Evening Stars Chapter 16
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 16
Xu Nanheng had always been good at taking advice since he was a child. He pressed his lips together and accepted the medicated plaster.
When the placement exam ended on Tuesday evening, Xu Nanheng kept one group for evening self-study. Just as planned that morning, Teacher Dawa went to Dasang Choedon's home and another household with an elderly person in need of care. She prepared dinner and tidied up the beds for the seniors. Another student in Class 1 had an elderly relative with limited mobility, so Teacher Tsering went over to help wash and settle the elder into bed.
Once the students put on their school uniforms with their names printed on them, Xu Nanheng felt much more at ease. His class had only a little over thirty students, yet six of them had ‘Tashi’ in their names. So far, he could only distinguish Tashi Dolkar.
While the students studied by themselves below, he sat at the podium grading papers.
Xu Nanheng only wished to give his students the most ordinary, typical final year of junior high school experience. His thinking had always been simple. He was here to teach, not to preach about love. A graduating class should look and act like one.
He tried to use Beijing's customs to discipline them, which, in a way, also helped them understand one of the behavioral norms of big cities — competition.
Xu Nanheng didn't like the core idea of competition, since because it often pitted peers or even allies against each other. But after coming to the mountains, he realized that competition could carve out a path to survival, especially when it came to studying.
He lifted his gaze, set down his red pen, and straightened up.
This series of movements was what Beijing students feared most. The key, however, was whether the students could read body language.
Sure enough, Zhou Yang couldn't understand his serious movements. He was still crumpling scraps of paper into balls and tossing them at another student.
“Zhou Yang.” Xu Nanheng called out evenly, neither harsh nor soft. “Others are memorizing vocabulary. If you're not going to study, at least don't disturb your classmates.”
Zhou Yang reluctantly dropped his playful grin. “Teacher Xu, I didn't want to stay for evening self-study anyway. Let me go home. My younger siblings are there, and I'm worried.”
“Teacher Dawa will be at your house watching them until evening self-study ends,” Xu Nanheng said calmly. “If you can't focus on reading, then just sit quietly. That's the rule in class. Even if you go out to work someday, you'll still have to follow rules, won't you?”
That convinced Zhou Yang. He quieted down and started flipping through his Chinese textbook.
Xu Nanheng went back to grading the math and English papers. He had already finished physics and chemistry during the lunch break. The village school didn't have a lab, so their science experiments had to be done in the county.
In the classroom, only the rustling of pages and quiet recitation filled the air. With everyone in identical school uniforms, heads bent in focused study, the scene felt strikingly similar to the evening self-study sessions Xu Nanheng remembered from Beijing. Back when he was doing his internship, he would occasionally supervise evening self-study sessions. If not for the simpler exam material here, it would have looked exactly the same.
After sunset, the night sky descended, with starlight above and lamplight on the ground. Teacher Xu followed the eleven students, watching each of them head home. The village was small, and after escorting them off one by one, he had more or less seen all their doorsteps. Finally, he turned back to the school.
He walked slowly on the way back. He had been hunched over his desk for days. There was no gym or swimming pool here. There were plenty of lakes, but he didn't yet dare swim in them.
The village lighting was poor, but the stars and moon hung high, the air was clean, and the sky so close it almost didn't need streetlights.
Xu Nanheng tried taking photos of the starry sky with his phone, but no matter how he adjusted it, the image never matched what his eyes saw. He gave up in the end.
As he neared the school, Xu Nanheng glanced toward the small hospital. Some of its windows were lit. He wondered if Fang Shiyou was working overtime.
He was his only acquaintance in this place, a fellow villager, someone who was even looking out for him.
At this moment, Xu Nanheng felt a pang of homesickness. The village's mud-brick houses hardly blocked any sound. After sending the students home one by one, the modest but warm homes carried the sounds of cheerful voices.
Although they were speaking in Tibetan, which Xu Nanheng couldn't understand, he could sense the joy in the tones of the elders and younger siblings.
And at this moment, Xu Nanheng's only connection here was Fang Shiyou. They were both from Beijing, and both were here for Tibet aid work. They shared the same hope. Xu Nanheng hoped his students could leave the village, and Fang Shiyou hoped his patients could come to the hospital.
He suddenly felt like sending Fang Shiyou a WeChat message, not because of anything urgent, just to chat a little. Being alone here, with no familiar faces, made him feel…… lonely.
