PhD students don’t have winter and summer breaks like undergraduates; it all depends on the instructions of their advisors. As soon as the official holidays ended, Wen Di received a call from his boss—the International Shakespeare Forum was about to convene, and he was promptly summoned back to work.
Wen Di packed his bags and set off for Beijing. For some reason, every time he went home for the New Year, his luggage would always be twice as much on the return trip. All sorts of things—sesame candy, dried longan, dragon beard candy—filled his suitcase, despite Wen Di’s repeated reminders that ‘you can buy all of this online now’. That was one thing, but then his grandmother even brought out a big woven bag filled with fresh greens and shepherd’s purse.
Wen Di was taken aback: “I’m going back to school, not to the vegetable market.”
“Take it; these were just picked from the greenhouse,” his grandmother insisted. “Vegetables in Beijing are so expensive! More than five yuan per pound; it’s outrageous!”
“I usually eat in the cafeteria!”
“The cafeteria’s greens don’t taste good!” his grandmother said firmly. “The veggies from home are sweeter! You’ve moved out now, just stir-fry them in the evening with a bit of salt!”
“How long will it take to eat all of this? The vegetables will spoil!”
“Just cook more at once! The vegetables may look like there are a lot, but they will be gone once you fry them!”
Wen Di looked at the bag in distress, sighed, and decided that making the elderly happy was more important. He steadied himself and took the bag: “Then I’ll eat more.”
“Being a little chubby looks good! You young people are always trying to be thin, but being too thin doesn’t look nice.”
So, Wen Di lugged the big bag of vegetables, first by bus, then by subway and train, hauling the vegetables across hundreds of miles back to Heqing Garden. By the time he returned, Yu Jingyi, hurrying to earn some extra cash, was already back and was shocked to see the big bag: “You want to change your career?”
Wen Di cleared out the fridge, neatly stacking the vegetables inside, and turned to give instructions to his roommates: “Starting today, we’re done with regular meals. It’s all veggie feasts from now on.”
Yu Jingyi was silent for a while, then said, “Super healthy.”
But sadly, while a veggie feast might be healthy, it wasn’t very filling. Two hours after finishing a plate of greens, they were both hungry again. They came out to look for food like winter squirrels, but all they found were greens.
By the third day, both were on the verge of a breakdown. The greens were losing their crispness, drying out and looking less appetizing, clearly nearing the end of their shelf life.
The precious veggies, brought from so far away, couldn’t just be thrown out.[footnote]千里迢迢背来的心意，不舍得扔掉: literally means the heart that comes from afar/thousand miles away, unwilling to throw it away[/footnote] Wen Di, with the enthusiasm of researching literature, spent two days brainstorming and came up with a brilliant idea: making dumplings.
Delicious, locking in moisture, freezer-friendly, and long-lasting.
So, the two rolled up their sleeves, bought dumpling skins, chopped up the filling, and used up every bit of the vegetables in one go. Despite being amateurs, the dumplings turned out decently shaped and the stuffing did not come out when they were cooked.
Wen Di contentedly enjoyed two meals of clear soup dumplings, two meals with peanut butter dumplings, two rounds of sesame potstickers, and two rounds of egg-wrapped dumplings before reaching his breaking point.
“I’m starting to see you as a dumpling,” Yu Jingyi remarked.
On the third day of dumpling burnout, primary and secondary schools opened for the new semester.
Wen Di packed his credentials, certificates, and documents and went to report at Xingcheng Secondary School.[footnote]In Mandarin, 中学 can mean both middle school and high school, and since this school has both high school and middle school department, I will be using Xingcheng Secondary School[/footnote] The school provided meals, and during his interview, he’d taken a quick look at the cafeteria. The dishes were beautifully prepared, and it was a buffet. Remembering the aroma of the grilled steak, he was nearly moved to tears.
The elite school is rich and powerful, and has built a vast campus in the capital where every inch of land is valuable. Upon entering the school gate, there were sculptures, fountains, and a library adorned with red bricks, leading to an artificial lake. A few pairs of mandarin ducks flap their wings and swim leisurely under the bridge in the middle of the lake.
