Xinyiwu: Originally

Chapter 4 The Pupa under the Tall Tree

Their stories begin in summer and end in summer.Whenever Su Yunjin looks back, she seems to be able to smell the hot and humid atmosphere of the past, as if hiding a rainstorm that will never fall.She is a young cicada dormant in the mud, distractedly listening to the distant rolling thunder.

A slightly bald middle-aged man stood in front of her with his hands behind his back. He was her head teacher at the time.

"...I saw your test results. Have you ever thought about taking the college entrance examination as an art student?"

Su Yunjin bowed her head as if she wanted to fold her neck into her chest. That's good. It can not only avoid the smell of sweat on the teacher's body, but also hide the shame and embarrassment on her face.

How could she fail to understand the teacher's implication—the third year of high school is coming, like the provincial key high school where she is located has strict standards for university entrance rate, her grades are really not very good, and art students have relatively high requirements for cultural grades Low, the teacher is tactfully reminding her not to hold back the school.

Su Yunjin is a transfer student from a suburban county near the provincial capital.Her father is a biology teacher in the county, and her mother used to be an accountant in a certain factory. She was laid off a few years ago and had to become a housewife.Due to her father's poor health and frequent visits to the hospital, the family's life was not well-off, but her parents still loved her as an only daughter, so Su Yunjin never suffered any grievances since she was a child.After finishing the first year of high school in the county where her father taught, her parents felt that the local education level was backward. In order to let their daughter enter a good university, they used all the savings and contacts of a teacher's family to send her to this school. It is one of the top key middle schools in the province.

For the arrangement of her parents, Su Yunjin was reluctant at first.On the one hand, she doesn't want to leave her parents; on the other hand, the expensive school selection fee makes her feel distressed every time she thinks about it.Of course, she couldn't hold back her parents, and couldn't bear to defy their expectations, and she just wanted to win for them.But the reality is often unsatisfactory. Even though she was among the top grades in her original school, "Oranges born in Huainan are oranges, and those born in Huaibei are oranges." The first quiz after transferring to another school made her feel cruel. The gap, according to the overall score ranking, she was actually the bottom No.5 in the class.

This was a heavy blow to Su Yunjin, who has always been strong. For the whole year of her second year in high school, she worked hard to catch up.For this reason, she didn't know how many times she cried under the covers, and she didn't have the courage to mention her study situation in front of her parents.It's all right now, the class teacher's euphemistic words made her heart completely cool.It was a complete mistake for her parents to do everything they could to send her to this school. Maybe she wasn't a smart child at all. I'm sorry for their hard-earned hard-earned money, and let them live up to their expectations.Art students need more money to invest, not to mention that she has no talent in art, just her "rotten wood" temper, it is not worth adding a burden to her already tight family.

In this way, no matter how much the head teacher persuaded her that it was a wise choice to take the art student route, she still bit her lower lip and bowed her head without saying a word.If she really has a chrysalis, it's best to hide in it, rotting in the soil, and the sunlight in the treetops is simply a dream.

At this moment, the get out of class bell rang sharply, and the first evening self-study was over.

The teacher reached out and wiped the sweat from his head, it was very hot.He waved his hand to the female student who looked very shy. "Go back to the classroom and think about what I said. By the way, next semester will be divided into arts and sciences. Have you considered it?"

Su Yunjin shook her head.Her Chinese scores are good, but her history is terrible. Physics is a subject she likes quite a lot, but her math and chemistry scores are not good, and her English and politics are mediocre.

"I personally think liberal arts is more suitable for you. Of course, you can also discuss this with your parents." The teacher turned and left after speaking.

Su Yunjin froze for a moment, a faint bitterness welled up in her throat.Her class teacher taught physics. If she chose liberal arts, she would definitely not be in the class he was in charge of, so it wouldn't hinder their class' grades.After a while, she remembered to move her numb neck, and the suddenly noisy environment around her reminded her that she was neither covered with cicada pupa nor covered with mud.Just now, in the corridor outside this classroom, to be precise, outside the back door of the classroom next door, she was singled out by the teacher to have a conversation with her in full view. Everyone knew that this was not a good thing.Those students who are sitting in the classroom doing self-study may not know how to see this joke. It seems that there is a sign hanging on her chest, with two eye-catching big characters on it - "poor students", and a red cross .

In fact, before transferring to another school, Su Yunjin was quiet but not very introverted, but suddenly changed to an unfamiliar environment, she became the black sheep who suddenly broke into the crowd, surrounded by city classmates who were better than herself, she It was difficult to integrate into it for a while, there were no close friends, and the grades plummeted again. I always felt unable to hold my head up, my confidence was gone, and I talked less and less. The invisible shadow.

