Ch42 - Decision

Translation checker: Rin
Editor: Junyans

“No, Yu Ran, based on what you’ve written, you can’t even pass the preliminary examination of the school. Based on this, how can you participate in the district-level competition?” The homeroom teacher frowned as she looked at Yu Ran’s Arbor Day essay. “In fact, you just need to describe the process of planting trees that day, there’s no need to add so many embellishments.” 

Bai Yuzhu had long heard from the Language teacher that Yu Ran didn’t use ordinary logic when writing essays and his skills still needed to be honed, but she hadn’t expected Yu Ran to write a personal experience without following the basic format, which had made the otherwise mediocre tree planting activity very fantastical.

Yu Ran stood in front of the work desk, still full of confidence. “Teacher, I know, I know, art comes from life and is higher than life, and I’m already standing at the top of Mount Everest, high in the cold.”

Bai Yuzhu couldn’t help laughing. Seeing that the Study Committee representative of her class had just finished asking questions to other teachers, she greeted him over.

“Yu Ran, you can ask Chu Mian for advice on how to edit your essay to a passing level.” 

Chu Mian approached them and took the draft paper. He found that Yu Ran’s handwriting was particularly neat this time. He had obviously practiced carefully at home.

The title was also very cleverly thought out, it had a careful taste and a little touch of public welfare — “Green is Our Color of Protection”.

[In this spring when there was no grass growing, I met a girl named Kui He.]

When Chu Mian saw the name appear at the beginning, he felt that things were far from good. But he patiently read on, and sure enough, he saw Yu Ran’s amazing story-writing skills again.

[In recent years, the problem of environmental pollution has become more and more serious. The sky in my hometown has been covered by smog so badly that we are not able to see the sun again tomorrow. In order to save our homeland, me and my little friends Xiao Chu and Xiao Fang especially planted trees on Arbor Day, hoping that one day our hometown will become a sweet oasis.]

[“Hmph, it’s so boring to plant trees! I can’t eat it as a meal, and it doesn’t give me money either. I don’t want to waste my energy on it anymore!” Xiao Fang became impatient after digging two pits. He threw his shovel away and went to the side to smoke. He inhaled every mouthful very deeply, and his eyes rolled out with each puff.]

[The smoke he exhaled rose high into the sky, adding to the grayness of the sky. At this moment, Xiao Chu couldn’t take it anymore and went over to advise him: “Stop polluting the environment anymore. You’re so dirty. We should make efforts to contribute to the greenery of our hometown.” As she said, she grabbed the cigarette from Xiao Fang’s mouth and put it out with her hand.]

[“You, a woman, dare to control Laozi?!” Xiao Fang pushed her away viciously, then took out ten cigarettes from his pocket, stuffed them into his mouth, lit them all, and inhaled a couple of puffs.] 

When Chu Mian saw the name “Xiao Chu” appear, he subconsciously thought it was referring to him. But seeing the pronoun “she” used on the character, Chu Mian couldn’t help glancing at Yu Ran, as if asking why he had tampered with his gender.

Yu Ran was caught off guard when Chu Mian stared at him. He felt guilty and his eyes dodged. His expression fully displayed his disbelief — Chu Mian had actually guessed the character prototype!

After glancing at Yu Ran, Chu Mian continued to read the rest of the essay.

[At this moment, someone behind us yelled loudly and shouted at Xiao Fang: “You dare to bully a woman in broad daylight!” We looked back in surprise and saw a young girl. She pulled up a willow tree on the roadside and waved it at Xiao Fang. Xiao Fang was so frightened that cigarettes fell from his mouth to the ground one after the other, he fell to his knees with a thud and shouted: “My lord, spare my life!”] 

[“It’s good that you know you’re wrong. Now, why don’t you hurry up and plant trees?” The girl put the willow tree back into the tree pit, sat down on a bench next to it and said to me, “Come here! Pour wine for me!” I was so frightened by her aura that I rushed over and gave her a bowl of peas flavored with aniseed. She introduced herself to us. Her pseudonym was Kui He. She was an expert in reforestation around here. Although she was only 16 years old, she had more than 30 years of work experience.]

