The village head, Yu Shi, and the village bookkeeper came to dinner on Tuesday, and crowded round the table with Wang Xiaolan and the four teachers. Wang Xiaolan had seasoned her dishes strongly, as was the custom in Jieling. Everyone praised the intensity of flavour and said how much they enjoyed her food. Before the meal, the village head announced some good news: although times were hard, the village had decided to pay a portion of the back pay they owed the teachers. He also hoped, of course, that the teachers would work hard to eliminate illiteracy and bolster the reputation of Jieling's people and its leaders. Everyone applauded his words; even the principal's wife joined in from her room.
After both guests left, Yingcai saw Wang Xiaolan go into Sun Sihai's room quite openly. On the pretext of taking a stroll, he passed by Sihai's window. He could hear a woman crying. It sounded like the kind of sobbing you hear in a movie when a couple are embracing.
Sun Sihai's flute kept playing until late that night.
The next morning, he seemed a shadow of his usual self, with black smudges around his eyes.
After the national flag was raised, Principal Yu said that the ten worst-performing pupils in the two older classes should be sent to him and Deng Youmi. By this reckoning, Ye Biqiu would be excluded, as she regularly tested in the top three. But, because Yingcai—having received no clear answers to his questions—was still curious about what Principal Yu was trying to achieve, he decided to send Biqiu along with the others.
The following day, he asked her, "Did you do everything Principal Yu asked?" He had learnt his lesson and beat around the bush this time.
Sure enough, Biqiu's response was open and frank. "Yes, he said I did Yu Xiaomao's homework well."
"Who is Yu Xiaomao?" Yingcai asked.
"We started school at the same time, but he doesn't turn up very often. At the start of this school year, Principal Yu managed to get him to register again. He signed up but left without making a single class. His family are really poor so he can't afford school."
"How many pupils who are registered here but don't attend classes are you doing homework for?"
"Principal Yu says we each have to take two. When we've finished, we're getting a pencil and two exercise books."
"Bring the homework you have done for Yu Xiaomao to me after class tomorrow and I'll go through it with you."
Biqiu nodded innocently.
She brought the exercise book over the next day. Yingcai looked at it: it was exactly the same as the homework the fifth graders had already done. Yingcai didn't understand the point of all this.
Ten days sped by, and then Station-Head Wan came with the inspection party.
That morning, Principal Yu told Yingcai to also look after Sun Sihai's third and fourth graders, as Sun Sihai had to greet the inspectors. Yingcai was kept so busy that he couldn't even stop to say hello to his uncle. It seemed to him that there were more children at school than normal, but he didn't stop to consider why that might be.
The inspection party spent a day at the school. In the afternoon, when they were ready to make their report, Yingcai set both classes the same composition topic: "Raising the national flag" . He asked the third and fourth graders to write three hundred characters, and the fifth and sixth graders to write five hundred, then raced over to hear what the inspectors had to say. The director of the county education bureau was the main speaker. He said he believed that, given the tough conditions under which they operated, the fact that Jieling Elementary School had managed to achieve an enrolment rate of over 96 per cent was nothing short of a miracle. He gestured towards the large piles of exercise books on the table. Yingcai finally understood that this had been an inspection of the school's efforts to combat illiteracy in name only. Its real purpose was to check whether children of the right age were attending school.
Station-Head Wan also made a short speech as a member of the inspection party. "I don't care if people accuse me of being selfish. If Jieling had not been found deserving of Advanced School status, I would have resigned as head of the education station."
Principal Yu started to clap, and everyone from the inspection party joined in the applause.
There was nowhere to stay on the mountain, so the inspection party made their way down in the dark after the flag-lowering ceremony.
As they were leaving, Yingcai said to his uncle, "I have something I need to tell you."
"I'm sure it can wait until you're back home for Chinese New Year."
The station head had already walked quite a way when Yingcai remembered that he wanted to ask him to post his letter to Yao Yan. He called out and ran after him. His uncle waved at him to stay where he was. He stopped, then stared in disbelief as the figure slowly disappeared into the distance.
After the inspection party left, Yingcai kept thinking that something wasn't right. He knew corruption was common, but he'd never had anything to do with it before, and he had always been able to pretend that he hadn't seen a thing. Now it was different. Not only was he involved, but so was the station head. It was clear that everyone had worked together and conspired to keep it all a secret. They had played him and his uncle for fools! His anger surged and he picked up his pen to write two broadly identical letters, one to his uncle and one to the director of the county education bureau. He described in detail the tricks of fraud and mistaken identity that the school and village had played during the inspection.
Once he had finished his letters, he went to wait for the postman on the road near the school. The postman came once every three days usually, but this time there still was no sign of him by the fourth day. Yingcai wasn't sure if he'd missed him or if the postman was following a different route. Not wanting to delay any longer, he asked a passing parent to take his two letters down the mountain and post them in town. But he kept his letter to Yao Yan back. He would only hand that to someone like his father or uncle, someone he could completely trust.
