Pu Yu clenched her fist, suppressing the inexplicable fluster in her heart, and kept her head lowered.
Under the gaze of the entire class, she walked step by step toward that corner.
She bypassed the boy’s seat, quietly pulled out the chair, and sat down.
Just as she had stuffed her new textbooks and uniform into the desk drawer, a girl with a ponytail and round eyes sitting in the front row turned around and greeted her with a smile:
“Hi, new classmate! I’m Xu Suiran. Welcome!”
Pu Yu was slightly taken aback but soon returned a faint smile, replying softly, “Hello, I’m Pu Yu.”
The classroom fell silent for a moment before hushed whispers rose again.
“…The new girl actually sat next to him.”
“She seems quiet, probably wouldn’t dare to bother him.”
“Tsk, what bad luck. But keeping her distance is the right move. Who knows if those people his dad offended might come looking…”
Just then, the chair legs beside her scraped lightly against the floor.
Yuan Su seemed utterly indifferent to who his deskmate was. With his head slightly lowered, he walked straight out through the back door, leaving only a slender, solitary figure behind.
Pu Yu looked at Yuan Su’s empty seat in surprise.
Just like that… he left?
Xu Suiran clearly heard it too. She turned back, leaned closer to Pu Yu, and said with a hint of regret, “That… Yuan Su is just like that, always keeping to himself. We change seats at the beginning of every month, so don’t take it personally, okay?”
Pu Yu looked up, puzzled, and asked softly, “Why would I take it personally?”
Xu Suiran was about to say something when the class bell rang, forcing her to quickly turn back around.
Pu Yu also gathered her thoughts and focused on the lesson.
The teaching style of the teachers in this town was noticeably different from that of the city’s top high school.
The city teachers emphasized expanding thinking and drawing inferences, while the teachers here focused more on repeatedly explaining and reinforcing foundational knowledge.
Pu Yu had a solid foundation, so keeping up wasn’t too difficult.
The only challenge was the physics teacher’s heavy local accent, which made it hard for her to understand. She could only rely on the blackboard to take notes.
The seat beside her remained empty the entire morning.
As soon as the lunch bell rang, Xu Suiran immediately turned around energetically. “Come on, Xiao Yu, I’ll take you to the cafeteria! I’ll show you around the school too!”
“Okay, thank you,” Pu Yu replied gratefully.
After gathering her things, she followed Xu Suiran with the crowd toward the cafeteria.
When they reached the card service center on the first floor, they found the window closed with a notice posted: “Internal inventory today. Services suspended until 2 p.m.”
“Ah, what bad timing,” Xu Suiran scratched her head. “Can’t top up the card.”
Pu Yu felt the pocket money in her pocket, wondering if the cafeteria accepted cash.
Xu Suiran immediately noticed her concern and enthusiastically linked arms with her. “Don’t worry, I’ll treat you today! Consider it a welcome meal!”
“No need, Sui Sui, I…” Pu Yu instinctively tried to decline.
“Oh, don’t be polite,” Xu Suiran insisted, pulling her toward the cafeteria window. “It’s just one meal, not a big deal. Look, the line’s almost reaching the door. If we don’t hurry, all the good food will be gone!”
Seeing the girl’s warm and sincere expression, Pu Yu felt too embarrassed to refuse again.
“Thank you, Sui Sui. Once I get change, I’ll definitely pay you back!”
“Alright, alright, we’ll talk about it later!” Xu Suiran waved her hand dismissively, her attention already fixed on the dishes at each window. “They have sweet and sour pork ribs today! My favorite, do you want to try some? Our school’s braised pork is also pretty good…”
The two lined up to get their food. Xu Suiran ordered sweet and sour pork ribs and scrambled eggs with tomatoes.
Pu Yu, on the other hand, only got a plate of stir-fried bean sprouts and rice—the cheapest option.
“You’re eating so little? You’re still growing, you know,” Xu Suiran said, looking at her tray.
“I had a late breakfast, so I’m not very hungry.”
Pu Yu made an excuse and lowered her head to take a bite of rice.
Xu Suiran didn’t think much of it and began chattering away as she ate, introducing Pu Yu to the school.
