Chapter 55 Self-Introduction

Registration should theoretically be quick, but since every parent registering a child took the opportunity to have a chat with the homeroom teacher, Xiao Yao ended up sitting nearby for nearly half an hour before the line at his teacher's desk dwindled down to the very last family.

Xiao Yao pulled his luggage over, standing quietly behind that family. Once they finished registering and the parents led their child into the classroom, Xiao Yao stepped forward and said to his homeroom teacher, "Hello, Teacher. My name is Xiao Yao."

Xiao Yao's homeroom teacher was a middle-aged woman in her forties wearing metal-rimmed glasses. Looking at Xiao Yao standing all by himself, she asked with inevitable surprise, "Did you come all by yourself? Where are your parents?"

"No, I came on my own," Xiao Yao smiled.

"Wonderful!" Whether she was annoyed by the swarms of parents or not, the teacher gave Xiao Yao a thumbs-up upon hearing this. She lowered her head to scan the roster in front of her and smiled, "Xiao Yao, student number 22. Go on inside and take a seat. Your number is pasted on the desk, so sit at number 22."

*Second Experimental Primary School, Class 1-2, student number 22—how foolish can I possibly be?* Xiao Yao mentally teased himself. He hauled his suitcase into the classroom to search for his desk.

Initially, Xiao Yao had been sitting on the periphery; unregistered parents were waiting for their turn, while finished ones hovered outside the windows to keep an eye on their children, leaving no one to pay him any attention. But his conversation with the homeroom teacher at the doorway had instantly caught the parents' notice. Upon hearing that this young boy had arrived to register entirely by himself, the parents broke into soft murmurs of amazement.

Stepping into the classroom, Xiao Yao looked around. Unlike the rectangular tables shared by two students in his past life's primary school, the classroom was neatly arranged with compact furniture. Each student had an individual small square desk and a small wooden chair with a backrest. However, every two desks were pushed together, meaning there were still seatmates. The entire classroom layout consisted of three rows and six columns, housing a total of thirty-six students—far better than the classes of sixty or seventy students from his previous life.

The classroom was mostly full. Since Xiao Yao was the last to arrive, he easily spotted the single vacant desk, and walking closer, confirmed it was indeed number 22. He took off his schoolbag and shoved it into the desk drawer. Having nowhere to put his suitcase, he simply stood it upright in the aisle against the edge of the desk. Xiao Yao was the only one in the entire classroom who had rolled in a suitcase; everyone else's luggage was still in the hands of their parents outside.

"Why did you bring your suitcase in? Why didn't your mom and dad hold it for you?" Xiao Yao's seatmate was a cute little girl with two braided pigtails and a chubby face. The moment Xiao Yao sat down, she bombarded him with curious questions like an inquisitive baby.

"I came by myself. My parents didn't come, so I had to carry my own suitcase," Xiao Yao answered with a smile.

"Why didn't your parents come with you? Do they not like you? Did they abandon you?" the little girl pressed further.

"Um," Xiao Yao paused awkwardly.

"Yaoyao, you mustn't talk nonsense," a middle-aged woman who had been watching the little girl from the doorway hastily called out. With that, the woman walked into the classroom, squatted down beside the girl's seat, and said, "You must mind your manners when speaking. You can't just say whatever comes to your mind." Afterward, she glanced anxiously at Xiao Yao, seemingly worried that her daughter's words might have upset him.

Seeing both the little girl and the woman looking at him, Xiao Yao smiled at the girl and said, "My parents don't dislike me, and they didn't abandon me. I was the one who told them not to come."

"Why?" the girl asked.

"Because this is my own business. I can handle it myself, so I didn't need them to come," Xiao Yao replied. Fearing the girl would keep badgering him with questions, he quickly changed the subject. "Your name is Yaoyao? My name also has the character *yao* in it. Hello, my name is Xiao Yao." As he spoke, he extended his hand.

"Hello, my name is Cheng Yaojia," the little girl replied, completely ignoring Xiao Yao's outstretched hand.

"Yaoyao, Xiao Yao is holding his hand out. You should shake hands with him," the woman whispered in her daughter's ear, looking somewhat embarrassed by the ignored hand.

"Oh." Cheng Yaojia immediately extended her small hand and shook Xiao Yao's.

"Both of our names have the character *yao* in them. Doesn't that mean one of the characters in our names is identical?" True to form, Cheng Yaojia's attention immediately shifted back to the names.

"Not quite," Xiao Yao smiled, shaking his head. "My *yao* is the *yao* from 'roaming freely between heaven and earth.' I don't know which *jia* your name uses, but your *yao* is most likely the *yao* from the fairy realm of the Jade Pool in heaven." With that, he began tracing two characters on the surface of the desk with his finger. "My *yao* has the walking radical at the bottom, while your *yao* has the jade radical on the side."

"Isn't that the king radical? My dad taught me that." The little girl was clearly quite familiar with her own name, instantly recognizing the second character Xiao Yao wrote as the *yao* in her name.

"Lots of people call it the king radical, but the proper name for it is actually the jade radical," Xiao Yao smiled.

Before the little girl could retort, the homeroom teacher, having finished organizing things outside the door, walked back into the classroom and announced, "Registration is now complete, and all the students have arrived. Parents, please step outside for a moment."

