Chapter 9: The Measure of Six Days

The morning fog of October 15 had not yet lifted. Lin Chen opened his eyes, and his first move was to reach under his pillow for the ledger. His fingertips brushed the rough kraft paper cover. He opened it. October 15. Expenses: None. Income: None. Balance: Negative seven yuan two jiao. The numbers hadn’t changed. He closed the book and got up. The coal stove in the main room had gone out, leaving only a layer of white ash. He swept the ash aside, added two chunks of broken coal, and fanned it gently with a cattail-leaf fan. Flames leapt up, licking the bottom of the clay pot. Before the water boiled, he went to the inner room to check on Xiaoman.

Xiaoman was sleeping deeply, his breathing even. On the bedside table sat half a bowl of warm water and a packet of pills wrapped in old newspaper. Lin Chen picked up a pill and broke it in half. The cross-section of the phenobarbital was rough, shedding a little white powder. He swallowed it with water, his movements light. Xiaoman didn’t wake, only furrowed his brow slightly before relaxing again. Lin Chen stared at his face. Seven years old, so thin his cheekbones protruded and his eye sockets were sunken. The medicine could only suppress the symptoms, not cure the root. Dr. Wang at the town clinic had said this illness feared exhaustion, hunger, and fright. Lin Chen pulled the quilt up a little higher, covering his younger brother’s exposed ankles.

The water boiled. He filled two bamboo-cased thermos flasks and corked them tightly. After tidying the kitchen, he slung the fertilizer-bag backpack over his shoulders and pushed the door open. The autumn wind poured through the crack, carrying the earthy, damp scent of withered grass and soil. He had walked the road to town three times already; his footsteps had packed the dirt firm. Today’s objective was clear: the supply and marketing cooperative, to buy an eraser. The ledger noted “Need to purchase eraser.” He couldn’t afford to run out of lead during the diagnostic exam, nor could he afford to lose points for a messy paper.

The wooden door of the cooperative stood half-open, the interior dim. Behind the glass counter sat an old woman in a blue cloth jacket, wearing reading glasses as she stitched a shoe sole. Lin Chen walked to the stationery section. The shelves held tin pencil cases, plastic rulers, and bundles of exercise books. The erasers were on the bottom shelf, wrapped in transparent cellophane printed with “Great Wall Brand.” He crouched down to read the price tag: eight fen. He counted out eight one-fen coins and placed them on the counter. The coins clinked together with a crisp sound. The old woman set down her needle and thread, slowly took the money, and made change. She said nothing. Lin Chen slipped the eraser into the side pocket of his backpack, feeling it through the coarse cloth. Medium hardness, erased cleanly, left no crumbs. It would do.

On the way back, he detoured past the threshing floor behind the village. The yard was empty now, save for a few piles of unwinnowed chaff. The wind blew, sending them swirling. He found a flat stone to sit on and pulled out his composition notebook. Today, he wouldn’t practice full essays; he would practice “breaking down the prompt.” Teacher Liu’s grading rubric emphasized “staying on topic.” How to stay on it? He closed his eyes and randomly picked three titles: My Schoolbag, A Rainy Day, Helping with Chores at Home. For each, he would only write the first and third paragraphs. The middle would be left blank.

My Schoolbag: Opening: “The schoolbag was made from a fertilizer sack; the straps have frayed and been mended three times.” Closing: “A broken strap can be spliced. A broken path must be found anew.” A Rainy Day: Opening: “The rain fell hard, the roof tiles leaked, and basins caught the water.” Closing: “When the basins fill, you pour them out. When days leak, you patch them.” Helping with Chores at Home: Opening: “The chopping knife is longer than my arm; when I swing it, wood chips fly into my eyes.” Closing: “My eyes are rubbed red, but the wood is split. My hands ache, but my mind is at peace.”

He wrote slowly. With every sentence, he ran it through the grading criteria in his head: On topic? Structurally complete? Clear central theme? Fluent language? Neat presentation? Five gates, passed through one by one. If it failed, he crossed it out and rewrote it. The page quickly filled with red crosses and circles. He felt no frustration. Like carrying water on a shoulder pole: if it tilted, you adjusted your shoulder. If a character slanted, you corrected it with the next stroke. The callus on his thumb and forejoint grew hot from the pencil’s friction. He paused, wiped his sweaty hand on his trousers, and continued.

