Chapter Ninety-Nine: The Sports Meet

Perhaps it was because, a few months earlier, Hong Tao’s father had said in the principal’s office that Deputy Director Li would eventually come to a bad end. In the end, Li really did meet misfortune. Although it was not Hong Tao’s father who had reported him, no one believed that. Not only did the people in Deputy Director Li’s household on the alley give Hong Tao and his father the cold shoulder, even some of the teachers at school had their complaints. More than once, Hong Tao heard them whispering behind his back that his father bullied people by leaning on his influence.

This time, Hong Tao did not bother to argue with them. Rumors are like air: wherever there are people, they are bound to exist. As long as they did not openly attack him and his father, he had no time to waste on such trivial nonsense.

With Director Bai promoted to vice principal and Deputy Director Li gone from the school, the post of director of academic affairs could not remain vacant. So a male teacher surnamed Wang was transferred in from another school to take the position, and, incidentally, to teach the lower grades a civics-style moral education class. Hong Tao’s class fell within his teaching load. As it happened, during the very first lesson, Hong Tao was once again sent out of the classroom by this new director to stand in the corridor.

This time Hong Tao did not say another word. He took his pencil and blank paper and went to the lower-grades teaching office. Finding an empty desk inside, he sat down and went on drawing his design. The sheet the teacher had just confiscated still had to be redrawn. Every teacher in the office knew him, and one look at his expression told them something had happened. One of the busybodies immediately ran off to report to Director Bai—no, to Principal Bai. As a result, before Hong Tao had even finished drawing half a page, Principal Bai came down and invited him to the principal’s office for a little chat.

Principal Bai did not waste words with him. He only made one request: that Hong Tao must not sleep in Director Wang’s class, nor do anything unrelated to the lesson. Hong Tao agreed at once. After all, the man was the new director; he had to be shown some respect. Since even the principal had spoken, it would be rather ungracious to refuse. And so, whenever moral education class came around, there would always be a tall boy in the last row of Class Five, Second Grade, staring fixedly at the teacher and following him with his eyes wherever he went, never missing a beat.

At first Director Wang was puzzled. He even called Hong Tao up and asked whether something was wrong. Hong Tao said nothing was wrong at all; he was just listening carefully. But being watched so unblinkingly by a child for an entire class was deeply uncomfortable for Director Wang. It affected not only his mood but also his concentration, because every time he lifted his head, he would see those narrow, long, searching eyes fixed on him, and now and then the boy would even raise his eyebrows at him.

No school rule said students were forbidden to stare at teachers. There were, on the other hand, plenty of rules requiring students to look at the teacher during class. So although Director Wang understood perfectly well that the child was deliberately provoking him, he had no way to kick him out again. Gradually, he also learned from other teachers what sort of child Hong Tao was. After weighing the pros and cons, he swallowed his anger and privately spoke with Hong Tao once, obliquely telling him that as long as he did not make trouble in class, he would not interfere if Hong Tao slept or drew or did anything else. So by the next moral education lesson, those narrowed little eyes were finally no longer to be seen.

Hong Tao had technically won, but there was nothing much to be happy about. He knew perfectly well that he had made an enemy of Director Wang, and if Wang ever caught hold of his weakness, he certainly would not make things easy for him. Still, Hong Tao was not especially afraid of people grasping at his weaknesses. If the soul of a man in his forties still could not control itself, if it still behaved like a child and ran wild at will, then had he not lived all those years in vain?

When National Day came, another batch of lower-grade students joined the Young Pioneers. Hong Tao was still not among them. Not only could he not hope for the Young Pioneers, but the honors of model student and the most little red flowers had nothing to do with him either. Yet the teachers had not entirely forgotten him. This time it was the physical education teacher who came in person to speak with him, because the school was about to hold its sports meet. And this time it would not be an internal competition only; it would be held together with more than twenty other schools from the district.

"What? You want me to sign up for that many events? Teacher, does a primary school student really need to take a competition that seriously?" Hong Tao understood what the PE teacher meant. He planned to have Hong Tao enter all three sprint and distance events, plus long jump and high jump. Was that not enough to wear a child out to death?

"This year the district sports school is coming to select people. If you do well, you can go there for more training. With your physical foundation, I believe you can become a real athlete for the country, or at the very least a promising prospect for our city. You see, I’ve never once held you back in class, have I? I even got those basketballs from the upper grades for you to play with. Now that I’m asking a favor of you, you can’t possibly be so ungrateful, can you?" The PE teacher had come up through a professional team and was not highly educated, but he found it easy to talk with Hong Tao, because he did not try to play tricks on him, and Hong Tao did not play tricks on him either.

