Chapter 43

In the November monthly exam, the school bully’s performance improved once again compared to the previous test. His biology score, in particular, ranked among the top three in the grade for that subject.

Gradually, many classmates came to accept the fact that “as long as the school bully is willing, he can also dominate academically over most people.”

Before reviewing the exam paper, the biology teacher specifically called out Ji Wenchen for praise:

“Ji Wenchen is the most improved student I’ve seen in my 13 years of teaching. I believe this is due to his serious learning attitude during class and his dedicated effort in solving problems after class. Everyone should learn from him!”

The “serious in class” Ji Wenchen was currently propping up his chin with one hand, while the other hand twirled a pen and reached toward Qin Xiaoxiao, his fingers moving swiftly.

Qin Xiaoxiao pretended not to see him.

While adjusting the projector, the biology teacher remarked, “Qin Xiaoxiao, you should also learn more from Ji Wenchen. If you have any questions about biology, feel free to ask him. Try to strengthen your weaker areas in biology. Since you’re desk mates, you can complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.”

Halfway through, Ji Wenchen’s lips curled slightly, and he whispered, “Did you hear that? Discuss more with me.”

Qin Xiaoxiao, who was called out by the teacher in front of the whole class: “…”

The biology teacher finished reviewing most of the exam paper within the class period. As soon as the bell rang, the teacher promptly dismissed the students for a break.

Qin Xiaoxiao put her exam paper into a folder, picked up her water cup, and prepared to leave the classroom to refill it.

“Xiaoxiao.” Qin Xiaoxiao turned toward Yan Yangcan from the first group, who had called her. He said, “Do you have a moment? I need to ask you about two questions.”

Qin Xiaoxiao raised the water cup in her hand and replied, “I’m going to get water.”

“Then go ahead and refill it first,” Yan Yangcan quickly replied, flashing a smile as warm as a spring breeze.

Qin Xiaoxiao gave a slight nod and continued walking out without stopping.

At the water dispenser, two classmates who arrived earlier were already waiting in line.

Standing further back in the line was a classmate from her dormitory.

Qin Xiaoxiao greeted her softly, “Wu Li.”

Wu Li turned around. “Xiaoxiao.” After two seconds, she shyly asked, “The fourth multiple-choice question the teacher just explained—did you understand it? Could you explain it to me?”

Qin Xiaoxiao thought briefly about which question it was. “Sure,” she replied and began explaining it to Wu Li concisely.

As she explained, her mind wandered, recalling someone’s suggestion for her to discuss more with him…

After listening, Wu Li finished filling her water and gratefully said, “Thank you, Xiaoxiao. Hearing you explain it again helped me understand.”

“You’re welcome.”

Qin Xiaoxiao filled her cup with half hot water and half cold water. She entered through the front door and walked to Yan Yangcan’s seat.

“You’re here?” Yan Yangcan looked up and smiled at her, adjusting his thin-framed glasses.

“Which question do you want to ask?”

Yan Yangcan pulled out his physics exam paper from under the biology one. “The third big question.”

It was a calculation problem about charged particles moving in a combined field. Qin Xiaoxiao found it somewhat familiar. She quickly skimmed through the question, then glanced at the newly installed clock on the front blackboard.

There were only 4 minutes left of the break.

“Is there a specific part you don’t understand?”

“The second sub-question—I don’t understand any of it.”

“Okay.”

Since understanding the first sub-question makes things easier, it should be quick to explain. Qin Xiaoxiao took the pen Yan Yangcan handed her and roughly sketched the model diagram inferred from the question on the scratch paper.

“For this sub-question, it says to remove the electric field, so the charged particle is only affected by the Lorentz force, right?”

Yan Yangcan appeared thoughtful. “…Yes.”

“Based on the geometric relationship,” Qin Xiaoxiao added an auxiliary line to make it clearer for him, “you can use this formula to determine the value of R.”

“Uh-huh…”

“Do you understand the rest now?” Qin Xiaoxiao put down the pen and straightened up.

Yan Yangcan tapped the sketch with his finger, seemingly processing and thinking.

“Xiaoxiao…”

Qin Xiaoxiao turned her head—it was Bi Chun, who sat diagonally behind Yan Yangcan, calling her.

“What’s wrong?” Qin Xiaoxiao noticed that Bi Chun’s gaze seemed a bit evasive.

