The bad news was that the study curriculum Shen Ying had missed back at Linbei No. 3 High School wasn’t originally too difficult for him to catch up on, but that portion wasn’t finished yet, and now, having suddenly transferred to Yinan No. 1 High School, the amount of subject knowledge he needed to catch up on had multiplied by more than two times.
The good news was that he had obtained a “cheat code” for his studies at Yinan No. 1 High School, Jiang Shi. This made his tutoring progress extremely efficient, a night and day difference compared to him blindly fumbling through self-study on his own.
Just as Shen Ying had previously deduced, Jiang Shi’s academic performance was stellar, and true to his outward impression, he was indeed an exemplary student in both character and academics.
However, after receiving academic help from Jiang Shi today, Shen Ying gained an even deeper appreciation for Jiang Shi’s competence.
On his very first day of classes at Yinan No. 1 High School, Shen Ying absorbed whatever he could understand, but naturally, there were many points he couldn’t quite grasp. Every time he struggled, Jiang Shi would accurately catch it, assign him a separate mini-tutorial task, and tell him to tune out the ongoing lecture for a moment. Then, right after class, it would take just a short amount of time for Jiang Shi to make those systematically unfamiliar concepts crystal clear.
The teaching was razor sharp. Midway through, Jiang Shi even quietly switched his explanation style to make it more efficient for Shen Ying and easier for him to truly internalize and connect the dots.
To put it without the slightest exaggeration, Shen Ying genuinely felt that Jiang Shi was a genius. He realized that Jiang Shi’s initial teaching style matched Jiang Shi’s own problem solving mindset, and the mid-stream switch happened because Jiang Shi noticed how hard Shen Ying was struggling to follow.
At the very beginning, he really had to muster 120% of his concentration just to keep up with Jiang Shi’s train of thought.
Was this the gap between a regular public high school and a top-tier key high school? Shen Ying, having spent the day swimming in an ocean of knowledge, finally had this question pop into his head.
With Jiang Shi helping him study, things were undoubtedly convenient and efficient, but at the same time, it brought him a fair amount of pressure.
Tonight was Shen Ying’s first evening self-study session at Yinan No. 1 High School. Halfway through his exercises, Jiang Shi told him to take a break, so he tossed his practice sheet aside and began reciting his textbook passages silently.
Glancing to his right, Jiang Shi was working on a math competition test paper.
As he recited, Shen Ying’s eyes, which had been obsessively glued to exercises and textbooks all day, finally caught a moment of rest. Taking advantage of the gap, he couldn’t help but observe the other students in the classroom.
The first day of his transfer was almost over, yet Shen Ying still hadn’t memorized many of his classmates’ faces. Right now, the ones who left the deepest impression on him were the two desks indirectly “monitored” by himself and Jiang Shi.
The guy to their front left was named Tao Ruiyu, and the one to their front-right was Zhao Lingfan, the classmate who had helped him move his desk that morning. Because the four of them sat close together, even without intentionally paying attention, Shen Ying had learned that these two were quite close buddies.
There was also another classmate who helped him move his chair in the morning, named Huang something? Scanning the backs of his classmates now, he couldn’t quite match the face to the person, only remembering that the name had two characters.
During the evening self-study in Class 3, the students’ states were split into several factions, those who looked like studyholics eagerly previewing new knowledge, those frantically rushing through homework, those staring blankly at textbooks in a daze or fighting off sleep, and…
Playing with a cell phone?
Shen Ying blinked hard, thinking his brain was fried from tutoring. When he looked closer again, he confirmed that it really was a phone, and the one playing with it was none other than Zhao Lingfan.
Zhao Lingfan was currently hunched over, the phone resting right on the edge of his desk’s cubby, his fingers leisurely swiping across the screen. Aside from his hunched back and waist, his overall vibe was extraordinarily relaxed.
Didn’t the head teacher say cell phones weren’t allowed and would be confiscated? How was this classmate so bold? Wasn’t he afraid of getting it taken away?
Instead of making a fuss, Shen Ying grabbed a blank page in his notebook and started writing.
When he finished writing and gently slid the notebook over to the edge of Jiang Shi’s desk, he noticed that although Jiang Shi was still holding his pen, he had stopped working on the competition paper.
Shen Ying raised his eyes and instantly locked gazes with Jiang Shi.
After a few seconds of silent eye contact, seeing that Jiang Shi had no particular reaction, Shen Ying pointed to the words he had written, signaling Jiang Shi to read them.
With a calm expression, Jiang Shi lowered his gaze to look at the notebook:
{Are phones allowed in our class? Aren’t you afraid of confiscation?}
Jiang Shi’s grip on the pen shifted, and he wrote his reply right underneath.
{Allowed, no,}
Here, Jiang Shi’s pen tip paused. He glanced up toward Zhao Lingfan’s direction, then looked back down to keep writing before pushing the notebook back to Shen Ying.
