From a county-level lecture hall to a nationally renowned teacher

一

In the third week of school, Lin Zhiyuan graded essays for the first time.

He chose the essay topic himself, not following the textbook's requirement of writing something like "Remember an Unforgettable Event." He asked the students to write "My Name." The requirements were simple: Who gave you your name? What does it mean? Do you like your name? If not, what would you like to be called?

The submitted essays varied greatly in quality. Some were only half a page long, some were riddled with typos, and some were clearly plagiarized. Lin Zhiyuan corrected them one by one, circling the typos in red pen and writing comments in the margins. By the end, his hand was sore.

But one book of essays made him stop.

It belongs to Zhou Haitao.

The characters were written very small, but each stroke was written with great force, as if afraid of not being able to write them clearly. It began like this:

"My name is Zhou Haitao. Hai means ocean, and Tao means waves. My dad found this name when he was looking through the dictionary. He didn't finish elementary school and doesn't know many characters. He found the characters 'Haitao' and thought they sounded nice, so he decided on it. My mom later told me that my dad spent the whole night looking through half a dictionary and almost got the character 'tong' from 'toilet' as my name."

Lin Zhiyuan couldn't help but chuckle, then continued reading.

"I don't really like this name. Hai and Tao both mean water, which is too grand. I'm a small person, timid, and short, so I don't deserve such a grand name. My cousin's name is Zhou Haiping, Ping meaning calm, which is better than mine. Calm is so much better, unlike me, whose heart is always in turmoil."

"But I don't dare tell my dad. I'm afraid he'll spend another night looking through the dictionary and change my name to Zhou Matong (meaning 'Zhou Toilet')."

Lin Zhiyuan smiled again as he read this. But after he finished laughing, he felt something gently poke at his heart.

This essay isn't long, less than eight hundred words, but it has something very special about it. It's not fancy, not sentimental, and even a bit clumsy, but every sentence is genuine. That genuineness isn't the kind of genuineness you get from "writing about real events," but rather—this is how this person truly thinks; he didn't pretend to be someone else in his essay.

Many students' essays are pretentious. They pretend to be happy, pretend to be sensible, pretend to be moved. They've learned to write "standard answer" essays: a parallel structure at the beginning, a concluding elevation, and a few famous quotes in the middle. But Zhou Haitao didn't.

In his essay, he wrote, "I am unworthy of my name."

This sentence made Lin Zhiyuan think for a long time.

He wrote a long comment on Zhou Haitao's composition, the last sentence of which was: "The sea is vast because it can hold all rivers. Your current 'smallness' may be the beginning of your future 'greatness'."

two

In the essay review class, Lin Zhiyuan selected four excellent essays to read aloud in class.

He deliberately put Zhou Haitao's article last.

Before reading it, he said, "This essay doesn't have fancy words or complicated techniques, but when I read it, I felt like the person was standing right in front of me. The hardest thing about writing isn't writing well, it's writing 'truthfully.' This essay has achieved that."

He began to read. When he got to the line "I almost translated the 'bucket' in 'toilet' into my name," the whole class burst into laughter. Zhou Haitao sat in the last row, head down, his ears as red as if they were about to bleed.

When the sentence "I am not worthy of my name" was read, the classroom fell silent.

After reading it, Lin Zhiyuan asked, "What do you think is good about this essay?"

The students were all talking at once. Some said it was realistic, some said it was humorous, and some said it made them want to cry.

"Yes," Lin Zhiyuan said, "it makes you want to cry. Have you noticed that those words that make you want to cry don't necessarily describe anything tragic? It might just be a sentence, a detail, but it touches the softest spot in your heart."

He glanced at Zhou Haitao and noticed that the boy had raised his head and was looking at him. There was something indescribable in his eyes, like surprise, gratitude, or disbelief.

After class, Zhou Haitao lingered, not leaving until all the other students had left. He then walked to the front of the classroom and whispered, "Teacher Lin, thank you."

"What are you thanking me for?"

"Thank you... for reading my essay." His voice was even softer. "No one has ever read my essays before."

Lin Zhiyuan looked at the thin boy, wanting to say something comforting, but felt it would be superfluous. In the end, he simply patted Zhou Haitao on the shoulder: "You write very well. Keep writing."

Zhou Haitao nodded, then turned and ran away.

three

At the end of September, Lin Zhiyuan began planning to establish a literary society.

The idea had been in his mind since the day he registered for school. In college, he was a key member of the literary society, edited the society's journal, organized poetry gatherings, and even won a third prize in a provincial college student essay competition. When he arrived at the county's No. 1 High School, he found that the school did not have a literary society or a school journal, only a blackboard bulletin board that was changed every two weeks, and the content was mostly about "safety education" and "hygiene evaluation".

