In the grade two of junior high school, a new refectory replaced the old one. Though the refectory appeared better, the food wasn’t changed at all. Atman moved to the old refectory with his classmates.

For the first night, Atman lay in bed and felt he slept on a football field. Looking around, he slept in the center and all black walls surrounded him. Looking up, he could found strings of soot above his head and dared not to look up, because of the fear of hurting eyes.

Every evening, he saw peddlers carrying remaining vegetables and fish and selling them to the refectory. Sometimes, Atman really couldn’t swallow the dish and had to pay half a Yuan to buy a small bag of kelp so that he could make his dinner easier.

After night class, Atman had to queue up for a basin of water to wash himself. There were only several water faucets for several classes. There were always fights over water and Atman wanted to have peaceful life, so he had to wait for water patiently.

The student slept with Atman was a short boy Qin. Qin always had bed-wetting and Atman was really annoyed and asked class adviser to change his bedfellow without result. Qin was narrow-minded and liked to take advantage of Atman. Sometimes, Atman woke up and felt his back was cold, knowing Qin dragged most part of quilt to his side. In summer, Qin wasn’t willing to bring mosquito net and Atman had to buy one, or else mosquito bate him so hard that he couldn’t concentrate himself on studying next day. Qin tore the mosquito net to make small holes so that he could hang his things through it. Seeing the new mosquito was tore, Atman was really angry and beat Qin hardly.

From that day on, Qin was obedient. Atman didn’t expect that and found beating was a medicine to Qin.

Atman’s school record was neither good nor bad and the hope of getting promoted as senior high school student was tiny. His father Mon didn’t say anything and only made him work in the field during summer vacation.

The sun was incredibly hot and Atman had to carry paddy rice to ridge. Above head was the hot sun, below feet was the hot water, in the middle was suffering Atman. Mon only said to his son, “if you don’t study hard, you’ll have this kind of life later. I didn’t listen to my father and I become a farmer. Now if you don’t listen to your father, you’ll become a farmer like me.”

Lying in bed, Atman wasn’t in the mood to read and thought of his own future. There seemed to him reading was only road.

After the cruel summer vacation, Atman decided to study hard to avoid being a farmer. Though the textbook in elementary school told him that all works were equal because all of which were serving the people. Atman liked to work in other way to serve the people.

New semester was coming. Mon sent gifts to Atman’s class advisor and Atman only knew that years later. All of a sudden, Atman sat next to the No.1 student Con. Con was brilliant and diligent, of course, no reason to be No.2.

Seat change was a big deal to all students. Most of boys liked to sit next to girls, especially pretty girls. Nobody liked to sit next to No.1 so that he looked too small comparing with him.

Anyway, Atman decided to study hard, so he didn’t care about where he sat either. From that time on, Atman studied hard, particularly on Chinese. Though he did poor on other subjects, his Chinese was always No.1 in class. Ms Chung liked him so much and was always strict with him.

Atman kept all past papers and learn them carefully one by one. After night class, Atman continued to use flashlight to read books. Only in that way, his heart felt easy, or else, he would woke up suddenly from dream. After the semester was finished, Atman was able to enter into Top Ten.

Those time, school didn’t pay any attention to the pride of students. They simply did a ranking of all students and put it out with big character. Atman stood alone and watched his name on the wall for a long time for this was his achievement for a whole semester.

In the third grade, also the last year of junior high school, every student tried his best to achieve something on school record. This time Atman still sat next to Con, but there was a girl behind them.

Because both Atman and Con were tall, they sat in the back row of classroom. The girl Lina was a headache to the class advisor and hence he sent her to the corner, where brooms were kept.

Lina never studied and liked to chat with both of them. Unfortunately both guys liked studying and weren’t willing to chat with her.

In one night class, Lina chewed gum and made it into a ball, then used a line to connect it and knocked Con’s head again and again for fun. Con was really angry and turned around to abuse her. Lina threatened him her brother would beat him black and blue and Con was scared to death and could not help crying.

Lina felt it was so funny and could not help laughing, however, still she forced Con to buy a crystal ball from her at a high price. She also tried to force Atman to buy a pen, but Atman refused and received the same menace. Atman was scared in his heart, but he wasn’t willing to show it on his face.

For the following month, Atman never went outside of the school gate so that Lina’s old brother couldn’t beat him.

Lina vomited a lot and Atman didn’t know why she was always sick. It was rumored that Lina was pregnant and she moved to other junior high school before the graduation. Atman didn’t think much of that because he had no time for other things.

Con liked reading novels, but he could handle it perfectly so that novels didn’t influence his studying. When he did his homework, Atman took a rest, so Con was really pleased. When Atman did his homework, Con would read novel and chatted with Atman to disturb him. Atman knew clearly that Con didn’t want him to exceed him. Day by day, Atman could divide himself into two parts, one part chatted with Con while the other part doing homework.

There was a girl Ju with both intelligence and appearance in Atman’s class. Both Atman and Con liked her, nothing, only watching her when possible. By accident, Ju glanced at them, both of them would be very excited for a whole day. Though there were other pretty girls, Atman didn’t pay attention to any of them.

Before the high school entrance exam, there was a PE exam. There was only one PE exam and Atman met it exactly. The PE exam had thirty points in total. Poor Atman exhausted himself on studying without good food, how could he have strength for the PE exam. Anyhow, Atman decided to try his best during the PE exam.