The classroom corridor between classes is usually a place where boys get together to "release the wind", and soon it is full of people standing around.Su Yunjin originally wanted to withdraw her seat quietly, but then she realized that no matter how frustrated she was, she still couldn't give up the idea of ​​going to the bathroom.

The bathroom in the teaching building was located at the end of the corridor, which meant she had to walk through the wall of men.In the past, Su Yunjin also often felt uncomfortable because of this. The girl's sensitivity and shyness made her always feel that she didn't know how to place her hands and feet.

A small group of boys from the next class in front were chatting and laughing loudly, pushing each other and making a fuss. One of them laughed and avoided the body movements of his companions, stepped back a few steps, and bumped into Su Yunjin who had just walked a few steps.

Fortunately, the force of the collision was not too intense, Su Yunjin only felt a numb shoulder, and the opponent turned around immediately.She seemed to hear laughter from the side.

It was their fault, but she was too embarrassed to care about the theory at the time, and moved aside, trying to get around the "obstacle" in front of her.Unexpectedly, the person in front of him probably also had the same thoughts, and also took a step in the same horizontal direction, still standing in front of Su Yunjin.In desperation, Su Yunjin dodged to the other side, but the other side also moved over.

The corridor was originally not spacious, and there were many people standing on both sides. In fact, there was only a narrow passage in the middle for people to walk through, and they could not perform much movement.Su Yunjin was short of breath, she simply paused, stood there and waited for the man to move away first, counting silently for two seconds, seeing that he hadn't moved, she walked around him again and wanted to move on.God knows if that person was also planning to do this, the two met again, Su Yunjin was already moving forward, and almost stepped on each other's feet.

There was a burst of laughter around, and an ordinary collision turned into a living farce under this damn "tacit understanding", Su Yunjin flushed with embarrassment, even though she was very annoyed that the other party was ignorant, she didn't have the nerve to speak, and kept her eyes level In front of him was the school uniform pocket on the opponent's chest, which was the same light blue color as his own, except that it was slightly wet with sweat.

The other party seemed to be baffled as well, and uttered an impatient monosyllable.Su Yunjin was already ashamed and annoyed, but when she heard it, she became even more angry, obviously he bumped into her recklessly first, it was fine if he didn't apologize, but now it seemed that he was blocking his way.She was eager to get rid of those watching eyes, and didn't think too much in her panic, she lowered her head and stretched out her hand to push the man aside, then hurried away.

Su Yunjin dawdled in the bathroom for a while, but she had to go back as she came, unless she was not afraid of being caught late for the next self-study.When she passed by the door of the next class again, she kept her eyes fixed, but her mind was blank.Fortunately, nothing happened this time, and she walked to the door of her classroom smoothly, when a sentence floated into her ears with the wind.

"...Nonsense, I'm not a girl who can't get along, and I'm not a poor student who can't get along. Why did I choose liberal arts?"

"There are a lot of liberal arts girls."

"I'm not you..."

Immediately afterwards, several boys laughed exaggeratedly.Laughing, cajoling, laughing, giggling...it seems like there's no room for anything else in their adolescent hormonal minds.

That laughter seemed to burn a certain nerve in Su Yunjin, there was a bang in her head, and the blood all over her body rushed to her face.In fact, she didn't know that the people who talked and laughed were not necessarily aimed at her, but the strong sense of frustration brought to her by the head teacher tonight, as well as the inferiority complex and pressure since transferring to another school, seemed to find a breaking point in an instant.Yes, she is going to choose liberal arts. Isn't she the "girl who studied hard and poor student who can't get along" they ridiculed?But her thoughts didn't hinder anyone!Su Yunjin finally raised her head, and glanced back bitterly, there was still a large group of boys wearing the same light blue school uniform with cropped heads, in her eyes, there was no difference, she had no way of knowing that the outrageous words were spoken Who is it, but several strange eyes hit her.

What can she do, rush forward and ask "Who the hell"?If you really want to say something like that, let alone other people, even you may feel that you have a mental problem, so what's wrong with what others say?Dignity is never given by others.In this way, on the eve of the end of the second year of high school, when she finally decided on the intention of "arts and science", Su Yunjin chose science without hesitation. Even the frown of the head teacher when she received the form did not make her waver or regret at all.She thought, maybe it was the last bit of pride she had left that drove her to make this decision.

(End of this chapter)