Someone knocked on his door at dawn. Zhang Yingcai thought it must be Principal Yu, coming to fetch him for the flag-raising ceremony. But he opened the door to find a blushing Ye Biqiu.
"Teacher Zhang, this is my father," she said.
Behind her was a man who looked like he had seen a lot of life.
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Teacher Zhang," Biqiu's father said respectfully.
"Oh no, it's me who should be sorry for exploiting your labour like this," Yingcai replied.
"If my father-in-law was still alive, things would be different. He would have made sure there was a cook at school."
Yingcai wondered how on earth Biqiu's grandfather could have had been such powers. He asked, and learned that he had been Jieling's old village head, and that he had fought tooth and nail to get the school built.
"Before my father-in-law died, he liked to tell me that a mud stove lasts eight to ten years at most. But every new word that a child learns from a teacher lasts for generations."
Yingcai didn't understand. "I'm sure it lasts a lifetime—but generations?"
"Take my daughter for example. In a few years we'll find her a husband and she'll get married and have children. Then she will pass her learning on to the next generation. Her grandfather's favourite saying was, 'There's no expiration date on literacy.'"
Yingcai found all this unsettling. "Ye Biqiu is a bright girl, there's no need to marry her off too early. Let her study for a few more years yet."
"Of course. The government has made it clear that everyone must do their bit and not start families too young."
As Biqiu's father worked, Yingcai suddenly realised that he didn't have a wok. He started to hem and haw anxiously. Biqiu's father told him not to worry if he didn't have a wok, he had brought one with him—in fact, it had been Biqiu's idea. As he was explaining this, Biqiu came back in from the flag ceremony and brought over the wok that had been lying by the door. She overheard her father telling Yingcai, "My daughter loves school, but she doesn't have a future of study ahead of her. She's like her youngest aunt: she'll be someone's daughter-in-law soon and will have to look after her husband."
Yingcai couldn't help laughing, and Biqiu was so embarrassed that she dropped the wok. It nearly hit the floor. Luckily Yingcai reacted quickly so there was no damage to the wok, just a small cut on his hand.
Biqiu stopped her father from using dust from the wall to staunch the bleeding. "Teacher Zhang uses plasters, he doesn't use such old-fashioned remedies."
Biqiu's father had finished the stove by the time the afternoon lesson started. He lit a test fire then, satisfied, left. Yingcai's father turned up while the test fire was still burning. He had brought with him a letter for Yingcai, some lard, and a jar of pickled vegetables.
"I was worried that I didn't have anything to cook with, so you've come just at the right time," Yingcai said.
"I thought there would be a school canteen. I never imagined you'd have to cook for yourself."
Yingcai was astonished to hear that Biqiu's father had got someone to deliver a message to his father asking him to visit his son. He knew this must, again, be Biqiu's doing. He almost couldn't believe that Biqiu had done all this for him.
In order to stop thinking about it, he asked, "How's mum?"
"Oh you know my wife; in another four decades there'll be no danger of life."
Yingcai was impressed. "Dad, I had no idea you had such good turns of phrase."
"If you can be a teacher, my son, then your old man shouldn't try to make you eat shit."
Disappointed that his father had lowered the tone, he opened the letter instead of replying. It was, as he had hoped, from Yao Yan. He took his time over the three pages: the first half was full of meaningless phrases like "we shared a classroom for three years" and "you are like a brother to me" . Only the last sentence meant anything. Yao Yan told him that he was the only boy from school she had written to after graduation. Even though she signed off formally, Yingcai still read a lot of meaning into that one sentence. Ignoring his father, who'd travelled so far to see him, Yingcai bent over his table to compose a reply. He told Yao Yan that this was the second letter he had written to a girl from school; she had also received his first, and she would receive his third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth …
Principal Yu was going down the mountain to fetch their wages, and wanted Yingcai to go with him. They headed down the mountain, and when they arrived, Principal Yu, realizing that it was the first time in his life that Yingcai had earned a wage, said he could receive and count the money.
Without thinking, Yingcai asked, "Do we each get the same pay?"
"The money is divided equally between all community teachers," Principal Yu replied.
Yingcai did some mental calculations, but said nothing. When they got back to the school he wrote another letter to Station-Head Wan to ask him why they were getting five people's pay when there were only four community teachers at the school. He gave both the letters to his father, repeatedly reminding him that the letter to Yao Yan had to go by registered mail.
