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Chapter 4
Zhang Yunyi was indeed praying to all kinds of gods and deities, but it was all in vain. As the bell rang for class to start, the math teacher walked in, holding a stack of papers under one arm and a cup in the other. Clearing his throat, he scanned the classroom with an eagle-like gaze and sternly commanded, “Class is starting!”
“Good morning, Teacher.”
At least half of the students in the class were barely alive, their greeting weak and lacking energy.
The math teacher had assigned quite a few test papers, and today was for going over the problems.
Zhang Yunyi alternated between looking at the test papers and glancing up at the teacher, completely lost, feeling like she was trying to read an ancient text. Her body reacted quickly, instinctively lowering her head whenever it seemed like the teacher was about to make eye contact.
She really wanted to follow the teacher’s line of thinking, but before she even understood the previous problem, he had already moved on to the next one.
Forty-five minutes of class…
Zhang Yunyi thought to herself that she was wrong, terribly wrong. Every time they had a meeting at work, she had found it painful, but at least she could close her ears. Now, she had to force herself to listen.
This was the longest forty-five minutes of her life.
She would need a lifetime to recover from it.
The bell signaling the end of class felt like the sound of heaven. She revived instantly, elbowing Xu Shishi and whispering, “Did you understand anything?”
Xu Shishi lazily stretched and yawned. “If I understood everything, would I still be sitting with you?”
Zhang Yunyi: “…”
The homeroom teacher didn’t do any peer tutoring; the seating arrangement was based on grades. They were in their senior year, and the top students weren’t exactly Bodhisattvas. They couldn’t even focus on their own work, let alone help others. They only rearranged the seating once a semester, and Zhang Yunyi and Xu Shishi always found it hard to be separated. They were either desk mates or sat in front and behind each other but never apart.
Seeing Zhang Yunyi’s face look as bitter as a bitter melon, Xu Shishi teased, “What’s up? Planning to turn over a new leaf?”
Zhang Yunyi cursed the heavens. Even though she was reborn, couldn’t she have chosen the day after the college entrance exam? Why torture her like this?
She gritted her teeth and said, “I’m going to wash my face.”
No, if her exam results were terrible, not only would her parents probably threaten her with a knife, but she wouldn’t be able to take it herself.
She stood up and walked out with a heavy face. From today onward, from this very moment, she would wash her face with cold water after every class to clear her mind. She had decided that she would give herself at most a month to get her IQ back up to senior year standards, or she was doomed.
As she rushed out of the classroom, the boy sitting behind her, Shen Mingrui, who had been dozing off, asked, “What happened to Senior One?”
Xu Shishi shrugged. “Stay out of our beautiful senior’s business.”
But Zhang Yunyi’s mental state wasn’t unusual among senior students. There were people who, when faced with multiple-choice questions, would fill up a whole scrap of paper, confidently ready to answer, only to find that none of the four options matched, causing them to collapse and scream, “Ziya, take me away!”
Zhang Yunyi followed her memory to the restroom, where there were quite a few people coming and going. In the years to come, when she occasionally talked to friends about their school days, they would be surprised at how, despite having only ten minutes after class, they always felt like they could accomplish so much in that short time.
Among the cheerful students, Zhang Yunyi seemed like a ghost. She reached the sink, turned on the tap, and began to wash her face, getting her bangs wet in the process.
“Zhang Yunyi!”
Someone called her name as they came over to wash their hands.
Zhang Yunyi turned her head and managed a weak smile. “What a coincidence.”
It was He Nuo, a girl she had been close with during the first semester of their first year before they were separated into different classes after the subject selection. They used to share a dorm room during military training, and for a while, they were really close. But after the class separation, they hadn’t interacted much. Seeing each other now, they were still happy to chat.
“Are you by yourself?” He Nuo asked.
“Just a little bored, washing my face,” Zhang Yunyi replied.
He Nuo was in the liberal arts class. Zhang Yunyi had been very conflicted about whether to choose liberal arts or science. She wasn’t particularly biased in any subject, and her grades were stable in every subject. Her parents didn’t dare make the decision for her, so they came to school to consult with the homeroom teacher.
The teachers were very responsible. The homeroom teacher reviewed her scores from several monthly exams and recommended that she take the science track.
To Zhang Yunyi, it all felt the same, no different.
“The weather is pretty hot,” He Nuo commented, looking at her hand, which had ink stains from taking notes. “You have no idea how bad the boys in our class smell. I have to rub cooling ointment under my nose just to breathe easily!”
Cooling ointment?
Zhang Yunyi perked up. “Does it really help?”
“Heavy scent, but much better than the smell of sweat!” He Nuo complained. “I really suspect the boys never shower. It’s disgusting.”
Zhang Yunyi laughed. “You should tell them.”
“They say it’s ‘manly.’” He Nuo exaggeratedly pretended to gag.
At that, Zhang Yunyi didn’t know how to respond. The boys she liked were all active, but she wasn’t sure if they kept themselves clean just to maintain a good image in front of her or if they genuinely liked being clean. Every time she saw them, they were fresh and neat. Her taste in men was pretty specific—she liked simple-minded, goofy guys who were tall, had long legs, were cheerful, humorous, and straightforward.