The school consisted of both middle and high school students, following an international curriculum where subjects like civics, history, geography, biology, literature, and economics were all taught in English. The students here aimed to study abroad; the Chinese language was not important to them, although there were occasionally children of overseas Chinese returning who wanted to integrate into the local environment, so small classes were specially set up to teach Chinese like a foreign language. Compared to the teacher-student relationship, here the students and teachers were more like customers and service personnel, with courses and classes set up according to the needs of the sponsors.
Wen Di was going to report to the high school administration building. He zoomed in on the map and swiped left and right, but still couldn’t find the location of the administration building. It was the first class period, and the students in British-style uniforms were all in their classrooms, so he couldn’t find anyone to ask for directions. He hesitated about whether to go to the office to find a teacher when a student suddenly appeared in his line of sight.
It was a slender boy, of medium height, with delicate features. He was pushing two stacked boxes forward, panting heavily and looking like he was struggling. The weather was cold, and white puffs of breath came out of his mouth.
“Classmate?” Wen Di called him, “Classmate?”
The boy stood up and looked at Wen Di with a confused look on his face.
“Do you know where the high school administration building is?” Wen Di asked.
“High school,” the boy repeated, “high school.” After thinking for a moment, he said, “I’m in the second grade of junior high school.”
“Oh,” Wen Di felt a bit disappointed. “You don’t know?”
“The high school is over there,” the boy pointed behind Wen Di, “that row.”
Okay ba, at least he had a general area now. Wen Di turned around and continued searching for his destination, though he felt like something was weighing on him. He glanced back at the boy, who was still pushing the boxes forward. On the boxes was the name of a rather expensive bottled water brand. Wen Di had seen it in a shopping mall before; each bottle cost dozens of yuan. The boxes were labeled as containing 24 bottles each, so two boxes must have weighed around 40 jin.[footnote]Approximately 20kg[/footnote]
Wen Di asked, “Isn’t it class time now? Why are you outside?”
Perhaps someone had taught the boy that when someone asked him a question, he should answer it seriously. He stopped pushing the boxes, straightened up, and replied earnestly, “The teacher said I don’t have to attend class.”
The teacher actually allowed students to move freely during class? The atmosphere at this elite school really was quite relaxed.
Then the boy continued, “The teacher said, ‘Don’t stay in the classroom and disrupt me.’”
So he’d been sent out for causing trouble. But considering the students here were either rich or noble, could a teacher just send someone out like that? Just how much trouble had this kid caused? “What did you do?”
The boy thought about it and said, “I raised my hand.”
Wen Di was puzzled. “Raised your hand?”
“The teacher said we should actively raise our hands in class, or just stand up directly,” the boy sighed. “I raised my hand every time, but the teacher never called on me. I stood up, and the teacher said I was disrupting the class and told me to leave.”
Wen Di was confused. Were there really teachers who didn’t like students raising their hands? “So you came out to buy bottled water?” A boy in the second grade of middle school wasn’t particularly strong, but not weak either. Still, this kid looked undernourished; hauling boxes weighing dozens of kilos seemed like too much. “Why are you buying so much water?”
“It’s for my classmates; two bottles each.”
Wen Di remembered there was a student convenience store at the school gate, so this water must’ve been bought there and carried all the way here. “If they want to drink it, can’t they just go to the supermarket and buy it themselves? Why did you have to carry it all back by yourself?”
The boy looked very proud: “I am the life committee member.”
What does the life committee member do? Wen Di had never heard of such duties when he was in school. “What else does a life commissioner do?”[footnote]Same Wen Di, same. When I was in school (both high school and middle school), there was only class cleanliness commitee (motly responsible for writing duty roaster and just class cleanliness) and also, don’t know what it’s called in English but they mostly responsible for decorating the class.[/footnote]
“A lot,” the boy counted on his fingers, “mopping the floor, cleaning the windows, taking out the trash…”
As he spoke, he grew more and more proud, standing up straight as if his actions embodied the saying: With great power comes great responsibility.
Wen Di sighed. Campus bullying at elite schools was nothing new. They’d just pick on the weakest, least influential kid in class. This kid wasn’t exactly sharp; even when he was being bullied, he thought he was contributing to the group, smiling away like a fool.
