Vol 1 Chapter 3.3 (1/2)
3. Nightmare Reappears
A young heart is soft and immature. Thus, hurt and warmth will both be deeply remembered.
In the end, everything deeply remembered will blend with time to become our personalities.
Near final exams, an accident occurred.
One day during break time, it was my turn to be on duty. After sweeping, along with a few students, we chatted while mopping the floor. Everyone were impertinently saying each teacher’s nickname and commenting on the habits the teachers had during cla.s.s. I just dragged out the words, “Treasure Bowl, small spotlight eyes”, when Treasure Bowl came in. He didn’t have any reaction, he checked to see if the cla.s.sroom was tidied before leaving. A few students were scared terribly, after he left, they pat their chests saying, “luckily he didn’t hear.”
Sometimes, I have this sensitive sense towards people’s emotions. I already felt that Treasure Bowl wasn’t happy, he definitely had heard me call his nickname. However, I didn’t feel scared, my thoughts were simple, isn’t it just a nickname! He’s also a man so he can’t be so stingy, Wu Zei calls me Four Eyed Panda all day but I’ve never been angry about it.
However, my thoughts were wrong. Not only was Treasure Bowl angry, he also cared a lot about it. He remained calm during the scene but the next day, he picked one of my wrongs and shouted at me in front of the whole cla.s.s but he and I both knew that the reason for shouting at me definitely wasn’t because I was daydreaming in cla.s.s. My face showed mockery which angered him even further and he ordered me to change seats. He pointed at the corner at the very back and said to me, “you’re only suited to sitting there, move your desk over. Whenever you know where you were wrong is when I’ll arrange another seating plan for you.”
That corner of the cla.s.sroom was where the brooms, mops, watering can, bucket and rubbish bin were kept. Many guys were too lazy to get up and go to the rubbish bin so they’d often play a throwing game, some of the rubbish would get thrown outside of the rubbish bin so it can be considered as the cla.s.s’ rubbish court.
I silently carried my desk over to the ‘rubbish court’ and after sitting in the rubbish court, I realized that there was still a large distance between me and the people in the last row.
Treasure Bowl’s face was livid so the students all kept quiet out of fear, Li Shen’s eyes contained pleasure at my misfortune. The panic from back in primary filled my heart, I was actually once again in the circ.u.mstances of being cast away by my cla.s.smates.
I silently sat there and after cla.s.s, Treasure Bowl invited everyone to go play volleyball, furthermore he had already divided up the teams which had all but my name. The cla.s.s walked out chattering and laughing, leaving me the only person in the cla.s.sroom. I looked at the empty cla.s.sroom and suddenly, my false strength collapsed. The tears came rus.h.i.+ng down uncontrollably, I didn’t know what I was crying for, if it was regret for offending Treasure Bowl or dread for the future nightmare.
I haven’t cried for a long time but this time, bent over the table, the more I cried the sadder I felt, feeling that I am once again standing in an isolated and helpless corner as if I was replaying the nightmare again.
Unknowingly, I had forgotten to oppress the sound of my cries.
Suddenly, a nice voice asked me, “what’s wrong? Who bullied you?”
I raised my head, a tall teenager was standing in front of me, looking at me with concern, it was actually Chen Yuan Zhe!
He was wearing black pants and a white high collar sweater. Black wavy hair, golden rimmed gla.s.ses, warm and intimate eyes, looking from my position, the sunlight from the cla.s.sroom window shone on him and his body was coated in the silver light. He looked completely like a prince charming however, I wasn’t a beautiful princess.
I dazedly stared at him for a moment, lowered my head and continued crying.
He pulled a chair over and sat in front of my desk, warm and patiently saying, “no matter what happened, just say it out. Perhaps there is a solution.”
I still wiped my eyes crying. He didn’t say anymore and just patiently sat there, quietly accompanying me.
Finally, perhaps his warmth and patience made feel that he could understand anything or perhaps that afternoon sunlight shone on him making him seem especially warm, whereas my world exactly lacked warmth. I started to pour out my troubles while crying, many times I felt so sad that I couldn’t continue but he seemed to be infinitely patient and concentrated on listening to me the whole time.
After confiding in him, I felt a lot better. Although I was still crying, the dread had already disappeared.
He kept comforting me, patiently, only when I stopped crying completely did he stand up, “cla.s.s is starting soon, I’ll go first. Don’t worry, after a few days, the teacher’s anger will disappear and he’ll definitely move you back to the front.”
When he walked to the door, I realized I haven’t thanked him yet, I called him, “hey!”
He stopped and looked back at me, I said, “thank you.”
He lightly adjusted his gla.s.ses with his hand and smiled to me, “no problem, I didn’t help at all.”
After he left, the students came back one after the other and the cla.s.sroom livened up with noise, but out of fear of the homeroom teacher, everyone ignored me. I wasn’t bothered by this because I was in a trance, was what just happened real? Did the unattainable prince charming, Chen Yuan Zhe, really appear? It seemed too much like a dream, as if I created a fantasy to comfort myself with.
Because it was too unrealistic, I didn’t even mention it to Xiao Fei, only telling her that I was sent to sit in the back of the cla.s.s. I said it with a smile on my face. Xiao Fei had outstanding grades since young and has never truly experienced the pain from a teacher’s torment so when she saw that I didn’t care, she didn’t care much about it and joked along with me, there is so much freedom in sitting alone at the back, you can do whatever you want.
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Treasure Bowl would also criticize me often, attempting to make me bow down with his teacher authority. However, I had a respect me and I’ll respect you back personality and definitely wouldn’t bow down just because he forced me to. Instead, I became more stubborn, the more I was repressed, the braver I became, completely defying him. I didn’t concentrate at all in his English cla.s.s, instead I read Qiong Yao’s novels while chewing bubblegum.
Treasure Bowl had just started working and he was already a.s.signed to teach in one of the province’s key schools and even bore the responsibility of being a homeroom teacher so he was definitely eager to spread his aspirations. Pretend that all the students were foals and he was the horse trainer, then I would be the first wild horse he encounters in his horse training career. To him, whether or not I was able to be trained didn’t just represent if he would be able to maintain his dignity in front of the whole cla.s.s but deep inside himself, it also meant a sense of accomplishment towards his career.
At the start, the method he chose was still very easy and simple, it was nothing more than reprimanding me, punis.h.i.+ng me to do the cleaning and punis.h.i.+ng me to stand but after he discovered that after I stood at the back of the room, I seemed to look more comfortable that sitting, he started to understand that the methods used to punish normal girls had no effect onme.
Once at noon, I ran to school to play after having lunch and ran across him by chance.I was very unlucky that day, I had smashed a window in the cla.s.s, he flew into rage and ordered I bring my parents. I was very nervous and after going home, I stammered to my mom that the homeroom teacher wanted to see her.
Mom went to see Treasure Bowl who told her about all my misdeeds and hoped that the parents would cooperated with the teacher in educating me. After mom came home, she told everything the teacher had said to dad.
Probably because in comparison to stealing and fighting in primary, not listening in cla.s.s and breaking public property was considered too trivial so my dad didn’t mind too much, perhaps he even thought inside that Treasure Bowl was making a fuss over a trifle. Although my mom was rather worried, she couldn’t do anything. She understood inside about my coldness and detachment towards them so she didn’t dare to speak harshly, afraid that it will force me to change my coldness into rebelliousness. She could only mildly persuade me to respect my teacher.