Mianzhu Hanwang: July 4–5, Renai School Notes (Final Edition — Detective’s Notes)

July 4th School Notes
 
1
Today was the last day of our retreat, and the weath­er was­n’t kind. It start­ed pour­ing down inces­sant­ly around 2:00 AM, and sev­er­al cats were wail­ing in agony. (We lat­er learned there was anoth­er after­shock around that time.) Per­haps it was the after­shock, but Ju Xing’s teeth had loos­ened, his gums were inflamed, and his cheeks were swollen. He’d been in agony all night. Lat­er, we learned it was the sec­ond day in a row of such pain. No won­der Ju Xing’s face had been as pale as a frost­ed cab­bage leaf. Instruc­tor Zhang’s stom­ach had also start­ed to get worse, and the space between the tent and the toi­let had been like a con­vey­or belt, going back and forth count­less times overnight. For­tu­nate­ly, Instruc­tor Zhang was a deter­mined, cheer­ful, and opti­mistic guinea pig. He used every gas­troin­testi­nal med­ica­tion we had brought, and then just took ran­dom med­ica­tions, includ­ing a few bot­tles of Ten Drops of Water. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the symp­toms sub­sided the next day. The final diag­no­sis was heat­stroke! There were two patients, and the rain was pour­ing down non-stop. The sky was gloomy, and every­one felt gloomy. They all hoped that God would zip up the open­ing.
 
2
It was past 7 in the morn­ing, and we all thought the chil­dren would­n’t come. But just as some­one start­ed to talk, a few small umbrel­las appeared from the ground. The chil­dren still came in the rain, and the teach­ers were very touched. What kind of chil­dren! At first, every­one gath­ered in the large class class­room for a com­bined sto­ry­telling com­pe­ti­tion. Soon, the large class seats were full, and the class was divid­ed back into the large and small class­es. By then, the rain had begun to ease. Xue Shan­bing was in charge of the small class, and the large class was the inspec­tor. Each class orga­nized a sto­ry­telling com­pe­ti­tion. These chil­dren usu­al­ly don’t show off, but when they do, it’s shock­ing. They imi­tat­ed the teacher’s sto­ry­telling in a very pre­cise and accu­rate man­ner. If this con­tin­ues, Ajia and the inspec­tor will have no food to eat. In fact, today’s event was just a selec­tion com­pe­ti­tion for the report per­for­mance. The old­er chil­dren had great sto­ry­telling poten­tial. Chen Xue, Tang Ting, Tang Qi, Liu Lichun, Ren Ying, Huang Maolin, and Li Xin were all skilled sto­ry­tellers, their read­ings flow­ing with rhythm and ten­sion, albeit with a touch of Sichuanese accent (or “Trump” as they call it). The younger chil­dren were even more nat­ur­al sto­ry­tellers. Sev­er­al had remark­able mim­ic­ry, their book-hold­ing and read­ing voic­es rem­i­nis­cent of “Ajia Sto­ry­telling.” Some were even more authen­tic, their voic­es so qui­et they seemed to be read­ing to them­selves. By noon, the sky had cleared com­plete­ly, and stu­dents from both class­es began arriv­ing, fill­ing the class­room to the brim. It seemed that, since it was the last day, the chil­dren were eager to spend as much time as pos­si­ble in the bam­boo for­est.
 
3
At noon, the inspec­tor charged his phone, checked the inter­net, and checked the weath­er fore­cast. Good news! Tomor­row will be sun­ny! Before one in the after­noon, the chil­dren were arriv­ing in groups of three or four in the bam­boo for­est. The library was open for bor­row­ing ear­ly. The var­i­ous “crews” were busy rehears­ing their per­for­mances. After review, the con­tent for tomor­row’s per­for­mance, which would show­case their learn­ing achieve­ments, was final­ized.
 
4
Nei­ther the sky nor the gas can hold us back! While mak­ing a huge pot of mung bean por­ridge that evening, the fumes from the stove sud­den­ly trans­formed into will‑o’-the-wisp flames. Qin Ming, using all his uncan­ny skills, rocked and stood on his head (not on the gas tank, of course), final­ly man­aged to get the rice to boil. Por­ridge alone was­n’t enough, even if it was the leg­endary mung bean por­ridge. So, every­one pooled their wis­dom and unan­i­mous­ly decid­ed to have a prop­er pic­nic! They split up, set­ting up a brick stove in the open air, chop­ping weeds, scrap­ing bam­boo, and even half a bar­rel of gaso­line. Once every­thing was ready, the sky gave a warn­ing: a few drops of rain. So, they quick­ly moved the bricks and set up the tent again. “Go ahead, rain hard­er, we’re not afraid!” But until we left the next day, not a drop of rain fell. Instruc­tor Dai was in charge of wash­ing and chop­ping veg­eta­bles; his ulti­mate joy was cut­ting veg­eta­bles! So, there’s no such thing as too much (the more, the more addic­tive it is). For­tu­nate­ly, since this was his last meal, there was no need for some­one to over­see him and pre­vent him from wash­ing too many veg­eta­bles. Of course, the inspec­tor was still in charge, fry­ing the oil (to make the gar­lic and scal­lion oil), then adding the pota­toes, and then con­tin­u­ous­ly adding all the non-leafy veg­eta­bles that Instruc­tor Dai had cut, all in one pot! Instruc­tor Zhang recov­ered remark­ably quick­ly. While Pho­tog­ra­ph­er Xue was snap­ping pho­tos, Instruc­tor Zhang grabbed the wok and posed, look­ing like a true chef in the wild. The inspec­tor, wear­ing a non-woven top due to the heat, dodged the cam­era.
 
