He looked around the classroom and found that the backpack handed to Zhang Ruochuan was sitting on the nearest desk to him, right next to the last spot by the corridor window, with the door behind him. Just one step out and he’d be in the hallway, the chosen spot for skipping class, and the easiest place for the homeroom teacher to keep an eye on.

During the break, the class was a bit noisy.

On the first day of the new semester, many students were chatting about what happened over the summer vacation.

Xie Ci pulled out a chair and sat down. Compared to his old desk, this one was pitifully small, with his legs squeezed under the desk, making it hard to move comfortably.

Soon, Zhang Ruochuan and Jiang Chenyu came over, leaning against his desk, asking about the outcome of his conversation.

“An eight-hundred-word reflection,” Xie Ci replied casually, checking the pile of textbooks on the desk and the items in the drawer. He felt no sense of belonging to his seat; instead, it felt like he was snooping into someone else’s privacy, which oddly excited him.

“Only eight hundred? Old Xiang has changed his ways; he used to demand at least fifteen hundred,” Zhang Ruochuan said, surprised. “How did you handle him? Share some tips.”

Xie Ci chuckled, “Do you really need that kind of experience, you good student?”

Zhang Ruochuan replied, “Better safe than sorry.”

While they were chatting, Xie Ci caught a glimpse of the young teacher stopping with Gu Yufeng outside the classroom in the corridor, and he suddenly had a bad feeling.

Not long after, Xiang Haibin hurried in, exchanged a few words with the young teacher, and then the young teacher nodded slightly to Gu Yufeng before leaving.

Jiang Chenyu, seeing Xie Ci staring out the window, curiously followed his gaze.

“That’s Teacher Zhao from the admissions office, right?”

“Wow!” Zhang Ruochuan, who could see Gu Yufeng through the window, couldn’t help but stretch his neck to take a few more looks. “This handsome guy can’t be the new transfer student in our class, can he?”

Jiang Chenyu changed his angle and finally spotted Gu Yufeng. “Oh no, oh no, Old Xie’s status as the school hunk is in jeopardy.”

Xiang Haibin entered the classroom from the front door and clapped his hands. “Class, quiet down for a moment.”

The students immediately quieted down, sitting up straight, waiting for Xiang Haibin to speak.

“This semester, we have a new student in our class. He grew up abroad, so his Mandarin might not be very good, and his lifestyle habits are a bit different from ours. I hope everyone can be accommodating.”

As Xiang Haibin spoke, many students had already noticed Gu Yufeng standing at the door. The girls exclaimed in surprise, thinking that having Xie Ci in the class was already a stroke of luck, but now there was another one.

Xiang Haibin waved at the door, signaling Gu Yufeng to come in.

Everyone watched as the tall boy walked up to Xiang Haibin, introduced himself as required, looking like a refined young gentleman.

Xie Ci heard a girl whisper to her deskmate, “He looks so fresh, unlike those boys in our class who smell like sweat and feet.”

Her deskmate replied, “He’s way fresher.”

Xie Ci thought, “…”

Not that he smelled good, but he definitely didn’t stink.

Gu Yufeng didn’t have a strong scent, and with his cleanliness and love for showering, even without cologne, he always had a faint hint of shampoo and body wash.

After a simple self-introduction, Xie Ci joined the other students in applauding to welcome him.

Xiang Haibin pointed to a seat in the back of the third row and said to Gu Yufeng, “You’re tall, sitting in the front row would block the view of the students behind you, so you can sit there.”

This made the boy next to him tense up, his back straightening.

Good-looking people naturally carry a sense of pressure, and since the boy was rather introverted, his heart started racing, worried about not getting along with his new deskmate.

Gu Yufeng glanced over and said to Xiang Haibin, “Can I sit in that spot?”

Xiang Haibin and all the students looked in the direction he pointed, and wow, he actually wanted to sit next to Xie Ci?!

Xiang Haibin shot a strange glance at Xie Ci and asked Gu Yufeng, “The seat near the back door? Why do you want to sit there?”

Gu Yufeng nodded, smiling lightly. “Because I like him.”

Everyone: “……”

As expected of a foreigner, so direct.

“Wow—” Zhang Ruochuan and a few boys started to cheer, the whole class was either snickering or banging on their desks, creating a ruckus.

Xiang Haibin felt a headache coming on, signaling everyone to quiet down, his face stern. “Xiao Gu has received education in D Country since childhood, which is different from ours. He’s just expressing friendliness; don’t think too much about it!”

Zhang Ruochuan laughed and said, “We’re not thinking too much; it’s you who’s thinking too much.”

Xiang Haibin: “……”

Jiang Chenyu chimed in, “New student, you have good taste; Old Xie is quite the catch in our class, many people like him.”

“Is that so?”

Gu Yufeng looked across the classroom, gazing at Xie Ci in the last row. “Then from today on, you all need to hold back a bit, because I don’t like it when others like someone I like.”

The girls: “……?!”

Is he claiming territory already?!

Jiang Chenyu was momentarily speechless: “……”

Who said his Mandarin wasn’t good? Isn’t he speaking quite fluently?

“……” Xie Ci couldn’t bear to look, resting his chin on his hand and staring out the window, trying to ignore it all.

It seemed that no matter who they were, everyone had their awkward teenage phase, and even Gu Yufeng was no exception.

Among the students in the front row, someone looked at Xie Ci with disdain.

Most collective activities in school were arranged by height, so often the tall and short students didn’t interact much. Plus, with all the negative rumors about Xie Ci, to some well-behaved students, he was like a tumor, someone they would never approach.

“What’s so great about him? Xie Ci is just a bit good-looking,” a boy muttered quietly.

This was overheard by Gu Yufeng, who responded publicly.

