The driver stopped at the school gate. After getting out, Ji Shu walked toward the main entrance of Flandre Academy.
The main entrance was lined with tree-shaded avenues. Not far off was a small service area, where a few luxury cars and supercars were parked along the road. Students in Flandre uniforms, wearing silver-gray lioness emblems and carrying designer backpacks, walked toward the entrance in small groups.
The closer one got to the academy’s entrance, the more whispers and laughter could be heard, occasionally accompanied by a whistle or two. The tall buildings inside the campus reflected sunlight off their glass facades, casting diffuse light along the tree-lined paths. The soft rustle of shoes against the pavement was clear, but this fleeting tranquility was violently pierced by a near-deafening roar of noise.
The roar of engines shattered the calm of early morning.
The previously hushed voices quickly boiled into a clamorous hum, like water coming to a rolling boil. Students seemed to pour out from everywhere, converging rapidly toward the entrance.
Ji Shu hadn’t even reached the campus where her classroom was yet. To avoid being jostled by the crowd, she slipped into the nearest teaching building. The hallways were packed, and the flow of students almost pushed her out entirely.
She made it to the second floor and looked out.
The once-crowded tree-lined path had parted neatly, like Moses dividing the sea. The crowd obediently moved to the sides, leaving a clear, spacious corridor in the middle.
At the end of the corridor, a hyper-luxurious supercar had stopped, the source of the earlier commotion. Its silver-pink paint gleamed, and the ducal emblem on the rear license plate made it even more eye-catching. Gasps and exclamations rang out continuously until the car door opened. The noise paused for a moment, then surged again, louder than before, accompanied by scorching gazes.
The young man wore the school uniform. His pink-dyed hair shimmered beautifully in the sunlight, accentuating his pale complexion. The upturned corners of his eyes glanced casually over the crowd, as if searching for something. His hands were in his pockets, his tie loosely knotted. He stepped out of the car gracefully, his long, straight legs leading the way. With a slight effort, he rose fully, while the bodyguards respectfully closed the car door behind him.
The young duke had just returned to school after a major illness. Naturally, many had come to see him.
But the screams and clamor of the crowd made Ji Shu uncomfortable. From the second floor, the crowd below swarmed like a can of sardines, and in the middle, Lu Mingxi looked like a big fish, attracting everyone’s attention.
Looking at his face, Ji Shu felt a sudden wave of nausea. Unluckily, he happened to lift his head, and his gaze swept upward, catching her at the second-floor window.
He looked at Ji Shu with evident interest, raising an eyebrow, as if deliberately doing so, and slightly turned his sharp, defined face to reveal a small piece of gauze at his neck beneath the loose strands of hair.
Ji Shu pressed herself against the window, meeting his gaze, and her breath caught. She quickly averted her eyes, feeling a tingling in her teeth.
The crowd quickly noticed Lu Mingxi’s focused gaze. They tried to follow his line of sight toward the second-floor teaching building, but saw nothing.
Ji Shu had ducked quickly. She stepped away from the window, hugged the wall, and slowly exhaled. She glanced at the time.
Just this short moment had already passed fifteen minutes, and she had originally planned to get to class early today.
She intended to go down to the second floor, but the swelling crowd outside made her hesitate. She grabbed the railing and paused, then turned to go up instead, and accidentally bumped into someone.
The young man was about a head taller than her, broad-shouldered and long-legged, wearing an open uniform with a gray, logo-free hoodie underneath. He pulled the wide hood over his head and wore a baseball cap under it, brim pulled low, hiding his face. Only the sharply contoured pale jawline and gray strands falling around his ears were visible.
His hands moved quickly to steady her. Ji Shu froze for a moment, then responded slowly, “Thanks.”
He lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgment.
Seeing that Ji Shu still intended to go upstairs, he reached out again and lightly tapped her arm with his cold hand.
Ji Shu didn’t understand, and saw his jaw tilt slightly to the right, hair shifting gently with the motion.
“…Do you know any other shortcuts out of this building?” Ji Shu asked.
The brim of his cap flicked lightly. He then turned and, hands in his pockets, stepped upstairs.
He moved quickly, spanning two steps at a time. Hearing the approaching crowd from below, Ji Shu decided to trust this helpful classmate and jogged to follow him.
He walked fast but not hurriedly, moving like a nimble cat through the convoluted teaching areas. Ji Shu followed him, checking her location on her phone, and watched in disbelief as her position somehow slipped from the maze-like A03 area to near the B zone.
Finally, the boy led her to a glass walkway at the edge of Area A.
The walkway was made of glass and designed as a student lounge, furnished with white parasols, coffee tables, and benches. Mistletoe formed arched entrances, and a greenhouse garden on top gave off a faint plant fragrance under the warm sunlight.
