Past midnight.
Zhu Yun sat in her chair, a phone on the desk in front of her. She had been staring at it for half an hour.
“What are you doing…” Fang Shumiao emerged from the bathroom during a break from sorting her materials and said, “You think if you stare at it long enough it’ll bloom?”
Zhu Yun came back to herself, rubbed her hands together, picked up the phone, and headed out.
Fang Shumiao: “Where are you going?”
“Making a call. I’ll be right back.” Zhu Yun answered.
She went to the dormitory balcony, pulled the door shut behind her, and dialed her mother.
It rang a few times. The call connected.
“Hello?”
“Mom.”
“Zhu Yun — calling out of nowhere, what’s going on?”
“Are you off work?”
“I am. What is it — go ahead.”
Zhu Yun leaned against the railing. The metal was ice-cold in the night wind.
“Nothing much… I just missed you. Wanted to call.” Zhu Yun said quietly.
Her mother heard the rare vulnerability in her daughter’s voice and laughed warmly. “Mom misses you too.”
“Mm.”
“How have things been? Exams coming up soon, right? When do you get your break?”
“Exam week is next week. Once that’s done it should be vacation pretty quickly.”
“Make sure you study properly.”
“……”
Zhu Yun was quiet for a few seconds. Her mother asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter…”
“Then why are you being so hesitant?”
“It’s nothing…”
Zhu Yun started to speak, then stopped. Her mother said: “I’ve been a teacher for half my life. Do you think I can’t tell when something’s wrong with you? Talk to me. What is it?”
Zhu Yun: “There’s a teacher at school who’s been very… hard on students.” She scratched absently at her jaw — the skin there was still slightly reddened where Zhang Xiaobei’s hot tea had hit it.
Her mother laughed.
“Strict teachers produce exceptional students. Your father was known for being strict when he was at school — how else do you think he got such outstanding results? If all teachers are soft and slack, how are students supposed to push themselves?”
Zhu Yun shifted, leaning her back against the railing.
The sky was empty tonight — not a single star.
After a few quiet seconds, she said:
“Mom, my grades have been dropping fast.”
Her mother paused. “What?”
“I was fourth in the class at midterms. Last quiz I dropped to ninth.”
“What happened? Have the courses gotten harder?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Zhu Yun squinted up at a bedsheet hanging outside from one of the upper-floor dormitory windows.
What pattern was that — cartoon characters or a floral print?
“Well?” her mother pressed. “Is there a problem with your coursework?”
“Not exactly. A teacher from the graduate department pulled me in to help with a project. The timeline is very tight, and I haven’t had time to study for anything else —”
“Absurd!”
Her mother cut her off sharply before she could finish.
“Graduate students are graduate students — what does that have to do with you? Pulling you in to work on a project — honestly, what kind of teacher thinks of these things!”
Zhu Yun said quietly: “She meant well. She said it would give us practical experience.”
Her mother said: “Zhu Yun, you’re still too young. You don’t understand how these things work. You leave this alone — I’ll have your father handle it. You focus on your revision, and I’ll be looking at your final exam results.”
“Okay.”
“Tell me — what’s this graduate supervisor’s name?”
Zhu Yun hesitated. “Mom… she’s an associate professor at the school.”