Final exams took place at the end of January. After three days of testing, first and second-year high school students would start their break, while third-years continued with supplementary classes.
It snowed heavily on Monday, and since exams started Tuesday, there was no morning self-study.
Xu You accidentally woke up a bit late and rushed to their agreed meeting spot, finding Xie Ci sitting on a bench nearby. He was leaning against the backrest, his legs lazily stretched out, a thin layer of snow on his short black hair.
She ran in such a hurry that she was still catching her breath, feeling very guilty. “How long have you been waiting?”
“A long time.”
Xie Ci tugged at the corner of his mouth, shifting his gaze to her face.
Xu You: ……..
She smiled wryly, pulling him up from the chair, apologizing softly: “I’m sorry, my alarm didn’t seem to go off today, and Mom didn’t wake me up either.”
The breakfast place they went to was a new shop nearby, about a street away from school, not many students knew about it yet.
The interior decoration was quite elegant, with a rather romantic atmosphere, more like a café. It had a bar counter, small rattan sofas, chairs, round tables, and hanging lamps.
Xu You stomped the snow off her feet at the entrance, peering inside curiously, turning to ask: “Is this really a breakfast place?”
“Why else would I bring you here?”
After saying this, Xie Ci lowered his head to look at her.
Xu You ignored him, putting down her umbrella at the entrance, took off her gloves and pushed open the glass door. The wind chimes jingled chaotically as Xie Ci followed behind.
They randomly found a window seat and sat down. Xie Ci opened the menu, asking perfunctorily: “What do you want to eat?”
The shop had the heater on. Xu You put her backpack aside and lowered her head to unwrap the scarf around her neck layer by layer. “Anything is fine.”
After thinking for a moment, she added: “I don’t like dry food.”
“What’s dry food?”
“Steamed buns and such, I guess?” Xu You smiled embarrassedly, “I’m not used to eating those.”
“Besides that?”
“Nothing else, I’ll have small wontons, congee is fine too…..”
He just made a sound of acknowledgment, saying: “Oh, got it.”
After waiting a while, breakfast was served. Xu You stared in amazement as two servers brought dish after dish to their table.
Cream buns, red bean congee, small wontons, noodles with soybean paste, noodle soup with shredded meat, soy milk, fried dough sticks, beef noodles……
As the steaming hot food was successively placed on the clean white marble table, the server joked: “Are you waiting for more friends to come? Can you two eat all this?”
After the two servers left, Xu You said: “Don’t waste money like this.”
Xie Ci seemed off somehow, particularly lacking energy early in the morning. His eyelashes were half-lowered as he turned the teacup in his hands, yawning, “It’s fine, just eat quickly.”
He looked completely unconcerned about it.
Xu You could only lower her head to drink the congee, not wanting to talk or pay attention to him.
After a while, someone sat down beside her. Xu You continued eating, harboring anger in her heart, not saying a word.
“Tch, you ignore me once you start eating?”
Xie Ci propped his elbow on the table, lazily supporting his head, looking down at Xu You with lowered eyes, moving a bit closer.
She made no sound.
Xie Ci squeezed even closer.
“Don’t stick so close to me, you’re annoying.” Xu You couldn’t hold back her anger, throwing the ceramic spoon into the bowl with a crisp clinking sound.
He stared at her lips that were slightly pouted from anger, saying amusedly: “What did I do to you?”
“I’m very angry.” Xu You turned her head, looking straight into his eyes. “I think you’re very wasteful.”
There were people at nearby tables, and the shop was relatively quiet, so she lowered her voice, “If you have extra money, you could spend it on other things.”
Xie Ci seemed both helpless and amused, pinching Xu You’s face, “It’s not that much money anyway.”
“That’s not the point.” Xu You interrupted him, looking into his eyes saying: “I don’t like you wasting food.”
She turned her face away, saying softly: “I was raised by my grandmother, my grandfather was a farmer, they worked very hard…”
Then she went back to drinking her congee.
Xie Ci listened to all this without a word, rubbed his nose, coughed once, “I just didn’t want you to eat poorly…. It’s okay, should I find some people to come finish this food now?”
Speak of the devil. Just as he said this, an excited greeting sounded from behind: “Hey, Ci is here too, what a coincidence!”
Turning around, Li Jieyi was standing there with a group of people, Chen Jingyi was among them, along with several other third-year boys and girls.
They all knew Xie Ci and greeted him one after another.
Xie Ci completely ignored such meaningless small talk.
Chen Jingyi tried hard to control her facial expression, casually finding a seat nearby. Her companions also sat down, with one or two discussing: “Is that Xie Ci’s new girlfriend next to him?”
“Probably, we haven’t really seen her before.”
“I heard from Song Yifan that Xie Ci really likes this one now.”
“He must treasure her, we’ve never seen him have the patience to accompany someone for meals before…..”
After speaking, someone was pushed by others. The speaker seemed to realize something and fell silent.
After eating for a while, Li Jieyi was called over by Xie Ci.
He was puzzled.
Xie Ci lifted his chin, gesturing for him to sit opposite.
Li Jieyi saw all the food laid out on the table, sitting down while sighing: “High-quality life, young master Xie, such a refined boy.”
