Even through the heavy door, the sounds from inside only faintly seeped out.
Yet Wen Qing's cheeks burned uncontrollably.
The sound of water masked most of the small noises.
Drowning her thoughts along with them.
She knew perfectly well that she should turn around and leave right now, but her feet seemed nailed to the spot.
Until her name traveled through the sound of water into her ears.
Zhou Shixu's voice usually carried a cold edge.
Even when calling her normally.
His tone was no different from when he spoke.
Flat, cold, uninteresting.
But this time was different.
Though there was still some noise through the door.
When those two words drifted from his lips.
She felt there was an endless tenderness in them that a thousand words couldn't exhaust.
Wen Qing practically fled downstairs in a flustered panic.
She sat on the sofa and slapped her cheeks who knows how many times.
But the flush only deepened with every movement.
The TV program played round after round.
Before Zhou Shixu even reached the first floor, the noise of the television rang loud in his ears.
It took no guessing at all—who else but Wen Qing could be watching TV in his home as if it were her own?
The image of the evening news broadcast reflected in his pupils.
The chief culprit was still patting her own cheeks nonstop.
As if she'd seen something unbelievable.
Before Wen Qing could lower her hands from her face, a plate of cut fruit appeared before her eyes.
Her gaze traveled up along his wrist.
Zhou Shixu's hair seemed to have grown quite a bit longer—no teacher at school had forced him to cut it.
Water droplets rolled down his strands.
Slowly sliding into the collar of his bathrobe.
Wen Qing's gaze darted away abruptly, and she even forgot to reach out and take the fruit plate being handed to her.
She just stared at the TV screen, letting the flush on her cheeks spread to her earlobes and neck.
The person in that photo who made her heart race appeared before her eyes.
Zhou Shixu only glanced once before hurriedly looking away.
But the red on her cheeks seemed to crash into his eyes.
It lingered in his mind, refusing to fade, and his eyes wanted to probe further—to verify the truth of her presence.
Between the two of them, only the sound of the news broadcast filled the air.
A suspicious silence permeated the room.
Yet a scorching heat assailed their cheeks.
Zhou Shixu set the fruit plate on the coffee table, and the clink of glass against glass drew Wen Qing's gaze back to his fingertips.
"Why did you come over?"
"You didn't reply to my messages. I thought you'd fainted at home."
While answering, Wen Qing pulled her phone out of her pajama pocket.
Seeing how heavily she was dressed, Zhou Shixu was about to tell her to take off her coat.
But his gaze drifted involuntarily to the thin nightgown underneath.
The photo kept replaying in his mind.
The words died on his lips.
The air conditioning hummed on.
But the scorching heat didn't fade with the falling temperature.
Wen Qing picked up a strawberry from the fruit plate and took a bite, speaking indistinctly:
"I brought dumplings over. Boil them yourself."
Zhou Shixu followed her gaze past the living room to the kitchen doorway.
"Did you make them?"
"Probably some of them. My mom picked out only the perfectly-shaped ones for you, so I'm guessing only one or two are actually mine."
As Wen Qing's voice fell, Zhou Shixu walked toward the kitchen doorway.
The house had no extra ingredients, and the kitchen counter was exceptionally clean.
The plastic container of dumplings was visible at a glance.
Its pink lid stood out against everything around it.
Zhou Shixu turned to look at Wen Qing, who was sitting on the sofa.
She had already switched away from the news program; the TV screen was now playing the melodramatic family drama she'd been into lately.
Waves of laughter drifted over from it.
She was hardly any less out of place here.
She had come in such a hurry that the dumplings she brought were enough for two.
After Zhou Shixu finished cooking them, he took a little flower-patterned bowl from the cabinet—something utterly out of place with everything around it.
He rinsed it, put some dumplings in, and set it down in front of Wen Qing.
She clearly hadn't expected the bowl to still be kept around; the moment she saw the dumplings, her eyes lit up.
