Wen Qianshu was like she’d passed out the moment she hit the bed, sleeping straight until noon. Her mom couldn’t stand it anymore and pushed her awake: “Get up and do your homework.”
Wen Qianshu, groggy from sleep, sat on the bed in a daze. Her mom slapped her on the forehead: “Get up, you haven’t done your homework.”
Wen Qianshu was bewildered. The slap didn’t wake her up, but she subconsciously looked at the alarm clock: “12 o’clock—”
“Isn’t it time for lunch?”
“Eat.” The woman stood up and threw clothes at her. “All you think about all day is eating!”
Wen Qianshu rubbed her eyes, sat up, and slowly started to get dressed. A man’s voice came from outside the door: “Let her sleep a bit, it’s a rare holiday.”
The woman frowned, went out, and closed the door: “What do you mean, a rare holiday?”
“Do you know how the gap appears—it’s during free time, accumulating bit by bit—”
Her voice was muffled by the door. Wen Qianshu finished dressing and got out of bed in her slippers. She scratched her hair, then pushed the door open, only to be met with another lecture: “How many times have I told you, put on your socks, the cold will get into your body!”
Wen Qianshu: “…”
Wen Qianshu had no choice but to go find socks. As she walked, she was slapped on the back from behind, catching her off guard and making her jump: “Straighten your back!”
“Fix your collar!”
“Button up your buttons properly!”
“You need a balanced diet of meat and vegetables when you eat!”
“Don’t be a picky eater!”
“Eat more meat!”
Wen Qianshu was lectured continuously until the woman left for a parent-teacher conference. She casually pulled out a test paper, saw it was physics, and had just written her name when she heard the loud sound of the TV from the living room.
Wen Qianshu pushed open her room door and saw the man sitting sprawled on the sofa with his legs apart, holding the remote. He was startled to see her: “Is it too loud?”
This man also looked like her father, but Wen Qianshu didn’t have much experience interacting with her father. After a moment’s thought, she nodded.
The man: “Then do you want to come watch the game with me?”
Wen Qianshu: “…”
Wen Qianshu: “No, thank you.”
Wen Qianshu thought about her wording again and said: “Could you please turn the volume down a little?”
The man: “Oh, oh, sure.”
So the volume really did go down “a little”—he turned it down by one notch. Wen Qianshu gave up resisting, closed the door properly, and tried to do her homework again. Suddenly, a shout came from the living room: “Great shot! Beautifully done!”
Wen Qianshu propped her head up, covered one ear, and continued with her physics.
In the world of physics, there is something impervious to blades and spears, invulnerable to water and fire—the sliding block. And so, for many years, test creators have come up with all sorts of creative problems centered around the sliding block.
But perhaps their conscience got the better of them, and they considered the sliding block’s emotional needs. They no longer let it be alone, and started having two blocks, one large and one small, slide stacked on top of each other, two slide side-by-side, two slide together on a conveyor belt. When Wen Qianshu got to a problem where two blocks were placed on a ramp, and the ramp was sliding on a conveyor belt, she suspected her teacher wanted her dead.
“Beautiful!”
And then a loud clap from outside, “That was so beautiful!”
Wen Qianshu wanted to knock herself out with a sliding block.
Later, the woman returned, still carrying a chill from outside. Without even putting down her purse, she came to find Wen Qianshu. So, outside the door was the sound of the TV, and inside was the analysis of test papers: “Why is your Chinese so bad? Your Chinese teacher specifically told me…”
Wen Qianshu propped her head up and looked at her paper. Fifth in the class—everyone did poorly in Chinese this time, so no matter how bad Wen Qianshu’s score was, it couldn’t be that bad.
“The English teacher said you’re not bad. But you should accumulate more vocabulary. I heard her say she assigned Level 4 vocabulary to the class next door, and they’ve already memorized half the book. You should hurry up and start memorizing too—”
Wen Qianshu felt she had to remind her: “The class next door is Class 6.”
The woman: “So?”
Wen Qianshu: “It’s our grade’s rocket class. The requirements are higher.”
No. 1 High School’s rocket class was the honors class, but it wasn’t Class 1, it was Class 6. Apparently, their head teacher thought the number “6” sounded nice.
The rocket class selected students from various middle schools in the district three months before the high school entrance exams. The top 60 students were directly admitted to No. 1 High School. It was said that they had to finish most of the curriculum in the first year, participate in the senior year exams in the second year, and prepare for competitions in between.
But as for the specifics, Wen Qianshu had never bothered to find out.
But speaking of Class 6, Wen Qianshu remembered that girl from Class 6 who was walking with Jiang Mingyue—she seemed to be very familiar with Jiang Mingyue—
The woman: “Don’t make excuses. If they can do it, why can’t you?”
Wen Qianshu: “Okay, I’ll memorize them.”
