Cangmang Asks the Way 1: Guardian of the Lamp

In the early morning in Ji County, Zhou Zhenhua strode forward, with Cang Tianci close behind, their small figures disappearing into the crowd.

Jixian No. 1 Primary School is nestled under tall sycamore trees, its yellow-painted school building shining brightly in the sunlight. A figure leaping and running on the playground exudes an unprecedented exuberance. He subconsciously hunches himself, pulling down the cuffs of his best-looking but patched old coat, feeling ashen and dusty as a stray sparrow wandering into a rare bird park.

In the fourth-grade office, Ms. Fang Wenhui, the homeroom teacher of Class 4-1, greeted him warmly. She was around thirty years old, with short hair that reached her ears, and her clear, warm gaze behind her thin-rimmed glasses instantly soothed his tense nerves.

"Welcome, Cang Tianci!" Fang Wenhui took the report card. When her gaze swept over the home address "Xiqiao Village," she paused almost imperceptibly. When she looked at Tianci again, her eyes showed a hint of understanding.

She carefully reviewed the entire document, and when she saw the score curve that had struggled to climb from single digits to the passing grade, her expression changed from understanding to seriousness.

She was silent for a moment, her gaze shifting back and forth between the scores of "8 points," "13 points," and "61 points." Then, she looked up and asked softly, "Cang Tianci, was the journey from 8 points to 61 points particularly tiring?"

Tianci paused for a moment, then nodded.

"Every step is soaked with sweat..." she murmured to herself, and when she handed the report to her math teacher, Sun Yulan, she added firmly, "This child has a strong spirit."

The older math teacher, Sun Yulan, had a serious expression. She also looked through Tianci's past grades and said in a low voice, "Teacher Fang, this child's foundation is a bit weak, but he's quite hardworking. Diligence can make up for lack of talent. Should we let him sit with Lin Wanqing? That child is good at studying and can help him."

"That suits me perfectly." Fang Wenhui looked at Tianci with deep eyes, as if she had made an important decision. "Let's go, Tianci, I'll introduce you to your new classmates."

When Fang Wenhui brought Cang Tianci to the door of Class 4-1, the previously noisy classroom instantly fell silent. Dozens of eyes turned to Cang Tianci.

Teacher Fang led Cang Tianci into the classroom and said to the dozens of students, "Classmates, this is our new student, Cang Tianci, from the Jixian Sports School Wushu Team. Welcome to our Class 4-1 family." She then led the applause. The classroom erupted in enthusiastic applause.

After the applause subsided, Teacher Fang pointed to an empty seat by the window in the third row and said, "Tianci, sit next to Lin Wanqing."

Following the direction, Tianci saw his new deskmate struggling to move one of her less-than-perfect legs into her seat. She was a slender girl with a pale face, delicate features, and large eyes that were always lowered, like those of a frightened fawn, with a timid and evasive look.

The moment Tianci saw her leg, his heart skipped a beat. The movement, the look in her eyes, the subconscious biting of her lower lip as she struggled to move—it was so much like his third sister, Xiaohua. He remembered his third sister's slightly swaying gait, and how she would lower her head and remain silent when the village children imitated her walk. For a moment, he thought the girl before him was his third sister sitting there.

As he approached, Lin Wanqing glanced up quickly, a faint, fleeting smile playing on her lips, revealing a hint of her white teeth before tightening her lips again. Her hand unconsciously moved a thick book on the table closer to her, as if it were a small fortress.

He didn't know what kind of book it was, but he knew it was one of the few places she could hide in in this world. That fleeting, fragile smile, and her inconvenient leg, struck Tianci's heart like lightning. The image of his third sister, Xiaohua, instantly flashed before his eyes—those innocent, timid eyes, her delicate face, her somewhat clumsy leg… The image of his third sister overlapped with the image of the girl before him, giving him an inexplicable sense of closeness and a protective impulse towards his new deskmate. He remembered; her name was Lin Wanqing.

Walking to the empty seat, Tianci noticed scraps of paper under the neighboring table and instinctively bent down to pick them up and put them in his desk. This quick and discreet action didn't attract much attention, but it didn't escape Fang Wenhui's eyes.

