“Before becoming talented, one must first become a person of character. The world will not change for one individual.” The homeroom teacher, suppressing the fire rising in his chest at this reaction, said: “What kind of expression is that?”
The tone of it was uncannily familiar. Every time Wei Zhendong found that he would not bend like a docile lamb, he would ask him the same thing.
“The world is nothing to do with me. Whether it changes or not has nothing to do with me. And teacher, you need not hold any deep misunderstanding of me — I have never been so arrogant as to think I could change the world.” Wei Qingyue spoke sharply. He almost never spoke disrespectfully to teachers.
“Do you think I’m angry about that? Wei Qingyue, do you think you’ve been deeply misunderstood — that no one in the world truly understands you? What I am angry about is this: you are so exceptional, yet you do not know how to care for yourself. That sharp, violent edge of yours — if you don’t bring it under control, it will destroy you one day. If you had beaten that man to death, you would have gone from being in the right to being in the wrong. Do you know what you looked like just now? Every one of the teachers was watching you. Several grown men could barely hold you back. You made us feel like we didn’t know you at all. Is this our best student? Not one of us hoped you would let a moment of impulse lead to a disaster you couldn’t undo!”
The homeroom teacher’s voice was firm and resonant, every word weighted with feeling.
But Wei Qingyue found himself completely unable to feel any of it. He was exhausted and profoundly lonely — so unbearably, wretchedly lonely. His reason had separated from his body, hovering like a ghost in the air, watching the figure standing there below, saying: the teacher is right. He means well by you.
Even as he means well by you, he always hopes he can change you.
He spoke with composure, looking at the homeroom teacher: “I am not able to simply stand by and watch. All I knew was that Jiang Du was about to be beaten to death. I cannot endure watching a beast beat my classmate to death. May I go now?”
The homeroom teacher’s brows drew together sharply: “After everything I’ve said, you still haven’t understood what I mean. Resolving things doesn’t only mean violence. The point is, I cannot approve of a student of mine acting with such total disregard for the consequences. I hope you will think carefully about this. You are a child with a great future ahead of you — for the sake of one female classmate, acting this impulsively…”
“I am simpler than adults.” Wei Qingyue, for the first time, directly cut the teacher off — quite rudely. The homeroom teacher stared at him in surprise: “What do you mean by that?”
He knew what the teacher was assuming — that he must be in love with Jiang Du, or that the two of them were secretly in a relationship. He knew what his classmates would think too.
Wei Qingyue didn’t want to keep going around in circles with the homeroom teacher. He surrendered. He said he understood the teacher’s good intentions, that he would take them to heart, that he would never do something like this again. He answered like a model top-performing student. And at last, he was allowed to leave the office.
At the small flower bed by the entrance to the office building, Zhang Xiaoqiang was still waiting for him. Seeing him come out, she hurried over and asked carefully: “Did the homeroom teacher give you a hard time?”
Wei Qingyue shook his head. His hair was disheveled, his clothes filthy and rumpled, the laces of his navy-blue sneakers undone.
“Let me go with you — to visit Jiang Du,” Zhang Xiaoqiang said, watching his expression carefully. “I just asked — the teachers took Jiang Du to the military hospital nearby. Would you like to go see her?”
The two of them prepared to skip class and take a taxi to the hospital.
Jiang Du had sustained a concussion from the beating. Her face was swollen; her eyelids were swollen. There were abrasions all over her body. She had regained consciousness, but was in a state of extreme shock — lying there, her eyes fixed on nothing in particular.
When the two of them arrived, the ward was crowded with a teacher, the class president of the arts honors class, and her grandparents. Grandmother had long been reduced to tears.
The teacher, seeing Wei Qingyue, gently explained to the grandparents that it was this young male classmate who had stepped in to help — that he had fought with the man, and nearly choked him to death with a belt.
Jiang Du’s gaze drifted slowly toward the doorway.
She met Wei Qingyue standing at the door, looking in. He could barely recognize her.
Tears slipped slowly from the corner of Jiang Du’s eyes. She blinked at him, then looked at her grandmother beside her, and opened her lips. Grandmother immediately leaned down to hear.
The moment stretched long. The old woman finally straightened up, her eyes blurred with tears: “Good child, come here. Jiang Du wants to say thank you.”
Wei Qingyue paused, then walked slowly over and sat in the chair beside the hospital bed. Jiang Du’s lips moved with great difficulty. After a brief hesitation, he lowered his head until his ear was close to her mouth.
“You got into a fight…” the girl’s voice was barely a thread, “if your father found out it would be terrible — he would beat you for it.” The scene from that summer night flashed back again and again. Jiang Du squeezed her eyes shut in pain, tears streaming down in rivulets, her consciousness blurring. “Your father will beat you. Wei Qingyue — run, please run. It hurts so much. It really, truly hurts so much.”