Weekends always passed the quickest, with most people playing wildly for two whole days.
At 6:30, Xu You carried her books up to the classroom’s floor. When she entered the classroom, she doubted her eyes for a moment.
For Monday’s morning self-study, there weren’t many people, with most of the back seats empty. Only a few people were doing their morning reading.
She sat down at her seat with her bread, casually looking around, with only one thought in mind—everyone seemed very casual about morning self-study.
She took out her English book from her desk, turned to the vocabulary page, and began memorizing words.
While writing, she kept thinking. The teachers in this class didn’t seem very strict.
She remembered her previous school, also a key high school1 in the city.
Being late was taboo—everyone had to be in class by 6:10 AM, and being one minute late meant standing through an entire class period. Her classmates there seized every minute and second to study, never chatted during class, and never chased or fought during breaks. It was a stark contrast to her current class.
Half an hour of morning self-study passed. As the first class approached, more students gradually filled the classroom. The room became noisy with people rushing to finish homework, collect assignments, and copy from others—it was somewhat chaotic.
Across the aisle, a boy asked to borrow Xu You’s weekend math test to check answers. Xu You said nothing, just found it in her drawer and handed it to him.
She was still organizing her English notes when she noticed someone stopping beside her. Xu You’s pen paused as she looked up.
A tall boy stood beside her. He wore a clean white school uniform, simple black track pants, and held a form in his hand.
“Hello classmate, I’m Class 9’s class president.”
“Ah, hello. Do you need something?” She put down her pen.
Fu Xueli, playing with her phone beside her, paused.
“It’s like this.” The class president put the form on her desk and briefly explained, “This is our class duty roster. You’re scheduled for cleaning duty on Wednesday.”
Xu You picked it up to look and nodded, “I understand. We’re cleaning the classroom?”
“Yes, you’re paired with Fu Xueli.”
After explaining, the class president’s gaze briefly swept to the side before he turned and walked back to his seat.
Fu Xueli watched his retreating figure, then pretended to casually return to her phone. After a while, she couldn’t help but chat with Xu You: “Hey, let me tell you, our class president has the same surname as you.”
Xu You made an “ah” sound and turned to look at her, “Also surnamed Xu?”
“Right.” Fu Xueli leaned closer, “His name is Xu Xingchun. Isn’t it super girly? He looks girly too.”
Xu Xingchun…
Seems like she’d heard that name somewhere…
Xu You frowned in thought, then honestly said, “I think his name is nice like yours.”
After speaking, she recalled the boy’s appearance in her mind. His facial features were somewhat thin, with delicate eyes and long corners.
“He doesn’t look girly either,” Xu You said honestly.
Fu Xueli snorted, her expression unnatural, “What do you mean like mine? My name sounds way better than his.”
Xu You found it a bit strange and wanted to ask, but felt it inappropriate, so she continued working on her homework.
After a while, someone put a test paper on her desk.
“Classmate, I got a different answer than you on one question, and I don’t quite understand your method.”
It was the boy who had borrowed her paper to check answers.
He bent slightly, pushed up his glasses, and handed Xu You his scratch paper: “Could you please explain it to me?”
“Ah, which question?” Xu You uncapped her black pen and took the scratch paper.
“The second-to-last big question.”
She flipped over the test paper and found that question. Xu You glanced at it, wrote on the paper, and explained the solution to the boy: “For this analytical geometry question, I used trigonometric functions…”
Song Yifan happened to enter the classroom at this moment.
He tossed his uniform jacket into his drawer and asked Fu Xueli, “What’s Four-Eyes doing with your deskmate?”
“Asking about a problem.”
“Damn.” Song Yifan was very surprised. He took out two assignments and swiftly began copying frantically, “That’s impressive, getting Four-Eyes to ask for help. Your deskmate must be a genius.”
Four-Eyes was Chen Chunlin, considered one of the class’s top students, though his Chinese was always poor so his grade ranking wasn’t high. But he was usually proud and looked down on students with poor grades.
