Chapter 160: Leaving a Token to Remember By

Hong Tao was not particularly surprised when he saw the news. Although he had not initially recalled this nationwide sensation, the mention of it immediately jogged his memory. However, Second Uncle seemed to have caught a foul scent in the air because of this affair. Even before the Lantern Festival had passed, he quietly made Lu Yunpeng and Han Xue vanish without a trace. The official explanation given to the outside world was that both of them had family emergencies and had resigned to return home.

Naturally, Hong Tao knew that Second Uncle must have hidden them away somewhere, but he did not ask about it. He even found it difficult to bring it up with Han Yan, as he had no idea what Second Uncle or Han Xue had actually told her. To blindly probe and risk saying the wrong thing would simply be inviting trouble upon himself.

Regarding the sudden disappearance of her elder sister, Han Yan did not come to question Hong Tao either, and she seemed even less concerned about the matter than the other employees in the shop. She merely grew more taciturn day by day. Aside from work, she rarely went out, and her smiles were far fewer than before.

To these changes in Han Yan, Hong Tao could only pretend to be blind. Even if he were to explain the whole situation to her, it wouldn't make her any happier, so he could only let things drag on. His only hope was for this storm to pass quickly; once they weathered this hurdle, the road ahead would be smooth sailing.

The best way to forget an unpleasant matter is to divert one's energy, and the best way to divert energy is to find something to do. Hong Tao was now nearing the completion of the fourth grade, and there was practically nothing left at school that required any mental effort from him. Every day still consisted of attending classes to sleep or doing his own things, as long as it didn't disturb the other students. The teachers didn't even bother looking in his direction.

Grandpa Dajiang's private restaurant was still under renovation. Due to the heavy reliance on woodwork, much of it requiring traditional, purely handmade craftsmanship, progress was very slow. They had worked on it for nearly two months before the New Year, and resumed work right after the Lantern Festival. Judging by the current pace, it would probably take another month or more to fully complete. Hong Tao couldn't be of much help with the furniture making or the details of the interior decoration; he had no clear idea what those items were supposed to look like and had to follow Second Uncle's lead entirely. At most, he could assist by sketching out the designs, translating the concepts from Second Uncle's mind onto paper for the workers to examine.

As for his judo training, Hong Tao hadn't dared to slack off for a single day. Following more than half a year of subtle erosion by his eldest aunt's husband and himself, Coach Pang had finally been defeated by sugar-coated bullets. Under the guise of self-defense, the coach taught Hong Tao a couple of specific techniques—one targeting the fist and another targeting the heel—both integrated with judo movements for sudden strikes, though the devastating techniques capable of instantly disabling an opponent's ability to resist were still withheld.

Hong Tao had no other recourse with this principled coach; he could only continue his campaign of attrition. He believed that sooner or later, he would manage to lower the coach's principles just a fraction, trusting that things would naturally fall into place in due time.

"Hong Tao, come here for a moment!" At noon after school one day, Principal Bai suddenly called out to Hong Tao at the school gate. Ever since the singing competition, Principal Bai had largely kept her distance, and private conversations had become even rarer.

"Director Bai, are you looking for me?" Hong Tao had never broken the habit of calling her "Director," nor had he ever deliberately tried to change it, and Director Bai had never insisted otherwise, so the title had simply stuck.

"Is your ideal still to become a scientist?" Director Bai led Hong Tao into the guardroom and dropped the question out of nowhere.

"Ah!? A scientist... Oh, right, a scientist." Hong Tao's mind had been preoccupied with the lighting issues at the private restaurant, and it took him a good several seconds of being startled by Director Bai's inquiry to react.

"That's good then. The district is going to hold an extracurricular science and technology competition for primary school students, requiring each contestant to make a small handmade project of their own—anything goes. Do you want to participate? Our school doesn't have any students attending the Children's Palace science or model-making classes, so I thought you might be quite suitable, and you should be interested, right?" Director Bai didn't beat around the bush with Hong Tao, directly stating her purpose and expectations.

"I am currently... Well, fine, around when is the competition?" Hong Tao had originally intended to say that he was busy and didn't have the time to mess around with it, but upon seeing the wrinkles on Director Bai's face, he suddenly realized that she seemed to have aged a lot compared to the previous two years. His heart softened, and he simply agreed.

There were not many ways he could repay this teacher. She didn't care for money, and aside from holiday calendars, she refused gifts from students' parents. Her thoughts were entirely consumed by how to help her students study better and achieve a brighter future. Moreover, she had always looked after him well, even though as time passed, their differences seemed to grow wider and their relationship wasn't as close as before. Yet, Hong Tao knew clearly that the root of the problem lay with him—he was the one unwilling to fully adapt to this era, rather than Director Bai lacking ideological liberation. You simply couldn't expect a teacher from the seventies or eighties to possess twenty-first-century thinking; that was utterly unrealistic.

