Those two words were extremely domineering.
She wasn’t negotiating with him — there was no room for discussion. It was as if she was merely informing him.
— I’m unilaterally declaring a truce with you.
Under normal circumstances, Jiang Qi Huai thought these two words should have made him feel annoyed.
But.
His gaze lingered on the aggressive “truce” written on the paper. The girl’s fair index finger was still resting there. She wasn’t sure if he had seen it, so her fingertip impatiently scratched at it a couple more times, as if urging him.
Jiang Qi Huai’s fingers unconsciously curled in response. Suddenly, he felt as if something had scratched him somewhere, making him itch.
For some unknown reason, he leaned back and started laughing.
This was the first time Tao Zhi had heard him laugh since school started a week ago.
She had her back turned and couldn’t see his reaction. She waited but didn’t hear Jiang Qi Huai make any sound, growing increasingly irritated as she waited.
After all that waiting, this person actually started laughing.
What was wrong with him?
Yesterday, she had run to every subject’s office, explained the situation to the teachers, and gotten the extra textbooks left over from the start of school. She had originally planned to secretly slip them into Jiang Qi Huai’s desk after school, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She should have just given them to him last night.
Finally doing something nice, why did she have to suffer this kind of humiliation?
Tao Zhi couldn’t hold back anymore. She pulled her hand back and turned around, glaring at him angrily: “What kind of reaction is this?”
The young man was leaning back in his chair, his whole body appearing unusually relaxed as he asked her back: “Where did you get these textbooks?”
“None of your business.” Tao Zhi’s tone was harsh.
Jiang Qi Huai tapped his index finger lightly on the English book on top: “Aren’t they for me? A welcome gift?”
“The first time we met was Monday morning in the office, and you certainly gave me quite a gift,” Tao Zhi looked at him expressionlessly, still holding a grudge as she said, “The noble Scholar Jiang forgets things easily, perhaps you don’t remember clearly.”
As she spoke, she secretly glanced at his test papers — her gingerbread man note was gone.
The peace treaty was gone!!!
What did this bastard mean, was he planning to tear up the peace treaty?!!!
Tao Zhi wanted to ask but held back, managing to suppress the urge.
She was the type of person who couldn’t hide her emotions — whatever she was thinking could be seen clearly on her face. With just one roll of her eyes, Jiang Qi Huai knew what she wanted to ask.
He felt like laughing again.
During this first week of school, he had actually heard quite a bit about this princess. Good family background, poor grades, consistently at the bottom of the year rankings, but number one in fighting, causing trouble, and dating.
She was a famous figure who ruled over Experimental High School with authority and commanded respect, very well-known.
Yet with this level of intelligence, she could still become such an influential figure.
Jiang Qi Huai thought the school bullies at Experimental High were beyond help.
He lowered his eyes, looking at the test papers and textbooks on the desk, gaining another layer of understanding about this little groundhog.
A rose that had been pampered and carefully nurtured under a glass dome since childhood.
Song Jiang’s joke about them being like rats mixed into porridge wasn’t just casual talk. To be fair, Experimental First High was actually quite a good school, barely managing to squeeze into the top three in the city if you really pushed it.
The undisputed first place belonged to the Capital Affiliated High School, which consistently produced top scorers in the college entrance exam and students with perfect scores in math and comprehensive science. It was the kind of school where if a child managed to test in, their parents would set off firecrackers for seven days and nights straight, knocking on every neighbor’s door in the building to announce the news.
And Jiang Qi Huai was the top student at Affiliated High. Last semester’s three-school mock exam had been deliberately made very difficult by the question-setting committee, intending to dampen these kids’ spirits, especially the math section, yet he still got a perfect score.
When such a figure transferred over, Experimental High’s leadership paid great attention. On the first day of school, the school leadership team had already visited Class 1 twice, and Wang Zhezi had been called to several meetings with the principal.
Along with this, all the teachers and students at Experimental seemed to be energized, feeling that Experimental’s future was boundless. If they tried hard enough, this year’s GDP could secure third place or even compete for second.