After taking it, she even turned it around in her hands a couple of times, unable to put it down.
And in between bites of dumplings, she still found time to lecture Zhou Shixu:
"Next time, remember to tell the housekeeper—if she doesn't cook for you on time again, fire her."
"Mm."
"What do you mean 'mm'? Fine, I'll talk to her myself later. I need to act a bit fierce."
"Fierce?"
"Yeah, did you forget I'm really good at arguing?"
"I remember. But not fierce."
Wen Qing put down her bowl and chopsticks, frowned, and glared at him, pretending to be fierce.
Zhou Shixu obligingly glanced aside.
"Don't laugh."
"Who's laughing? Isn't that fierce enough?"
As if affected by Zhou Shixu's words, Wen Qing grabbed the phone on the table, intending to use the screen's reflection to see her own expression clearly.
But the moment she picked it up, the screen suddenly lit up.
The lock screen was the photo she had sent Zhou Shixu that morning.
Flustered, Wen Qing quickly pressed the screen dark, pretended she'd just been checking her reflection, and set the phone back where it was.
As if nothing had happened, she picked up her bowl and went back to eating dumplings.
During a pause, she glanced at Zhou Shixu.
His expression was no different from usual.
In fact, while he ate, his phone had lit up several times with notification sounds, the lock screen wallpaper appearing each time.
Yet he still acted as if it were only natural.
It left Wen Qing unsettled.
Seeing him so nonchalant made her quietly annoyed.
She resolved in her heart that next time she would set his photo as her wallpaper too, so he'd see it.
But things weren't as she imagined—someone who seemed calm had, in fact, long since lost his composure.
After eating, Wen Qing curled up in one corner of the sofa to watch TV. As for the many books she'd brought home for the holiday—forget reading them, she hadn't even opened her schoolbag.
Zhou Shixu didn't go back to the study either.
He sat in the other corner of the sofa, peeling an apple.
Ever since he was little, Zhou Shixu had always had many skills waiting to be discovered.
For instance, he could peel an apple in one single unbroken strip.
For instance, even at a very young age, he could live alone in a huge house without ever being afraid.
For instance, he always had his own unconventional way of handling everything.
For instance, he could solve every math problem.
No.
Not every math problem anymore.
The day before yesterday, he'd said there was one problem he'd racked his brains over but couldn't solve—the answer had to be skipped.
Wen Qing took the plate of sliced apples.
She was especially particular about apples.
They not only had to be peeled but cut into pieces as well.
She absolutely refused to eat any of the fibrous parts near the core.
Just as she put a piece of apple in her mouth, Zhou Shixu's voice came from beside her:
"What's going on with your English score?"
Wen Qing chewed, thought it over for a moment, then spoke:
"I got distracted during the exam. Whenever I take an English test, once I lose focus, I can't calm down enough to work through the reading questions. Basically, as soon as the exam's over, I know I'm done for."
"Distracted?"
"Mm."
The apple slices on the plate weren't finished yet, but Zhou Shixu cut another small pile and added them in.
Though his hands never stopped, a doubt lingered in his mind.
Whatever could occupy someone's thoughts even during an exam was surely very important.
But for Wen Qing,
He couldn't think of anything important enough to keep him worried even the day before an exam.
Even though he didn't want to recall it.
The scene from the night before the exam kept surfacing in Zhou Shixu's mind against his will.
Even if Wen Qing hadn't gone to pick up someone else's scarf.
Even if the two of them hadn't had much contact.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Hm?"
The moment she heard the question, Wen Qing set down the dish in her hands and turned slightly to look at Zhou Shixu.
He had always been very tactful, almost never asking too many questions, and never curious about extra matters.
"What could be worth thinking about instead of your exam?"
Wen Qing propped her cheek on her hand and sighed inwardly.
What else could it be? Fear that helping you bow to the Confucius statue would make your exam score drop.