Qin Xiaoxiao wasn’t someone oblivious to others’ gazes. Over the past few days, she had noticed that Bi Chun, whose expression often seemed off, had been watching her…

“N-nothing…”

This was the first conversation between Bi Chun and Qin Xiaoxiao in the past seven days.

“I don’t quite understand.”

“Hmm?” Qin Xiaoxiao lowered her head in response to Yan Yangcan’s words.

Yan Yangcan gave an apologetic smile. “I don’t quite understand how to calculate the time it takes for the charged particle to travel from point A to point B.”

“Alright, let’s start with Newton’s Second Law…” Qin Xiaoxiao began laying out the explanation for him.

Bi Chun lowered her head slightly, a hint of sadness in her expression.

On the other side of the aisle:

“Brother Chen,” Lu Yitao leaned over to Ji Wenchen’s desk, where he wasn’t napping, and cautiously asked, “Should we get fried chicken—uh, I mean, order fried chicken for lunch?”

“No.”

With just one word, the newly recruited lackey, Lu Yitao, immediately sensed Ji Wenchen’s displeasure and shuddered internally: What’s wrong with Brother Chen? Who made him upset?

Lu Yitao took half a step back and discreetly followed Ji Wenchen’s gaze:

Qin Xiaoxiao was talking to Yan Yangcan.

Lu Yitao felt like he had figured out the reason for Brother Chen’s foul mood.

Of course—after chasing a girl for so long, only to see her go to another guy’s seat to chat right under his nose—if it were him, he’d be upset too!

Come to think of it, school beauties are really hard to chase…

Lu Yitao shook his head to refocus and returned to the main topic. “So, Brother Chen, which takeout do you want to order for lunch?”

“I’m eating at the cafeteria.”

“Oh, oh, got it. I’ll go with you.”

Ji Wenchen didn’t respond, his slightly narrowed phoenix eyes still fixed on the same spot.

“…This way, you can calculate the time it takes for the charged particle to move from point A to point B, right?” Qin Xiaoxiao put down the pen.

Yan Yangcan nodded. “Yes.” He gave her a gentle smile. “Thank you.”

“Uh, there’s one more question…”

“Class is about to start,” Qin Xiaoxiao said as she picked up the water cup she had temporarily placed on his desk. “I’ll head back now.”

“Oh, okay… then next class, I—”

“Xiaoxiao,” Bi Chun’s soft voice suddenly interrupted, “can you come over next class?”

Qin Xiaoxiao nodded. “Sure.” She then walked past both of their desks and exited the aisle.

Lu Yitao saw Qin Xiaoxiao walking back and wisely retreated.

Before leaving, he witnessed the school bully slightly turning his upper body and picking up a pen… to work on problems?

“Does it really take that long to refill water?”

As Qin Xiaoxiao sat down and twisted open her cup lid, she heard this comment from her desk mate.

“I stopped to look at a question,” Qin Xiaoxiao said, bringing the rim of the cup to her lips and taking a sip of water.

Ding ding ding ding—

The class bell rang.

“What’s so interesting to look at?” her desk mate asked.

Qin Xiaoxiao, blessed with good hearing, caught the comment and found it somewhat amusing. “Hmm, nothing particularly interesting.”

Then, she seemed to hear her desk mate let out a faint “heh.”

A faint, helpless smile appeared on Qin Xiaoxiao’s lips as she lowered her head and retrieved the latest issue of the English study paper from her desk cubby.

She had only managed to complete two questions so far.

The girl sitting in front, Gan Shuangxing, turned slightly and placed a tiny ball of crumpled paper, about the size of a fingernail, on Qin Xiaoxiao’s desk without looking at her. In a very soft voice, she said, “This is for you.”

Qin Xiaoxiao felt a bit suspicious and picked up the small paper ball.

Immediately, she sensed an unabashedly sharp gaze from her side.

“It’s not for you,” Qin Xiaoxiao glanced at him with a hint of exasperation.

Ji Wenchen’s pale lips tugged into a faint smirk, and he let out a soft snort through his nose. Then, he remarked, “You should focus on studying during class. What are you looking at a note for?”

Qin Xiaoxiao: “…Oh.”

She unfolded the crumpled paper ball. The handwriting was round and slanted slightly to the left—it was Yang Min’s handwriting:

Xiaoxiao, my throat hurts, and I feel dizzy. Can you come with me to the school clinic right now?

Qin Xiaoxiao raised her eyes and looked in the direction of Yang Min’s seat.

