"I forgot to tell you earlier, your loquat tree is growing very well. If you're lucky, it should bear fruit for the first time next May. This leaf is the prettiest, and I'm a little reluctant to part with it, but you can keep it."
Ju Nian held the leaf in her hand, laughing through her tears.
"Did someone bully you? Why are you crying?"
Ju Nian kept shaking his head.
Wu Yu looked like she couldn't stand it anymore, "Look at you like this, I don't even know how to describe it."
"Wu Yu, how come you have injuries on your face... and on your hands too? Did you get into a fight?"
Ju Nian then took a closer look at Wu Yu; he had never been a combative person.
Wu Yu glanced at the scar on her arm and said casually, "It's just a minor injury, Ju Nian. I don't want to be bullied anymore, and I don't want to keep tolerating it. I've made some friends at school who are a year or two older than me. They take good care of me and are very loyal. I won't let anyone bully you either."
"Friends? Loyalty?" Ju Nian repeated these words, feeling a sudden tightness in her heart for no reason. She should have expected Wu Yu to have other friends; he used to be so lonely, and it would be cruel to want him to remain lonely for her own selfish reasons. But what kind of friends were these, that they even dragged him into fights?
“Wu Yu, they…” Ju Nian’s eyes were filled with worry.
Wu Yu seemed to know what she was going to say, so she changed the subject and talked about things that interested her.
“Maybe one day my kung fu will be good enough that I’ll never get injured again. Ju Nian, I remember you told me about some kind of boxing style before, oh, there was a really powerful quick-learning kung fu called what… I just can’t remember.” Wu Yu said, tapping her head.
Ju Nian, that silly child, was indeed successfully distracted.
“It’s the Seven Injury Fist.” She sniffed and explained earnestly to Wu Yu. “It was created by Mu Lingzi of the Kongtong Sect. Xie Xun, the Golden-Haired Lion King, used this skill to kill Master Kongjian of Shaolin Temple. There are seven different forces in one punch. Jin Yong said that there is Yin and Yang in the human body…”
Wu Yu interrupted Ju Nian with a smile, "Yes, that's it. Once I find this manual and master it, I won't get injured anymore."
Ju Nian knew he was trying to make her happy in various ways, so she chuckled, which aggravated the injury on her head. She grimaced, but quickly suppressed it.
"I'm going back now. I'll come find you again next time and show you if my skills have improved."
“Wu…” Ju Nian had already said goodbye, but then she remembered some things. She would definitely tell Wu Yu seriously next time that the Seven Injury Fist was not a good skill.
The book says that the Seven Injury Fist can be mastered quickly. Practicing it will first injure yourself, then injure others.
Chapter Twenty-Six: My Concubine on the Southern Side of Wushan
Watching Wu Yu leave, Ju Nian remembered the small cart she had hastily shoved into Chen Jie Jie's hands. She couldn't let such a pretty little princess keep hauling her trash, so she hurriedly returned along the way she came. Passing by the playground where Chen Jie Jie had been caught, she was surprised to find a lot of people standing there, all staring at the same target, which seemed to be her as she approached.
Ju Nian hesitated more and more as she walked. She didn't know why her classmates had stopped doing their work. Had she aroused such public outrage by abandoning her garbage-carrying job to chase after Wu Yu? Just as she was pondering this, her homeroom teacher walked over.
"Xie Junian, let me see your head."
Ju Nian stammered slightly, "What...how do you see it?"
Han Shu, ever the chatterbox, blurted out from afar, "Of course we turn it around to show the teacher! What, are we supposed to take it off?"
The teacher brushed her hair aside, touched the wound with her hand, and heard Ju Nian hiss softly.
"You can still laugh? You're all swollen and there seems to be some broken skin. Luckily, there's no bleeding. You child, why are you running around like that when you're injured? Come on, let's go to the infirmary."
The memory of kicking and breaking the hospital kitchen counter when Ju Nian was a child immediately came to mind. Any medical place was her nightmare. She quickly shook her head, "No need, it doesn't hurt much anymore."
Without saying a word, the teacher pushed her toward the infirmary, saying, "The consequences of a head injury can be serious or minor, why don't you use it?"
Ju Nian had no choice but to bite the bullet and follow the teacher. She heard the teacher say to the people next to her, "You guys come here too. How many times have I told you not to fight and fool around in crowded places? Now you've really hurt a classmate. If it's serious, I'll call all your parents... And you, Han Shu, what are you doing following those guys around?"
Although Han Shu and his friends weren't in the same class as Ju Nian, Ju Nian's homeroom teacher was one of their subject teachers, so they knew each other. Ju Nian didn't dare look towards crowded areas and kept walking with her head down. The doctor at the infirmary cleaned and disinfected her wound, applied medicine, and said that she was fine for now, but should tell the teacher immediately if she felt uncomfortable.
Sitting on the stool, Ju Nian nodded obediently. It did hurt, but who told her to be so unlucky? Besides, it wasn't necessarily because she was unlucky enough to get hit that some deity made Wu Yu suddenly decide to come back to her. Thinking about it that way, it wasn't so unfair.