"Fine, I only played basketball a few times and that makes me the kind of person who forgets favors? Looks like I’ll have to watch out for you in the future. So this is how it is with you: little by little, saving it up. All right then, I’ll do it. You eat people’s rice, you feel people’s hand. I’ll sign up. But let me say this first: this is a competition for third grade and up. I may not be able to get you a place. I’m only in second grade!" Hong Tao was the sort who yielded to gentle pressure and not to force. For ordinary matters, if you spoke to him nicely, he usually agreed, even if he lost a little by it. Of course, that was only for ordinary matters. When something serious was involved, he was like a mule without fur; nothing would work.

"As long as you run seriously, never mind third grade—maybe even fifth graders still won’t outrun you. I haven’t taught you for just one day or two. With your build, even if you were put in a fifth-grade class, you’d still be near the back of the line! So it’s settled. Run properly, and I’m counting on you!" Having achieved his purpose, the PE teacher left with a smile.

"A sports school? Do they take people who play soccer? Maybe I should learn soccer instead. We can’t keep getting thrashed by Vietnam and Thailand forever, can we?" Hong Tao did not take the sports meet very seriously either. His mind was still wandering, wondering whether he ought to do something to bring honor to the nation.

At the end of October, the sports meet finally took place. The venue was not far from Hong Tao’s school, just outside the west gate of the Earth Altar Park: Earth Altar Stadium. It was a standard athletic field. In the center was a soccer pitch without grass, and all around it ran coal-cinder lanes; to the east and west there were several tiers of stands.

This sports meet was indeed different from the usual kind. First of all, it was lively. Students from dozens of schools gathered together. Not all of them came, of course—each school selected good students to form cheer squads and lend support—but still the stands on both sides were packed black with people. The students who actually competed lined up by school in several rows on the field. Once they were arranged, the national anthem was played and the flag raised. Then they listened to speeches from district and sports-school leaders, after which the referees distributed numbers.

There was no standardized athletic uniform back then, nor any printed bib numbers. What the children received was simply a sheet of white paper with an Arabic numeral on it, which they pinned to the back of their clothes with a safety pin. While the other children were still waiting for their teachers to pin the numbers onto their backs, Hong Tao simply stripped off his shirt, bare-chested, and squatted down to fasten his own number himself. As for whether any girl students were watching nearby—what did that matter? In summer, never mind children; adults also went about with their shoulders bare.

Among the children taking part, Hong Tao unexpectedly spotted two familiar faces. They were both in the upper-grade group, probably fifth or sixth grade. Those two children also noticed Hong Tao soon afterward, and slowly drifted over.

"Kid, now we finally know which school you’re from. Yonghe Temple Primary School, is it? Turns out it’s right near our place. How about a walk through Earth Altar Park after the sports meet?" One of them was the skinny little fellow who had once been kicked into the water by Hong Tao at the compound swimming pool. The other was the tall one Hong Tao had kicked in the groin, leaving him sprawled on the ground for a long while before he could get up.

"Seems you still haven’t learned your lesson. Is fighting really that fun?" Hong Tao did not have the time to brawl with them in Earth Altar Park. Besides, if these two were here, their two companions were probably here as well. That would make it another four-on-one fight. Hong Tao was not confident of winning. And even if he did win, so what? He would not earn a single cent, and he might even have to take a few blows.

"Cut the crap. Are you going or not?" The tall boy bumped Hong Tao with his shoulder, trying to goad him.

"Not going. Here’s what we’ll do: I know which school you’re from too—Peace and Harmony Lane Number Two Primary School, right? You don’t need to tell me your names either. I’ll go look at the referee’s list myself in a minute. You’d better wear a bit more clothing tomorrow." Hong Tao shook his head, shoved the tall boy aside with one hand, and walked over to the PE teacher.

"What did he mean? Why wear more clothes?" The tall boy did not understand Hong Tao’s words.

"Is he going to get people to come to the school and beat us up? Tomorrow, tell your big brother. When school lets out at noon, we’ll go with him! Then this afternoon we’ll wait for him at the gate of his school and see where he can run!" The skinny boy was a little smarter than the tall one. He guessed what Hong Tao meant and immediately came up with a countermeasure.

The first event was the 50-meter dash. Why it was 50 meters instead of 100, Hong Tao did not know. In any case, if they told him to run, then he would run. Hong Tao was placed in the fourth heat. Each heat had eight runners, all children from different schools and all in third grade or below. When the athletes gathered by event and lined up in groups, Hong Tao carefully observed the more than thirty children and concluded that not one of them looked well fed.

Every one of them had thin little arms and legs. Some of them were about the same height as him, but because they had grown too fast and their nutrition could not keep up, they all looked like walking skeletons. Hong Tao was not fat either, but he had solid meat packed right down to the bone, especially in his arms and legs, which were noticeably thicker. Because of that, the referee in charge of the start even specially called over the school’s PE teacher and the team leader, Principal Bai, to confirm again and again that they had not sent upper-grade students to impersonate lower-grade ones.