The scene of the chaos in the office yesterday was still fresh in Wen Di’s memory and he quickly found the second year classroom. At this time, it was the break, so the students were either chatting in groups of two or three by the desks or walking through the corridor. He walked to the door of Jiang Yu’s class, looked inside, but didn’t see Yang Tianhua. He breathed a sigh of relief and stopped a male student. “Classmate, could you help me call Qu Ruiheng?”
The boy glanced at him twice and lazily shouted into the classroom, “Xiao Quzi, someone’s looking for you!”
Only then did Wen Di notice a boy in the corner. He was sitting quietly next to the classroom’s trash bin, reading a book alone. Occasionally, someone passed by and threw a bottle or a ball of paper into the bin. Even if the trash didn’t land where it should, the boy didn’t mind. After the person left, he would pick up the trash and put it where it belonged before continuing to read.
Hearing his name, the boy raised his head and looked toward the door. Wen Di was startled when his eyes met the boy’s. This was undoubtedly the most good-looking youth he had ever seen, with features so perfect they didn’t seem real.
The boy stood up and walked toward the door. He was quite tall, with thin lips and deep-set eyes, but there was a gloomy atmosphere about him, as if the whole world was sunny except the area around him, which was raining. Wen Di opened his mouth to speak, but the boy made a gesture, signaling him to head toward the corridor. They walked all the way to the corner by the door of the psychological counseling room. Only when there was no one around did the boy stop and ask, “What do you want with me?”
“I’m Jiang Yu’s brother,” Wen Di said. “He told me you’re his friend.”
The boy’s gaze swept over Wen Di’s face. For some reason, this child gave him a chilly feeling down his spine. “He sees everyone as a friend,” the boy finally said.
Wen Di shrugged. “I think he’s very clear in his heart about who his friends are.”
“Yeah?”
“He might not understand the words scolding him or praising him, but he knows who treats him badly and who treats him well,” Wen Di said. “He doesn’t tell us when he’s being bullied because he knows that if he does, we’ll definitely make him drop out of school. This kind of thing has happened once before.”
The boy silently stared at the dark glass of the counseling room.
Wen Di looked at him and said, “He came to this school because of you ba. After his parents divorced, he attended elementary school back in his hometown for a while. Did you know him back then?”
When the boy opened his mouth, his answer was unrelated. “He shouldn’t have come,” he said after a pause, then added, “He’s an idiot.”
“That’s true”
After a long while, the boy shifted his gaze to Wen Di. “Is he doing okay?”
“He’s doing well.”
“He won’t be coming to school anymore, will he?”
“No.”
The boy pulled out a faint smile and then asked a baffling question: “Where did you park your car? The parking lot on the east side?”
Wen Di was puzzled for a moment but nodded.
“I’ll go find you there later.”
After speaking, the boy turned to leave. Wen Di’s gaze fell on the back of his neck, and his heart suddenly skipped a beat: “The scar on your neck…”
The boy paused briefly, turned back to glance at him, “It wasn’t left by someone hitting me,” he said, “It’s from when I hit someone.”
After that, he didn’t say another word. As he walked through the corridor, the boy who had called him earlier was leaning against the balcony railing with a few other classmates. They called out to him.
“Who was that just now? Your mom’s new boyfriend?”
“What surname do you want to change to this time?”
“Save some trouble; in a couple of days, if he gets kicked out, he’ll have to change it back.”
The boy said nothing, silently walking around them and into the classroom. He didn’t look like someone who would start a fight.
Wen Di walked down the stairs and saw Bian Cheng waiting for him by the flower bed. Bian Cheng gave him a questioning look, clearly curious about what he had gone to do. Wen Di briefly recounted his meeting with the boy. All the way to the parking lot, Bian Cheng didn’t say a word.
“A lot of kids don’t speak up about being bullied—some are afraid of troubling their parents, while others find that things get worse after they do,” Wen Di thought of the boy whose name was difficult to write. “I thought Jiang Yu might be in the same situation, so I wanted to find that boy to collect evidence. But when I saw him, I suddenly understood.”
What Jiang Yu saw that day wasn’t a club activity but an old friend in the club activity.
After a moment of silence, Bian Cheng said, “I really am not cut out to be a parent.”
“Don’t get discouraged. Nobody gets it right from the start,” Wen Di comforted him. “Besides, it’s perfectly normal for kids to have little secrets.”
Their conversation came to an abrupt halt when Qu Ruiheng walked over. He had been standing in a corner of the parking lot. When he saw them, he quickly walked up, neither introducing himself nor explaining his purpose. He pulled an envelope out of his backpack, handed it to Wen Di, and then walked away without a word, bypassing the two of them. Wen Di called out to him, but he didn’t respond.