{Allowed. Even if they get confiscated, they’ll just keep buying new ones.}
Shen Ying: ?
Keep buying new ones?
Fine. It turned out he was the ignorant one. He had never imagined such a simple, brutal solution, nor did he dare to.
Actually, Linbei No. 3 High School confiscated phones if caught too, but they weren’t particularly strict about it. As long as you weren’t foolish enough to play with it right in front of a teacher or openly during class, confiscations usually only happened during surprise mass inspections to make examples out of a few unlucky students.
Today, Shen Ying had managed to stop himself several times from pulling out his phone in the classroom. But remembering he was now at Yinan No. 1 High School and keeping the head teacher’s special warning in mind, he always waited until break time to sneak off to a toilet stall and send messages to his grandfather.
{You have a phone on you?}
Jiang Shi wrote down this sentence.
{I’m used to bringing my phone to school. Besides, my grandpa is in the hospital right now, and I’m at school all day, so I have to stay in touch with him. I told the head teacher this morning, and she made an exception for me to bring it for a month.}
Jiang Shi stared at this long string of handwritten text for a long time. The pen in his hand didn’t move at all, and eventually, he just closed the notebook, as if acknowledging he understood.
“Every time you went to the bathroom for so long today, was it because you were worried about your grandpa?” Just when Shen Ying thought Jiang Shi was going to return to his test paper, Jiang Shi spoke up softly.
In a classroom that had previously been quiet with only the faint rustling of turning pages, this sudden soft murmur caused several students in front to shift their postures simultaneously, as if trying to figure out who had just spoken and attempting to take the lead in breaking the boring evening study session.
Not wanting to disturb others’ self-study, Shen Ying shifted his body closer to Jiang Shi and lowered his voice. “Yeah, you know how old folks are. Hearing I transferred to a new school, he always has a bunch of questions. If I don’t answer them properly, he worries.”
“Hmm.” Jiang Shi lowered his gaze to look at him, his tone still very flat.
“How about…” Shen Ying looked at Jiang Shi, pondering for a moment before a flash of inspiration hit him. “You hold onto my phone for me? And I’ll ask you for it whenever I need it?”
As soon as those words fell, Jiang Shi’s eyes noticeably shifted.
“Hold onto it for you?” His tone lost its previous coolness, seeming to carry a hint of eagerness instead.
Failing to notice these subtle emotions, Shen Ying earnestly asked him. “Is that okay? The main thing is that my hands just lack self-control, I keep wanting to pull out my phone in class, a bad habit left over from being too slack at my old school. But don’t worry, if it gets confiscated while you’re holding it, I’ll tell them it’s mine, and besides, I’ve already reported it to the head teacher.”
“You’re really willing to give me your phone to hold?” Jiang Shi confirmed with him again.
“Aren’t you willing to help me hold it?”
“Yes.”
“There will be a driver picking us up at the school gate. Are you going to the hospital?”
As soon as the evening self-study ended, the whole class rushed out of their cage like wild horses breaking free of their reins. Jiang Shi and Shen Ying were two leisurely horses trailing behind. Walking side by side out of the classroom, Jiang Shi asked him.
“I wouldn’t dare go to the hospital.” Shen Ying gave Jiang Shi a helpless smile first, then pointed to the injury on his left cheek to explain. “I can’t handle it, so I already told my grandpa on WeChat today that I have to catch up on a lot of knowledge this week and won’t be able to visit the hospital until a couple of days later. But you know how he is, hearing that, he made me promise repeatedly that I’d only go over the weekend if I have free time.”
“Then you’ll be home alone these next few days?” Jiang Shi asked as they walked down the stairs.
“Yeah. But it was like that before too, my grandpa has to work, and after school I’m either home alone or at Peng Sheng’s place… Oh, Peng Sheng is my childhood friend who lives right next door to me. You’ve seen him too, at the internet café? Remember? The guy who was gaming with me.”
“Don’t remember.”
Shen Ying, whose enthusiasm in introducing his childhood friend had just been choked by those three words, felt especially stifled, especially since Jiang Shi’s tone during the reply felt exceptionally cold, as if he really didn’t want to hear about this.
Noticing Shen Ying fell silent, Jiang Shi looked at him, his tone quickly softening. “Sorry, my memory is bad, I didn’t manage to remember your friend.”
With those words, Shen Ying, who had felt as though he was splashed with cold water, instantly warmed back up, even feeling a little guilty.
“Don’t apologize! Sometimes that childhood friend of mine is pretty annoying, so it’s totally normal you don’t remember him,” Shen Ying rushed to say. “You don’t need to say sorry to me.”
After hearing this, Jiang Shi only asked. “Shen Ying, are you willing to live with me?”
Shen Ying paused mid-step on the stairs. “Live with you?”
That childhood friend of his could be annoying sometimes, but his prophetic ability was truly one of a kind.
Jiang Shi stared at him, his voice very soft. “Can you? Actually, I live alone too.”
