In late October in Huizhou, a distinct chill was already in the wind.
The leaves on the trees lining the roads of the Keda campus began to fall, crunching crisply underfoot.
Chen Zhuo zipped up his jacket, strolled out of the campus gate, and ducked into an Industrial and Commercial Bank diagonally across the street.
The bank wasn’t crowded.
Chen Zhuo walked up to the counter. From his backpack, he took out the remittance slip from the university’s finance office, his ID card, and a completed Industrial and Commercial Bank transfer form, sliding them all through the opening.
The female employee behind the glass window was a woman in her thirties.
She absentmindedly took the forms and glanced at the numbers, but her hands suddenly froze.
She looked up, eyeing Chen Zhuo on the other side of the glass with suspicion.
The amount on the form was a five-figure sum, and not a small one at that.
In 2003, this was a huge sum of money for an ordinary working-class family—an amount that would take several years to save up. And here it was, in the hands of a kid who looked like he was barely in middle school.
"Young man, are your parents with you?"
The clerk held the forms, making no move to stamp them.
"It’s just me."
Chen Zhuo replied calmly, pointing to the finance office document.
"This is payment for my research work and an academic award from the university. All the documentation is right here. Please, check it."
The clerk took another careful look at the document, which bore the bright red seal of Huake University’s finance department. After confirming there were no issues, her expression as she looked at Chen Zhuo changed instantly.
Her wariness was replaced by the sort of awe one might have when looking at a rare animal.
"You’re in Keda’s Gifted Youth Program, aren’t you?"
She asked casually, her fingers flying across the keyboard. Chen Zhuo just smiled, offering no explanation.
The transaction was quick.
Chen Zhuo tucked the receipt into his backpack and walked out of the bank.
He hadn’t transferred all the money, leaving a small amount on his meal card and in his savings account.
While getting lunch in the cafeteria, Chen Zhuo spotted the glistening, soy-braised chicken legs in the display case and asked the server for an extra one.
Back in Room 215, Wang Dayong was absorbed in studying something, and the faint sound of Lu Jia reciting vocabulary words drifted over from the room across the hall.
Chen Zhuo set the cups of hot soy milk and tea eggs he’d bought on the way down on the table, pulled out a chair, and sat down.
"Picked these up on the way. Eat ’em while they’re hot."
Without looking up, Wang Dayong reached out, grabbed a tea egg, and tapped it against the table to crack it.
"Thanks, Xiaozhuo."
Chen Zhuo took a bite of the chicken leg.
「A few days later, in Zeyang City.」
Night had completely fallen.
In the residential building for employees of the First Mechanical Factory, dim yellow lights glowed in every window. The occasional sizzle of food hitting a hot wok could be heard, along with the opening theme of the "Xinwen Lianbo" evening news broadcast.
The atmosphere in Chen Jianguo’s home, however, was as solemn as a tribunal.
On the old coffee table in the living room lay a transfer notice from the Industrial and Commercial Bank, picked up from the mailroom just that afternoon.
Chen Jianguo stared intently at the notice, still in his work clothes and reeking of machine oil.
Liu Xiuying kept wringing her hands on her apron, her voice hushed for fear the neighbors might overhear.
"Jianguo, did you count it right? How much is it, exactly?"
"I’ve counted it three times."
Chen Jianguo’s voice was hoarse. He swallowed hard.
"Five figures."
The couple stared at each other, speechless.
Chen Jianguo was an honest technician who spent his days working with steel on the factory floor, and Liu Xiuying was just as salt-of-the-earth.
Never in their lives had they heard of a student away at university—a sophomore, no less—sending home this much money.
"Jianguo..."
Liu Xiuying’s eyes welled up, and her voice began to tremble.
"Xiaozhuo is all alone out there. Where could he have gotten this much money? He hasn’t been tricked into doing something illegal, has he?"
Chen Jianguo shot to his feet and paced back and forth across the living room.
"This won’t do. I have to get to the bottom of this."
He walked over to the TV stand, snatched up the landline, took a deep breath, and dialed the number for the public telephone on the dormitory hall at Keda.
An agonizingly long ringing tone echoed from the earpiece. The hand Chen Jianguo used to clutch the receiver was slick with sweat.
Meanwhile, in a hallway of the Keda men’s dormitory, a cold draft was pouring in through the crack of a poorly-shut window.