“Is there something wrong with liking to hang out with someone who studies well and loves sports?”

His words left the entire class in stunned silence.

The atmosphere became quite awkward, and Gu Yufeng noticed Xiang Haibin hesitating to speak, feeling a bit confused.

“It’s almost time for class; you should go back to your seat,” Xiang Haibin said before turning to leave.

Gu Yufeng stepped down from the podium and walked to the back row of the classroom, inadvertently spotting a notice board displaying the rankings from last semester’s exams.

He quickly scanned it and found Xie Ci’s name at the bottom of the list, finally understanding where the problem lay.

So, it turned out that the clever old fox at home wasn’t just a little pitiful; he was also a poor student.

Gu Yufeng placed his backpack on the desk and saw a math workbook spread out in front of his new deskmate, who was spinning a pen with his right hand, leaning back with his hand against his cheek, giving off a vibe of refusing to engage.

The more Xie Ci acted like this, the more Gu Yufeng wanted to tease him.

“If you hadn’t rejected the reward I offered yesterday, maybe you wouldn’t have to face me again.”

Gu Yufeng opened his backpack and started taking out the textbooks he had just received, placing them on the desk. “Today’s fruit is the cause you planted yesterday.”

Xie Ci was amused by his twisted logic, turning to look at him. “Is it worth transferring schools just for this little thing?”

Gu Yufeng’s gaze swept over Xie Ci’s face as he leaned over the desk, pinching Xie Ci’s chin to lift it, his thumb brushing over the swollen corner of his mouth, slightly frowning. “It hasn’t improved at all; didn’t you apply medicine after going home yesterday?”

Xie Ci grabbed his wrist and moved it away. “You still haven’t answered me.”

Gu Yufeng followed his lead, “Yeah, I specifically transferred here to take revenge—uh, I mean to repay you. Are you happy?”

Xie Ci: “……”

This kid has been a bit crazy since he was young.

He rarely did a good deed, and now he was facing the consequences so quickly.

The surrounding students didn’t dare to look back, feeling that the atmosphere in the back of the classroom was completely out of sync with theirs.

Jiang Chenyu shot a glance at his good buddy Zhang Ruochuan: [What’s going on with them?]

Zhang Ruochuan pondered: [Old Xie’s nemesis has arrived.]

Jiang Chenyu: [……]

Xie Ci never imagined he would return to high school, attending classes again with a group of old classmates whose names he couldn’t recall, and now sitting next to his ex-husband.

Throughout the morning classes, half of Xie Ci’s attention was on Gu Yufeng.

Whether it was math class or language class, Gu Yufeng was solely focused on flipping through a foreign language book, not even lifting his head.

If Xie Ci wasn’t mistaken, it should be a textbook on the principles of economics, a Harvard textbook.

This kid wasn’t here to study; it felt more like he was here to accompany Xie Ci to school.

“With such poor grades, you’re not even paying attention in class,” Gu Yufeng said while flipping to the next page.

Xie Ci: “……”

Let’s correct that; he wasn’t accompanying him, he was monitoring him.

Xie Ci casually found a problem in the math workbook. “Help me solve this problem.”

Gu Yufeng didn’t take high school math seriously at all. Confidently taking it over, he looked at it and was dumbfounded, completely unable to understand it.

Even if he had been good at it during his student days, after so many years, he had long forgotten those useless formulas, and reading the questions felt like deciphering a foreign language.

Until the break, Gu Yufeng was still trying to solve the problem.

During the break, Jiang Chenyu and Zhang Ruochuan came over to chat with Xie Ci, also getting to know the new student.

Xie Ci noticed Gu Yufeng looking distressed at the workbook, worried he might laugh, so he turned his gaze away and saw a group of people gathered in the corner of the back row of the classroom. He casually asked, “What’s going on over there?”

Zhang Ruochuan looked over. “They’re lining up to ask the class monitor questions. Old Xiang’s pace in this class is a bit fast; I have a point I didn’t quite understand either.”

Jiang Chenyu added, “The one with the strongest learning ability in our class is Old Fang, right? I’ve never seen him stumped by any question.”

“I’ve been classmates with him since elementary school. He was already ridiculously strong in first grade. Compared to him, I often feel like an idiot and even cried to my dad to take me to get my IQ tested,” Zhang Ruochuan lamented.

“Old Fang?”

Gu Yufeng raised his head, looking at Jiang Chenyu and the others. “Does the class monitor have the character Fang in his name?”

Seeing he finally had a topic of interest, Jiang Chenyu quickly nodded and explained, “Our class monitor is named Fang Sizhe.”

Zhang Ruochuan kindly pointed in a direction. “He’s sitting in the very back row, the super handsome one, and he’s also the vice-captain of our basketball team.”

Gu Yufeng peered through the crowd, staring at Fang Sizhe, who was writing something on a piece of scratch paper, explaining to the students who had gathered around him. He looked like a well-trusted academic star among his classmates.

“His surname is Fang…” Gu Yufeng squinted slightly, mumbling to himself.

Xie Ci asked, “What’s wrong with the surname Fang?”

Gu Yufeng turned his head, not answering his question, but instead asked, “Are you two close?”

Xie Ci replied, “He’s on the basketball team; we get along okay.”

Gu Yufeng asked without context and then went back to focusing on solving problems.

Before the last class ended, Xie Ci saw a blonde foreigner waiting outside in the corridor.

When the bell rang, Gu Yufeng closed his book and put it in the drawer. “Don’t take the workbook; I’ll solve it this afternoon.”

Xie Ci said, “If you can’t solve it, then you can’t. I won’t laugh at you.”

“I will solve it.”

With that, Gu Yufeng stood up and walked out of the classroom through the back door, leaving with the blonde foreigner.

Xie Ci: “……”

What a stubborn guy.