Mother Sun packed the soup for him, and he carried it back to the marital home. Sure enough, Zhou Yu was sulking in bed. He said: “Mom made lamb soup, heat it up when you’re hungry tonight.”

Zhou Yu didn’t make a sound.

“I’m going to Hefei, coming back Thursday.”

“You don’t need to tell me.” Zhou Yu didn’t look at him either, “Just do what you usually do, just go directly.”

……

Sun Jingcheng sensed something in her words, “I tell you wherever I go. Yesterday at your house I said I was going on a business trip.”

Zhou Yu pulled the blanket up higher, not responding to him.

Sun Jingcheng reflected for a while, “Maybe occasionally I don’t tell you, but it’s definitely not intentional…”

“You don’t need to say all this.”

“Then what are you angry about?” Sun Jingcheng asked.

“I’m not angry.”

……

“Fine, you’re right about everything!” Sun Jingcheng didn’t argue with her, “When other people are angry they go shopping, watch movies, eat good food. You’re great—after stirring things up you foolishly come back to sleep.”

“Who did I stir up?” Zhou Yu sat up looking at him.

“You stirred me up!” Sun Jingcheng replied, “I was happy going on a business trip, now my mood is ruined.”

“Then don’t go.”

“I’m definitely going.”

“Go or don’t go, whatever you want!” Zhou Yu got out of bed, using a large hair clip to pin up her hair. She remembered she had to work tomorrow and still had work to finish.

Sun Jingcheng felt much more comfortable. He couldn’t keep things bottled up—he had to say them out loud to feel better. Once resolved, he could focus on other matters with a clear mind. Because of this, he had even changed his ticket to seven in the evening.

It was too early to go to the high-speed rail station now. Unable to sleep, he simply sat down to play piano. One played Liszt while the other worked quietly—they didn’t interfere with each other.

Early the next morning at school, the grade level head called her over, telling her to wait before going back to the office. Zhou Yu asked her, “What happened?”

The grade level head pointed upstairs, “Jiang Yuan’s parents are inside, the vice principal too.”

Zhou Yu didn’t say anything—then she’d wait a bit before going up.

The grade level head led her to the teaching building, “The hospital recommended Jiang Yuan have eye removal surgery.”

“That serious?” Zhou Yu was stunned.

“Yes, only fifteen years old.” The head sighed, “Even younger than my child by several years.”

Zhou Yu hadn’t recovered from the shock when she continued: “The parents want to sue the school for inadequate supervision. In the end it’s probably us teachers who’ll be in trouble.”

Zhou Yu didn’t quite understand this. The head looked at her, “You’re still young, haven’t experienced much. Arranging teachers for morning and evening self-study duty is actually indirectly informing parents that students are being supervised by teachers. Now that something happened to a student, when parents hold someone accountable, the first person is the duty teacher.”

“But I was in another class at the time…”

“Don’t worry.” The head reassured her, “The school naturally knows the specific situation, but they also need to give the parents an explanation. At this time they can only push out the duty teacher.”

Zhou Yu stopped talking.

“This depends on how the parents and school negotiate. If handled well, the duty teacher gets a demerit. If not handled well, if the parents won’t let go of the duty teacher, the situation is hard to say.”

“I’m giving you advance notice so you’re mentally prepared. If the principal sees you tonight and tells you to rest for a few days, don’t take offense.” The head instructed her, “Before the school and parents agree on compensation, don’t show your face.”

“At the affiliated middle school, a student jumped from a building during art class. It really had nothing to do with the teacher, but the parents strongly demanded the teacher be fired. When parents are in the grief and despair of losing a child, there’s no reasoning with them.”

“Okay, understood.” Zhou Yu nodded.

The head sighed lightly, “If it were us, it’d be the same. Raising them with such hardship, just two more years until college entrance exams… Try to understand.”

Zhou Yu didn’t respond. The two slowly went up the stairs. The head comforted her, saying that in last week’s grade-level test, her class’s English scores were still first and second in the entire grade. She was a young backbone teacher being cultivated by the school and wouldn’t be easily disciplined. Just then they heard students shouting loudly, “Teacher Wang, Teacher Wang—”

The head looked up. Students were leaning over the railing on the fourth floor. She asked: “What’s wrong?”

The students were anxious, hesitating to speak, just urging her to come up quickly. The head jogged up, not forgetting to turn back and tell Zhou Yu that it might be parents causing trouble, not to come up. Zhou Yu was worried and followed up anyway. At the classroom door stood both sets of parents. One parent was cursing and kicked their child far away. Teachers rushed to stop them. The child couldn’t get up for a long time after being kicked.

