The Silent World And Him - Chapter 02

Pu Chen’s attention wasn’t on the contents of the note paper; her initial reaction was that Qin Yu’s handwriting was very nice. She forcefully redirected her focus, peeled the note paper off the desktop, and stuck it into her English book.

Closing the book, Pu Chen turned to look at the back row of the classroom. Qin Yu was propping up his head, flipping through a textbook, his posture seeming somewhat lax.

Pu Chen decided to provide Qin Yu with the answers to the English test, organizing the eight papers she had previously taken.

For some reason, she fully understood Qin Yu’s intention to copy the correct answers. They had to do their homework every day until midnight, and there were exams almost every day. Qin Yu simply couldn’t find extra time to do eight extra English papers unless he stayed up all night. During the third class break, Pu Chen organized the eight papers, clipped them together with a blue tail clip, and sent them to Qin Yu.

Qin Yu wasn’t proactive in class and was always the first to leave after class; right now, he wasn’t even in his seat.

Pu Chen placed her English paper on Qin Yu’s desk, with a new note attached: [Too many mistakes, you’ll have to make do with it.] Anyway, she had already corrected it with a red pen beside him, so it wouldn’t affect him copying the correct answers.

She had considered whether to copy the answers for him before, but later gave up. First, she didn’t have time, and second, it was easier to make mistakes when copying pure answers than copying directly from the test paper.

« Hey hey hey, isn’t that Peng Jingyang! Does he know Qin Yu? »

« Where? »

« Over by the back door, you can see him if you tilt your head. »

« It really is Peng Jingyang. It seems Qin Yu’s hometown is our Su City, otherwise, how would he know Peng Jingyang? »

Following the gossiping voices of the eight girls in the class, Pu Chen glanced towards the corridor outside the back door.

Qin Yu was leaning against the corridor table with Peng Jingyang, facing away from the classroom, chatting about something, looking very familiar with each other.

« I heard from our classmates that the person who transferred to Class Ten is called Qin Yu. I thought it was the same name as you. » Peng Jingyang still couldn’t believe that Qin Yu had transferred to their school.

One afternoon, news of a handsome guy transferring to Class Ten spread from the second floor of the high school teaching building to the first floor. Peng Jingyang accidentally overheard the girls in the class discussing Qin Yu, saying that he had transferred from Beijing and was incredibly handsome.

When he went upstairs to take a look, it turned out to be the Qin Yu he knew.

Peng Jingyang didn’t mention Qin Yu’s experience before the September math competition. Half a year had passed, and he didn’t expect Qin Yu to transfer. He asked about Qin Yu’s injuries, « How’s the recovery going? »

Looking downstairs, Qin Yu said, « It’s okay. »

Peng Jingyang asked again, « Are you going to participate in next year’s math competition? »

« Not interested. »

Peng Jingyang didn’t say much more. Guys weren’t good at comforting each other; comforting would only seem unnecessary.

Qin Yu missed the math competition in the first semester of the freshman year, which Peng Jingyang regretted. They had met at a summer camp abroad, when they were in junior high school, and both were interested in Olympiad math, having more talent than the average person.

So when Qin Yu said he wasn’t interested in the math competition, he knew it wasn’t true.

« Are you in the training team? » Qin Yu asked him.

Peng Jingyang shrugged, « Only made it to the national level. »

This time, it was Qin Yu’s turn to be surprised. With Peng Jingyang’s level, making it into the national training team was no problem.

Peng Jingyang smiled and said, « I messed up during the competition. » He didn’t perform well.

Qin Yu took out his phone from the pocket of his school uniform, opened the QR code, and asked Peng Jingyang to add his new WeChat.

The school rules forbade bringing phones, but many students defied them in secret, including Peng Jingyang.

Students were coming and going in the corridor, but the two of them exchanged contact information as if no one else were around.

When the bell rang, Qin Yu returned to the classroom. There were now test papers on his desk, with Puyu’s name on them. The handwriting on the test paper was neat and elegant, just like her.

« This is from the class monitor for you, » his desk mate told him.