Beyond the walkway was the teaching area of Area B. Ji Shu’s classroom was B07, from here, she could find her own way.
“Thank you…” After sighing at the detour through Area A, Ji Shu turned to speak, but the boy’s ghostly figure had vanished before she could finish her sentence.
Ji Shu arrived at her classroom earlier than expected.
Perhaps because of yesterday’s events, although many still looked at her strangely, few dared to bother her.
She went to her locker to organize her things, then returned to her seat to study.
Not long after, the door opened again. The noisy classroom quieted briefly. Footsteps lazily approached her desk. A backpack was dropped, the owner leaned back in his chair, and several followers scurried after him, vying to tidy his things.
Ji Shu pretended not to see or hear anything, pencil moving rapidly across her notebook.
The tall, long-legged figure leaned back, lifting the desk behind him considerably. A boy seated there blushed, carefully pushed the desk back, yielding space for the young duke’s chair. His own area became cramped, yet he didn’t dare protest.
“Young duke, why did you take leave yesterday? Was it serious?”
“Neck injury? Are you alright?”
“My mother is the director of the city hospital, specializing in dermatology and scar healing. Young duke, do you want her to take a look?”
Lu Mingxi leaned back in his chair, legs crossed, stretching comfortably while scrolling his phone, making the classroom feel like a holiday resort. From his screen, he saw the girl sitting diagonally behind him, across an aisle. She was buried in her work, completely uninterested in what was happening here.
He felt slightly annoyed and spoke with a hint of mockery: “It’s not serious, just a trip to the hospital.”
He touched the gauze on his neck, voice meaningful, “Dog bite. Doesn’t hurt, doesn’t itch, shallow wound, probably won’t leave a scar. No need for special treatment.”
Several students laughed, praising the young duke’s sense of humor.
Before long, the class bell rang, and the scattered students returned to their seats. Ji Shu exhaled as if her sentence had finally ended.
Wang Jing, carrying his textbook and lesson plan, strolled into the classroom and began lecturing. A few students’ eyelids immediately started to fight a losing battle with sleep.
But Ji Shu felt that the morning had been too calm. Despite a few minor incidents, everything had been handled smoothly, almost unnaturally so.
Glancing at the figure diagonally in front of her, blatantly scrolling on their phone under the desk, a sense of foreboding began to rise in her chest.
Ji Shu reached into her desk and found her phone. The notifications quietly indicated a new message:
【Get Wang Jing’s attention.】
Ji Shu: “……”
She clenched her phone tightly, lowered her head, and struggled inwardly before starting a quiet cough.
“Cough… cough cough.”
In the silent classroom, where only the sound of chalk scratching the board filled the air, her sudden cough was jarringly conspicuous. Other students’ eyes immediately turned toward her, making her feel like needles were pressed against her back.
Until the chalk stopped scraping.
A faint “snap”, the chalk broke, and dust fell. Ji Shu buried her head even lower, wishing she could hide inside her textbook.
“Do any of you have some grievance against me?” Wang Jing slowly turned at the podium. The classroom atmosphere instantly tightened and froze, and even the lingering drowsiness vanished.
“You always act independently in my class, do you take issue with my teaching methods?”
All the students’ sleepiness vanished in an instant. Eyes darted eagerly between Ji Shu and the teacher, buzzing with excitement to witness this unexpected event.
Ji Shu felt what it was like to be the center of attention for the first time, her face paled slightly. She tried to act calm, picking up her pen to scribble in her textbook, but unsurprisingly, Wang Jing called on her.
“Ji Shu seems a bit unwell. Despite being sick, she still comes to class, admirable dedication,” Wang Jing said leisurely. “Let’s have you come up and solve this problem on the board.”
He gestured politely, giving her no chance to refuse.
Ji Shu slowly stood up, and laughter and whispers erupted from every corner of the classroom, continuous and relentless.
“She’s doomed, haha! This problem is based on the last mock exam’s final question, barely anyone in class got it right.”
“My math tutor looked at this problem before. She said just plug in a formula, don’t even think about solving it properly in the limited time.”
“Yesterday she was acting so smug, making everyone else look bad. Who does she think she is? If I were her, I’d stay quiet like a dead bug from now on.”
“Who told her to provoke the young duke?”
…
“Everyone quiet!” Wang Jing barked, but his voice carried little authority. “Give Ji Shu some space to think.”
Ji Shu stepped onto the podium and calmly considered the problem. It was somewhat difficult, but she had reviewed the mistakes from the mock exam before class. The current variation required some inference, but it was not unsolvable. The key was to stay calm, ignore the taunts, and focus on the problem in front of her.
She picked up a piece of chalk, paused briefly in thought, and then began writing with steady confidence.