Fu Xueli nodded absent-mindedly while playing with her phone: “Yeah.”
Song Yifan continued: “Then you should stop chatting with her during class, don’t hold her back from getting into Tsinghua or Peking University.”
“Who’s getting into Tsinghua and Peking University?”
Xie Ci entered the classroom just in time. Standing behind Song Yifan, he heard their conversation and casually asked while throwing his backpack inside.
Song Yifan got up to make room for him, “Why are you so late? There’s no time to let you copy the homework now.”
As they spoke, the classroom door opened and Math Teacher Li walked in as the bell rang.
The class noise gradually diminished.
Song Yifan finished copying the last word, shook the test paper, and glanced sideways at Xie Ci: “What are you going to do about your math test? When Crazy Li comes down to collect them one by one, you’ll have to stand as punishment again.”
Tch.
Xie Ci gave him a contemptuous look, hooked the corner of his mouth, and called to Fu Xueli while leaning back in his chair.
Fu Xueli turned around, “What?”
“Help me ask your deskmate.”
Xie Ci gestured with his chin toward Xu You’s direction.
Before Fu Xueli could speak, Xu You directly pulled out a completed math test paper from the pile on her desk and handed it to her. After passing it over, she picked up her pen and went back to doing practice problems, appearing completely uninvolved.
She didn’t look at them once during the whole process.
Fu Xueli understood but was exasperated. She slapped the test paper on Xie Ci’s desk: “Can’t you copy it yourself? Why do you always make others do your homework?”
Song Yifan listened from the side, his expression also somewhat peculiar.
In his impression, Xie Ci didn’t usually like to bother girls.
But…
“You…” Song Yifan put his hand on his shoulder, lowering his voice to ask, “Why do you, a grown man, keep bullying the little girl…?”
“What bullying? The new classmate just likes helping me with homework.” Xie Ci said casually while pressing his phone, smiling lazily.
As soon as he finished speaking.
Xu You suddenly turned her head and met his eyes.
They looked at each other for a few seconds, and she said seriously: “The new classmate doesn’t like it very much.”
Her tone was a bit direct but carried a hint of the soft accent from the South, sounding completely non-aggressive.
Xie Ci leaned forward slightly, arm pressing on the desk, tilted his head, and stared at her with a smile: “Why don’t you like it?”
Her eyes were clear as water, but her brows were slightly furrowed, seeming very confused: “Why are you asking this kind of question?”
Xie Ci raised an eyebrow.
Then.
The group of study-averse rich kids heard a piece of spiritual chicken soup from the Southern transfer student:
“You should do your own homework, knowledge belongs to yourself.”
The air froze.
“—Pfft.”
The previously tense atmosphere broke as Song Yifan couldn’t help but burst out laughing.
Xie Ci was stunned for a moment, then slowly curved his lips into a smile.
“Hahahahahahaha.” Fu Xueli reached over and pinched Xu You’s face, unable to hold back her laughter.
Oh my, this child was really cute.
“Ahem.” Song Yifan made a fist and held it to his lips, barely containing his laughter. With a pretend serious expression, he said, “Right, right, Student Xu teaches correctly, well said, truly worthy of being our country’s future, successor to communism.”
He even started clapping.
Xu You didn’t know what they were laughing at. Feeling somewhat annoyed, she said nothing and turned around.
Her back was straight, thin and slender.
Her soft black hair was loosely tied back, with a few strands of bangs falling down to cover her side profile.
From Xie Ci’s angle, he could only see that delicate white neck.
Fuck.
He looked away and cursed under his breath.
- The most prestigious high schools in China are known as “key high schools” (???? or zhongdian zhongxue). They tend to be highly selective when it comes to the admission process, and have superior facilities/resources. They’re also known to have the highest success rates in gaokao (and accordingly the most stressful). ↩︎
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