When Chen Qingning appeared the next day, the entire office was stunned once again. She wore a leopard-print mink coat that reached nearly her ankles, and she had even put on a pair of violet-tinted sunglasses with great ceremony.
The nightclub drifter had transformed into a red-carpet star. She paused at the doorframe, removed her sunglasses, and greeted everyone in Thai: "Sawadeeka—"
Yu Wenlei was the first to crack, unable to hide her smile: "Good morning, Teacher Chen. Very warm today, I see."
Chen Qingning agreed: "Right? I nearly froze to death yesterday."
Yu Wenlei nodded: "We don't have tall buildings here—just fields on all sides. Nothing blocks the wind."
Chen Qingning strode over to the desk in three quick steps. She didn't see Yu Bei, nor his plastic stool, and the papers on the desk had dwindled by more than half. She couldn't help but ask in surprise: "Where's Yu Bei?"
Yu Wenlei said: "I think he went to the classroom."
"This early?" Chen Qingning checked her phone. She had deliberately arrived five minutes early, just to show off her learning progress.
"Oh, right," Yu Wenlei rose from her seat and pointed toward the end of the hallway: "Teacher Yu found a spare desk and brought it over. He said he'll work over there from now on, and that spot is for you."
Chen Qingning blinked: "Why?"
Yu Wenlei guessed: "Maybe sharing one desk between two people is inconvenient?"
Chen Qingning walked over to the new desk, which was nearly half the size: "A big guy like him—is sitting at this tiny broken desk supposed to be more convenient?"
Yu Wenlei answered diplomatically: "You're a specially invited teacher and an honored guest of Baihe. He probably wants you to have a better internship experience."
Not at all.
He's avoiding me.
Chen Qingning rebutted silently, picked up her dogtooth-pattern bag, and headed to the classroom. Her sense of direction was excellent—she rarely got lost even in the towering canyons and winding streets of Midtown Manhattan, let alone in Baihe's matchstick-box of a teaching building.
When she reached the door, Yu Bei's clear voice was already rising and falling from inside.
Chen Qingning paused to listen.
Her impression of Yu Bei was contradictory. He was undoubtedly young—his sharply defined face bore no traces of aging—yet he carried a calm, prudent demeanor that belonged to someone much older.
Moreover, his voice was clean. It wasn't particularly deep or steady, nor did it carry any deliberate authority or grandeur. He was simply speaking. His voice contained no impurities.
A sharp-eyed student noticed Chen Qingning at the corner of the door and tilted his head to look at her.
Chen Qingning tilted her head the same way and gave him a two-finger salute at her forehead.
This small exchange quickly triggered a herd effect in the classroom.
The "shepherd," Yu Bei, came out of the classroom door. The moment he saw Chen Qingning, exasperation was written all over his eyes. He didn't comment further, only asking: "Why didn't you come in?"
The modern woman flicked her high ponytail: "Waiting for you to welcome me personally."
Yu Bei turned and went back into the classroom.
Chen Qingning followed right behind him.
Her increasingly dazzling outfits day after day caused an uproar in the class. The spotlight had clearly shifted. Yu Bei clapped twice on the side of the podium to remind the students to quiet down, then yielded his position: "Your turn. Finish the rest of the morning assembly."
Chen Qingning threw him a sparkling, flirtatious glance. When he didn't take the bait, she wasn't bothered. She stepped up to the elevated position and smoothly signed a "hello" to everyone.
She looked at Yu Bei, then at the audience below: "The weather is very nice today."
The students all turned to look out the window in unison.
The sky was still gloomy, the fierce wind sealed outside the glass. The room fell silent.
The boy who had tilted his head raised his hand. Chen Qingning invited him to answer, and he signed his objection: "Today is cloudy."
Chen Qingning roughly understood. She shook her head and repeated the gestures she had just learned: "The weather is very nice." She made a heart shape with both hands over her left chest, then signed good, good, and pieced together what she could from her limited vocabulary: "Weather—good."
A good mood makes for good weather.
It wasn't standard sign language, but everyone understood.
Ge Lingxi laughed until her eyes curved into crescents.
"This goddamn weather—can't they just cancel morning exercises?" During the morning exercise session, Chen Qingning wrapped her coat tightly around herself, huddled up like a bear.
Noticing Yu Bei's slightly reddened nose, she muttered: "Want me to lend you my fur coat? I'm not stingy like you."
Yu Bei didn't lean in to whisper with her.
After being called out by a student yesterday for his impropriety, he didn't want to become a bad example again.
