The time of the Chinese New year was a rather leisurely time for the children, spending the entire day pondering over what they should play. For the adults, on the other hand, it was all sorts of bustle.
The school had officially entered holiday; there was almost no one on the campus. Suddenly, there was a sense of desolation. Two days ago, Yi Xin too had left the campus and headed home. Papa Jiao and other teachers had a summary meeting. Afterwards, there was basically no need for them to go to the university anymore. Papa Jiao took the test papers home for marking, lugging Jiao Yuan to do the manual work while little Youzi helped by the side.
Even though there was one major subject and one elective subject, it was still quite a lot, with several few class within these departments.
Jiao Yuan lent a hand in marking the multiple choice questions. He didn't have any professional knowledge , but he was certainly capable of resolving the multiple choices with its ABCD . After tallying up, he would use a pen to record the marks in the blanks on the sides, making it easier for Papa Jiao to calculate the final mark after he had finished correcting other types of questions.
Papa Jiao asked little Youzi to assist by the sideline, double checking the papers that Jiao Yuan had marked. Despite being only in the second grade, Youzi was extremely familiar with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Papa Jiao had even placed a calculator on the side so that Youzi could use it to check the numbers adds up. As for Jiao Yuan, he was almost in junior high school; would he still need to use a calculator for basic calculations? Jiao Yuan himself couldn't bear such an embarrassment.
The affiliating school had released the academic reports, this time Jiao Yuan is fourth in the class. Papa Jiao had never explicitly demanded that he must get what placement or what mark, it was always Jiao Yuan himself who sets the standard, sometimes he was up to that standard and sometimes he fails. But obviously this time he had fulfilled his wish. The progress of things went just as Papa Jiao had predicted. when Mama Jiao took him to the mall and walked past where the toys were sold, Jiao Yuan stared at those toy guns and couldn't take his eyes off them. In the end, he chose the guns and gave up on the option to choose his own clothes.
Whereas the main reason for Jiao Yuan to sit here obediently and to help mark the exams, was to earn some pocket money. One cent for each paper, it looks like there is around two to three hundred, he could also buy some 'junk food' when they go out.
Zheng Tan couched on the small foldable square table drawn that had chess patterns drawn on it, watching them as they marked the exam papers.
Each paper had traces of childish red numbers, sometimes when he encounters people who draws on the reverse side of the paper in boredom during the exam time, Jiao Yuan would add a few strokes and stand there giggling by himself.
"Hey, I know this teacher. Dad, isn't this the teacher who always like to carry a portable speaker with him? Drawn with such likeness!"
Zheng Tan stretched his neck and took a peek. On the other reverse of that exam was a freehand portrait of the supervising teacher and Jiao Yuan had added a few strokes on it. Youzi wanted to see, but her sight was blocked by Jiao Yuan. He heaving it under the pile of other papers, waiting till they had finished marking to show to Papa Jiao and certainly wouldn't let her see, because he had doodled a small penis on the teacher's crotch. He even used a similar colored ball-point pen and not the red pen for marking to avoid any suspicion.
Anyhow the semester final-exam wouldn't be handed out, unless any student had queries with their grades and had requested to see the paper, and only then would it be distributed. Under normal circumstances, these sketches would usually not be seen by anyone else, so Papa Jiao didn't say anything to Jiao Yuan's deeds.
Zheng Tan gently pulled his ears, that rascal has such vulgar tastes.
Shortly after, Zheng Tan heard another cry of "huh?" from Jiao Yuan.
"Dad, this person said he have never studied English before, asking you to go easy on him."
Jiao Yuan said, pointing at the entirely English noun-explaining questions right above the multiple choice that is on the paper in his hand.
Zheng Tan could see that on the blank space beneath the first major question of the exam, below the completely English noun explaining question, there was an annotation written with a fountain pen. "My dear Mr. Jiao, I am from the XX ethnic group. I have never studied English and did my university entrance exam in the language R. Please be lenient if my response was bad…"
According to the requirements of Chu Hua University, those that failed immediately retook this course. It had been re-examination before, but the school found out that some people had the minds to leave things to chance. If they couldn't pass, they would do a re-examination since the re-examination was let slip easily, so they became more and more laid back. This resulted in the school implementing a new policy this year— those who fail will directly retake the course.
