Back to 1988 23

Chapter 23: Grade-Skipping Exam

Mi Yang’s elementary school life began.

He arrived a day late and only received his set of textbooks in the afternoon. When Cheng Qing came to pick him up, he took them all home.

Mi Zehai was very happy when he came home from work that night. He took out a stack of map paper, all of which were old and discarded, with blank white backs. He carefully measured the size of Mi Yang’s textbooks and then cut the paper to make book covers for each one.

Mi Zehai was a soldier by trade, and his meticulous habits showed. The book covers were made with crisp, neat corners and looked very nice.

Mi Yang reached out and lovingly stroked the textbooks.

Mi Zehai said proudly, “What do you think? Daddy’s covers look great, right?”

Mi Yang smiled. “They look great!”

In his previous life, he had only gradually gotten to know his father around the second grade of elementary school. At that time, his father had just been transferred back. He was a rough man who had spent a long time in the army, his face tanned very dark, and he didn’t know how to please him. He had also personally made book covers for him at the beginning of the school year. When he took them to class, they were a unique and respectable sight.

Mi Yang put the books back in his schoolbag. There wasn’t enough space, so two books were placed on top, pressing down on the outside, for fear of forgetting to bring them the next day.

After he lay down to sleep, Mi Zehai secretly entered his room, put two fruit hard candies in his schoolbag, turned off his small desk lamp, and left quietly.

The next day at school, his deskmate, Bai Luochuan, naturally shared one of the fruit hard candies.

Bai Luochuan sucked on the candy and said, “I brought liquor-filled chocolates. You can eat them secretly later, don’t let the teacher see.”

They were triangular liquor-filled chocolate candies, with a layer of chocolate on the outside and a syrup with a hint of liquor inside. You had to suck on it for a while after biting into it, otherwise it would drip onto your hands. Mi Yang unwrapped the colorful packaging and slowly ate one. When Bai Luochuan offered another one to his mouth, he shook his head and refused.

Bai Luochuan said, “What’s wrong?”

Mi Yang had a low tolerance for alcohol and got drunk very easily. Although liquor-filled chocolates only had a tiny amount of alcohol, he still didn’t eat any more, making up an excuse to brush him off. “Um, it’s a bit spicy. I don’t like it.”

Bai Luochuan believed him and casually gave the few liquor-filled chocolates to the children sitting in front of and behind them. Since Mi Yang said it was spicy, he also lost interest in eating them.

This gesture made the other children feel flattered. They accepted the candies and said, “Thank you, class monitor!”

Class monitor Bai waved his hand, looking very generous.

A class in elementary school was forty minutes long, and the time passed quickly. After a few bells, the day was over.

Mi Yang obediently attended classes for a week, gradually increasing the number of times he raised his hand to answer questions, and actively asked the homeroom teacher questions that were beyond his grade level. For a first-grader, being able to do a little addition and subtraction was already very good. Many children were still frowning and using small wooden sticks to calculate 1+1. Mi Yang carefully expanded his range of knowledge to two-digit numbers. This move successfully caught the attention of the homeroom teacher.

She was a math teacher, and she was overjoyed to have a student in her class who was particularly good at arithmetic. At Mi Yang’s request, she also gave him two test papers from a higher grade to do.

And at that time, the young master Bai had already discovered that elementary school didn’t give out toys, and you weren’t allowed to bring them either.

After school, Mi Yang had a habit of staying in the classroom for a while to do his homework. Although the slogan of “reducing the burden” hadn’t been coined yet, the amount of homework given to elementary school students was not small. It was all in-class exercises, mostly repetitive copying. Mi Yang didn’t show any impatience. He had secretly practiced writing characters on the desk with his water-dipped finger before, but he hadn’t dared to practice too much for fear of being discovered. Now that he had a legitimate opportunity to practice, he would definitely start from the beginning. Even Pinyin could be practiced like the English alphabet.

