Ferocious Dog of Old

Tao Huainan’s ears were better than most people’s. Some noises that Chi Ku couldn’t hear, Tao Huainan could.

The two brothers walked into the classroom. The school had made contact with them beforehand, and Tao Xiaodong had met their teacher earlier on; the teacher was a friend of Auntie Huang, and their relationship was fairly decent. The teacher recognised Tao Huainan from afar and was very warm to them, placing them in the second row and walking Tao Huainan to his seat.

“Tell me if you have any trouble, anything at all.” The class teacher was a thirty-something-year-old woman with plain make-up. Her eyes carried obvious affection as she looked at Tao Huainan.

Tao Huainan politely said “thank you, teacher”.

When all the students were present, the teacher specially introduced Tao Huainan individually.

“One of the students in our class is a little different. Everyone, please look out for him, don’t pick on him. Be well-bred junior high students, or go somewhere else, don’t stay in my class.”

The teacher’s surname was Lei, as in lightning; she was as forceful as lightning and as quick as wind. Her speech was swift, very different from the way she had just been speaking to Tao Huainan.

The gazes of the entire class fell upon Tao Huainan, some even standing and craning their necks to look, their eyes filled with undisguised curiosity. The teacher frowned. “Sit! Behave yourselves!”

Under the desk, Tao Huainan’s hand held part of Chi Ku’s trousers.

Chi Ku knocked his leg with his own knee, telling him it was alright.

“Tao Huainan, please stand for a moment.” When the teacher suddenly said his name, Tao Huainan’s nerves were set on edge. He heard her continue, “Since you all want to take a good look at him, make sure you don’t bump into him when you’re running about later on. If anyone causes trouble, I’ll call your parents. It’s not easy being a class teacher these days, and you’re not an easy lot to handle, so if I can’t do it, I’ll have your parents take you home and handle you themselves.”

Chi Ku frowned.

Tao Huainan stood, supporting himself against the table. He pursed his lips, then said, “Hello, everyone. I’m Tao Huainan. I can’t see, so I’m apologising in advance if I bump into you at some point.”

Behind him were several voices saying “it’s alright”, female voices.

Two male voices came from the very back of the class as well, saying, “No problem!”

“Have a seat,” said the teacher.

“If he can’t see, how will he learn?” came another male voice from a different direction.

“What does that have to do with you?” The teacher’s gaze swept towards him. “Mind your own business.”

–

The first day of school was for everyone to get to know their classes and familiarise themselves with their environment, as well as to give out books and things.

Their teacher held a little session for everyone to take turns introducing themselves at the front of the class, so they could get to know each other.

When he went to the front, Chi Ku spoke a total of two lines, then returned to his seat.

“My name is Chi Ku.

“Tao Huainan is my little brother.”

–

“Chi ku, as in suffer?”

Laughter came from some unknown direction, as did a few low snorts. Chi Ku’s expression remained unchanged. He sat and didn’t even turn to look.

“I notice we have a few smart-mouth boys in our class, don’t we?” The teacher cast a glance across them, her eyes sharp. “Wouldn’t it be a waste if you didn’t become talking heads on CCTV someday?”

The quiet chuckles began again. Tao Huainan was unaccustomed to this environment. He reached out to grab Chi Ku’s trousers again.

When he reached over, Chi Ku held his hand without thinking. “I’m really uncomfortable,” Tao Huainan said in a low voice.

“It’s fine.” Chi Ku let go of his hand. “We’ll be going home soon.”

Tao Huainan murmured softly in assent, then let out an inaudible sigh.

–

No matter how uncomfortable he was being a strange specimen in a normal school, Tao Huainan was unwilling to part from Chi Ku to attend a blind school by himself. Now at least, when he was unsettled, he had Chi Ku by his side. Two was always better than one.

Every time he met a new environment, Tao Huainan would need several months to adapt.

He had to memorise every teacher and student’s name based on their voice, to remember the distance between the classroom building and the school gate, and to remember where their class was. Assimilating into a new group was very difficult for Tao Huainan.

But Chi Ku was always by his side, so it didn’t seem so hard.

–

“Who just spoke?” Tao Huainan leaned close to Chi Ku, asking in a whisper.

“Li Xue,” Chi Ku whispered back.

“Li Xue?” A large question mark appeared in Tao Huainan’s mind. “Wasn’t Li Xue the one you said has long plaits? The one who gave me milk tea.”

Chi Ku thought for a moment, then said, “That’s Cheng Xue.”

“Ohh.” Tao Huainan nodded. “Cheng Xue is the class president.”

“Zheng Xue is the class president,” said Chi Ku.

Tao Huainan gaped. “Ah!”

No matter how difficult it was to amuse Chi Ku, this expression of complete confusion would’ve made him laugh. Tao Huainan looked to him like a cartoon character with a large black scribble above his head, his huge eyes spiralling.

“Why are you laughing?” Chi Ku rarely laughed, so Tao Huainan was surprised. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing.” Chi Ku put his laughter away and helped Tao Huainan to pull out his braille textbook. His braille textbook matched the regular textbook; there was no great difference.

Tao Huainan’s head finished spinning after a moment; now that he understood, he knocked his head against Chi Ku’s shoulder. “You were laughing at me!”

“No, I wasn’t.” Chi Ku moved to the side, avoiding his attack.

“Liar.” Tao Huainan pouted.

Tao Huainan was used to being with Chi Ku. Their relationship was very intimate. Usually, at home, he was very physically close with his brother and Chi Ku, so touching and bumping against them was a normal occurrence.

He couldn’t see the movements of others, so he didn’t have a reference for day-to-day behaviours; he didn’t understand that in class and outside their house, overly intimate actions appeared inappropriate, since they weren’t little children anymore. Students in junior high were different from primary school kids, and some behaviours would make Tao Huainan look even less normal.