And it really did drop.
"Worried about doing badly on the exam."
"Worried during the exam?"
"Yeah, is it not allowed to get stumped by the questions?"
As she spoke, Wen Qing burrowed a little deeper into the corner of the sofa.
Zhou Shixu rose and walked to the end of the sofa where Wen Qing sat, but walked straight past her.
He seemed to be heading upstairs.
Before he could leave the sofa area, Wen Qing gently tugged at the hem of his shirt: "I came all this way to find you—you can't possibly go back to the study to work on those math problems, can you?"
"I'll tutor you."
"Then I'll come to the study too."
The moment the words landed, Wen Qing had already swiftly switched off the TV.
She pushed herself up from the sofa.
Up on the second floor, Zhou Shixu took her in a different direction, to the bedroom door.
After entering the walk-in closet, Wen Qing assumed he was going to change clothes, so she stopped at the doorway and didn't go in.
But a set of black loungewear came out with Zhou Shixu, held out in front of Wen Qing.
"Why are you giving me this?"
"Aren't you cold?"
"I'm wearing thin pajamas underneath." As if to prove her point, Wen Qing reached for the buttons of her robe.
Zhou Shixu quickly turned his face away and stuffed the loungewear into Wen Qing's hands.
"You'll be cold."
The room was kept at a constant 25 degrees, and the nightgown Wen Qing wore was even thicker than the summer dresses she usually wore.
Though she didn't understand his intention, Wen Qing still went into the walk-in closet and changed into the loungewear.
It seemed to be a set he often wore—unbelievably soft to the touch.
The scent of mint began to invade Wen Qing's nose again.
Back in the study.
As soon as she sat down in the main seat of the study, Wen Qing started complaining.
She criticized how messily the test papers were arranged on his desk, and how his fountain pen had dropped on the floor and splattered ink everywhere.
Each time she said something, Zhou Shixu responded with an acknowledgment.
Before Wen Qing even finished talking, he had already selected problems from the practice sets and laid them out before her.
Following the earlier strategy: skip the last multiple-choice question, pick only one option on the last multiple-answer question, skip the last new-concept problem, and skip the second part of the conic sections problem.
Wen Qing could get almost all the other questions right.
But that was only 110 points in math.
She couldn't score any higher.
Zhou Shixu marked out a few more basic conic sections problems for her.
Wen Qing could roughly manage to set up a system of two equations.
On a 15-point problem, she could earn seven or eight points.
"Why don't you keep calculating?"
"I don't have enough time. By the time I finish setting up the two equations, I only have about ten minutes left, and I still have to go back and fill in the answer sheet and check the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions."
The mock exam paper was laid out in front of Wen Qing.
"Which question took the most time?"
"The probability problem. Mainly because I was afraid of calculating wrong, so I kept double-checking back and forth."
Facts proved that Zhou Shixu was absolutely, one hundred percent, a qualified tutor.
The only issue was that he sat too far away while explaining problems.
So far that his so-called student could barely hear his voice.
An entire afternoon was barely enough to sort out the problem-solving approach for one type of question.
The sun sank in the west.
Wen Qing stretched lazily, drowsy.
On the first day of the holiday yesterday, her phone had been far too entertaining, and she'd stayed up almost all night.
After being alert all day, the aftereffects of the all-nighter were now making themselves clearly known.
She could barely keep her eyes open.
Seeing how exhausted she was, Zhou Shixu paused the lesson.
Wen Qing practically collapsed onto the desk and fell asleep on the spot.
Without a doubt.
After an all-nighter, one can slip straight into deep sleep.
Zhou Shixu had intended to finish organizing the test papers and then send Wen Qing to her bedroom to rest.
But when he turned around.
She was already fast asleep, slumped over the desk.
Her even breathing sounded especially clear in the quiet study.
Almost in sync with his heartbeat.
The chair at the study's main desk had been custom-made for Zhou Shixu's height.