The school bell rang. Fang Wenhui's gaze calmly swept across the entire class, pausing briefly on Cang Tianci, before she spoke earnestly:

"Class, before class, I saw something small, but it really touched me. Our new classmate, Cang Tianci, saw some scraps of paper on the floor when he got to his seat. He quietly bent down, picked them up, and put them in his desk. No one reminded him, and he wasn't doing it for anyone's benefit. What is this called? This is called 'self-discipline.' When no one is watching, a person can still uphold their inner principles. That's what it means to have integrity. That's exactly the kind of person our class needs."

She paused, her tone becoming more serious: "Not only that, I've carefully reviewed his previous grades. His start was extremely difficult, with his scores going from single digits in first grade to above the passing mark now. Such progress is a miracle, it was incredibly hard-won, and every step was soaked in the sweat of hard work."

She looked around the class and continued, "Some students are very bright and can understand things immediately, which is wonderful. But in Cang Tianci, I see something else that is perhaps even more precious—the ambition to not be mediocre and to strive for excellence! It is the tenacity to grow stubbornly from the cracks even when pressed down by a stone! This ambition and tenacity are a better measure of a person's potential and responsibility than momentary cleverness."

She changed the subject, her gaze sweeping across every face in the class, her tone solemn and clear:

"The vice class monitor our Class 4-1 needs not only to have good grades, but also a strong sense of responsibility for the collective and an indomitable spirit!"

The brief pause seemed to freeze the air in the classroom. Then, she spoke clearly:

"Therefore, I appoint Cang Tianci as the vice class monitor of our Class 4-1."

Fang Wenhui's words were like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, instantly creating a huge uproar in Class 4-1. The students began to whisper among themselves, their curious gazes all turning to Tianci. Tianci, however, remained frozen in his seat, his cheeks burning, his heart pounding with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

"Tianci, come on, say something to everyone," Fang Wenhui reminded him with a smile.

Cang Tianci's heart pounded like a drum. He took a deep breath, forced himself to stand up, and said in a trembling voice, "My... name is... Cang... Tianci... Please... please... take... care of..." The words were squeezed out of his throat with difficulty, like stones being moved piece by piece from a dry riverbed.

Someone in the classroom couldn't help but laugh, but was quickly silenced by a nudge from the person next to them.

Tianci's face flushed. He wanted to sit down, but his legs wouldn't obey. Just then, he saw Lin Wanqing. She wasn't smiling; she just kept her head down, her fingers gripping the corner of the book tightly, her knuckles white. He knew that gesture all too well—it was the way his third sister would instinctively clutch her clothes whenever she was being laughed at. Suddenly, he didn't want to sit down anymore. He finished speaking the last two words before slowly sitting down.

As he sat down, his legs were still trembling and his heart was still pounding, but he suddenly realized that his earlier reluctance to sit down was the right thing to do. He didn't know if it counted as "being tough," but he knew he had succeeded.

His stammering words silenced the classroom for a moment.

Fang Wenhui immediately chimed in, "Tianci was a little nervous when he first arrived, but he still bravely stood up. He finished what he was saying, that shows he's got backbone."

The classroom erupted in enthusiastic applause once again.

At this moment, a boy with a middle-part hairstyle, sitting in the middle of the classroom, was looking down, gripping his pencil tightly, his face gloomy. His name was Zhao Xiaohu, and he was unruly and often caused trouble, giving the teachers a lot of headaches. However, because his grades were quite good, and his father was the richest man in the county, he had already asked someone to speak to Teacher Fang, requesting that Teacher Fang give him preferential treatment. Therefore, after careful consideration, Teacher Fang appointed him as the group leader. However, ever since the class vice-monitor transferred away, he had secretly considered the vice-monitor position as his for the taking and had often boasted about it to his classmates. At this moment, he felt as if he had been slapped hard across the face.

"Hmph, a stutterer..." Zhao Xiaohu curled his lip and lowered his voice, "What a show-off, he just arrived and he already knows how to act cute in front of the teacher."

His deskmate leaned over and said, "Don't worry, Tiger, this kind of person won't last long. You'll be the vice class monitor again in the end."

Zhao Xiaohu didn't reply. He kept his head down, gripping his pencil even tighter until his knuckles turned white. He remembered mentioning it to his father when he got home last night—his father didn't even look up, only focused on flipping through the account book in his hand, and threw a sentence at him, "What's the point of fighting for a lousy vice class monitor? Don't embarrass me."