Qin Yu nodded, took out a blank sheet of paper, borrowed a pen from his desk mate, and began copying the answers. He copied Pu Chen original answers, copying the questions that the teacher had marked wrong without even glancing at the correct answers next to him.

After tens of minutes, Qin Yu finished copying four test papers.

Three minutes before class ended, his phone vibrated with a message: [Mom won’t be able to return to Shanghai tonight, there’s a restaurant near the apartment, and the dishes from a few five-star hotels nearby are also good, you can order for yourself.]

Afterward, he received a hundred thousand yuan from his mother. Qin Yu didn’t reply to his mother’s messages. Today was his first day at the new school, and his mother couldn’t come because she was busy, so this hundred thousand was probably her way of apologizing. His mother always expressed her concern for him with money. Just two days ago, she had transferred him a hundred thousand, probably forgetting that she had already sent him money. It should be said that he never really cared.

When the bell rang for the end of class, they didn’t have evening self-study due to the snow today. Qin Yu folded his and Pu Chen’s test papers together and put them in his bag, still the first one to step out of the classroom. Pu Chen, with her backpack on, passed by the back door of the classroom. The seats in the back rows were already empty.

Near the school gate, she saw Qin Yu, who overtook her from behind. He probably didn’t recognize her and walked past her quickly. It turned out Qin Yu and her lived through the same gate. The school had two main gates, the east gate and the north gate. She walked home through the east gate, and so did Qin.

After leaving the school gate, Qin Yu walked across the street. Diagonally opposite the school was a pair of upscale apartment buildings facing the street. One was for rent, and many senior students from their school rented apartments there, with their parents accompanying them. The other was a luxury duplex, all privately owned. Qin Yu entered that luxury duplex building.

Pu Chen withdrew her gaze and followed the crowd across the street. The bustling street on both sides of the road, with towering buildings, was just like the apartment building where Qin Yu lived, over fifty floors. And along the alley she was walking now, less than two hundred meters away, was the old city area filled with the scent of fire and smoke. The old city area was old and dilapidated, but lively and clean. Various small shops and snack bars lined both sides of the alley. By the time it was off work, the place was bustling with people coming out for food.

Pu Chen’s home was here, in an eighty-year-old four-story building, and her family lived on the third floor. The snow on the small road wasn’t cleared in time, and it was pressed into ice blocks by passing vehicles and pedestrians, becoming a natural skating rink. Pu Chen went straight to a car repair shop where her father was busy fixing electric bikes for customers. Her father couldn’t hear or speak, so he ran a car repair shop to support their family. Some of the customers bringing in their bikes for repairs were also students from the school.

When Pu Chen arrived home from school, her father asked her in sign language, « Are you cold? » Pu Chen shook her head and replied to her father with a smile, « No, these insoles are very warm. » Worried about too much homework, Pu Chen’s father asked her to hurry home and do her homework. He brought out a thermos from the shop, containing food and dishes he had prepared for her. Pu Chen didn’t rush to leave. She cleaned the whiteboard at the entrance of the shop and put the whiteboard marker aside. The whiteboard was a tool for communication between her father and the customers of the repair shop. They would write down simple notes about what parts needed to be fixed or replaced on the board. Today was exceptionally cold. Pu Chen patted her father’s shoulder and said, « Dad, come home early tonight. » Her father agreed. In fact, Pu Chen knew her father would always stay late to close the shop.

As the sky grew darker, street lamps along the road lit up one by one, but they couldn’t illuminate the thick night. The old building wasn’t far from the car repair shop and was on the street without a property management company. Pu Chen turned into the building. The stairwell was dark and narrow, and the motion-sensor lights were not sensitive. Sometimes you had to stomp your feet to turn on the lights. The old house had two bedrooms and two living rooms, with each bedroom being small. After her aunt renovated the house, her father knocked down the wall between the balcony and the master bedroom, creating a corner desk on the balcony with a simple bookshelf next to it. This was her little haven. When she got tired of doing homework, she could push open the window and see the bustling market. Two one-meter-two beds were placed in the master bedroom, with her and her aunt sleeping in one each. Her aunt worked in Shanghai and was usually busy, only able to come back to see her and her father during holidays.