Wen Qing sat noticeably higher in it.
Sleeping slumped over like that looked particularly uncomfortable.
She shifted her position, turning her cheek to one side.
Normally so noisy and rambunctious, she was remarkably quiet in sleep.
So quiet that one couldn't help but soften their movements, afraid of disturbing her sweet dreams.
Following the overly bright light of the desk lamp, one could see her lashes casting a small shadow beneath her eyes.
When she was little, Wen Qing used to complain to Zhou Shixu about it.
She said her lashes grew inward and always poked her eyes, making her want to rub them every moment of the day.
Zhou Shixu had even denied this to her many times.
Her lashes were simply rather long, and when her upper and lower lashes touched, they brushed against her eyeballs, which was why they felt uncomfortable.
As a child, Zhou Shixu had even trimmed Wen Qing's eyelashes for her.
Later, when the two of them grew distant, Zhou Shixu didn't know whether she still kept up the habit.
Now, the lamplight gathered into a patch of shadow beneath her eyes.
Presumably, she hadn't done it since.
Perhaps because the chair's height was simply too uncomfortable.
Wen Qing rolled over again.
A few strands of her hair brushed lightly across Zhou Shixu's cheek.
Though it was almost imperceptible, it still sent a flutter through him.
"Wen Qing?" His voice was too soft; she barely responded.
Zhou Shixu raised his voice a little and called her again.
"Mm?" She rolled toward Zhou Shixu's side, then closed her eyes again.
"Go sleep in the bedroom."
"Mm."
No sooner had she agreed than she closed her eyes and drifted off again.
Watching her, Zhou Shixu let out a soft sigh.
Honestly.
There was nothing to be done with her.
·
The moment she opened her eyes, they ached terribly. Wen Qing squinted and vaguely made out that she was in Zhou Shixu's bedroom.
She had clearly been in the study before—she had no idea how Zhou Shixu had hauled her back to the bedroom.
She ran her fingertips over the bed, feeling around, but couldn't find her phone anywhere.
Zhou Shixu's room had never had anything in it that indicated the time.
Wen Qing simply gave up struggling.
She rolled over, intending to go back to sleep.
But from the corner of her eye, she noticed Zhou Shixu himself was in the room.
Wearing the same white loungewear as hers.
He usually wore the black one she had on more often than this one.
One glance was enough to tell.
The white one wasn't as soft and close-fitting as the black.
Black half-rimmed glasses, freshly washed hair falling down softly.
Busy with who knew what, he was typing away on his laptop.
The light from the screen reflected off his lenses, glinting faintly from where Wen Qing sat.
But now she couldn't fall asleep at all.
She squinted over at him.
A stretch like this right after studying was truly delightful.
Of course.
That was, provided she didn't get caught.
"Awake?"
"No." Wen Qing rolled over, her back to him.
"Not having dinner?"
"What time is it?"
"Two."
Wen Qing shot up from the bed.
"Where's my phone? It's so late—did you tell my parents?"
"Mm, it's charging."
Almost as quickly as she'd risen, Wen Qing lay back down: "Then what did you say? That I fell asleep while working on math problems?"
"No."
"Then what else could you have said?"
"I'm afraid of the dark."
Wen Qing's laughter spilled out along with his words.
"Do people actually believe that?"
"Mm."
Since there was no way she could fall back asleep anyway, Wen Qing got up to wash up.
Habitually, she pulled out a disposable toothbrush from the bathroom.
With foam in her mouth, she spoke in a muffled voice:
"So Ms. Zhao didn't ask you anything else?"
"She did."
"Hm?"
Zhou Shixu closed his laptop and walked over to the bathroom, leaning against the doorframe:
"She asked if we've made up."
The sound of running water mingled with her voice as it drifted into Zhou Shixu's ears:
"Then how did you answer?"
He stepped closer, took out a fresh towel from the cabinet, and handed it to Wen Qing.