The public phone rang abruptly. A boy passing by picked it up, listened for a moment, and then yelled down the hall.
"Room 215, Chen Zhuo! Phone call!"
Chen Zhuo was reading a topology journal. When he heard the shout, he set the book down, grabbed a heavy jacket, and draped it over his shoulders as he walked out of his room.
The hallway was significantly colder than his room.
"Hello? Who’s speaking?"
"Xiaozhuo, it’s me."
From the other end of the line came Chen Jianguo’s voice, deliberately hushed and tinged with an obvious tremor of anxiety.
Hearing that tone, the corners of Chen Zhuo’s mouth lifted slightly. ’I have a pretty good idea what this is about.’
He leaned against the white corridor wall, his tone as mild and gentle as ever.
"Dad, have you had dinner yet?"
"Forget dinner! First, you tell me the truth."
Chen Jianguo was clearly frantic on the other end, his voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, like a secret agent at a rendezvous.
"That notice you sent home today—what’s going on? Where did all that money come from?"
Chen Zhuo chuckled softly.
"Dad, what if I told you I sold off the equipment in the university lab? Would you believe me?"
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.
"You little rascal! The Chen family has been poor but honest for three generations! How could you do something like that? You return it right now! Go to the police station, turn yourself in! I’ll go and plead on your behalf..."
Chen Jianguo was so anxious he even slipped into his hometown dialect.
"Dad, Dad, calm down."
Chen Zhuo dropped the playful tone, his voice becoming calm and earnest.
"I’m just teasing you. The equipment in the labs here are all huge pieces of solid iron, bolted securely to the floor. I’m only twelve years old; I couldn’t move them if I tried."
Chen Jianguo was stunned for a moment before realizing his son was messing with him. Still, the weight in his chest lifted slightly.
"Then tell me the truth. Where did the money come from?"
"It’s all legitimate."
Chen Zhuo explained patiently.
"I published an article in a journal, and the university has a policy of giving cash awards for publications like that. The rest of it is a stipend for the work I did helping out in two national key laboratories. It was all approved by the finance department and processed through official channels."
The other end of the line went quiet for a long time. All that could be heard was Chen Jianguo’s heavy breathing.
"Writing an article... gets you that much money?"
Chen Jianguo still couldn’t quite believe his ears.
"Well, knowledge is power."
Chen Zhuo smiled.
"You and Mom should use this money without any worries. I remember Mom always complaining that our old refrigerator is too small, that she can’t even store enough meat for the New Year. Why don’t you take her to the department store tomorrow and pick out the biggest one you can find? You can save the rest and use it to treat yourselves."
The other end of the line suddenly went silent.
After a long moment, he cleared his throat loudly and abruptly changed the subject.
"Alright, I get it. Don’t you worry about the money."
He paused, his tone still laced with an awkward helplessness.
"Your mom was just mentioning the other day that the comforter you took with you seemed a little thin. It gets damp and cold in Huizhou during the winter, so make sure you dress warm. If there’s nothing else, I’m going to hang up. I have to be at the factory early tomorrow."
Chen Zhuo heard the awkwardness in his father’s voice. He leaned against the white wall of the hallway, a wider smile spreading across his face, but he didn’t call attention to it.
"I’ve got everything I need here, but Dad, there actually is one thing I need you to run an errand for."
"What is it?"
Hearing there was a proper task for him to do, Chen Jianguo immediately latched onto the topic, as if he’d regained his fatherly authority.
"When you go to the department store tomorrow, swing by the Xinhua Bookstore on your way."
Chen Zhuo’s tone was even, but then it shifted, taking on a hint of boyish mischief.
"Pick out a couple of comprehensive review books for the high school entrance exams for Zhang Qiang. The thicker the better. Get the really difficult ones, you know, the ’cram-for-the-finals’ kind from top schools. Then, drop them off at his house for me."
Chen Jianguo paused on the other end, confused.
"What for?"
"Just tell him it’s a present from me, bought with my very first award money, and that he has to finish all of it."
An image of Old Zhang’s son—a kid who loved to fool around and hated studying—popped into Chen Jianguo’s head. He couldn’t help but chuckle and curse good-naturedly into the phone.
"You little rascal. If Qiangzi sees those test books you’re sending him, he’ll probably burst into tears."
"Tough love."
Chen Zhuo replied with a laugh, his tone perfectly self-righteous.

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