Chapter 11

Lin Miao sat at the edge of the bed. To make it easier, Young Master dialed the number while giving her some space beside him.
Lin Miao quickly took off her shoes and climbed up beside him.
The bed was covered with many cushions, and the two of them leaned against them, nervously and excitedly listening to the beeping sound.
Then a voice came from the other end, "Hello, who are you looking for?"
Lin Miao's face lit up as she excitedly shouted, "Sister Da Mei, it's Shui Shui!"
Da Mei was the eldest daughter of the village chief's family. She was two years older than Lin Miao but treated her very well.
"Shui Shui, I heard from Xiao Mei that you've gone to work. How is it? Is it fun?" Da Mei asked.
"It's fun," Lin Miao repeated, her mind focused on her mother, so she didn’t say much about it and instead asked, "Is my mother at home?"
On the other side, Da Mei replied, "Lin Bo Niang went to the city. She left the day you did. She didn’t say when she would come back..."
Lin Miao’s excitement instantly vanished, and she said, "Oh, I see. Please tell Xiao Mei and the others to study well. I'll bring back some candy for them when I come back for the New Year."
She hung up the phone and smiled, but it was a smile more painful than tears. "Mom went to the city, I don’t know when she’ll come back."
"Your brother must be sick, and Mom probably went to the city to find Dad."
Young Master patted her head. "There are still six months until the New Year. By then, I'll go back with you. Don’t cry."
Lin Miao felt a little lost as she got off the bed. "Six months is so long... I don’t know if Mom will be home by then."
"Yes, she will definitely be back, and your brother will definitely get better." Young Master’s voice was especially convincing. "Didn't your mom ask you to study well? In these six months, I’ll teach you English. When you go back, your mom will definitely praise you." Normally, they didn’t have much time, mostly studying Chinese and math. In their school, English didn’t start until third grade, and even then, they barely had English lessons since their school only tested Chinese and math for the elementary to middle school transition.
In half a semester, Lin Miao only learned one phrase: "Gǔ dào nǐ wū lǐ," which meant "Good evening." She had even been rewarded with cured meat from her mother when she said it back home.
She hadn’t been interested in English at first, but now Lin Miao was energized. She looked at Young Master. "Brother, you’re so good."
Young Master nodded seriously. "I think so too."
He then pulled Lin Miao out from the blanket. "Go get the books."
Even though it was summer, his room always had the air conditioning on, so he still needed to use a blanket.
Lin Miao happily went to Young Master’s study to grab the books, but Young Master stopped her, saying, "Don’t let anyone see. Bring them in, and it’s the books on the farthest right in the bottom row."
Lin Miao sneaked out like a secret agent.
The reason Young Master didn’t want her to be seen was because the doctor would surely scold him about overexerting himself, which he found bothersome.
Lin Miao quickly returned with no books in hand.
"Where are the books?" Young Master asked, puzzled.
Lin Miao hurriedly went to him, sitting beside him, back to the door, and silently mouthed, "The doctor is coming..."
Young Master nodded, indicating he understood. They both acted like two little spies, excitedly exchanging information.
Sure enough, when the doctor came in, he checked Young Master’s health.
Lin Miao obediently stood by, hands crossed in front of her.
The doctor repeated his usual advice: Young Master should continue resting, and that the treatment was going well and his health was improving.
After a few more words, the doctor left.
As soon as the door closed, Lin Miao immediately pulled out two books from her clothes.
"Just ran into him on my way back from the study. I got scared for a second, but luckily I’m smart."
Young Master took the books. They were his English textbooks from kindergarten, from a bilingual kindergarten.
When he opened one, he immediately closed it. "Forget it, we don’t need the textbooks."
Lin Miao was confused, so she leaned over and saw three messy characters written on the page: "Yu Jingxuan."
The handwriting was twisted, almost like a collapsing house.
Young Master, blushing, explained, "This is my kindergarten book. I was the first in our class to write my name correctly."
Lin Miao couldn’t help but say, "Brother, you’re amazing! When I was in first grade, I could only write 'Mu Mu Shui Shui Shui.' They laughed at me for a long time."
Lin Miao took a pen and carefully wrote on a piece of paper, "Yu," "Jing," "Xuan," but the writing was still ugly.
After finishing, Lin Miao was satisfied. "I always thought your name was 'Big Fish Little Fish.'"
Young Master took the pen from her and wrote "Lin Miaomiao" beside it.
With a bold and powerful style, his handwriting was impressive compared to Lin Miao’s awkward writing.
Lin Miao looked at it in envy. "I want to write my name like that."
"Keep practicing, you’ll definitely get there." Then, Young Master remembered their task. "Alright, let’s start learning English."
"Have you learned it before?"
Lin Miao nodded. "I’ve learned it, learned it. 'Gǔ dào nǐ wū lǐ!'"
"Good evening?" Young Master repeated.
His voice was so pleasant, Lin Miao thought it sounded better than her English teacher’s voice on the tape.
Lin Miao nodded eagerly.
"Remember anything else?" Young Master asked with a smile.
Encouraged, Lin Miao thought for a moment but couldn’t remember much. "Wait for me."
She rushed out of the room to her own, grabbed her English book, and came back. "Bowl, spit, water, fire..."
Young Master looked at her book and saw a lot of notes. Each word had its phonetic transcription below it.
Young Master took her book and opened his own, looking very serious. "Shui Shui, promise me, forget everything your teacher taught you."
Lin Miao nodded obediently, "Okay."
Young Master patted her head. "Sit back, we’ll start with the phonetics."
His book also had many notes, but those were phonetic marks.
For the next forty minutes, Young Master patiently taught Lin Miao the correct pronunciation. Finally, Lin Miao understood that "Gǔ dào nǐ wū lǐ" and "Good evening" were not the same pronunciation.
Teaching was really not easy.
During the day, the doctor still came to check on Young Master occasionally. He hated the doctor’s nagging, so he would pretend to be asleep, and Lin Miao would lie by the bed, holding the book to hide it.
Lin Miao felt a bit guilty tricking the doctor, but Young Master said, "I’m not tired. Why should I sleep? I used to sleep too much during the day and couldn’t sleep at night..."
Lin Miao thought about it and realized that he was right, sleeping too much during the day made it harder to sleep at night.
They couldn’t just study all the time, so the two of them played games. Young Master drew a flight chessboard and turned Lin Miao’s eraser into squares, marking them with numbers one through six. The two of them played flight chess by tossing the eraser.
There were penalties for landing on certain spots.
They didn’t play tic-tac-toe much anymore since Young Master always won and didn’t want to hurt Lin Miao’s confidence.
Flight chess was more fun, it was all about luck.