As impolite as a certain someone else.
As rude as a certain guy.
Wen Di could not get any response from the person involved, so he had to take the envelope and get in the car. The envelope contained a lot of material. On the way back to the community, Wen Di sat in the passenger seat and browsed through it, utterly shocked. “Where did he get these photos?”
While waiting for the red light, Bian Cheng glanced at a few pictures. He didn’t show any expression on the surface, but he was surprised in his heart.
“And he didn’t even know I was coming today, which means he’s been carrying these things with him all the time,” Wen Di said, recalling the boy’s gloomy temperament. “What on earth is he trying to do?”
“Kids these days are very precocious,” Bian Cheng finally commented.
After parking the car, the two walked to the third floor. Bian Cheng placed his hand on the doorknob, hesitated for a moment, and asked Wen Di: “What about the photos? Come to my place to discuss it?”
It was a clumsy excuse to get him to stay, but Wen Di stopped anyway.
“How about we grab some lunch together?”
“Ordering takeout again?” Wen Di said, “You don’t even consider a balanced diet while the child is growing.”
“… Let’s go to a proper restaurant,” Bian Cheng pointed to the north, “the restaurant north of the community.”
Wen Di thought for a moment, then turned and followed him into the house.
Jiang Yu wasn’t watching TV in the room. He was lying on the dining table, holding a pen and doing homework, with a studying attitude that could move people to tears. Various subject worksheets were spread out in front of him. As Wen Di passed by, he glanced at them and saw that all the answers for the multiple-choice questions in English were marked as C.
“Are you bored staying at home?” Bian Cheng put the keys into the storage box and asked.
Jiang Yu nodded, the pen slipping from his hand, and said dejectedly, “I want to go to school.”
“I’m looking for a new school. You’ll be able to go to school in a couple of days,” Bian Cheng said as he put away the worksheets. “You don’t have to do these papers.”
Jiang Yu looked at the fruits of his hard work and said worriedly, “But the teacher said, if you don’t study for one day, you’ll know it yourself. If you don’t study for two days…” He forgot the rest, but it meant something about working hard.
Bian Cheng pulled out the math worksheet, glanced at the equation question on it, and saw a few crooked numbers written below. It was obvious that the numbers in the question were copied again. He wanted to sigh but held it in.
“This is beyond your ability,” Bian Cheng said. “I’ll find simpler questions for you to work on in the future.”
Jiang Yu responded with an “Oh,” slowly putting down his pen, looking a bit dejected. “I still can’t learn it.”
By this time, Wen Di had already slid into the chair next to Jiang Yu and was eating loose biscuits from the fruit plate. Hearing Jiang Yu’s words, he turned his head and said, “It’s no big deal if you can’t learn it.”
Jiang Yu blinked: “The teacher said that if you don’t study well, you will have no future when you grow up.”
“Being good at studying and having a promising future are two different things,” Wen Di said. “Just look at me.”
“But the teacher said learning knowledge is useful in everyday life,” Jiang Yu said. “I can’t do math, so I can’t count money properly.”
“Just use a calculator.”
“I can’t remember English words either.”
“We’re Chinese. Why do we need to speak English?”
“I can’t do history either.”
“We’re living in the present. We need to look forward.”
“And I don’t understand politics.”
“Politics is something that even politicians themselves don’t understand.”
Jiang Yu showed a surprised expression: “Really?”
“What’s so great about good grades?” Wen Di pointed at Bian Cheng. “Look at your brother, he can’t even find a wife.”
Jiang Yu glanced at Bian Cheng and said in an admiring tone, “But my brother is a genius.”
“Is being good at studying the same as being a genius?” Wen Di thought for a moment and said, “I think someone who can feel happiness all the time is the real genius.”
After taking a jab at the two brothers, Wen Di turned his head and saw Bian Cheng looking at him with a smile at the corner of his mouth—it was really puzzling, wasn’t he scolding him just now?
“What are you looking at?” Wen Di asked in an aggressive tone.
Bian Cheng replied, “If we weren’t already married, I would’ve proposed to you just now.”
Wen Di let out a snort of laughter. “As if you’ve ever properly proposed to me. You’re the guy who had me fold you a makeshift ring at the last minute.”
Alright, Bian Cheng thought, another grievance added to his partner’s list of complaints.
T/N: Title is from Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. The literal translation for the title ‘尽管贫穷却感到满足的人是富有的’ would be ‘The man who is content in spite of his poverty is rich.’