Wen Di glanced at his phone; the time for reporting in was almost up. His financial future was more important, so he ignored the boy and turned to run towards the high school.
He finally found the administrative building, and a staff member took him to meet the foreign teacher who taught English literature in the high school division. Wen Di’s main tasks were to assist in lesson preparation, grade assignments, and guide students in writing essays—essentially similar to the work of a teaching assistant. At the same time, Wen Di needed to sit in on a wide range of classes to familiarize himself with the teaching style here, in hopes that one day the foreign teacher might generously allow him to teach a class—an opportunity that had to be earned. With enough experience accumulated, he could consider full teaching responsibilities.
It was a situation he was used to, similar to his previous role.
The first day went smoothly. The foreign teacher’s words were much more pleasant than Ols Liu’s. He praised Wen Di’s lesson plans, rekindling his long-lost confidence. High school classes ended at 3:30 p.m., and after that, the students spent the rest of the time participating in club activities. After returning to campus, Wen Di could continue writing his thesis in the library. Perhaps it was a turn of good luck, as the writing also went smoothly.
It was a long-awaited perfect day, and amidst his joy, Wen Di suddenly felt a pang of guilt for the boy who had shown him the way. How was that foolish kid doing? Did he manage to carry all the water back? In this cold weather, would he catch a chill after sweating?
Thinking about finishing up the leftover dumplings at home, Wen Di skipped dinner. He waited until the library closed to go back and fry some dumplings and eat them as a midnight snack. Today, he added tomatoes, giving it a tomato sauce flavor. Though he had tried to put a new spin on them, they were the same at heart, and Wen Di barely managed to keep himself from gagging.
As if he didn’t feel uncomfortable enough, just as he calmed down the discomfort in his stomach, the familiar burnt smell wafted through the gap in the window.
It was like hot oil hitting water, and the simmering anger from the Chinese New Year was instantly reignited. He took out his phone and finally—finally—sent a message to the neighbor next door: [Who told you to cook?]
A moment later, a reply came: [Can’t I eat if I’m hungry?]
In Bian Cheng’s original intention, this reply sounded aggrieved, but when Wen Di read it in his mind, the tone became provocative.
Wen Di: [Every time you cook, it’s me who suffers.]
Bian Cheng: [Have you ever even tried the food I make?]
He hadn’t tried it, but just the smell had already made him feel like his insides were being scorched. If he actually ate it, wouldn’t he die on the spot? Wen Di thought of Bian Cheng’s younger brother, who he’d only seen once through the peephole. He remembered the boy looked quite frail and guessed that he was probably a victim of Bian Cheng’s cooking.
That kid was in the middle of growing, and he was being fed this kind of stuff every day. It was a punishment from heaven.
Wen Di opened the freezer door, grabbed the remaining tomatoes, and began to peel and chop them, simmering them to extract juice. He then cooked up another pot of dumplings. He found the biggest soup bowl in the cupboard, poured the dumplings into it, and walked next door, knocking on the door loudly.
Bian Cheng quickly opened the door. “Calm down,” he said, “Don’t knock over the couplets you bought.”
Wen Di glanced at the words on the red spokes, ‘Geometry of the Heavenly Way, why didn’t the Heavenly Way take this person back?’.
“Here.” He shoved the bowl at Bian Cheng, his movements rough. Bian Cheng, startled by the heat, almost dropped it but steadied himself, gripping the soup bowl tightly.
“Did you make this?” Bian Cheng asked, looking at him.
“Don’t get the wrong idea,” Wen Di said. “We had leftover dumplings at home. And this isn’t even for you. You feed this kind of stuff to the kid every day—how is he supposed to make it to adulthood?”
Bian Cheng was silent for a moment before asking, “So, can we come over to your place for meals in the future?”
“On what grounds?”
“Aren’t you the one who doesn’t let me cook?”
God! This person is so shameless!
“No.” Wen Di coldly grabbed the doorknob and slammed the door shut.
T/N: Title is from Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 7. The literal translation for the title ‘过度的善反而会摧毁它本身’ would be ‘Too much goodness destroys itself.’
