When she arrived at the playground brimming with enthusiasm, Yu Bei was already directing the students to line up.
The students were the first to spot Chen Qingning in her matching light-blue tracksuit and started giggling.
Yu Bei turned around, completely ignoring her wave, and signaled for everyone to warm up.
Baihe County was located in southern Anhui, surrounded on three sides by mountains with no peaks, receiving little sunlight, and affected by the dampness of the Yangtze River Delta. By afternoon, the temperature dropped rapidly.
Chen Qingning was a victim of this temperature difference. Though her legs were now covered by fabric, her exposed neck still made her hair stand on end.
Once I start moving, I'll be fine. Chen Qingning jogged over to Yu Bei's side, feigning shyness: "Teacher Yu, I'm late."
Yu Bei said, "No problem, class is almost over."
Chen Qingning tilted her head to look at her sports watch: "What do you mean? Class only started eight minutes ago!"
Yu Bei glanced at her without saying a word.
Chen Qingning realized belatedly that he was teasing her, and played along with enthusiasm: "I never knew Teacher Yu missed me so much. An hour apart feels like three autumns."
Yu Bei led the students to the running track.
In their puffy winter jackets, everyone looked like ducks of various sizes, waddling in a continuous line around the track.
Chen Qingning was left behind, calling out from the rear: "Hey, do I need to run?"
A tall, dark figure led the little ducks away into the distance.
"Yu Bei, you're giving me the cold shoulder again!" This time she shouted even louder.
A girl who could barely hear the voice turned around and saw a streak of blue at the end of the track, hands on hips, stomping her feet.
When Teacher Yu ran back to her side, the girl signed: "Teacher Chen is alone, very anxious."
Chen Qingning was panting heavily in the wind, watching the small group complete their first lap and circle back.
As he passed her, Yu Bei slowed down: "Just standing there?"
Chen Qingning brushed away her stray hair: "You didn't tell me what to do!"
Yu Bei: "Run."
Chen Qingning wrinkled her nose and followed.
"What are you being so smug about?" She ran alongside him, demanding with annoyance.
Yu Bei replied: "I'm following the class schedule."
Chen Qingning: "Then at least you could arrange something for your teaching assistant instead of leaving her alone over there."
Yu Bei said: "Should the teaching assistant arrive even later than the students?"
Chen Qingning was stunned.
She had never paid attention to the teaching assistants in university lectures, nor did she know their specific duties. In fact, she had attended classes only a handful of times. Professors from various countries would speak with great fervor, their accents varying wildly—some with a curry flavor, others with a hamburger flavor. She couldn't understand a word and didn't bother to try. She wanted nothing to do with lectures, and writing papers made her want to die. The languages she knew best were "VIP membership" and "whatever."
She raised her voice: "Well, now that you've told me, I know! People need a process of understanding and learning!"
Yu Bei slowed his pace and instructed: "Run with them."
Chen Qingning widened her eyes: "Huh?"
Yu Bei stopped completely.
"You're slacking off?" She turned her head to ask, without slowing her legs at all.
Yu Bei put his hands back in his pockets and gestured with his chin for her to catch up with the group.
Chen Qingning sprinted off effortlessly. Running was nothing—when she was racing endlessly against white girls at the gym, Yu Bei was probably still in his office reading the manual for a massage device.
"Follow me, family—" She quickly took the lead, then turned around to run backward, beaming like a group fitness instructor, shouting loudly: "One, two, three, four, watch your breathing! Five, six, seven, eight, engage your core! Keep your pace! Get into the rhythm!"
She kept pumping her arms:
"Just like that, don't slow down."
"Breathe! Breathe! Last stretch! Stay with me!"
The originally neat and orderly group, because of her antics, was laughing so hard they were falling all over each other, dragging and straggling, scattered like broken beads.
Yu Bei, who had just hung his jacket on the horizontal bar, pressed his forehead.
"Chen Qingning." Seeing the group approaching, he called out in time to stop.
Chen Qingning halted, her nose and cheeks flushed with red, puzzled: "We're not running anymore?" She had just found her stride, and her fat hadn't even started burning yet.
Yu Bei said: "Just two laps."
"Fine." Chen Qingning looked around in disappointment, then raised both thumbs high, smiling brightly: "Everyone did great!"
The students stood with their hands behind their backs, faces also flushed, holding back laughter.
Chen Qingning sought credit from Yu Bei: "How about that? Your teaching assistant is way more fun leading the group than you, right?"
Yu Bei responded with a completely unresponsive jawline.
She tilted her face toward him and asked with "sincerity": "Teacher Yu, what other tasks do you have for your little assistant?"
Yu Bei said: "Go stand over there."
"Oh…" She shuffled sideways, looking obedient, but actually moving like a crab crossing the street—utterly cheeky.
