Wednesday, June 25.
It was the first day of final exams at Ningjiang Middle School.
Song Yunshen arrived at the classroom just in the nick of time, as always. After bantering with Xu Zhuoyue for a bit, he obediently settled down under the intense gaze of their homeroom teacher, Teacher Zhang.
Teacher Zhang was a stern-faced, middle-aged man of few words who also taught their class language and literature. Privately, everyone called him Old Bao. The nickname originated when Xu Zhuoyue photoshopped a crescent moon onto Teacher Zhang’s forehead—mimicking the legendary Justice Bao—and shared the meme in the class QQ group. From then on, the students dubbed him the "Justice Bao of Ningjiang," which eventually got shortened to Old Bao.
Old Bao talked plenty during class but rarely spoke outside of it. Instead, he had a habit of silently appearing behind students who were chatting, slacking off, secretly playing on their phones, or reading comics and novels. If someone was sneaking a read and suddenly felt the surrounding atmosphere turn inexplicably eerie and heavy, a quick turn of the head would guarantee Old Bao was there, staring. He wouldn’t say a word. He would just stand quietly behind the offending student, sometimes for an entire class period.
When he caught students breaking the rules, he never yelled. He would simply call them to his office and make them stand off to the side. After ten minutes or so, he would ask if they realized their mistake. As long as the student offered a sincere apology, Old Bao would let them go. However, the contraband—phones, novels, comics, and the like—had to stay behind, only to be reclaimed after school on the weekend. Because of this reasonable approach, while the class was certainly intimidated by Old Bao, nobody actually disliked him.
Once, someone accidentally sent Xu Zhuoyue’s photoshopped Justice Bao meme into the official class group chat, where all the teachers were present. Old Bao saw it, but he wasn’t angry. In fact, every time he posted a notice in the group chat after that, he attached the very same meme. This sense of humor earned him a high level of respect among the students. The moment he walked into the classroom, everyone instantly behaved, diligently diving into their language revisions.
Song Yunshen wasn’t worried about the language exam. After all, it wasn’t a subject where last-minute cramming could significantly boost one’s score. Besides, his grades in the subject weren’t terrible—he sat comfortably in the middle of the pack, usually hovering just over a hundred points.
Compared to math and English, which were also graded out of a hundred and fifty points, high scores in language were exceedingly rare. Anything above one hundred and forty was practically unheard of, and even breaking one hundred and twenty was considered an exceptional achievement. Therefore, Song Yunshen’s score of just over a hundred was actually quite decent. At the very least, it wasn’t as disastrous as his English grades.
According to Ningjiang Middle School’s exam schedule, Wednesday morning was dedicated to language, followed by history and politics in the afternoon. Song Yunshen’s grades in these three subjects were passable; he just needed to take them seriously.
Thursday morning was math, with physics and chemistry in the afternoon—a full day dedicated exclusively to the sciences. These subjects were Song Yunshen’s heavy hitters; if he bombed them, he’d be doomed. Math and physics, in particular, were his forte. While he couldn’t compare to the freaks in the competition classes, he consistently scored above one hundred and thirty in math and was a regular in the nineties for physics. It was solely thanks to these two subjects that Song Yunshen managed to maintain his rank in the top three hundred of the entire school, despite the heavy handicap of occasionally failing English.
As for English, it was scheduled for Friday morning, followed by geography and biology in the afternoon—two subjects that straddled the awkward line between arts and sciences. Finally, on Saturday morning, there was a technology exam.
The college entrance examination in Lanjiang Province operated on a scaled grading system where students selected three elective subjects out of seven. The three core subjects—language, math, and English—were mandatory, leaving physics, chemistry, biology, politics, history, geography, and technology as the seven electives. Students could freely choose any three of these seven to take in the national exam.
Ningjiang Middle School implemented class divisions in the second semester of the first year. Since Song Yunshen had immediately opted for pure sciences, he had remained in Class Five ever since. Xia Yunuo, on the other hand, had originally been a student in Class Sixteen. It was only because she had also chosen pure sciences that she was transferred to Class Five this semester.
"So boring. Should I play some more Gomoku?"
Xia Yunuo was in the middle of her diligent revisions, silently reciting classic texts and poetry, when Song Yunshen’s lazy thoughts suddenly echoed in her mind.
She thought, "Why is he always so lazy? Can’t he just focus on revising for a bit? Didn’t he play Gomoku all day yesterday? Exams are starting today, and he still wants to play?"
Perhaps Song Yunshen had gotten too emotionally invested in his matches, but Xia Yunuo had spent the entire previous day listening to his internal Gomoku commentary. Every single one of his devious strategies was laid bare in her mind, interspersed with his occasional mental sighs as he sneakily glanced at her side profile. It had completely derailed her own studying.
Her sister actually claimed to like him? Impossible. Anyone who could hear this guy’s thoughts would know exactly how immature he was on a daily basis. Xia Yunuo was absolutely certain she would never fall for someone like him.
However, precisely because she could hear his thoughts and knew his genuine opinion of her, Xia Yunuo found herself lacking her usual defenses around him. Otherwise, there was no way she would have ever agreed to let him treat her to a meal. After all, it wasn’t as if she hadn’t been confessed to by guys as handsome as Song Yunshen before. Even then, she had rejected them without a second thought.
She grumbled internally, "It’s all the fault of this bizarre telepathy! I wonder when this strange phenomenon will finally disappear. It can’t possibly last a lifetime, can it?"
"Why is he always so lazy?
"Didn’t he play Gomoku all day yesterday?"
Just as Xia Yunuo was lost in her thoughts, Song Yunshen, who had just called Xu Zhuoyue over and flipped open his scratchpad, suddenly heard her inner voice echoing in his mind.
He thought, "Hmm... I’m actually getting roasted."
Song Yunshen scratched his cheek and glanced in Xia Yunuo’s direction, amused that she was paying so much attention to him. Did she actually sneak peeks to see if he was studying during morning reading? Could she really be harboring a secret crush on him?
He mused, "Xia Yunuo, oh Xia Yunuo, you’d better pace yourself. Your sister is my future girlfriend! Nothing is ever going to happen between us!"
Unfortunately, Xia Yunuo couldn’t intercept this particular train of thought, or else she likely would have flown into a humiliated rage.
The first day of exams concluded smoothly.
During the evening self-study session, Song Yunshen battled it out with Xu Zhuoyue on the scratchpad for another three hundred rounds before heading home promptly at nine-thirty. Upon arriving, Song Yunshen habitually opened his drawer and pulled out the Future Diary to check for any new entries. However, the diary hadn’t updated for the past two days, and today was no exception.
Seeing this, Song Yunshen took a shower, got into bed on time, and opened TikTok on his phone to scroll for a while. Right before sleeping, he poured a glass of milk into his newly purchased couple’s mug and heated it up in the microwave. After happily savoring the warm milk, he glanced at the black couple’s mug resting on his nightstand. For some reason, the figure of Xia Keneng sprang to mind. Soon after, he drifted off to sleep.
Thursday morning, June 26.
Song Yunshen woke from a deep slumber. Staring at the unfamiliar ceiling above him and feeling a heavy, oppressive weight pressing down on his chest, he felt momentarily dazed.
He wondered, "I don’t have a cat, so why is my chest so heavy?"