Although it wasn’t explicitly stated, Class 1 did have the best teaching resources. The subject teachers were either grade leaders or department heads, and the learning atmosphere was very strong. Even Li Shuang Jiang, who usually appeared unserious and full of vulgar jokes, focused entirely on his studies during class.
Tao Zhi was the only anomaly in the entire class.
But Tao Zhi remained unaffected in her laid-back attitude. Her disregard for others had reached such a level that she could ignore everything around her regardless of the environment. She seemed beyond help.
Wang Zhezi didn’t think so.
He had been a homeroom teacher for ten years, and every class he led had been exemplary. At the start of the school year, he had already researched each student’s background.
Before second year of middle school, Tao Zhi had consistently been among the top students in the school.
He had also privately contacted Tao Xiu Ping and they had talked on the phone for quite a while.
Tao Xiu Ping was an extremely open-minded parent. In Wang Zhezi’s many years of teaching, he had rarely met such parents. Tao Xiu Ping felt that since his daughter didn’t want to study now, forcing her every day wouldn’t help. Nothing was more important than letting her grow up happily. However, if Wang Zhezi had any suitable methods to make Tao Zhi take things seriously, he as a parent would be very willing to cooperate.
Wang Zhezi had a very good impression of Tao Xiu Ping, which led him to pay more attention to Tao Zhi as well.
This girl was actually quite clever and had some smarts.
Even though she had clearly gotten someone else to do her homework, when discovered, she could instantly come up with a reasonable explanation. When he deliberately called on her to answer questions while she was sleeping in class, if he gave her a hint about the solution approach, she could stumble through an answer following that direction.
Wang Zhezi had looked at the math papers she had submitted this week. For the big questions and advanced problems at the end, her auxiliary lines were actually all correct, but she couldn’t solve them.
She had a high aptitude for geometry but was terrible at algebra.
Wang Zhezi sighed, pondering how to make this girl realize she needed to start studying again.
Tao Zhi didn’t know that her attempt to get someone to help with her summer homework had been seen through long ago. She still thought her acting skills were flawless enough to fool everyone, and had no idea that the usually fierce Old Wang was currently sitting in his office worrying about her grades.
That day in class, she unusually didn’t sleep, propping her head up with one hand as she dozed off half-listening.
It was math class. Fu Xi Ling’s test paper was spread out between them, covered in neat, elegant handwriting notes.
Yesterday Tao Zhi had only managed to get new textbooks, but many of the test papers had no extras left. She was too lazy to ask around again and directly took out her own papers to give to Jiang Qi Huai.
She wouldn’t do them anyway.
The teacher on the podium finished explaining the key points and knowledge of this section, then went through an example problem from the test paper. The remaining problems were to be solved through group discussion.
Group discussions were usually done with front and back desk pairs, four people in a group, but Tao Zhi’s group was somewhat special.
Class 1 had an odd number of students, Jiang Qi Huai had no deskmate, and Tao Zhi was useless, so their group effectively only had Fu Xi Ling and Jiang Qi Huai.
Fu Xi Ling quietly sighed in relief — thankfully Jiang Qi Huai was godlike, solving problems incredibly fast, otherwise their speed would have lagged far behind the other groups.
The two turned around. Jiang Qi Huai was fully focused on rapidly writing answers on the test paper. When Fu Xi Ling had questions, he would help explain them. His explanations were steady and calm, his voice neutral and concise, very efficient.
After finishing one set of problems, the group discussion continued.
Jiang Qi Huai finally looked up and spared them a glance, only then noticing they only had one test paper between them.
He turned to Tao Zhi: “Where’s your test paper?”
Tao Zhi’s mouth moved faster than her brain, not thinking it through: “Fed it to the dog.”
“…”
Jiang Qi Huai took a second to realize he was that dog.
He looked at the young woman sprawled like a cotton ball on his desk, taking up almost two-thirds of the space, and was momentarily speechless.
Tao Zhi lay on the desk: “I’m so bored.”
She turned over: “Class is so boring.”
“Class 1 is too bad, no one plays with me during class,” Tao Zhi said dejectedly. “I miss Timely Rain.”