The moment it touched her fingertips, he didn't let go of the other end. Instead, he stared earnestly into her eyes and said:
"What do you want me to answer?"
The water from her fingertips soaked into the towel. Before she could respond, Zhou Shixu's voice rose again:
"Do you think we've made up?"
·
First day back at school.
Walking along the campus paths, you could hear people humming "Clock Ticking Backwards."
The rumble of suitcase wheels filled the campus.
The dean had begun inspecting hairstyles again.
The barbershop by the school gate made a killing once more on the first day back—enough to make one suspect some hidden business arrangement between the two.
But at this moment, Wen Qing's mind, unusually, wasn't dwelling on how fast the break had flown by.
Her thoughts were almost entirely consumed by that one sentence from Zhou Shixu.
Made up?
Had they ever even fought?
The mid-afternoon sun fell on her.
Warm and cozy, yet unable to hide the turmoil within.
So in his view,
had they drifted apart over these years because they'd been in a fight?
If so—
if he truly believed that—
then why hadn't he told her sooner about this supposed conflict of his?
The moment she opened the classroom door, Wen Qing froze for an instant.
Realizing she'd walked into the wrong room, she quietly closed it and went one door over to the left, returning to her seat.
The classroom was drowsy with fatigue.
But Wen Qing couldn't sleep at all.
Six mock exam papers lay there, more or less covered in Zhou Shixu's handwriting.
Her thoughts were left restless and unsettled.
If they'd only grown distant temporarily due to circumstances, yet Zhou Shixu believed it was because they'd fought and never reconciled—
then what would happen once they went to college?
Or perhaps it wasn't just him who thought this way.
Her mom, Sangsang, even Xu Jinqi—all of them believed she'd been deliberately distancing herself from Zhou Shixu.
So he hadn't dared to take the first step toward reconciliation?
So were the two of them really reconciled now?
The homeroom teacher stood at the podium going over the do's and don'ts for returning from break.
But the classroom was no longer buzzing with chatter.
Everyone was either drowsy or still quietly grieving over their mock exam scores.
Wen Qing knew very clearly that she couldn't give Zhou Shixu a complete answer.
It wasn't just that he couldn't sort it out.
She couldn't untangle it herself either.
Old Yang tapped the desk three times with the blackboard eraser, then spoke earnestly:
"One look at you all and I can tell you stayed up all night gaming over the three-day break. What did I say before the holiday? Staying up late on your phones—even just one day, forget two or three, and you won't be able to stay sharp when you come back to school. If you can't stay sharp, you'll fall behind. Students, we're already in the second round of review. Fall behind for even one day and your whole rhythm might fall apart. You're all third-year seniors now—your studies have to come first."
Wen Qing's gaze shifted from Zhou Shixu's handwriting on the test paper to the question itself.
Right.
One hundred days until the college entrance exam.
Studies had to come first.
·
Knowledge kept assailing her brain.
Every time she got home from school, Wen Qing found herself utterly exhausted.
There was barely any room left in her mind to think about anything else.
Her strongest subject was Chinese.
But Chinese scores depended far more on luck than the other subjects.
It couldn't create any real gap in standing.
The school's second round of review was indeed moving at a breakneck pace.
Wen Qing struggled to keep up with the rhythm of math and physics.
The lunch bell rang.
She fought back drowsiness, cheek pressed against the desk, one hand holding a pen as she worked through a physics problem.
It was a lever problem.
Wen Qing dangled the pen by one end, swaying it back and forth.
Outside the window, the teacher on duty paced along the corridor.
She no longer had the energy to care.
"Knock~"
The glass beside the window was tapped lightly.
The force was so gentle that only the faint tremor of the window let Wen Qing notice someone outside.
She didn't even get up.
Keeping her position slumped over the desk, she lifted her eyes to look.
Zhou Shixu raised his chin slightly, signaling her to bring the test paper when she came out.
