June twenty-fourth. Heavy rain. The traditional almanac said, “Nothing is auspicious today,” but nobody cared.
After the gaokao, Yang Shuyi took three jobs: on Tuesdays and Thursdays he tutored a little boy, on weekends he taught mathematics at a tutoring class for students preparing to enter middle school, and from Monday to Friday evenings he worked as a cashier at a restaurant.
The twenty-fourth was a Wednesday, so Yang Shuyi had nothing to do all day. After waking from a long afternoon nap, Shao Wu went to find him. They wandered the streets for a while before rain began to fall. They ducked into a roadside dessert shop to get out of it and sat down while they were there. In 2009, all the different varieties of milk tea had yet to become popular, so each of them ordered a soft-serve ice cream and sat by the window looking out at the sidewalk. Usually they could always find something to talk about: Longlong, classmates, games… But that day, the two of them were unusually quiet.
They finished their ice cream, but the rain still had not stopped. The air-conditioning in the dessert shop was turned up too high, and Shao Wu gave a tiny shiver.
“It’s five-thirty,” Yang Shuyi asked him. “Are you going to check at an internet café, or go home and check?”
“Home… My mom borrowed a laptop from one of her coworkers.”
“It’s almost time,” Yang Shuyi said. “Let’s go.”
Shao Wu nodded and stood.
Actually, the computer had not been borrowed. It had been bought: a Lenovo ultra-thin laptop, brought home only yesterday. His mother said that apparently you could get a discount on a computer if you showed your university admission letter. His father said they would have to buy one sooner or later anyway, and a few hundred yuan hardly mattered. Didn’t he need it right away?
Yes. At six in the evening on June twenty-fourth, gaokao scores would be released.
At 5:52 p.m., Shao Wu arrived home, changed his shoes, washed his hands, and sat down at his desk.
In just a few minutes, he would see his score. He had been calm during the gaokao and calm after it, but now he could not calm himself down no matter what he did. Shao Wu thought, Can I break 600? Can I reach the cutoff for Beijing Foreign Studies with the ten-point reduction? Surely I didn’t… surely I didn’t fill in the answer sheet wrong without noticing? It was not impossible. He remembered the English multiple-choice answers looking a little strange, with quite a few consecutive Bs and Cs. Could he have… could he have shifted one line when filling in the answer sheet?
That would be disastrous. He probably would not even make the Tier One cutoff.
His parents crowded over too. The three of them sat shoulder to shoulder facing the pale glowing screen, all holding their breath.
Shao Wu thought again that Yang Shuyi must be at the internet café right now, staring at a screen and waiting through these last few minutes too. What was he thinking? What score would he get? What if he had filled in the answer sheet wrong as well…
Rain began falling outside again, hard and sudden, drops rattling against the glass of Shao Wu’s home and drawing dense trails of water down the window. In Yongchuan, summer rain always seemed to come in the early morning or toward evening.
At exactly 6:00 p.m., Shao Wu entered his admission-ticket number, his name, and the verification code, then struck the Enter key with a crisp tap.
Too many people were checking their scores. The webpage froze. The little blue circle beside the cursor spun and spun, but the page refused to move.
“What’s going on?” his father frowned. “Why is it so slow?”
His mother gave him a push. “Good things take time, good things take time…”
At 6:08 p.m., the webpage still had not moved when Shao Wu’s phone rang.
On Yang Shuyi’s end came the overwhelming roar of rain. He said, “I got five hundred sixty-six.”
“Five hundred sixty-six?” Shao Wu stared at the computer screen and froze for a moment. “That’s good… really good.”
“What about you?”
“I, I still haven’t gotten mine to—”
A flash of bright purple lightning swept past the window. The room lights seemed to flicker. Shao Wu focused on the screen and saw three bold black numbers appear:
631
He moved the mouse and clicked once. No mistake. The result had loaded. The webpage showed his name, his sex, his ID number, his place of origin, and his gaokao scores: Chinese 119, mathematics 146, English 141, comprehensive humanities 225. Total score: 631.
“It loaded.” For a moment, Shao Wu felt as though the voice did not belong to him, though he could feel his Adam’s apple vibrating. “Six hundred thirty-one.”
“Six hundred what?” Yang Shuyi shouted over the pounding rain.