Jiang Qi Huai watched as she shamelessly occupied his desk and rolled around on it.
He suddenly felt that because of this set of textbooks and test papers, his tolerance for her had increased far too much.
Jiang Qi Huai couldn’t be bothered to deal with her. He turned to the next page and continued working on the advanced problems.
Fu Xi Ling finished her problems and wanted to slack off for a bit too, saying softly: “You could study together with everyone.”
“Studying is even more boring, and useless,” Tao Zhi pouted.
“How is it useless?” Fu Xi Ling thought for a moment and decided to give her some motivation. “If we study hard, we can take control of our future lives.”
Tao Zhi wasn’t buying it. She’d heard this kind of talk so many times over the past few years that she was tired of it: “No matter how hard you study, life still won’t be in your control.”
Jiang Qi Huai’s pen stopped.
Fu Xi Ling blinked twice.
The person you like will still leave, and you’ll still be abandoned by important people.
“You can’t hold onto your life yourself, whether you study or not makes no difference, and studying is so hard,” Tao Zhi countered with her own dark philosophy. “So it’s better to just start being happy now, be happy for as long as you can.”
Fu Xi Ling reminded her: “But you’re not happy now either, you’re very bored.”
“Because there’s no one to play with you during class,” Jiang Qi Huai, who had been quietly working on his test paper beside them, suddenly spoke up. While writing, he unhurriedly continued, “Not a single person will play with you.”
“…Shut up.”
If someone was a dog, then whether there was a truce or not, they would always be a dog.
Tao Zhi couldn’t be bothered to talk to Jiang Qi Huai for the rest of the day.
Friday’s last evening self-study session had just begun when Wang Zhezi came in and asked everyone to put down their pens.
After a week, the students in the class had mostly become familiar with each other. Wang Zhezi planned to use the old voting method to select class officers. Each person got one vote, writing down the name of who they thought was suitable on paper, then submitting it to be counted.
The classroom immediately became lively. At sixteen or seventeen years old, it was the best time of youth, when everyone shone in their own way, full of competitive spirit and shy pretenses.
First were the subject representatives and study committee member. After selecting all of these, it finally came to the class monitor position — both main and deputy monitors needed to be chosen.
Li Shuang Jiang hadn’t been selected for any position yet, but he didn’t seem discouraged. He turned around with a happy face: “What do you think about me being class monitor? Suitable, right? Is there anyone more suitable than me in our class? I’m so passionate about studying!”
His deskmate mocked him: “What are you dreaming about? Look at those terrible scores you got in English. If you become class monitor, our class’s English single subject score would directly drag down our total ranking to last place.”
Li Shuang Jiang pushed his head down to shut him up and continued asking Tao Zhi: “Boss, give me a hint, who are you voting for?”
Tao Zhi wrote “Jiang Qi Huai” in three bold characters on her paper, openly showing it to him: “I’ll vote for a dog.”
Li Shuang Jiang: “…”
The last row was responsible for collecting the papers. Wang Zhezi opened them one by one, reading out the names.
Each time a name appeared, another stroke was added to the “correct” character under that name on the blackboard. As they neared the end of the papers, the character under Jiang Qi Huai’s name was far ahead, leaving the rest trailing by several rows.
One position was already decided without suspense; only the other remained.
There were only three or four names, neck and neck with each other, almost identical in votes.
Halfway through counting, Wang Zhezi suddenly said: “Oh right, I forgot to tell everyone, for the two monitor positions, I’ll choose one with the most votes here,” he tapped the blackboard, “and the other with the least votes.”
Entire class: ????
Someone couldn’t help but shout from below: “Teacher Wang, why?”
“I know you all think you’re capable and won’t submit to each other,” Wang Zhezi leisurely opened another paper slip. “Look at how close the deputy monitor votes are, isn’t that proof? If someone wins by just one or two votes, would the rest of you accept it?”
They definitely wouldn’t accept it, they’d just think the other person got lucky.
