When it came to the undertaking of fooling Lu Ran, Luoluo’s confidence was actually not as strong as it appeared.
Besides studying diligently, she had also imagined many different scenarios in which she might be exposed.
These imaginings were turned into eighteen contingency plans, each detailing a different emergency situation and the corresponding response.
Luoluo compiled the eighteen plans into a Word document, printed them out, and handed them to Lu Qingjia and her close friend Ming Nan, instructing the two of them to memorize everything thoroughly and then destroy the copies.
In response, Lu Qingjia and Ming Nan felt they did not have much to say.
However, two class periods passed without incident. Everything was calm and uneventful, and it seemed that things were not so easy to give away.
No one came to talk to Lu Ran, and Lu Ran himself showed no particular movement.
He did not take the initiative to chat with anyone, nor did he approach Luoluo to ask about questions he did not understand. He seemed wholeheartedly focused on studying.
The classmates in the class were filled with strong curiosity toward the two new students, but their rather high level of attractiveness instead made people hesitant to approach casually, or inclined them to rein themselves in.
On the other hand, both new students were seated against the wall. On the side not facing the wall, Lu Ran had the genius sitting beside him, while Ming Bei had Shen Rong next to him.
To strike up a conversation with either of them, one would have to get past two towering figures, which for the moment was enough to discourage the remaining classmates who still dared to get close.
Speaking of which, Shen Rong had come to school today for once, a rare occurrence, and his hair was black as well.
However, Lu Ran was not as single-mindedly focused on studying as Luoluo had imagined.
High school education more than twenty years later differed from the present in both form and content, but the fundamentals had not changed. Everything the teacher covered in class was knowledge Lu Ran had already thoroughly mastered. Even without paying close attention, he could still understand it.
Lu Ran devoted most of his attention to observing his classmates.
Mom, Luoluo, was listening intently and taking notes. Auntie Ming Nan also looked quite serious, having been drawn into listening along by Luoluo, after all, spacing out alone only made one anxious and bored. The male student in the second row in the middle was secretly drawing Peppa Pig. That familiar-looking back of a head was not quite as bald. Once he turned around, it turned out to be his high school homeroom teacher. So his high school homeroom teacher had been Mom’s high school classmate?
Suppressing the shock in his heart, Lu Ran swept his gaze around once more. There was nothing particularly noteworthy in front of him. As for the back of the classroom, the two people Lu Ran cared about most at the moment, Ming Bei and Shen Rong, were seated behind him, but there was no good reason for him to keep turning around frequently, nor was it necessary. He simply pricked up his ears and paid attention to any sounds coming from behind.
There was not much movement from the back. Lu Ran noticed that his deskmate was reading a comic, the cover pink in color.
Oh, asleep again.
Mm, awake now. Lu Ran watched with his own eyes as the other rubbed his eyes, pulled a test paper out of the desk, and started writing.
With a single glance, they were all math problems at competition level difficulty.
Another glance was enough to estimate both his answering speed and accuracy. He could be described as handling them with ease.
Hidden depth.
A back-row seat allowed for many possible points of interaction, Lu Ran reflected.
After that birthday banquet, Lu Ran had browsed through some common campus-themed fiction aimed at a female readership in search of inspiration. From his summary, he found that male leads in this genre mostly shared traits such as good looks, excellent grades, and outstanding talent, the so-called campus heartthrob.
Lu Ran studied his deskmate’s brows and eyes. Mm, textbook thick eyebrows and big eyes, nothing remarkable.
After some consideration, Lu Ran temporarily did not include him on the list.
After two class periods came the between-classes running exercise. The group followed the flow of students to the track field.
Taking advantage of Lu Ran not paying attention, Luoluo exchanged a look with Ming Nan and Lu Qingjia, signaling them to be ready to implement the contingency plans at any time.
At the appearance of Luoluo and Ming Nan, the surrounding classmates showed a trace of surprise in their eyes.
But no one asked a single question. They even considerately made room in the spots that originally belonged to the two of them, but had been automatically filled in because they often did not show up. Luoluo felt the warmth of the class.
In truth, it was also because Luoluo usually did not talk much with the classmates around her.
She read comics and slept during class, skipped the between-class running exercises whenever she could, and did not have deep interactions with her classmates. The only ones she could truly call friends were Ming Nan and Lu Qingjia.