At this, he silently lowered his eyelashes, as if he had mustered all his courage just to say those words.
“Why? Where are your parents?” Shen Ying carefully weighed his tone before speaking slowly.
“My dad is busy with work, so I live alone near this school.”
Shen Ying: ?
What is going on? Do I have prophetic powers too?
Could loneliness really be the trouble of the wealthy? Television dramas actually didn’t exaggerate it as much as he thought.
Receiving no response from Shen Ying for a long time, Jiang Shi added. “Are you unwilling? It’s fine, just pretend I didn’t…”
“No, how could that be? Of course I’m willing!” Adjusting his thoughts, Shen Ying immediately smiled at Jiang Shi to give him an affirmative answer. “Since you live near the school, does that mean I won’t have to worry about spending too much time commuting to and from school anymore? Saving that time means I can study a bit more and catch up with you guys sooner.”
“Yeah.” Jiang Shi stared at the smile on his face in a daze for a moment. When he finally snapped out of it, he seemed to smile back, but it vanished in a flash, too fleeting to catch.
The two soon arrived at the school gate, where the driver was already waiting ahead of time, the car parked not far away.
“I thought Brother Lin would be the one picking us up.” From afar, Shen Ying noticed that the person in the driver’s seat wasn’t Brother Lin, but a middle aged uncle.
“You were hoping Brother Lin would pick us up?” Jiang Shi asked.
“No, I just assumed the person coming would be Brother Lin,” Shen Ying said.
“Brother Lin is mainly working by my dad’s side right now.”
Hearing this, Shen Ying nodded with a half-understanding look, asking no further questions and having no intention of prying.
Actually, he had also noticed just now that Jiang Shi only mentioned his father being too busy with work and didn’t utter a single word about his mother.
“You go with Uncle Zhang to my house first, Uncle Zhang will take you upstairs. Everything in the house is mine, feel free to use whatever you want,” Jiang Shi opened the back door of the car and said to Shen Ying. “I have some things to take care of, I’ll be right back.”
Across the street from the back alley of Linbei No. 3 High School, the surrounding houses were all painted with characters signaling upcoming demolition. The residents had long since migrated elsewhere, and over the past two years, apart from students from No. 3 High School wandering over out of sheer boredom, the area was practically desolate.
The streetlights along the curb were old and dilapidated, their warm yellow glow flickering black every few seconds, almost like foreshadowing the curtain call for these old, rundown houses.
Suddenly, continuous painful wails and fierce cursing broke out from a certain narrow alley, accompanied by the distinct sounds of kicking and punching upon closer inspection.
“That’s enough.”
A completely unfamiliar voice reached the ears of Zhuang Kangbo, who was battered and enduring agonizing pain all over. At that moment, with his head covered in a burlap sack, he desperately wanted to rip the sack off and beat up the group of people who had hit him. But his limbs lacked any strength, and having never suffered such humiliation since childhood, his mouth poured out a torrent of curses, virtually every dirty word in existence poured out from his mouth at that moment.
“Fuck! Who the hell are you guys! Do you even know who I am? Daring to hit me… You’ve got a death wish!” As Zhuang Kangbo miserably propped himself up, “Ugh, ah, fuck,”
Just as he propped himself up, cursing and reaching to uncover the sack, someone kicked him heavily in the back. He wailed and collapsed once more, groaning in agony.
“Take the sack off his head.” That voice spoke again.
Pinned face down in humiliation, Zhuang Kangbo had the sack removed. Faint rays of light filtered through as the warm yellow streetlamp illuminated his face, covered in a mix of old and new injuries so severe his original features were barely recognizable, bruised and swollen black and blue.
Regaining his wits, Zhuang Kangbo tried to muster some strength to sit up and see who was responsible. But just as he slowly lifted his head, something pressed down heavily against his left cheek, and with a bit of pressure applied, his head was forced back down tightly against the ground.
Realizing what was pressing on his face, Zhuang Kangbo struggled furiously, but his limbs were quickly pinned down by others. He cursed wildly, “Fuck your＊＊, you＊＊ are stepping on my face! I won’t let you off! Who the＊＊ are you?! You’d better hope I don’t find out! You’re＊＊＊ looking to die!”
“You don’t know who I am?” It was still that same voice, carrying a bit more amusement now than before, but sounding like a demon straight out of hell. “Then let me tell you. I can be anyone you’ve ever bullied. Do you know who I am now?”
“You＊＊＊, fuck＊＊＊!”
“Zhuang Kangbo, you’d better tuck your tail between your legs and live quietly from now on.” The speaker’s tone remained very light, while his foot continued to press down with mounting pressure. “Otherwise, you won’t have it nearly as easy as you do right now.”
“Who the＊＊ are you, really?!”
“No. 127, East Xinhe Road, Linbei District, Hengzhuang Industrial Manufacturing Plant. That belongs to your family, right? You can try refusing to tuck your tail and see what the consequences will be.”