Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 13: Chapter 4: The Goal is to Become a Pokémon Master (Part 2)

He was also a bit unreliable—he once lost the very exam papers he was meant to be reviewing and had to pull up a stool next to a student just to go over them.

But you couldn’t underestimate him for it. Song Nanshan had originally been a teacher at a top-tier city middle school. He came to the small island to burnish his credentials for a promotion; he was supposed to leave once he got it, but he ended up staying.

He got along well with the students in his class. He was open-minded, able to project the authority of a homeroom teacher when needed but also able to kid around with everyone. He was closest with me and my best friends.

He had a small red car, a Fox, I think. Manual transmission.

He loved driving around on weekends and would sometimes take Zhang Shutong and his friends along. We’d sit there, breathing in the stale cigarette smoke that never left the car’s interior, and watch our homeroom teacher expertly tackle the mountain roads. His cornering was as smooth as flowing water. And then Ruoping would get out and puke.

He also liked to drag us fishing, but he was truly awful at it, which was why I always gave him a hard time.

The man taught English, and thanks to him, my English was always pretty good. I passed the CET-4 and CET-6 exams my freshman year of college, and even the work-from-home job I had later on was related to translation.

Now that I think about it, my English grade in junior high never dropped below second place. I really did him proud. He always called me his "star pupil."

But the English class representative was Lu Qinglian. ’I guess his love for me wasn’t *that* deep after all,’ I thought.

Just then, Song Nanshan called out to him nonchalantly.

"Hey, kiddo, you slipped up this time. Only fifth on the monthly exam? You think you can break into the top three in the grade next time?"

’I’ll be lucky if I don’t get third-to-last next time,’ Zhang Shutong thought. He shot the teacher a look and couldn’t resist pointing out:

"Your pack of smokes is showing."

"Oh, right..."

The teacher quickly stuffed it deeper into his pocket and went to the back of the line to organize the students.

In their class, they changed seats after the monthly exams. And speaking of which, their teacher had even managed to turn that into a whole production.

Teachers in other classes—the more pragmatic ones—usually just assigned seats based on exam rankings.

The more responsible ones would create study groups of four and rotate their locations monthly.

But Song Nanshan, he had to go and invent a "priority seat selection" system.

You couldn’t say it was useless. Thanks to it, Du Kang had managed to jump nearly twenty places into the middle of the pack. He was still a long way from Lu Qinglian in first place, though.

Zhang Shutong was in second place.

At this thought, he finally remembered what Du Kang had meant when he said he’d "promised."

It was about saving him a seat.

The minds of teenage boys are complicated things—awkward and stubborn. Take Du Kang, for example. He wanted to sit near Lu Qinglian but didn’t have the guts to be her deskmate. The next best thing was to sit directly in front of or behind her.

So what was his solution?

He had to ask me to sit in front of or behind Lu Qinglian, and then be *his* deskmate. The whole plan was absurdly convoluted.

Zhang Shutong didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But it wasn’t a huge favor. A schoolboy crush is the most important thing in the world, and it wasn’t easy for Du Kang to ask, so I didn’t mind helping out.

After some prodding from the homeroom teacher, the students finally formed a line, and he began to read out the rankings.

"Second place, Zhang Shutong."

As for why he didn’t call first place, it was because first place in their class was a foregone conclusion. Lu Qinglian didn’t even bother lining up or packing her things. Each time, she just picked whichever seat she wanted and moved her desk there.

Eventually, everyone got used to it. Even the homeroom teacher started calling out the names from second place down.

Zhang Shutong headed into the classroom when his name was called and saw the girl sitting by the window.

The island was located north of the Qinling-Huaihe Line, so the classrooms had heaters installed in a long row right beneath the windows.

The heat was turned on around this time every year. In the winter, the most comfortable seats were by the window; in the summer, they were by the wall.

’This spot is perfect,’ Zhang Shutong thought. ’Looks like Lu Qinglian knows the score, too. Just what you’d expect from the top student in our grade.’

He wasn’t a kid anymore—not that he was that old now—but when he was younger, he truly had no concept of the word "cold." He’d have the fan on in the autumn and run around the house in a T-shirt.

In recent years, though, he had to wear long johns to bed and didn’t even dare leave his shoulders uncovered.

He thought for a moment about whether to sit in front of or behind her. Not wanting anyone staring at his back, he chose the seat diagonally behind Lu Qinglian. The spot directly behind her was, of course, being saved for Du Kang.

Once he’d settled his things, he rested his chin in his hand and watched the students file in, taking the chance to put faces to names.

"...Du Tingting."

A slightly chubby girl.

"...Zhou Ziheng."

A boy with a dark complexion.

For some reason, the boy froze for a second when he saw him.

"...Meng Qingyi."

Next came a very cool-looking guy with choppy black hair and a white turtleneck. He had his hands in his pockets and a blank expression, like some handsome, stone-faced pretty boy.

The guy then shot him a thumbs-up along with a look of admiration, which probably meant something like, "You’re the man."

Zhang Shutong gave him a thumbs-up in return, as if to say, "You too," though he had no idea what his best friend meant.

He felt a little awkward. Du Kang had gone to get milk. ’What if someone wants to sit next to me before he gets back?’ he worried. ’I’d have to turn them down, and that would feel like I’m bullying them.’

But as he watched, the rankings being called were already past the top ten, and not a single person showed any intention of sitting over here.

The seat in front of Lu Qinglian was taken. But the area behind her, aside from where he sat, had become a veritable dead zone. It was as if the *feng shui* was terrible over here, and everyone was avoiding it like the plague.

Zhang Shutong found it strange.

He knew plenty of guys in their class had a crush on Lu Qinglian, so you’d think someone would have tried to sit here. Even setting crushes aside, the seats near the heater were prime real estate.

’Could it be my fault?’

Zhang Shutong patted his own cheeks.

In his effort to put faces to names, he’d been staring intently at every person who walked in. ’Maybe I’m coming off as a bit creepy,’ he mused.

But that couldn’t be it. Even if he seemed "cool and aloof," he wasn’t so intimidating that he’d literally scare people away.