In the eyes of others, Luoluo was pretty, polite, well-off, and a little cold in personality.
When she appeared, people would unconsciously lower their voices and rarely joked around.
Luoluo herself was completely unaware of this.
Her narcissism came from confidence, not from other people’s attitudes.
Because of their height, Lu Ran and Ming Bei were arranged by the class monitor to stand at the very back, beside the genius Lu Qingjia, who usually did not run either.
However, Lu Qingjia’s good friend, Luoluo, had given him a few game items as gifts, asking him to help smooth over a harmless lie if necessary. Faced with such earnestness, it was hard to refuse.
Lu Qingjia had no interest in Lu Ran, but he was very interested in the game items.
During the two class periods, Lu Qingjia was not unaware of the observing, probing gaze that lingered on him from Lu Ran. It was just that he had experienced such looks many times before, and they were nothing out of the ordinary, so he remained perfectly calm.
“Yo, the genius is actually coming out to run?” a male classmate beside him put on an exaggerated expression and spoke in a strange tone. “Didn’t you take leave for competition sprint training?”
“Not needed today,” Lu Qingjia replied expressionlessly. When others skipped between-class activities, they did so furtively, careful and afraid of being discovered. This one alone did it openly and aboveboard, having reported to the teacher in advance that he was sprinting for competitions and therefore not running.
Even if he really were sprint training, that would be one thing. But this guy slept in class and read comics. It was an obvious excuse.
Who told you he was liked by the teachers?
So drawing resentment was only natural.
“Is it the district math competition?” Lu Ran spoke up, saying his first sentence to his deskmate Lu Qingjia aside from introducing himself.
“District level first,” Lu Qingjia replied concisely.
“I see.” Lu Ran nodded and said nothing more.
The marching music for the between-class running exercise began.
After the run was over, most people had flushed faces and fine beads of sweat on their foreheads.
Most of them walked back toward the classroom while wiping sweat, the sounds of borrowing tissues overlapping one after another. Lu Ran, however, was neither red-faced nor short of breath.
A pair of keen, observant eyes sharply noticed this.
“You’re Classmate Lu Ran, right?” The owner of those eyes drew close to Lu Ran’s side, matching his pace, wearing a smile that was almost excessively genial.
Luoluo, who was borrowing a tissue from Ming Nan to wipe her sweat, felt alarm bells ring loudly in her heart. A vigilant light surfaced in her eyes.
She tugged Ming Nan along and quietly moved closer to the two of them.
“I can tell you are very good at long-distance running, haha.” Under the vigilant gaze of the beautiful girl Luoluo, the class monitor of First Year Class One forced himself to keep smiling as he spoke. “Would you be interested in joining the long-distance event at the school’s winter sports meet?”
The class monitor felt a bit of pressure.
He had guessed that the new student was related to the quiet beauty in the class, but he was only here to promote a sports event that no one wanted to sign up for.
Why was the beautiful girl looking at him with the eyes she would use on someone running a pyramid scheme?
Lu Ran nodded readily. “Sure. What event is it?”
“Three thousand meters. It’s a bit long and puts quite a strain on the body. You can see whether you are willing to join. If you’re not willing to join—eh, you agreed?”
Lu Ran nodded again. “Mm, no problem. Are you the PE committee member?”
If it had been someone else, Lu Ran might have hesitated a bit. But the person in front of him was his high school homeroom teacher for three years, so this courtesy still had to be given.
Lu Ran glanced at his future homeroom teacher’s hairline and thought that maybe he should remind him to pay more attention to his hair, so he would not end up with a bald patch by middle age.
Once, when passing by the office, he had even heard the man discussing hair transplant surgery with the physics teacher. The tone of his voice had sounded quite troubled.
“That’s really great.” Still unaware that more than twenty years later he would become a rather pitiful bald-at-the-crown type, the class monitor was overjoyed by the news. He introduced himself, saying, “I’m the class monitor of our Class One. I’m not the PE committee member, but I’m also responsible for mobilizing people for this sports meet. The task is pretty tough this time, so the PE committee member and I split the workload in half.”
“You’ve worked hard, Class Monitor.” Lu Ran wore a respectful expression, nodding slightly with a smile.
