A July afternoon, math class.
The air was stuffy, and the teacher’s droning voice was hypnotic. Jiang He propped her chin on her hand, drowsy.
From her half-dreaming state, a strange rustling sound kept reaching her ears.
Jiang He forced her eyelids open and looked over, asking her deskmate, “Yan Xia, what are you writing?”
Yan Xia held a pencil, her elbow resting on a sheet of scratch paper. She answered without lifting her head, “Nothing.”
Jiang He narrowed her eyes, studying her. “You seem kind of off today.”
Yan Xia’s pen tip paused. “You’re overthinking it.”
She looked no different from usual—a thin, pale body wrapped in a red-and-white school uniform, heavy bangs covering her eyebrows, a pair of unfashionable black-framed glasses perched on her small nose, making her seem dull and frail.
Jiang He leaned in for a closer look, then suddenly reached out and pressed down on her scratch paper. “Let me see.”
Yan Xia reacted faster than she expected, dropping her elbow sharply and pinning Jiang He’s hand to the desk with precision.
Jiang He sucked in a sharp breath, her drowsiness completely gone.
Yan Xia stared at her blankly.
Her hand was pinned hard under the elbow, pain spreading sharply. Jiang He tugged a few times but couldn’t pull free, hissing through gritted teeth, “Get your hand off me!”
As if only just coming to her senses, Yan Xia’s lips mumbled, her voice thin as a mosquito’s whine, “Sorry, you startled me just now.” She quickly lifted her elbow and lowered her head uneasily.
Jiang He pulled her hand back and looked—a patch of red on the back of it, aching badly.
Her face darkened at once.
Since when had Yan Xia gotten this strong? She had yanked her hand out with all her strength just now, yet it hadn’t budged an inch.
She was supposed to be a frail, delicate Omega…
Unwilling to accept this, Jiang He’s tone turned aggressive. “Why won’t you let me see it?”
Yan Xia looked up, her dark, bright eyes clear behind the glass lenses. “Because it’s nothing important.”
Jiang He stared at her. “Not important? Then why are you hiding it from me?”
Yan Xia had never once refused her anything she asked for before.
Not wanting to lose face, Jiang He suppressed her irritation and lowered her voice as usual, her tone coaxing. “Xia, aren’t we friends?”
Yan Xia looked at her, lips pressed together in silence.
Seeing her expression soften slightly, Jiang He felt a surge of smugness—when suddenly a sharp voice cracked down over their heads: “Jiang He! What are you whispering about over there? Why don’t you come up here and teach the class for me?”
Every gaze snapped toward her. Jiang He’s face went white, and she stood up on reflex.
At the podium, Teacher Zhang was staring at her coldly.
Under all those watching eyes, the gazes pierced through her like blades, flaying her nerves. Jiang He was overcome with embarrassment, the back of her hand throbbing dully, as if reminding her of everything that had just happened.
Her mind went blank, and she blurted out, “I didn’t mean to—it was Yan Xia who wanted to talk to me.”
The moment the words left her mouth, a few whistles sounded around the room.
Several people in the front rows turned around, mouthing words toward the back with mocking expressions: This is gonna be good!
Class 2-F of the second year was a notoriously bottom-of-the-barrel class. According to the other classes, it housed all sorts of “bad apples” with crooked minds—delinquent teens running with gangs, slackers with no interest in studying, rich kids dumped there to coast through the days… the list went on, strange and varied. As a result, the class’s learning atmosphere was terrible, and its exam rankings hovered near the bottom year-round.
The math teacher was named Zhang Ying. She had graduated from a normal college just a few years ago, young and without much seniority, yet she loved putting on airs, always wore tinted glasses, and showed blatant favoritism toward students with better grades.
Jiang He’s usual conduct was decent, with a good attitude toward learning. But Yan Xia was another story—her grades in every subject were perpetually at the bottom. No matter how the exams went, a seat among the grade’s bottom five was always reserved for her.
If it had been anyone else, Zhang Ying might have been skeptical, but Yan Xia’s situation was too exceptional—few teachers ever showed her a pleasant face.
In Zhang Ying’s eyes, anyway, students with poor grades simply had no rights.