Initially, a lot of people protested. When Zheng Tan went out for a morning walk, he even saw sheets of paper stuck on the walls and branches of trees. Those were the protests lodged anonymously. Owing to the fact that other schools in Chu Hua city were not as strict, the students condemned the school for being too inhumane, but in the end, they gave up. Some felt ashamed that they had to take class with the juniors in lower grade when they failed the course, while other were rather optimistic because they now got to know many pretty girls from the junior year.
After hearing Jiao Yuan's words, Papa Jiao looked at the name on the paper and said: "I know this person's conditions, so do the other teachers. We will loosen the criteria for him when the time comes."
"Ah, who would have thought that there is such a good thing. Next time when I get examined on literature and language, I will write at the end of my composition: 'Sir I have injured my hand, and my handwriting wouldn’t be decent with my injuries. Please go easy on me."
Writing was always a pain for Jiao Yuan, dragging his literature and language marks down because of his poor fountain pen handwriting. Sometimes, only a mark or two would make a difference in the rankings. If he had fallen behind in the ranks, then his parents wouldn't fulfil his wishes. That's why Jiao Yuan had great resentments against it.
However, even though Jiao Yao's fountain pen writings were not exceptional, his Chinese brush calligraphy was the polar opposite.
When Jiao Yuan entered the primary school Chinese calligraphy competition, his calligraphy shocked his head teacher. How could someone, whose fountain pen calligraphy looked as if it experiences aplasia, have such brush calligraphy?! Even most middle school students couldn’t compete with such handwritings. Using the words of his head teacher, his calligraphy was already 'reflecting some strength in character’.
His head teacher also later exclaimed, "Jiao Yuan, when will your fountain pen calligraphy have some style too? Don't always be 'underdeveloped'."
Zheng Tan had seen Jiao Yuan's fountain pen handwritings. There was a framed Chinese calligraphy that hanged on the wall of Jiao Yuan's room. There were also some sticky notes around the room that were written with fountain pens. The contrast was so f*cking intense that if he hadn’t known the truth, he would have never believed that it was written by the same person.
Jiao Yuan looked at the exam paper in his hands, his mind began to race as he span his pen.
The semester final exam was cross examined. His own teachers would be marking the papers from the other class, the teacher that marks his paper wouldn’t be able to identify his handwriting… Jiao Yuan nodded, yes, this plan is workable!
"Wipe it out of your head, if you do this in the middle school entrance exam, it would definitely have the opposite result. You think that those teachers are stupid? " Papa Jiao didn't even take a look at him but he knew as soon as Jiao Yuan started spinning his pen that the boy wasplanning some trickery.
"Oh." Jiao Yuan sighed and went back to the rest of the markings.
Beep beep beep --
The phone in the bedroom rang.
Papa Jiao looked at the called ID, his facial expressions grew faint.
"Hello…"
Zheng Tan's hearing was much better than the two kids. The bedroom was only so big and wasn't a distant away, so he can hear the conversation on the phone .
It was a woman's voice, most of the time it was that woman who spoke, her words intermingled with an occasional phrase in English. Papa Jiao stood there with the receiver, merely responding once or twice and didn't say much.
Papa Jiao was a man of few words, but to Zheng Tan's knowledge , Papa Jiao wasn't usually this indifferent when he was on the phone.
The person on the phone mentioned "she" several times, though Zheng Tan didn't know who "she" was referring to. The woman said with a great frequency that she will wire the money and hoped that Papa Jiao would take care of "her".
Some time later, Papa Jiao finally stopped saying words that runs in the line of "yeah", "oh" and "okay", instead he asked: "Do you want to speak to her?"
The woman fell silent, then said: "Okay, I have some business I need to attend to. I'm afraid I won't be able to speak for long."
Papa Jiao stopped listening to the murmurs that she said on the other side of the telephone and turned to Youzi who was stilled typing on the calculator. "Youzi, your mum wants to talk to you."
Zheng Tan's ears quickly shot up.
Youzi's mother? That women who stayed overseas and didn’t want to come back, but had sent her daughter who was only seven back to the country while she lives her merry life out there alone?
Zheng Tan didn’t thought to associate the woman to Youzi's mum for a second, mainly because her tone of speech was so distant, as if detached, afraid those from Papa Jiao's side would adhere to her.
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