Chapter 1: The Ruled Paper Knows Too Much

Translated: Lazyflower

Edited: Waterlemon

　　Since young, Jiang An has never once been praised for his intelligence. Instead, he was seen as someone rather dull-witted.
　　His brand of stupidity, according to others, was “thickheadedness”, stemming from his lack of understanding of how to think flexibly.
　　His love life was a muddled affair, but he took it very seriously.

　　Jin Sheng was a rare treasure that God had given him. They were high school classmates, and as fate would have it, Jin Sheng became his boss for a while.
　In their student days, Jin Sheng had been the top student in his class. His position in the level-wide score rankings in their school was also far above that of Jiang An’s.

　　Jin Sheng was a very good writer and had won many awards in the city and even nationwide competitions. The teacher often encouraged the class to read Jin Sheng’s essays and learn from him if they did not know how to write well.

　　Jiang An had that exact problem. He couldn’t understand the requirements of the essay topics and had trouble forming sentences. Hearing the teacher’s advice, Jiang A made the decision to borrow Jin Sheng’s essay and memorize it at home.

　　Jiang An didn’t know Jin Sheng well. From the beginning of the school year up till now, he’d never said a single word to him. He walked timidly over to his seat. It was currently recess time, and Jin Sheng was laughing with a girl across the aisle, his back turned to him.

　　Jiang An tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around at once: “What’s up?”

　　Jin Sheng’s eyes were big and bright. His eyebrows were dense and he had a robust physique. When he looked up at Jiang An, a ray of light reflected from the window coincidentally illuminated him as if the Creator had crowned him.

　　”Ah ……,” Jiang An froze, his mind drawing a blank.

　　”Want to read my essay?” Jin Sheng took the initiative to ask him.

　　Jiang An was reminded of his original intention behind coming over and nodded quickly.

　　”I’ve lent it out. Come back tomorrow and I’ll bring it to you.” Jin Sheng was very reasonable and did not have the condescending attitude of a top student, which pleased Jiang An.

　　The next day after school, Jin Sheng took the initiative to present a large amount of essay papers to Jiang An before he could even open his mouth to ask. His voice was cool, “These are all the essays I’ve written since the beginning of this term. Take your time with them.”

　　They were in their second year of high school and had just been divided into the humanities and science classes. Their seating arrangements would follow their previous midterm examination results.

　　Jin Sheng sat in the first row and Jiang An was in the second last row. This day, Jin Sheng had walked from the front of the classroom to the back, just to lend him all his work to read.

　　Elated, Jiang An placed the large stack of papers into his school bag with great care and headed home with a bounce in his step.

    Jin Sheng’s essays were really good. Not only were they well-written and frequently interspersed with quotes from the classics, but also contained Jin Sheng’s philosophical thoughts and feelings. The essays were even better than those found in the literary journals Jiang An read.

　　He started on the stack of essays after dinner, reading page after page. At ten o’clock at night, Jiang An discovered an irregularity on the writing paper.
　　There was poetry, there was prose(essay), and there was also his name.

　　In the afternoon, the classroom was enshrouded in a warm glow, causing the people inside to fall under a drowsy spell.

　　Jiang An had arrived late and was punished to stand alone at the very back of the classroom. His white uniform brushed lightly against the blackboard and came away with a thin layer of chalk dust on it.

　　[ “Stand up,” the teacher on the podium said sternly as she approached a student’s desk, “Answer this question.”

　　”Mmm ……” he hesitated for a moment, “The first roses woke up, their scent a little shy, like a soft, gentle laugh ……”

　　The teacher was outraged, “This is biology class, go stand at the back!”

　　In the midst of laughter, he walked to the very back of the classroom and stood a short distance away from Jiang An.

　　Jiang An stood straight, his face still red from the teacher’s reprimand. He looked so lithe and so transparent, always showing those around him his true self. It was as if a bluebird had swept past, leaving behind a feather that slowly twirled in the air until it landed directly in his palm.

　　After school, Jiang An finished his cleaning duty and left the premises. Someone had been waiting outside the gates for a long time.

　　Jiang An naturally placed his hand in his partner’s palm, “That poem you recited today was really nice.”

　　He looked at Jiang An with a smile, “Was it the poem or my voice that sounded good?”

　　”Both,” Jiang An said, holding his hand tighter, “I like everything about you”

　　At nightfall, the window reflected the scene in the room. The shadows of two figures overlapped, their love as thick as the night’s dew.
　　”Call my name.” The man’s seductive voice sounded out.

　　Jiang An had had his face buried in the pillow all night, but at these words, he raised his head, seemingly sobbing or moaning. He called out intermittently, “Jin Sheng …… Jin Sheng.”

　　The night was quiet, and he could vaguely hear Jiang An humming a song. In 1998, when “Stupid Kids” by Heaven Rewards The Diligent took the country by storm, their love story began with a bang ……]

***

That night Jiang An had a dream. He was in his usual seat in the classroom and there was a man beside him. That man, looking and smelling like Jin Sheng, was writing intently with his head down.

　　Jiang An approached and saw that the man he had seen last night was writing non-stop on his writing paper.

Jiang An was ashamed, yet he was also curious about what was to follow. Unable to help himself, he stretched his neck to look, and was fascinated when the person who had been writing snapped his head up and met him with inquiring eyes!