The students' barely contained smiles were the best proof. Though they couldn't hear her, Teacher Chen's movements spoke a language of their own.
Yu Bei led the students to the center of the artificial turf, distributing the neatly bundled jump ropes that were lying on the ground, telling them to do free activities.
He stood with his arms crossed, accompanying the children for a while, when he noticed someone was being too quiet. He frowned and turned to look.
The all-blue girl had become black on top and blue on the bottom.
He cast his gaze toward the horizontal bar in the equipment area. Sure enough, the jacket was nowhere to be seen. He took a deep breath and strode toward Chen Qingning: "Who told you to wear that?"
The girl twisted the overly long cuffs of her sleeves between her fingers, stating it as if it were the most natural thing in the world: "My body's cold."
Yu Bei: "Where's your own coat?"
She opened her jacket abruptly like some street pervert: "On me."
The motion nearly hit Yu Bei; he took a half-step back. "I'm asking where your coat is."
Chen Qingning said: "In the dorm."
Yu Bei's expression turned a few degrees colder. "Take it off."
Chen Qingning argued with conviction: "You're not wearing one either, aren't you?"
Yu Bei: "Just because I'm not wearing one, you can wear whatever you want? Without my consent?"
Chen Qingning: "So, will you consent?"
Yu Bei: "No."
Chen Qingning looked troubled, pouting: "But it takes me ten minutes to go back and forth. As a teaching assistant, it's not great to abandon my post."
Yu Bei said: "I'll allow you to leave for ten minutes. Take it off and put it back."
What a man with no sense of romance. Chen Qingning rolled her eyes, flicked her arms back, shrugged off the windbreaker, bunched it into a ball, and tossed it at Yu Bei's chest.
Yu Bei caught it, holding the jacket with his hand hanging down: "Have a little sense of propriety, Teacher Chen."
Chen Qingning's gaze drifted downward, fixing on Yu Bei's rather prominent chest: "With a chest that big, wearing a tight sweater—is that your idea of propriety?"
Yu Bei was at a loss for words, his mouth opening but nothing coming out. He could only swallow the wind.
When she returned from the dorm wrapped in a glossy black Canada Goose down jacket, the bell for the end of class had just rung. Chen Qingning let out a frustrated "ugh"—class was already over? She hadn't even finished teasing Yu Bei.
She refused to believe it and walked toward the playground, surrounded by kids darting past and teachers calling out reminders like fussy mothers.
The formation on the grass was gone, and there was no sign of that cold-faced man-mommy standing out from the crowd.
Chen Qingning exhaled a puff of white mist and turned to walk toward the teaching building.
She casually pulled out her phone, opened Yu Bei's WeChat, and tapped out a few words: I'm lost… Then with a dry heave, she deleted them all.
Pointless.
He'd have to come back to the office anyway.
With that thought, Chen Qingning calmly slipped her phone back into her pocket and hummed a tune.
Before she even reached the chorus, someone lightly tapped her left arm—who dared interrupt her divine solo? She frowned and turned her head.
It was a girl's face.
Before she could even recognize who it was, the girl spoke first: "Teach—er… Chen."
Chen Qingning studied her features carefully and remembered she was the only girl in class who wore a hearing aid. She quickly put on a smile: "Hello there~"
The girl shyly lowered her eyes, then looked back up at her: "Teach-er, hello."
Chen Qingning asked her: "What's your name?"
The girl opened her mouth, hesitated for a moment: "Ge—Lingxi."
Chen Qingning froze.
She couldn't stop the confusion from spreading across her face. She tilted her ear: "Could you say that again?"
The girl's face flushed red. She repeated it, slower, harder, with longer pauses than before.
But Chen Qingning still struggled to understand.
That uneasy feeling crept back out, like sitting in a car driving normally when suddenly someone swapped the tires for triangular or square ones—instantly, you couldn't move an inch.
Chen Qingning clenched her hands, pulled out her phone, opened the notes app, brought up the keyboard, and held it out for the girl to see.
The girl caught on immediately, nodding like a pecking chick. She took the phone with both hands, typed deftly, and handed it back.
Only then did Chen Qingning figure out her name: Ge Lingxi.
She gave up on the guessing game and typed a new line: Sister Xixi, your name is really pretty, and you're beautiful too.
The girl, whose brows had been furrowed for so long, finally brightened, smiling silently: The teacher is the beautiful one.
Chen Qingning: We're both beautiful—a pair of gorgeous sisters.
The two walked side by side, passing the phone back and forth, and before long, half the screen was filled with text.
When they reached the stairwell, Ge Lingxi reluctantly waved goodbye to Chen Qingning.
As she turned and headed upstairs, Chen Qingning let out a long sigh. The last time communication had been this difficult was three months into her time abroad, when she was gleefully doing Pamela Reif workouts in her apartment and a white woman downstairs came to confront her. The door opened, and the woman launched into a tirade.
