Happy times always passed quickly.
Neither of them had noticed the time, and tutoring continued until 11:30.
“I need to head back. I still have class tomorrow.” Nan Xingwan tidied up. Because she had been in a hurry, she had come to No. 1 Middle School empty-handed, without her school bag.
“Okay, I’ll walk you.” Zhang Chen stood up and took 200 yuan from the bedside drawer.
“No need. You have to get up early tomorrow too. Get some sleep. I’ll… come tutor you again tomorrow.” Nan Xingwan said as she resumed the hair-tying operation she had meant to do two hours earlier.
With a hair tie in her mouth, she used both hands to gather her hair.
Seeing this, Zhang Chen stepped forward naturally and held her hair for her, smoothing it back.
Her hair was very silky. It looked and felt like strands of hand-spun silk thread, cool and very comfortable.
Nan Xingwan suddenly froze slightly, her earlobes turning red in the blink of an eye.
But seeing that Zhang Chen was indeed just holding her hair for her, she endured the burning heat and used the hair tie to put her hair up…
Then they walked to the door.
“You really don’t need to walk me. Go rest. You have to get up early tomorrow. You need to keep your energy up.” Seeing that Zhang Chen was still following her as she was about to leave, she said to him again.
Zhang Chen tilted his head and stayed silent: “…”
When she stuck one foot out to walk away, Zhang Chen immediately stuck one foot out too…
Nan Xingwan turned back and looked at Zhang Chen helplessly, frowning, her cheeks puffing up like a little balloon…
…
“Why do you have to walk me? If you have this much time, you’d be better off memorizing a few more vocabulary words.”
Watching Zhang Chen lock the door, Nan Xingwan said with reluctant complaint.
Although she said that, she was actually thrilled that Zhang Chen was willing to walk her.
Zhang Chen also knew she was just saying the opposite of what she meant, so he simply ignored her complaints.
He walked her out of the residential building, through an old alley, and finally onto a fairly lively main street.
Passing by a stall that was still selling oden noodles, he turned to ask Nan Xingwan, “Are you hungry? I’ll buy you a bowl of noodles.”
Nan Xingwan hadn’t been hungry, but hearing Zhang Chen offer to buy her food, she immediately nodded “honestly”: “Yes.”
“Boss, two bowls of noodles. One with scallions, egg, and sausage. The other one without scallions, everything else the same.”
Before long, the two were each holding a bowl of noodles, eating as they walked.
Nan Xingwan’s bowl was the one without scallions.
“Are there still buses at this hour?” Zhang Chen polished off the noodles in his hand in a few bites, even drinking all the hot soup down.
“The 209 passes through Tiancheng City University, so the shift change is at 12.” Nan Xingwan ate much more slowly, not just because she was a girl, but also because of the small detail of no scallions.
She hadn’t expected Zhang Chen to actually remember her habit of not liking scallions.
“Oh…” Zhang Chen understood. No wonder…
So it was to accommodate college students who liked to cut it close when getting back to their dorms at night, huh?
That was pretty thoughtful.
The two chatted on and off, and soon arrived at the bus stop not far ahead.
Because it was already very late, there was no one at the bus stop.
Even so, Nan Xingwan still urged Zhang Chen to go back, saying she could wait for the bus by herself.
Zhang Chen shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced sideways at Nan Xingwan. He still ignored her request and sat down directly on the bench next to the bus stop.
Using his actions to tell her: no.
He insisted on staying with her.
Nan Xingwan was helpless, but the corners of her mouth quietly curled up.
They waited until 11:50, when the last bus of the night finally arrived.
Only after watching Nan Xingwan board the bus with his own eyes did Zhang Chen wave and saunter back.
After getting on the bus, Nan Xingwan’s first order of business was to go to the very back seat and look through the rear window at the figure gradually moving away.
Truth be told, at this hour, she was of course afraid to walk alone at night as a girl.
Even just waiting for the bus alone at the stop felt a little lonely and scary.
She just liked to put on a brave face.
And today’s Zhang Chen seemed to see right through her stubbornness.
Very different…
…
The next day.
Arriving at the classroom with huge dark circles under his eyes, Zhang Chen saw the scene of each subject representative collecting homework before morning self-study.
It was just that these subject representatives would basically skip him as soon as they reached his seat.
They would not even symbolically ask about his homework.
No wonder he had just stopped doing it… the representatives didn’t even collect his!
But that was fine too. He hadn’t done any homework yesterday anyway.
After being tutored by Nan Xingwan all night on physics and math, he had reviewed more than half the units in the textbook.
After seeing Nan Xingwan off, he went home and properly organized his room and books. It also gave him a general sense of his current academic standing.
