Zhou Zhuoyuan finally got to attend Pei He’s exclusive English composition class.
Just as he was eager to write a couple of essays to practice, the homeroom teacher appeared at the door.
Zhou Zhuoyuan had taken so much leave during his senior year of high school that the homeroom teacher couldn’t help worrying about his health.
She nodded to Pei He and handed the fresh milk she’d bought to Zhou Zhuoyuan in bed. “Health is the foundation of everything. You should recover first before studying.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan felt a little embarrassed. “Sorry for worrying you.”
“Don’t be too…” The homeroom teacher seemed about to bring up He Qinglan, but Pei He tugged discreetly at her clothes. She caught herself and changed course. “Anxious. I’ve talked it over with the other teachers. We can make time during evening self-study to tutor you both.”
Such tutoring wouldn’t earn them a dime. His teachers were purely sacrificing their own rest time to help him.
Moved, Zhou Zhuoyuan lifted his head. “It’s okay, Teacher. These are all review classes now. I can keep up on my own. Really, no need.”
Pei He chimed in. “Teacher, don’t worry. We have our own rhythm.”
The homeroom teacher eyed the English test paper spread out in front of Zhou Zhuoyuan and rubbed her temples with a headache. Senior-year homeroom teachers had to guard against students slacking off, but also against them pushing too hard and wrecking their health. “Just know your limits, you two. With your grades, normal performance on the Gaokao means you can pick any university in the province. No need to panic at all.”
And so, in front of her, Zhou Zhuoyuan neatly folded the English test paper and set it on the bedside table.
The homeroom teacher’s heart turned to mush. She gave a few more reminders before hurrying out of the school infirmary. There was a lot going on in the class lately; she couldn’t stay long.
After the homeroom teacher left, Pei He tucked the English test paper into his own backpack.
Zhou Zhuoyuan said anxiously, “Not even letting me practice a little?”
Pei He: “…”
Now he understood why all the teachers adored Zhou Zhuoyuan so much.
Pei He said, “You should think it through in your head first before practicing. Only by fully grasping the techniques will it be efficient.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan countered, “But that’s not what you said earlier.”
Pei He replied, “The teacher’s words gave me an epiphany. Indulging you too much isn’t necessarily right. You need an epiphany too. Haste makes waste.”
Zhou Zhuoyuan found that reasonable, so he lay back down to mull over the lessons from the English composition class.
~~~
For Zhu Wan and Zhou Fuxuan, the overriding emotion wasn’t heartache or regret—it was sheer terror in hindsight.
If Lin Decai had truly abandoned all humanity that day and not taken Zhou Zhuoyuan for the vaccine, they might never have seen what their grown son looked like.
How terrified and helpless must nine-year-old Zhou Zhuoyuan have felt in that moment?
Zhu Wan didn’t dare dwell on it. Fighting back palpitations, she turned the page.
The next entry railed against Lin Boxu for being stingy and violent—because he’d been kicked for sneaking peeks at Lin Boxu’s books.
Zhu Wan remembered the day after bringing Zhou Zhuoyuan home. He’d gone out with several servants and returned with stacks of extracurricular books, stuffing his room’s bookshelf to bursting.
She’d assumed at the time that he’d gotten some money and didn’t know what to spend it on. The house had everything else, so books it was.
The truth was, he’d never owned his own extracurricular books before.
Lin Decai wouldn’t buy them for him. His pitiful daily allowance got snatched by Lin Boxu every time.
It was like a kid who’d never eaten his fill suddenly facing an all-you-can-eat buffet—he had to gorge himself until his stomach ached.
The handwriting on the following page grew distorted.
He wrote that Dad had beaten him so hard his hand swelled up, forcing him to write with his left.
Zhou Zhuoyuan must have been an exceptionally bright child. Even with his left hand, he wrote quickly. If it wasn’t as neat as his right-handed script, that was understandable.
This page was even more smudged. He’d filled three whole lines with accusations of favoritism.
Zhou Zhuoyuan suspected he wasn’t the Lin family’s biological child—maybe picked up off the street. Once he found his real parents, he’d sever all ties with the Lins.
In his fantasies: My mom and dad have been searching for me everywhere. They love me so much.
