“Have you learned it?” Seeing Fei Ni remain silent, Fang Muyang smiled and said, “If you haven’t mastered it yet, I can teach you again. If I ever have inappropriate thoughts about you, don’t show me any mercy.”

Fei Ni tossed aside the stick and walked to the electric fan to cool off, remaining quiet.

“If you think you’ve got it down, give it another try. What would you do if you encountered something and couldn’t muster enough strength? I’ll make sure you learn it today. Want to try again?”

Though Fang Muyang said this, he didn’t move. He didn’t want to irritate Fei Ni today.

Fei Ni grew annoyed. “Can you stop making these kinds of jokes?”

“Do you trust me that much? If you trust me completely, I’ll throw this stick away.”

He smiled as he watched Fei Ni rush into the bathroom, not forgetting to remind her: “Don’t forget to lock the door.”

Fei Ni entered the bathroom, locked the door, turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water on her face until the heat subsided, though her ears remained hot—especially the ear that Fang Muyang’s lips had inadvertently brushed against. When he had grabbed her hand earlier, they were very close, and her heart had been beating so fast she wondered if he had heard it. Leaning against the bathroom door, she recalled how flustered she had been, and even now remained so, her heart still pounding. She tried to calm herself, firmly believing that as long as she conducted herself properly, Fang Muyang wouldn’t and wouldn’t dare to do anything inappropriate.

Listening to the water running in the bathroom, Fang Muyang sat by the electric fan, flipping through a book on watch repair. He turned the pages loudly to drown out the sound of running water.

The book had been mailed to him by his older brother, with a note wishing him to become a useful person.

Fang Muyang’s birth had been completely outside his parents’ plans. Before him, his parents already had both a son and a daughter and had no enthusiasm for nurturing a new life. His mother believed that childbearing would inevitably affect her work, and even with wet nurses and daycare centers available, she didn’t want another child. His father fully supported his wife’s wishes—he was in his prime and needed an active married life, which would be affected whether his wife was pregnant or in confinement. But by coincidence, the year before Fang Muyang’s birth coincided with strict national controls on contraceptive imports, and abortion was also restricted. By the time his mother discovered his existence, she could only resent his father’s carelessness. Though it was too late to change anything, she still banished his father from the study to vent her anger. Even before his birth, he had become evidence of his father’s transgression, leaving his father perpetually at fault in his mother’s eyes.

After his birth, contraceptives were eventually deregulated and controls were lifted due to various social pressures. His parents played a minor role in promoting this change, with his father being particularly active, knowing that without deregulation, his wife would force him into a bachelor’s lifestyle to avoid accidental pregnancy.

There’s a saying: “Raise the first child by the book, raise the second like a pig.” Though Fang Muyang’s second sister was a girl and was raised with care, Fang Muyang was completely left to his own devices. From birth, his brother’s old clothes found new use with him. As if to prove he didn’t deserve new clothes, while a single piece of clothing would last his brother for years in good condition, when it came to him, within days it would either have burn holes or tears. His parents didn’t mind, since at that time, most children’s everyday clothes were patched—this meant their son had integrated into the masses.

When he was little, he was quite adorable. His sister treated him like a living doll, taking out her character cards to teach him to read. However, this fake doll proved far less lovable than a real one—he tore up all the character cards in the box, laughing while doing so. His sister decided he was unteachable and stopped paying attention to him. While Fang Muyang’s brother had self-studied university-level physics in middle school, and his sister had grown up in the study, he alone lacked basic reverence for knowledge from an early age.

His parents thought this was fine—having too many intellectuals in the family wasn’t necessarily good. They had no expectations for their son, letting him play freely, only hoping he would grow up safe and healthy. Even when Fang Muyang learned piano and painting, it was on his own initiative, learning from family guests. He tried other things too, but only these two pursuits persisted.

It wasn’t until Fang Muyang started causing trouble with other children that his parents realized he was becoming a problem—without proper education, he would eventually become a menace. His mother delegated the responsibility of educating him to his father since if his father hadn’t insisted on moving from the study to the bedroom that night, he wouldn’t have been born.

His father outwardly assured his wife that it was fine for a child to be a bit wild—at least he was healthy. But privately, he called him to the study for a lecture and delegated the responsibility of supervising their son to the other two children, asking them to watch their brother while doing their things. But their supervision was limited to tossing him a book to read before going about their business. Their concern for their brother was minimal; they wouldn’t even notice he had left until after he’d already returned from causing trouble. His father finally lost patience with him, and whenever someone came to complain, he wouldn’t even bother with verbal discipline, instead taking him straight to the study for a beating. After multiple beatings, Fang Muyang learned the pattern and would run away before the punishment could begin.

His parents tried various methods to discipline him, including sending him to boarding school, withholding allowance, and making him sew and wash his clothes—different ways to make him suffer. When he appeared to have been influenced and changed, they would take him out to restaurants, buy him a better violin, and get him the best paints. His life fluctuated between these extremes depending on whether he was causing trouble.

Initially, his parents had to deliberately create situations for him to experience hardship, but later, real hardship came naturally. Because of the previous practice, when real difficulties arrived, he was already accustomed to them. Of the remaining dishes at home, except for one bowl for eating, all had been used to mix paint. When this last bowl was accidentally broken, he had to painfully clean out his paint dishes to use them for sweet potato and vegetable porridge. When others urged him to denounce his parents and distance himself from them, he refused, believing that apart from giving this socialist budding youth early re-education from poor and lower-middle peasants, his parents hadn’t committed any unforgivable errors.

His closer connection with his siblings began after the family fell on hard times. During the nationwide connectivity movement, he sold everything valuable at home for travel expenses, then bought two bottles of pickled vegetables from a famous shop, and took a free train to visit his siblings, wanting them to taste hometown flavors. They offered him money, but he refused, knowing they were even less accustomed to hardship than he was.

In middle school, though he and Fei Ni attended the same school, they were in different classes and rarely met. When he occasionally saw her, he would just look at her and smile, without greeting her. Fei Ni seemed to avoid him, probably fearing he would borrow money, but he never asked her again, knowing he likely couldn’t repay it.

There was one time when he encountered Fei Ni on the street. Like a thief, she quickly handed him one yuan, saying she had found it in his box and was returning it to him.

He knew there had never been any money hidden in his box.

But he spent the money anyway, ordering a fried pork cutlet and two servings of ice cream at a restaurant, enjoying a proper meal.

Later, when he met Fei Ni again, she acted as if she didn’t know him. She probably distrusted his character, fearing he might falsely claim there was more money in the box and ask her for it. He was keen to join a military production corps or state farm as an educated youth—though it would be hard work, it came with official status and wages. However, due to his poor family background, he couldn’t achieve this and could only join the countryside movement.

After going to the countryside, he never saw Fei Ni again.