That is, he could score over 70 in Chinese, 30-something in math, 30 to 40 in English if he got lucky guessing, and all three of physics, chemistry, and biology combined came to about 100 points…
A true academic slacker…
The reason he tidied up his room was naturally that he didn’t want a girl to see such a messy side of him again.
Afterward, he took a shower and blow-dried his hair. By the time he was done, it was already 2 o’clock.
Then, getting up at 7 a.m., he had slept less than 5 hours in total!
No wonder high school students were the most likely to drop dead… sleeping so little and doing such exhausting work, it would be strange not to drop dead…
Zhang Chen lay face-down on his desk, planning to take a short nap amid the familiar noise of the classroom.
And at this moment, the classroom would suddenly go quiet.
Generally speaking, that meant the homeroom teacher had appeared.
Zhang Chen looked up and, sure enough, saw that Deng Xianbing had already set his tea cup on the podium, hands clasped behind his back, scanning the class with a grim, dead-serious expression.
Fortunately, he didn’t say that classic line about how their class was the loudest in the whole grade.
Deng Xianbing scanned the room. When he saw Zhang Chen, he paused slightly, not recognizing him at first glance.
Because Zhang Chen had gotten a haircut and dyed it back to black, his current appearance as a normal student felt somewhat unfamiliar.
After all, as the homeroom teacher, he had told Zhang Chen to cut that blond delinquent hair god-knows-how-many times, and Zhang Chen had never listened!
To think that after the wager agreement incident, he had actually gone and cut it?
And something else that surprised him… he had arrived so early today?
By common sense, Zhang Chen had always been like the other seasoned slackers in the class, arriving right on time.
He glanced back at the clock hanging above the blackboard, suspecting that he himself had come late rather than suspecting that Zhang Chen had actually come early.
But after seeing the clock indeed showing 7:25, he confirmed that Zhang Chen truly had not arrived right on the dot this time.
Was this kid really showing signs of turning over a new leaf?
But coming early and not reading a book… what was the point of coming early just to catch up on sleep?
Deng Xianbing pursed his lips. In the end, he still didn’t think Zhang Chen had changed much in any real way.
Soon, a few minutes later, the time reached 7:30.
The remaining few seasoned slackers in the class arrived right on the dot.
Almost simultaneously, they shouted “Reporting!” to Deng Xianbing at the classroom door…
Duan Chenxu was at the back door, mouth still stuffed with half a pickled vegetable bun, chewing away. Seeing Zhang Chen lying intact on his desk, he looked utterly shocked!
“Wait, what? Brother Chen actually came early?!”
“Wait, what’s with that head of black hair!? Brother Chen, where’s your blond delinquent hair?!”
“Wait, handsome, who are you? Give me back my Brother Chen!”
“How is it possible to eat breakfast and still not be late!”
“Don’t tell me… Brother Chen didn’t eat breakfast today?!”
The few people at the door exchanged looks, but Zhang Chen was lying face-down with his back to the rear door, completely ignoring their burning gazes.
Equally burning was the gaze of Su Yu, sitting in the front row.
She had arrived at the classroom and seen Zhang Chen at his seat, wondering why he had come so early today.
Not only had he re-dyed his hair, but he had also gotten a fresh, clean-cut style, making her almost fail to recognize him.
Then she checked what breakfast Zhang Chen had brought her today.
Because all along, Zhang Chen had always bought breakfast right on time, then placed it on her seat as he passed by.
Although she did not always accept it, her desk-mate and friends would usually ask her for it.
She would then, while refusing it and worrying about wasting food, give the breakfast to them to eat.
That way, she both turned Zhang Chen down and won back her reputation, and even saved face in front of her friends.
But today, she rifled through her drawer, looked over her desk, and even checked both desk-mates, confirming that Zhang Chen had not brought her breakfast!
What did he mean?
Was he giving up?
Or had the homeroom teacher or Bai Xiruo said something in the office yesterday?
Deng Xianbing gave the few of them an impatient glare and sighed. He had already scolded them countless times, and he was truly tired of these seasoned slackers.
So he said irritably, frowning, “Go stand at the back. Take your books and read standing up.”
After he finished speaking, the few of them did not care and simply walked into the classroom with smiles on their faces.
People who had been through school knew that standing alone might feel embarrassing or awkward, but a whole group was different. A whole group of good brothers was different.
A few people standing at the back of the classroom looked just like the gods returning to their thrones…
Duan Chenxu went to his seat and set down his school bag, not forgetting to poke Zhang Chen a couple of times, since he was still resting.
How dare he betray the group? He deserved punishment!
Zhang Chen was already sleepy to begin with, and he was just about to curse and hit him, but when he looked up, he saw that after the few of them had just entered the classroom, another figure appeared at the door… a figure that should not have been late.
Bai Xiruo’s face was red. She looked as if she had just run hard, and her voice was a little out of breath:
“R-Report.”