Chapter 45

Su Miao Miao ultimately stayed overnight at Shang Yan’s house.

Before dinner, Chen Wanfang prepared a guest room for the girl, cutting off any chance for Shang Yan to tease her further.

Shang Yan indeed did not joke with Su Miao Miao again.

—

After dinner, and about half an hour of digestion, Shang Yan took Su Miao Miao into the study.

Textbooks and supplementary materials for physics, chemistry, and biology were stacked in two thick piles, placed right in the center of the white desk.

As soon as Su Miao Miao entered the room, she was intimidated by these two piles.

Noticing her clearly hesitant steps, Shang Yan reached out and closed the door behind him.

Su Miao Miao: “…”

Shang Yan walked around her, went to the desk, and patted the two stacks of textbooks and supplementary materials.

“They won’t be back from Kuqu Mountain until tomorrow noon. In the afternoon, the formal classes will begin—before that, I’ll go over the knowledge points of the first half of the semester with you for the three subjects of physics, chemistry, and biology.”

Su Miao Miao: “…”

Her legs felt a bit weak.

Unfortunately, Shang Yan did not give her any chance to refuse, as he had already pulled out the chair behind the desk with one hand.

Su Miao Miao stood in place for a few seconds before walking over in resignation.

After a day of relaxation, her hellish mode was abruptly and unexpectedly forced to begin near midnight.

Fortunately, Shang Yan had a thorough grasp of the textbooks and the curriculum. His explanations of the knowledge points were clear and well-integrated. Although Su Miao Miao felt overwhelmed after listening for the entire evening, the efficiency was far greater than her self-study or listening to her teachers.

It was unclear how much time had passed when someone knocked on the study door.

Chen Wanfang entered and placed a freshly prepared fruit platter beside them.

Seeing Chen Wanfang felt like seeing the goddess of hope for Su Miao Miao.

“Thank you, Aunt Chen,” she said, starting to stand up.

“Kid, come back and finish the practice problems.”

From the adjacent chair, without even looking up from his supplementary book, Shang Yan spoke up.

Su Miao Miao: “…”

The girl didn’t argue. She gave Chen Wanfang a pitiful glance before lowering her head and sitting back down.

Chen Wanfang smiled gently.

“Remember to balance work and rest while studying.”

“…”

Shang Yan placed his supplementary book face down on the desk and looked at the girl sitting beside him.

“There’s a week until the midterm exams. How about resting after the exams?”

This time, before Su Miao Miao could speak, Chen Wanfang suddenly asked, “Will you be studying very late tonight?”

Shang Yan glanced at the time and frowned slightly.

“It won’t be too late,” he turned and said, “Aunt Chen, you should go rest.”

Chen Wanfang thought for a moment and then waved to Shang Yan.

“Young Master, come here for a moment. I have something to give you.”

Shang Yan got up and followed her to the outer study.

Not long after, Shang Yan returned, now holding a very large book.

Thinking it was yet another study material, Su Miao Miao looked at the title in resignation.

Then she was taken aback.

The title was very long, but she recognized the abbreviation, with the key emphasis on the last two words—”Criminal Law.”

By the time Su Miao Miao snapped out of it, Shang Yan had already placed the hefty and very conspicuous book at the upper left corner of the desk.

Su Miao Miao: “Where did this come from?”

Shang Yan: “It was originally in the outer study. Aunt Chen just handed it to me.”

Su Miao Miao was stunned for a couple of seconds before cautiously asking, “The midterm exams at our school shouldn’t cover this, right?”

Shang Yan leaned back in his chair, lowering his eyes with a faint smile.

“This isn’t for exams or studying.”

Su Miao Miao: “Then what is it for?”

Shang Yan: “Self-supervision and self-reminder.”

Su Miao Miao: “Supervision and reminder… of what?”

Shang Yan: “…”

After a couple of seconds of silence, the boy propped his right hand against his forehead and chuckled softly.

“To remind myself not to test the boundaries of the law.”