The class monitor of First Year Class One had taken office only two months ago. In order to complete the tasks assigned by the female homeroom teacher, he had battled wits, courage, and perseverance with the classmates, and he had never encountered a student whose attitude was as respectful as Lu Ran’s. A touch of flustered disbelief rose in his heart, and he hurriedly said, “Hard work might be an exaggeration, an exaggeration, hahaha. Classmate Lu Ran… I’ll just call you Lu Ran, alright? There’s no need to be this respectful. You’re making me start to doubt whether I’m the class monitor or the homeroom teacher, hahaha.”
Unaware that he had accidentally spoken the truth, the class monitor put on an enthusiastic smile. “Are you interested in signing up for some other events? You’re tall, how about the standing long jump?”
Lu Ran smiled and said, “I’m fine with anything.”
Not expecting Lu Ran to be so easygoing, the class monitor immediately rubbed his hands together in excitement and proceeded to assign him another long jump event, a 4×200 relay, and a sprint. It was completely packed. If there had not been a limit on how many individual events one person could enter, the class monitor probably would have added even more.
Nearby, Luoluo and Ming Nan, who had been pricking up their ears: …
“What’s wrong?” After finalizing the events he would participate in with the current class monitor and former homeroom teacher, Lu Ran looked toward the approaching Luoluo with an inquiring gaze.
At school, he could not directly call her Mom, and all the other forms of address felt odd. After some hesitation, Lu Ran could only leave the form of address out altogether.
“It’s nothing, just heading back to the classroom together,” Luoluo said with a dry laugh as she made an excuse. “I just wanted to tell you that we’ll all eat lunch together at noon.”
“Sure.” Lu Ran smiled. Even though he knew Mom had already heard everything, he still reported it. “I just signed up for a few sports events.”
“Exercise is good, exercise is good.” Luoluo dryly laughed as she laid some groundwork. “I’m not very good at those events though. Running a bit is just for keeping fit.”
Lu Ran said with a smile, “Exercise is about strengthening the body in the first place. Whether you’re good at it or not doesn’t really matter.”
Luoluo let out a sigh of relief inwardly, thinking that it seemed her future self also knew how to rein it in and had not bragged about being an athletic ace. A cause for celebration.
Not far away, Ming Bei walked over. He had just happened to hear Luoluo inviting Lu Ran to have lunch together.
Ming Bei had a fair understanding of Luoluo. She was his younger sister’s close friend from childhood. The two had gone to school together and eaten together, and occasionally spent weekends together as well. So, in Ming Bei’s eyes, Lu Ran eating lunch with Luoluo equaled Lu Ran eating lunch with Ming Nan.
Originally, Ming Bei felt that as they grew older and with the difference in gender, siblings needed a bit of a sense of boundaries. There was no need to eat or walk together. Moreover, Ming Nan had always acted together with her friend Luoluo, and he was not familiar with the other party, so it would be inconvenient.
But now this junior member of the Lu family was going to join them as well… Ming Bei looked at his twin sister, Ming Nan, with a questioning gaze.
While Lu Ran had placed Ming Bei on his list of suspects, Ming Bei was also wary of Lu Ran.
In his view, the appearance of this Lu family junior and the speed with which he had gained the Lu family’s trust were rather uncanny. Beneath the surface, there seemed to be undercurrents just as turbulent as those in his own family, if not more so.
Ming Bei would not interfere with his sister’s friendships, but out of protection and concern for his family, he requested to come along.
Ming Nan, receiving the wordless signal: …
She looked at Luoluo, then at her twin brother, and extended the invitation. “Big brother, want to come along too?”
Thus, lunch was settled as a group of four.
Even though they were just going to the cafeteria, there was a strange sense of ceremony and group cohesion to it.
Could this be what people called “forming a clique”? Luoluo thought idly.
Back in the classroom, the PE committee member heard that the class monitor had so easily secured several events and, while secretly resentful, felt inspired. He began persuading the other new student, Ming Bei.
Ming Bei was not particularly good at sports, but he could not withstand the PE committee member’s enthusiasm. In the end, he signed up for the standing long jump.
There was no helping it. Most of the students in Class One were obsessed with studying and did not like sports. As for the small remainder who were not obsessed with studying, they also did not like sports. The class monitor and the PE committee member had worried themselves sick over mobilizing people for a mere winter sports meet.