Buxi Town Middle School was neither far nor near from home. The two didn’t board at school, but it was inconvenient to return home at noon. Grandma Chen would prepare food a day in advance and have them bring it to school. The school cafeteria provided steamer baskets, making it convenient for students to heat their meals. Chen An and Cheng Lele were placed in adjacent classes. When mealtime came, Chen An would openly enter Cheng Lele’s classroom, and the two heads would huddle together to eat. Cheng Lele was a picky eater, and Chen An specialized in eating the scraps that Cheng Lele didn’t like. After finishing, Chen An would collect the bowls and chopsticks to wash them. Cheng Lele would hold milk in her mouth while supervising.
During her infancy, Cheng Lele had been deprived of some portion of breast milk to varying degrees. Grandma Chen tried every method to compensate afterward, forcing her to drink several bottles of milk every day. As a result, even when she reached middle school, she was still like a little child, with a faint milky fragrance on her body.
Now in eighth grade, Cheng Lele always felt hungry. Her stomach was like a bottomless pit—shortly after eating, it would start growling with hunger. Chen An also noticed the changes in Cheng Lele. Cheng Lele’s height shot up rapidly. Sitting on the back seat of Chen An’s bike, her feet already needed to be tucked up to avoid touching the ground. During emergency braking, his back could even feel the softness from Cheng Lele’s chest.
One day, Cheng Lele suddenly took leave to go home. The next morning, her face was pale as she weakly went to the second floor for breakfast. Grandma Chen had prepared brown sugar water in advance and also filled a large thermos bottle to the brim, having Chen An carry it on his back to school. Chen An’s mind was sharp—he immediately understood what was going on. He searched online for menstrual period precautions, skimmed through them at ten lines per glance, and memorized everything.
From then on, Chen An took on an additional task of period tracking and reminders. Whenever the time came, he had to watch that Cheng Lele didn’t drink cold things and make sure she didn’t get caught in the rain. Cheng Lele’s face was as thick as a city wall. She was embarrassed at first, but after two months, she relaxed completely. Sometimes when she arranged to go swimming with her girlfriends, she would turn around and ask Chen An which day last month her period was. She used Chen An’s brain as a memo pad—any little matter and it was “Little Brother—”
At the town middle school, Chen An continued to expand and develop his business empire. He began advancing into the insurance industry. As long as everyone paid five yuan in insurance premiums each month, if they got sick that month, they could go to Chen An’s place to get medicine for free. Besides this, he also founded a tutoring excellence club. By paying certain membership fees, members could get test papers from provincial capital schools each month—this was spiritual wealth that Chen Tao had brought back through connections. He felt it was too wasteful for one person to monopolize it and unreasonable to share it for free, so he utilized it to generate additional income.
Although Chen An liked making money, he was never stingy. As the saying goes, what comes from the people should be used for the people. Each month he treated others generously, and through this back and forth, he made a friend with whom he would share deep feelings in the future. Quan Zirong was the town mayor’s son. Ordinarily, his eyes looked down on everyone, but he alone got along with Chen An. One day, Chen An had already brought Cheng Lele home when Quan Zirong called him, asking him to sneak out in the evening to watch a movie—something called “The Bourne Identity,” an American blockbuster with big stars, with an exciting plot full of ups and downs.
Chen An had never properly gone to a movie theater to watch a film. Previously, Chen Tao’s work unit had distributed movie tickets, but the Chen family didn’t have that romantic mindset. Generally, before the tickets even reached their hands, they were snatched away by the single dogs at the work unit who hadn’t yet found partners. Instigated by Quan Zirong like this, Chen An was somewhat tempted, so he ate dinner early and slipped into his room. Grandma stayed overnight at the Chen home from Monday to Friday to look after Chen An. It wasn’t good for him to go out again late at night through the door, so he jumped out through his room window, climbed down the pomegranate tree to the first-floor courtyard, then scaled the courtyard wall to get out.
When he returned from watching the movie, it was already nine or ten o’clock at night. Cheng Lele was sitting by the window cutting out idols from magazines when, in her peripheral vision, she caught sight of someone leaping into the courtyard. She held her scissors and leaned out her body. Hey, it was Little Brother.
“Where did you go?”
“Taking out the garbage.”
Cheng Lele didn’t ask further. She stuck half her head out the window and shouted upward, “Grandma—”
Chen An immediately covered Cheng Lele’s mouth with his hand. “Went to watch a movie.”
Because her mother was a Yueju opera performer, Cheng Lele’s usual large-scale free entertainment activity was going to the theater in the neighboring city to watch performances. The theater there was a small venue dedicated to performances, without any fancy functions.
Cheng Lele’s cream-like cheeks were covered under Chen An’s palm. Her eyes widened round as she asked with bright intensity, “Was it good?”
Chen An felt his palm itch. He lowered his hand and said, “Not bad.”
“I want to go too.”
“It’s in the county town.”
“Grandma—”
“Okay, okay, okay. I’ll take you, alright? Tomorrow right after school. Get your story straight with Grandma and your godfather and godmother—say the school has an activity and you’ll be home late. Got it?”
Cheng Lele nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.