“You’re really barbaric! What kind of ability is hitting a child!” Jiang Yuan’s parent pointed at the other’s nose, “Don’t put on a show for me, I’m not buying it! We’ll go through legal procedures, take responsibility where due, compensate where due!”

The other party was also domineering, pointing at the child on the ground, saying they had no money, take the person away.

School leaders came one after another, persuading both parties to go to the office. Zhou Yu quietly went downstairs, first waiting in the nurse’s office. Sure enough, shortly after, the director contacted her, asking her to hand over substitute teaching duties to another English teacher, then wait in the principal’s office.

After Sun Jingcheng finished his business in Hefei, he went directly to Mount Huang. Because he planned to watch the sunrise, he simply booked a hotel in the scenic area. After entering the scenic area he didn’t take the cable car, climbing from the foot of the mountain for three or four hours to Bright Summit Peak. Along the way he befriended an elderly uncle, and the two agreed to watch the sunrise together the next morning.

The next day before five in the morning he was already wearing a military coat, climbing to the top to watch the sunrise. The beauty naturally went without saying—sunrise, sea of clouds, rime ice, strange rocks—it was truly like an earthly paradise. Sun Jingcheng immersed himself in quietly experiencing it all. Not until the uncle beside him couldn’t stand the cold anymore did the two go down together. The uncle was proud of the beautiful scenery in his camera, saying it was worth freezing to death!

Only then did Sun Jingcheng remember he had forgotten to take photos. The uncle said it didn’t matter—once he got home he’d send him the photos. The uncle was a local from Hongcun Village and was extremely hospitable, inviting Sun Jingcheng to his home for a meal. Sun Jingcheng couldn’t refuse and followed him walking down the mountain.

On the way down the two were silent, each thinking their own thoughts. Sun Jingcheng thought about Zhou Yu saying he was self-centered, lacking family responsibility. He had actually taken it to heart. He had been used to being self-centered in his early years—wanting to go somewhere, he’d just pack his bag and leave. One place today, another tomorrow. Mother Sun always said he was here one moment, gone the next, not telling family where he was going. If something happened, they wouldn’t even know where he was.

The uncle lived alone. Sun Jingcheng didn’t ask about his family, nor did the other ask about his. The two ate, chatted casually, drank tea, then went to the darkroom together to develop photos. Sun Jingcheng liked this place and stayed an extra day, hanging around with the sketching artists. Unfortunately, his painting skills were really poor. Even though his appearance wasn’t bad, he was still looked down upon by the art students around him.

Sun Jingcheng laughed heartily. Since people looked down on him, he’d paint by himself. First he got a set of painting supplies, set up at what he considered a good angle, and painted looking at the Moon Pond. Look at the Moon Pond, move the brush; look at the Moon Pond, move the brush. After a long time someone passed by, deeply attracted by his painting, and asked what he was painting.

Sun Jingcheng said leisurely, “A duck, I’m painting a duck.” The other person looked at the Moon Pond but couldn’t find the so-called duck. They pointed out that ducks have webbed feet, chickens have four distinct toes forming claws.

Sun Jingcheng didn’t care—then let’s say I’m painting a chicken. The other person was an elderly art teacher who, with a sense of responsibility, said chickens can’t swim in water, they don’t have webbed feet. Sun Jingcheng was indifferent and handed the brush to him.

This elderly teacher painted a duck, vivid and lifelike. After finishing, he gave a few pointers and left. Sun Jingcheng continued painting his chicken—a chicken floating on the water playing, with both feet hidden in the water.

After finishing, he signed his name, took a photo and sent it to the brothers’ group. The group replied that his duck was too ugly, not even as good as their daughter’s drawing. He replied: “Have our daughter teach me another day.”

The other replied: “Who’s ‘our’? If you like it so much, go have one yourself.”

Sun Jingcheng also sent the painting to Zhou Yu, typing: “I’m coming back tomorrow.”

Zhou Yu replied: “Okay.” Then replied again: “Mom just sent over a chicken too.”

Sun Jingcheng didn’t reply, sending her a location instead. After satisfying his painting urge, he gave away all the painting supplies, then walked on the stone-paved road, along the water channels that wound through households, touring the architecture and ancestral halls on both sides.

Mother Sun not only sent Zhou Yu a chicken, she also sent her a person—Sun Jingcheng’s twin sister’s son, Ke Yu. Ke Yu also attended high school at Zhou Yu’s school. During the middle school entrance exam he was a few points short, but with Zhou Yu’s connection, it wasn’t difficult to get in.