“Our class atmosphere is actually pretty good overall, though there are a few boys who are a bit mischievous. We have Teacher Cheng’s Chinese class this afternoon—she’s really nice, the youngest homeroom teacher in our school. She came straight to Town Middle School after graduating, so you can go to her with any problems.”
“As for the math teacher, he’s very patient when explaining problems, but he absolutely loves dragging out class…”
“The physics teacher has the shortest temper. Sometimes he gets angry while teaching, but he really likes your deskmate—it’s a love-hate kind of thing…”
Pu Yu listened attentively to Xu Suiran’s introductions while taking small bites of her bean sprouts.
When she heard that the physics teacher had a love-hate relationship with her deskmate,
her hand holding the chopsticks paused slightly.
The image of that slender, solitary figure flashed before her eyes.
“Yuan Su?”
“Yeah!”
Pu Yu couldn’t help but ask softly, “Is he a good student?”
Xu Suiran nodded vigorously, leaning forward unconsciously and lowering her voice. “More than just good! If you’d come two years earlier, you would’ve seen him at his peak—absolutely unbeatable!”
“His dad used to own the biggest appliance store in town, and their family was really well-off. Yuan Su is handsome, and his grades are beyond reproach—he always ranked first in the grade, especially in math and physics. He even got perfect scores, can you believe it? He was on the county’s honor roll multiple times.”
“The teachers all said he was a promising candidate for top universities. Back then, so many girls liked him. During breaks, they’d deliberately take detours just to peek at him through the window. His desk drawer was stuffed with gifts and love letters, and the bolder ones even waited for him outside his house.”
Pu Yu looked up, finding it hard to connect the radiant young man Xu Suiran described with the gloomy, weary figure she had seen that morning.
“What happened after that?”
“After that?” Xu Suiran sighed. “His dad got into gambling—no one knows who led him astray. Their family fortune was completely wiped out just like that, and they ended up with a mountain of debt. In the end, his dad just disappeared without a trace.”
“From then on, Yuan Su became a different person.”
“He often skips class, and when he does come, he just sleeps through it. Naturally, his grades plummeted. All the teachers have talked to him multiple times, but it’s no use.”
“All the friends and girls who used to surround him have distanced themselves because of their parents’ warnings, saying he’s the son of a gambler and that anyone who gets close to him will have bad luck.”
She gently poked the rice on her plate with her chopsticks, her tone tinged with regret:
“Anyway, everyone says he’s finished, what a shame…”
Pu Yu listened quietly. The inexplicable unease in her heart seemed to have found a reason, yet it also felt more complicated than before.
Xu Suiran noticed her lost in thought and thought she was frightened, quickly switching to a lighter tone: “Ah, let’s not talk about this anymore. Hurry up and eat, eat! After we finish, I’ll take you to the little shop. Their orange soda is really good!”
Pu Yu looked up and nodded with a smile: “Okay.”
The school’s little shop was packed with students who had just finished their meals.
Whether they bought anything or not didn’t matter—everyone was used to coming here with friends to browse, checking out if there was anything tasty, fun, or useful.
“This is the orange soda from this shop. In the summer, we can never get our hands on it,” Xu Suiran enthusiastically pointed at the shelf.
Seeing the sparkle in Xu Suiran’s eyes, Pu Yu felt uneasy about her treating her to the meal earlier, so she took the initiative to grab two bottles of soda and also picked up a small pack of rainbow hard candies that Xu Suiran had glanced at a couple of times.
“Sui Sui, this is for you. Thank you for treating me to the meal.”
Xu Suiran was taken aback for a moment, then broke into a smile and accepted it cheerfully: “Wow, thank you, Xiao Yu! Then I won’t stand on ceremony with you~”
When they reached the counter to pay, Pu Yu carefully pulled out a brand-new hundred-yuan bill from her pocket.
This was one of the two thousand yuan in living expenses she had insisted on getting when she left home.
On the bus, she hadn’t dared to use it, afraid of drawing unwanted attention, so she had spent all her small change before arriving here.
The shop owner was a stern-looking middle-aged man.
He took the bill and, holding it up to the light for just a glance, immediately frowned.
When he spoke again, his tone carried undisguised disgust, and his voice rose a few notches: “So young and already learning to cheat people with this kind of money?”