Gossip
Don’t put your smelly feet on my bed!

Pang Qian left the office and walked down the corridor back to the cla.s.sroom. As she walked, she finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and started crying.

Groups of twos and threes pa.s.sed by here after finding out about their final exam scores. Some of them were excited, some were depressed, chattering as they pa.s.sed. Occasionally, someone would look strangely at Pang Qian.

Pang Qian wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and walked back into the cla.s.sroom with her head down.

Most of the students had already left, only the students on cleaning duty were still there. Pang Qian walked over to Gu Mingxi’s side and started tidying up her belongings. Gu Mingxi stayed in his seat, quietly watching her.

When she stood up and put on her backpack, Gu Mingxi opened his mouth to ask, “Pang Pang.”

He stood up to stand in front of Pang Qian, but she turned away to avoid him. Gu Mingxi walked in front of her again, trapping her against the desk.

With nowhere to escape, Pang Qian could only lower her head even more. Gu Mingxi turned slightly to look at her. After a long time, he asked, “What’s wrong? Why was Teacher Cao looking for you?”

“Nothing,” Pang Qian said quietly. “Let’s go home. The cartoons are going to start soon.” Gu Mingxi wanted to keep asking, but the students on cleaning duty started taunting them. The way they were positioned was a bit ambiguous. He had trapped her between her desk and the wall, and he was even leaning toward her. They stood very close together, so much that they could feel each others breaths. The other boys who were holding brooms whistled, and there was even someone who growled, “Gu Mingxi! Give a kiss!”

Gu Mingxi straightened up and took a step back. With flushed cheeks, Pang Qian lifted her head up. Her eyes were all red, and she glared at the group of jeering boys.

They didn’t notice how strange Pang Qian was and just kept laughing. Mo Xiaogang even copied Gu Mingxi and pushed another boy against the blackboard, into the corner. He pulled his arms into his sleeves to leave them swinging around. The boy in the corner pinched his throat and called out strangely, “You’re so bad! Don’t kiss me!”

The others there seemed like they wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Gu Mingxi gritted his teeth and lowered his eyes. He was about to call Pang Qian to leave, but the girl in front of him had already walked off, heading to the lectern at the front of the room.

She picked up the box of chalk there and raised her arm up, looking like she wanted to dump it all onto Mo Xiaogang. Gu Mingxi cried out in surprise, “Pang Qian!”

But no chalk fell. Someone had stopped her from behind. With tears in her eyes, she turned around, and found herself facing Xie Yi, who’d just come back from playing ping pong.

Gu Mingxi had already run up to Pang Qian, looking at her with a frown. Xie Yi pulled the box out of Pang Qian’s hands with a blank face. His gaze swept over Mo Xiaogang, and then he turned and walked around the room. As he walked, he dropped chalk about, and even stepped on a few sticks. The chalk was crushed, leaving trails of chalk dust all over the floor.

Everyone was silent. Xie Yi walked back to the lectern and tossed the empty case at Mo Xiaogang. He said coldly, “You’re bored? Clean up the floor first.”
—

Gu Mingxi and Pang Qian rode their bikes home. Pang Qian didn’t say anything. After looking her over, Gu Mingxi said, “Pang Qian, forget about what they said.”

Calling her by her full name showed how important this conversation was, but Pang Qian still didn’t respond.

Gu Mingxi kept thinking and then asked, “Do you want to eat roasted sweet potatoes? My treat.”

Pang Qian, “…”

“Or, how about tanghulu (stick of candied fruit)?”

“…”

“Roasted chestnuts, fried niangao (New Year’s rice cake), grilled sausage?” Gu Mingxi kept naming foods that Pang Qian loved to eat. “Fried smelly tofu, porkb.a.l.l.s, fried chicken?”

“…”

A slight smile escaped onto his face, and as if he wasn’t at all angry about the earlier events, he said, “I’ll treat you to whatever you want to eat. With the results today, you’ve improved so much. Consider it as a reward from me…”

If he hadn’t mentioned that, it would have been fine. But once he mentioned that, Pang Qian went through a string of mixed up emotions. She cut him off with a shout, “Who wants your reward?! Who wants it, huh?! If you want to eat so much, go eat by yourself! You came in 1st in the grade after all! The one who deserves a reward the most is you, isn’t it?! I don’t have the right to stand in your spotlight!”