Zhu Wan could no longer hold the diary. She broke down sobbing.
The love they’d given Zhou Zhuoyuan was so scant. How was it any different from the Lin family he loathed and longed to escape?
After coming home, had he kept such a diary? Were its pages filled with the same grievances?
Zhou Fuxuan closed the yellowed notebook and slipped it into her handbag. “Let’s finish it this afternoon. It’s almost time to bring Zhuoyuan lunch.”
If such a diary existed, then Zhou Fuxuan was cast in the same role as Lin Decai—the man he so despised and looked down on.
~~~
The small school infirmary room felt crowded and stuffy with so many people squeezed in.
Zhou Zhuoyuan glanced puzzledly at Zhu Wan’s red-rimmed eyes, then at his friends who’d arrived to visit, arms laden with gifts.
Zhou Zhuoyuan asked Pei He, “I shouldn’t have some terminal illness, right?”
“Pah, pah, pah—don’t jinx it,” Pei He said.
Without hesitation, Zhou Zhuoyuan turned to Zhu Wan. “You all have a lot on your plate this afternoon. Just leave the lunchbox here and head back. Thanks for making the trip.”
There was something intriguing about the way he said it—polite, yet leaving no room for refusal.
And that polite demeanor hardly seemed like the way one spoke to family.
Zhu Wan felt a lump form in her chest. She had never considered herself slow on the uptake, but only now did she realize something was off with Zhou Zhuoyuan.
It had been a very, very long time since he last called them Mom and Dad. Even here, in front of all these people where a slip of the tongue might be misinterpreted, he referred to them only as “you all.”
If she couldn’t truly love Zhou Zhuoyuan, then she shouldn’t bother at all.
After all, Zhou Zhuoyuan was long past the age where he needed his family’s protection.
Zhou Zhuoli caught the flicker of irritation in his brother’s otherwise calm gaze. He cut in before their father could respond. “Alright. You chat with your friends. I’ll come back tonight.”
Once the Zhou family members had left, He Tiaosheng and the others settled onto the attendant bed on their own initiative.
“Master,” Sun Yuqing said, “I never imagined you could ball so hard with that fragile little frame of yours. I’m seriously impressed!”
“…If you can’t say anything nice, keep your mouth shut,” Zhou Zhuoyuan replied.
Pei He winced at the sight of his cramped little attendant bed and neatly arranged the dishes for Zhou Zhuoyuan.
There were simply too many dishes this time; they wouldn’t all fit on the small overbed table. He dashed out to borrow another from the nurse.
“Haven’t you guys eaten yet?” Zhou Zhuoyuan asked. “Join me.”
The group swarmed over in a flash.
Food always tasted better when you had to scramble for it, it seemed. Zhou Zhuoyuan’s appetite was far better than it had been the day before.
One braised chicken leg remained on the small table. Zhou Zhuoyuan lowered his eyes to pick at the vegetables on the borrowed table. When he glanced back, the chicken leg had somehow ended up in his bowl.
He looked at Pei He, who was sitting beside him. “I just had one.”
“Who says you can only have one?” Pei He replied.
Zhou Zhuoyuan said nothing more.
The two chicken legs filled him up, so he barely touched his rice—but with Sun Yuqing around, hardly anything went to waste.
Once they finished eating, the group packed up while chatting idly. To Zhou Zhuoyuan, it all sounded like a swarm of mosquitoes buzzing incessantly in his ears.
Ji He mosquito: “Buzz buzz… want anything… buzz… I’ll buy it…”
Sun Yuqing mosquito: “Buzz buzz… Master… buzz buzz…”
He Tiaosheng mosquito: “Buzz buzz… poor thing… buzz buzz…”
And Pei He mosquito: “Buzz buzz… get some sleep… buzz… don’t disturb him…”
He didn’t regret the walls he’d built around his heart in the past, the cold indifference he’d shown every classmate. That had been the protective shell he’d painstakingly built over more than a decade. At the same time, he was grateful that after his rebirth, he’d taken the initiative to reach out to them.
No matter what the future held, when Zhou Zhuoyuan looked back and spoke of his high school days, he could do so with genuine fondness in his eyes—a cherished chapter in his life.
He no longer needed to flee in panic.
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