Chapter 5

Chapter 5

The days passed faster and faster.

In the first midterm exam since starting school, I surpassed Xu Ge and became the top of the whole school.

The teacher said I would give a speech at the school-wide flag-raising ceremony next week.

I wrote and memorized the speech a week in advance.

My deskmate Nian Nian occasionally caught me during breaks still hunched over my desk, muttering to myself, and she looked at me as if she’d seen a ghost.

“Are you okay? You’ve memorized that eight-hundred-word speech forty times.”

I ignored her and kept reciting.

That Sunday night, I was so nervous I couldn’t sleep the whole night.

When Monday came, the entire student body stood on the sports field, looking up at me.

I suppressed my pounding heart and walked to the microphone.

“Good morning, fellow students and teachers. I’m Ruan He from Class 1, Grade 10. Today…”

I had memorized the speech so thoroughly that even though my mind went blank, I could still deliver it by muscle memory.

I gradually lost focus, my gaze unconsciously drifting to the formation of Class 2.

Xu Ge, being tall, stood in the last row.

When I looked at him, he was chatting with a boy next to him.

The wind ruffled his thick hair; Xu Ge, in his white school uniform jacket, stood with his back ramrod straight.

Laughing and joking, he occasionally reached up to tousle his hair.

My speech was five minutes long.

In those five minutes.

He didn’t glance at me on the stage even once.

After the flag-raising ceremony, my deskmate Nian Nian slumped over her desk, sighing.

“I didn’t get to see my idol Xu Ge today.

“If only you knew Xu Ge, you could get his contact info for me.

“Too bad-I have no connections-”

I asked, feigning nonchalance, “Do a lot of girls in our school really like him?”

As soon as Xu Ge was mentioned, Nian Nian instantly perked up.

“Of course!

“Who is Xu Ge? He’s a golden boy, a child of fortune.

“His grandpa is a real estate tycoon in Southeast Asia, his dad is the director of a humanities research institute in the Beijing circle. He comes from a wealthy family, has a handsome face, excels in science, is athletic, has high emotional intelligence and knows how to handle things, so teachers and students in our school all like him.

“Whoever gets to marry Xu Ge in the future must have saved the galaxy in her previous life.”

Right after Nian Nian finished, the homeroom teacher walked in and clapped her hands to signal for silence.

“Let me introduce a new student, Ji Yunbai. Get to know her face, and make sure to get along well with her from now on.

“Yunbai, come in.”

At the teacher’s command, a girl carrying a red backpack walked in through the front door.

“Hi everyone, I’m Ji Yunbai. Yun as in clouds, Bai as in white.”

The moment I saw Ji Yunbai, my eyes were almost stung.

She was too beautiful.

The visual impact of her delicate features in that instant was beyond stunning.

My deskmate Nian Nian whispered to me, “She was bullied at her previous school, so her dad transferred her to ours.”

After introducing herself, Ji Yunbai didn’t look anywhere and walked straight to the last row to sit down, backpack still on.

Nian Nian curled her lip. “Tch, pretty stuck-up.”

When Ji Yunbai first transferred to our class, quite a few boys tried to get on her good side.

But once they discovered how unapproachable she was, they all gave up one after another.

But they started spreading rumors about her behind her back.

The boys privately gave her a nickname.

“Little Barbie on Earth.”

These whispers and rumors occasionally reached Ji Yunbai’s ears, but she acted as if she didn’t know and continued living her daily life in solitude.