Especially for something like practicing calligraphy, it was never too late.

Bai Luochuan, sitting beside him, held three pencils between his fingers and copied the new characters. Although his handwriting was a bit ugly, his efficiency was remarkably high, and he finished early. He sat to the side and waited for Mi Yang for a while, but soon he couldn’t sit still and whined, “Mi Yang, let’s go play.”

Mi Yang shook his head. “I haven’t finished my homework yet.”

Bai Luochuan said again, “Then let’s go play after you’re done?”

Mi Yang said, “After I’m done, I have to go home for dinner.”

The young master Bai was not happy. He reached out and gently tugged on Mi Yang’s sleeve. When Mi Yang glanced back at him, he became much more well-behaved, letting go of his sleeve and turning to play with Mi Yang’s pencil case instead. Mi Yang’s pencil case was a very simple iron one. It had only one layer when opened, with two pencils, one long and one short, and an eraser inside. There was nothing else.

Bai Luochuan played with it for a while, then pushed his own pencil case over. His was a very advanced fully automatic pencil case, with seven or eight buttons on the front and back, each of which could pop out a small item. It even had “advanced equipment” like a compass and a thermometer. It was the envy of the entire class, said to be the most popular stationery in Shanghai, and something that had never been seen locally.

After opening it, Bai Luochuan casually grabbed a few mechanical pencils and stuffed them into Mi Yang’s small pencil case.

Mi Yang saw this and reminded him, “Hey, I don’t want them. I have enough pencils…”

Bai Luochuan took his pencil case in his own hand and pushed the fully automatic one towards Mi Yang. “Let’s switch and use each other’s.”

Mi Yang finished copying the last few characters, stroke by stroke, put away his workbook, and reached for his small pencil case. He took out all the pencils inside and returned them to Bai Luochuan along with the fully automatic pencil case. “I have my own. When I don’t have enough, I’ll ask to borrow from you.”

Only then did Bai Luochuan reluctantly agree, but he still insisted on giving him a mechanical pencil with a small rabbit button, the same as his own.

Recently, it had become popular to use these mechanical pencils for writing, but Mi Yang still preferred to use Zhonghua pencils. They were the most comfortable for practicing calligraphy with a brush-like stroke.

Seeing him pack his schoolbag, Bai Luochuan became happy again. When the orderly came to pick them up, he pulled Mi Yang along to go home together. The ten-minute journey was spent with the two of them chattering away in the car. Basically, whatever Mi Yang said, the young master Bai was very happy. It was only after he got out of the car that he would lean against the car window and watch Mi Yang’s retreating back, looking as pitiful as a lost puppy.

The orderly couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight.

Bai Luochuan had always thought that he and Mi Yang would study together like this for many years. But after only half a month, when school started on a Monday, the homeroom teacher suddenly called Mi Yang to the office, and he missed an entire class.

Bai Luochuan didn’t know what had happened to Mi Yang and was restless for the whole class. The moment the bell rang, he immediately stood up and ran to the teacher’s office. After knocking and announcing his presence, he walked in to see several teachers gathered around Mi Yang, watching him write on a test paper.

Mi Yang was small, and sitting in the teacher’s chair made him look even smaller. He was just focused on writing, and when a teacher next to him occasionally asked a question, he would answer seriously.

Bai Luochuan moved closer and heard some recited poems. He looked down and saw the few papers Mi Yang had just finished, in both Chinese and math. He hadn’t taken a test yet and didn’t know what this meant, but he just felt a little uncomfortable.

The homeroom teacher stroked Mi Yang’s head and said with a smile, “This child is really good. His early education at home was also very comprehensive. Principal, do you think we should let him skip a grade and go to another class? It’s a bit of a waste to have him in my class.”

Mi Yang also looked up at the principal, his eyes full of expectation.

Bai Luochuan looked up at him, his little eyebrows immediately furrowing—Mi Yang was going to another class?