At noon, the sun was fierce. Lin Jianguo returned from the fields, half a sack of sweet potatoes slung over his shoulder. His rubber soles were caked in yellow mud, his trouser legs rolled to the knees, his calves marked with several bloody scratches. Lin Chen took the sack, hefted it. Heavy. He turned to the kitchen to wash the potatoes, cut them into chunks, and put them in the steamer. His father sat on the threshold, rolling a cigarette of loose tobacco. A match struck, smoke curling upward. He didn’t ask how his son’s practice was going; he just watched the chickens pecking in the yard.

“The diagnostic exam is at the Central Primary School,” Lin Chen said, covering the steamer, his voice quiet. “Cross-school grading.” Lin Jianguo grunted “Mm.” The cigarette tip glowed and dimmed. “What if you don’t pass?” “Keep practicing,” Lin Chen answered. Without hesitation. Lin Jianguo said nothing more. As the smoke dispersed, he stubbed out the cigarette, stood up, and went to weave baskets. The bamboo strips wove through his hands, making a steady, rhythmic scraping sound. Between father and son, no extra comfort was needed. Knowing where the road lay was enough; you just walked it.

October 16. Practice speed. Forty minutes, three hundred characters. Prompt: What I Fear Most. He wrote about Xiaoman’s seizures. When he reached “eyes rolling back, jaws clenched, white foam at the corners of the mouth,” his pen tip halted. His hand trembled. Not from fear of writing poorly, but from fear that the grader would deem it “unhealthy.” The county’s top-tier papers required a “clear theme and positive outlook.” He couldn’t write despair. He revised. He wrote: “I fear running out of medicine, I fear the dark, I fear not running fast enough.” Closing: “Fear is useless. Run faster, and the medicine won’t run out.” Handed in. Checked the clock. Thirty-nine minutes. Word count: three hundred and one. Presentation: neat. He exhaled.

October 17. Practice mindset. Simulate exam hall noise. He asked Lin Jianguo to chop wood in the yard while he wrote in the main room. The heavy thud of the axe striking wood made the table tremble. His pen tip shook with it. He took a deep breath. Inhale for two steps, exhale for two. Steady. The characters stayed straight. In the second paragraph, the pencil lead snapped. He didn’t stop. He took a small knife from his pencil case, scraped the lead against a whetstone twice. Gray-black powder fell onto the paper; he smoothed it with his fingertip. Continued writing. His wrist began to ache, the callus on his hand growing hot from friction. He adjusted his breathing. No rushing. Rush and the water sloshes, spilling for nothing; rush and the characters scramble, costing presentation points. He steadied his pen. Horizontal strokes level, vertical strokes straight. Even spacing between characters. Thirty-eighth minute. Pen down. Counted the words. Three hundred and five. Presentation neat. Structure complete.

October 18. Practice error correction. He pulled out the previous two days’ exercises and marked recurring flaws in red: sluggish openings, slogan-like endings. He crossed out “I will get into the county middle school and make a fortune.” Changed it to: “The words are written, the paper handed in. The rest waits for the score.” He spread his error notebook across the eight-immortal table, turning it page by page. Red annotations crowded the margins like a net. It caught the loopholes; it let slip the illusions of luck. He picked up the eraser, blew away the frayed paper dust from the edges. The page was clean. Like freshly plowed earth.

October 19. Xiaoman ran a slight fever in the afternoon. Lin Chen didn’t panic. He applied a wet towel to his forehead, fed him warm water, and took his temperature. The simple glass thermometer read 37.8 degrees. Below the seizure threshold. He kept watch, changing the towel every half hour. By evening, the fever broke. Xiaoman opened his eyes and looked at him: “Brother, exam tomorrow?” “Day after tomorrow,” Lin Chen corrected. “Oh.” Xiaoman closed his eyes, his fingers unconsciously clutching the quilt’s edge. Lin Chen gently pried his hand loose and tucked it under the covers. He walked to the main room and opened the ledger. October 19. Expenses: None. Income: None. Balance: Negative seven yuan two jiao. The numbers hadn’t changed. But he knew that after the exam the day after tomorrow, if he ranked in the top three in town on the diagnostic, Teacher Liu would help him secure pre-exam tutoring for the unified test. The tutoring cost nothing, but it would reveal the county’s testing trends. Once the trends were clear, the unified exam’s prize money wouldn’t be a blind guess.