The woman whispered to the little girl, "Yaoyao, Mommy is going outside now. Be a good girl and listen to the teacher. And make sure to get along well with your classmates." With that, the woman cast one last look at Xiao Yao before standing up and leaving the classroom.

Once outside, the woman was greeted by a middle-aged man who had also been keeping an eye on the girl through the window. He smiled and said, "My dear wife, what were you and Yaoyao chatting about for so long? What's wrong? Can't bear to leave her?"

"It's the child's first time away from our side, of course I can't bear it," the woman shot her husband a look, her expression then brightening with delight. "Still, that little fellow sharing a desk with Yaoyao is quite remarkable. It's really our good fortune that Yaoyao gets to sit next to him."

"You mean that little guy who came to register all by himself?" The middle-aged man had clearly noticed Xiao Yao arriving solo as well. "For a kid that small, just having that kind of courage and independence is extraordinary."

"That's not even the half of it," the woman continued. "The boy has a wonderful temperament. Earlier, Yaoyao blurted out and asked if his parents didn't come because they didn't want him, and he didn't get angry at all. Plus, he seems to know quite a lot. He's bound to excel academically."

"Oh come on, I can believe he has a good personality since I saw him chatting and laughing with you all, but it's only the first day of school and nobody's even opened a textbook yet. How on earth do you know he's good at academics? Did you ask him what rank he placed in kindergarten? Surely you aren't that gossipy?" the middle-aged man chuckled.

"Hush, stop talking nonsense. Let me ask you—what radical is the *yao* in our Yaoyao's name?" the woman challenged.

"The king radical, obviously," the middle-aged man replied matter-of-factly.

"That boy said it's not called the king radical, and that the proper name is the jade radical. It's truly terrifying to lack culture. You gave your own daughter a name and couldn't even get the radical right. Aren't you embarrassed?" The woman glared sideways at her husband.

"Wait, really? I'll look it up when we get home. We shouldn't just believe whatever some little kid says, right?" Though he said that, in his heart he was already just as convinced as his wife, because every character with that radical he could think of was related to jade.

Seeing that all the parents had stepped out and the children had quieted down, the homeroom teacher began, "First of all, welcome, students. Let me introduce myself—I am your homeroom teacher. My last name is Jiang, so you can all call me Teacher Jiang."

"Teacher Jiang," some of the more lively children immediately chorused in a chaotic flurry of voices.

"Hello, class." Teacher Jiang pressed her hands downward, signaling the students to be quiet. She continued, "From now on, you are all members of this school and this class. Now that everyone has arrived, and I've introduced myself, it's your turn to introduce yourselves so that everyone can get acquainted. During registration earlier, you were all assigned student numbers. I'll call out a number and a name, and the student whose name is called will come up to the podium and introduce themselves to the class. Understood?"

"Understood!" the children shouted back in unison.

"Great, let's begin." Teacher Jiang stepped to one side of the podium, leaving the center open, picked up the roster, and called out, "Number one, Chen Wenjun."

A chubby little boy stood up from his seat, trotted up to the podium, and announced in a ringing voice, "Hello everyone, my name is Chen Wenjun. I'm seven years old, and I like playing soccer and watching cartoons..."

The teacher called names one by one, and child after child walked up to the podium for their self-introductions, until finally, it was Xiao Yao's turn.

"Hello everyone, my name is Xiao Yao." After saying just that single sentence on the podium, Xiao Yao turned around and prepared to step down and return to his seat.

"Hold on, Xiao Yao, is that really all? What about your special talents or hobbies? The other students all mentioned theirs," Teacher Jiang called out, stopping him.

Xiao Yao hesitated for a moment before saying, "I can play the piano and I've practiced martial arts."

"Whoa!" A wave of excited gasps rippled through the classroom. So far, he was the only student in the class to claim knowledge of martial arts.

"No wonder I thought the little guy looked quite sturdy—turns out he's trained in martial arts. And he plays the piano too! He's got an artistic flair, truly well-rounded in both the literary and martial arts," Cheng Yaojia's mother, who was listening from outside the classroom with the other parents, said with a delighted pinch to her husband's arm.

"Cut it out, why are you so jumpy? It's not your son, what does how great he is have to do with you?" Cheng Yaojia's father rubbed his pinched arm with a look of grievance.

"That little guy is Yaoyao's seatmate! Didn't you say 'near jade one grows warm, near ink one grows black'? I'm just happy Yaoyao has such a good seatmate, what's wrong with that?" Cheng Yaojia's mother retorted.

"He's her seatmate, not your son-in-law. Do you have to be this excited?" Cheng Yaojia's father rolled his eyes.

"What are you babbling about?" Cheng Yaojia's mother gave her husband a swat, causing him to have to rub his freshly massaged arm all over again.

By the time all thirty-six students had finished their self-introductions, it was a little past eleven o'clock. Teacher Jiang glanced at her watch and announced to everyone, "Now that you've all met your new classmates, it's time to say goodbye to your moms and dads." She then turned to the parents outside the window. "Parents can come in now to say goodbye to your children, and then please take your leave. It is now ten past eleven, so I'll give you twenty minutes. At eleven-thirty, the life-skills teachers will come to lead the children in a line to the cafeteria for lunch, so please make sure all parents have left before eleven-thirty."