the homeroom teachers had given advance notice about the one o’clock inspection, telling everyone not to sleep in the afternoon and such, all students appeared to be sitting properly at their desks. In reality, their eyes were all drifting toward the windows. After all, in this small county town, you couldn’t find a single foreigner even if you searched with a lantern, and now there was a whole group of them. The students were as excited as if they were watching monkeys at a zoo.
Unexpectedly, a few people from Jinlong Middle School had also come along—a school leader bringing two students as support. As the country’s only private high school, Jinlong had created an “international class” two years ago to attract children of wealthy businessmen. Speaking of this international class, they didn’t even have a proper foreign teacher; it just meant they had more English classes than other classes.
The students who came along today were from this international class, who had been hosting the morning visit at Jinlong.
One had to admit that the difference in uniforms between private school students and Anzhong students was quite stark. In the autumn season, Anzhong students wore basic zippered two-tone tracksuits with absolutely no design sense, the style stuck in the 90s. Meanwhile, the private school boys wore navy blue blazers, giving them a completely different presence.
One of the boys had his hair styled immaculately with gel, looking hurricane-proof. This was Ye Jingjian, Jinlong’s treasure-class academic star, who had his eyes fixed on his forehead, looking at everyone with a “my family owns a mine and I’m the best” expression.
However, as soon as he arrived, he noticed Qing Ye. Despite flipping his hair dashingly several times, Qing Ye wouldn’t even spare him a glance, maintaining an even more “my family owns a mine and I’m the best” attitude, which he found utterly bewildering. After all, in their county, any family with decent means sent their children to Jinlong; only those who couldn’t afford private school came to Anzhong.
So he simply walked straight up to Qing Ye and said somewhat haughtily, “I’m Ye Jingjian, student council president of Jinlong, from the senior international class. If you find the translation challenging, I can take over.”
Qing Ye turned her head slightly, glanced down at his extended hand, and replied, “Qing Ye.”
Xing Wu and Yellow Hair had just wandered back from the bathroom when Yellow Hair looked down and immediately grabbed Xing Wu: “That guy’s from Jinlong, right? What’s he doing at our school? Damn, why is he holding our cousin’s hand?”
Xing Wu also glanced down. Teacher Zhu Fen appeared from somewhere, holding a teacup and looking down as well, exclaiming furiously: “Shameless!”
This startled Yellow Hair, who turned around quietly: “Teacher Zhu, you also think that Jinlong boy is shameless, right?”
Unexpectedly, Teacher Pig Manure pushed up his glasses and said disdainfully: “That bastard specifically brought people over to translate, what good intentions could he have? He’s just trying to show off their school’s talent pool in front of the education bureau leaders. Hmph! Who knows what he’s really planning.”
Old Zhu’s “hmph” carried a lot of information. You see, this Principal Sun from Jinlong Middle School used to be a teacher at Anzhong. Back then, before the private school was built in their county, he and Old Zhu were both in the mathematics teaching group. Later, when wealthy merchants from outside the city invested in building a private school, they poached Sun Guangquan, who was just a math teacher then, with a high salary. That year they also approached Old Zhu, but Old Zhu, though often indirectly temperamental, was a person of high integrity who disdained working for capitalists. He was dedicated to improving teaching at his current school, and also because he was already leading a graduating class, he felt sorry for his batch of students from poor backgrounds, so he refused.
After Sun Guangquan went to Jinlong Middle School, he constantly worked against Anzhong, competing for resources, and even frequently badmouthed Anzhong behind their backs. Although Anzhong’s college admission rate hadn’t been good these past two years, Sun Guangquan’s behavior was truly inappropriate.
Therefore, Old Zhu was furious whenever he saw him, which left Yellow Hair and the others quite puzzled.
Downstairs, since these foreign parents had been communicating with Ye Jingjian and the others at Jinlong earlier, they assumed Ye Jingjian would be their translator. Although Ye Jingjian could handle translation work, due to limited exposure to foreigners and the linguistic environment, his translated sentences were Chinese-style patchwork English. Plus, perhaps from doing too many practice problems, he paid excessive attention to various tense usage while speaking, making it less conversational. While the foreigners could understand, they inevitably found it awkward.
