Chapter 52.3: A New Canvas

"I'll go to the principal's office."

"Good idea, it's quiet there. Remember to come to the small classroom during noon self-study to go over the problems."

"Okay, Teacher Yan."

Li Zhuiyuan stood at the podium, glancing down at Tan Wenbin, who was seated and already tackling the problem-solving section. He was writing steadily with few pauses and wasn’t biting his nails.

Picking up a book from his desk, Li Zhuiyuan walked out of the exam room and headed straight for the principal's office.

Just as he approached the door, a loud conversation from inside made him hesitate. He was about to turn away and look for another office.

But in those voices, he recognized Li Sanjiang, Li Weihan, and Cui Guiying.

He knew why his great-grandfather and grandparents were here—it was because he had told them he was in his final year of high school, and Tan Wenbin had corroborated it. Even Lei'er, Pan'er, and Ying'er had vouched for him.

Still, for the elders, it was hard to fully comprehend, so they had formed a little team to visit the school and see it with their own eyes today.

They must have been brought into the office by Principal Wu upon arrival.

No wonder Great-grandpa had been so quiet during breakfast this morning.

A gut instinct made Li Zhuiyuan want to turn and leave. He knew what would happen the moment he stepped through that door: the elders' joy and relief, the principal's praise and encouragement.

He longed to avoid this predetermined script.

Yet in that moment, he recalled the sound of footsteps on the phone—the ones from Li Lan. He and she were fundamentally different.

This instinctive reaction, this emotional condition, wasn’t so hard to suppress.

Li Zhuiyuan pushed open the office door. Inside, his great-grandfather and grandparents all stood to greet him with warm gazes. He walked in with a smile and was immediately embraced by them.

Principal Wu offered many encouraging words, while Li Zhuiyuan lowered his head slightly, wearing just the right amount of bashful modesty.

Once the matter was confirmed, the elders didn’t linger. After they left, Li Zhuiyuan walked to the hallway and looked down at the three of them heading for the school gate.

Great-grandpa walked with hands on his hips, striding like an imperial envoy on stage.

Li Weihan held a water pipe slung over his back. Usually staid and composed, even his shoulders were swaying today.

Cui Guiying kept dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief, laughing through her tears.

Li Zhuiyuan felt grateful he hadn’t chosen to walk away just now.

Thinking back to the essay he had just written, he realized his previous attempts to emulate Li Lan might have been a mistake. He should have seen her as a cautionary tale much earlier.

Had he understood this sooner, perhaps his condition wouldn’t have worsened at such a young age.

"Xiaoyuan, your grandparents actually didn’t believe you were in senior high. Heh."

Wu Xinhang pulled the boy back into the office, gave up his own desk for him to study at, and even took out some soda and chocolate from a drawer.

He knew the boy had taken the monthly exam. That was good—regular reassurance for everyone.

He also knew the boy served as a teaching assistant in the math olympiad class.

Li Zhuiyuan opened a book by Wei Zhengdao and started reading.

The principal sat opposite him, going through documents. Whenever he felt like smoking, he stepped outside, lit up, finished, and came back.

When the bell for the end of the second exam rang, Li Zhuiyuan declined the principal's invitation to eat in the staff dining room.

He went to the school gate and waited for Tan Wenbin, who still had Zheng Haiyang tagging along.

The three of them usually ate out, though not every meal was restaurant fare. Most of the time it was noodles or fried rice—meals only dual-income families could afford.

Most students came from rural families; many didn’t even go to the cafeteria, instead eating dry food brought from home in their dorms.

Pickled vegetables and sauces were also brought from home, often shared to taste each other's moms’ cooking.

Tan Wenbin was quite well-off, and ever since he started hanging out with Li Zhuiyuan, his parents had been giving him more pocket money. Zheng Haiyang was even richer—otherwise, those bullies wouldn’t have extorted him.

In this day and age, sailors made good money, especially with overseas earnings. By comparison, Tan Wenbin was practically a pauper.