The high school section had eighteen classes per grade—five honors classes, six experimental classes, seven parallel classes. The so-called regular classes. At the time Zhou Yu, considering all aspects of Ke Yu’s abilities, arranged for him to be in an experimental class where he could barely keep up.

With final exams coming up soon, he wanted Zhou Yu to help tutor him before the test. Tutoring was fine—she was idle at home anyway with nothing else to do.

Ke Yu used to live with his grandparents in a neighboring city. Originally he planned to attend high school nearby, but when he learned Zhou Yu taught at a key high school, and that the province’s educational resources were far better than theirs, they had Ke Yu apply to Zhou Yu’s school.

Ke Yu’s mother was also quite a character, named Sun Jingfei—Sun Jingcheng’s twin sister. Sun Jingfei had an impatient temperament. Back in her second year of high school she took the college entrance exam, naturally didn’t pass, and was later arranged by Father Sun to attend nursing school.

After half a semester at nursing school, without saying a word, she rolled up her bedding and came back. The reason was that a female roommate was too difficult, and her request to change dorms was rejected. After returning she found a job selling women’s clothing at a shopping mall. After working for two months she quit again, saying a customer praised her eloquence and said she should go sell houses at a sales center.

She really went to apply at a real estate sales office. With good looks and eloquence, she was naturally hired. But the actual work differed greatly from her imagination—every day she just handed out flyers on the street. After almost a month of this, she felt deceived and cheated. Just as she was preparing to quit yet again, she accidentally saw the payroll. The first person on the first row earned a salary she couldn’t imagine at her age. Same real estate salespeople, but vastly different salaries.

After that she settled down and hung around those colleagues with good sales. Those colleagues treated her like a naive young girl and didn’t take her seriously at all. Half a year later she began independent sales. The first client she received was her husband’s family. In the end the house sale didn’t go through, but Sun Jingfei got together with the client’s son. After dating for six months she got pregnant, so naturally they got married. A year after giving birth she handed the child to her in-laws and returned to the sales center, working there for over ten years since. Now among the four Sun siblings, the ones with the strongest career abilities were, besides the second Sun Jinghui, the third Sun Jingfei. The eldest couple both had public sector jobs, not worth mentioning. The fourth, Sun Jingcheng, had the most ordinary career.

Sun Jingfei’s ability to anger people at home far exceeded Sun Jingcheng’s—she could make Mother Sun jump with rage. Apart from Sun Jingcheng, the person Father Sun least wanted to deal with was Sun Jingfei—not only did she get pregnant before marriage, but her only son-in-law was not to his liking.

Sun Jingfei had no obsession with Ke Yu’s education, basically letting him grow freely, following the child’s wishes, studying according to his own ability. If he got into college, fine; if not, he’d go out to work. All roads lead to Rome. This differed from Grandfather Ke’s philosophy—the grandfather insisted he get into a good university to bring honor to the Ke family.

Zhou Yu’s relationship with Sun Jingfei was neither good nor bad, just an ordinary sister-in-law relationship. Sun Jingfei was busy with work and her location wasn’t fixed—sometimes in prefecture-level cities, sometimes in county-level cities. Usually when the family gathered on weekends, she could attend once out of ten times, which was already remarkable.

She had a good impression of Ke Yu. He was especially sensible and polite. At school when he saw her he called her Teacher Zhou, privately he called her Little Aunt.

Over there Sun Jingcheng was preparing to come back. The uncle specially saw him off to the station. On the road he talked about himself, saying he was about to turn sixty, had been married twice, and after the second divorce hadn’t looked for anyone again. In the blink of an eye twenty years had passed. He said when he was young he also traveled around enjoying himself, taking photos for travel magazines.

“Don’t know why, but somehow living alone I became solitary, didn’t know how to get along with people anymore. After marriage I actually couldn’t adapt to family life. The existence of the other half became a kind of disturbance instead.”

“Do you regret it now?” Sun Jingcheng asked.

“Regret is natural, especially these past few years. Especially when I can’t sleep at night, during festivals when firecrackers go off, even every day there’s such a moment. But… I’m stubborn. Some time ago someone introduced me to a widow. I thought about it and decided, forget it! When I was young I wasn’t willing to change, now that I’m old I’m even more set in my ways. Not worth suffering for.”

“Life’s vast ocean, nothing more than this.”

“If time could flow back twenty years, I would try hard to make changes, be an ordinary person, love a specific person, participate in her life.” The uncle said.

“I feel even if it really did flow back, you wouldn’t change.” Sun Jingcheng said with a smile.

The uncle laughed heartily, patting his shoulder… “A kindred spirit is hard to find. Really wish I could keep you a few more days.”