When the group reached Anzhong’s indoor gymnasium, as the principal was making introductions, Ye Jingjian suddenly blurted out “Sporting house,” causing all the foreigners’ expressions to change dramatically. The atmosphere instantly became extremely awkward.
The Anzhong school leaders beside them hadn’t realized what had happened. Why did these foreigners suddenly look so upset?
At this moment, Qing Ye suddenly stepped out from the crowd with a smile and smoothed things over, reintroducing the “gymnasium” before them.
Only then did Ye Jingjian realize something was wrong. After the school leaders led the foreigners to another area, he fell back two steps and asked Qing Ye, “Did I say something wrong just now?”
Qing Ye glanced at him: “Sporting house means brothel.”
“…”
Although “sport” means athletics and “house” indeed means building, together they don’t mean gymnasium. Qing Ye wasn’t sure if Ye Jingjian genuinely didn’t know or if he just blurted out “sporting” upon seeing the gym.
So Ye Jingjian’s original statement was “This is Anzhong’s time-honored brothel.”
Qing Ye didn’t understand why Ye Jingjian had used the description “time-honored”—probably trying to convey the principal’s point about the gymnasium’s long history of construction. In any case, it directly terrified these foreigners, who couldn’t understand for a long time why Chinese schools needed to be equipped with brothels.
Fortunately, Qing Ye saved this awkward situation in time, allowing the foreign parents to realize it was just a small misunderstanding.
Naturally, afterward, these foreigners all gathered around Qing Ye asking various questions. Qing Ye communicated with them without any barriers or pronunciation issues, maintaining a perfectly appropriate smile throughout the entire process while handling these parents flawlessly.
Her outstanding appearance, along with etiquette and eloquence deeply ingrained since childhood through osmosis, plus her frequent selection as a representative for various exchange activities at her former international school, meant stage fright was never an issue. She handled even the reception details exceptionally well, quickly winning the foreign parents’ favor.
This left the two students sent by Jinlong with practically no role to play, while Sun Guangquan’s face alternated between shades of green and white.
After the class bell rang, students filled the corridors, looking down at the foreigners near the display wall below. Yellow Hair, leaning on Xing Wu’s shoulder, said, “These foreigners are friendly, look how they’re chatting and laughing with Qing Ye. Our cousin is just excellent, winning over both Chinese and foreign friends.”
Xing Wu gave him a sidelong glance: “What nonsense.” Then he turned and walked toward the end of the corridor. Yellow Hair called after him: “Brother Wu, where are you going?”
“To release poison.” Yellow Hair touched his cigarette and followed.
Their group had originally come to smoke on the playground, but just as they lit up, the PE teacher came running from far away, shouting: “Quick, quick, put out those cigarettes! You guys really… didn’t you get the notice about the big meeting at two o’clock? Everyone’s coming over now.”
Xing Wu lifted his eyelids and indeed saw various classes already assembled, lining up and successively entering the playground. He extinguished his cigarette, and Yellow Hair and the others gradually stamped out their cigarettes too, though they still didn’t move, remaining seated under the sports equipment shed.
Meanwhile, Miss Yu hurriedly pulled Qing Ye aside and asked her: “You brought the script, right?”
“No.”
“What?” Miss Yu’s face went white.
“Where did you put it? I’ll have your classmates go get it.”
As Miss Yu was about to call Teacher Yang, Qing Ye pointed to her head: “No need, it’s all in here.”
Miss Yu was nearly scared to death by her boldness. Grabbing Qing Ye’s arm, she said, “When the principal gives his speech on the podium, you just stand in that position beside the podium, see? The principal will pause after each section, and you just take the microphone and translate, okay? No problems, right?”
Qing Ye looked at the position beside the podium, her eyes suddenly flashing with a gleam: “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Go, go, hurry back.”
So Qing Ye directly turned to the first-floor restroom nearby. In front of the mirror, she removed the hair tie binding her hair, and instantly, beautiful loose curls fell, carrying a hint of messy playfulness. She dabbed some water and tidied up a bit, then smiled at the mirror—commercial break time.