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墨書 Inktalez
It seems that everything likes to gather together; the echoes of the "Hope Cup" physics competition still linger, and now Third Middle School has organized its very first Language Knowledge Competition.
This competition adopts a mixed format, with second and third-year students participating together, as well as liberal arts and science classes in a unified examination setting with the same test paper. This mode of competition has a nostalgic feel reminiscent of the early Republic of China when private schools transitioned into formal institutions, leaving many teachers and students astonished.
Despite the surprise, I walked into the large classroom set up in the library basement with many classmates and picked up the competition paper. A completely different feeling from participating in the "Hope Cup" washed over me: this paper seemed tailor-made for me, filled with content that I loved, explored, and understood. I could finally dispel the disappointment caused by the "Hope Cup" and showcase my strengths.
The first major question was to choose the correct pinyin. Pinyin had always been my weak point; even decades later, my Mandarin would still be lacking. However, I had a good memory and particularly enjoyed reading annotations (a habit developed from reading Selected Works of Mao Zedong in elementary school, where the main text was somewhat profound for me at that time, but the annotations about certain battles or historical references captivated my young mind). Many difficult words in the main text had pinyin provided, making it easy for me to remember them. For instance, the character "Jie" appeared as a person's name on the paper; coincidentally, I had read about two brothers named Jie Zhen and Jie Bao in Water Margin, which helped me know its correct pronunciation effortlessly.
The second major question involved filling in idioms. Having consulted idiom dictionaries since elementary school, I navigated this section with ease and quickly provided all the answers.
The third major question was about couplets—content we had never learned in class. However, I had recently borrowed a book titled Ancient and Modern Couplets Stories from the library and had read about two-thirds of it. The teacher's questions happened to be based on stories behind certain couplets, allowing me to match two without any effort: one was "The flames give rise to smoke, layer upon layer," matches with "This wood forms firewood, mountain upon mountain emerges." and another was an exam question from early Republic of China at Tsinghua University: “Sun Wukong” matched with “Zu Chongzhi.” For the remaining questions, I could only rely on my imagination based on word count and part of speech.
The fourth major question involved classical Chinese reading. None of the three short passages were from our textbooks. The first passage read: “The sky is clear and bright; gentle breezes are pleasant. Looking up at the vast universe and down at the abundance of species allows one to roam freely with joy.” I recalled having read this in Classic of Ancient Literature during middle school; it turned out to be from Lantingji Xu. Both interpretation and translation posed no challenge for me. The other two passages were also somewhat familiar; after leaving the examination room, I checked and found they were from Jie Zhitui Does Not Speak of Rewards and Feng Xuan Visits Lord Mengchang.
As I continued writing, my mind raced faster while my hand moved smoothly across the paper. Although most content came from textbooks, every question felt vaguely familiar due to my love for extracurricular reading. No matter how many or how difficult the questions were, I felt confident tackling them.
Before I knew it, I had flipped to the last question on page four—another passage I had seen in the library—and answered it in just a few sentences. Looking up, I noticed my classmates were still deeply engrossed in their work; most were still struggling with questions on the first or second pages. Feeling a bit smug, I picked up my paper and glanced through it from start to finish; there seemed to be little left to correct. Not wanting to waste any more time there, I immediately submitted my paper and exited the large classroom.
Outside in the open area near the library, several classmates who hadn’t participated in the competition were playing. Upon seeing me, they exclaimed in surprise: “Class hasn’t ended yet! Didn’t you have two hours for your competition? How come you’re out already?”
In truth, while working on the paper, I completely lost track of time. But since I had finished everything I could do and submitted my paper, there was no point in going back to continue; I could only smile wryly at them and say, “I could only do so much; since I'm out now, it’s whatever.”
A few days later, a red notice was posted outside the school auditorium announcing the results of the competition: as a second-year student in science class, I had outperformed many third-year students and liberal arts classmates to secure first place.
Proudly gazing at the red notice before me, I floated toward my classroom, anticipating that my classmates would greet this triumphant "hero" with envious glances. On my way there, I encountered Zeng Xiangbo, a Chinese language teacher from third year (he was a colleague of my father’s during his time working in Suining), who smiled at me and said: “Biaosong did well! I'll give you a book!” He handed me a copy of National Middle School Students' Excellent Essay Collection. Not far along again, I ran into Teacher Zeng Jiqing—my old homeroom teacher who usually showed me great care but now appeared unusually serious as he said: “Long Biaosong, don’t get too cocky! You only scored 76 points on such a paper; your fundamentals are still shaky! The real reason you got first place is that there are no tigers in Third Middle School!”
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