　 Jiang An woke up with a start from his bed. Fortunately, his family was not yet up, so he washed and dried the clothes he had changed out of and hung them behind the curtains in his room.

　　The alarm clock was still ten minutes away from going off, so he didn’t dare to go back to sleep and simply went back to reading Jin Sheng’s essay. The teacher said that he should learn more from Jin Sheng. He wanted to memorise the essays that Jin Sheng had won awards for, but he would always end up staring at that thin, beautiful and odd piece of paper no matter how many times he flipped through the other essays.

　　Jiang An silently set the alarm clock back a quarter of an hour, read that piece of paper a few more times, then moved silently, silently imagining what the author would write if he continued ……

　　***　

　Jiang An arrived at school a little later than usual because he was a little absent-minded in the early morning. He walked slowly into the school building and saw Jin Sheng at the stairway. He was walking in front of him, talking to a classmate next to him.

　　Jiang An held his breath, his brain once again in a state of confusion. As there were many students walking across, he stepped out of the way and bumped his nose on the schoolbag of the student in front of him.

　　”What the hell?” The person in front of him almost fell over and looked back at him with some complaint.

　　He apologised repeatedly, but his eyes glanced up the stairs, locking eyes with Jin Sheng.

　　Jin Sheng’s expression was identical to that of the other students around him and contained a hint of curiosity. Once he understood the situation, he withdrew his gaze and turned his back towards Jiang An, whose heart was beating as if there were tens of thousands of horses and troops trampling across it and as if it was riding on a cloud to escape1.

　　It took two lessons for Jiang An to finally figure out the situation. One of his classmates must have played a prank by putting such an inappropriate thing in his school bag. Trying to play tricks on him!2

　　He was thin and petite, so much so that his fingers would still be engulfed by his sleeves, even when donning the smallest size that the boys’ school uniform came in.

　　The boy sitting behind him, Zhang Zhao, was particularly fond of teasing him. He liked to braid his hair with rubber bands and often laughed at the way he poked his hands out of his uniform—the same way the class flower did.3. This was something that only a nasty guy like him could write!

　　Jiang An didn’t dare to settle the score with him, choosing instead to “accidentally” drop his cup three times when the other forced him to fetch water from the water room.

　***

　　The lunch break at Zhen Hua Highschool was two and a half hours, which was long enough for most of the students to head home.

　Jiang An lived far away from home, so he’d eat in the canteen after school before returning to his seat to read and sleep, letting the duration of his lunch break slowly dwindle down. This day, Jiang An hurried back to the classroom after noticing that he’d forgotten to get his meal card, only to see Jin Sheng sitting in his seat.
　　”Why don’t you come in?” he asked. Jin Sheng invited him over. He was the only one present in the classroom.

　　Jiang An slowly walked over and stood next to Jin Sheng: “I haven’t finished reading your essay yet, didn’t you say that I could borrow it for three days?”
　　Jin Sheng looked at him with his head held slightly high: It’s not that I’m asking you to return it, I just wanted to know how far you’ve progressed. I’ve put some pencils inside, not much to do with the essay, you can return it to me if you feel bored.”

　　Various parts of the passage popped up in Jiang An’s mind, each more excessive than the other. His cheeks burning hot, he stammered out: “I just …… just finished reading your award-winning essays. As for the back parts…I haven’t read a single word yet.”

　　Jin Sheng got up leisurely, leaned close to him and asked him, “Oh, which one do you like the most then?”

Jiang Xin felt weak, all he could remember now was that prank, he had forgotten everything else.

　　He had been kind enough to lend him an essay to study, but all he could think of were these ridiculous things. He felt ashamed of himself and tried to flee from Jin Sheng as soon as possible: “I read the last one several times.”

　　The sound of laughter sounded out from the corridor and reverberated around the empty classroom, making Jiang An feel slightly more at ease. He pulled his meal card from the compartment of his school bag and held it tightly in his hand.

　　”I have to go and get my lunch now.” Jiang An mumbled.

　　”Okay.” Right before their classmate entered the classroom, Jin Sheng took an abrupt step back and put some distance between them. “You go eat first, we can discuss my last essay over lunch tomorrow and pick out what was so good about it.”

　　After saying that, Jin Sheng greeted the few students who’d just entered and asked with a big grin, “Do you know where I can get a meal card?”　
The author has something to say.

The poem “Jin Sheng” reads is from the Austrian poet Rilke – “The Inner Rose”

4
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First of all, thank you to those who read this.

This is the story of two boys: from high school to university; from strangers to acquaintances; from youth to maturity; from weakness to strength ……
The original intention was to write something different, so the original version of this article was posted on another platform (now deleted), and much of the content could not be posted here. The current version has been revised and expanded to focus on the two boys’ individual suffering, protecting each other and their growth together.

“Maturity” is the main thing of this story, and it is what I want to express through it. We grow up under the influence of our families and society, and the two protagonists face difficulties, both innate and acquired, and I hope that at the end of this article I will have an answer for my two boys and for all readers.
Thank you for reading and have a great day!

Footnotes

basically he’s super-duper nervousLol poor dude thinks that very uh ‘romantic text’ is a prank someone sneaked in his bag when lolol was actually what Jin Sheng purposely gave him hehetop 1 beauty in the classthe poet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke, the poem: https://emilyvhanlon.livejournal.com/5301.html