Tan Wenbin ordered five bowls of noodles, eating one himself and “feeding his brain” two more.

Zheng Haiyang bought three sodas, plus three poached eggs, three lion’s head meatballs, and three drumsticks.

He was happy to hang out with them. Since Runsheng beat up those thugs, no one had dared to bother him, especially given Li Zhuiyuan’s current standing at school—no one dared to mess with him now.

“Brother Yuan, Brother Bin, I had a dream last night.”

Zheng Haiyang now also called Xiaoyuan “brother,” following Tan Wenbin’s lead.

“What dream?” Tan Wenbin asked around a big bite of drumstick.

“I dreamed my dad took me treasure hunting. It felt super real.”

“Isn’t your dad at sea?”

“Yeah, diving to search for treasure. There were several sunken ships on the seafloor, filled with gold and jewels.”

“Hah, so how much did you haul up?”

“Not much. Just as we were about to take it, I woke up.”

“What kind of dream is that? At least take the treasure, get back to shore, and enjoy life with dream-me.”

“Hehehe.” Zheng Haiyang scratched his head.

Tan Wenbin looked at Li Zhuiyuan. “Xiaoyuan, can you interpret this dream?”

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head and sipped some broth. “I don’t interpret dreams.”

“Oh, right, this one’s too fantastical anyway. Kid, you dreaming of striking it rich? Your family’s already loaded—why so greedy?”

“Maybe I was traumatized from all that extortion. Can’t come up with cash? You get beaten up.”

Li Zhuiyuan kept his head down, eating his noodles. In truth, he could interpret dreams. Compared to physiognomy or fortune-telling, dream interpretation was basic and low-tier work.

Most dreams stemmed from daily thoughts—easy to decode.

Only a very few were truly intuitive.

The most typical examples were pregnancy dreams—not always dreamed by the pregnant woman herself, but by her relatives.

Another was dreaming of a deceased loved one before learning of their passing—happens more often than people think.

Sunken ships, the deep sea, treasure, a father leading the way only for the dream to abruptly end…

Profession, risk, parting—all the elements were there.

In ancient times, without developed roads or communication, if a child had such a dream while separated from a parent, they’d either return home at once or prepare to mourn from afar.

Many scholars documented such cases. They took them seriously, as these dreams impacted their official mourning obligations.

Still, there were no guarantees in these things. Li Zhuiyuan had always restrained himself from casually reading faces or telling fortunes, so he naturally wouldn’t elaborate on this topic now.

Zheng Haiyang suddenly asked softly, “Brother Yuan, you think it’s really nothing?”

He was introverted, but such people often had delicate minds. His earlier comments had been a kind of setup.

Li Zhuiyuan looked puzzled. “What?”

“I asked my neighbors’ grandparents. They said the dream wasn’t lucky. Told me to dream of better things.”

Li Zhuiyuan shook his head and said firmly, “Superstitious nonsense. All lies.”

“Pfft…”

Tan Wenbin sprayed noodles from his mouth—two strands even shot out of his nostrils.

He quickly ducked his head to wipe up the mess. If I hadn’t seen you set up that feng shui trap to kill those dwarf father and son with my own eyes, I might actually believe you.

“Heh.” A smile returned to Zheng Haiyang’s face. “Brother Yuan, how’d your morning exams go?”

Tan Wenbin cut in, “Except for English, he probably did great.”

“Oh, we had English this morning?”

“He finished all his tests while we were still on math. Hey, why don’t you ask how I did?”

“How’d you do, Brother Bin?”

“I don’t know. I used to stare at questions like they were strangers. Now it feels like they’re old friends dropping by.”

“So is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure. What if they betray me?”

“Huh?”

“Let’s wait for the scores. I did attempt everything, even the big math and physics questions.”

“Bin, this isn’t Chinese class. Filling the page doesn’t mean you get points.”

“Shoo, don’t need you to tell me that.”

After lunch, the three returned to school. There were still three more exams in the afternoon, and noon self-study resumed as normal.

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