The Parallel Me

Rank 198

The monthly exam was on Wednesday.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. Not woke up. My eyes just opened on their own. The sky was still dark. The dog downstairs barked twice, then stopped. I lay there, listening to my own heartbeat. Fast. Faster than usual. I counted sixty beats. Still fast.

Got up.

My dad hadn't come back. His bed was made flat. The blanket folded into a square. He never folds his blanket. I reached out and touched it. Cold.

Boiled water. The gas stove took three tries to light. Poof, the fire came up, blue, with a touch of yellow in the middle. I soaked a pack of instant noodles. The noodle cake was crushed. The seasoning packet had clumped, I poked at it with chopsticks for a long time. Took two bites. Put it down.

Someone in the hallway was cooking porridge. The smell of rice.

When I went downstairs, that door was open a crack. A radio was playing inside. Morning news.

Before going out, I checked my exam admission ticket twice. The person in the photo had longer hair than I do now. His eyes were looking outside the frame. I put it in my innermost pocket and pressed it down.

There were words on the back of my hand. Written yesterday. Perseverance.

I looked at the word. Looked for a while, then went to wash my hands. Washed them twice. Dried them. The words were still there. The ink had seeped into the skin.

The exam room was on the third floor. The hallway was full of people. Some memorizing words, some gnawing on bread. Wang Chao stood at the stairwell. When he saw me, he turned his head away.

A piece of paper was pasted at the exam room door. The seating chart. My name was on the last line. Followed by the room number and seat number. Thirty-seven.

My seat was by the window. A character was carved into the desk. Carved very shallowly. "Early" (*). Didn't know who carved it. I picked at it with my fingernail. Couldn't pick it off. The girl in front of me wrote "Victory" on the corner of her desk. With a ballpoint pen, wrote it very big.

The proctors were two. A young one, wearing high heels. An old man, half his hair was white. The old man yawned as soon as he sat down. He checked my admission ticket three times. Looked at the photo. Looked at me. Looked at the photo again.

"Go on in."

Before the bell rang, the broadcast read the exam rules. When it got to "talking is strictly prohibited," two guys in the front row looked at each other and smiled.

I opened my pencil case. Two pens. One eraser. One ruler. The pens were new. Bought at the convenience store yesterday. 1.5 yuan each. There was a hole in the eraser. I poked it with a pen.

First exam, Chinese.

The paper was handed out. The essay prompt: My Father.

I sat for ten minutes. Didn't write a single word. I wasn't thinking about how to write it. I was thinking about how much I actually knew about him.

There was a layer of fog on the window glass. I wiped a patch with the back of my hand. Outside was the sports field. The flagpole. The flag wasn't raised. Someone was walking on the track, walking very slowly.

I knew his name was Chen Guo. Forty-five. Calluses on the web of his hand. He only smoked cigarettes that cost seven yuan a pack. I knew his left pinky was missing half a section. He said a machine crushed it. I never asked which machine. I knew he slept with the lights on. I knew he had a Mao suit pressed at the bottom of a box, aired out once a year.

I didn't know what he used to do. Didn't know why he never asked about my grades. Didn't know if he had any friends. I'd never seen a single one.

The essay paper had eight hundred boxes. Twenty by forty. I counted them twice. After counting, I still hadn't written a word.

Finally, I wrote.

I wrote about him kneeling on the ground, lighting a cigarette for someone. Lighting it three times, it didn't catch.

I wrote about him hiding in the bathroom, hiding for two hours. When he came out, his eyes were red.

I wrote about him putting food in my bowl, his hand trembling, spilling the soup on the table. He wiped it with his sleeve.

I wrote about him eating. He ate very fast, didn't look up. A bowl of noodles, three bites. Done, he pushed the bowl away, stood up, and left. Half a bowl of soup was still left.

I wrote about him coming back in the middle of the night, standing by my bed watching me. I pretended to be asleep.

I wrote about his hands. A long scar on the back of his hand.

Writing to the last paragraph, I paused. Then wrote:

"My dad isn't a bad person. He just lost himself. Sometimes I feel like I'm about to lose myself too."