He went to Chen Mingyuan and told him about this idea.

Chen Mingyuan was grading homework when he heard him finish speaking. He took off his glasses and wiped them. "Starting a literary society? That's a good thing. But Xiaolin, to be honest, people have tried before, but it failed after one semester. Students weren't interested, the school didn't have the funding, and the teachers didn't have the time. Can you manage it all by yourself?"

"I can ask my students for help."

"Students?" Chen Mingyuan smiled. "Students' task is to study. If you ask them to start a literary club, the homeroom teacher will be the first to disagree. When the midterm exams come out and their grades have dropped, they'll blame it all on you."

Lin Zhiyuan was silent for a moment, then said, "Teacher Chen, I still want to give it a try."

Chen Mingyuan glanced at him and sighed, "Alright, give it a try. But there's one condition—don't disrupt normal teaching. If the two classes you're in get bad results on the monthly exams, the principal will come to me, and I'll come to you."

"no problem."

The preparation for the literary society was much more difficult than Lin Zhiyuan had imagined.

He first sent out notices to both classes, saying that students who wanted to join the literary society should come to the classroom for a meeting after school. As a result, twelve people came, eight of whom were recruited by Sun Xiaolei—she was the class monitor, had high prestige, and could easily gather several people with a single call.

Lin Zhiyuan wrote two words on the blackboard: Chenfan.

"I'd like to name the literary society 'Chenfan' (晨帆). 'Chen' means morning, and 'fan' means sail. It means a ship setting sail in the morning, heading towards the sun."

"Tacky," a voice said from the corner.

Lin Zhiyuan looked over and saw Chen Yutong—the girl who slept on her desk on the first day of school. She hadn't slept today, but she still looked listless, leaning back in her chair, twirling a pen in her hand.

"What do you think should be called?" Lin Zhiyuan asked.

Chen Yutong thought for a moment and said, "Let's call it 'Boring.' Anyway, Chinese class is boring."

Several students laughed.

Lin Zhiyuan wasn't angry. He walked up to Chen Yutong and looked at her seriously: "You find Chinese class boring?"

Most of the time.

"So what do you find not boring?"

Chen Yutong was taken aback by his question, and her hand, twirling the pen, paused. After a while, she said, "Reading novels isn't boring."

"What novel are you reading?"

"I read everything. Jin Yong's, Gu Long's, and..." She paused, "Qiong Yao's."

Some people laughed again. But Lin Zhiyuan didn't laugh. He said, "Alright, then for the first session of the literary society, we'll talk about Jin Yong."

four

The literary society's first activity was scheduled for a Saturday afternoon in mid-October.

There weren't many participants; besides the original twelve, a few more came, making a total of fifteen people. The meeting was held in an empty classroom next to the Chinese language group office, which contained a few old tables and chairs, and a faded map of China hanging on the wall.

Lin Zhiyuan began by sharing his understanding of Jin Yong's works. He talked about everything from "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" to "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer," from Guo Jing's "The greatest heroes are those who serve their country and its people" to Linghu Chong's freedom and loneliness. He got so into it that he talked for forty minutes without realizing it.

After he finished speaking, he asked, "What are your thoughts?"

silence.

"Say anything, anything you want."

Silence remained. The students looked at each other, but none of them spoke.

Chen Yutong suddenly raised her hand.

"Teacher Lin, what do you mean by all this? How does it relate to our essay writing?"

This question stumped Lin Zhiyuan.

He thought for a moment and said, "It's not necessarily related. The literary society isn't a writing tutoring class. We talk about literature here not for exams, but for..."

He got stuck.

Why? He suddenly realized that he had never seriously considered this question. He started the literary society because he loved literature and felt that students should too. But what good was loving literature? In this small county town, could literature put food on the table?

"Just for fun," he said.

"Fun?" Chen Yutong frowned.

"Yes, it's fun. Have you ever had this experience—reading a good novel and forgetting to eat or sleep, feeling incredibly satisfied? That feeling is what fun is. The literary club is all about having fun together."

The classroom was quiet for a while.

Then, Liu Qiang—the boy who had been fooling around on the first day of school—suddenly spoke up: "Teacher Lin, I don't like reading. But I like listening to stories. The ones you just told were quite interesting."

"Then come and listen to the story," Lin Zhiyuan said.

Zhou Haitao spoke up, his voice low: "Teacher Lin, I...I want to write something. But I don't know how."

