Meng Siyu nodded as if she had suddenly realized something. “So you’re helping me get revenge through a roundabout way?”
Lin Zhinuo was speechless. “Let’s narrow your train of thought down a little, shall we? Is it possible that I actually know the person who ranked first?”
“The boy who came in first… wouldn’t happen to be your brother, would he?”
Her words had hit the mark.
When Lin Zhinuo nodded, Meng Siyu immediately shut her little mouth, which had fallen open in an O-shape. She sincerely grabbed Lin Zhinuo’s hand.
“Zhinuo, you absolutely have to tell your brother to keep it up! Make sure he holds firmly onto first place and really put my sister in her place.”
Lin Zhinuo naturally wanted Xu Qingyan to keep his position as the top student in the grade. But Meng Siyu was the younger sister of the girl who had come in second…
“Siyu, if your sister found out about this, wouldn’t she beat you up?”
“Hmph. Meng Siqi has been throwing her weight around over me for years. She calls me a stupid pig and says my brain is slower than a sloth’s, and I’ve let that slide. But even the food I eat and the clothes I wear are all secondhand things she picked out and left behind.”
Meng Siyu tugged at her school uniform and couldn’t help rolling her eyes. “Only this school uniform is new.”
Lin Zhinuo felt sorry for her and was just about to reach out and give her a hug when the class bell rang.
Their homeroom teacher, Jiang Yun, walked into the classroom.
This was originally supposed to be a self-study period, but it was temporarily changed into a session for rearranging seats according to the monthly exam results.
Meng Siyu secretly held down Lin Zhinuo’s hand.
“Don’t worry. I secretly talked to Old Jiang. She won’t separate us.”
Lin Zhinuo naturally didn’t want to be separated from Meng Siyu either. They had sat together for an entire year during their first year of high school. After being placed into different classes in their second year, they had both chosen the humanities track and ended up in the same class again.
In the end, neither of their seats was changed. After all, Meng Siyu was a class representative, so she still had some influence with Old Jiang.
After school, Lin Zhinuo had originally wanted to share the good news about Xu Qingyan ranking first in the entire grade with Lin Jingshan. But he was too busy. She waited until nine o’clock that evening, yet he still hadn’t come home.
She had no choice but to hug her phone and send Xu Qingyan a message.
[Brother, you can share the chocolate with your roommates. If you eat it all yourself, be careful not to get cavities.]
When Xu Qingyan received the message, he had just returned to the dormitory.
He was the last one to come back for the night.
When he pushed open the door, Li Ming’en was still working on problems, while the other two roommates had already washed up and were preparing to get into bed.
Seeing him come in, Lu Chengyang raised an eyebrow and spoke in a deliberately sarcastic tone.
“Well, look who’s back the number one student in the grade. You come back this late every day. Did you go on another date with your little girlfriend? Tsk. To be honest, your little girlfriend is pretty. Bring her out sometime so we can get to know her.”
Xu Qingyan was holding a set of specialized competition exam papers that his physics teacher had given him during evening self-study.
At this moment, he had rolled the papers into a tube and was gripping them tightly in his hand, his knuckles turning white from the force.
Lu Chengyang turned around and climbed onto his bed.
“Kid, don’t forget the bet you made last time. If you can’t handle losing, you can get the hell out of this dorm right now.”
Zhou Zijia, who was sitting diagonally across from them, noticed Xu Qingyan’s movements. He was just about to smooth things over when the phone in Xu Qingyan’s pocket vibrated.
There were only two numbers saved in his phone: Lin Jingshan’s and Lin Zhinuo’s.
At this hour, the only person who would call him was Lin Zhinuo.
The contact name had been set by Lin Zhinuo herself. Next to the word “Little Sister” was a tiny red heart.
In that instant, all the tension in his body suddenly disappeared.
He bent down, picked up his washbasin, and walked out of the dormitory without saying a word.
The moment he left, Zhou Zijia immediately breathed a sigh of relief.
“Chengyang, aren’t you being a little too prejudiced? Maybe this kid really is capable. After all, he’s ranked first in the grade.”
Lu Chengyang scoffed disdainfully.
“It was just one little monthly exam. Maybe he just got lucky. For all we know, he’s like that corrupt deputy bureau chief and his useless son from last year getting the answers ahead of time every time and even stealing my spot in the competition!”
“That bureau chief was removed from office a long time ago, and his son was expelled from the school,” Li Ming’en said.
