2333: “Wen Qianshu—I feel like—”
Wen Qianshu was working on a physics problem: “Speak.”
2333: “I feel like the female antagonist’s attitude towards you has gotten a lot better.”
Wen Qianshu was struggling with whether to use 10 or 9.8 for the acceleration due to gravity. The problem was vaguely worded and didn’t provide the value, and the numbers were a mess, making 10 seem particularly tempting.
9.8 or 10? That is the question.
Wen Qianshu finally decided to take the easy way out and wrote down 10. “What female antagonist? She has a name.”
2333 readily complied: “Alright, I feel like Jiang Mingyue’s attitude towards you has gotten a lot better.”
Wen Qianshu: “I feel like you’re mistaken.”
2333: “…”
It glanced at Jiang Mingyue’s pencil case. There weren’t many pens inside, so it could vaguely see the moon Wen Qianshu had melted, still tied with the string made of transparent tape.
2333 tried to point it out to Wen Qianshu, but Wen Qianshu mocked it: “The little girl probably just forgot to take it out.”
2333 had a headache.
2333 was tearing its hair out.
2333 tried to argue: “No, you can’t just assume everyone is lazy just because you are…”
Before it could finish, Zhang Zisheng wailed from behind them, “Why does a lazy person like me have to do physics problems? Ahhh. Why are there so many units to convert—and I can’t read the vernier caliper either.”
Wen Qianshu pursed her lips: “See?”
2333: “…”
It was break time between classes. Some were eating snacks, others were catching up on homework. Zhang Zisheng did both, munching on a beef stick while tearfully catching up on her work.
Shen Ting comforted her: “It’ll be better once we get past this ‘Motion’ chapter.”
Wen Qianshu turned around and cheerfully twisted the knife: “Yeah, don’t worry, there’s still Force, Electricity, and Light—”
The moment Zhang Zisheng heard “Force,” she started wailing: “Newton again? I’ve disliked Newton since middle school, we’re just not fated to be—”
Wen Qianshu: “It’s okay, later on, we’ll get to wave-particle duality, and there’s Einstein.”
Zhang Zisheng abruptly stopped her fake crying and looked at Wen Qianshu, her heart sinking: “Einstein?”
Wen Qianshu: “Yeah, I saw our school’s physics electives three and five. Five is about light, so there’s definitely Einstein.”
Zhang Zisheng snatched up her physics paper to use as a handkerchief and wept, covering her face: “Oh my god—why? Why is this happening! I’m so young, I shouldn’t have to endure this kind of pain! Newton is one thing, but just hearing Einstein’s name makes my legs tremble.”
Wen Qianshu was amused by her dramatic tone. She had a slip of the tongue and joked, “Maybe if you change your name to ‘Zwei-stein,’ you won’t be scared anymore.【Note 1】”
Zhang Zisheng: “Huh?”
Shen Ting didn’t get it either and looked at Wen Qianshu in confusion.
Wen Qianshu said, “Uh,” and was about to explain the tragically fated joke that had failed to make anyone laugh when a soft chuckle came from beside her—it was Jiang Mingyue’s.
2333, eager to prove itself, said: “See! I told you her attitude changed! She never used to laugh!”
Jiang Mingyue, still holding a pen in one hand, propped up her chin with the other and turned around.
Zhang Zisheng quickly pulled the paper off her face and put it on the desk, silent as a cicada in winter. She was particularly afraid of Jiang Mingyue; saying she was like a mouse seeing a cat would be an overstatement.
But a mouse’s fear of a cat could be scientifically explained. 2333 could only attribute Zhang Zisheng’s inexplicable terror to the aftereffects of a plot that hadn’t happened yet.
Jiang Mingyue’s eyes were actually very light in color, even showing a faint golden hue in the sunlight. It was said that people with light-colored eyes looked tearful and exceptionally sentimental, yet her pair of light eyes seemed to have been steeped in moonlight, always carrying a scrutinizing chill.
Wen Qianshu narrowed her eyes, and a thought inexplicably crossed her mind—
A pair of eyes like that must look beautiful when crying.
But her daze lasted only a moment before Jiang Mingyue suddenly asked, “You know German?”
Wen Qianshu: “!”
2333: “!”
2333: “You know German?”
Wen Qianshu laughed, “Haha,” and patted her shoulder. “What are you thinking, my good deskmate? I saw it in a joke.”