He stood there, frozen, for a long time. He knew his father was busy, busy making money, busy socializing, too busy to even glance at him. But those words still pierced his heart like a thorn.

He remembered how he'd been bragging to his buddies after school yesterday: "The vice class monitor position is a done deal; my dad's already spoken to Teacher Fang." Now, that "done deal" had been snatched away by a stutterer. He couldn't bear to think about how those people would look at him tomorrow. He stared at Tianci's retreating figure, a thought popping into his head: I'll see how long you stutterer can keep this up.

After school, Cang Tianci did not return to the sports school immediately. He wandered alone in the bustling streets of Ji County, like a fish thrown into a river, dizzy and disoriented by the rushing crowds and noise.

The brand-new clothes hanging in the shop windows stung his eyes; the aroma wafting from the roadside food stalls made his stomach rumble. He touched the few cents his mother had given him in his pocket and, for the first time, felt so clearly that there was an invisible, yet thick, barrier between himself and the world.

Looking at the exquisite stationery, he thought of the pitifully short pencil stubs in his own schoolbag; watching the children laughing on their brand-new bicycles, he thought of his own family's nearly falling-down wheelbarrow. A feeling mixed with envy and resentment welled up in his chest.

Why do some people have everything so easily, while his family struggles to survive? Why can Wang Yaowu push people into the water so easily? Why can Wang Zhenkun become an official after assaulting someone? Why can't the police catch a villain like Liu Tietou? He thought of Lin Wanqing's timid yet clear eyes, and of what Teacher Fang said about "growing out of the cracks in the rocks."

He walked listlessly to the small stone bridge spanning the murky river and stood there blankly. On this side of the bridge were the unfamiliar, unsettling lights of the county town; on the other side were the silent, distant mountains shrouded in twilight, the mountains that had brought him countless sorrows. He stood in the middle, with no way forward or backward.

Despair clung to his feet like seaweed. Just as he was about to suffocate, he suddenly remembered the unseen thread at the temple fair. That day, when that thread was tautest, he dodged a blow. But now, that thread seemed to have snapped, hanging limply in the darkness, ungraspable. He didn't know if he could ever tighten it again.

He then remembered the oil lamp in the house. That lamp was so dim, it flickered in the wind, yet it had never gone out. His mother said it was the lamp she used to wait for him to come home.

He recalled his elder brother's words about those "weights"—things weighing down on one's head, bending one's bones. What were these weights? Was it Wang Zhenkun's official hat? Was it Liu Tietou's money? Was it the phrase "the ceiling is too low" from the Nancheng Sports School? Or... was it the hurdle in his own heart?

Just as he was about to suffocate, he suddenly remembered his mother's words—he had survived by crying his way out of a pool of blood at the bottom of the cliff. "Even the King of Hell wouldn't take me… so I earned this life myself!"

At the same time, Teacher Fang's words "stubbornly growing from the cracks" and Lin Wanqing's fleeting smile were like two faint lights, intertwining and illuminating the dark depths of his heart.

"My fate is in my own hands!"

He seemed to understand a little. God threw him off the cliff not to teach him how to take a beating, but to let him know that he had to rely on himself to grow into someone unique! If his older brother's path was blocked, he would find another! He needed to practice his fists, but fists alone wouldn't suffice. He didn't want to be a second Cang Lifeng; he wanted to be the first Cang Tianci!

He didn't know if he had figured it out. But he knew that the light was still waiting for him. If he collapsed, the light would go out. He suddenly remembered what his older brother had said before he left: "Some roads you have to walk yourself." He hadn't understood then. Now he seemed to understand a little—not "how to walk," but "why walk." Because if he didn't walk, the light would go out. Because if he didn't walk, the thread would never be able to hold up again.

He turned abruptly to face the flickering lights of the county town. He didn't know if any of those lights were lit for him. But he knew that the one at home was always waiting for him.

He started walking, slowly but firmly. His feet were firmly planted, and so was his heart.

The wind blew on the hem of his clothes, but it couldn't extinguish the fire in his heart—a fire that had burned since the bottom of the cliff and had never been extinguished.

He didn't know how long this fire would burn.

All he knew was that he would come again tomorrow.