A Round Trip to Love 1: LONG WAY HOME

Chapter Two

From then on, Lu Feng and I became closer. With some significant time spent together, and discovering that he is not as obnoxious as he appears to be, and could in fact, be rather cute at times, our relationship rapidly grew stronger. I guess the two of us were initially opposites that attracted (personality-wise) but gradually, our personalities kind of rubbed off each other, as evident by Lu Feng's decreasing demerits and my increasing vulgarities.

As soon as our friendship stabilized, Lu Feng had to launch a series of criticisms towards my physical appearance.

"You look really ugly with these glasses, you look like a mushroom."

God, just when I start being nice, you cross the line.

"It's none of your business."

"It's really ugly though."

"If you're going to continue, then write the essay yourself." At that time, I was working on an essay for the useless trash in exchange for three of the canteen's famous pot-stewed chicken drumsticks. The essay's title was "My View On Cheating". The school's essay competition did not receive enough submissions and hence set a target amount to be collected from each class irregardless of merits.

Both Lu Feng and I hit the jackpot, all thanks to his wide smirk after hearing my name being called which resulted in his name being the next target, then it was my turn to smile. Lu Feng was rather strong in his maths and sciences, but when it came to his two languages, his incompetence could make one cry. It is hard to believe that he is Chinese, and an American Chinese at that. Rumour has it that his midterms' essay was written inspired by his stream of consciousness, and by stream of consciousness it meant that he wrote whatever he saw, for example, if he saw a bird fly past or observed that the girl in front of him had on a revealing skirt, he could come up with a poem of sorts and incorporate it into his essay ......

When he received an average result, the teacher must have been captured by the mysterious introduction and conclusion. Lu Feng's good handwriting that looked just like a work of calligraphy must have left a strong impression as well.

It would not be called a miracle if it happens twice. No matter what light you use to look at it, Lu Feng's essays were nonsensical scraps of paper written at the standard of an elementary student. Giving him a pass was more than it deserves. Lu Feng himself knows this, hence, he had taken the initiative to buy the chicken drumsticks and placed them in my lunchbox in front of me in order to give me some mental motivation, at the same time, buttering me up further by fanning me from the side. (It was the end of November when people goes around in woolen sweaters.)

For my own essay, I had painstakingly written my comments, analysis and reflections about the unhealthy practices in the exam hall, and at the end, I had included a deep and sincere message, "For socialism, we as students must have a strong foundation in our educational journey and cheating is no excuse!" My essay was the perfect example of "a good youth's traditional ideas on socialism".

As for Lu Feng's, with a swish of the pen, I fired away with my baseless theories, reprimanding the education system and demanding for changes to be made. "If it exists, it must be for a reason. When cheating has changed from a rare occurrence to a long running problem, changed from a figment of one's imaginations to a habit, then we have to take a closer look as to why this is reasonable......"

"It is a gentleman's clever use of other tools rather than his prominent wisdom that helps him stand out. A good wind relies on borrowed strength to send up to the heavens, when an individual's ability is limited, appropriate usage of other tools as a mean to reach his target cannot be said to be an unfair shortcut. From an educational point of view, I believe ......"