"Are you mad at me?" Chen Qingning was puzzled.
"I already learned it all!" Her puzzlement extended into dissatisfaction.
"And you won't even sit at the same desk as me anymore!" She vented on her own: "I didn't do anything too outrageous last night, did I?"
"If you don't want to post a chest-revealing photo, I won't force you. You're so weird, honestly—can't even take a little trash talk. Where's the fun in life then?"
"Don't your lips get cold?" The man finally spoke in a flat tone.
Chen Qingning's energy surged: "They won't if I keep moving!"
Yu Bei: "Then start moving now. Run back to the classroom. You don't need to supervise morning exercises."
Chen Qingning said: "No way. I'm going to share your hardships and your cold, your warmth and your chill." Until we share a bed.
"Teacher Yu," she raised her eyelids, her lashes trembling in the wind. Against the gray sky, her face was bright and audacious: "I mean every word I say, you know."
Yu Bei roughly understood the deeper meaning behind her "I mean what I say." As usual, after lying through an entire Chinese class, the two returned to the office, and Chen Qingning actually moved her chair over beside his small desk.
She was in her element when it came to being unruly.
"Pop quiz." Chen Qingning pushed aside his teaching materials to make room for her arms, propping her face on both hands: "I'm definitely getting full marks today."
Yu Bei had no choice, jerking his chin forward: "After the quiz, go back to your desk."
Chen Qingning said, "I want to sit right here."
Yu Bei nodded: "Fine, this spot's yours, I'll go back."
Chen Qingning: "Then I'll go back too."
"Teacher Chen," Yu Bei took a deep breath, "you're interfering with my work."
Chen Qingning muttered, "I'm your work too, aren't I? Aren't you going to quiz me?" — The word "quiz" came out with each syllable crisp and forceful, her brows arched high.
Yu Bei picked up a kraft-paper-covered notebook from the corner of the desk and flipped to a dog-eared page.
In the fleeting glance between the ruled lines, the pages were densely packed with words and annotations.
"Can you finish in ten minutes?" Yu Bei unbuckled his black sports watch, held it up, turning the face toward Chen Qingning: "If not, we'll move it to the long break."
Chen Qingning stared, then broke into a look of sudden enlightenment: "Ooh~~ Teacher Yu, are you saying you don't want to finish the quiz too fast? Because then you'd have no more interaction with me, and you'd feel lonely and desolate."
Yu Bei's tone was calm: "Why did I move the seats?"
Chen Qingning countered effortlessly: "To give me a bigger fish tank."
Yu Bei: "Then after the quiz, go back and stop splashing around here."
Chen Qingning's eyes suddenly turned dark with resentment.
Yu Bei ignored her dramatic reaction. "Let's begin."
Chen Qingning hastily said "wait a sec," fished out a pair of sunglasses from her bag, and pushed them up onto her nose. For a major occasion, the OOTD had to be complete.
Seeing Yu Bei's questioning look, she took them off to clarify: "These aren't smart glasses, okay? No answers in them."
"…" Yu Bei was no stranger to her shamelessness, lowering his eyes to the questions: "I want to invite you to dinner."
"Lunch?"
"Chen Qingning!" The good-natured man finally cracked.
Chen Qingning snickered, deftly signing the corresponding meaning with her hands, adding a dismissive bonus: "Tsk, next."
The test results were better than Yu Bei had expected. Though she stumbled a few times, Chen Qingning still managed to complete all twenty-five short sign language phrases in decent form.
Anticipating she'd pull some original tricks, he saved the "weather" phrase for last.
Sure enough, after signing "the weather is nice," she unhurriedly and vividly demonstrated:
"You look very handsome today."
"I look very beautiful today."
"We make a perfect match."
At noon, Yu Bei returned to his dorm to feed the fish, also taking the opportunity to shake off Chen Qingning, who stuck to him like chewing gum. He didn't go to the cafeteria, buying a bag of toast from nearby instead. There were organic tomatoes in the fridge from a student's parents, which he sliced, slathered with olive oil and canned tuna, and made into a simple sandwich for lunch.
His life wasn't regular.
In his first year after graduation, Yu Bei worked as a psychotherapist at a mental health center in the big city. Clients came one after another every day, records piled up faster than he could write, and even debriefing had to be scheduled for the evening. His water cup sat by the desk, often untouched all day.
After coming to Baihe, things weren't much better.
Sometimes he had to grade papers at noon, sometimes he had to tutor struggling students.
