Math Teacher, Please Get Lost (GL) - Chapter 19

Bzzz—bzzz—

The phone vibrated off the armrest of the sofa and fell onto the cushion. Yao Shuhan snapped out of her memories, picked up the phone, and saw that it was a call from Shu Yan.

Yao Shuhan’s eyes shifted slightly; her head was still groggy. She pressed the answer button.
“Hello, Shu Yan.”

“Shuhan, I’m on the train.”

On the train, Shu Yan sat on a little seat by the window. A small cart selling fruit rolled past, and the attendant called out, “Come, come, have a look, anyone want fruit? Miss, could you please move your feet a little?” Shu Yan quickly pulled her legs back and pressed the plastic fork onto the paper lid of her instant noodles.

“Okay, be careful on the train.” Yao Shuhan rubbed her forehead, thinking she’d wash her face with cold water later to wake herself up. “Mm? What time will you arrive in C City?”

Shu Yan checked her watch. “Around eleven.”

“Anyone picking you up?”

“Mm, my dad.”

“All right…”

“Shuhan,” Shu Yan stirred her noodles with chopsticks, “the train ride is really boring.”

Yao Shuhan chuckled, grabbed a cushion, and lay back. “If you’re bored, listen to the broadcast.”

Shu Yan pulled the phone slightly away from her ear. The broadcast was introducing the local customs of X County in C City. She grinned and said, “Hey, they’re introducing my hometown right now, let me let you hear it—” She lifted her phone up, glancing around at the ceiling, but couldn’t even spot where the speakers were.

All that reached Yao Shuhan’s ear was a jumble of static and noise. She frowned and scolded, “What are you doing? I can’t hear a damn thing.”

“Hehe,” Shu Yan pulled her phone back, “I just thought, since I could hear it, I’d let you hear it too. I’m really looking forward to summer vacation. When summer comes, I’ll take you to the river to catch shells, ride a big water buffalo, and herd ducks.”

Yao Shuhan pictured it: Shu Yan with pigtails, a straw hat on her head, barefoot, sitting astride a buffalo with a grass stalk in her mouth, waving a bamboo stick to drive a flock of fat ducks toward the river. The thought made her laugh. “Other people ride oxen to herd oxen. Why don’t you ride ducks to herd ducks?”

Shu Yan retorted, “How could ducks be the same as oxen? If I plopped my butt on a duck, it’d be flattened!”

Yao Shuhan laughed again. “True enough. I once read an anecdote about an ancient man cultivating immortality. One day he saw a red-crowned crane and thought it was sent by an immortal to carry him to heaven. So he sat on it—and flattened it! Hahaha…”

Shu Yan laughed with her. Soon the whole carriage turned to look, making her blush. She raised her hand apologetically. “Sorry, sorry.” Then she got up and walked to the connection between cars, where a few people were smoking. Shu Yan couldn’t be bothered with them.

Yao Shuhan glanced at the wall calendar in her living room and felt a twinge of disappointment. “But summer vacation is still far off. Winter break has only just started.”

Shu Yan said, “That’s fine. I’ll be back at school in a few days anyway, and I’ll bring you some local specialties.”

“C City and L City aren’t far apart. What specialty is there I couldn’t buy here myself?”

“Well then… would you count me as a specialty?”

Yao Shuhan was caught off guard. “You grew up in L City, didn’t you? If anything, you’re an L City specialty. How dare you call yourself a C City specialty—you’re a traitor!”

Shu Yan had noodles hanging from her lips, laughing as she ate, almost choking herself. “Teacher Yao, look at you. You used to tell me to ‘shut up’ after just three sentences. Now you can actually bicker with me for longer. Not bad—progress.”

Yao Shuhan grinned. “Shut up.”

Shu Yan slurped a noodle. “See? Just when I said you’ve improved, you relapse again.”

“Not talking to you anymore.”

Knowing Yao Shuhan was about to sulk, Shu Yan quickly changed the subject. “Hey, you went home, right? How are your parents?”

Yao Shuhan’s expression darkened. After a pause she said, “They’re fine. Just… really busy, so I don’t see them much.”

Shu Yan nodded. “Oh… that’s tough. But at least New Year is a rare time to gather. Just be happy.”

“Mm…” Shuhan lowered her head, staring at her own hands. Her nails, smooth and glossy, glimmered faintly under the light. Her mind drifted.

Her parents were rarely home, but not because they were busy—because they were disappointed in her.

Her grades had once been good enough for her to get into the country’s best Chinese literature program, then do a master’s, a PhD, and eventually join the Academy of Linguistics. She had a bright future. But because her sexual orientation was discovered, before the college entrance exam she had been sent for over a month to a psychiatric center for “orientation correction.” Afterward, the doctor issued a certificate saying she was “normal.” Yet the first words she said were: “I don’t like women anymore. But I’ll never like men either. For the rest of my life, I’ll just be like this. Anyway, some people I’ll never see again. I have nothing to look forward to.”

Her father, furious, nearly struck her in public. Yao Shuhan snapped her head up and glared at him. Her eyes were black and fathomless, terrifyingly silent. “Dad, tell me—like this, what do I have to look forward to? With you like this, what do I have to look forward to?”

Her father roared, “What’s there for you to look forward to! What more do you want!”

“Old Yao, enough, stop yelling at her,” her mother cried, grabbing his arm, her voice filled with helplessness. “The doctor said she’s fine. You know how stubborn she is. She’s just stuck in her head and arguing with her mouth. Don’t take it seriously!”