Whether one had a visual impairment, or a hearing impairment, or a speech impairment, it was the same problem.

Because of the disability, they were kept more innocent, their psychological age a little younger than usual. It led to them often appearing different from regular folk; to put it bluntly, it looked like they were mentally incapacitated, slightly silly.

In this respect, Tao Huainan was much better than most thanks to his brother and Chi Ku’s strict care; whenever he behaved inappropriately, they corrected him immediately, severely.

–

On the way home that night, Chi Ku told him, “From now on, don’t make any moves in school aside from holding hands.”

“What do you mean, any moves?” Tao Huainan didn’t understand.

“You used your head to bump me today. You can’t do that,” said Chi Ku.

Tao Huainan understood now, more or less. He asked carefully, “Other people don’t do that, huh?”

“Mhm.”

“Which level of ‘can’t’?” asked Tao Huainan.

Chi Ku thought for a moment, then told him, “Level Three.”

Tao Huainan breathed a sigh of relief. Smiling, he said, “That’s alright, then.”

–

The “levels of can’t” were a standard their family had made, to help Tao Huainan gauge more accurately whether he could or couldn’t do something.

Level One was an absolute no, not even once, like not wearing his clothes properly, or like going down the slope next to the lake alone as he did the last time. Level Two was relatively serious, like the time his brother and Chi Ku made him stop his eyes from wandering when he was little. Level Three consisted of minor habits that were harmless and weren’t major issues; they only needed to be fixed.

Tao Huainan relaxed a lot when he heard that it was Level Three. He nodded and said, “Understood.”

After a while, he asked, “What about at home?”

A curious little baby with his eyes opened wide, he asked earnestly, “Not even at home?”

Chi Ku turned away, annoyed by his stupid question. Impatient, he answered in a low voice, “Do what you like at home.”

Tao Huainan smiled. “Understood!”

–

Children couldn’t help but grow. Growing was tiring, but nobody could stop growing.

At some unknown point, Chi Ku’s voice began to change.

At first, Tao Huainan didn’t notice, only thinking that his voice sounded a little raspy at times. It was one morning when he had just woken up and Chi Ku asked him to get up that Tao Huainan felt his voice to be a little unfamiliar.

Tao Huainan touched his arm. “What’s wrong with your throat?”

Chi Ku said, “Get up, quick.”

“Your voice is breaking, isn’t it?” Tao Huainan knew about voice breaks; some boys in their class had already reached that stage. It was just that when Chi Ku’s voice changed, Tao Huainan was a bit uncomfortable; he wasn’t used to the sound.

“Is this what you’ll sound like from now on?” Tao Huainan sat up. “Low and raspy.”

“No.” Chi Ku didn’t bother with him anymore; he turned to get ready by himself. Tao Huainan followed behind him. His brother had just come out of the kitchen; Tao Huainan whispered to his brother, “It sounds so awful.”

Tao Xiaodong snorted with laughter and flicked his head. “It’ll happen to you too.”

–

Normally, people judged beauty with their eyes. Tao Huainan did it with his ears. Nice voices were beautiful to him; unpleasant ones were ugly.

Chi Ku’s current voice was extremely ugly to him.

When Chi Ku was giving him remedial lessons, Tao Huainan listened for a bit before suddenly laughing. Cut off, Chi Ku asked, “What are you laughing at?”

“It’s such an awful sound.” Tao Huainan covered his ear with one hand. “When will you be done changing your voice?”

Chi Ku put down his pen. “Are you going to listen or not?”

“If I had a choice, I’d say no for sure.” Tao Huainan reached out to touch his neck. “Try speaking a little softer.”

Chi Ku lowered his voice and explained the lesson to him. It was harder to control a lower voice, so it cracked occasionally. Tao Huainan did his best to listen for a while; only when Chi Ku’s voice broke quite exaggeratedly was he finally unable to put up with it. He laughed and waved him off. “Never mind, I’m not studying anymore. Let’s sleep, I’m so sleepy.”

He was being fussy again.

Chi Ku was burning with annoyance, but he wasn’t angry. He left him alone. Tao Huainan felt his own way to the bed. By the time Chi Ku had tidied everything away and returned, Tao Huainan forgot that he had laughed at him, turning over and putting his arm and leg over him.

Chi Ku pushed him away, annoyed at him.

Tao Huainan reached out to hug him again, laughing as he asked, “Are you really going to hold a grudge against me?”

After being laughed at for his voice all day, Chi Ku couldn’t speak. Whatever Tao Huainan said to him, he didn’t answer, deciding to ignore him completely.

–

It was unavoidable at this age; the school gave health and hygiene classes to the children who were just reaching puberty. Girls and boys had separate lessons, half staying in class for the lesson and the other half going out for activities.

The lesson was detailed. The boys in the class were all laughing as they peeked at the pictures in the book with both curiosity and embarrassment.

Tao Huainan couldn’t see the pictures, but that didn’t stop him from being embarrassed.

When children first encountered these things, it was hard not to be. The rather old lady teacher stood in front of the class looking at these little children, making them listen closely.

Tao Huainan couldn’t not listen closely, even if he wanted to. His hearing was too good; he couldn’t avoid it.

So, voluntarily or otherwise, he absorbed many words: voice-changing, wet dreams, secondary sexual characteristics, even masturbation…

The teacher told them solemnly that they were growing, and doing too much of it was bad for their spirits.

Tao Huainan actually hadn’t reached puberty yet, so he didn’t understand these things. Hearing them made him uncomfortable; he wanted to cover his ears. Whimpering, he thought to speak to Chi Ku, to relieve himself of his present discomfort.

But for some reason, he couldn’t quite open his mouth… Chi Ku’s voice had changed.