She secretly asked her homeroom teacher, "Teacher, can I go now? I need to go back and push the cart to collect the trash."
The teacher sighed and said, "Don't do anything. Wait until the swelling goes down. If you really hurt your brain, who will give me a perfect score on the objective questions in Chinese again?"
"Teacher Zhang, what was my score?"
Upon hearing that the exam results were out, Han Shu quickly seized the opportunity to ask about them.
"You still care about this? Apologizing to Xie Junian is the real issue. I'll send a broom flying and hit you on the head. Let's see if it hurts. You boys are all like monkeys, never quiet for a moment. You always pick on the weak." The teacher was also protective of her own students. No matter what, she always protected the students in her class.
Han Shu immediately defended himself, "I have already apologized. It was not intentional. Nobody knows how she suddenly jumped in front of my broom. If you don't believe me, ask Zhou Liang or Li Zhihe. They both saw it."
"What do they know besides fooling around? You should apologize to them right now. Luckily it wasn't too serious, or you would definitely have to pay for their medical expenses." Ju Nian's homeroom teacher was not buying it.
"How much money do you want? I'll pay you back," Han Shu said directly to Ju Nian.
Ju Nian waved her hands repeatedly, saying without any temper, "No need, no need."
"If you really want compensation for medical expenses, you should come to your Dean Han to pay it." Ju Nian's homeroom teacher was a young male teacher in his early thirties, and seeing Han Shu like this, he was really getting angry.
Han Shu was speechless, but still maintained a defiant attitude of "I'll do as you please."
"Really, it's not necessary, teacher." Ju Nian tried to smooth things over, feeling helpless. The tree wanted to be still, but the wind wouldn't stop. She, as the person involved, had already accepted her bad luck and didn't want to get entangled in this matter any longer. She just wanted to get out of this conflict, but it seemed that everyone around her was more serious than she was.
"Han Shu, a boy should act like a boy. If you do something wrong, you should be brave enough to take responsibility. You can't even be without this much manners, can you?" A teacher is a teacher after all. It seems that he has grasped the weakness of people like Kazama. You can do without a future elite, but you can't lose your manners.
Han Shu coughed all over and slowly walked up to Ju Nian.
"I...I forgive you." Ju Nian sat on the stool and involuntarily shrank back a little.
"I haven't even said anything yet, why are you in such a hurry?" Han Shu sneered. Looking at his expression, Ju Nian felt as if she had become the eternal sinner who had wronged him for his lack of manners.
"I'm sorry, Xie Junian, it was my fault. Please forgive me." Although Han Shu seemed reluctant before, he was very serious when he apologized, and even bowed.
Ju Nian's face turned red again, and she was so flustered that she didn't even know what she was saying.
"Oh, rise... rise."
After she finished speaking, she wished she could bite off her own tongue. What was she talking about? She must have been poisoned by martial arts novels.
Upon hearing this, Han Shu glanced at Ju Nian, whose face was as red as a tomato, with a rather strange expression. He then bowed again and said loudly, "Thank you for your great favor, Your Majesty."
Zhou Liang and Fang Zhihe burst out laughing, and even the teacher and the doctor on duty couldn't help but chuckle.
Ju Nian didn't want to stay any longer. She stood up from her seat, not daring to look at anyone next to her, and said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper, "I'm leaving now."
"Teacher, can we go now?" Han Shu and his two classmates asked.
Ju Nian's homeroom teacher waved to them: "Let's go, stop fooling around."
"Come on, Han Shu." Two other boys, one fat and one thin, pushed Han Shu toward the door of the infirmary.
The boys were restless when they walked, like a gust of wind, so Ju Nian stepped aside by the door to let them go first.
As Han Shu passed by Ju Nian, he muttered a complaint to Zhou Liang and the others: "It's all your fault for making such a mess of things. What kind of Tai Chi swordplay is this, or Wudang martial arts? It's utterly ridiculous. Forget it, I'm too lazy to talk about it anymore. I need to go pick up my broom and return it to the labor committee member later."
"Hey, how was I supposed to know your 'sword' had eyes? How about we practice again later?"
"Save your breath, don't you think there's enough trouble already?"
Han Shu and the others walked and talked. After a while, he felt something was off and turned around. Ju Nian was walking about three meters behind him. When she saw him stop, she couldn't help but stop as well, as if playing a game of "Red Light, Green Light".
"What are you doing following us, Your Majesty?" Han Shu asked sarcastically, as if he had forgotten that this was the only way out of the infirmary.
Ju Nian opened her lips, hesitating to speak. She knew Han Shu would find her appearance amusing, but in the end, she couldn't help but say it. "Uh, that, that Tai Chi sword technique, actually, what I wanted to say is, it... it's not from the Wudang school."
Han Shu stared at her intently for a few seconds, as if she were a monster that had fallen from the moon.
"What did she say?" He turned to his classmate for confirmation.