Su Miao Miao: “………………?”

Under the shadow of “Criminal Law,” Su Miao Miao’s first overnight stay at Shang Yan’s house passed without incident.

The next day, Class One’s autumn outing officially ended.

Students returned to school, joining the large group focused on preparing for the upcoming midterm exams.

The training office in the science building also remained closed for an entire week.

A week later, the midterm exams concluded.

After enduring the most torturous weekend of the semester, all the students nervously faced the arrival of Monday.

Monday was typically the day when, after two nights of hard work by the teachers, all subject grades and the overall class rankings would be announced simultaneously.

After the flag-raising ceremony, all the students returned to their respective classrooms.

The atmosphere in the classroom was indeed very tense. Although there were still more than ten minutes until the first period, the class had unconsciously fallen into an unprecedented silence.

Even students who usually didn’t care much about their grades were reluctant to speak up and disrupt the tense mood of their peers.

In Class 1 of the second year, the first period every Monday was, coincidentally, their homeroom teacher Li Shijie’s chemistry class.

In other words, if the teachers had already graded the papers and compiled the scores over the weekend, their class would be fortunate enough to find out whether they aced or flunked the midterm exams during the first period on Monday.

In the midst of this atmosphere, even Su Miao Miao couldn’t help but feel nervous. She perked up her ears and heard the low discussion between her desk mates, Qi Wenyue and Liao Lanxin:

Qi Wenyue: “Desk mate, are you nervous?”

Liao Lanxin: “Not really.”

Qi Wenyue: “Desk mate, you usually study so well, always ranking first in the class. How do you feel about this exam, especially in physics and biology? The questions this time were so outrageous, weren’t they?” 🙂

Liao Lanxin remained silent for two seconds before saying, “Oh, then I did pretty well.”

Qi Wenyue: “………………”

Qi Wenyue lamented, “Desk mate! At a time like this, good students like you shouldn’t pretend to be modest and say, ‘I feel like I messed up, oh no, what should I do…’!”

Liao Lanxin’s tone remained calm: “It depends on the person.”

Qi Wenyue: “?”

Liao Lanxin continued, “For example, if it were Shang Yan asking me, then maybe I’d need to say that. But since it’s you asking—”

Qi Wenyue: “Enough, stop right there! I declare the dissolution of the bond between Qi Bro and Miao Miao Back Desk!”

Upon hearing this, Su Miao Miao couldn’t help but laugh softly.

The previous tension dissipated.

Thinking about their conversation, Su Miao Miao turned her head to look at Shang Yan—He was unusually not wearing his noise-canceling earphones and was resting his head on the desk, sleeping.

Curiously, Su Miao Miao asked, “I heard from Wu Hongbo that you were busy with Python training yesterday until late. Aren’t you going to catch up on sleep today?”

Shang Yan’s gaze paused.

“Nervous, can’t sleep.”

Su Miao Miao looked at him in surprise, “Are you also nervous about your grades? I thought you’ve always been confident and never cared about them…”

Shang Yan turned slightly, hesitated, and glanced at the girl.

There was silence between them for a few seconds.

“I’m nervous about you,” Shang Yan finally said.

“…”

Su Miao Miao was stunned.

Before she could respond, there was a slight sound from the front door of the classroom—Li Shijie pushed the door open and walked in.

All the discussions among the students stopped abruptly, and everyone’s gaze turned towards him.—Li Shijie held a stack of papers and several folded white sheets in his arms.

The classroom seemed to have been muted, collectively silenced, with not a sound to be heard.

Stepping onto the platform, Li Shijie couldn’t help but smile when he saw the scene before him.

“What’s going on? Everyone looks like they’re about to face the guillotine,” he remarked.

The students remained silent, their gaze shifting to the papers in his hands.

“Oh, so you all already know about the grades, huh?”

Li Shijie, rare for him, cracked a joke, clearly in a good mood.

“Is it a bit too late to be downcast now? You’ve already turned in the papers, they’ve been graded. Are you regretting not studying hard in the first half of the semester?” he quipped.