“My girl can’t finish eating, you help finish it.”
“Huh?” Li Jieyi then noticed something was off between the two. Being street-smart, he glanced at Xu You who was lowering her head eating, the corner of his mouth curling into a mischievous smile, saying ambiguously: “What’s going on, what did you do to the little lady that she’s not paying attention to you?”
Xie Ci mouthed back, “F*ck you.”
Li Jieyi laughed even harder, “Tsk tsk tsk tsk, you two being awkward like this makes me uncomfortable too.”
Xie Ci replied indifferently: “Just a little disagreement, Li Jieyi you nosy old woman, minding so much business.”
“Fine fine fine, young master Xie is handsome, whatever you say goes.”
“Get lost.”
“You called me here and now you’re telling me to get lost, playing with me huh?”
Xie Ci kicked him under the table, laughing and cursing: “Getting excited aren’t you?”
“Stop it, we can talk properly, no need to get physical.” Li Jieyi was quite unhappy.
The two of them bantered back and forth, deliberately joking around. Though knowing Xie Ci was deliberately teasing him, Xu You couldn’t help but smile.
As soon as she smiled, Xie Ci immediately leaned in: “Oh, finally not looking so stern?”
With others present, Xu You wasn’t very comfortable being close, moved away a bit, looking at him: “Aren’t you eating?”
“How can I eat when you’re angry with me?” he said matter-of-factly.
Li Jieyi sat opposite the two, secretly complaining.
These two dating were sickeningly sweet to everyone around, yet they themselves hadn’t noticed.
And that bastard Xie Ci, when talking to Xu You, his face was practically pressed against hers…..
Xu You sighed, pushing him away a little, “I’m not angry, hurry up and eat, the food will get cold soon.”
“Then feed me?” he tilted his head, asking pitifully.
“I won’t feed you, eat properly yourself.”
Xie Ci rested his chin on her shoulder, “So heartless?”
Li Jieyi sitting opposite interjected, “That’s enough, there’s still someone else here.”
Xie Ci couldn’t be bothered with him at all, lifting his eyelids to glance at Li Jieyi, “Annoying or what, where does all this nonsense come from.”
—
Because of tomorrow’s exam, the teachers were having meetings, so today was all free review time.
Everyone could change seats freely, and although they usually didn’t like studying, they still needed to make some last-minute efforts, so seats next to the top students were quite popular.
During the morning classes, Xu You didn’t work on many problems herself, but explained quite a lot to others. She was patient and didn’t mind helping.
In the dead of winter, the water from the dispenser was always scalding hot. Xu You went to line up during break, and by the time the people in front finished getting water, it had cooled down quite a bit.
But she needed to make medicine, so she had to wait for another batch of hot water to boil.
There were many empty seats in the back, some people hadn’t come, and many who had come were sprawled out sleeping.
Xu You randomly chose a seat and sat down, staring absentmindedly at the small red light on the water dispenser.
After a while, someone poked her back with a finger.
She came to her senses and turned around to look.
It was Song Yifan, his face still had red marks from pressing against his arm, looking at Xu You with sleepy eyes saying: “Ci bro is calling you.”
After saying this he was too tired and fell back onto the desk.
Xu You took her empty cup and went to the back of group one. Xie Ci’s desk was piled with things, books stacked in piles on the already small desk.
“Top student, let’s make a deal, how about sitting next to me next class?” Xie Ci had clearly just woken up too, his black hair slightly messy, his eyes lazy.
Xu You put her cup aside and randomly flipped through one of his books.
It was completely blank inside, no notes at all, just two characters written in flowing script on the cover.
Before she could say anything, Xie Ci rushed to say: “Please please, I’m serious about studying.”
Xu You continued to be silent, obviously not quite believing him.
After a while, the class bell rang, Xie Ci grabbed her sleeve, looking up with a hint of pleading in his eyes: “Have you no conscience, taking so long to think about just one class?”
“Then don’t talk to me during class, except about problems.” Xu You set her condition.
Xie Ci immediately nodded.
By the last class, the classroom gradually became restless, everyone’s mind wasn’t on studying anymore, with talking in every corner.
However, no matter how noisy others were, Xu You seemed unaffected, quietly doing her homework, truly not saying a single unnecessary word to Xie Ci.
He couldn’t help himself and poked Xu You’s shoulder, asking her to explain a problem.
Xu You took the problem in hand, looking down at it. The first math problem, the simplest trigonometric function question.
She was a bit speechless, looking at Xie Ci: “What do you want me to explain about this?”
He actually hadn’t even looked at the problem, just said casually: “Explain whatever you want, I don’t know any of it anyway.”
“…..”
Xu You shook her head, picking up her pen to write formulas on scratch paper, “This is very basic, just memorize the trigonometric formulas from the book and you’ll get it….”
She leaned across the desk to explain the problem to him. After explaining for a while, he was obviously distracted, Xu You noticed and looked up saying: “Are you listening?”
“Listening, listening.” He winked at Xu You, quickly leaning in to kiss her once.
Xu You put down her pen, “I’m not explaining anymore.”
“Tch, why not!”
Xie Ci got anxious, “Don’t always bully young and handsome people like me.”
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