Chapter 41: Walls Have Ears

Chapter 41: Walls Have Ears

After the New Year’s Eve party, the film interlude song “Laughing in the Red Dust,” which clearly hadn’t spread to the countryside yet, was quickly demanded by the girls of Class 14 from Su Chunfeng for the lyrics. Some even pestered Su Chunfeng relentently during breaks, begging him to teach them the melody of the song, refusing to give up until they learned it.

Even Teacher Xiao Qian, taking advantage of her position, called him to the office the next day. He had to copy down the lyrics and sing it a few times a cappella before she let him go.

In the class, Wang Haifei and Zhang Lifei, having the advantage of proximity, were the first to learn the song.

As the girls of Class 14 spread the song around, a “Laughing in the Red Dust” trend swept through Dongwangzhuang Township Middle School. Students from better-off families simply found out the song’s origin. They went to the town or county seat, found, and bought the movie VCD or the not-yet-obsolete videotape where the song came from. They camped in front of their family TV sets, repeating the interlude segment over and over until they completely learned the song.

For a while, there was a trend in the school where if you didn’t know “Laughing in the Red Dust,” it was almost embarrassing to say you could sing.

Su Chunfeng obviously hadn’t expected that singing a song he liked on the spur of the moment at a class-scale New Year’s Eve party would cause such a strong reaction in the school.

However, that night, for his reputation, it wasn’t just about making a song popular…

As the saying goes, “Walls have ears.”

No matter how thoroughly Su Chunfeng had considered things beforehand, and no matter how strong the intimidating power of Zhao Shangang’s fearsome reputation was, it still couldn’t prevent the news about Su Chunfeng and Li Zhichao teaming up to beat up Wang Liqiu’s group from leaking. A little over a week later, it seemed to suddenly appear and quickly spread throughout the entire Dongwangzhuang Township Middle School. Naturally, this brought shock and confusion to all the students—Wang Liqiu himself did not carry out the swift, ruthless revenge as imagined. Instead, after skipping school and being absent for two full weeks, he chose to drop out.

And so, among the various student factions at Dongwangzhuang Township Middle School, Wang Liqiu, who was most likely to rise to the top this year and indeed had been unrivaled for a while after defeating Dong Chuliang, faded away like a meteor. He completely exited the stage of student rivalry at Dongwangzhuang Township Middle School.

Slowly…

The story from that night Su Chunfeng beat Wang Liqiu also spread in Dongwangzhuang Township Middle School. After the beating, Wang Liqiu led his crew back for revenge, but the famous Zhao Shangang blocked the school gate, slapped Wang Liqiu dozens of times in a row, and forcefully drove away the group of troublemakers from outside school. The students were astounded.

Was Su Chunfeng Zhao Shangang’s brother?

Wow!

That was too unbelievable.

Why hadn’t anyone heard even the slightest bit about this before? Was Su Chunfeng so honest to the point of being stupid? Had he always willingly been bullied rather than use Zhao Shangang, that formidable figure, for protection, only asking Zhao Shangang to step in when he was backed into a corner?

That didn’t make sense!

Students who had bullied Su Chunfeng before or often made fun of him all trembled with fear afterwards—they had been asking for trouble, courting death!

The morning after the Final Exam ended.

Zhang Lifei lay on the desk, her face full of surprise and admiration. “Su Chunfeng, how do you know Zhao Shangang? And you call each other brothers?”

Wang Haifei also looked at Su Chunfeng with a puzzled expression.

Su Chunfeng shook his head with a bitter smile. He didn’t answer immediately. Inside, he couldn’t help but sigh deeply: “This is really asking for trouble!”

“What are you acting all mysterious for?” Zhang Lifei’s curiosity was piqued, and she stared at Su Chunfeng, seeming a little angry.

“I really don’t know what’s going on,” Su Chunfeng said with a helpless look, idly doodling words on a piece of paper with a pen. “You both saw that night too. Li Zhichao and I were ready to run away. Then we thought it would just be getting beaten up, and running away would be too shameful, so we came back. As for Zhao Shangang beating up Wang Liqiu, I think it’s probably just a rumor… Well, you know, I wasn’t outside that night. I was in class singing a song.”

Zhang Lifei and Wang Haifei saw that Su Chunfeng’s expression didn’t seem like he was lying. Besides, that night he had stayed in class until the party ended before returning to the dorm. According to the rumors, the time when Zhao Shangang stopped and beat Wang Liqiu happened shortly after the conflict between Su Chunfeng and them.

Strange.

Maybe, as some questioning boys said, Wang Liqiu was just scared from being beaten?

When some boys asked Xu Zhijun and Zhang Hai about it, both parties involved shook their heads firmly, seeming still a bit fearful as they denied it. But they couldn’t explain why either.

However, one thing was certain: since that night, whenever they saw Su Chunfeng, the two of them would quickly avoid him from afar.

“Su Chunfeng…” Zhang Lifei lightly bit her lip, hesitated for a while, but still couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud. Instead, she wrote a note. Without trying to hide it from Wang Haifei’s gaze, she passed it over from in front of her to Su Chunfeng. It said: “That night, did you beat up Wang Liqiu to protect me?”