Fang Zhihe suppressed a laugh as he answered Han Shu's question. "She said your Tai Chi swordplay isn't from the Wudang school."
Han Shu stepped forward, while Ju Nian quietly took a step back.
"Okay, go on, finish it all at once." Kazama looked like he was about to break down.
"Tai Chi swordplay is from the Tai Chi School. The Wudang School has the Taiyi Xuanmen Sword, the Eight Immortals Sword, the Nine Palaces Eight Trigrams Sword, the Longhua Sword... but not the Tai Chi Sword." Ju Nian saw Han Shu's stern face. He was nearsighted as a child and had vision correction surgery sometime during his childhood. His eyes were quite good-looking, and at first glance, they could easily be mistaken for being affectionate—if not for the fierce, icy look they gave him.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to pick a fight with you. Your swordsmanship is quite good, very good!" Ju Nian suddenly felt that it was best not to say anything more to this person.
Han Shu drawled, "Then may I ask you, what kind of sword technique is that?"
Ju Nian touched the back of his head, which was still aching.
"The Evil-Repelling Sword Technique!" she said, then quickened her pace and walked past the evergreen shrubs along the roadside.
Han Shu touched his chin.
Evil-repelling Sword Technique?
After a while, Fatty Zhou Liang quietly reminded Han Shu, who had less exposure to leisure reading.
"Do you remember now... Lin Pingzhi... Yue Buqun... To master divine skills, one must first castrate oneself!"
Han Shu suddenly realized what was happening, and pointing at Ju Nian's retreating figure, he jumped up and down, saying, "Well, you've even started swearing!"
Ju Nian pretended to be deaf and successfully escaped back to the vicinity of the lawn near the experimental building, just in time to catch Chen Jiejie returning after delivering the last truckload of leaves.
"I'm so sorry, this was supposed to be my job." Ju Nian felt very embarrassed; she hadn't expected Chen Jiejie to actually take the trash for her.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Chen Jiejie put down the cart. “They said Han Shu hit your head with a broom. That guy, he’s really awful.”
Chen Jiejie and Han Shu both came from the junior high school of No. 7 Middle School and were classmates. Ju Nian had heard rumors about their friendship, and some even said behind their backs that they were actually a couple. Although it was never confirmed, in the eyes of teenagers their age, two people who were a match made in heaven should naturally be together, just like the rule that the class monitor should have an ambiguous relationship with the entertainment committee member. So Ju Nian decided not to comment on the broom incident in front of Chen Jiejie. She touched her injury again, "Oh, it's okay."
On the way home, Ju Nian was really worried about how to explain the injury on her head to her mother. She knew that even if she told her the truth, given her mother's habits, she would probably just say, "There must be something wrong with you. Otherwise, why did that broom hurt you instead of someone else?"
Thankfully, it turned out that Ju Nian's worries were unnecessary. When she got home, she found that her father had also returned from his trip. The family ate together, and Ju Nian washed the dishes, took a shower, went to her room, and went to sleep. No one noticed the bag hidden in the hair at the back of her head. She chuckled to herself at her own wishful thinking, just like a few months ago on a weekend when she secretly went to find Wu Yu, but Wu Yu wasn't home. She wandered alone on the path in the bamboo forest until almost dark, then returned home anxiously, expecting a scolding from her parents. But her father didn't come home, and her mother had taken her younger brother to visit neighbors. No one in the world knew that Xie Ju Nian had disappeared for an afternoon.
Ju Nian lay on her small bed and took out the loquat leaf she had carefully put away during the day. She felt that she was actually quite lucky, after all, there was still someone who cared about her.
Actually, she doesn't need much care. Everything is the same; too much makes it crowded. Her heart is like a small house hidden deep in the mountains and forests. She doesn't expect people to come; she just waits for returning guests to gently knock on the door.
As night deepened, Ju Nian couldn't fall asleep, recalling every detail she had repeated with Wu Yu during the day. Of course, the injury on the back of her head might also be a factor.
She got out of bed, secretly turned on the desk lamp, and like all teenage girls, carefully copied down the sentences she loved so much that they made her heart flutter in the notebook in the drawer.
—I dwell on the sunny side of Mount Wu, amidst towering hills. In the morning I am the morning clouds, in the evening I am the passing rain, day and night, beneath the Yangtai Terrace.
This was originally a love vow made by the goddess of Wushan to King Huai of Chu in a dream in the "Gaotang Fu". Ju Nian saw it by chance in a book and fell in love with it. She ignored the ambiguous idiom hidden behind the allusion and only remembered the beauty on the surface of the words. Just like her habit of reading poetry, books and people, she always chose to interpret it in the way she liked. As for the real meaning behind it, what did it matter?
Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Sweet Wait
On the day the final exam results came out, Ju Nian followed the crowd to the side of the playground to look at the honor roll. Only the top ten students from each grade were announced. There were quite a few students crowding in front of the bulletin board. Ju Nian waited for a while before she could fill an empty spot. There were eight classes and more than 400 students in the first year of high school at No. 7 Middle School. She had barely made it into the list, ranking exactly tenth.