The “scritch-scratch” of chalk echoed through the classroom. Over time, the earlier laughter and jeers gradually faded.
“Wait, no way…”
“She’s actually solving it? She’s already filled half the board!”
“What kind of approach is this? I don’t understand it at all. She can’t be just scribbling, right?”
The calm flipping of paper interrupted the mockery. Xie Zhoulin closed his pen cap, folded his worksheet, and said firmly, “She’s not scribbling.”
He continued, “She’s writing the correct answers.”
The surrounding doubts vanished immediately. No one questioned the words of the student council chief. Not long after Xie Zhoulin’s affirmation, Ji Shu slowly put down the chalk and exhaled.
She didn’t rush to showcase her completion, but instead began checking everything carefully from the start.
Students who had been lounging in their seats gradually sat up straight. Lu Mingxi furrowed his brow. Even while holding his phone, his attention was entirely fixed on the girl at the podium.
She was slender, her back straight, legs straight and delicate beneath her uniform skirt. A hint of pale neck peeked from the collar of her shirt and bow tie, and as she moved, her black hair brushed against her ear, smooth and dark, swaying like seaweed in a calm deep sea.
Lu Mingxi couldn’t help but clench his palm.
He recalled the dark storage room that day, the brightness of her lips, the feeling of his fingers pressing her neck. Soft yet resilient, almost heart-stopping. He remembered the slenderness of her neck, just enough for one hand to wrap around, and when squeezed, he could feel the gentle pulse of warm blood flowing through the artery.
His gaze lingered on her.
Throughout her contemplation, writing, and checking, she remained quiet. Only when she was certain did she speak.
“Teacher, I’m done.”
Ji Shu set down the chalk and spoke politely.
Wang Jing had already finished reviewing her work while she checked it. He nodded in satisfaction, making a clicking sound of approval, and cleared his throat to demonstrate magnanimity. “Well done. Your reasoning is clear, your steps concise, and you even applied a few formulas we haven’t formally covered yet. You may return to your seat, if you have questions next time, speak up directly instead of fidgeting on the podium. Now, let’s analyze Ji Shu’s solution to this problem…”
Ji Shu quietly returned to her seat. The classroom was silent.
None of the students had expected Ji Shu to solve the problem, and their earlier doubts now seemed ridiculous. Wang Jing was notoriously strict and picky, earning praise from him was nearly impossible. To do so, not only did the answer have to be correct, but the reasoning process had to be logically flawless and perfectly executed.
Ji Shu had achieved that.
Discontented hisses rose sporadically. Some students were convinced she had seen the original problem beforehand, while others didn’t care. But one thing was clear: no one’s eyelids were drooping in class, and no one was dozing off.
Wang Jing, unusually, seemed a bit more spirited. His classes normally resembled battlefields from afar, with students sprawled everywhere, but today, everyone was alert. The effect of having someone solve the problem was clearly impressive, and even his usual disdain for Ji Shu seemed to soften slightly. He remembered that her grades had been average before, yet she had managed this difficult problem. He thought to himself that she must have worked hard in private as well.
But that thought had barely formed when—
“Ding-dong!”
A crisp message alert interrupted his lecture.
Although sneaking a phone in class was normal, deliberately playing a loud notification sound in his classroom, knowing full well that he was traditional and strict, was something no one had ever dared to do.
The entire class turned to her in shock and disbelief. The girl who had just sat down stood expressionless, holding her phone, the screen dimming.
“Sorry, teacher.”
It was a new command.
【Enrage Wang Jing.】
The broken chalk brushed across the old wound on Ji Shu’s cheek, leaving a faint trace of white dust in her black hair.
“Ji Shu, don’t think just because you solved the problem that you’re impressive! Put your phone away and stand by the front door of the classroom to listen!” Wang Jing, rarely showing anger, actually shouted, a startling departure from his usual slow, deliberate demeanor.
Ji Shu didn’t complain. She turned, carrying her phone to the locker, locked it up, and then made her way to the classroom’s front entrance.
Passing by that familiar figure, she caught a cold, mocking snicker. Even after leaving the corridor between their desks, she could still feel his gaze clinging to her back, cold, unyielding, and warning.
It was the stare of a leopard before it strikes.
Across the vast rainy grasslands, the surrounding onlookers, the other students, watched with malicious delight. Hostile, gloating eyes engulfed her.
But Ji Shu pretended not to notice, leaving the classroom brimming with her classmates’ ill intent with calm composure.
Lu Mingxi furrowed his brows, narrowing his eyes on her figure, his expression dark and unreadable.
Only he, besides Ji Shu, knew that he had given her two choices.
【Enrage Wang Jing, or come see me after class.】
【Choose one.】
And she had not chosen the latter.