Su Jin was carrying a bag of apples to Room 1006. She was just about to knock when the door opened from the inside, and a short-haired girl walked out.
“Senior Sister[1]In Chinese academic settings, a respectful term for a female student who entered a school or studied under the same teacher earlier; it does not imply a blood relationship. jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_3717533_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_3717533_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });?”
The name slipped out before Su Jin could stop herself. A smile touched her face. “Are you here to see Professor Hu?”
“I transferred to the Western History Department last year. I’m not your senior sister, so don’t call me that like we’re close.”
The short-haired girl bristled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
That year or so in the Dayue History Department had been the most humiliating period of her life.
Su Jin’s smile faded. “What does a student from the Western History Department want with my teacher?”
“I came to talk some sense into him. He’s getting on in years; he should stop chasing impossible dreams every day. He takes a book of unofficial history and studies it as though it were real history, and then he recruits students and leads them astray.”
The smile vanished from Su Jin’s face. “My teacher is uncovering forgotten history and proving that China has five thousand years of history.”
“Pfft!”
Liu Lei laughed aloud and folded her arms, leaning closer to Su Jin. “He’s been using that scroll—who knows where he even got it—to fool the university for decades. Now the department’s about to be shut down, and you still believe him?”
A trace of contempt flashed in Liu Lei’s eyes.
“I was fooled for over a year, too. If I hadn’t come to my senses and changed majors in time, I might not have graduated. Do you know where I’m going for graduate school? MIT! Where could you go for graduate school with your Dayue History Department? Oh, right—I forgot. You won’t even get a degree in your own field.”
After all that snide mockery, Liu Lei was finally in a good mood.
Su Jin held her ground. “Not everyone is interested in MIT.”
“Haha!” Liu Lei clapped. “So you really bought into all that patriotic talk? I wonder what kind of job you’ll find, or how much you’ll earn. But that’s none of my concern. I have a bright future ahead of me, so I won’t waste my life alongside such ‘noble’ people.”
Su Jin glared at her. “If it weren’t for the martyrs who gave their lives for their country, if it weren’t for the people who devoted their lives to China without asking for anything in return, you wouldn’t have the chance to stand here and lecture me. You can be selfish, but you have no right to mock other people’s patriotism!”
Liu Lei’s face went pale, then flushed, then turned red—her expression shifting unpredictably.
It took her a long while to regain her composure. “What you’re doing isn’t even remotely comparable to what the martyrs did.”
Su Jin nodded. “You’re right, it isn’t. But we’re doing what we can to set the record straight about China’s history. What gives you the right to mock us?”
Liu Lei’s face twisted. With a cold snort, she walked around Su Jin and strode away.
Su Jin ignored her and pushed open the door to the ward.
It was a six-bed room. Professor Hu’s bed was the one nearest the bathroom.
Professor Hu wasn’t particularly old—he was nearly fifty—but after so many days in the hospital, he hadn’t shaved properly and looked quite haggard.
When he saw Su Jin shaving an apple with a peeler, the strips of skin flying into the trash can, he shrank back into the corner of his bed.
Once she’d finished peeling the apple and held it out to him, he gave a couple of cautious, dry chuckles. “Actually, I don’t like apples.”
Su Jin took the apple back and bit off a big chunk.
“She came here to lord it over you. Why didn’t you give her a piece of your mind?”
Su Jin asked Hu Ming around a mouthful of apple.
She was angry.
His Good Disciple was definitely angry.
Hu Ming grew even more timid. “She wasn’t wrong. The university’s already decided to shut down our department. There’s nothing we can do.”
Liu Lei had always thought he’d tricked her into choosing a major with no future.
Now that she had a chance, of course she’d come to show off.
“They won’t shut it down.”
Su Jin swallowed the apple and looked Hu Ming in the eye. “There’s hope for repairing the scroll.”
Hu Ming rushed over to her, trembling with excitement. “You found a way? How do we repair it?”
Su Jin didn’t know how to repair it yet, either.
Once she managed to contact Shen Yubai, she should be able to find a way.
She’d come today to reassure Professor Hu and let him focus on getting well.
So she kept it mysterious. “It’s a secret.”
Su Jin gave him a playful wink. “Anyway, at next month’s hearing, I’ll show the university how far we’ve gotten.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the shadow of someone still lurking outside the door. Deliberately raising her voice, she said, “Old man, you have to hang on. Then we’ll show those people who’ve forgotten their roots exactly what we think of them!”
The door slammed.
Whoever it was had clearly stormed off in a rage.
Su Jin didn’t care. All she needed was for her advisor to get better, so they could keep researching together.
“I’ll hang on. I definitely will. I want to see Dayue history unearthed and acknowledged by the whole world!”
The gloom that had settled over Hu Ming lifted, and he seemed five years younger.
Thinking of all he’d devoted to this work over most of his life, he felt that his life hadn’t been wasted.
He was thrilled, elated.
But when he saw Su Jin leave with the apples, all those feelings turned to disbelief. “Why are you taking the apples with you?”
“Didn’t you say you didn’t like apples?”
“I could’ve saved them for my wife.”
Su Jin regretfully put the apples back.
If only her teacher’s wife didn’t like apples, either. Then she could take them home for Shen Yubai to try.
……
There were plenty of charming little shops by the entrance to Jiangcheng University, but the girls liked the bakery best.
Everything was freshly made each day, and when the aroma drifted outside, it was enough to make people turn their steps toward the shop.
The bread and pastries weren’t cheap, though. Wang Qiqi loved them, but couldn’t afford to buy much.
So when Liu Lei handed her a bakery gift card, she snatched it up at once.
“Have you noticed anything new with Su Jin lately?”
Liu Lei got straight to the point.
When Wang Qiqi said nothing seemed out of the ordinary, Liu Lei didn’t believe her.
At the hospital that day, she’d clearly heard Su Jin say there was hope of repairing the scroll.
“You’re her roommate, and you haven’t noticed a thing? Why would I even bother coming to you, then?”
Wang Qiqi’s heart jumped at Liu Lei’s dark expression. She tightened her grip on the gift card.
It had a thousand yuan on it—enough to buy her bread for a whole semester.
She couldn’t afford to lose Liu Lei’s support.
She wanted to buy new clothes and shoes like the other students. She wanted the latest mobile phone, and sweet, fragrant bread to eat!
She tried hard to recall Su Jin’s daily routine lately.
The more she worried, the less she could remember.
Liu Lei had run out of patience. She picked up her bag and stood to leave. Panicking, Wang Qiqi hurriedly called after her, “I—I did notice something!”
When Liu Lei stopped, Wang Qiqi’s frightened gaze darted around. Then she spotted a white bottle on top of the glass display case, and a medicine bottle in a trash can flashed into her mind.
Wang Qiqi brightened. “She’s been taking medicine lately!”
The irritation on Liu Lei’s face was impossible to hide.
She didn’t care what medicine Su Jin was taking or what illness she might have. All she cared about was whether the scroll could be repaired.
She just wanted that damn Dayue History Department shut down by the university as soon as possible—to prove that the Hu family name was a fraud, and that transferring to the Western History Department had been the right choice!
Wang Qiqi’s heart sank, but this was the only lifeline she had. She could only keep offering up details to prove she was still useful.
“Rifampin! I looked it up. It treats tuberculosis. Su Jin might have tuberculosis, and it’s contagious…”
“Wait!”
Liu Lei cut her off. “Su Jin has tuberculosis?”
References[+]