One student in the class couldn’t bear the slow torture and blurted out, “Teacher, we know we were wrong. Please just give us our grades and put us out of our misery!”

Other students chimed in as well: “Yeah, teacher.”

“I haven’t slept well in two days. Look how much weight I’ve lost.”

“Teacher, please, just give us the grades…”

“Alright.”

After enjoying the sight of these usually unruly students looking worried, Li Shijie chuckled and let them off the hook.

“Class monitor, come up and distribute the chemistry papers.”

With that, Li Shijie placed the chemistry papers on the desk and then bent down to open the multimedia podium in front of him.

Li Shijie reached out to start the computer. While the system was preparing, he stood up straight.

“I’ve heard that the questions in this midterm exam were generally difficult, especially in math, physics, and biology. If you feel that your scores are lower than expected, don’t panic. It’s just a matter of identifying areas for improvement, and we’ll progress gradually.”

As the computer booted up, the desktop appeared on the screen via the projector.

Li Shijie bent down to his computer and downloaded the midterm exam grade sheet for Class 1 of the second year from his email, placing it on the desk.

With the entire class holding their breath, he double-clicked to open the sheet.

The list of students’ names appeared on the screen in front of the class in a flash.

The students of Class 1 instinctively began scanning from the top row. But as they read the name at the top, a sudden uproar erupted in the classroom.

Then, as if guided by an invisible force, all eyes turned unanimously toward the front row of the classroom.

Standing at the platform, Li Shijie stared at the first name on the list for two seconds, sighed silently, and spoke up.

“I forgot to tell you. There are two students from our class who made it to the top five in the grade. Shang Yan is fourth in the grade, and Liao Lanxin is fifth, with only one point difference between them. You both did very well. Keep up the good work.”

With Li Shijie’s repetition, the students finally realized they hadn’t misread the list.

—

In the past, although Shang Yan had excellent grades in various subjects, his overall score was often dragged down by Chinese, placing him in the top three to five positions in the class and around the top 10 in the grade.

This was the first time they had seen Shang Yan’s name listed first.

Everyone’s gaze couldn’t help but shift to the row of grades immediately following his name.

Upon seeing it, someone nearly bit their tongue in shock.

“What the heck! Full marks in physics, chemistry, and biology?!”

Li Shijie glared disapprovingly at the student.

Then he turned back around.

“Shang Yan is the focus of praise and criticism in our class this time—scoring full marks in physics, chemistry, and biology is a rare occurrence, something the school’s formal exams haven’t seen in over ten years, and it’s likely the first time for Shang Yan himself. As for criticism…”

Li Shijie sighed and looked at Shang Yan.

“Shang Yan, do you have some sort of vendetta against your Chinese teacher?”

“…”

The Chinese grade was at the top of the list.

The first number in Shang Yan’s row was a glaring, bright red “89,” representing a failing grade.

—

The whole class couldn’t hold back their laughter.

“Alright, quiet down—”

Li Shijie interrupted the laughter in the classroom with a helpless sigh.

“You’re still laughing? Take a look for yourselves. Shang Yan failed in one subject, with a total score of 671. How much did all of you score? If I were you, I’d be hiding my face in shame. And you’re still laughing?”

“…”

With Li Shijie’s words, the whole class fell silent.

Li Shijie finally turned to Shang Yan with satisfaction.

“Scoring full marks in three subjects is indeed impressive. Shang Yan, take some time to share your study insights with your classmates.”

Upon hearing this, Shang Yan lifted his gaze.

He had been calm from the beginning, but now he chuckled.

“My study insights?”

The students in the class perked up, eager to listen.

Shang Yan continued, “—Isn’t she sitting right next to me?”

Su Miao Miao was taken aback.

The whole class stared at the two of them in astonishment.

But Shang Yan didn’t elaborate, just smiled with a slight furrow of his brows.

“Teacher, please turn the page.”

Li Shijie refocused and turned the page.

