Mud beads

The laughter didn't last long.

As soon as the morning reading bell rang, the Chinese teacher came in carrying books, and soon the classroom was filled only with the sound of turning pages. Yu Zhu looked down at her textbook, her lips moving in sync with the others. The text was printed on the paper, densely packed, and she couldn't keep up; she could only hear her own name echoing in her ears.

Yu Zhu.

French kiss.

vicious.

She didn't know what French kissing was. Sometimes they'd see kissing on TV, Aunt Wang would change the channel quickly, and it was even depicted in comics—two lips touching lips, it didn't seem like something dirty. But the boy's reaction wasn't shyness or embarrassment; he was afraid something dirty would touch him.

It's like walking into a dry toilet in the mountains during the summer.

During recess, the back row became lively again. Several boys and girls were playing cards around two tables. They weren't playing ordinary cards; the cards were decorated with numbers and bright colors, and they were saying things she couldn't understand. The losers were punished by having to do strange things.

The first time was when I went to my homeroom teacher and said, "Teacher, your lipstick looks really good today."

The second time was when I went to the corridor and shouted, "Class 3 of Grade 7 is the strongest!"

The third time—

"If you lose, go ask Yu Zhu what color her underwear is."

"Damn, you like this kind of thing?"

"Get out of here, don't disgust me."

"Is it really necessary to go this far? Are we going to die tomorrow?"

After they finished speaking, the men and women started hitting each other and laughing together.

Yu Zhu buried her head in her arms, trying to hide her burning ears as much as possible, and pretended to be asleep.

She used to think underwear was disgusting, but her old underwear had been thrown away the night she entered the Yue family home. The underwear she was wearing now was bought by Aunt Wang; it was pure cotton, with a floral pattern, clean and soft.

Perhaps nobody cares about this.

Yu Zhu gradually realized that they didn't really want to pry into her privacy; they just wanted to play with her name.

In her third week at school, she already knew many new words.

Streetwear brands, collaborations, department store counters, celebrity endorsements, scandals. She watched the girls exchanging celebrity photocards, talking about whose shoes were limited edition, whose earring colors were unavailable. They spoke quickly, all with long fingernails that clicked on their tablets as they took notes.

Yu Zhu takes notes with paper and pen, and she always keeps her phone inside her backpack.

She dared not take it out at school unless absolutely necessary. She was afraid of breaking it, afraid of being asked questions about things she didn't understand, and afraid of being seen not knowing how to use it.

During a break between classes, Song Keyi, the girl sitting in front of her, turned around and asked her, "Do you usually use Instagram?"

Yu Zhu didn't hear clearly: "Know what?"

Song Keyi paused for two seconds, then laughed so hard her shoulders shook: "It's okay, forget I asked."

The girl next to me leaned in and said, "You don't even use Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book)?"

Yu Zhu didn't dare to answer. She didn't know what Xiaohongshu was.

"That can't be right," Song Keyi answered for her. "There are internet cafes in the mountains too."

Yu Zhu wanted to explain that other villagers also watched videos on their phones, including her younger brother, and that Liu Guizhen had even scolded him for it. But she swallowed the words back. She knew that the more she explained, the more people would want to laugh.

She had no choice but to remain silent.

When she lowered her head, her hair slipped down from behind her shoulders, carrying a hint of gardenia fragrance.

She doesn't smell bad; she uses Yuejia shampoo and body wash, and she also tries using a hair mask after washing her hair. Yet, everyone still avoids her.

She just doesn't know how to dress. She wears whatever Aunt Wang buys, and no one teaches her how to coordinate outfits. After that girl mentioned wearing slouch socks with German boots, she secretly searched for them on her phone. She knows what slouch socks look like, but she can't ask Aunt Wang for some.

Moth

In the fourth period of English class, the teacher had students work in groups of four to do a memorization exercise.

"One group at the front and one at the back, five minutes to prepare, we'll draw someone to demonstrate in a bit."

The sound of chairs being dragged out immediately filled the classroom.

Song Keyi, who sat in front of Yu Zhu, turned around, glanced at her, and then quickly looked at the boy next to her: "Xu Jiayan, you can be in a group with Yu Zhu."