   
Lat­er gen­er­a­tions could describe the scene like this: Sev­er­al men of vary­ing heights and weights stood in a dark bam­boo for­est, some hold­ing swords, some light­ing fires, some dis­charg­ing elec­tric cur­rents (flash­lights), and one hold­ing a shiny, name­less short weapon, doing some­thing unknown…
 
Radish Inspec­tor’s Notes, July 6th, Cheng­du

School Notes on July 5th
 

    At 5:30 a.m., while the sky was still pale, the inspec­tor was up. His first order of busi­ness was to make the left­over mung bean por­ridge from the pre­vi­ous night. Using the lit­tle remain­ing gas and the “secret trick” he’d learned from Qin Ming, he final­ly got the pot of por­ridge going (the sound of water about to boil). At 6 a.m. sharp, all the teach­ers rose and began fill­ing their heads with por­ridge, accom­pa­nied by pick­led mus­tard tubers and pork floss. Next, they dis­man­tled the white tent that served as the kitchen. Every­one worked so quick­ly that, by 7 a.m., the small class­rooms had become audi­to­ri­ums, and the large class­rooms had become VIP seats for par­ents and guests. The tents in the mid­dle became back­stage, and the entire camp had become a semi-open-air the­ater.
 
 

    The chil­dren arrived before 8:00 (the notice said 8:30). See­ing the venue, they instant­ly felt fes­tive and excit­ed. Even so, com­pared to the usu­al chaot­ic play­ful­ness, there was a sense of order. The six of us vol­un­teers were gen­er­al­ly reserved. But even as we toiled, a touch of sad­ness still lin­gered with­in us. For­tu­nate­ly, we chan­neled this sad­ness into strength, and in no time, all the books and shelves were moved to Teacher Xiong’s grounds. All the tents used for liv­ing were dis­man­tled, and the pre­vi­ous­ly crowd­ed, some­what crowd­ed ground sud­den­ly felt spa­cious.
 
 
   
Xue Shan­bing led the chil­dren in set­ting up an art exhi­bi­tion out­side the stor­age tent. The gen­er­als play­ing Cao Cao’s army and Liu Bei at Chang­ban Slope hur­ried­ly rehearsed behind the cur­tains. Instruc­tors Dai and Zhang had the entire class line up. We sud­den­ly real­ized that three of the stu­dents in the group were new to the school, and their coor­di­na­tion was severe­ly lack­ing through­out the rehearsal. Of course, we retained them for the group that was about to per­form. The actors who played the Gruffa­lo per­formed their lines again, and the dif­fer­ence was stark com­pared to the day before. Appar­ent­ly, inter­est was their dri­ving force. The chil­dren spon­ta­neous­ly mem­o­rized their lines and hap­pi­ly and painstak­ing­ly mem­o­rized them at home. This was espe­cial­ly true for Tang Qi, the female lead who played the lit­tle mouse. She had the most lines and could recite them almost with­out any prompt­ing. Instruc­tor Dai pre­pared unique leaf head­pieces for the Gruffa­lo and the emper­or, respec­tive­ly. The inspec­tor gave Zhang Fei and Xia­hou Jie long umbrel­las and fold­able fly repel­lents as weapons.
 
 
   
A few days ago, we agreed with Ren’ai to start at 9:30, as they were bring­ing a spe­cial CCTV crew from Cheng­du. At 9:30, the guests and their cam­era equip­ment arrived on time, along with the vil­lage sec­re­tary and head. Instruc­tor Dai blew a whis­tle, and announc­er Chen Xue launched the Qunx­in Vil­lage Ren’ai School’s learn­ing per­for­mance. 
 
Pro­gram 1: Over­all Exer­cis­es Team Leader: Instruc­tor Dai and Instruc­tor Zhang
The sec­ond pro­gram: Tang poet­ry recita­tion com­pe­ti­tion
Host: Xue Shan­bing Per­former: Senior
Pro­gram 3: Mod­ern adap­ta­tion of the short play: Chang­ban­po Per­formed by Wang Jun­cong
Li Xin, Yan Wen­tao, Yan Wen­long, Tang Ting
Pro­gram 4: Sto­ry­telling: The Hun­gry Wolf and the Pig’s Town Per­for­mance: Liu Yu

Pro­gram 5: Fairy Tale Play: The Gruffa­lo Per­for­mance: Tang Qi and Tang Yi
Xiao Jun and oth­er instruc­tors: Qin Ming
Pro­gram 6: Sto­ry­telling: The Giv­ing Tree
Per­formed by: Liu Lichun, Ren Ying
The 7th pro­gram: Fairy tale play: The Emper­or’s New Clothes Per­for­mance: All senior grades
For­mer instruc­tor: Lin Yiwei
Pro­gram 8: Sto­ry­telling: Car­rot Pulling Per­for­mance: Wang Kaokun
The 9th pro­gram: Com­po­si­tion recita­tion per­for­mance: Tang Xin
Pro­gram 10: Cho­rus: Ode to Joy
Con­duc­tor: Detec­tive Vocal­ist: Senior Girl
Announc­er: Chen Xue Direc­tor: Inspec­tor
Deputy Direc­tor: Instruc­tor Dai Pho­tog­ra­phy + Venue Secu­ri­ty: Ju Xing
Car­rot Inspec­tor
Writ­ten at Cheng­du Air­port on the after­noon of July 6th