Su Miao Miao’s name appeared on this page.

Shang Yan’s smile faded slightly as he glanced over the row of numbers, then lowered his head to jot something down in his notebook.

As he reached the end, his black pen smoothly circled the last two sets of numbers—

Class ranking: 17, Grade ranking: 165.

After a moment of contemplation, Shang Yan’s lips curled into a faint smile.

“Not bad progress, kiddo.”

—

Contrary to Shang Yan, Su Miao Miao’s performance in other subjects was average, except for Chinese, where she excelled.

In fact, she had the highest score in Chinese in Class 1.

As Li Shijie began the class, Su Miao Miao couldn’t help but ask Shang Yan curiously in a low voice, “Why did you say I was your study insight just now?”

Shang Yan lowered his gaze to her, with a smirk playing on his lips.

“Do you think I’m naturally good at teaching? I’ve flipped through the textbooks for physics, chemistry, and biology countless times just to efficiently tutor you, especially for biology— the knowledge is fragmented and complex. If I got a full score, a big part of it is thanks to you.”

Su Miao Miao felt her cheeks flush inexplicably. She held her breath and after a while, she withdrew.

“Oh.”

After the brief announcement of the grades, Li Shijie proceeded with teaching the chemistry midterm exam in that class.

As the bell for the end of the first class rang, as he was packing up, Li Shijie suddenly remembered something.

“Our biology teacher is absent this morning. We’ll have Chinese in the second class, and the biology class will be rescheduled later.”

The classroom erupted into chatter.

A few seconds later, all eyes turned to Shang Yan simultaneously.

Shang Yan was in the midst of explaining the final chemistry problem to Su Miao Miao. Upon hearing the news, he paused, furrowing his brows.

—

As it turned out, the Chinese teacher did not disappoint the students’ “expectations.”

From the beginning of the second class, Lin Zheng’s gaze frequently wandered in Shang Yan’s direction, often with a hint of resentment.

Finally, when the class ended, Lin Zheng clapped the teaching materials in his hands and stepped down from the platform, heading straight to Shang Yan’s desk.

A single Chinese test paper was aggressively slammed onto Shang Yan’s desk—A glaring “89” lay in the center of the paper, incredibly conspicuous.

Lin Zheng laughed in frustration.

“Shang Yan, you’re something else! 144 in math, 136 in English, full marks in physics, chemistry, and biology—except for Chinese! You managed to get a failing grade, just one point short! Tell me—do you have something against me!?”

Lin Zheng took a deep breath and pointed directly at the paper:

“And what about your extra-curricular reading assignment for modern literature? The question asked how you interpret the descriptive passage in the text. And what did you write? Huh? You actually wrote ‘no opinion’! Are you trying to rebel, Shang Yan?!”

Lin Zheng erupted in fury, but Shang Yan kept his gaze lowered, showing no emotion on his serene profile, silently sitting there.

Lin Zheng seemed on the verge of exploding.

He shook his finger at Shang Yan, “Fine, fine, you’re something else, Shang Yan—how about this, don’t bother coming to my Chinese class anymore, okay!?”

“…”

Shang Yan had stayed up until midnight working on Python algorithms for the training group last night, only getting two to three hours of sleep. His temples were throbbing with frustration, and when Lin Zheng yelled at him for two minutes, his pent-up anger finally erupted.

After hearing Lin Zheng’s remark, Shang Yan scoffed coldly without opening his eyes. Then, he pushed the desk away with his right hand and stood up.

“Seeking…” Before he could finish saying “not allowed,” his left hand was suddenly held by a unfamiliar touch.

—

The girl’s slender fingertips felt slightly cold as she anxiously clenched his hand.

Shang Yan was taken aback, instinctively turning to look back.

With a pleading glance, Su Miao Miao’s dark eyes glistened as she subtly shook her head at him.

Almost instinctively, Shang Yan tightened his grip, holding onto her hand.

Su Miao Miao winced from his tight grasp, but she pretended nothing was wrong, anxiously glancing at the still angry Chinese teacher.