Reading the note’s content, Su Chunfeng felt like crying and laughing at the same time. For a moment, he didn’t know how to respond.

I didn’t do it to protect you, I just wanted to beat up Wang Liqiu?

That answer definitely wouldn’t do—it would hurt Zhang Lifei’s pure, innocent little heart that yearned for a beautiful romance.

Did I do it in a fit of rage for a beauty?

That was even more absurd… Wang Haifei wouldn’t like that either.

To Su Chunfeng’s surprise, Wang Haifei clearly saw the content of the note. Instead, she showed an expression of barely contained laughter, covering her mouth with her hand, turning her head away to secretly chuckle. Her shoulders even trembled slightly. Was she rather gleeful seeing Su Chunfeng in a difficult spot?

Su Chunfeng suddenly felt a bit angry. He immediately wrote under that line on the note: “He didn’t allow boys to talk to you, so naturally I don’t allow him to talk to you either. Besides, he was forcing you to go on an outside date?”

As soon as the note was passed back, Zhang Lifei’s eyes widened. Joy appeared on her brows, her pretty face flushed red, and she rarely showed a shy demeanor.

Wang Haifei peeked at the note’s content, was stunned for a second, then pressed her lips together and continued to laugh. She laughed and laughed, then wrote on that same note: “So Su Chunfeng was jealous.” Then she handed it to Su Chunfeng’s front.

Su Chunfeng’s expression lifted. Oh ho, daring to tease me now?

He picked up his pen and wrote on the note with a flourish: “Of course I’m jealous. Just willfully asking Lifei alone out already deserved a beating. Besides, Haifei got dragged into it and had to freeze outside too?”

When the two girls saw the note, they were first stunned, then their cheeks flushed red in unison. Pressing their lips together, shyly smiling, they turned their heads away and ignored Su Chunfeng.

This greedy wolf, wanting to keep both!

Seeing this scene, the mature yet pure-minded Su Chunfeng couldn’t help but feel confused and start to imagine things—he originally intended to childishy tease Wang Haifei, who seemed to be gleefully watching the show. But now it didn’t seem so simple. What was going on? Did the two close girlfriends want to split him between them?

How utterly unreasonable!

Am I that kind of casual person?

Just as he was indulging in narcissistic sulking, the tall, early-blooming school beauty, Chinese class representative Wang Rui, swayed her way in from outside. She walked directly to Su Chunfeng’s desk and said with a smile, “Su Chunfeng, Political Teacher Wang wants you to go to his office…”

“Oh,” Su Chunfeng nodded. He stood up, and after his two female deskmates moved aside, squeezed out.

“Oh, right, winter break starts in a few days,” Wang Rui said, smiling brightly. “I’ll extend an early invitation. On the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month is our village fair day. Remember to come to my house for the fair.” She paused, then looked at Zhang Lifei and Wang Haifei. “Also, Haifei, Lifei, you two need to come too…”

Su Chunfeng, walking out, politely said, “Hmm, I’ll definitely come if I have time.”

Zhang Lifei and Wang Haifei, having received the invitation, naturally agreed happily, regardless of whether they really wanted to go or not.

The so-called “village fair” was like a festival for a village—in the various villages under Jinzhou County in Anping City, there was a customary practice of designating a specific day each year as the village’s gathering day, also called a market day in some places. On that day, every household in the village would prepare sumptuous meals, wine, and meat in advance to entertain visiting relatives and friends. At the same time, various vendors would set up stalls on the village streets selling goods. It was a dazzling array. For rural people in this era whose material demands weren’t very high, it pretty much had everything they could want.

However, Su Chunfeng didn’t pay much attention to Wang Rui’s invitation. Since his rebirth, although he had received many invitations from classmates from various villages, he had only gone to two village fairs—one at his uncle’s house and one at his aunt’s house. He hadn’t gone to any others.

The reason was simple—he didn’t like crowding together with a bunch of half-grown kids pretending to be mature, bragging, drinking, messing around, and ending up in fights when they got drunk.

Now, as he walked towards Wang Qimin’s office, he wondered helplessly how to deal with Wang Qimin’s questions— the news about Zhao Shangang backing him up had definitely reached the ears of this low-key, honest, but mysteriously observant old man.

Sure enough, after entering the office, Wang Qimin closed the door and sat at his desk, looking calm. “Chunfeng, Zhao Shangang’s mother’s madness was cured by someone. Do you know about this?”

“Hmm, I know,” Su Chunfeng nodded, admitting it.

“Who cured it?” Wang Qimin looked surprised. He hadn’t expected Su Chunfeng to answer so readily.

Su Chunfeng looked baffled. “How would I know?”

“Then why did you say you know?” Wang Qimin was a bit angry. Was this kid playing with him?

“I heard it from others…”

Wang Qimin felt a bit stifled. He coughed dryly twice, then calmly said, “Then how do you know Zhao Shangang? And why would he help you?”

“We’re relatives.”

“What kind of relatives?”

“Distant relatives…”

“I didn’t know that?”