October 20. The eve of the diagnostic exam. Only a single kerosene lamp burned in the main room. The flame was steady, casting a dim yellow halo. Lin Chen laid out everything he needed for tomorrow on the eight-immortal table: two sharpened pencils (tips sanded with sandpaper so they wouldn’t tear the paper), one Great Wall eraser, a plastic ruler, an admission ticket (distributed by Teacher Liu yesterday, mimeographed, stamped with the village school’s official seal), and half a piece of dry ration. He checked it three times. Nothing missing.

He opened the error notebook. On the last page, only one line: Grading is verification, not appreciation. Build the frame by the rules, move by the rhythm. He closed the book. His fingers traced the horizontal lines on the back cover. The ledger lay beside it. Negative seven yuan two jiao. Like a stone, but he had grown accustomed to its weight. He knew that tomorrow, walking into the Central Primary School classroom, sitting at an unfamiliar wooden desk, hearing the rustle of turning papers, he could not panic. Forty minutes, three hundred characters. Three-part structure. Break the prompt, detail, conclude. Like plowing, like carrying water, like walking ten miles of muddy road. One step, one mark.

From the inner room came Xiaoman’s even breathing. Lin Jianguo was already asleep, his snoring faint. The wind in the yard had died down. Autumn insects chirped intermittently at the base of the wall. Lin Chen blew out the kerosene lamp. Darkness instantly swallowed the main room. He lay on the hard wooden bed, staring at the ceiling. No insomnia. His body was exhausted, but his mind was sharp. Like a drawn bow, the string taut but not trembling.

He closed his eyes. Imagined tomorrow’s exam hall. Imagined the proctor handing out papers. Imagined the pencil gliding across the page. Imagined the second hand ticking. Imagined the bell ringing to collect the papers.

Outside the window, the moon was veiled by clouds, leaking only a faint glow. The distant mountain silhouettes lay silent in the night. Lin Chen’s breathing gradually steadied. Tomorrow, at first light, he had to leave. Ten miles. He couldn’t be late. Once the exam hall doors opened, there was no turning back.

4:00 AM. The roosters hadn’t crowed yet. Lin Chen woke on his own. He didn’t light a lamp, dressing in the dark. His fingers found the backpack straps, the coarse cloth rubbing against his palms. He pushed the door open. The chill of the autumn night hit him face-on, carrying the sharp bite before the Frost Descent. On the dirt road at the village entrance, figures were already moving. Not heading to the fields. Heading to town. Footsteps mingled, rubber soles striking the frost-hardened mud with crisp crack-crack sounds. Lin Chen tightened his backpack straps and fell in line. No one in the group spoke. Only breathing, and footsteps. The wind swept up fallen leaves, swirling them against the tops of their shoes. He looked up. Toward the town, the skyline paled to a dull gray. The silhouette of the Central Primary School slowly emerged from the morning fog. Like a silent mountain pass. The iron gates were shut tight, a dim yellow light seeping through the cracks. From the guardhouse, a radio broadcast the morning news, the static mingling with the announcer’s flat tone. Lin Chen stopped, pulled the admission ticket from his backpack’s side pocket. The mimeographed characters were clear in the cold light. He folded it in half and tucked it into his inner pocket. His fingers brushed his chest. His heartbeat was steady.

The door hinges groaned with heavy friction. The iron gate slowly swung open. A proctor walked out carrying a kraft paper bag, its mouth tied with hemp rope and sealed with a red stamp. Lin Chen took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold. His soles struck the terrazzo floor, echoing in the empty space. The corridor was long, classroom doors on both sides half-open, desks and chairs arranged in neat rows. He found the seat labeled with his name: Grade 3, Class 2, seventh row, by the window. The wooden desktop bore several deep gouges, left by students of some unknown year. He sat down, arranged his pencil, eraser, and ruler in order. He placed his hands flat on the desk. His palms were slightly cool.

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. Growing closer. The proctor stopped at the door, raising the kraft paper bag. The hemp rope was snipped with a sharp snip of scissors. The red seal was torn open. The rustle of paper sounded like autumn wind sweeping through dry leaves. Lin Chen’s spine straightened slightly. The second hand began to tick in his mind. Tick. Tock. The wind outside ceased. The air inside the exam hall suddenly tightened.