Chapter 94: Beating Out a Philanthropist

A little over a thousand yuan was nothing more than a dozen or so hundred-yuan bills. It did not create that blizzard-in-the-air effect, but the bright red notes scattered on the floor still made it hard to resist looking down.

Wen Xiaocheng did not need to look down at all. One snap of his fingers, and Chen Guo, Shi Jianfeng, Wu Xiaodong, and the others from Class Four, Grade Nine would have gathered the money for him, even sweeping the floor spotless. But Xiaocheng did not do that.

He bent his head and waist, picking up every bill one by one, then stacked them with the two thousand five he already had in his hand. After counting, the total came to 3,700 yuan.

"I’ve picked it up. Does that make it mine?"

Zhang Peiyue said nothing. His face was full of grievance and hatred, exactly the same expression Xiaocheng himself had worn back when he used to be bullied.

Thirty-seven bills were pinched into a fan shape and slapped backhandedly across Zhang Peiyue’s face. The grinning expression Xiaocheng always wore darkened at once.

"So you’ve got money, do you? Since you’ve got money, I’ll teach you how to spend it."

He grabbed Zhang Peiyue by the collar and dragged him downstairs. As he left, he threw a line at Lu Qi, who still stood frozen at the doorway: "Lu Qi, this isn’t over between us. You hit me, so this afternoon after school I’m going to your dad and telling on you!"

The 2,500 he had extorted, plus the 1,200 he had picked up off the floor, Xiaocheng kept not a single cent of it. In front of Zhang Peiyue, he handed it all to Principal Feiniu as a subsidy the school distributed to students in extreme hardship, in Zhang Peiyue’s name.

There were not many wealthy families in this small town, but Second Middle School lacked for nothing except students in dire poverty.

When he came out of the principal’s office, he dragged Zhang Peiyue up to the rooftop and, before speaking, slapped him hard across the face once more. By now, Zhang Peiyue no longer dared to fight back.

"Do you hate me?"

Zhang Peiyue said nothing.

"I can understand if you don’t dare hit back. But if you don’t even dare to hate me, then I’ll look down on you."

"I hate you," Zhang Peiyue said.

"Good." Xiaocheng smiled. "Knowing how to hate is a good thing. But how do you plan to get revenge?"

Again Zhang Peiyue fell silent. A Wen Xiaocheng who was willing to gamble with his life had practically become an unsolvable problem. Zhang Peiyue could not beat him in a brawl, and he was no match for him one-on-one either. It had taken great effort to persuade the school’s local bully, Lu Ba Wang, to take action, and this was the result.

"Did you see that 3,700 yuan just now? That’s your monthly allowance. It could let thirty-seven students in hardship have meat once in a while, or buy each of them a new schoolbag." Xiaocheng seemed to think of his own new schoolbag, and his expression darkened.

He would never forget the happiness that new schoolbag had brought him, just like those light-up shoes that seemed able to dance the devil’s step on the ground.

The children of the poor were always especially easy to satisfy.

"You hate me. In truth, I hate you too. You bullied me for two years, and I’m not going to let you off lightly. So I’ll teach you a way to avoid getting beaten: spend money the way I just did, and let the school’s poorest students all remember your kindness. When I’m beating you, if someone speaks up for you, you’ll get one less beating. When everyone in the school thinks I’m wrong to hit you, then our grudge will be settled."

There was only one way to keep the poor from resenting the rich: share your wealth. Many wealthy men overseas understood this. Charity could turn a rich person into a noble one.

Xiaocheng left, abandoning Zhang Peiyue alone on the rooftop.

What happened next, he did not care. If Zhang Peiyue truly took his advice, then Xiaocheng would not find him so detestable, and the urge to beat him would fade. If he failed to understand, then Xiaocheng would just keep beating him. Middle school was only three years long; after two years of being bullied by him, even spending the last year beating him every day would still leave Xiaocheng at a loss.

The grievances of the older generation should have disappeared with Zhang Wei’s death. Strictly speaking, that debt could not be pinned on Zhang Peiyue, merely a nephew. What remained was only the humiliation Xiaocheng had suffered over these two years.

In Wen Xiaodao’s words, it was a trifling hatred.

But hatred always needed somewhere to go, and forgiveness still needed a reason.

...

All morning, Zhang Peiyue lay on his desk. No one knew what he was thinking. Xiaocheng occasionally looked forward, but could not be bothered to pay him much mind. The final exams were approaching, and the atmosphere in the class had grown tense. In the ninth-grade classes, the glaring countdown to the entrance exam on the blackboard had already shrunk to single digits. The semester was about to end.

Classes, homework, tutoring, exams, test papers, and then, at last, graduation season. In student life, most people seemed like puppets on strings, dragged along by schedules and tests of every size. A love letter from a classmate or a smile from the school beauty when she glanced back over her shoulder could be treasured as a classic memory of youth.

In those years, certain things were called loyalty. In those years, certain things were called love.

In those years, some exams decided a person’s future and fate. In those years, grades decided where we stood in the hierarchy.

Xiaocheng was no longer satisfied with childish tricks like getting Yang Liushan to turn around because of a text message. He walked straight into the office of the second-year department and said bluntly to homeroom teacher Kong Qingguo, "I want to change seats!"

Arranging seats was one of the homeroom teacher’s privileges. Whether someone sat in the front or the back, and who sat next to whom, all had their considerations. Generally speaking, the first two rows belonged to the top-student zone, represented of course by Yang Liushan and Liang Qing’er. The third and fourth rows in the middle were the area for students under key attention, usually either well-connected children or those teachers rather liked. The back rows were basically the exile zone. Of course, from the students’ point of view, the back should be called the VIP rest area. Xiaocheng was currently sitting in the farthest corner of the back row.

The reason he made this request was that Xiaocheng had suddenly realized he now had the qualifications to sit in the top-student zone.

Teacher Kong frowned when he heard this. He had originally placed Xiaocheng in the back not because he disliked him, but because of his height. If seating were arranged by grades, Xiaocheng should at least have been in the key-attention zone. At first, Teacher Kong had planned to move him to the front next semester when the seating was rearranged, but recently this kid’s grades had improved while his attitude toward studying remained appalling. In class, he did nothing but sleep or play on his phone, so Kong had abandoned the idea. After all, sleeping under the teacher’s nose was just too conspicuous.

"Where do you want to move?" Kong Qingguo asked.

He had already made up his mind. If Xiaocheng said the front row, then he would assign him a special spot: the VIP seat right next to the podium. Even if he could not control you, he would at least make you eat chalk dust with the rest of us.

"I want to sit with Yang Liushan!"

Teacher Kong’s eyes flew wide open. Wasn’t that a little too blatant?

Yang Liushan was the kind of girl everybody liked. Her parents had even specifically asked that, to prevent an early romance during puberty, she be arranged to sit with another girl. And now this kid...

You’re really not even pretending to be subtle!

"What exactly do you want?" Kong asked warily.

Xiaocheng thought for a moment. "If I said I’m tutoring Yang Liushan in Olympiad math, would you believe me?"

I’m also very poor, so everyone’s donations are basically charity. Charity can turn a rich person into a noble one. I’d like to pay tribute to the more than one hundred readers who have tipped this book so far. You have made an indelible contribution to our nation’s literary cause. Your nobility is beyond question.