Her father shook her off, pointing at Shuhan with fury. “You’d better behave yourself! Go home and study hard! If you dare think any of that nonsense again, see how I deal with you!”

After that, Yao Shuhan grew even more silent. She had once only been quiet, now she became withdrawn. Whatever her parents said, she just listened. She tried to obey, but if she didn’t agree inside, she stayed silent and did nothing. At first her father still scolded her, but over time he grew tired and stopped.

After graduating high school, she enrolled at B Normal University. She worked hard for scholarships, tutored, published essays for pay. Slowly, she managed to support herself. By sophomore year, she could pay her tuition and living expenses alone. By junior year, she was financially independent.

When she graduated, her father told her to do a master’s. She refused. He sneered, “If you insist on being willful, don’t expect support from us.” Shuhan sighed. “Then don’t. I haven’t relied on you anyway. My advisor recommended me to intern at Yingcai Publishing. After a year, I can go full-time. I want to try working first.”

“Shuhan,” her father suddenly said, his tone heavy, tinged with fatigue, “do you still resent how I treated you back then?”

She froze, then shook her head and smiled faintly. “I don’t resent you. I’m just afraid. Because you once said you’d protect me. But then you became the one who hurt me the second deepest. The change was too fast—I couldn’t keep up.”

Her father stiffened. His cigarette trembled halfway smoked. “Second deepest? Then who hurt you the most?”

Shuhan gazed out the window. Leaves were falling from the trees. After a while, she said, “She’s dead.”

His eyes dimmed. Fingers shaking, he inhaled. “Shuhan, you’ve grown. Your mother and I once thought it best if you returned to the ‘right path.’ But if you really can’t… life is long. No one can watch you from start to finish. Some roads are too dark—we just didn’t want you to suffer. You’ll always be my daughter. Whatever you think, your father knows.”

She turned back to look at him, and suddenly realized that the once handsome, energetic man who had taken her hiking and reciting poetry now looked so old. When had her father aged so much?

Perhaps, deep down, she still hated him a little. Otherwise, why had she cared so little that she hadn’t even noticed his gray hairs?

“Dad…”

“Whatever you want to do, just do it. Your mother and I are old. We don’t have the strength to control you anymore, and you don’t need us to. Shuhan, just remember one thing: in this life, you must take responsibility. Whatever decisions you make, think them through yourself.”

Something about his words struck her as odd, as though she had missed something important. “Dad, what do you mean by that?”

He walked over slowly, patted her head, and exhaled a long puff of smoke. “Your mother used to teach at Yingcai. She left you a teacher’s apartment there. Your mother and I are tired. We want to go travel, see the world, write a little. Shuhan, don’t be upset.”

Her chest suddenly felt tight. She shook her head in confusion. This wasn’t the outcome she wanted. “Dad, you and Mom are going to leave me alone?”

“How could we bear to? We’ll just go travel, see some scenery, write some things. When we’re tired, we’ll come back to see you.”

“Dad, you and Mom still blame me, don’t you? You just can’t accept me—”

“Shuhan, stop. We understand. That’s all there is. Don’t be sad.” He turned his back, went into the study, stubbed out his cigarette, and began quietly examining his calligraphy.

She stared at his back for a while, then lowered her head silently and walked away. The next morning, she moved into the teacher’s apartment at Yingcai and began living alone.

Every month, she received postcards from her parents: eagles soaring in Nepal, the clear waters of Geneva, the majestic cathedrals of Paris…

For five whole years, they never once came back to see her.

Even so, Shuhan still felt fortunate. Compared to those whose parents had forced them to cut ties after coming out, her parents were relatively open-minded.

“Shuhan, why did you suddenly go quiet? Shuhan?” Shu Yan waited and waited, growing anxious when she got no response.

“Ah?” Yao Shuhan jolted back to herself. “Nothing. I just zoned out again.”

“You really need to kick that zoning-out habit. One day someone could kidnap you and you wouldn’t even notice. I can’t trust you to go out alone.” Shu Yan scolded, with a tenderness she didn’t notice herself.

“Don’t worry. I think you’re more likely to be kidnapped.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re simple-minded.” Yao Shuhan laughed, then quickly hung up. A few minutes later, her phone rang again, but she ignored it, took a hot shower, and went to sleep. Before drifting off, she thought, This year, I won’t go home for Spring Festival. Either way, I’ll be alone—what difference does it make where I spend it?

But by the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, she regretted that decision.

February 13th. Sunshine poured in. The lock clicked open, and someone came in.

Completely unaware, Yao Shuhan was still curled up on Shu Yan’s bed, hugging Shu Yan’s pillow, fast asleep, lost in a dream. Shu Yan set her coat on the sofa, ready to drag her suitcase into her room. But when she glanced at the bed, she froze.

She rubbed her nose, coughed, her face a little awkward. “Yao Shuhan, why are you sleeping in my bed?”

“Mm…?” Shuhan barely opened one drowsy eye, her gaze hazy. Through the blur she saw a figure, that teasing face, and those fox-like eyes always brimming with mischief. She thought she must still be dreaming. In her dreams, this woman appeared every night—the woman she longed for. She suddenly giggled, hooked her arm around Shu Yan’s neck, pulled her down, and tilted her head up to kiss her.

“Haha, I caught you. This time, you can’t get away!”