Sure enough, Teacher Zhang looked at Yan Xia and berated her without mercy: “What were you saying to Jiang He? If you don’t want to learn, fine, but don’t disturb your classmates during class!”
Amid a wave of snickering, Yan Xia slowly stood up.
Perhaps unaccustomed to being the center of attention, her cheeks flushed rapidly, and her slender fingertips clutched at her sleeves, gripping until her knuckles turned white.
Under Zhang Ying’s glare, Yan Xia took a deep breath and answered in a small but firm voice: “I-it was Jiang He who spoke to me first.”
Jiang He’s fingers clenched into a fist.
She shot Yan Xia a threatening glare. Yan Xia trembled but did not turn around, her thin figure standing as straight as she could.
Zhang Ying had heard every excuse failing students could come up with. She sneered, too lazy to waste more words: “Fine. I won’t bother with whether you were talking or not.”
“Since you’re so eager to express yourself, come up here and solve this problem,” she paused deliberately, “and if you can’t, get out of the classroom!”
The drowsy students below perked up at this, each harboring a mix of schadenfreude and the uneasy feeling that it could have been any of them. Dozens of eyes fixed on Yan Xia.
Every emotion was on display—gleeful, pitying, indifferent.
Under all that scrutiny, Yan Xia offered no further defense. Head lowered, she tucked her scratch paper into her notebook, gathered her things, and walked to the podium in small steps.
She stopped in front of the blackboard, her back looking very small. Her poor health made her complexion pale, and standing there she seemed like a sheet of white paper that a gust of wind could knock over—frail to the extreme. Add to that her habitual poor posture, always hunching in on herself with a stooped back, and she gave off a cowering, timid air that irritated people.
Yan Xia tilted her head up and studied the problem on the blackboard intently. She was short, and the problem was written too high, so reading the upper part of the board up close was something of a strain.
Zhang Ying stood to the side, hands on her hips, face dark.
This function problem was not exactly easy, and she knew perfectly well that with Yan Xia’s grades, there was no way she could solve it. She had called Yan Xia up not to test her, but merely to liven up the class, shake off the students’ drowsiness, and make an example of her while she was at it.
After a few seconds of silent waiting, Yan Xia was still reading the problem, and the students below could hardly wait to see her embarrass herself. Someone shouted: “If you can’t do it, just come down! Don’t waste everyone’s class time!”
Instantly, laughter erupted from all around.
Most people couldn’t stand the sight of Yan Xia anyway.
Plain, mediocre grades, timid personality, low presence… and an Omega on top of that.
The only redeeming quality left was that her family had money.
At those words, Jiang He’s lips curled into a mocking smile.
Zhang Ying didn’t stop her, saying impatiently to Yan Xia, “If you don’t know how to do it, then get out—”
Before she could finish, Yan Xia reached out and picked a piece of chalk from the groove.
The jeering laughter cut off abruptly. The classroom was shrouded in an eerie silence, with only the sound of chalk scraping against the blackboard.
In less than a minute, neat, elegant chalk writing lined up beneath the problem.
Looking at the rows of tidy board work, Zhang Ying’s expression shifted again and again.
Yan Xia pushed up her glasses and said timidly, “Teacher, is there something wrong with my answer?”
Zhang Ying’s face was grim as she examined it carefully several times, but she couldn’t find a single mistake.
She coughed awkwardly and waved her hand. “…Well done. You can go back to your seat.”
Yan Xia nodded, brushed the chalk dust off her hands, and returned to her seat.
What was going on?!
Everyone exchanged glances, seeing shock in each other’s eyes. Several gazes finally landed on Yan Xia all at once, studying her.
Yan Xia, seemingly unaccustomed to being the center of attention, hunched up like a startled hedgehog, eyes darting away.
At that moment, a crisp mechanical chime sounded in her ear: “Ding! Positive Points +20.”
Yan Xia twisted her stiff neck, picked up the mechanical pencil on her desk, and her fingers danced, unconsciously spinning it in a neat flourish.
“Only +20? Isn’t that a bit stingy?” All her earlier timidity gone, she asked lazily in her mind, “System, didn’t you say there was a double points week for new users? This is it? Seriously?”