"Why are you here now?"
Wen Qing's gaze went to the walkway of the opposite building—the teacher on duty was doing rounds on the third floor.
Zhou Shixu took the test paper from her hand and headed toward the stairwell, Wen Qing following behind him.
The wind seemed a bit strong today. The leaves had long since begun to fall, yet a rustling still filtered through the corridor and spread through the stairwell.
Even the winter midday sun was too harsh.
The two of them stopped in front of a certain classroom.
Wen Qing glanced up.
Exam Room No. 52.
The door didn't seem to be locked—Zhou Shixu gave it a light push and the latch opened with his movement.
It looked like the classroom hadn't been cleaned once since being used as an exam room for the mock exams.
The moment the door opened, sunlight poured in through the gap, and a cloud of white dust motes shimmered before their eyes.
Wen Qing stood to the side watching Zhou Shixu wipe down a chair seat.
She could roughly guess his intention.
She picked up the practice booklet she'd brought, circling separately the problems she couldn't understand even with the solutions and the ones she could understand the solutions to but had no idea how to approach.
The lighting in this classroom was even better than in their own classroom.
Sunlight fell in scattered spots on her fingertips through the glass.
The desktop had already been wiped down.
Wen Qing propped up her cheek, turning her gaze sideways toward Zhou Shixu.
He was wearing different glasses today.
They'd changed from half-rimmed to full black frames.
As if unaware that her mind was wandering, Zhou Shixu explained the problems at his usual pace.
Dappled light and shadow fell across the test paper.
Shifting bright and dim with the movement of his fingertips.
Let it just be like this.
Wen Qing suddenly thought.
Let him go on explaining problems like this, forever, without the exam ever coming.
Explaining and explaining until the end of time, until the sun set in the west, until the stars came out twinkling.
Never having to think about grades, or the future, or what lay ahead.
Just let me, carefully, earnestly—
only for you,
only because it's you explaining—
listen to this problem all the way through.
Zhou Shixu's approach to solving problems ran on almost an entirely different track from the teachers'.
But he understood Wen Qing far too well.
It even knew exactly where she would make mistakes and where she would feel confused.
It seemed as though a great deal of preparation had been made long in advance to tutor her after the mock exams.
Aside from math, physics, and some genetics problems in biology.
Wen Qing learned the other subjects quickly, and they went fairly smoothly.
They wouldn't hold her back.
But her English was quite different from her Chinese.
English exams depended too much on being in the right state of mind.
The winter lunch break had been shortened to just one hour.
After five example problems of one question type, the bell for break rang hastily.
Wen Qing was still sorting out her thoughts.
She had just straightened out the method from the previous problem when she looked up and saw Zhou Shixu return after having left.
"The door's locked."
The administrator with the keys probably hadn't expected anyone to be inside, and had locked up outside the classroom without even opening the door to check.
The lock was a style from many years ago, latched onto the door handle and a protrusion on the outside of the door.
The break after lunch only gave students ten minutes to wake up before the next class had to begin right away.
Finding someone with a key and getting back to the classroom within ten minutes was clearly impossible.
Wen Qing gave up on struggling to get back and returned to working through the example problems they'd just covered.
After all, the chance of being locked in the school the whole time was nearly zero.
Zhou Shixu sat down beside her and took out his phone from his jacket.
Wen Qing was too focused on solving the problem to notice what he was doing with his hands.
She figured they'd probably have to wait until after afternoon classes, during dinner, to get out.
She never expected that after just one class, Xu Jinqi would break in through the door.
Apparently aiming to create the effect of a hero making a grand entrance, he kicked the door open with a "bang."
Expecting to be greeted by everyone's admiring gazes, Xu Jinqi was about to stride in with his head held high.
But the two in the classroom only glanced at him briefly before going back to the problems.
Xu Jinqi walked over and slapped the keys down in front of them.
Only after finishing the problem did Wen Qing look at him.