Chen Qingning hadn't understood a single word.
Which meant she hadn't been scolded at all.
She pressed against the door, eyes lowered, head bowed: "Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry."
In her head: Fuck! Fuck your daddy! Fuck your husband! Fuck your family!
She didn't want to revisit old memories. Chen Qingning hugged the once-weak foreigner—herself—and headed back to the office.
She stepped through the door on the ringing of the class bell, poked her head in for a scan, and again—not a single person.
Was this a haunted school?
Chen Qingning checked the schedule in her photos. Yu Bei didn't have a class next period; he should be back in the office by now.
Speak of the devil. She turned off her phone, looked up, and there he was, walking from the end of the corridor.
Chen Qingning leaned against the doorframe, perfectly calm.
When he reached her, Yu Bei stopped: "Why aren't you going in?"
Chen Qingning: "Waiting to open the door for Teacher Yu Bei."
Yu Bei: "The door's already open."
Chen Qingning: "I'm Teacher Yu Bei's door."
Yu Bei turned his head away, letting out a breath: "Are you going to let me in or not?"
"Opening it for you right now," Chen Qingning struck a pose: "Would you like the revolving door or the sliding door?"
Yu Bei had often heard people say he was proper, but he'd never paid it much mind back then. Now, he thought, there was some truth to it.
Anyway, his desk was occupied, so he could just as easily work somewhere else.
With that thought, Yu Bei turned and walked away from his spot.
"Hey—" Chen Qingning grabbed at his sleeve. The windbreaker fabric was stiff and rustled as she tugged, her aggrieved tone woven into the sound: "I was just joking with you~"
Yu Bei brushed her hand off and walked into the office.
Chen Qingning's lips nearly curled up to the sky as she followed him in, wearing a victorious smile.
Just as she was about to sit down, Chen Qingning said, "Let me go in first."
Yu Bei stood there, unmoving.
Chen Qingning stepped in gracefully and settled into the chair. Her big doll-like brown contacts slanted toward Yu Bei: "Where did you go after class?"
Yu Bei tidied the materials on his desk.
"The bathroom?"
"…"
The man pulled out that damned Pilot pen from his pocket again, clicking it open with a gada, as if to shut her out entirely.
Chen Qingning propped her face up with both index fingers, turning toward him: "I just ran into our student."
Ge… what was it again? She snuck a peek at her phone "cheat sheet" hidden in the desk drawer: "Ge Lingxi, that bilingual girl."
"Mm." Yu Bei responded coldly and indifferently.
"Aren't you curious about what happened?"
Yu Bei lifted his eyelids: "You don't know any sign language at all. What could possibly happen?"
Chen Qingning shot back: "I don't know sign language, but I know pinyin, don't I?"
Chen Qingning's hawk-like eyes caught the faintest twitch at the corner of the man's mouth. That was definitely not him being charmed by her cuteness—it was a sneer.
"We had a lively chat!" She raised her voice.
"Mm, keep it up." Yu Bei's response couldn't have been more perfunctory.
"Were you already good at sign language from the start?" Chen Qingning clenched both fists and pressed them on the edge of the desk: "What's with the high-and-mighty attitude? I'm just walking the same path you walked."
Yu Bei looked at her: "When I first arrived, students were forbidden from writing or typing to communicate with me."
Chen Qingning was puzzled: "Why?"
Yu Bei: "To practice sign language."
Both fighting spirit and cunning surfaced at once. Chen Qingning said, "Then teach me sign language. Starting today."
Yu Bei said, "I already taught you. Good morning. Hello."
Chen Qingning scoffed: "Too easy."
Yu Bei set down his pen and straightened up: "Is that so? Show me."
Chen Qingning went straight for the flashy route—left hand doing "good morning," right hand doing "hello." Who could deny she was brilliantly clever with both brain hemispheres perfectly coordinated?
"Wrong." Yu Bei lowered his eyes and picked the pen back up.
"Wrong where?"
"Wrong attitude."
"My movements are right, at least."
"Wrong."
"Wrong where this time?"
"Not up to standard."
"Then that means what you taught was wrong."
Yu Bei raised his left hand: "Dominant hand."
Then his right hand: "Supporting hand."
"They complement each other. They don't each do their own thing. Your expression isn't proper," he said.
Chen Qingning argued back: "Just tell me—did you understand it or not?"
Yu Bei couldn't be bothered to argue with her and lowered his head to write.
Chen Qingning pressed on shamelessly: "Yesterday when you came to the reception room to pick me up, you told me I could ask you anything I didn't understand. Now you're treating me like an abandoned baby. Not a single word from a man's mouth can be trusted."
Yu Bei's pen tip paused. He thought for a moment: "Go home and self-study the twenty-five most common signs first. Once you pass a spot check, I'll teach you personally."