This was the first time Xu Nanheng had felt such an emotion. Perhaps it was because he had never left home before. He had even attended a university in Beijing. Now, thousands of kilometers away, he suddenly longed for a bowl of braised sauce noodles, or even McDonald's.
He was hungry. Xu Nanheng pursed his lips and quickened his pace. He had instant noodles and snacks in the dorm. He also planned to buy an air fryer and frozen fries in the city during the upcoming National Day holiday.
Xu Nanheng never stinted on himself, and he was absolutely self-indulgent. If the Potala Palace was too high, he didn't climb it. If a temple on a mountain was at a high altitude, he didn't force himself to visit. There was no need to push himself too hard.
After eating his fill, he curled up under the covers. That night, he dreamed of his high school days. It was an unsupervised self-study period, and a few troublemakers in the class had run to the playground. Their classroom was on the second floor, giving them a direct view of the basketball court.
It wasn't uncommon for boys to skip self-study periods to play basketball on the playground. The strength of boyhood friendships could be measured by whether they'd invite you to join them when they skipped class to play ball or online games. Xu Nanheng, however, had never been invited. There was no special reason. The Director of Educational Affairs was a family friend of his parents, and the principal had once worked under his grandmother. A kid like him practically had ‘I'll snitch’ written on his face.
He wasn't popular. Ordinary classmates thought he was untouchable, and the elite circles in Beijing didn't interest him. Over time, he just let it be, preferring to go home and have a drink with his grandfather.
In the dream, the thuds of basketballs hitting the floor grew fainter and farther away. He sat by the window, filling in exam papers as the classroom emptied. One by one, everyone left, and no one came over to ask him to join them.
Xu Nanheng didn't mind. He was used to being alone, and the more isolated he was, the less likely anyone would approach. The classroom emptied completely, and then a man in a white shirt sat beside him, smiling at him. “Teacher Xu.”
Then he corrected himself, “Ah, no, at your age I should call you Student Xu.”
In the dream, Xu Nanheng replied, “Call me whatever you want.”
“Then I'll stick with Teacher Xu,” the man in the white shirt said. “Teacher Xu, how are you feeling?”
Xu Nanheng was still working on his exam, but this man kept talking beside him. He frowned. “I feel like you're very noisy, Dr. Fang.”
Wait, why was Dr. Fang in the classroom? Xu Nanheng put down his pen and slowly turned to study him. Fang Shiyou continued, “Teacher Xu? How are you?”
“Teacher Xu?” Fang Shiyou looped an arm around his shoulders, letting Xu Nanheng lean slightly into the crook of his arm. “Wake up, Teacher Xu.”
Xu Nanheng opened his eyes, but his vision was unfocused and blurry, somewhat like a lens that kept trying to adjust its focus.
Then Fang Shiyou said, “Breathe in, Teacher Xu.”
He did as told and inhaled a deep breath.
“Again. Breathe in,” Fang Shiyou said, “Teacher Xu.”
There was another voice nearby, a little girl's voice, sounding a bit anxious, asking, “Dr. Fang, is Teacher Xu okay?”
Fang Shiyou replied, “He's fine. He's experiencing altitude sickness. He's feeling dizzy, and he sleeps so deeply that he didn't hear the knock on the door.”
If Xu Nanheng heard correctly, the girl speaking was Dasang Choedon. He furrowed his brow slightly and looked at the two of them.
Fang Shiyou sat on the edge of the bed, his arms around Xu Nanheng, holding an oxygen tank to his face. Dasang Choedon stood nearby, worry etched on her face as she stared at Xu Nanheng.
Finally, Xu Nanheng gathered some strength. He patted Fang Shiyou's hand, signaling that he wanted to speak.
Fang Shiyou moved the oxygen tank aside and explained, “You didn't show up for class for a while, so Choedon came upstairs looking for you. When no one answered the door, she got worried something had happened. A few boys went up, found you unconscious on the bed, and then went to the hospital to get me.”
“What was so urgent?” Xu Nanheng asked weakly.
Fang Shiyou blinked. “She was calling you to class.”
Xu Nanheng couldn't react for a moment. The lack of oxygen had fragmented his memory. The last thing he remembered was taking students home after evening self-study, then returning to the school cafeteria to cook noodles before going upstairs.
So he said, “I just got out of class, didn't I? How am I in class again? Does life in Tibet move this fast?”