With her shot-like words, he became fl.u.s.tered. He stammered, “Pang Pang…”

He was very innocent, with a pair of pure and clear eyes. Pang Qian knew that she had gone overboard, but it was a fact that she was very frustrated. And with no one to talk to about it, she could only release her anger onto Gu Mingxi.

She figured he wouldn’t get angry. Actually, Teacher Cao was right about one thing. She was always bullying him.

Her tears disappointingly fell again. Pang Qian snapped her head back and sniffled. Taking advantage that she hadn’t cried in front of Gu Mingxi yet, she peddled faster to get home.

Every time they had a quarrel, this is how she would face off against him. She knew that he had no way of chasing after her. If he rode too fast, it would be hard for him to brake, and he might fall off. Truth be told, this semester, he’d slipped on his bike and twisted his foot many times, but he never told his parents. He would just call Pang Qian to help him apply medicine and bandage it up.
—

Since the exams were over, the students were allowed to stay home for two days. Pang Qian didn’t have to go over to Gu Mingxi’s to do homewoek, but she felt stuffy inside. Every day, she would watch TV or read comics. When Gu Mingxi came over to look for her, she would hide in her room, refusing to see him. Gu Mingxi waited in the living room for half an hour, and then just helplessly returned home.

Pang Qian knew that she was being frustrating and worrying him. Gu Mingxi hadn’t done anything wrong. In fact, he had helped her a lot. Without his help, her ranking wouldn’t have increased that much.

But, it was also because of him! That’s why others started rumors about her, that’s why she couldn’t make new friends, and she was even accused of cheating by the teacher! Teacher Cao even said she had used him! But what she couldn’t stand the most was that she only now found out that she’d been accepted into the fast cla.s.s because she’d been deskmates with Gu Mingxi for six years!

What a joke. She climbed onto her bed and thought, in the eyes of their cla.s.smates, she was Gu Mingxi’s “girlfriend.” And in the eyes of her teachers, she was his caretaker!

On the last day of school, when they went to pick up their final exam score reports, Pang Qian didn’t go with Gu Mingxi. She also didn’t care about how he got to school. She just didn’t want to speak to him for the time being.

Initially, Gu Mingxi didn’t know why Pang Qian had been so angry. It wasn’t until he went to the washroom with Liu Hanlin, who complained to him, “Gu Mingxi, when you’re taking tests in the future, don’t let Crab copy. If she scores that well, it’s not fair to the other students.” That’s when he finally realized what Pang Qian encountered.

When school ended, he’d originally wanted to speak to Pang Qian, but he was called into the office by Teacher Cao. Before he went, he told Pang Qian, who was packing her backpack, “Pang Pang, wait for me. Let’s leave together in a little bit.”

Pang Qian lowered her head, pouted, and ignored him.

As he stood in the office, listening to Teacher Cao’s teachings, Gu Mingxi finally found out the “whole truth.” He couldn’t stay silent any longer, so he said, “Teacher Cao, I swear to you, Pang Qian didn’t cheat off of me on the exams. Not even a little! Her results were the product of her own work!”

Teacher Cao waved his hand in dismissal and said, with some impatience, “Gu Mingxi, you don’t have to speak up for her. I know that you two are good friends that grew up together, but s.h.i.+elding her like this won’t help her at all. You’re harming Pang Qian like this! You said that Pang Qian’s results were her own doing? How can you expect me to believe that? It’s only been two months, but her English and math scores went from 60 to 90 points! If she had gotten a tutor or if she had asked the teachers for help, that’s one thing. But she didn’t, not even once!”

Gu Mingxi shrugged his shoulders with a bit of anxiousness. “No, actually, every day, Pang Qian…”

“That’s enough, don’t say any more.” Teacher Cao stood up, and gently pat Gu Mingxi’s shoulders. For this young cla.s.s teacher, of course she felt she ought to pay more attention to the disabled child in her cla.s.s. Towards Gu Mingxi, she seemed very kind, but they weren’t very close. Even with this act of patting (this kind of body) on the shoulder, she was a bit afraid and would hold back her strength.