"There's no immediate rush. Just have it ready before the summer vacation starts. You can take your time thinking and working on it, and strive to produce a satisfactory piece. Didn't you always used to complain about wanting to be different from the other students? Now the opportunity has arrived. This time, the requirement is precisely for you to be different from everyone else. Even if you make some kind of monster, the teacher won't blame you." Principal Bai was terrified that Hong Tao would just slap something together to fulfill the assignment and follow the crowd.

If that really happened, she would be deeply disappointed—not in Hong Tao, but in herself. Back when Hong Tao used to sit in on classes, he had chatted with her more than once about how the most important qualities for a student were independent thinking and creative ability, whereas the prevailing educational methods were gradually eroding those very traits in students, making them fundamentally wrong. At the time, she hadn't taken his words to heart, but looking at it now, those remarks weren't devoid of reason.

"Don't you worry. I won't dare claim that whatever I make will be one of a kind in the entire world, but at least in our district, it definitely will be unique. However, whether it wins an award or not is beyond my control. As you know, my way of thinking differs quite a bit from most people; things I find wonderful, the majority tend to think are terrible, and there's nothing I can do about that." Hong Tao made the boast without even thinking. It wasn't really empty bragging on his part—if he casually copied a gadget from later generations, he truly wouldn't find a second one like it in the whole of China.

"Alright, as long as you try your best, that's enough. Go on home for lunch now. Oh, and tell your eldest aunt's husband not to send any more of those hair salon vouchers from your family to the school teachers this year; the teachers appreciate the thought." Director Bai habitually patted Hong Tao on the head, though by now Hong Tao was almost as tall as her, even if he still retained the appearance of a child.

"What's wrong? Did my eldest aunt's husband ask the school for money?" Hong Tao found it rather puzzling. Why reject free vouchers for washing, cutting, and perming? Could it be that his eldest aunt's husband had relapsed into his old penny-pinching habits?

"Oh, no, nothing like that. Those places are so expensive; even if they wanted money, the school doesn't have it. I just felt it wasn't appropriate to disrupt your family's business. I know this must have all been your idea, and I understand what you meant, but using this method to... to..." Director Bai struggled for a moment to find the right word to describe Hong Tao's behavior. To call it corruption sounded a bit too severe, while calling it lobbying felt a bit damaging to self-esteem.

"Hey, I thought it was some huge deal! Don't worry, I certainly don't plan to corrupt you or the school teachers. Having one teacher at home is quite enough for me; I don't need so many teachers watching over me! My purpose was simply to let the teachers enjoy a token of appreciation from their students in advance. In a couple of years, I'll be moving on to junior high, and who knows, I might not even test into this school. Once I leave, who knows how many years it will be before we cross paths again. Even though quite a few teachers didn't particularly care for me, I've never held a grudge against any of them—including that former Vice Principal Li who already left the school. I just wanted it so that after I'm gone, whenever the teachers go get a haircut, they'll remember they once had a student like me. So, you don't need to carry any burden; go ahead and use them, just as long as the entire faculty doesn't show up at once! I'm heading off now!"

Hong Tao wasn't just spinning tall tales. While sending free haircut vouchers to the teachers did carry a hint of trying to keep their mouths shut, the primary motivation truly was gratitude toward them. If his memory served him correctly, by the time he reached the sixth grade, the school's junior and senior high divisions would be relocated, and many of these teachers might never be seen again in this lifetime. Being able to deepen mutual memories and leave behind a keepsake at a time like this was always a good thing.

"Sigh... What he says is true, too. Back then, this kid seemed like he had just shed his open-crotch trousers, coming over to knock on the door early every morning to run in the courtyard. In the blink of an eye, he's grown this tall. If he hadn't said anything, I'd almost forgotten what he used to look like." Watching the swaying figure of Hong Tao strolling out of the school gates, the old guard spoke up. He had known Hong Tao since the very first day the boy came to school; back then, it was always he who unlatched the small wicket gate in the school entrance to let him in for his morning runs.

"Indeed... wave after wave has been sent off. Forget? I could never forget him. When I first saw him in the hallway back then, I never could have imagined he'd turn out to be a child like this... Do you think he's a good kid or a bad kid?" Director Bai's memories were stirred by Hong Tao's words, and she couldn't help striking up a conversation with the gatekeeper.

"A principal like you can't tell the difference between good and bad, so an uncultured brute like me stands even less of a chance. Still, if you asked me to choose, I'd much rather have one like him. You've probably heard—all those businesses run by his family were cooked up by this little fellow. That eldest aunt's husband of his couldn't even show his face around for a whole year a few back; he was just a bricklayer, what did he know about making clothes or cutting hair? And I've even heard..." The gatekeeper was in high spirits today and unexpectedly started dishing out gossip and idle chatter. (To be continued...)