"Where'd you get the keys?"
The moment he heard the question, Xu Jinqi launched into a grandiose tale of how he'd skipped a class, evaded the surveillance cameras, sneaked into the dean's office, and finally swiped the keys without being detected.
Wen Qing listened with her heart in her throat, and nearly agreed to the sky-high reward Xu Jinqi was proposing.
Zhou Shixu lightly tapped his knuckles on the test paper her hand was resting on, and the moment Wen Qing lifted her hand, he tidied up the papers.
He even pushed the keys on the desk over in front of Wen Qing.
"Exaggerating."
"Lao Zhou, you're throwing me under the bus again!"
Before Wen Qing could react, Xu Jinqi was already about to jump up.
The desk had been tidied clean, leaving only the keys sitting alone on it.
Xu Jinqi picked up the keys and tossed them into Wen Qing's arms.
"Hm? What are you giving me these for?"
"I bought ten of them."
As payment for Xu Jinqi's heroic performance this time, Wen Qing agreed to lend him her notebook of Chinese literature material.
Before the three of them could even leave the empty classroom, the bell for class rang abruptly.
Even hurrying as fast as she could, Wen Qing was nearly ten minutes late getting back to class.
It was Chinese class.
The Chinese review schedule was a bit different from the other subjects.
During the first round of review, most of the time was spent on reciting and translating classical poetry and prose.
Now that the second round had begun, the teacher was only just systematically covering problem-solving approaches and methods for lyrical and argumentative essays.
Class 10's Chinese teacher had been teaching for a very long time.
She was an old teacher, nearly sixty.
Unlike other teachers who showed favoritism toward students with good grades, this old teacher treated almost everyone equally and was exceptionally strict.
The moment Wen Qing knocked and came in, the teacher was still going over the mock exam questions.
"Late."
Taking advantage of the moment the teacher was flipping through the test papers, she quickly said.
It was her fault for being late, so even if she had to stand outside for a whole class, Wen Qing would accept it.
But the teacher said nothing.
She didn't tell her to come in, nor did she tell her to go out.
Normally, with any other teacher, Wen Qing would have just slipped straight into the classroom.
But she knew this Chinese teacher far too well.
If she wasn't being let in right now, there was surely a problem waiting for her.
As one of the students with the best Chinese grades in the class, the teacher called out her name without even glancing at the seating chart:
"Wen Qing, do you know what we're discussing?"
Wen Qing's eyes quickly swept over the chalk writing on the blackboard. "The first mock exam paper—it should be the excerpt from Border Town."
The People's Education Press compulsory Chinese textbook only includes chapters three through six of Border Town.
The other chapters frequently appear in various mock exams.
If you gathered all the exam papers that have tested it, you could almost piece together the complete book.
"Answer a question first, then go back to your seat. In the essay question, if you could step into the world of Border Town, what would you say to Cuicui at the very beginning?"
The answer key for the mock exam didn't provide an exact answer for this question.
Most students wrote that they would tell Cuicui to persuade Tianbao not to make the long journey.
Or to avoid meeting Nuosong.
Or perhaps to cherish her time with her grandfather more, and pay more attention to his health.
The answers varied widely, but the scores all hovered in the mediocre middle.
Wen Qing lifted her eyes slightly toward the teacher, then spoke in a very soft voice:
"Cuicui, no one is worth your waiting."
The classroom fell silent, as if everyone were waiting for the second half of her sentence.
"Except Grandpa."
How many things in this world are truly worth waiting a lifetime for?
How could you pin all your hopes for tomorrow on someone who doesn't know when—or if—he'll return?
Nothing is worth spending an entire life pursuing, waiting for, yearning for.
But.
Except Grandpa.
"Good, you may sit."
As she took her seat, the worry in Zheng Shiyi's eyes hadn't yet faded.
But the moment she looked at Wen Qing, it instantly turned into admiration.
