Chapter 9
Chapter 9
When I got to school the next day, it went exactly as expected.
As I set my bag down, the short-haired girl in the seat behind me muttered, “Cheating dog…”
It seemed this still wasn’t enough if I wanted to prove myself.
When someone who had always been dead last suddenly became first, anyone would think that way.
So I took out my Chinese textbook and prepared to recite the classical poems again.
Chinese was one of my weaker subjects. I really couldn’t bring myself to be interested in classical prose or poetry.
“Shuyi’s finally going to start studying hard?”
“I heard she even challenged Xiao Ling before. Wonder if her face hurts now?”
“She was just trying to get her dream guy’s attention. What do you know?”
I ignored them. After all, if you wanted to break a person’s stereotype of you, words alone were useless.
After reciting the poems, I took out the answer sheet from the exam. I’d gotten half of the final physics problem wrong. Sure enough, after spending two years soaking in a lab, I’d still gotten rusty.
I decided to go to an internet café tonight and work on some practice papers.
Back when I was in high school, I used to do this all the time. Internet café monitors were big and satisfying to look at, you could listen to music, and when you got tired, you could play a couple rounds of games. The whole night passed in no time.
I picked the place that looked the most legitimate. Although the original owner’s family was only average, she had unexpectedly generous spending money. It seemed her mother really did dote on her.
I told the owner I wanted an all-night package, then walked toward the computer in the farthest corner.
I logged onto a website, downloaded all the comprehensive science and math papers from the past two years, then put on my headphones, played some music, and started working through calculations with a pen.
I had no idea how much time had passed. By the time I finished three papers and was just about to play a couple rounds of a game, someone took off my headphones.
I looked up and met a pair of deep amber eyes.
“Zhou Yanfei?” I blinked.
“Sun Shuyi, you came to an internet café to do this?”
I wrote down the final step and said calmly, “I had no choice. I lost to Xiao Ling, so I’m catching up.”
He went around behind me and bent down, his eyes scanning my problems. Then he picked up my notes and looked them over. “Not bad. They’re actually right.”
His voice was right next to my ear.
I was just wondering how someone ranked in the two hundreds could understand this when another person suddenly spoke behind me. “Is this your first time doing this paper?”
I turned around and saw a boy wearing glasses and a T-shirt printed with an anime character.
I nodded.
He took my notebook and stared at it for a long while, then called out to me, “Boss!”
What a… friendly form of address…
“Teach me physics!” As he spoke, he pulled out his student ID. “I’m Xu Jie from No. 1 High School’s Rocket Class!”
No. 1 High School’s Rocket Class… Wasn’t that the kind of place where anyone you picked at random was headed for either Tsinghua University or Peking University?
But looking at the devout expression in his eyes, I agreed.
And so, in a corner of the internet café, three high schoolers who had originally planned to play games embarked on a journey of learning.
The discussion was intense, and our pens flew across the paper.
It had been so long since I’d studied this freely and intensely.
It wasn’t until Zhou Yanfei pried my and Xu Jie’s hands off the notebook and turned off the computer screen, saying, “Let’s go get a midnight snack,” that I realized I was so hungry I was about to collapse.
The moment the grilled skewer entered my mouth, I felt like I’d seen heaven.
How long had it been since I’d eaten this?
Xu Jie was still immersed in the study session from earlier. With a deeply satisfied expression, he said, “Boss, meeting you today has benefited me greatly. Can you come often in the future? I’ll pay for your all-night package.”
He really was a genius, just not quite normal.
I shook my head. “I want to play games…”
At that moment, Zhou Yanfei hooked an arm around my neck. “This is my boss. Don’t go recognizing bosses wherever you like.”
Xu Jie got anxious. I hurriedly said, “I’m everyone’s boss!”
In the end, we still didn’t pull an all-nighter. Xu Jie had his family’s driver pick him up, and Zhou Yanfei walked me home.
On the way back, I looked at the sharp line of the boy’s jaw under the streetlights and asked, “Why do you pretend not to be serious and deliberately do badly on exams?”
He lowered his eyes to look at me. After a long silence, he finally said, “I don’t want to make my dad happy.”
He lifted his head. “His greatest wish is for me to get into Tsinghua University, because then he can brag about it for the rest of his life. The nouveau riche’s son got into Tsinghua University. I don’t want to let him have his way.”
With a sharp tongue, I mocked, “You may be smart, but you’re still a long way off from Tsinghua University.”
“Little Cripple, you’re underestimating me.”
The cast on my leg had clearly been removed ages ago!
“Is that so? Your monthly exam results make me seriously doubt the truth of that statement.”
It was quiet for a long time. I thought I had hurt him with my words, but when I looked up, I found him staring at me. “Why didn’t I notice your existence before, Sun Shuyi?”
His gaze was scorching hot. It was a look I knew well, holding a love that had just begun to bud yet was already growing wildly.