Behind her back, she immediately asked 2333: “Little Moonlight knows German?”
In 2333’s words, Wen Qianshu was the type to take a mile when given an inch, pushing her luck. Seeing that the other person tolerated “good deskmate,” she was already scheming to call her “Little Moonlight” the next moment.
2333: “I don’t know—maybe she knows a little? After all—”
It “after all-ed” for a while, feeling there really wasn’t any reason. Instead, Jiang Mingyue explained it herself: “During the summer vacation, an exchange student stayed at my house. A German—he taught me a little German.”
She maintained her sideways posture, her eyes unblinking, staring straight at Wen Qianshu. For a fleeting moment, her gaze seemed to want to pierce through Wen Qianshu’s body and see 2333. “You know quite a lot?”
Indeed, the previous “Wen Qianshu” should never have known how to solder circuit boards, speak German, or do any of this other random stuff. If 2333 were a person, it would be breaking out in a cold sweat right now.
Behind them, Shen Ting was still clueless, but Wen Qianshu grinned.
It might have been a double entendre, or it might not have been.
But Wen Qianshu twirled her pen and leaned closer to Jiang Mingyue. She could see her long eyelashes, her light-colored pupils, and her rather thin lips, gilded with light.
“Aiya, not at all.” Wen Qianshu had a canine tooth that gave her smile a hint of carefree mischief. “I just saw a joke and finally found an opportunity to show it off, didn’t I?”
Fortunately, the class bell rang soon after, and the Chinese teacher walked in with a textbook under his arm. Zhang Zisheng cheerfully put down her physics paper, and it was Wen Qianshu’s turn to weep with her face in her hands. Her Chinese was truly spectacular; in reading comprehension, she could interpret villains as heroes and heroes as villains. Never mind contemporary authors, even those buried in the ground would want to jump out and beat her. The Chinese teacher’s fate was tragic, being on the front lines of facing her answers, often getting so angry that smoke came out of his seven orifices, unable to even write a zero properly.
Actually, Wen Qianshu had studied these texts and done these problems in her past life, and her correction notebook was impeccably neat. Unfortunately, what she remembered were all the wrong answers, so “history repeated itself” day after day.
Wen Qianshu felt guilty just seeing the Chinese teacher, so she simply lowered her head to discuss the upcoming tasks with 2333. 2333 had long since despaired of her and cut straight to the point: “If we follow the plot, you now need to get the male and female protagonists—Shen Ting and Fang Wenyuan—to become familiar with each other, meeting frequently. After that, someone will snitch to Teacher Gu that they’re in a puppy love relationship.”
Wen Qianshu interjected: “The person who snitches is ‘Wen Qianshu’?”
2333: “Uh, yes, because—mainly—”
Wen Qianshu cut it off: “Just continue with the plot.”
2333: “Next, the parents are called in, the teacher disapproves, there are repeated talks—”
Wen Qianshu: “So they actually got together because of that?”
2333: “The way you used ‘actually’—tsk, now that you put it that way, it does sound a bit strange—yes, they really did get together. They promised to get into the same university, then get married and spend their lives together. But Jiang Mingyue also liked Fang Wenyuan, so after the college entrance exams, she went to Shen Ting, made a chart showing Fang Wenyuan’s family situation and hobbies, analyzed Shen Ting’s, and even drew a Venn diagram to show their only overlaps—what are you laughing at, stop laughing—and told Shen Ting that it was impossible between them.”
“But Shen Ting didn’t believe her, and Jiang Mingyue didn’t care, so she let them continue their relationship. But after they started university, the two of them argued constantly. Plus, Fang Wenyuan’s family had always favored Jiang Mingyue and kept putting on pressure. In the end, they arranged an engagement between Fang Wenyuan and Jiang Mingyue, and after that—”
“Wen Qianshu!”
Wen Qianshu shuddered in fright, hearing the Chinese teacher’s deadly summons: “Translate this entire classical Chinese text for me, from beginning to end!”
Wen Qianshu: “!”
“Quick, 2333! Help me find where he’s talking about!”
No matter how the plot was supposed to change, life went on as usual.
Classes were attended one by one, and papers were filled out one after another.