Her sharp-tongued cousin had summarized her taste with two words: “airhead,” which, expanded, meant someone with simple brains and developed limbs.
“Zhang Yunyi, let’s go~”
He Nuo’s companion came over, and the two of them said their goodbyes.
Zhang Yunyi didn’t remember if there was cooling oil sold in the small convenience store, but if not, she would ask other classmates if they had some, and maybe a kind person could give her a small jar. It didn’t matter if she didn’t understand the class—she had to force herself to listen and get into the student mindset!
The walk from the restroom to the classroom took a bit of a detour.
She was hyping herself up and didn’t notice that as she passed other classrooms, she caught the attention of some people.
Each grade in high school had many classes. Although there was some interaction between the arts and science classes, it wasn’t frequent, and the information flow was rather isolated. The science class wouldn’t care who the top student in the arts class was, and vice versa.
“Who was that beautiful girl who just walked by?”
A few boys quietly asked.
“She’s from Class 3, I think her surname is Zhang?” Some idle boys began to gossip, but just as they were about to continue their discussion, one of the boys suddenly quieted. Everyone was confused until they saw a boy walk past them with a blank expression.
That was fine, but when he passed in front of them, he deliberately slowed his pace and casually glanced at them.
Teenage boys are easily irritated and often get upset over something as simple as a glance.
“What’s he looking at?!” one of the boys asked, lowering his voice.
“That’s the class leader from Class 3. Don’t talk about it,” the boy who spoke earlier replied.
Some class leaders are very protective, and they have a strong sense of collective honor. They were talking about girls from Class 3, and coincidentally, the class leader from Class 3 overheard them…
“He’s silent. Are they seeing each other?” one boy asked.
“No, they’re not…”
The top students are always the teacher’s favorites. During this crucial year, even if they have unresolved personal matters, teachers manage to keep them under control with their influence.
“What’s he looking at?!”
The words were bold, but the speaker’s face looked somewhat pale. The group quickly dispersed before the teacher arrived.
When Zhang Yunyi returned to her seat, she wasn’t idle. She seriously picked up her pen and began writing on her paper:
She was feeling quite good about her plans. But ten minutes into the second class, she started feeling drowsy.
Xu Shishi was multitasking, listening to the teacher explain a problem while furrowing her brow to appear engaged. In reality, she was sketching on a piece of paper, the pencil tip scratching across it. Zhang Yunyi’s attention quickly drifted to her, thinking, “Just a quick look.”
She later kept in touch with Xu Shishi, perhaps talking three to five times a year.
When one of them felt like talking, they’d message with something like, “Hey, are you free?”
Zhang Yunyi couldn’t remember what major Xu Shishi had chosen in university, but it had nothing to do with painting. After graduating, Xu Shishi found a job, which, in her own words, was just to “earn some money to stay alive.” After two years, she quit and moved to a remote city, using all her savings for a down payment on a small house and pursued full-time painting.
Xu Shishi was really skilled at drawing NSFW art.
Many people hired her for commissions, and although she didn’t say much about her annual income, she could easily support two boyfriends.
Zhang Yunyi quietly leaned toward her and sneaked a glance. She thought to herself, My body type can’t compete with that!
The drawing only had simple lines, and the characters didn’t have facial features.
A boy was holding a girl from behind, his chin resting on the top of her head, his hands firmly holding her in place.
Who was having the time of their life?
Xu Shishi noticed Zhang Yunyi’s gaze and smiled with pursed lips. She whispered, “Is it okay?”
“Perfect!” Zhang Yunyi responded.
If this were the seventeen-year-old Zhang Yunyi, she might have blushed. At that age, she was still innocent and would giggle at romantic novel lines like “ripples stirred in the glass of water on the bedside table.”
But now, she was indifferent to anything less than an exciting, high-speed chase.
However, Zhang Yunyi did admit that her taste in men had been deeply influenced by Xu Shishi. After looking at so many of Xu Shishi’s drawings, Zhang Yunyi now believed that boys had to be tall with broad shoulders, but they couldn’t be overly muscular.
Later, the boys she liked and the boyfriends she had all fit this type.
When Xu Shishi heard Zhang Yunyi’s one-word compliment, she beamed with a sense of pride.
However, Xu Shishi had forgotten that drawing inspiration often came from real life or media. When she first drew characters, she had been sketching during physical education class in her second year of high school. She had been sitting on the steps of the playground, looking around when her gaze had fixed on a girl with a ponytail, who was slightly tilting her head while talking to a boy. Occasionally, she heard phrases like, “Class leader, I really don’t feel well,” or “I might faint if I run 800 meters.” The boy glanced at her a few times, nodded, and the girl hurriedly ran away, light on her feet, almost like a successor to the character Duan Yu’s “light footsteps.”
At that moment, Xu Shishi’s pencil paused as she tried to capture the moment in her sketch.
“By the way…” Zhang Yunyi cautiously glanced at the math teacher, who was writing formulas on the board. Taking advantage of the teacher’s back being turned, she quickly said, “Be bolder. Don’t just rest your chin on her head. The pose is a bit stiff. How about burying your shoulder in the neck?”
Breathing down her neck and stuff, heh heh heh.
Xu Shishi’s eyes lit up. “Great!”