Evening Stars Chapter 40 (Part 1)
Translated by Q the Panda (ko-fi)
Chapter 40.1
Fifteen days remained until the senior high school entrance exam.
In the small hospital, the prescription system had crashed. The IT staff from the county hospital checked it remotely but couldn't find the cause. Fang Shiyou was currently handwriting medical records in the consultation room.
Both of them were writing diligently.
While Fang Shiyou wrote medical records, Xu Nanheng worked on exam papers. He was doing the senior high school entrance exam papers from other provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. The exam on Tibet would be on July 2nd of this year, but Xinjiang had already finished by mid-June. After the Xinjiang exams, Teacher Su Yu immediately scanned the papers and sent them to the group. Xu Nanheng printed them out and started working on them.
Today, teachers were watching both classes as the students practiced writing essays. Some of the children here had only started learning Mandarin in primary school, so their ability to express themselves in Chinese was not very proficient. Therefore, they need to practice diligently.
Not long after, a nurse knocked and pushed the door open. “Two people from IT Department will come later. They said there might be a hardware issue on our side.”
Fang Shiyou nodded. “Okay, that's fine. There aren't many records.”
Xu Nanheng finished two mock exams and marked a few questions. The nurse responded with a “Got it” and left. Xu Nanheng looked up. “Let me see your handwriting.”
“Hm?” Fang Shiyou was puzzled but still moved the record book toward him. “What's wrong?”
“Nothing much. I just want to see.” Xu Nanheng tilted his head to look at Fang Shiyou's medical notes. “It's really neat.”
Fang Shiyou's handwriting was neat and proper. It was legible, recognizable, and the script was tidy. He smiled and said, “It's average.”
“Teachers like this kind of handwriting,” Xu Nanheng said seriously, looking at him. “Meticulous, consistent, the same from start to finish, never getting messier toward the end.”
He followed Fang Shiyou's finger that had pushed the book, slowly looking upwards, and continued his evaluation. “And the pressure is just right, the structure elegant, the strokes flowing.”
Fang Shiyou sighed. “……Thank you, teacher.”
After finishing the papers, he still had to stay in the consultation room for a while. The volunteer teachers discussed the entrance exam papers of other regions. Xu Nanheng's exam was the latest one scheduled. In the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Teacher Tan's students were already getting their results.
All the volunteer teachers were giving Xu Nanheng advice, analyzing questions and predicting topics. In one video meeting, four people were present. Teacher Su Yu and Teacher Dai Jimian had already returned to Beijing. Tan Xi was at his uncle and aunt's house in the county, the same house with the new router installed, so Xu Nanheng was the only one struggling with lag.
“Ah?” Xu Nanheng frowned and said in the video meeting, “I froze again. Wait a moment, I'll reenter.”
Fang Shiyou had just stepped out and came back in now. He passed behind Xu Nanheng's camera, bringing him a box of milk. The milk carton was a little damp because it had just been warmed by immersing the whole box in hot water. The last time Xu Nanheng had seen milk warmed this way was back in primary school at the breakfast stall outside the school gate.
“This internet……” Xu Nanheng poked the straw in. “Always coming and going.”
Fang Shiyou nodded. “The IT people are here, fixing the prescription system. It's probably just network fluctuations.”
“Oh, right.”
Fang Shiyou took a bag of chocolate out of his white coat pocket.
Xu Nanheng was momentarily stunned. “Where did this come from?”
“The IT people came from the county. I had them pick up a bag for me on the way.” Fang Shiyou set the chocolate down and ruffled the top of his head. “You've been working hard, Teacher Xu.”
He really had been working hard these past days. After all, it was the graduating class. But Xu Nanheng thought that he could still push himself harder. It wasn't enough. His students should probably also be ‘squeezed’ a bit more…… okay, maybe that much was enough.
He unwrapped the chocolate, popped a piece into his mouth, and rejoined the video meeting. The connection was much better now.
Teacher Tan: ‘Nice, Teacher Xu. Even in the deep mountains, there's chocolate to eat.’
Xu Nanheng: ‘Exactly, the conditions are great. Hurry and hop on your uncle's rickshaw to come enjoy life.’
Fang Shiyou chuckled and shook his head helplessly.
The main focus of the volunteer teachers' meeting was Xu Nanheng's students. Fang Shiyou continued filing the handwritten records, occasionally glancing at Xu Nanheng, who was concentrating seriously on the meeting. At the same time, he felt that although these children were born in the remote mountains, they had not been completely forgotten.
