Chapter Fifty: Fish Swimming All Day Long

"I can sing well enough normally, but when it comes to competitions, I never make it past the preliminary rounds, let alone the semifinals. I’d better just support our classmates as a cheerleader," Dong Yanyan stood up, explaining with a smile.

"I see. Well, each class has to select a student judge, so let's have you represent our class," Teacher Chen said with a smile.

"Great! What do I need to prepare?" Dong Yanyan asked, delighted. She had never served as a judge before—how wonderful it must feel to preside over things with such authority!

"You can ask Teacher Yang from the Broadcasting class about that. She’s in charge of the competition this time. She’ll hold a meeting for you tonight and give you the rules and schedule. Just make sure you don’t miss it," Teacher Chen replied, smiling.

"Understood, thank you, Teacher!" Dong Yanyan’s eyes curved with joy as she smiled.

During evening study, Dong Yanyan followed Yang Lili up to the small auditorium on the sixth floor for the meeting. The beautiful Teacher Yang had a stack of papers and was giving instructions to Wenwei Dou Zixuan from their class. Seeing the two arrive, she grinned, "Yanyan, you're the judge for your class! Here, take this. I’ll go over the details with you all in a bit." She handed Dong Yanyan a sheet from her stack—a table listing the competition’s schedule and rules.

This contest had preliminary, semifinal, quarterfinal, and final rounds, ultimately awarding the top three in both the boys’ and girls’ groups. The preliminary round would be held Friday afternoon in the Broadcasting class’s classroom, where judges would eliminate some contestants. Later rounds would take place every Saturday afternoon in the small auditorium on the sixth floor, attended by teachers and students from the whole school. Eight classes would select eight student judges, plus two teachers, making ten judges in total. Student judges could not score their own classmates, so each round would always have nine judges scoring. The scoring system would drop the highest and lowest scores, averaging the remaining seven.

Teacher Yang introduced the eight judges to each other. Dong Yanyan knew most of them—they were generally class officers. The judge for the Literature class was the arts representative Zhao Jing, a lively and cheerful girl who always greeted people in passing, though Mengmeng and her roommates didn’t seem close to her. The Broadcasting class’s judge was the class president Li Zhe; Dong Yanyan noticed Ren Jiaxuan, always eager to help others, sitting next to him. Why was he here as well? Then she remembered: he and Dou Zixuan were the hosts for the competition.

Ren Jiaxuan seemed surprised, glancing at her as if discovering a new continent, and asked curiously, "Little sister, how did you end up as a judge?"

"Senior, don’t worry, I’m just random this afternoon. Trust my integrity—I’ll be impartial during the competition," Dong Yanyan replied sincerely with a smile.

"You’re really something! Do you think I’m afraid of you?" Ren Jiaxuan bit his pen, leaned back in his chair, and dismissed her words.

*

That night, when Dong Yanyan returned to the dormitory, she was surprised that no one spoke much to her. She didn’t bother forcing herself into conversation. She knew it was because she was too outspoken; students who were too favored by teachers often ended up isolated by their classmates—just like Liu Siying had been. By the way, who was the student judge back then? She couldn’t remember, but it certainly hadn’t been her.

*

Gu Xiaohan had also signed up for the competition, so Dong Yanyan spent several days helping her practice. Actually, Xiaohan’s voice was quite good, especially her rare strength in the lower registers for a girl, but she never placed in competitions because: her choice of songs was as offbeat as she was, and her live performance was equally erratic—she always sang off-key, never with feeling.

Dong Yanyan hoped she could at least get through the preliminaries, otherwise Xiaohan might hate her forever—after all, she was one of the judges.

On this day, snowflakes danced outside the window, and the classroom was freezing cold, the heaters icy to the touch. Everyone wore thick sweaters, but still shivered from the cold. Students living in sunlit dorms had gone back to warm up, but Dong Yanyan and Gu Xiaohan stayed—they found the dorm even colder than the classroom, which at least had people and a tape recorder. So the two of them sat at the back of the classroom, practicing their songs.

Yang Ruining and her friends were watching TV at the front. Yu Xia, the duty student, was mopping the floor. Li Hui and Liu Ying had moved their chairs next to Dong Yanyan’s desk to work on calculus problems with Song Mingcheng. Xu Cheng and Zhang Lei were tinkering with Zhang Lei’s broken radio.

"If you’re willing, I can always remain as beautiful as now, for I was born to love..." Gu Xiaohan hugged the tape recorder, squinting her eyes and humming languidly.

Dong Yanyan frowned, paused the tape, and complained, "Girl, your vibrato is shaking so much I’m about to freeze to death!"

"I’m cold too, what else can I do? I’d better go back to the dorm for another sweater," Gu Xiaohan said, shrugging and hugging herself as she left.

Dong Yanyan slumped in her chair, bored and with her mind drifting. Suddenly her head was tapped. She looked up to see Yang Xiaohai, excitedly holding a giant butterfly kite, jumping in front of her. "Yanyan, let’s go fly the kite!"

"Flying a kite in winter? Do you think it’ll even get off the ground?" Dong Yanyan shot him a look.

"It will! For sure!" Yang Xiaohai insisted confidently.

Dong Yanyan pursed her lips. In her memory, that kite had never managed to fly, and she’d only ended up running circles around the stadium with him for nothing.

"I’m not in the mood today. Go upstairs and ask one of the girls from the Literature class to join you," she replied impatiently.

"Yanyan, what’s been wrong with you lately? You always look unhappy," Lin Feng, who’d just come in, asked, still carrying the chill of the outdoors.

Seeing him, Dong Yanyan’s expression darkened, about to say something, when Yang Lili rushed in behind, accidentally bumping into Lin Feng. Holding her chest, she laughed, "You scared me! I almost fell!"

"You shouldn’t run so fast!" Lin Feng steadied her, laughing.

Dong Yanyan saw it all, felt it, and turned away, when suddenly a scream rang out from outside, followed by a howl: "How do you mop the floor?! What if someone gets hurt?!"

Recognizing the familiar voice, Dong Yanyan hurried out and saw Ren Jiaxuan, leaning against the wall, face furious, glaring at Yu Xia. Yu Xia held the mop, looking bewildered.

Dong Yanyan glanced at the corridor—it was still wet, sparkling in the cold. No wonder it was slippery!

"Second sister, why did you mop the corridor like a pond? If Senior hadn’t been quick, he’d be swimming down the hallway right now!" Dong Yanyan grabbed the mop from Yu Xia and pushed her into the classroom. When Senior got angry, he was anything but graceful—better not scare her any more.

Ren Jiaxuan stood up, leaning against the doorframe, glaring at her, "Are you praising me or mocking me? Look at how she mopped the floor! How’s anyone supposed to walk here?"