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

[She took a sip of wine, and told us meaningfully: “Planting trees is just like the principle of being a human being, it’s nothing more than the word ‘green’. Green is mankind’s color of protection. If you don’t work hard to make the environment green today, then someone else will work hard to make the grass above your grave green tomorrow. Don’t underestimate the abilities of a tree, and don’t look down on the character of a person!” After saying that, she drank all the wine in the bowl in one go.]

[“You are right! You are right!” Xiao Fang shed tears of frustration and was determined to make a clean break. He knelt into the tree pit, then buried himself in the soil. “I want to grow into a towering tree! I want to shelter everyone from the wind and rain!”]

[Kui He’s words also made me understand: It takes ten years to grow a tree, but a hundred years to cultivate a person. I thought that this sentence was just a legend, a story, but it turned out that treemen really existed. Xiao Fang’s soul was buried in the pit. In a hundred years, he would protect our children and grandchildren. I hope that by then, our hometown will already be an ocean of green…] 

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Since he had already said those words, Chu Mian couldn’t take them back, so he had no choice but to help Yu Ran by making some rhetoric speech: “He has used sarcasm and exaggeration. His personal style is distinctive. Some sentences are thought-provoking. Maybe it will brighten the eyes of the members on the review committee.” 

Bai Yuzhu was dumbfounded. She trusted Chu Mian’s appreciation ability very much. She hadn’t expected the teenager to solemnly analyze Yu Ran’s strengths, which made her begin to waver. She wondered if she couldn’t keep up with the literary literacy of this generation of children.

She hesitated but still took back Yu Ran’s essay paper. “Ok… I’ll turn it in first.”

Yu Ran smiled cheerfully, gave Chu Mian a wink, said goodbye to the teacher happily, and went back to the classroom.

“What’s the matter, is there anything else?” Bai Yuzhu looked up and saw Chu Mian standing in place without leaving. 

“I’d like to ask you about the division of Arts and Science class this semester,” Chu Mian said, “If you study science, will you be divided into a different class?”

“Of course, classes will be divided. There are also hard-working children in ordinary classes. Who doesn’t want to squeeze into the experimental class? This year, there will be two experimental classes in Science. If the students in our class have enough grades, they will stay directly and will not be assigned to another class.”

“Then what grades are the classes based on?”

Bai Yuzhu thought for a while and said, “We haven’t talked about this in the meeting, but it should be the same as in previous years. The summer placement test accounts for 30%, and the remaining 70% depends on the exam scores of the first year of high school.” 

Chu Mian nodded. “Ok, thank you, teacher.”

This kind of thing was expected by everyone, but after confirming that it was really about to happen, Chu Mian’s breathing still couldn’t help but become sluggish.

He didn’t know if Yu Ran wanted to stay in the experimental class. He didn’t even know if Yu Ran wanted to study Arts or Science, so he could only quietly wait for the other person to make the decision he was expecting, so that his worries would dissipate.

After returning to class, Chu Mian saw Yu Ran turning around and lying on his desk, and he walked over to him with quicker steps. 

Yu Ran glanced at him, raised his head and said, “What’s wrong with your eraser? It’s all densely packed with holes. It looks so ugly. ”

“Yeah.” Chu Mian didn’t refute him and sat down.

Yu Ran opened his schoolbag, fumbled for a while, took out an unused black eraser and gave it to Chu Mian. “I bought a lot, this is the best, take it.”

Chu Mian looked at the eraser and suddenly remembered that Yu Ran still had an important identity, which was, a future art student. 

In the experimental class, both the pace of learning and the intensity of homework would definitely be much higher than the ordinary class. As a future art student, there was probably no need for Yu Ran to put pressure on himself. Studying in Chengjun’s ordinary class could still meet the requirements of the score line, and maybe the efficiency would be better.

Chu Mian’s brain quickly analyzed all these things, and then he realized… Yu Ran really didn’t have a reason to stay.

He wanted to poke something with the tip of his pen. He found that his disfigured eraser had been taken away by Yu Ran, so he was forced to spin a pen with his hand.

The bell of the Math class rang, and Yu Ran saw that the teacher did not take a quiz in this class, so he hid his mobile phone in his pencil case stand, secretly put on headphones on one side, and watched the ending of “Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day” he had downloaded the night before. 

Chu Mian occasionally raised his eyes and saw Yu Ran not paying attention to the class. Now, he was even more sure that the other party would not stay in the experimental class, so he became a little absent-minded.