She continued, “Gu Mingxi, don’t worry too much. I just want to say to you once. Even if you perform well in your studies, you can’t just help others cheat. Even once your deskmate changes, you have to make sure to know your bottom line. Understand?”

Gu Mingxi caught onto the main point of Teacher Cao’s words. His eyes opened wide, and he asked, “Change deskmates?”

Teacher Cao nodded. “Mm, Pang Qian already told me that starting next semester, she wouldn’t be deskmates with you. I’ll arrange for a good student to…”

Before she finished speaking, Gu Mingxi had already turned and run out. Teacher Cao chased him to the office doors, and only saw that this youth was running very quickly through the hallway. The empty sleeves at his side were dancing violently. And then he was out of sight.

When Gu Mingxi got back to the cla.s.sroom, Pang Qian had already left. He quickly packed up his things. After he couldn’t get his backpack onto his shoulders correctly, he twisted around and bit onto his backpack to hold it in place. He held this position as he ran down the stairs and ran towards the bike racks.

His backpack was very heavy, so his teeth hurt. But he continued holding on. He got to the bike racks and looked around at the few remaining bikes. Pang Qian was long gone.

Gu Mingxi felt his strength dropping. His loosened his bite for a moment and his bag fell to the ground with a “pang.”

He stood alone at the bike storage, panting heavily. After a long while, several people had come and gone, and only his bike remained. Gu Mingxi stared at his own bike and let out a long sigh. Then he pulled up his backpack with his teeth and rode back home.
—

That evening, Pang Shuisheng went to school for a parent teacher meeting. Pang Qian hid in her room, reading comics. A knock came from outside.

Pang Qian heard the sound of her mom answering the door, and then she heard Gu Mingxi’s voice. After awhile, Jin Ai’hua opened her room door, “Qian Qian, Mingxi’s looking for you.”

Pang Qian sat up from her bed, and Gu Mingxi had already entered her room. He had just bathed, his hair still wet. He was wearing a gray, padded sweater that had a soft and thick hood on the back. Even if his sleeves hung there empty, he still looked fresh and cute.

It’s just that he looked like he was holding back his expression. Jin Ai’hua closed the door as she left. Gu Mingxi was still standing at the door. After Pang Qian looked at him, she climbed back into bed and continued reading comics.

Gu Mingxi walked over to her desk and sat down in her chair. Pang Qian ignored him, and he also didn’t call her, just sitting quietly in the chair.

Pang Qian was really amazing too. Even with such a large person sitting to her side, she could peacefully continue reading comics. Gu Mingxi sat up straight for 10 minutes, but finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He lifted his foot to her bed and poked at her comic, and asked, “What are you reading…”

“Pa!” Pang Qian rudely hit his leg. Gu Mingxi quickly pulled his foot back. Pang Qian glared at him, “Don’t put your smelly feet on my bed!”

“…” Gu Mingxi’s expression changed slightly. In a quiet voice, he said, “My feet are clean. I just washed them.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Pang Qian pouted and then sat up, dropping her comic to the side. Then she asked, “Why are you looking for me?”

Gu Mingxi looked at her for a moment and then said, “My mom went to the parent teacher meeting tonight. I told her to explain to Teacher Cao that we’ve been working on our homework together. When you don’t understand, I would explain it to you. I already told Teacher Cao this afternoon, but she didn’t believe it, so I told my mom to explain. If she still doesn’t believe it, my mom can ask your dad too. Anyway… I’ll definitely make sure that Teacher Cao believes that your results were from your own efforts, that you’ve been working really hard. She can’t treat you wrongly like this.”

Gu Mingxi’s voice was currently in the stage of changing, so it was a bit hoa.r.s.e, not that nice to listen to. But his tone was very warm and calm. When he spoke, he kept his eyes on Pang Qian, his eyes very clear.

Pang Qian lowered her head and pulled at her bed sheets. She didn’t say anything for a long time.

Gu Mingxi waited a bit longer. He pursed his lips and gathered his courage to say, “So… Pang Qian, can you not change seats?”