The big stone by the steps was a bit cold, but Sun Wenrui seemed oblivious as he plopped down on it.
He clasped his hands together, rubbing them back and forth, elbows propped on his knees.
If the school didn’t prohibit “things inappropriate for student identity,” Fang Jiayuan suspected he wanted to light himself a cigarette.
“Is this really making you question life?” Fang Jiayuan found it somewhat amusing.
Sun Wenrui irritably cracked his knuckles, the poor right hand joints making “crack crack” sounds in his left palm. He rubbed his face and took a deep breath: “…I can’t accept it!”
The two had just chased out of the classroom, didn’t see anyone, and followed all the way to the infirmary, only to hear the conversation inside when they reached the door.
Cold as Fu Yuhan was, his attitude toward people close to him would be subtly different. As friends, they could sense it.
Fang Jiayuan quietly waited for his continuation.
Sure enough, after saying this, Sun Wenrui quickly pointed to the sky with one hand, somewhat indignantly saying: “How can Brother Fu treat me like this? I consider him a brother, but he’s gotten together with my love rival…!”
“He probably shouldn’t really count as your love rival.” Fang Jiayuan smiled helplessly.
Regarding Wen Yu, he, Fu Yuhan, and several other boys in class who got along well all knew about it, but nobody took it seriously. First, because Fu Yuhan had said many times that Wen Yu wouldn’t like Chen Mengxian; second, because of Wen Yu’s attitude—
Although when he first arrived, quite a few people thought he was a bit “pretentious,” but how to put it…
To use a very chuunibyou phrase: “A person who acts pretentious for a moment will get struck by lightning, but someone who acts pretentious for life is truly awesome.”
A month and a half had passed now, and Wen Yu was still being pretentious, so everyone gradually got used to it.
He had the same attitude toward everyone—appearing humble and polite, but actually never becoming particularly close to anyone. Several boys got together to analyze for Sun Wenrui and felt Fu Yuhan was very reasonable—such a person couldn’t possibly like Chen Mengxian.
“Didn’t we just discuss this yesterday?” Fang Jiayuan said. “If you ask Wen Yu, he probably doesn’t even know who Chen Mengxian is. You can’t stop Brother Fu from making friends… I think Wen Yu isn’t that bad, his grades are genuinely good.”
With grades that good, a little arrogance in personality was acceptable.
The standards students used to judge a person were still relatively simple.
Sun Wenrui rubbed his face, saying painfully: “I can’t accept it—!!! How am I supposed to watch Brother Fu become good friends with someone I hate? And they even seem closer than he is with me?”
He clutched his chest, looking at the stone path and evergreen trees before him, lamenting: “Is Brother Fu no longer the Brother Fu who deeply loved us?”
Fang Jiayuan punched him in the back: “After I humor you a bit, you really start acting?”
“Sigh!” Sun Wenrui let out a heavy sigh. “No, seriously, what am I going to do from now on… Do I have to become friends with Wen Yu?”
“What did Chen Mengxian tell you?”
“Nothing much, just said she’s not considering dating right now, everything will wait until after the college entrance exam.” Sun Wenrui looked at him. “Haven’t you seen me bringing her breakfast every day without fail lately… I believe her heart will eventually be warmed by my actions!”
“Then you have a pretty clear direction.” Fang Jiayuan sat down beside him. “Wen Yu isn’t interfering with your business either. I think you should just let it go. Several people in our class haven’t dared to talk to Wen Yu because of your situation, afraid you’d be unhappy.”
Among them, only Fu Yuhan wasn’t afraid of Sun Wenrui.
Mainly because Sun Wenrui didn’t dare to throw tantrums at Fu Yuhan, so Class 6 just watched as two people who seemed to have old grudges at the beginning of the school year inexplicably became good friends.
Sun Wenrui looked down at his shoe tips, then suddenly sighed after a while: “I actually can’t quite accept it. You know Brother Fu is such a closed book… I always feel like Wen Yu seems to…”
“The latecomer surpassing the early bird?” Fang Jiayuan smiled. “Hey, aren’t you getting something wrong? Wen Yu was originally someone who hung out with Brother Fu’s group of ‘First High friends,’ right? Logically, they should have a better relationship.”
“I understand the logic.” Sun Wenrui said. “I’m just jealous.”
“Instead of being jealous about this, you might as well focus on pursuing your girl. Once you win her over, would you still be afraid of Wen Yu interfering?” Fang Jiayuan shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Alright,” Sun Wenrui sighed mournfully, “alright.”
“Then I’ll tell them later, next time we form study groups we’ll include Wen Yu too—having such a top student leading us will definitely make us soar.”