"Qing! How are you so amazing? How did you even think of that? I thought the Chinese teacher was going to keep giving you a hard time."
In the rule-based horror story of Class 10's window-side seats, whenever Zheng Shiyi finished speaking, Chen Zhi was bound to follow.
"Don't overthink it. How could the teacher possibly give Wen Qing a hard time? With her Chinese scores?"
Taking advantage of a pause in the lecture, Wen Qing turned her head slightly and whispered:
"But that was so embarrassing just now."
Seriously, who could stand frozen at the classroom door while the entire class showered them with stares!
It was the kind of thing that would keep you up at night cringing for months.
Zheng Shiyi leaned over to chat with her in a low voice: "You're lucky they didn't make you stand outside. It's freezing today—they say it's going to snow in a couple of days."
"No way, no way. At worst they'd make me stand at the back of the classroom."
"Where did you go with Zhou Shixu last period? Good thing first period was study hall."
"Went to tutoring. If I didn't catch up soon, I'd be done for!"
A piece of chalk landed on their desks.
Another special skill of veteran teachers: throwing chalk with almost perfect accuracy.
The two immediately fell silent, then smiled apologetically at the teacher.
Xu Jinqi received Wen Qing's notebook of writing materials as agreed.
A loose-leaf binder with a pale yellow cover.
It seemed to have been used for a long time—the pages had yellowed at the edges.
The handwriting, too, had gradually changed from the childish scrawl of the first page.
When Xu Jinqi borrowed the notebook, Zhou Shixu froze for a moment.
He hadn't expected Wen Qing to still be using this one.
In his memory, it had been around since the first year of middle school.
The binder was now so thick that no more paper could be squeezed into it.
As Xu Jinqi flipped through the pages, she copied the contents into her own notebook.
It seemed Wen Qing treasured this notebook greatly—there were hardly any typos, and even when there were, she had covered them with correction tape before rewriting.
The versatile golden sentences commonly used in exams were almost all highlighted in fluorescent marker.
Their seats in Class 1, though not next to the aisle, were also right by the window on the other side.
There wasn't much sun in the mid-afternoon.
Yet as Xu Jinqi turned the pages, sunlight kept filtering through the paper onto the desk.
The letters cast small shadows.
He lifted a page, and the light shone through from behind.
As luck would have it.
With the sunlight coming through from the back, Xu Jinqi could just make out the writing before it had been covered by correction tape.
Even mirrored backwards.
He could still clearly read the three characters: Zhou Shixu.
"Holy crap."
After being shocked several times in a row, Xu Jinqi started shaking Zhou Shixu.
The problem he was working on was interrupted, and the tip of his pen even left several scratch marks across the test paper from the shaking.
Zhou Shixu was long used to this guy's jumpy theatrics, so he simply waited for him to speak.
"I swear first of all, I did NOT look on purpose. When I turned the page just now, the light hit it and I accidentally saw the words under the correction tape. Qing Jie wrote your name in this notebook and then covered it up with correction tape."
Zhou Shixu slowly capped his pen and glanced sideways at the notebook's inner page.
"What's next to the name?"
"It looks like… 'hate'… or something."
"Oh."
His gaze, which had lingered on the handwriting on the page, instantly shifted away. Zhou Shixu pulled the cap back off his pen.
Hate?
Nothing surprising about that.
If she hadn't suddenly started hating him,
why would she have kept her distance from him for so long.
She probably found him unbearably boring and cold.
Even though he had already accepted this "hate" in his heart,
the pen tip hovered, still refusing to come down.
"Holy crap holy crap holy crap"
"What now?" Zhou Shixu, rarely, let his impatience show on the surface.
If Xu Jinqi came out with anything else hateful about him from that notebook, Zhou Shixu would kick him straight out the door.
"Well… but…"
Xu Jinqi calmed his excitement and continued from his last sentence.
"After this word 'like'… why is your name there too, before the correction?"