Yang Min, who had been waiting for her to look over, wore a pained expression and silently mouthed, “Will you come with me?”

Qin Xiaoxiao hesitated for a moment and pointed toward the vice class monitor on duty today.

Yang Min mouthed again, “I already sent a note to the vice class monitor, and he agreed.”

Qin Xiaoxiao nodded and got up to leave the classroom.

As soon as Yang Min came out, she hooked her arm around Qin Xiaoxiao’s. “I’ve been watching you for so long, and you only just looked over.”

“Really?” Qin Xiaoxiao walked down the hallway with her, still mindful to keep her voice low.

“Yes. I saw you talking to the school bully for ages…”

“Class had only been going for a few minutes.”

“Aiya, just exaggerating a little.”

“…You don’t really seem like you have a sore throat.”

“No, no, I’m really not feeling well!”

The school doctor diagnosed Yang Min with a common cold.

After getting her medicine, Yang Min suggested, “How about we stop by the school store?”

Qin Xiaoxiao glanced at her. “You probably don’t have anything you urgently need to buy right now, do you?”

“Not really… I just want to take a look,” Yang Min said. She felt it would be a waste to return to the classroom so early after rare permission to step out during self-study.

“You go ahead. I’m heading back to the classroom,” Qin Xiaoxiao said.

“Don’t! It’s no fun going alone,” Yang Min pouted. “Then I won’t go either.”

“Can we take that route instead?” Yang Min pointed to a longer path back to the classroom that passed by the sports field.

“…Fine.”

The sky was a pale grayish-white, and with the December wind blowing, dry leaves rustled and fell from the treetops.

“Good thing we final-year students don’t have to clean these areas,” Yang Min said as she walked along the familiar tree-lined path, each step crunching on the fallen leaves.

“Mm.”

“But I’m really envious of the first and second years who still get to have P.E. class,” Yang Min said, glancing toward the sports field where many underclassmen were enjoying free activities. “…Oh my gosh, Class 7 of the second year…”

Class 7 of the second year was the class her cousin was in. Upon hearing this, Qin Xiaoxiao looked over.

She didn’t spot Feng Maoxing anywhere on the sports field.

Yang Min scanned the area with her eyes but also failed to find the person she was hoping to see. A hint of disappointment crept into her heart, and even her eyes seemed to droop slightly.

Qin Xiaoxiao pressed her lips together with a hint of helplessness, then gently reminded Yang Min in a natural tone, “Come on, let’s hurry back to the classroom and study.”

The classroom was filled with the characteristic low hum of chatter that occurred when the teacher was absent.

However, Qin Xiaoxiao was slightly surprised—and a bit relieved—to find her desk mate working on his assignments.

It was rare to see him so focused and self-disciplined.

After returning to her seat, Qin Xiaoxiao realized that her desk mate’s left hand, resting on his lap, was playing with a lighter, while the pen in his right hand still had the cap on.

One hand fiddled with the lighter, and the other twirled the pen.

He was quite “focused,” and admittedly, quite skilled.

Qin Xiaoxiao: “It’s class time.” She reminded him to put the lighter away.

Having been left alone for a break and half a class period, Ji Wenchen lifted his long lashes and glanced at her sideways. “I don’t even smoke.”

“Still, don’t play with it.”

“The teacher’s not coming anyway.”

But does the teacher not coming mean it’s okay to not study and play with a lighter?

Qin Xiaoxiao softly asked, “What’s so fun about it, anyway?”

She had often seen him fiddling with it and was genuinely a little curious.

There wasn’t really anything fun about it—just something to fidget with when he occasionally felt like smoking but couldn’t.

But Ji Wenchen, for some reason, didn’t feel like answering properly. “Why don’t you try it and find out?”

“Then let me try.” Qin Xiaoxiao decided to “confiscate” it outright.

Ji Wenchen put down his pen, holding the lighter in his left hand, and half-extended it toward her.

Qin Xiaoxiao reached out to grab it, but in the blink of an eye—the lighter was flicked to his left hand, and her outstretched hand was caught in his warm right hand.

A classmate sitting in the back row, lucky enough to witness the scene: …Oh my gosh, a mouthful of dog food?^[1]In Chinese internet slang, “dog food” (狗粮) refers to public displays of affection (PDA) that make single people feel envious, as if they are being force-fed “dog food” by … Continue reading

Guo Hairuo, who had wandered up to the classroom’s back door with nothing better to do: …Didn’t they promise to be mindful of boundaries at school?