“That’s where the conflict comes from… Li Shuang Jiang, one vote,” Wang Zhezi continued while counting votes. “Besides, being class monitor isn’t just about grades. I have a study committee member for good academics, and subject representatives for excellence in specific subjects. As for monitor, well, if your name appears up here, it means at least one person acknowledges you. Since everyone else doesn’t know what makes that person worth learning from, might as well have them step up and show everyone, right?”
As he spoke, Wang Zhezi opened the last paper slip, paused for a moment, then laughed: “Tao Zhi.”
In an instant, the classroom that had been noisy just a second ago suddenly fell silent.
Tao Zhi had no interest in the class monitor election. She wouldn’t want to do such a time-wasting and troublesome job even if it was given to her for free. She was already packing her bag, ready to go home and enjoy her weekend, when she suddenly heard someone call her name. She looked up in confusion.
Then she saw dozens of heads in the classroom turned toward her in unison, staring straight at her.
Tao Zhi: “What’s up?”
“Monitor, someone voted for you,” Fu Xi Ling reminded her softly from the side.
Tao Zhi belatedly realized what was happening. She frowned and whispered back: “Are they sick? Who voted for me?”
“Don’t know, you got one vote,” Fu Xi Ling looked up at the names on the blackboard to confirm. “The rest have at least two votes. Teacher Wang just said the deputy monitor position would go to the person with the least votes.”
Wang Zhezi probably hadn’t expected this either. He stood at the podium and tapped the blackboard with his triangle ruler: “Nobody objects now, right?”
They accepted it.
Who would dare object?
They had to accept it completely.
“I wholeheartedly accept,” Li Shuang Jiang made a fist-and-palm salute, being the first to speak. “I’ll get down on my knees right now.”
“Well then, if there are no objections,” Wang Zhezi held back his laughter and said, “Come up, main and deputy monitors, let everyone get familiar with you. You’ll officially start your duties next Monday.”
Tao Zhi started to panic.
She stood up like a robot, moving forward reluctantly one step at a time, with only one thought in her mind — who was it?
Who had such audacity?
She heard the sound of a chair being moved behind her at the same time, someone following her forward.
Tao Zhi: “…”
The answer was so obvious.
Tao Zhi suddenly turned around. She stopped so abruptly that Jiang Qi Huai barely managed to stop himself, leaving them standing very close to each other.
Tao Zhi’s nose was almost touching Jiang Qi Huai’s school uniform collar, catching a faint scent of laundry detergent.
She was about to look up.
Jiang Qi Huai said softly: “Walk.”
Everyone was watching them. Tao Zhi reluctantly turned around and continued walking forward, with Jiang Qi Huai following behind as they made their way to the podium.
Wang Zhezi was still talking, but Tao Zhi couldn’t hear a word. She leaned against the blackboard, tilting her head slightly to speak in a volume only the two of them could hear: “You wrote my name?”
“Didn’t you write mine?” Jiang Qi Huai also lowered his voice.
“…How the hell did you know?”
“I collected them.”
“You peeked at what I wrote. Old Wang said it was supposed to be anonymous,” Tao Zhi accused him resentfully. “You’re so despicable.”
“…”
Jiang Qi Huai recalled her domineering handwriting style that was so distinctive it could be recognized at a glance, and didn’t know how she thought it needed peeking to identify.
He stayed silent, and Tao Zhi took his silence as admission of guilt. She continued: “But how is that the same? You got thiiiis many votes,” she dragged out the word, “losing mine wouldn’t matter. Plus, you nerds all like being class monitor, and you’re the nerdiest of them all.”
She started making up lies with a straight face: “I had no ulterior motives, I just thought you were suitable.”
You’re the nerdiest of them all.
Jiang Qi Huai savored this sentence, then nodded: “I also think you’re suitable.”
Tao Zhi: “?”
Jiang Qi Huai said meaningfully: “Someone like you who’s good at tormenting others is quite suitable to be a monitor.”
Tao Zhi: “…”
Author’s Note: “Others” = “me” Being class monitors together is the beginning of falling in love, Wang Zhezi needs to bravely face reality. (?)
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