That was why every moment of regularity was especially precious.
When he received Principal Lin's call, he was sorting through kitchen waste.
Yu Bei tied up the trash bag in a few quick motions, put the phone on speaker, and asked Principal Lin what he needed.
Lin Yuzhang spoke to everyone in the same measured tone: "Old Chen called me again, worried about his daughter's situation. How have these past two days been? Is Teacher Chen adjusting well?"
Yu Bei rinsed his hands, puzzled: "Didn't he just ask the day before yesterday?"
He kept the water running low so it wouldn't drown out the voice on the other end.
Lin Yuzhang was equally helpless: "Old Chen dotes on his daughter like his own life. He says she's never endured this kind of hardship, afraid she's still holding a grudge against him and hiding the truth."
"If he's that worried, why send her here at all." Yu Bei turned off the faucet.
"Parents are just contradictory like that." Lin Yuzhang sighed, feigning mystery: "At the dinner gathering, Miss Chen told me you treated her badly. Guess what she told her father yesterday?"
Yu Bei dried his hands, pressed the phone back to his ear, and walked toward his desk: "What?"
"She said you're very good."
Yu Bei let out a cold laugh.
"What kind of reaction is that?" Lin Yuzhang was baffled.
Yu Bei glanced at the goldfish now settled at the bottom after eating: "I don't understand why you insisted on assigning her to me. Wouldn't Teacher Qu or Teacher Yu have been better?"
Lin Yuzhang said, "The special education class is more demanding. She can't handle it."
Yu Bei said, "With me, she can't handle the hearing-impaired class."
Lin Yuzhang snorted: "Don't give me false reports. I asked Xiao Qu too. She said Miss Chen is very proactive, very passionate about teaching, and practices sign language hard every night."
Yu Bei recalled this morning's staff meeting and didn't deny it: "She's fairly smart."
"Then there you go."
"Street smart."
"If she were book smart too, that'd be a disaster." Lin Yuzhang teased.
Yu Bei didn't want to argue: "We'll see."
"Exactly. Give it time, things will work out. Don't judge her too quickly." Lin Yuzhang seemed to have been waiting for just that.
Yu Bei glossed over that remark and simply said, "From now on, I'll proactively update Chen Qingning on the situation every week."
"Oh?"
"If you're going to demand teaching results from me this frequently, Director Chen might as well find someone more qualified. I don't have the patience to report progress every other day."
"You little—" Lin Yuzhang started but stopped himself.
"Lunch break now. The weather's been unstable lately—take care of yourself." Yu Bei hung up.
A WeChat voice call notification popped up right after, as if afraid of being too slow. The fish lazily drifting in the ceramic tank swished its tail again, as though it had already forgotten its full belly.
Yu Bei glanced at the name, pressed answer: "What is it?"
A crisp voice bounced out, tinged with pout and reproach: "Who were you on the phone with for so long? I couldn't get through for ages."
Yu Bei said nothing.
The other side, finding no reaction, switched topics: "You didn't come to the cafeteria to eat?"
"Mhm."
"Perfect, today's food is still terrible."
"It's not that bad, keep your voice down…" Another voice warned weakly: "We're sitting pretty close to the serving window…"
Yu Bei: "…"
"Say what you need to say." He glanced at the white digital clock on the corner of his desk: "I have three and a half minutes left of my lunch break."
"I bought instant noodles—should I come rescue you?"
"No need."
"I also have electrolyte water."
"No need."
"Can IKEA deliver to your place? I want to buy a new desk."
Yu Bei closed his eyes briefly: "Don't know."
"But you're going to teach me sign language one-on-one now, my esteemed master," the instigator went on, feigning indignation: "And you're still using that little kid's desk—your prized disciple would feel sorry for you."
"I can switch offices."
She slipped into shyness with practiced ease: "Then wouldn't that mean… I'd have to study in your room instead?"
"Eat your meal. Talking too much is bad for digestion."
Yu Bei ended the voice call.
He woke up twenty minutes later, splashed tap water on his face, and used a towel to dry his damp bangs.
Before heading out, he pulled the National Common Sign Language Dictionary from the top shelf, bagged it, and grabbed the trash on his way. He casually glanced at WeChat—behind that avatar of a defiant Yoshitomo Nara girl biting a lollipop, there were no new messages.
Almost reflexively, Yu Bei let out a breath.
When he opened the door again, he froze.
Well then—the witch had already come, and without a sound, had turned the space in front of his door into a little convenience store.