“Six hundred—” Another bolt of lightning split the sky. Several seconds later, with a tremendous crash of thunder, everything around Shao Wu plunged into darkness. The power had gone out.
“Six hundred thirty-one,” Shao Wu said.
“…That high?” Yang Shuyi laughed. “Congratulations. You can go to Beijing.”
Shao Wu hung up. His mother already had a hand over her mouth and was crying. After a few sobs, she threw her arms around him. “Son, you’re incredible. You’re Mom’s pride, son.” Shao Wu had not even processed it yet. Was this really worth getting that emotional about? He himself had not cried.
His father was much calmer by comparison. He only said, “Not enough,” then pulled out his phone and made a call. “Old Meng, it’s me… My son’s score is out. Help me ask around… Six hundred thirty-one, yes, humanities… Ha ha, congratulations to you too…” After hanging up, he was silent for two seconds, as though something had suddenly caught up with him. Then he opened both arms and embraced his wife and son. “Very good, son. You did very well.”
Elio’s Notes: The Chinese text supplied for this translation has Shao Wu’s father say “not enough” here. Another circulating version reads “not bad,” which better fits his next remark. We’ve kept the supplied wording rather than quietly choose between the versions.
His parents were holding him too tightly. The power was out, so there was no air-conditioning either. In the darkness, Shao Wu did not feel excited. His eyes only felt dry, and his chest a little stuffy. He did not know whether the score had stunned him. 631. He had actually scored that high?
The next day, the rain had cleared and the power was back in the residential compound. “Old Meng,” who worked at the education bureau, brought good news: Shao Wu had placed third at Yongchuan No. 2 High School and ninth among humanities students in Yongchuan, eighty-five points above the Tier One cutoff. The score was not enough for Tsinghua or Peking University, but it was enough for Renmin University, and he could even try for Fudan.
His parents erupted into another round of joy. His cousin called and laughed loudly. “See? Renmin University was acting so damn high and mighty and wouldn’t let our Shao Wu take their autonomous-admissions exam. Fine, don’t let him! With his raw score alone, he can get in anyway!” The rest of the relatives were already arranging a banquet. It had to be something grand. Shao Wu was the most promising one in the family.
Shao Wu took his father’s phone and dialed “Old Meng” again.
“Uncle Meng, it’s Shao Wu… Sorry to trouble you… Thank you… Mm, I wanted to ask for a classmate. Humanities, five hundred sixty-six. What schools in Chongqing could he roughly apply to?”
“Southwest University? Mm… Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. Okay, got it…”
His father went to work beaming, while his mother arranged the banquet with two friends. Congratulations came in call after call, and Shao Wu tirelessly repeated into the phone, “Thank you. Thank you. I… I didn’t expect to score this high either. Thank you.”
Things finally quieted down around noon. Shao Wu turned on the computer and found another string of messages waiting on QQ, all from classmates. Everyone had heard his score. They told him he had to treat them and invited him out to play.
But there was no message from Yang Shuyi. After that phone call last night, Yang Shuyi had not contacted Shao Wu again. At this hour, he was probably tutoring. The little boy’s lessons were scheduled at noon. Shao Wu remembered Yang Shuyi once smiling as he complained that whenever he explained problems at lunchtime, he got so hungry.
Shao Wu sat in his chair, drew his legs up, and wrapped both arms around his knees. In two months, they would be starting university. Shao Wu thought, Yang Shuyi is just like this. His life is too busy. Busy taking care of his family, busy working, busy… busy with things I can’t even imagine. If one of them went to Beijing and the other stayed in Chongqing, would there eventually not even be chances to call each other? In the end, Shao Wu would not know what Yang Shuyi was doing, and Yang Shuyi would have even less attention to spare for what Shao Wu was doing. They would be very, very far apart, until at last, like all busy old classmates, they lost track of one another.
Shao Wu double-clicked the browser and typed a line into the search box:
Chongqing University English Major Introduction
His fingers trembled as he typed, visibly trembled, even more than they had while checking his score the night before. Shao Wu seemed not to know what he was doing, and yet he seemed to know perfectly well what he was doing, so clearly that it could not possibly be clearer.
From last night until now, up to this moment, the moment he pressed Enter, he finally heard the voice inside himself. It was his own voice. He was sure of it.
The voice said: he did not want to leave Yang Shuyi.