Chapter 28: Chapter 15: The 4 PM Film (Part 2)
Like a sharp sword, or the beam of light from a movie projector, it shot straight toward the white wall at the front of the classroom.
「The next second.」
A picture suddenly appeared on the wall, which had previously borne nothing but whitewash and water stains.
A colorful, moving picture of astonishing clarity.
It was the world outside the window.
But it was upside down.
The crown of a giant French sycamore hung down below like green roots. The swaying of every single leaf was distinct, and you could even see the golden sunlight glinting on them.
The red school building hung upside down from the ceiling, its windows like rows of neat little squares.
A blue sky was spread across the floor, with a few white clouds seeming to drift by at their feet.
The most magical part was the sports field.
The students in the middle of P.E. class had become tiny figures, no bigger than a finger.
They were wearing red-and-white school uniforms, running back and forth upside down at the very top of the wall, heads pointing to the floor.
An orange basketball flew upside down toward the sky, tracing a parabola before dropping into the inverted hoop.
It was a silent film.
An inverted, full-color, silent film about the autumn of 2001.
The classroom fell silent.
Everyone’s jaw dropped as they stared, dumbfounded, at the world on the wall.
In this small city, in an era without smartphones—an era where even projectors and color TVs weren’t commonplace.
To these twelve and thirteen-year-olds, this visual spectacle, created purely by the principles of optics, was nothing short of a miracle.
"Holy crap..."
"Oh my god..."
"How... How is this possible?"
Li Xiaoya covered her mouth, her eyes sparkling.
As she gazed at the inverted world on the wall, she felt as if she had fallen down Alice’s rabbit hole.
"It’s so beautiful..."
"Look! That’s Fatty from Class Two! He just shot an airball! HAHAHAHA!"
Liu Fei, with his sharp eyes, pointed at the little upside-down fatty on the wall and roared with laughter.
That one laugh shattered the classroom’s silence.
The classroom instantly erupted.
Everyone started pointing excitedly, searching for familiar faces in the picture and commenting on the teachers walking upside down.
"Hey, hey! Look at the guy on the bike! Isn’t that Uncle Li the gatekeeper?"
"A bird! A bird just flew by!"
"Quick, look! That girl is drinking water upside down!"
This inverted, unprecedented perspective gave them a novel and unfamiliar sense of security.
Hidden inside this cool, dark box, they were like a pantheon of gods looking down on the hot, bustling world outside.
Chen Zhuo didn’t join the discussion.
He simply returned to his seat in silence, sinking into his soft chair.
In the darkness, no one could see his expression.
But he was comfortable.
The harsh sunlight was gone, replaced by soft, diffuse light.
Even the air seemed to have cooled with the onset of darkness.
He picked up the half-finished bottle of yogurt drink on his desk and took a sip.
’Hm. Tastes better cold.’
"Chen Zhuo."
His deskmate leaned over, her voice low and full of admiration.
"What’s the principle behind this? Did you invent it?"
"It’s pinhole imaging."
Chen Zhuo explained calmly.
"Twenty-four hundred years ago, Mozi discovered that light travels in a straight line. After it passes through a small hole, the light from above travels to the bottom, and the light from below travels to the top. That’s why the image is inverted."
"Oh..."
The girl nodded, only half-understanding.
It might have sounded simple, but in her eyes, the Chen Zhuo who could turn this messy classroom into a movie theater...
...was the coolest person ever!
She furtively pulled a newly opened bag of potato chips from her desk and shoved it into Chen Zhuo’s hand.
"Here, Chen Zhuo, have some. They’re tomato-flavored. They’re delicious."
Chen Zhuo took the chips.
CRUNCH.
They were crispy.
CREAK~
The front door of the classroom was suddenly pushed open.
A blinding shaft of light from the hallway shot in, washing out half the image on the wall.
The students, engrossed in the "movie," jumped in fright and fell instantly silent.
Old Zhao stood at the door, lesson plans tucked under his arm, his brow furrowed and his face a mask of anger.
He had sensed something was off from the hallway. All the other classrooms were bright, but Class One was pitch-black, like a haunted house.
"What is going on here?!"
Old Zhao’s voice was stern, carrying the unique authority of a head teacher.
"Who boarded up the windows? What are you all doing in the dark?! Staging a rebellion?"
"Liu Fei! Were you the ringleader for this?!"
Liu Fei flinched, shrinking back in his seat, about to stand up and take the fall.
But before he could move...
Old Zhao’s voice trailed off.
...because he saw it too.
As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw the silent film playing on the wall at the far end of the room.
The colors were vibrant, the picture sharp.
You could even make out the individual leaves being blown from the old locust tree at the edge of the sports field.
Old Zhao was stunned.
As a teacher, he of course knew what this was.
But in his twenty-plus years of teaching, he had never seen a class perform this experiment on such a grand, such a... beautiful scale.
The entire classroom had been turned into a giant camera obscura.
More than fifty students sat quietly in the darkness, watching physics paint a picture on the wall.
No one was fooling around or sleeping. Every pair of eyes was wide open.
Old Zhao stood at the door, staring at the inverted image for a good ten seconds.
The scolding on the tip of his tongue was slowly swallowed back down.
He glanced at Chen Zhuo, sitting in the middle of the front row, calmly eating potato chips.
’That little pinhole... no doubt about it, it has to be this kid’s masterpiece.’
He glanced again at the faces of the class, a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
Old Zhao sighed and gently closed the door.
As the door closed, the light from the hallway vanished, and the image on the wall became sharp and clear once more.
"Alright."
Old Zhao’s voice rang out in the darkness, tinged with a hint of resignation, but also with an imperceptible gentleness.
"Don’t do this for too long. It’s bad for your eyes."
"Since you’ve already sealed everything up, we’ll leave it like this for now. It’ll save you all from complaining about the sun."
"For this self-study period, if you don’t want to do your homework, you can watch the ’movie’. But one rule: no loud talking."
"WOAH!!!"
The whole class erupted in a wave of suppressed cheers.
"Thank you, Teacher Zhao!"
"Long live Old Zhao!"
Old Zhao shook his head and felt his way to the teacher’s desk in the dark, then sat down.
He too looked up at the inverted world on the wall.
’You know...’
’...it’s actually quite beautiful.’
’These little rascals really know how to enjoy themselves.’
「That afternoon.」
Class One of the first year at City No.1 Middle School became the most mysterious, and most envied, class in the entire school.
The other classes were roasting under the vicious sun, fanning themselves with books, their backs soaked with sweat.
Only their class.
...hid in the cool darkness, eating snacks while watching a film titled *Autumn, 2001*.
And as for the director of this film...
...he was currently hunched over his desk, using the faint light to continue working on his unfinished mathematical formulas.
Except this time...
...his desk was now piled with a mound of potato chips, two cartons of milk, and a piece of chocolate that someone had secretly snuck onto it.
And behind him...
...Liu Fei and a group of boys were quietly discussing the principles of optics they had just learned from Brother Zhuo.
...while Li Xiaoya and the other girls searched for cute boys in the inverted world on the wall.
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