Pu Chen put down her backpack, took off her coat, and went to eat. Her phone kept vibrating with messages flooding the class group chat. By now, everyone was home, freely playing on their phones.

– « Class monitor, add the new student to the group. »

– « The class monitor probably doesn’t have Qin’s WeChat ID. »

– « I wonder if Qin has a girlfriend in Beijing. Sigh… »

– « What are you thinking? (smirking) »

– « Let me daydream a bit, can’t I? »

– « Even if Qin doesn’t have a girlfriend, he wouldn’t be interested in you. How about you chase after me? I’m easy to catch. »

– « Get lost! »

They chattered and laughed. Pu Chen never participated in the group chat. She silently climbed the stairs, with over a hundred messages, all about Qin Yu. Today’s homework was four test papers. Pu Chen spaced out for a moment before burying her head in her homework. Their home was always quiet, occasionally the quarrels of the neighbors next door would be heard. At eleven thirty, Pu Chen finished all her homework. She had a habit of lying on her bed and writing in her diary before going to sleep. Today’s diary entry was short, with the last sentence being: « A new student joined our class today, named Qin Yu. »

********

The next morning at six o’clock, the alarm clock rang on time. The school required students to be in the classroom before seven o’clock. Pu Chen struggled to sit up from under the covers and quickly dressed and washed up. On the table, a steaming hot breakfast was served. Pu Chen had a small appetite, but her father still prepared breakfast for her every day in different ways. While eating, she heard the sound of a hairdryer coming from the bathroom and thought her father was washing his hair early.

As she left, Pu Chen changed into her snow boots, feeling warmth under her feet. It was only then she realized that her father had just been warming her shoe insoles in the bathroom. The insoles were fluffy and warmer than the previous pair, probably a new purchase from her father. It was cold on the way to school, although there was air conditioning in the classroom. Her father insisted on keeping her warm on the way, especially in winter.

Pu Wanli changed into a thick coat and escorted her daughter downstairs. Just past six-thirty, there were few pedestrians in the alley, and the breakfast shops emitted steam. Pu Chen walked a short distance, then turned back and saw her father’s tall, slender figure still standing at the entrance of the building, watching her leave. When her mother was alive, she always said her father was the gentlest and most handsome man in the world. Her father was diligent and skilled, and life shouldn’t have been this way. He could have had a bright future, but fate had other plans.

Her father was a normal child, but became deaf and mute due to medication during his childhood illness. Misfortune struck again when Pu Chen was in elementary school, and her parents were involved in a car accident. Her mother was driving at the time and chose to give the chance to survive to her father, who was in the passenger seat. Her mother passed away on the spot, and her father was injured, losing a leg. Over the years of rehabilitation, her father still walked with a limp, but thankfully, he didn’t need a cane and could walk normally.

Pu Chen waved to her father, indicating he should go home quickly and be careful on the way. In the classroom, Pu Chen glanced at the rows behind her and noticed one person missing. They always left earliest and arrived latest, and now there was one more, Qin Yu. After the morning reading class, Pu Chen went to the restroom and on her way back, she coincidentally ran into Qin Yu coming out with an English exam paper. Qin Yu called out to her, « Class monitor. » Pu Chen paused and turned to look at him.

Qin Yu asked, « Which floor is the homeroom teacher’s office on? » It seemed he still didn’t know she couldn’t speak. Pu Chen hadn’t brought her phone, leaving it on her desk, and she was about to use gestures to tell him when a female classmate came out of the back door. Seeing Pu Chen without her phone, the classmate replied on her behalf, « Teacher Lu’s office is on the third floor, second room, by the front door. » Qin Yu thanked the classmate and headed to the office.

Pu Chen watched Qin Yu’s figure disappear at the end of the hallway, then returned to her seat. The first thing she did was pick up her phone and swipe the screen. From now on, she wouldn’t be separated from her phone, so she put it in her pocket.