Lin Miao sat on the ledge of the bed. For convenience’s sake, the Young Master gave her some room while he dialed.
Lin Miao quickly took off her shoes and crawled beside him.
The Young Master had many pillows. The two waited nervously yet with anticipation, listening to the beeps while resting on the pillows.
Suddenly, a voice came from the other side, “Hello, who are you looking for?”
Lin Miao’s face glowed and she yelled enthusiastically, “Big Sister Da Mei, it’s Shuishui!”
Da Mei was the eldest daughter in the village head’s family. She was two years older than Lin Miao but was really kind to her.
“Shuishui, I heard Xiao Mei say that you went out to work. Is it fun working out of the village?” Da Mei asked.
“Yes, it’s fun.” Lin Miao’s head was filled with her mom, so she didn’t continue further with this and instead asked, “Is my mom home?”
“Aunty Lin went to the town. She left the same day that you left and didn’t say when she was coming back…”
Lin Miao’s face immediately dimmed. “Oh, okay. Tell Little Mei to study well at home. I’ll buy candy for them when I return for the New Year.”
Lin Miao hung up. Her smile was uglier than her crying expression. “Mommy went to town, she didn’t say when she would return.”
“Younger brother is sick; she definitely went to town with Papa.”
The Young Master patted her head. “There’s six more months until the New Year. I’ll go with you then, don’t cry.”
Lin Miao was feeling low. She came down from the bed. “Six months is so long, I wonder if my mom would be back by then.”
“Mm, she will definitely be home by then. Your brother will recover as well.” The Young Master’s tone was very trustworthy, “Didn’t your mom tell you to study? I’ll teach you English in these six months. Your mom will definitely be proud of you when you return.” They usually didn’t have much time, and these classes were basically either Chinese or Math. Furthermore, Lin Miao’s school’s English class only starts at third grade, she didn’t even have many English classes since the middle-school entrance exams only consist of Chinese and Math.
Lin Miao was only able to learn “mess up your room”, which meant “good evening,” after a greater half of the semester. Her mom made cured meat to reward her the evening she said it to her.
(Note: Mess up your room [鼓捣你屋里] is pronounced gŭ dăo nĭ wū lĭ, it’s a Chinese phrase with a similar sound in Lin Miao’s dialect to “good evening”)
Originally, she had no interest in this, but she picked up her motivation and mood, “Gege, you’re so nice.”
The Young Master nodded and said solemnly, “I think so too.”
The Young Master then pulled himself out of his quilt. “Bring your book.”
The Young Master had to cover himself with quilts despite it being summer since his room was air conditioned all the time.
Lin Miao was about to joyously go into the study room next door when the Young Master stopped her. “Don't let anyone see. Get the most inwards book in the lowest right row next to the door.”
Lin Miao snuck out as if she was a spy.
The Young Master told her to act carefully because the doctor would definitely comment that he was overworking himself, thus hurting his body. This irritated the Young Master.
Lin Miao was pretty fast and returned surreptitiously.
Empty-handed.
“Where’s the book?” The Young Master was confused.
Lin Miao quickly walked towards him and planted herself next to him, her back facing the door as she mouthed, “The doctor’s coming…”
The Young Master nodded. They were like two little spies with a secret between them, ecstatically sharing intelligence.
As expected, the door opened and the doctor came in to check the Young Master’s body.
Lin Miao quietly stood beside them, hands crossed in front of her body.
The doctor said the same things as before; to let the Young Master rest well. He said that their current treatment plan was turning out well and his health was improving.
Following that, the doctor dropped a few reminders and left.
Lin Miao immediately took out two books from her clothes.
She smiled and said, “I ran into him when I left the study room. It scared me, but luckily, I was smart.”
The Young Master took the books. They were his kindergarten english textbooks.
He went to a bilingual kindergarten.
The Young Master closed the book right after he opened it. “Nevermind, we’re not using these textbooks.”
Lin Miao was quite confused. She stuck her head forward and saw three wonky characters: “俞景轩”.
The words were twisted as if they were houses on the brink of collapse.
The Young Master explained, blushing, “This is from kindergarten. I was the first one in the class who learned how to write their full name.”
Lin Miao was astonished. “Gege, you’re so smart. I could only write ‘wood’ and ‘water’ back in first grade, they all laughed at me for so long.”
(Note: wood and water [木木水水水] MuMu ShuiShuiShui are a part of her name, Lin Miao [林淼], it’s also why her nickname is Shuishui.)
Lin Miao took the paper and wrote a “俞” (Yu) stroke by stroke.
“景” (Jing)
“轩” (Xuan)
(Note: Pinyin is Yú Jĭngxuān, which is the Young Master’s full name.)
She wrote it very meticulously but her characters were still ugly.
After finishing, she gave it a proud look and said, “I’ve always thought that your Yu is the ‘Yu’ used in fish.”
The Young Master took the pencil and wrote “林淼淼” beside it.
(Note: Pinyin is Lin Miaomiao, which is Lin Miao’s full name)
Compared to Lin Miao’s penmanship, which was like the Young Master’s writing in kindergarten, the Young Master’s characters were filled with awesomeness.
Lin Miao was filled with envy. “I also want to write my name as pretty as that.”
“Keep practicing, you can definitely do it.” The Young Master suddenly realized that they were getting distracted. “Ok, time to learn English.”
“Did you learn english before?”
Lin Miao nodded, “Yes, yes, Gudaoniwuli!”
“Mm?” The Young Master blinked.
“Gudaoniwuli.” Lin Miao repeated.
“Good evening?” The Young Master repeated.
The Young Master’s voice was euphonious. Lin Miao thought it was even better than her english teacher’s pronunciation. It was like the voice in the tape her teacher once played for her class.
Lin Miao nodded enthusiastically.
“What else did you learn?” The Young Master asked with a smile.
Lin Miao was motivated. She tried to recall her memories, but she couldn’t remember anything much. “Wait a sec.”
She bolted out the door.
She returned back to her room and took out her english book.
Afterwards, she sat beside the Young Master and opened the book. “Wan, Tu, Shui, Hou…”
(Note: The four translated words corresponds to the chinese characters “碗: bowl”, “吐: spit”, “水: water” and “火: fire”, which sounds like “one”, “two”, “three” and “four”)
The Young Master saw that her book was flooded with notes.
There were chinese characters under each english word.
The Young Master closed her book, opened his, and said with an experienced face, “Shuishui, please, can you forget about everything your teacher taught you?”
Lin Miao nodded, “Okay.”
She could not have been more acquiescent.
The Young Master patted her head. “Come sit, let’s start from phonetic sounds.”
His book also had many notes, but they were phonemes.
After forty minutes of the Young Master teaching her, he was finally able to make Student Lin Miao understand that there was a difference between “good evening” and “gudaoniwuli”.
It was so difficult being a teacher.
The doctor would still occasionally pay a few visits during the day. The Young Master disliked his nagging and verboseness, so he just pretended to sleep. Lin Miao would lie beside his bed, conveniently covering the books.
Lin Miao felt that deceiving the doctor like this seems wrong, but the Young Master explained that he had no reason to sleep during the day because then he wouldn’t be able to sleep during the night...
Lin Miao considered it and felt it reasonable.
They didn’t study all the time. The two of them still played games. The Young Master drew an aeroplane chess, diced Lin Miao’s eraser, and numbered them to use as dice in the game.
There were penalties for positions accordingly.
They didn’t play much tic tac toe because he would always win. He was afraid of hurting student Lin Miao’s self-esteem.
Aeroplane chess was way better: it was purely luck-based.