It was Principal Sonam Tsomo who had actively looked into educational assistance programs from secondary schools all over the country and responded to the volunteer teacher applications from various schools. Then Teacher Xu had traveled all the way from Beijing, and now the other three volunteer teachers were also helping analyze questions and giving guidance.
What had once been buried underground now seemed to have gathered the strength of countless forces.
Ten days remained until the senior high school entrance exam.
Fang Shiyou had already returned to the county hospital. Lately, because of the upcoming exam, their contact had decreased significantly. That day, they had only exchanged a ‘good morning’ and a ‘good night’ on WeChat.
Xu Nanheng's expectations for Dasang Choedon were far too obvious. The girl had been so anxious these past few nights that she could hardly sleep. Xu Nanheng didn't have much experience with this. In Beijing, especially at the school where he worked, whenever children showed signs of anxiety, their parents were already involved in helping them cope.
Being a parent wasn't easy anywhere. Taking care of daily life and emotional needs required some education and insight, so that communication with children could be calm and confident.
But it was different here in the mountainous region. Most of the able-bodied adults worked elsewhere. In Dasang Choedon's family, only her grandfather was at home. Her parents were both away. Lhamo's father worked away, and Zhou Yang's mother was away. So anxiety aside, just having enough to eat and wear was already considered a good life.
Nine days remained until the exam.
Early that morning, Xu Nanheng sat by the podium as usual, waiting for students to come for morning reading. Dasang Choedon arrived early as always, calling out, “Good morning, Teacher Xu.” Xu Nanheng replied as before, “Good morning.” But when he looked up at her, he frowned. “Your eye bags are darker than the bottom of my grandma's herbal decoction pot.”
Dasang Choedon paused, then spoke honestly. “I can't sleep when I think about the exam. Teacher Xu, does Dr. Fang sell sleeping pills?”
The girl's understanding of medicine was incomplete. The moment she mentioned sleeping pills, Xu Nanheng was left wide-eyed and speechless.
“Sleeping pills aren't something you can just take casually!” Xu Nanheng raised his voice without thinking.
Choedon flinched. “Ah…… I can't? But I really can't sleep.”
Xu Nanheng thought for a moment. He realized it was his oversight. Choedon's insomnia was caused by stress and anxiety. He sighed. “Why don't you……”
He said ‘you’ but swallowed the rest of the sentence. He was sitting by the podium, and Choedon was standing in front of him. In his line of sight, her face was framed beside the giant ‘9’ written on the blackboard behind her.
He couldn't bring himself to say, ‘Why don't you go home and try to sleep a bit.’ So he furrowed his brows and steeled himself. “……you drink a cup of coffee? There's a coffee machine in my dorm upstairs.”
Two espressos would keep her alert all morning. Xu Nanheng looked at her sharply.
“No, thanks, Teacher Xu. I'm not sleepy.”
That evening, when he called Fang Shiyou and told him about this, Dr. Fang nearly choked hearing that Choedon had asked for sleeping pills.
“That little girl,” Fang Shiyou said. “Most sedatives block the central nervous system and can impair memory. Her exams are in a few days. If her memory drops, it's all over.”
“Exactly,” Xu Nanheng said. “I know that stuff is bad for the brain. But then I got a bit wicked. I thought I'd give her a double espresso to wake her up a bit……”
Fang Shiyou was speechless. “You…… lucky you're a junior high school teacher. If you were a PhD supervisor, pressuring students like that would get you twenty complaints a year.”
“So what happened next?” Fang Shiyou asked. “Did you find a way to help her with this anxiety?”
“Principal Sonam solved it.”
“How did she solve it?”
“By chanting.”
“Oh……”
The power of faith.
That evening, they skipped the first self-study session after dinner. Sonam Tsomo had all the children sit cross-legged in a circle on the grass in the playground and chant scriptures under the moonlight.
After hearing about this on the phone, Fang Shiyou told Xu Nanheng that he had once treated a devout follower who suffered from severe joint disease. This believer performed 100 prostrations every day and had persisted for an unknown number of years.
Xu Nanheng was silent for a long time. In his understanding, faith, be it Eastern or Western, was usually kept in the heart, expressed through chanting or prayer. He had never encountered this personally. On his first day in Lhasa, he had seen pilgrims prostrating at the Potala Palace, but at the time he had felt little. It was someone else's practice. He simply maintained respect and politeness. He didn't look too closely, nor did he ask questions.
Xu Nanheng had once thought of faith as a form of reliance, something from humans directed toward gods. After all, gods reaching out to humans…… was true metaphysics.
But in truth, gods could also reach toward humans.