6
Early the next morning, Wu Jiao showed up at school with dark circle under her eyes.
The night before, in addition to the homework assigned by the teacher, she had also finished all the work Si Xiuyuan left for her.
By the time she capped her pen, the sky outside the window was already starting to lighten.
She had slept for less than three hours.
As soon as the morning study session ended, Wu Jiao slumped onto her desk and passed out.
Cao Haotian, who sat in front of her, was a group leader responsible for collection homework for each subject and handing it over the respective class representatives.
He patted Wu Jiao, and the moment she looked up, both of them jolted in fright.
“Whoa, what the hell? You scared me!”
“Ahhhh!”
Wu Jiao let out a quiet groundhog-like squeal.
Their matching dark circles met, and both saw fear reflecting in the other’s eyes.
Cao Haotian thought: [Played games all night last night, so tired. What did she do? Her skin is already pale, and with those two dark circle, she looks like a ghost!]
Wu Jiao said, “Don’t be scare, don’t be scared! If you see it during the day, it’s not a ghost!”
Cao Haotian: Huh?!
Cao Haotian burst out laughing making his drowsiness half gone. “What were you doing last night? You look exhausted, like you you’ve been through a lot.”
“Studying. It’s not hard work, just a hard life,” Wu Jiao said somberly, then playfully made a funny face at him. “If I make it through, I’ll keep going to school. If I don’t, I’ll just hang myself.”
“Hahahahaha—”
So funny.
Cao Haotian’s drowsiness completely vanished from laughter. When he looked at Wu Jiao again, he suddenly realized she was actually quite pretty.
Without her glasses, her eyes appeared much larger.
Her eyelashes were thick, and when she blinked while looking at you, she resembled a little dog.
Thinking this, he said it out loud: “You’re really cute.”
Wu Jiao smiled at him. “Thanks.”
“Keep it up. If you ever don’t understand anything in math, you can ask me. Other subjects too, of course.”
Wu Jiao paused, clearly not expecting Cao Haotian to say that out of nowhere.
Hadn’t he just yesterday—
“Oh, right, who are you paired with for the study group?”
“Classmate Cao, are all the homework assignments collected?”
Their conversation was interrupted by a voice.
Si Xiuyuan had appeared beside them without anyone noticing, holding a stack of exercise books.
Cao Haotian: “All collected, class monitor. I was just about to hand them to you.”
“Good.” Si Xiuyuan collected the homework and naturally sat down next to Wu Jiao, asking with concern, “Classmate Wu, did you finish last night’s math assignment?”
“Ah, Wu Jiao, so you’re in a group with the class monitor.”
Cao Haotian sounded a little surprised.
He had just casually said it yesterday, he hadn’t expected Wu Jiao to actually go find Si Xiuyuan.
But what surprised him even more was that Si Xiuyuan had actually agreed to pair with Wu Jiao.
“I finished it all!”
Wu Jiao quickly put her glasses back on and pulled out her test papers and materials to hand to Si Xiuyuan.
“Oh, right, class monitor, there’s one part I still don’t quite understand.”
Wu Jiao took out a problem. Si Xiuyuan looked at it for a few seconds, then picked up a pen to explain: “The later parts of this problem are all distractors…”
Cao Haotian glanced at the problem, seemed like he wanted to say something, but then thought better of it.
This problem wasn’t hard—it just required some thought, and he was good at that kind of thing.
But—
Cao Haotian looked at the boy in front of him.
Almost no one disliked Si Xiuyuan, including the boys.
Even if they envied his good looks and his wealthy family, and even though nearly half the girls in school had a crush on him, he was still impossible to hate.
The fact that he was brilliant but never showed off already put him ahead of most guys.
Cao Haotian knew very well that he wasn’t as smart as Si Xiuyuan.
He silently turned back around and slumped onto his desk, but his ears remained tuned in to the two behind him.
……
She managed to power through the first two classes, barely keeping her eyes open, but once class ended, she couldn’t hold on any longer and collapsed onto her desk.
As soon as class was over, Cao Haotian turned around, wanting to talk to Wu Jiao.
But the girl had her arms curled on the desk, her head tilted to the side, sleeping soundly. It would have been cruel to wake her.
Cao Haotian reminded her softly, “Don’t oversleep. We have to go down for exercises soon.”
Wu Jiao mumbled a groggy response and quickly fell back asleep.
By the time she woke up again, the exercise music had already been playing for a while. Apart from her, there was no one else left in the classroom.