The woman: “Don’t just brush me off with verbal agreements. If you don’t study hard, you’ll end up just like your dad…”
“See, you’re always making excuses and not working hard, that’s why you did poorly in Chinese.”
Wen Qianshu was getting a little dizzy from her circular logic and tried to straighten it out: “Weren’t we talking about English? I didn’t make excuses for English, nor did I not work hard—”
Wen Qianshu provided her proof: “My score was quite high.”
“That’s because I’ve been giving you brain-boosting supplements, so your memory is good. I told your dad long ago, you have to eat these things…”
Wen Qianshu’s mouth twitched.
2333 gloated: “Well, well, one thing always conquers another.”
As for Wen Qianshu, she already wanted to go back to school.
And that’s exactly what she did the next day.
Early the next morning, Wen Qianshu knocked on Shen Ting’s door. After much persuasion, she tricked her into coming out and going to school to do homework. Shen Ting’s grandmother rubbed her hands and stuffed an egg into Wen Qianshu’s hand: “Studying hard so early in the morning, that’s good, that’s good.”
Everyone on these few floors knew that Shen Ting’s father was handsome, and that handsomeness was largely inherited from his mother. Although Grandma Shen was old and her face was full of wrinkles, she had a high nose bridge, large eyes, a robust physique, and was always neat and tidy. Her silver-white hair was coiled high, much neater than Wen Qianshu’s, and a small flower was tucked at the base of her bun.
Grandma Shen saw Wen Qianshu staring at the flower and raised a hand to touch it: “Ting’zi picked a bouquet of flowers before, and they didn’t wilt in the water. Today she insisted I wear one.”
She smiled and complained about Shen Ting: “I’m so old, what a sight I must be.”
Wen Qianshu also smiled: “Of course you should wear it—”
She walked around Grandma Shen, her gaze finally settling on her eyes, and smiled: “This flower suits you. Your skin is fair, so red looks good on you.”
Shen Ting said proudly: “See, I told you.”
Grandma Shen was a bit embarrassed and smiled: “Really?”
Shen Ting: “Really, you can’t go wrong listening to me. When you go out to buy groceries, people will definitely compliment you.”
“Don’t listen to Shen Ting’s nonsense,” Wen Qianshu laughed. “How is this her credit? It’s clearly because Grandma is beautiful to begin with.”
Shen Ting: “Hey, you—”
Grandma Shen laughed and magically produced another egg for Wen Qianshu: “This one’s for you too.”
Shen Ting was incredulous: “Grandma? Wasn’t that mine?”
Wen Qianshu: “Come and get it.”
Shen Ting: “Stay right there!”
Grandma Shen: “Slow down, slow down, be careful on the stairs.”
As soon as Wen Qianshu got downstairs, she tossed the egg to Shen Ting.
The two of them leaned against the building downstairs, peeled and ate the eggs, threw the shells in the trash can, wiped their hands, and then went to get their bikes.
Shen Ting searched for her bike for a while but couldn’t find it. Just as she was about to panic, Wen Qianshu said: “Isn’t your bike upstairs?”
Shen Ting: “Ah, yes it is.”
“I’ll go up and get it.”
Wen Qianshu: “Don’t go get it. You’ll just have to carry it back up tonight. Just ride with me.”
Wen Qianshu teased her: “The fare is one egg—your grandma already gave it to me.”
Shen Ting laughed: “You said it. Don’t cry if you can’t carry me.”
Wen Qianshu: “It won’t come to that.”
So Shen Ting sat on the back of Wen Qianshu’s bike and wrapped her arms around her waist.
With a little cutie hugging her, Wen Qianshu felt wonderful inside and didn’t complain about being tired even after riding for most of the way.
2333: “…”
2333 just knew it. Wen Qianshu’s usual complaints about being tired were all lies.
But 2333 didn’t have time to verify this, because before Wen Qianshu even reached the school, she was stopped. She was waiting at a red light when she suddenly heard someone call out: “Shen Ting?”
A person ran up to them and said with pleasant surprise: “It really is you guys.”
Wen Qianshu thought to herself.
It really was Fang Wenyuan.
Shen Ting smiled and said politely, “Hello.” The “tyrant at home” usually had a quick tongue, but once she was out of her nest, she didn’t know what to say.
Wen Qianshu, on the other hand, had one hand in her pocket and the other on the handlebar, smiling: “Yo, morning—”
She paused, because she saw someone standing not far behind Fang Wenyuan, with a straight posture, also looking in their direction.
Jiang Mingyue.
Wen Qianshu: “Good.”
Fang Wenyuan: “Good, good. Going to school?”
Perhaps because they were outside of school, Jiang Mingyue wasn’t wearing her glasses and had her hair down. Her long, ink-black hair flowed down, partially concealing her snow-white skin and slender neck, revealing a pair of light-colored eyes.