He had been quietly working on problems the entire time. Now he stood up and silently gathered the exam papers in front of him without even raising his head.
“No. 1 High School values its reputation above all else. Do you really think the school would let something like that happen again?”
He put the exam papers into his bag.
At the bottom of the bag was a sheet of scratch paper. The steps written on it were messy and unclear, but each answer had been carefully circled in red pen.
That sheet of scratch paper was something he had picked up from Xu Qingyan’s desk two days earlier.
The answers circled in red were precisely the answers to the specialized competition paper that he had lent Xu Qingyan to look at.
They were also the correct answers to every question he had gotten wrong.
Xu Qingyan went outside the dormitory to answer the phone, and a soft, gentle voice came through the receiver.
“Hello, Brother. I didn’t disturb you, did I?”
It was almost time for lights-out. There was hardly anyone in the washroom, making it unusually quiet.
“No.” His voice was very soft. “Why hasn’t Zhizhi gone to sleep yet?”
Lin Zhinuo was lying on her stomach on the bed, hugging a little white teddy-bear pillow. “I sent you a message earlier, but you didn’t reply.”
“Sorry. I didn’t see it just now.”
“Brother.” Noticing how quiet it was on his end, Lin Zhinuo deliberately lowered her voice. “Download QQ, okay? Then we can send pictures to each other when we chat. I already sent you my QQ number. Remember to add me as a friend once you’ve downloaded it.”
“Okay. Go to sleep early, Zhizhi.” The boy’s voice was soft and gentle.
Lin Zhinuo quietly puffed out her cheeks. Saying a few more words to her wouldn’t hurt him. He always told her to go to sleep every time.
“Fine, then. Good night, Brother.”
Xu Qingyan stood in the washroom for a little while longer before returning to the dormitory as the lights-out bell rang.
The dormitory was already dark. The door was gently pushed open. Lu Chengyang glanced at the dark figure walking in and opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, he simply turned over and went to sleep.
Lin Zhinuo waited for three days, but Xu Qingyan still hadn’t added her as a QQ friend.
After school on Friday, as soon as she arrived at their agreed meeting place, Lin Zhinuo began questioning him with puffed-up cheeks.
“Brother, why haven’t you added me as a friend?”
“I haven’t downloaded it.”
Xu Qingyan looked at her cheeks puffed up in anger. She looked exactly like the little white cat from the movie they had watched together the previous weekend.
Cute. He wanted to pinch her cheeks.
He pursed his lips, then softly added, “There’s Wi-Fi at home. I’ll download it when I get home.”
Downloading apps at the beginning of the month would use up mobile data, and he was worried that he might not have enough data left by the end of the month.
After understanding his reasoning, Lin Zhinuo was actually speechless.
Because Shen Qianqian had been keeping an eye on Xu Qingyan, she didn’t ask him to accompany her to dance practice that day.
After finishing her dance practice and returning home, Lin Jingshan, who had been so busy lately that he barely had time to catch his breath, had unexpectedly come home early for once.
“Zhizhi, tonight Dad is taking you and your brother out for a big meal.”
Lin Jingshan’s face was filled with undisguised delight, and he looked positively radiant.
Lin Zhinuo put down her schoolbag and couldn’t resist teasing him. “What’s this? Has President Lin just closed some huge deal?”
“I’m even happier than if I had closed a huge deal. Both you and your brother did well on your exams this time. Dad is happy.”
“How do you know we did well?”
Lin Jingshan had been far too busy these past few days, and she hadn’t even had the chance to tell him about their results.
Could Xu Qingyan have told him?
Lin Jingshan waved the phone in his hand. “The parents’ QQ group, of course. Qingyan ranked first in the entire grade, and you ranked in the top twenty in your class. Dad already knew two days ago.”
“Ah, both of my kids are doing so well. Dad is really proud.”
The buffet restaurant was located in the center of Yucheng’s bustling commercial district. Lin Jingshan parked the car, and Lin Zhinuo and Xu Qingyan got out on either side of him.
Xu Qingyan paused slightly as he stood at the entrance of the restaurant.
Lin Zhinuo reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Hurry up, Brother. I’m so hungry right now I could eat a whole cow.”
This was nothing compared to what was to come. In her previous life, when it had been her birthday, he had directly booked out an entire three-Michelin-star restaurant just for her.
But at that time, seeing the waiters constantly walking back and forth around her, she hadn’t been very happy at all. In the end, she had inexplicably taken out her frustration on Xu Qingyan.
Now, she really wanted to go back and slap her past self.