A Leisurely and Extravagant Life - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Catching a Bug to Repay a Favor

Although the sparrow had flown off, it didn’t leave the classroom. The classrooms at Hemawan Elementary School were still just single-story houses, without ceilings. The sparrow perched on a beam, chirping away.

All the third graders craned their necks to look up at it. They were so absorbed that they didn’t even notice when Cheng Yulian walked in.

“Class has started. What are you all doing?” Cheng Yulian snapped. She never had a good impression of this class.

The students were still quite afraid of this fierce teacher, so they hurried back to their seats. But every now and then, their eyes would drift upward toward the sparrow.

Cheng Yulian also heard the chirping on the beam. Muttering, she said, “Where did this sparrow come from?”

Sparrows were timid by nature. With so many kids in the room, it shouldn’t have dared to chirp so loudly here.

Irritated by the noise, Cheng Yulian frowned, picked up a book, and threw it at the sparrow. Her aim was way off. The sparrow chirped loudly, almost as if cursing her, then boldly swooped past her head before returning to the beam, still chirping defiantly.

Furious, Cheng Yulian thought, How dare a little sparrow mock me? I’ll beat you to death. She picked up the book again and threw it. This time, she almost hit it, and the sparrow hopped to another spot, chattering even louder.

“You all throw something at it—drive it out!” Unable to handle the sparrow herself, she mobilized the class. Against this task, she was no match for her students.

The classroom erupted into chaos. The kids, thrilled, grabbed their textbooks and hurled them upward. Finally, the sparrow had no choice—it darted out through a gap in the roof.

Luo Tianwang wasn’t worried at all. If sparrows were that easy to hit, it would be strange. Books, stones, whatever—chances of landing a hit were slim. But now that it was gone, a bigger problem surfaced: all the textbooks had fallen together in a heap. The children crowded around, trying to sort them out, and the room became a mess.

This time, Cheng Yulian couldn’t scold them, they had only obeyed her orders.

“Who took my book? My book is missing!” Luo Zejun shouted. He had been especially eager to hit the sparrow, hoping to kill it as payback for Luo Tianwang’s slap the other day. But now, not only had he failed, his book was gone.

“There it is, there it is!” Luo Shengui, with the sharpest eyes, spotted it right away. But the book had landed in the worst possible spot: on the very beam where the sparrow had been perched. Stuck there, it wouldn’t fall down.

Cheng Yulian frowned. She couldn’t get it down. The school had no ladder, no bamboo pole, nothing to reach that high. How did this brat manage to throw it up there?

“Let’s start class. Afterward, we’ll figure out a way to get it down for you,” she said.

But when class ended, Cheng Yulian twisted her hips and headed straight out.

“Teacher Cheng, you haven’t helped me get my book down yet!” Luo Zejun called.

“You threw it up there yourself. Figure it out yourself. Or go fetch a bamboo pole if you want it back.” She still held a grudge from when Luo Zejun had called her an old witch.

Turning her back on him, she left. Luo Zejun was on the verge of tears. What could a third grader do to get his book down?

Cheng Yulian didn’t care. After all, it wasn’t her book. She had only walked a few steps when something dropped into her hair. She touched it—it was wet. Looking up, she saw a sparrow flutter past.

The sight felt oddly familiar. She looked at her hand. Oh no—bird droppings! The smell was unbearable. Worse, it was in her hair. She nearly burst into tears.

The sparrow hadn’t really come to avenge itself, it was just dropping a “bomb” in passing. By coincidence, it hit its true enemy.

The sparrow still had a worm clutched in its beak, its favorite treat. But strangely, it hadn’t eaten it. It kept it there, holding on.

As soon as it flew into the classroom again, a kid shouted, “The sparrow’s back! The sparrow’s back!”

Someone grabbed a textbook to throw.

“What are you doing?” Luo Tianwang barked.

Startled by his fierceness, the kid sheepishly put the book down.

“Chirp, chirp, chirp…” The sparrow calmly fluttered down beside Luo Tianwang and did something that made him both laugh and cry.

It placed the dead worm on his desk, then chirped and gestured at him.

Luo Tianwang’s eyes widened. He seemed to understand. Was the sparrow trying to repay him with this worm?

He chuckled. “I’m not eating this worm. You’d better take it back for yourself.”

Luo Shengui, quick to overhear, burst out laughing. “That sparrow’s hilarious! It brought you a worm to eat. Tianwang, you should eat it!”

The kids immediately started chanting: “Tianwang eats worms! Tianwang eats worms!”

The sparrow, seeing that Luo Tianwang wouldn’t eat, picked the worm back up and flew off.

“Tianwang, why didn’t you eat it? A worm’s just a piece of meat!” Luo Shengui teased, making the class roar with laughter.

Then Luo Zejun marched over, shouting, “Tianwang, you have to get my book down!”

“Why should I?” Luo Tianwang laughed. The request struck him as ridiculous.

“If it weren’t for your sparrow causing trouble, the teacher wouldn’t have told us to throw our books. My book wouldn’t be stuck up there. Isn’t this all your fault?” Luo Zejun said, puffing himself up.

“But that sparrow’s not mine. And you were the one throwing books at it. I’m not blaming you—yet you’re blaming me? What, itching for another beating since it’s been a few days?” Luo Tianwang clenched his fists.

Luo Zejun burst into tears. “You’re bullying me! I’m telling the teacher!”

His sudden switch caught Luo Tianwang off guard, though he wasn’t the least bit scared.

A little while later, Zhao Pingshui came with Luo Zejun. But instead of confronting Luo Tianwang, he looked up at the book on the beam, then walked off. He soon returned with a bamboo pole and easily poked the book down.

Handing the book to Luo Zejun, Zhao Pingshui then turned to Luo Tianwang. “What’s with that sparrow?”

“I don’t know. You can’t raise sparrows,” Luo Tianwang said.

Zhao Pingshui nodded. It was strange indeed. No one could keep a sparrow alive in captivity. Some kids had caught them before and tried raising them in cages, but not a single one survived more than a few days. And birds, in general, were hard to tame. Even birds kept for years would fly away without looking back once freed.