Unless someone had special permission to be absent, everyone had to be present for the exercises, and the class monitor would take attendance.
She rushed out of the classroom in a panic, sprinting down the stairs but left her glasses on her desk.
Her nearsightedness wasn’t too severe, almost three hundred degrees. Without her glasses, things were just a little blurry, but it didn’t really affect daily life.
For example, she could still spot the “princess” from a distance.
Yan Yixin was strolling leisurely down the corridor of another building.
That was the international division.
Even though the international division was closer to the sports field, she had chosen to take the longer route this way.
She held a small mirror in her hand, pursing her lips as she adjusted the angle of her bangs.
“How do I look? Good?”
Her sidekick, Li Rongrong, played the role of her magic mirror. “You look great! You can’t even tell you’re wearing makeup—it’s just like you have a pure, bare face. You’re the perfect school beauty in my eyes. A beauty like you deserves the school heartthrob. You two are a perfect match.”
Li Rongrong knew exactly how to make the princess happy.
Taking advantage of no one watching, Wu Jiao pivoted on her toes and quickly headed for the stairs on the other side.
The last time they crossed paths, the princess was still upset about her wearing Si Xiuyuan’s jacket. She hadn’t completely cooled down yet, and Wu Jiao had no intention of walking right into the line of fire.
As she was thinking this, she wasn’t paying attention to where she was stepping. Her foot missed the stair, and her body lurched forward—
[Help! Wait, wait, wait—protect my head! Don’t let me smash my brain!]
In that split second, even though her mind was racing, her body hadn’t had time to react.
Suddenly, her chest tightened, as if someone had hit the pause button on her fall.
Something had hooked onto her bra strap and caught her.
Wu Jiao: ???
The thing came and went quickly, releasing her like she was a hot potato.
Wu Jiao: !!!
Thanks to that brief moment of support, Wu Jiao managed to react and grab hold of the railing.
She turned around. A tall figure stood there, backlit by the sun. She had to squint to make out who it was.
“Cla—class monitor?!”
The person looking down at her from above was none other than Si Xiuyuan.
Anyone but him—why did it have to be him?
Si Xiuyuan and a bra strap—it was impossible not to think of certain things.
Si Xiuyuan had just finished delivering homework to the teachers and was coming out of the office when he spotted a figure.
She wasn’t wearing her glasses, and her eyes were wide open. Now she looked more like a rabbit.
Something seemed to be chasing her from behind—she was in such a frantic hurry that she was hopping down the stairs three steps at a time.
Seeing that she was about to fall, he instinctively reached out to catch her. But instead, his fingers grabbed onto a narrow strip of fabric—one covered in… tiny raised bumps.
Smart people react fast.
They also let go even faster.
Because his memory was also quite good.
Just yesterday, someone had said that his hands were very good at undoing buttons.
He had thought it was absurd at the time.
But the raised bumps he had just felt—there was no doubt they were bra clasps.
“Hey, Classmate Wu, are you okay?”
Si Xiuyuan voluntarily walked down a few steps, and now Wu Jiao was looking down at him.
Their eyes met in mid-air.
For the first time, Si Xiuyuan wasn’t smiling.
Wu Jiao wanted to smile but couldn’t.
[Aaaaaaaaaah! His hand! My clasp came loose! I-I-I—damn! He really is good at undoing clasps!]
Wu Jiao’s brain tended to freeze when she was embarrassed, and right now, all she could think about was the clasp.
[No, no, no! The male lead is supposed to undo the female lead’s clasp, not mine! Does this even make sense?!]
Si Xiuyuan’s temples were throbbing.
Was she focusing on the wrong thing?
Seeing Wu Jiao’s face gradually turn red, he asked, “Aren’t you going? What are you thinking about, Classmate Wu?”
Wu Jiao immediately answered, “…Thinking about yesterday’s problems!”
[Clasp, he undid my clasp, clasp clasp clasp clasp clasp clasp.]
Si Xiuyuan: “Classmate Wu, you really love studying.”
Wu Jiao: “Love it, love it.”
[Clasp clasp clasp clasp clasp came loose, what do I do what do I do what do I do.]
Si Xiuyuan: “…”
The two of them silently agreed not to mention what had just happened.
They were about to walk out of the teaching building and head to the sports field, but Wu Jiao made no move to leave on her own. Instead, she stayed close beside Si Xiuyuan.