Xu Jiayan was flipping through a book when she heard this. She looked up with an exaggerated expression: "Are you kidding me? My English isn't so bad that it's considered 'helping others'."

Someone nearby laughed, "I'm telling you to accumulate good karma, you're a charity student."

"Then you go."

I don't deserve it.

They spoke quickly, like passing a ball back and forth in a game. Yu Zhu remained seated, her hands on her knees, her fingertips gently fiddling with the hem of her school uniform skirt.

Zheng Nan sat next to her without saying a word.

Finally, the teacher came down and frowned, saying, "Why haven't you four started yet? Zheng Nan, Yu Zhu, you're in a group with Song Keyi and Xu Jiayan."

Song Keyi said in a drawn-out voice, "Teacher, there are already three of us."

The teacher glanced at it and said, "Hurry up, stop talking nonsense."

Song Keyi didn't say anything more.

The exercise material is Ralph Emerson's "On Nature".

Yu Zhu was assigned only one sentence: To go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society.

She repeated after Zheng Nan several times, but couldn't get her tongue right. Xu Jiayan lay on the table laughing, and Song Keyi gently tapped the back of his hand with her pen cap to tell him not to laugh too obviously.

When it was their turn to present, the teacher didn't draw their names.

Song Keyi breathed a sigh of relief: "It's alright."

Xu Jiayan closed the book: "I've saved my face."

Zheng Nan's expression was a little stiff.

She bent down to put away her books and moved her chair a little further away. It wasn't very noticeable, just a tiny bit.

Yu Zhu discovered it.

Zheng Nan didn't wait for her at lunchtime.

She walked with Song Keyi and the others, her short hair tucked behind her ears, and the star sticker on her chin had been changed to light blue. Song Keyi said something, and she smiled. Yu Zhu stood at the classroom door, holding her books, watching them come downstairs.

Someone walked past her and bumped their shoulder into her book.

"Excuse me."

Yu Zhu immediately stepped aside.

From that day on, she could always hear her own name.

In PE class, someone said, "Don't assign Yu Zhu to my team." In music class, someone said, "Is her singing Qinqiang opera?" They weren't always talking to her; sometimes they were two rows of desks apart, sometimes half a corridor away.

She became very sensitive.

Like a stray cat that is always on guard, ready to run away at any moment.

During a break between classes, Song Keyi called out from behind, "Yu Zhu."

She turned around immediately.

Song Keyi rested her chin on her hand and looked at her. After two seconds, she smiled and said, "It's okay, just testing if you can hear me."

The people around her laughed. Yu Zhu sat in her seat, holding onto the edge of the table, unsure whether she should turn her head back.

Zheng Nan turned her face to the window.

After that day, whenever someone called her name, she would pause to see if they were genuinely calling her or simply using her name as an adjective.

Moth

The last period on Friday afternoon is self-study.

The classroom was noisy; the teacher was grading papers at the podium and didn't seem to care much. Song Keyi and two other girls were leaning on their desks looking at their phones, laughing softly. Yu Zhu, who was doing math practice, stopped writing when she heard her name called.

"Look at this meme."

"Who photoshopped this? It's so mean."

"This is hilarious!"

The phone screen was transmitted to the back row and then back. Zheng Nan glanced at it, didn't laugh, and looked down pretending to look for an eraser.

Yu Zhu had no idea what they were looking at.

She saw it at the corner of the stairs after school.

Song Keyi and several girls had just finished filming a Douyin video. Their phones were propped up on the ground, and the comment section of the new video was being opened, with a picture in the comment.

is her.

I don't know who took this picture. It's of her sneezing; her mouth is wide open, her eyes are squinting, and her facial features are contorted.

The picture was also accompanied by the English words: damn bro.

Yu Zhu stared at her phone for a long time.

Song Keyi noticed, walked over, and nudged her.

"Are you prying into other people's privacy? Don't you have any manners?"

Someone bumped into her from behind and yelled, "Are you standing in the middle of the hallway blocking ghosts?"

Yu Zhu raised her head, looked at Song Keyi, and gritted her teeth: "Delete my photos."