Zhang Zisheng was tormented by physics beyond words, Wen Qianshu had a love-hate relationship with Chinese, Shen Ting was terrified of the math teacher, and Jiang Mingyue was at war with the comprehensive studies class all by herself. The music teacher taught them to play the recorder, and the group of students blew until they were out of breath, their squeaky notes sounding like the wails of ghosts. During the Chinese self-study period on Saturday, the teacher didn’t give a quiz but secretly showed them the movie Border Town. Shen Ting and Zhang Zisheng watched while sneakily eating preserved plums and crying their eyes out. Of course, some people focused on the wrong thing: “Why is it that in the same river, Cui Cui is washing her face while her grandfather is washing his feet?”
The art teacher spent two classes on art history, and in the third, pulled someone to be a model for sketching. A lucky person like Wen Qianshu, who was chosen, received countless abstract portraits after class—it was clear that few possessed the soul of Picasso, but many had mastered his form. The computer teacher earnestly taught them about Office and web programming, but most students secretly opened 4399.
4399 was a good thing, but unfortunately, the computers in the school’s computer lab were wiped clean every time they restarted, so the number of levels cleared in Gold Miner couldn’t be saved. One guy was obsessed with Fireboy and Watergirl, wishing he had three heads and six arms to play the two-player version by himself. But during the last class, Wen Qianshu discovered that he had been stuck on one level for so long that he had unfortunately turned to the dark side and angrily enabled invincibility mode.
High school life—for the most part, it passed in a muddle and a rush.
No. 1 High School had a tradition of holding a National Day evening party every year. It was called a party, but at most, it was just an evening self-study session allocated to each class, where the class committee would organize some activities, and that was it.
But for first-year students—it was their first time, so it was always novel.
The class monitor was a tall, thin, and gentle-looking boy, but he was so thin that people worried he might be blown away by the wind. He dragged Fang Wenyuan along and excitedly bought a bunch of small colored lights, ribbons, and spray paint, making sure to get a variety of colors. When they returned at noon after their shopping trip, both of them were covered in a riot of colors, looking like walking Christmas trees.
They put up ribbons, stickers, and all sorts of things. Zhang Zisheng took the spray paint, studied the window for a long time, and then sprayed a footprint on it.
Shen Ting thought the footprint was cute and started laughing. She took the spray paint and quickly drew a small pink footprint on the window next to Wen Qianshu.
Wen Qianshu turned sideways, laughing, and reached out to grab the spray paint from her. “What are you doing? You still have enough to draw with.”
“You don’t get it—” Shen Ting laughed while dodging, “I’m going to ‘point fingers and feet’ at you!”
Wen Qianshu jumped up to tickle her: “You’re rebelling!”
Shen Ting was terribly ticklish and giggled, busy dodging, when she suddenly bumped into someone behind her. Shen Ting was a standard “hero at home, coward abroad,” a “paper tiger.” She immediately stopped laughing and said reservedly, “I’m sorry.”
Behind her was Fang Wenyuan. He had been chosen as the host and had specially worn a white shirt that outlined his slender figure. High school boys grow fast; he was a full head taller than Shen Ting. He smiled at her and said, “It’s okay.”
Under the sunlight, young men always look handsome. Clean-cut features, smiling eyes, with the warm autumn sun shining down, the soft fuzz on his cheeks was faintly visible. Below, his Adam’s apple was slightly prominent, yet obediently tucked into his collar by the shirt button.
Never mind Shen Ting, even Wen Qianshu was stunned for a moment.
“It’s great to be young. Young guys look so handsome in white shirts,” Wen Qianshu sighed to 2333. “No wonder white shirts are always associated with first love. Unlike me, now that I’m older, all I can think about is—”
2333 remained vigilant: “Is what?”
Wen Qianshu: “White shirts are so hard to wash when they get dirty, otherwise I’d wear one too.”
2333: “…”
【Note 1】: “Einstein” sounds like “ein Stein” (one stone) in German. Here, Wen Qianshu is making a pun with “zwei Steine” (two stones), implying she’s smarter than Einstein (which is of course impossible).
Author’s Notes:
2333: “That’s not called getting older, that’s called being lazy.”
2333: “Just kill me.”
This book focuses on random roasting and commentary, without much serious plot, so it might read a bit like a running account. Just have fun with it~
By the way, in high school, I really did—I’d fill out my correction notebook, and then make the exact same mistake on the next similar problem. I suspect I memorized the wrong answers.