Outwardly, she walked as if nothing had happened.
Si Xiuyuan sighed quietly.
A second before stepping out of the teaching building, he stopped.
He asked her, “Classmate Wu, do you need to go to the bathroom?”
Wu Jiao was startled.
For a moment, she almost thought Si Xiuyuan was inviting her to go together.
But she quickly understood.
Right—she could fix the clasp situation in the bathroom!
Wu Jiao politely said goodbye to Si Xiuyuan at the bathroom door and quickly sent the clasp back to its rightful home.
She let out a breath of relief.
When she came back out, Si Xiuyuan was gone.
She thought he might still be in the bathroom, but by the time she found her class on the sports field, Si Xiuyuan was already halfway through taking attendance.
Guys really do finish in the bathroom fast.
The moment Wu Jiao stood still, she felt a burning gaze on her.
She followed the feeling—the princess was standing not far away, arms crossed, staring at her with an expression that looked like she wanted to eat her alive.
Amidst the jumble of mental noise, Wu Jiao locked onto the princess’s thoughts.
When Wu Jiao had avoided the princess earlier, the princess had run into the person she least wanted to see.
They had met at the stairwell.
He had been looking sickly and weak at first, his posture slack as he walked.
But the moment he saw Yan Yixin, he perked up completely.
Pei Jiamu was 188 cm tall, but he could never stand up straight. Every time Yan Yixin saw him, he was either leaning against something or draping himself over someone else as he walked, like a giant human accessory.
Yan Yixin hated people like that. She liked people like Si Xiuyuan, who walked tall and proper.
“What are you looking at? Keep staring, and I’ll gouge your eyes out.”
Yan Yixin was pissed.
When Pei Jiamu perked up, he gained energy, and his back straightened.
He was naturally good-looking—comparable to Si Xiuyuan, really and had won the affection of countless girls.
His naturally slightly wavy chestnut-colored hair made him appear very sunny. He exuded the vibrant energy of a high school boy, full of life. Compared to a mature man, he lacked a certain edge.
His eyes were also amber, warm-looking, as if the sun rose from them every day.
If you didn’t know Pei Jiamu, that would be your first impression of him.
You’d like him, right?
Well, you’d be wrong.
This guy was actually insufferably annoying. Yan Yixin knew this all too well.
“Get lost. Stay away from me.”
They were standing close to each other, and it was only now that Yan Yixin realized—
Had this guy been raised on fertilizer since childhood? Why did he have to grow so tall?
Yan Yixin instinctively took a step back, but he lazily leaned against the railing, arms crossed, watching her.
The brief sense of pressure she had felt moments ago vanished completely.
“…”
Pei Jiamu glanced behind Yan Yixin. “Well, well, that’s rare. Where’s your little dog?”
Yan Yixin rolled her eyes at him. “If you like dogs so much, get your own. What’s with the sour grapes?”
Li Rongrong, however, blushed slightly and volunteered, “Wu Jiao isn’t here.”
“Not here? Yan Yixin, did you get a new dog already? Didn’t she just transfer here?”
“None of your business.”
Yan Yixin didn’t want to deal with him. She grabbed Li Rongrong and started to leave.
But Pei Jiamu was like a stubborn patch of dog skin—impossible to shake off.
He sat on the railing, slid down smoothly, then pushed off with one hand, leaped lightly, and caught up with Yan Yixin.
Yan Yixin jumped in surprise, but the culprit just grinned cheekily.
Pei Jiamu: “In this day and age, where am I supposed to find a dog that fetches tea and does as it’s told? If you’re really that resourceful, give me one. I’ll go easy on you from now on.”
“You’re insane!”
“Thanks, but I’m doing just fine.”
Pei Jiamu pulled another stunt, vaulting over the corner railing and landing lightly on the floor below.
He dusted off his hands, then raised two fingers to his temple in a triumphant gesture at Yan Yixin.
Grinning, he said, “Good that your dog’s not here. There’s a competition next week. Don’t come crying if you can’t beat me, and don’t set your dog on me either! I’m off. Bye.”
“You—”
The princess was furious.
Princess: [So mad, so mad! Pei Jiamu, you’re dead! Just wait and see how I deal with you! Where the hell is Wu Jiao?! She’s never around when I need her!]
Wu Jiao sucked in a breath.
How could she have forgotten—Pei Jiamu was also one of the male leads.
And last time, she really did bite him.
That matter still hasn’t completely blown over.
**