— Forget it, it was better if they were in different classes.

Chu Mian weighed the pros and cons and felt that he could take advantage of this opportunity to put away his concern about the blurred boundaries he had with Yu Ran.

Halfway through the Math class, Chu Mian noticed that Yu Ran was raising his arm frequently, as if he was rubbing his cheek. 

He didn’t think anything of it at first, until the Math teacher glanced in their direction and asked in surprise, “Yu Ran, why are you crying?”

The whole class’s gaze quickly and neatly focused on the boy.

Yu Ran hurriedly took off his headphones, stuffed his phone in his pencil case and replied, “I, I…”

He looked at the arithmetic sequence on the blackboard and burst into tears: “I just don’t understand this question! It’s killing me!” 

“Oh my, this is not that difficult.” The teacher reassured him. “It’s okay, I’ll give you a separate lecture after class.”

Yu Ran wiped his tears and nodded vigorously, still immersed in the emotion of being moved by the anime.

Throughout the afternoon, Yu Ran always ran to Ye Xi to discuss the plot of the anime with her between classes, and the two chatted enthusiastically. After school, he hadn’t had enough and still wished to chat more. He pulled Chu Mian and recommended him to go home and watch the show.

Chu Mian happened to be in a depressed mood today. Listening to Yu Ran’s continuous chatter, he interrupted him in a gloomy voice: “No time.” 

“Then the weekend—”

“I’m not free at the weekend.”

Yu Ran was not good at figuring out other people’s thoughts from their tone, but he could still distinguish Chu Mian’s mood. Feeling that Chu Mian seemed unhappy, he immediately composed himself and asked in a low voice, “What’s the matter? Are you hungry? Let me take you to have grilled cold noodles.”

Hearing Yu Ran use a gentle tone of voice, Chu Mian finally relaxed and shook his head, and said, “I’m not hungry.” 

Seeing that they were about to walk to the parting place, Chu Mian pursed his lips, and finally couldn’t help but ask Yu Ran: “Do you know that… classes will be divided this semester?”

“Yeah, into Arts and Science,” Yu Ran said carelessly, “I think I should study Science. Politics is really fucking difficult! What do you mean ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice’? I still think people shouldn’t insist on taking one road to Rome!”

Chu Mian stared at the road under his feet and calmly told Yu Ran: “The meaning of dividing classes is to reorganize all classes according to their grades, and our class is the same.”

Yu Ran stopped unexpectedly. “Ah? Does that mean that only those with good grades can continue to stay in Class 1?” 

“Yes.” Chu Mian turned his face and looked directly into Yu Ran’s eyes. “If you don’t study, you’ll have to go to another class.”

Yu Ran was stunned for two seconds, and said decisively: “No way.”

He looked at Chu Mian intently. “You will definitely be in the experimental class, so I don’t want to leave.”

Chu Mian felt a hot current running through his chest. He tried to maintain a calm expression, but when his lips opened, he couldn’t help but smile lightly. 

“Then you have to study well this semester.” He moved his gaze away from Yu Ran’s face and tightened the corners of his mouth. “As long as you enter the top 80 of the year every time you take the exam, you can stay. You can ask the teacher more if you don’t understand anything, or you can…”

— Or ask me.

Yu Ran frowned and fell into contemplation: “The top 80… how many points is needed?”

Chu Mian thought for a while, but he was also a little dazed. After all, his marks were dozens of times higher than the second in his grade every time. 

“There is no fixed score. Anyway, the difficulty of the paper is different. Do you remember your approximate ranking in each exam last semester?” Chu Mian asked. “The exams this semester account for 35% of the placement scores. The better you did in the exam last year, the simpler the next step.”

“Really?” Yu Ran felt that he had seen the dawn, and he covered his forehead and tried to recall. “I don’t remember my rank on the monthly exam. It was two hundred and eight in the midterms, and three hundred and ten at the end of the term…”

After Chu Mian heard him say these numbers, the smile on the corners of his mouth slowly faded away.

If he remembered correctly… There were 320 people altogether in the first year of senior high school. 

Yu Ran was full of expectation and asked Chu Mian with a smile, “How is it, what should I do to get to the top eighty every time this semester?”

After Chu Mian thought about it deeply, he patted him on the shoulder sincerely.

“Try making a wish.”