After writing, I checked my watch. Twenty minutes left. I read the essay from the beginning. There was one sentence I wanted to cross out. The pen stopped above it. I didn't cross it out.

I lay down on the desk and slept. When I woke up, my hand was numb. An imprint was pressed into the paper.

When the papers were collected, I saw the girl in front of me wrote three pages for her essay. I only wrote a page and a half.

Second exam, Math.

The paper was handed out, I turned to the first page. I saw the answers to the first five multiple-choice questions at a glance. Not calculated. I just saw them. Like someone wrote the answers on a piece of paper and held it behind water.

From the sixth question, I had to calculate. Three scratch papers were handed out. I used two and a half. I calculated very fast. The pen tip scraped the paper, making a loud noise.

The proctor walked past me. Walked back. He stood by my desk for a while. I didn't look up.

There was one big question, halfway through calculating, I paused.

Zhou Yan had explained this one. Last month, evening study hall. He drew a diagram on scratch paper. Two lines, tangent. He said, draw a diagram, and the answer comes out. I didn't understand it then. Now I did.

The answer sheet is machine-read. You have to fill it completely, can't go out of bounds. I filled it very slowly. Box by box. Checked it after finishing. One box went out of bounds. I erased it. Erased a hole in the paper.

Finished in an hour and a half. Thirty minutes left. I checked it from the beginning again, changed two answers. One change was wrong, changed it back.

When I got to Question 7, I paused. No one on the windowsill. The dust was flat. She didn't come today. I didn't know why she didn't come. I put down my pen and handed in the paper.

The next day, English and Comprehensive Science.

The English listening played for twenty minutes. I didn't hear a single word. Not that I didn't understand. It was too noisy in my head. Someone was talking next to my ear. Not her. The man.

"You're nervous."

"I'm not."

"You are." He said. "Your palms are sweating."

I wiped my hands on my pants.

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I've been there."

"Been where?"

"The Gaokao."

Comprehensive Science was 300 points. Two and a half hours. Halfway through, the sweat on my palms dampened the answer sheet. I picked it up and fanned it twice.

The last big Physics question had a three-line prompt. I read it twice. Didn't understand it the first time. Understood it the second time.

There was a blank in Chemistry, I filled in "Sodium Hydroxide". After writing, I looked, I had written "Sodium Hydrate". Crossed it out, rewrote it.

There was a Biology question asking about cell apoptosis. I stared at the word "apoptosis" for a while. This word was bad.

After the last exam, walking out of the exam room, the sun was bright. I stood at the entrance of the teaching building, squinting. People passed by me, saying the questions were hard. Someone compared answers, saying Question 3 was B. I didn't compare. I didn't know if I was right.

I stood in the bathroom for a while. Counted the floor tiles. Counted to thirty-seven, forgot where I was. Started over. The class bell rang. I went out.

The three days waiting for the results were the hardest to endure. Harder than the exam.

The next day in class, the teacher handed out the answers. I didn't check.

The math teacher explained the paper, when he got to the last question, he said only one person in the whole class got it right. He didn't say who. I didn't look up either.

Wang Chao's desk moved back again. This time half a foot, pushed with his foot.

People in the hallway saw me, stopped talking.

The cafeteria food was cabbage stewed with glass noodles. The lady serving trembled her hand. One scoop down, half a scoop of soup.

I carried my tray to find a seat. The row by the wall had empty seats. I sat there. After eating, I took the tray to the return area. Stacked very high.

In the afternoon, I went to Uncle Wu's place to move chairs. There was a new batch of desks in the warehouse. Old ones replaced by the school. There was a lot of writing on the desk surfaces. One said "I want to go to Peking University." The words were crossed out.

Moved for half a day. He didn't ask about the exam.

He poured me a glass of water. The same enamel mug.

When I left, he said: "Exams over?"

"Yeah."

"Then just wait."

At night at home, I flipped through the textbook from the first page to the last. Finished, flipped it back. I flipped through the text messages on my phone three times. Not a single new one. The last one was from my dad last month: Money in a couple of days.

