Chapter 3: Fighting Back in the Classroom
After two weeks of rest at home, Lin Mingyang's parents thought that he had almost "recovered", and he himself proposed the idea of returning to school to continue his classes. After going to the hospital for another confirmation examination, Lin Mingyang finally returned to school.
High school life was not as difficult as Lin Mingyang had imagined, and with the memories left by Felix, he quickly became familiar with the classmates and teachers around him. Of course, it will take a long time for him to get used to it.
"Confucius was born in 551 BC into an ancient and prestigious family. This dwarfs us Westerners! Are we really that young? My homeland did not exist 500 years before the birth of Jesus. Nebuchadnezzar (king of Babylon) had just disappeared from the Babylonian coastline, the first temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed only a few years earlier, Solon had just died, and the city of Athens had to wait a century for the Parthenon to be built. As for Rome, it was a small rural town at that time, fighting to the death against its rivals, the Idarians, and it was more than 400 years later that it became the center of the empire. In this class, Mr. Matthew, a social history teacher, taught them a lesson about Chinese culture.
There were more than 30 students sitting in the small classroom, although Mr. Matthew's teaching style on the podium was very different from that of many history teachers that Lin Mingyang had come into contact with in China before, but the students below still looked listless, except that they knew that the sneakers under their feet and many cheap goods in the store were made in China, and ordinary American high school students were not interested in how glorious the history of that country on the other side of the ocean was.
Just when everyone was drowsy, a discordant voice suddenly came out, "Mr. Matthew, I don't think your use of the word 'we' seems accurate enough, you seem to have forgotten that there is a guy with half Chinese blood sitting in our classroom. I think he can tell us something about China more intuitively! ”
This sudden interruption of the rhythm of the class was like a stimulant shot in the dreary classroom, and many of the heads lying on the desks were raised, and everyone's eyes were focused on the corner by the window on the left side of the classroom.
There, Lin Mingyang was boredly supporting his head with one hand, and leaving some scribbled handwriting on the notebook with the other. The other party's question made him frown slightly, because he recognized the white boy who asked the question as Jerry, who was a nasty guy in Felix's biography.
Jerry was doing well in all aspects of his class, and his father was also the director of Moss High School, perhaps more for the latter reason, although he was a little unhappy with Jerry's sudden interruption of his class, Matthew did not show this emotion. American education has always encouraged students to ask questions freely in class, and Jerry's approach is not excessive, the key is that he has a good timing of this question.
"Felix, can you tell us a little bit about China that you know?" Matthew was well aware of the conflict between Jerry and Lin Mingyang, so he handed over the initiative to the only Chinese-American mixed-race boy with thick black hair in the corner of the classroom.
In the eyes of many teachers, Lin Mingyang is a very special student, his mother is a Jewish descendant, and his father is a real Chinese. Because he is of mixed Chinese and Western descent, this guy was born with a handsome face comparable to that of Hollywood star Keanu Reeves.
At the beginning, Lin Mingyang would also do the kind of stupid thing of self-absorption in the mirror, because the outstanding appearance of this body is indeed enough to be proud. People around him always like to compare him with the big star of Hollywood, and in this seemingly obvious disparity of strength, the unknown Felix unexpectedly overwhelmed Hollywood's popular idols.
There are some discrepancies between the reality and what Lin Mingyang learned in the narrative, and he finally attributed this difference to the weakness of the original Felix surname. Generally, people with delicate and rich inner emotions are not very good at expressing themselves, and the original Felix lacks an adequate understanding of his own ability because of his introverted surname. It is also because of his surname that a small group of guys in the class, represented by Jerry, will often trouble him.
"Hey, Felix, I heard that your Chinese dragons have snake-like bodies and can fly in the sky without wings?" One of Jerry's accomplices answered at this time, causing a small laugh in the classroom.
If it was Felix before, this matter would have passed, but now that the body has been replaced by Lin Mingyang, the situation is a little different, in the smug expressions of Jerry and his gang, the timid and fearful Felix actually stood up.
In front of everyone's eyes, Lin Mingyang pointed at Jerry without scruples, and said proudly in an almost challenging tone: "Since your curiosity is so urgent, it will make me feel a little uncomfortable if you don't satisfy it, but I hope you have enough ability to resist blows, otherwise you will be ashamed of your ignorance!" ”
"Are you challenging us, coward?" The man who spoke was a boy with a cuff rolled up next to Jerry, strong muscles on his forearm and a tattoo that had no aesthetic appeal, his name was Johnson, and he was used to playing the role of a thug in Jerry's gang, and at this time he was even more unscrupulous and threatening.
"Challenge?" Lin Mingyang seemed to hear a very funny word, "You said I challenged you?" ”
"Yes!" Johnson found that his vicious gaze had actually failed at Lin Mingyang, a situation he had never encountered before.
