Chapter 22: Remote Feeding and the Second Counseling Session

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At noon, in the cafeteria, Zhai Da was picking at bitter melon stuffed with banana in one hand while holding his phone in the other.

“Malnourished” had sent him another message.

“I’m eating lunch.”

Having more or less figured out what the girl meant, Zhai Da replied, “What are you eating?”

After a while:

“Malnourished”: Cold rice noodles.

“Handsome Zhai Da”: Cold rice noodles aren’t nutritious. Ask the owner to add two fried eggs.

This time, “Malnourished” took a little longer to reply.

“Done.”

“Eat them. Finish everything.”

“I finished.”

You know what? Don’t even say it... Just don’t say it.

There was something strangely satisfying about issuing remote orders like this.

The rest of the day passed peacefully. The conversation with the teachers he had imagined never happened; Chu Xiang had indeed made the whole thing up.

Although Zhai Da never handed in his homework, he was remarkably attentive in class. This was especially true during Chinese and English. In one, his foundation was so good that learning came effortlessly; in the other, his foundation was so poor that every little thing he managed to absorb counted as tremendous progress.

He had finally learned how to spell the correct word for “beach,” too.

Meanwhile, the rumor that Lin Shuyao had confessed to Zhai Da and been rejected—having reached the highest levels of authority, namely the queens of the gossip world, that whole group of girls—began spreading rapidly throughout the school.

Purely from the standpoint of reputation, it was a good thing for Zhai Da. He was beginning to shed his identity as the tragic, lovelorn boy and make a leap in social status. He had become the man the campus belle was chasing.

A pathetic simp had undergone a complete transformation into a top dog.

But in terms of the distraction it caused him, his classmates’ strange, scrutinizing looks during breaks were incredibly annoying.

Lin Shuyao had plenty of admirers, after all, and while public opinion had swung in his favor, there were probably no shortage of hidden enemies, either.

So whenever Zhai Da saw Wu Yue, he gave him a kick in the backside.

During evening self-study, the mathematics teacher came to commandeer the class. A collective groan swept through the room. Of all the subjects, mathematics was the most torturous; after one long lesson, even a human brain could be turned into a machine.

Zhai Da, however, possessed a get-out-of-jail-free card. He swaggered out of the classroom alone and went to the top floor of the teaching building, where he knocked on Teacher Shen Rui’s office door.

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As agreed, this was Zhai Da’s second visit to Teacher Shen Rui—and his last.

At first, he had been deeply dismissive of the so-called “psychological counseling,” but their last conversation had gone rather pleasantly. As a result, Zhai Da was actually looking forward to today’s meeting.

After all, it gave him a perfectly legitimate excuse to skip evening self-study.

Teacher Shen Rui was still seated at his desk, hard at work, his fountain pen moving ceaselessly across the page. It was unclear why a supposedly carefree civics teacher had so many things to deal with every day.

When he saw Zhai Da enter, Shen Rui rose with a smile.

“Zhai, we meet again.”

Zhai Da assumed he was going to make tea. Instead, after a moment, Shen Rui rummaged through a cabinet and pulled out two bottles of Assam milk tea, handing one to Zhai Da.

“We’re out of hot water, but you probably prefer this anyway.”

Zhai Da was surprised. “You keep these in the office?”

Shen Rui raised a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell the other students. It’s just a personal indulgence.”

Zhai Da suddenly thought of a worn-out saying from his previous life:

Interesting souls are one in ten thousand.

As before, Shen Rui did not begin by asking whether Zhai Da was emotionally stable. That was something to be observed, not something to be asked. Picking up from their previous conversation, he said, “I asked my third uncle about it a couple of days ago. Your grandfather really did know my mother. In the 1960s, the Woolen Mill produced precision instruments for the military, and the two of them worked together for a time.”

Zhai Da listened carefully, but still shook his head regretfully. “I’m sorry. I have no way to verify that.”

Shen Rui reassured him. “It’s all right. If you aren’t interested in this topic, we can talk about something else.”

“No, actually, I am very interested...”

Shen Rui took a sip of his Assam milk tea and continued. “The moment my uncle heard the name Yu Lihua, he became extremely excited. He said your grandfather was a skilled technician transferred from the three northeastern provinces. You know, back then, most of the country’s industry was concentrated there.”

“He was once recognized as an outstanding technician, and he taught himself enough to pass the university entrance exam. My uncle said the factory even held a celebration for him. He wore one of those enormous red flowers. Unfortunately, it seems he never ended up going.”

At that point, Zhai Da’s memories connected with what Shen Rui was saying, and he added, “Grandfather didn’t take the university entrance exam until he was thirty. But not long afterward, because of... well, that thing, he was sent to the far northwest. He didn’t come back for several years.”

“By the way, what did your grandfather die of?”

“Cancer. Several kinds.”

Shen Rui fell into thought, lightly tapping the cap of his bottle of Assam.

The northwest. The 1960s...

In truth, Zhai Da’s memories of his grandfather were vague as well. He suspected he was no exception. Few people could recount their grandparents’ lives in detail; knowing roughly what work they had done and the general course of their lives was already considered good enough.

The passions and years of the older generation were, to the young, merely sediment settled at the bottom of life.

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Some of it might have been mentioned by Yu Xiaoli, but it was hidden among fragments of conversation and the routines of daily life. For a soul more than thirty years old, those events were already far too distant.

Without realizing it, Zhai Da thought of the old twenty-eight-inch bicycle.

Its crossbar was as hard as the spine of its first owner...

Was that what it referred to—the fact that he had passed the university entrance exam only to be sent to the far northwest for seven or eight years?

Using Zhai Da’s grandfather as the subject, the second session of “psychological counseling” began.

Zhai Da could more or less guess Shen Rui’s approach. He wanted to use his grandfather’s experiences to remind him that, viewed over the long term, short-term setbacks were not the outcome but merely part of the process.

The danger lay in taking one’s thinking to extremes. With too little life experience, one could easily mistake the process for the result.

Shen Rui never asked what had really caused Zhai Da to faint that day. He had not asked during either of their conversations. Whether it was academic pressure or the failure of his confession did not matter. Shen Rui was speaking from a higher perspective.

Of course, Shen Rui’s conversations always roamed far and wide. Before long, he had gone off topic entirely and was even telling Zhai Da about his own years studying in the Northern Capital.

He bluntly pointed out that for a child from an ordinary family in a county town or village, the psychological shock brought by a major city was the first hurdle to overcome—even for the top student in the class.

He also reminded Zhai Da that after the university entrance examination, whatever the result, he would need to keep his composure if he went to a major city.

At last, as Zhai Da was leaving, Shen Rui said, “According to the school’s requirements, two counseling sessions are considered sufficient. I stand by my original assessment: you never really needed this.”

Then he smiled and raised an eyebrow. “Still, it gave you an excuse to skip one evening-study period, and it let me give my brain a change of pace.”

Zhai Da asked curiously, “Are you very busy with work?”

The question was a little too provocative.

“My work isn’t demanding. I simply have a long-term research project.”

Civics teachers conducted research too? Shen Rui clearly was not talking about lesson plans...

Something in the social sciences, perhaps?

Zhai Da only knew that university lecturers were all involved in research, to the point that teaching was not even their primary responsibility. He had never imagined that high school teachers could do research as well.

Shen Rui said, “In that case, the counseling is officially over. But if you ever have any problems, you can still come and knock on my door.”

Zhai Da nodded. He had a feeling—

he would be back.

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