Wen Qianshu had never seen her like this and found it hard to look away. She answered absentmindedly: “Right.”
Fang Wenyuan: “Going so early in the morning?”
Wen Qianshu: “Right.”
Fang Wenyuan: “What are you going to do?”
“Right—” Wen Qianshu, “Huh?”
Wen Qianshu: “Sorry, what did you just ask?”
Fang Wenyuan was good-natured. He smiled and said: “What are you going to school so early for? We’re planning a get-together, want to join?”
Wen Qianshu didn’t quite catch on: “What kind of get-together?”
Fang Wenyuan: “A homework session, of course.”
“Come on,” Fang Wenyuan said. “We can discuss things if we do our homework together.”
Unexpectedly, the girl from Class 6 was also there. She was drinking bubble tea, chewing on the straw, and greeted them with a smile when she saw them.
They found a board game cafe and had already booked a small private room. They took out their homework. The girl crossed her legs: “Let’s get this straight, we play board games after we finish our homework.”
Wen Qianshu: “You guys aren’t just looking for people to make up the numbers for a board game, are you?”
The girl: “You found us out.”
She looked at Shen Ting, then at Wen Qianshu: “I haven’t introduced myself yet. Luo Qing. Luo as in camel, Qing as in sunny day.”
Shen Ting was a bit reserved: “Shen Ting. Shen with the three-dots-water radical, Ting with the female radical.”
Wen Qianshu: “Wen Qianshu.”
Luo Qing: “Ah—I’ve heard of you.”
She nudged Jiang Mingyue beside her with her elbow: “The deskmate Mingyue was waiting for that day?”
Wen Qianshu: “The sports meet?”
Luo Qing: “Right.”
Luo Qing rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything, Jiang Mingyue picked up her schoolbag and threw it to her: “Hurry up and do your homework.”
Fang Wenyuan: “Yeah, if we can’t finish, we can still copy from you. If you can’t finish, you’ll have to fend for yourself.”
Luo Qing was speechless.
Class 6 was already almost on the second-year high school curriculum. They didn’t take exams with the regular classes, weren’t included in the rankings, and their homework was also separate.
This meant that Class 6 had already finished the regular classes’ homework ahead of time, making them walking answer keys. But it was hard for Class 6 to find answers for their own homework, so they could only copy from each other within the class.
“We don’t even dare to copy from each other in class anymore,” Luo Qing said. “You know the intensity in our class. It’s a rare holiday, we’re about to die, and we still have to do homework? Only a few people do it, and the academic committee member’s handwriting is bad. Last monthly holiday, a lot of people copied π as 2 and cried while writing their self-criticisms.”
Fang Wenyuan was confused: “Didn’t you copy too?”
Luo Qing: “Clever as I am, I felt that problem wasn’t that simple, so I copied the square root of 2.”
Fang Wenyuan: “So you escaped disaster?”
Luo Qing: “Then why do you think I didn’t go to the classroom to copy this time, but asked you guys out to do homework instead?”
Fang Wenyuan: “A moment of silence for you.”
Soon, no one was talking anymore. The few of them gathered around the table and started their homework. Without the sound of the soccer match, Wen Qianshu found the problems much more pleasant to look at. She quickly finished one side of the paper. As she was turning the page, she glanced sideways and saw Jiang Mingyue with her head lowered. Her hair had fallen forward, perhaps blocking her view, and she brushed it aside. Then, her hand paused at the side of her forehead, holding her hair back to keep it from falling down again.
From a distance earlier, she couldn’t tell, but now that she was closer, Wen Qianshu realized she seemed to have just washed her hair. She carried a richer scent than usual, like tangerines or oranges.
Wen Qianshu looked at her test paper, pretending to think, but then took the hair tie off her wrist and passed it to Jiang Mingyue under the table. Jiang Mingyue was taken aback and looked up at her. Wen Qianshu smiled and asked in a low voice: “Forgot to bring one?”
The others just assumed they were discussing a problem and didn’t even look up. Jiang Mingyue looked at the hair tie in her hand—it was light blue, the same style as the one in Wen Qianshu’s hair.
Jiang Mingyue touched her hair. It was long, so even after a while, the ends were still a bit damp. But she replied, “Yeah.”
“Thanks.”
Wen Qianshu had already turned back to her test paper, smiling: “You’re welcome.”
Jiang Mingyue gathered her long hair with one hand and tied it up with the hair tie. She didn’t use a comb, so her usually neat ponytail looked a bit messy today, with the ends still slightly curly.
After tying her hair, she turned to open her schoolbag and take out a book.
At the same time, she pulled a hair tie from under the sleeve on her left wrist—a black one, the kind she usually used. And there was another spare one in her schoolbag, kept together with her comb.
Then she zipped up the bag, leaving both hair ties inside.