“Mr. Lin, it was my fault for not tutoring Shang Yan in Chinese before… I promise you, before the final exam, I will make sure Shang Yan’s Chinese grades are above the class average.”

Lin Zheng continued to furrow his brows, his chest still heaving with anger.

If it were someone else saying these words, he would have ignored them long ago. However, Su Miao Miao is now his “star pupil” in the class, leaving a deep impression on him since their first meeting.

During the mid-term exam, Su Miao Miao’s Chinese language score ranked in the top three in the grade.

Faced with such a pretty, obedient, and high-achieving girl, Lin Zheng couldn’t even muster his usual fiery temper.

He could only hold his breath and ask in a calm voice, “Are you giving me a military order?”

Su Miao Miao nodded, “Yes.”

“Alright,” Lin Zheng huffed and shot a glare at Shang Yan.

“Considering your desk mate’s face, I’ll give you one last chance. If you get such a grade in the final exam this semester, don’t bother attending my Chinese class again!” Lin Zheng stormed off, still seething with anger.

As Lin Zheng left, Su Miao Miao immediately breathed a sigh of relief and lightly pressed her hand against her chest.

—

Scared by Lin Zheng’s recent outburst and compounded by the tension of the ultimatum, her heart felt like it was about to leap out of her throat.

Feeling drained, the girl sank back into her chair.

Just as she was about to release her hand, she suddenly realized her right hand was still clenched in the hand of the boy beside her.

The boy had a handsome face, slightly tense, cold, and expressionless.

Su Miao Miao felt a slight annoyance in her heart and lifted her face.

“Master, you’re squeezing my hand too tightly.”

“…,” Shang Yan snapped out of his daze.

He released her hand with some regret and slowness, feeling the girl’s fingertips brush against his palm, leaving a slight tingling sensation.

“If you can’t fulfill such an ultimatum, what do you plan to do?”

Su Miao Miao paused her actions and thought seriously for two seconds. Then, she picked up the notebook on the table and pointed to her grades, looking at Shang Yan.

“I can do it for Master, can’t Master do it for me?”

Shang Yan was stunned. After a few seconds, his eyelids lowered, and he suddenly chuckled softly.

Su Miao Miao still looked at him, steadfastly awaiting an answer.

Shang Yan couldn’t withstand the girl’s gaze, averted his face, and cleared his throat.

“…Yes.”

What he can do for her, what he’s already prepared to do for her, is far more than just this.

Su Miao Miao’s face softened into a gentle smile. She picked up her neatly arranged Chinese textbooks and notes, then stood up.

“Shall we go then?”

Shang Yan: “?”

Su Miao Miao tilted her head and chuckled softly.

“The library, self-study next class. I’ll tutor you in Chinese.”

A week ago, similar words were spoken before the same self-study class, only the subject was chemistry and biology for Shang Yan: “…”

The wheel of destiny turns.

Who will be spared?

*

After the midterm exams, the self-study area in the library became even more deserted.

Shang Yan and Su Miao Miao went to the second floor together and randomly found a spot in the empty self-study area.

Just as they were about to sit down, Su Miao Miao’s phone vibrated in her pocket.

Su Miao Miao handed her textbooks and notes to Shang Yan and whispered, “You can look at the text and the notes I wrote while I take this call.”

With that, the girl quickly walked towards the corridor, phone in hand.

Shang Yan paused, his gaze deepening. With a hint of impatience, he glanced at the word “Chinese” on the textbook cover. Using one hand to support his forehead, the boy lazily picked up the book and flipped through it absentmindedly.

As he flipped through the pages, a piece of white paper suddenly flew out from between the pages, caught by the breeze of the turning pages.

Shang Yan paused.

He lowered his hand and calmly retrieved the paper. The handwriting on it was elegant and strong, densely packed with notes about “precautions for bruises and injuries.”

At the end, there was a beautifully signed name.

“Chu Ming.”

Shang Yan narrowed his eyes and slowly read aloud.