Couldn't sleep, so I counted the cars outside the window. Counted to seventeen cars, and dawn broke.

In class, I sat in the back row, looking out the window. She came. Sat on the windowsill, two legs swinging. There was a bit of mud on the tip of her shoe. It didn't rain yesterday.

"How did you do?"

"Don't know."

"Estimate your score."

"Over 500."

"Over 500 is how much?"

"550."

"Is that enough for the top 300?"

"Don't know."

She didn't speak. After a while, she said:

"Chen Mo."

"Yeah."

"If you do well, what will others say?"

"Don't know."

"I know." She said. "They'll say you cheated."

"Why?"

"Because they don't believe a person can become someone else in a month."

The results came out three days later.

There was a class meeting that afternoon. The blackboard was wiped. Desks were arranged neatly. There was a countdown in the top right corner of the blackboard. Half the number was erased.

Before the meeting, the classroom was very noisy. As soon as I entered, it went quiet.

Teacher Li stood on the podium, holding a piece of paper. The paper was printed, the edges a bit curled.

"This monthly exam," she said, "our class average, is second in the grade."

Someone let out an "oh" below.

"But," she said, "I want to mention one person specifically."

She looked up.

"Chen Mo."

I looked up.

"Come up here."

I stood up. Walking over, I heard my soles making noise on the floor. One step. Two steps. The third step hit the edge of the podium. There was chalk dust on the podium. I stepped up, my soles slipped.

The whole class was looking at me.

She handed me the paper. "Read it yourself."

I looked down. The paper was the grade ranking. I looked from top to bottom. Line by line.

When I got to 198, I stopped.

That line read: 198 Chen Mo 612 points.

I stood on the podium, didn't speak.

"Read it!" Someone shouted below.

"198." I said.

The classroom was quiet for three seconds. Then it exploded.

"How much?"

"198?"

"Impossible."

"What was he last time?"

"1,187."

"Holy shit."

"He copied, right?"

Teacher Li raised her hand and pressed down. "Quiet."

The classroom slowly quieted down.

"Chen Mo," she said, "you tell them, how did you do it?"

I looked at her. Her eyes were very calm. So calm it was like she was waiting for me to say the wrong thing. Her fingers tapped on the paper. Once. Twice. Stopped.

"I memorized words." I said.

"And?"

"Did practice papers."

"And?"

"Three days, slept five hours."

"Just that?"

"Just that."

She nodded.

"Okay." She said. "Go back to your seat."

I walked back to my seat.

Halfway there,

Okay." She said. "Go back to your seat."

I walked back to my seat. Halfway there, someone spoke behind me.

"Teacher Li."

It was Zhou Yan.

He stood up.

"What is it?"

"I have a question." Zhou Yan said.

He turned his head, looked at me.

"Student Chen Mo scored 187 last time, 612 this time."

"In one month, an increase of 425."

No one in the classroom spoke.

"The top student in our class increased by 12 points." Zhou Yan said, "I want to ask, how did he increase his?"

Teacher Li looked at him.

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to say," Zhou Yan said, "he cheated."

I stood by the podium. The classroom was very quiet. So quiet I could hear the water in the heating pipes. Gurgle.

Someone nodded. The guy in the third row glanced at me, then turned back.

I looked at Zhou Yan. He was looking at me too. Reflecting light on his glasses. Couldn't see his eyes.

I suddenly remembered something.

Three days ago, in math class, she sat on the windowsill and said: Others will think you're crazy.

She was right.

But she got one thing wrong.

It's not crazy. It's cheating.

In this school, a person going crazy and a person cheating mean the same thing.

You are not one of us.

The dismissal bell rang. No one moved.

Teacher Li said it again, sit down. Only then did I walk back to my seat.

Passing the teacher's desk, the paper was still there. 198. The edge of the paper was curled.

The books on my desk had been moved by someone. Moved to the right, stacked crookedly.

I reached out and straightened them.

After school, people in the hallway made way for me. Made way very neatly. Like avoiding a puddle of water.