"Just write it," Lin Zhiyuan said. "Write however you want. Show it to me when you're done."

The day's event eventually turned into a casual chat. We talked about Jin Yong, Gu Long, TV dramas, and gossip from school. By the time the meeting ended, it was almost dark.

When Lin Zhiyuan was tidying up the classroom, Chen Yutong was still sitting in her seat.

"Teacher Lin."

"Um?"

"You said literature is for fun." She looked out the window, the setting sun casting a golden glow on her profile. "But I think literature is... to make people less lonely."

Lin Zhiyuan was stunned.

Chen Yutong stood up, slung her backpack over her shoulder, and glanced back at him as she walked to the door: "When is the next episode?"

Next Saturday.

"I'll do it."

五

In November, the midterm exams took place.

Lin Zhiyuan's two classes ranked fourth and fifth in average Chinese language scores out of the eight classes in the grade—neither high nor low. The results weren't particularly good or bad. Chen Mingyuan looked at the report cards and said, "Not bad. It's normal for a new teacher."

But Lin Zhiyuan himself was not satisfied.

He carefully analyzed each student's exam paper and found that the biggest loss of points was in the essay. Most students still used the old formula: starting with "Time flies like an arrow, days pass like a shuttle," telling a story in the middle, and ending with "This incident made me realize...". The essays were full of empty rhetoric and clichés, with hardly any genuine thoughts.

He called Zhou Haitao to his office.

Zhou Haitao scored 78 out of 120 in Chinese on his midterm exam, and 32 out of 50 on his composition. It wasn't high, but it was already considered good in the class. Lin Zhiyuan took out his composition, pointed to a section, and said, "In this piece, you wrote about your mother taking you to school. You wrote, 'My mother stood at the intersection, watching me walk away.' That detail is good. But you added the sentence, 'My eyes welled up with tears,' which can be deleted."

Zhou Haitao asked, puzzled, "Why? It's really wet."

"I know it's true. But even if you don't write it down, the reader can still feel it. If you write it down, it's like reminding the reader, 'You should be moved here,' which takes away the meaning."

Zhou Haitao thought for a moment and nodded.

"You have to learn to control yourself when you write. The most powerful emotions aren't written down; they can't be hidden." Lin Zhiyuan said, taking a book out of the drawer. "Here, take this one back and read it."

It is a collection of essays by Wang Zengqi.

Zhou Haitao took the book, flipped through a couple of pages, and looked up at him: "Teacher Lin, this book..."

"I'm lending it to you, not giving it to you. Return it to me after you've finished reading it, and you'll also have to write a review."

Zhou Haitao hugged the book to his chest as if it were a treasure and nodded vigorously.

六

The county town was bitterly cold in December.

The cold in the south is different from that in the north; it's a damp cold that seeps into your bones. Lin Zhiyuan's dormitory has no heating or air conditioning, so he can only use an extra blanket and huddle inside at night to prepare his lessons.

One evening, he was reading Zhou Haitao's reading report—an article about Wang Zengqi that Zhou Haitao had written, nearly two thousand words long, longer than any of his own essays—when he suddenly heard a knock on the door.

The door opened, and there was Zhou Haitao.

"Teacher Lin, I..." Zhou Haitao stood at the door, his lips were purple from the cold, and he was carrying a plastic bag in his hand. "I brought you something."

Lin Zhiyuan let him in. Zhou Haitao took out a jar of pickled vegetables from the bag; it was in a glass bottle with the lid tightly screwed on.

"My mom pickled them. She said it's getting cold, and the teacher is alone at school with no vegetables to eat."

Lin Zhiyuan took the jar of pickled vegetables. The glass jar was cold, but his fingers were warm.

"Please thank your mom for me."

Zhou Haitao nodded, turned to leave, but stopped at the door.

"Teacher Lin."

"Um?"

"I want to be a teacher when I grow up."

Lin Zhiyuan looked at him. The dim light in the corridor shone on Zhou Haitao's face, making his thin face stand out with his unusually bright eyes.

Why?

"Because..." Zhou Haitao thought for a moment, "Being a teacher allows me to be like you."

After saying that, he ran off, his footsteps fading into the distance in the corridor.

Lin Zhiyuan stood at the door, the cold wind blowing in, but he didn't feel cold.

He glanced down at the jar of pickled vegetables in his hand, then at the book report on the table. Outside the window, the winter wind blew through the sycamore trees, their bare branches swaying in the night.

He suddenly remembered what he had said on the first day of school: "If I could do it all over again, I would still choose to be a teacher."

He said that at the time to convince himself.

He says this now because he truly believes it.