"And what am I challenging you?" Lin Mingyang snorted contemptuously, "What qualifications do you have that are worthy of my challenge?" Is it to challenge Mr. Caton Jerry to his academic performance, which has no advantage in front of me, or to challenge your muscles to Mr. Ben Johnson? ”
"Of course, I can't do what you do to bully the weak, and if you follow the Firefoxes, you should know that there was a guy on the court who was much stronger than you and I broke his ribs! It was an accident on the pitch, of course, but I can't guarantee that it won't happen off the pitch! ”
Lin Mingyang is not boasting, he has to admit that Jerry is a very good student in the class, but his excellence is a little weak in front of Felix. Probably inheriting the characteristics of the two excellent bloodlines of Chinese and Jewish, Felix's academic performance is as commendable as his handsome appearance. In many academic competitions in school, as long as Felix participates, Jerry can only win second place, which makes Jerry very depressed, which is why he always tries to trouble Felix.
As for physical fitness, I don't know what kind of training Felix received when he was a child, but anyway, his well-proportioned but not particularly strong body contains amazing strength. Being able to play the main position in the school basketball team, Felix's body is not weak, and even in Lin Mingyang's opinion, as long as a person like him does not bully others in school, it is already a blessing, and there are still people bullying him, the previous surname of the owner of this body really makes Lin Mingyang speechless.
Johnson wanted to break out, his clenched fists showed his anger now, but Lin Mingyang's words made him not without concern, Felix's weak surname has always made Johnson instinctively ignore that the other party is a strong guard on the basketball court, Moss Middle School Firefox's game results are average, but the fight is famous in the league, and the characters who come out of it are ruthless!
"Okay, this is the classroom, not the Colosseum of Ancient Rome, so Felix and Johnson, you two should be careful with your tone and words!" Mr. Matthew stepped in in time to stop this impending class conflict, and he found that since the unexpected elevator accident, Lin Mingyang's surname has changed dramatically, is it really because of overstimulation?
Mr. Matthew, who still has palpitations when he thinks of the accident, must be emotionally biased towards Lin Mingyang, who usually has outstanding grades, "Felix, in the movie "The Shawshank Redemption", there is a very famous line, 'Beautiful birds know how to cherish their feathers', this sentence I will give you now, I hope you can understand the meaning!" Now begin your remarks! ”
This secret beating from Matthew made Lin Mingyang have a great restraint in the following speech, "The United States is very strong today, but let's not forget that the young United States of America is only more than 200 years old. In the face of China's long history, the United States is just a newborn baby. While the ancestors of Westerners were just barbarians living in mud huts and painting their faces blue, the Chinese had learned to eat with beautiful porcelain plates, decorate the walls of their houses with elaborate paintings, and the art of painting was unsurpassed by any modern artist. ”
"China, an ancient country famous for producing silk and porcelain in history, once established a vast empire that spanned the Eurasian continent and included today's China, Central Asia, Russia and most of Western Europe, so when you admire the majesty of Alexander and Napoleon, please do not forget that the Chinese once trampled most of the world under their feet!"
"From the perspective of civilization evolution, when Westerners were still writing on tree trunks, stones and sheepskins, the Chinese had already invented the earliest paper; Genghis Khan's Mongol army swept across Eurasia with fire yao, invented by the Chinese; The Chinese invented the earliest movable type typography and printing, and this technology spread to all parts of the world, promoting the spread of civilization; The compass allowed China's ocean-going fleet to travel between the Indian and Pacific Oceans before Spain and Portugal, and if it weren't for the Chinese emperor closing his ports, perhaps the United States, Australia, and even South America would have used Chinese today. ”
"And now China, after a period of historical decline began to rise again, this country's population is six times that of the United States, the economic growth rate has remained above double digits every year, although China's total economic volume is less than half of the United States, but at this rate of development, in the foreseeable future, the United States will inevitably be replaced as the world's largest economic power!"
"I believe that all of you here will become the backbone of American society in the future, on the one hand, the rise of China will inevitably pose a big challenge to the United States, but now the United States is facing a challenge not only from China, the European Union has begun to use a unified currency, and its regional economic aggregate has surpassed the United States, even without China, the future pressure on the United States is not easy."
"On the other hand, China's development has indeed brought huge benefits to the United States, from the national level, China has a vast market that American companies need in the future, and for individuals, cheap and high-quality Chinese products have brought more benefits to everyone's life, these obvious facts tell us that this is a country that deserves everyone's serious consideration!"
This speech is sprinkled from history to economy, and the surrounding classmates are looking at his calm performance with an unreal look, in everyone's previous memory, it seems that Lin Mingyang on the basketball court will have such a edge, and his performance today is greatly beyond people's expectations.
After the speech, Mr. Matthew on the podium was the first to applaud, except for Jerry's group, everyone applauded enthusiastically, even warmly. It's been a long time since I've seen Johnson being reprimanded so happily, but he still dares to be angry and doesn't dare to speak, and he can only swallow it in his stomach if he knocks out his front teeth.
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