The two left the classroom with a mission, but when they returned, one of them looked dejected, making the eager gossip-hungry classmates afraid to ask questions. Only a few straightforward boys who were close to them weren’t afraid to ask: “What’s wrong with Old Sun? Where are Brother Fu and Wen Yu?”
“Your Old Sun got hit hard.” Fang Jiayuan made a face and shook his head. “We thought those two went to fight, but it turns out Brother Fu has a fever and Wen Yu took him to the infirmary.”
“Shit, Brother Fu is actually sick?”
“Shit, Wen Yu actually took Brother Fu to the infirmary???”
“No wonder Old Sun got hit hard, I’m getting hit hard too.” Someone said. “So we…?”
Sun Wenrui sat back in his seat in sullen silence. Fang Jiayuan laughed out loud and told the boys in the back row: “Let’s invite Wen Yu to join our study group next time.”
“Sure.” Han Yang was the first to respond. “I said we should have invited Wen Yu long ago. He’s really nice—this morning when I asked him to help organize some papers, he agreed without hesitation.”
“So can we ride his coattails in future study groups?”
“Have you guys thought,” one person asked, “what if Wen Yu refuses to come?”
The group fell silent. Fang Jiayuan scratched his head: “Then we invite Brother Fu too?”
“…”
Fu Yuhan, study group?
That sounded a bit shocking.
Everyone gave up—they simply didn’t have the courage to invite Fu Yuhan to study together.
It wasn’t just the boys in the back row paying attention to this. As soon as Fang Jiayuan returned to his seat, class monitor Ge Ran walked over and asked softly: “What’s the situation?”
“Brother Fu seems to have a fever.” Fang Jiayuan glanced at Sun Wenrui, who was sulking with his head down. “Wen Yu took him to the infirmary.”
“They didn’t fight?”
Fang Jiayuan shook his head.
Ge Ran breathed a sigh of relief and smiled: “Good that they didn’t fight.”
“Aren’t you worried that Brother Fu is sick?” Fang Jiayuan teased.
“Worrying won’t help. If he’s really sick, messaging him now would just cause trouble.” Ge Ran smiled. “Let’s wait for Wen Yu to come back and ask about the situation.”
–
From the moment the second period bell rang, Fu Yuhan had been urging Wen Yu to return to the classroom, half-pushing and half-persuading.
When sick people spoke, they had a nasal tone, their voice softer than usual, making Wen Yu’s ears tingle. He actually wanted to hear more, but Fu Yuhan was very determined.
Fu Yuhan was trying to distance their relationship, Wen Yu felt.
But he… temporarily had no solution, mainly because he himself hadn’t figured out how to handle this problem.
The corridor outside the infirmary was a bit dark. A moth had somehow flown in and crashed into the ceiling light.
Wen Yu looked up.
Moths spend their lives chasing bright things, even when it’s dangerous.
He suddenly had an empathetic illusion.
So even instinct knew he was playing with fire.
“…Tch.”
Wen Yu let out a low laugh, half self-mocking, half contemptuous.
The second period was the homeroom teacher’s chemistry class. When Wen Yu reached the corridor, his steps paused. Previously, following his father’s teachings—or rather, demands—he had always strictly followed rules in this regard, never skipping class for over ten minutes and entering midway.
It wasn’t that he’d never fantasized about doing this—after all, every student had the desire to “transgress”—but when it actually happened, saying he was very used to it wasn’t quite possible either.
Wen Yu paused before walking back nonchalantly.
He stood properly at the front door and knocked twice: “Report.”
“Wen Yu?” Zhou Wenkang was halfway through explaining a problem when he saw him and was stunned, glancing toward the back of the classroom. “Where did you go?”
He hadn’t noticed two people were missing from the back.
“I took Fu Yuhan to the infirmary.” Wen Yu took the opportunity to ask for leave for Fu Yuhan. “He has a fever. The doctor said he might need to rest at home for the next two days too.”
“Oh, okay, I understand. I’ll go to the infirmary teacher later to understand the situation.” Zhou Wenkang nodded. “Go back to your seat. Ask your classmates about the problems you missed, and if there’s anything you still don’t understand, come find me. I’m usually in the office after class, as you know.”
“Okay.” Wen Yu nodded and walked back to his seat with lowered eyes.
Strangely, several people were looking at him when he returned to his seat today.
He used to receive such gazes often when he first transferred, but as time passed quickly, he hadn’t been looked at like this by classmates for a while.
Was something happening?
Wen Yu couldn’t figure it out.
But he didn’t think about it deeply either. After returning to his seat, he took out his test papers and pen as usual, the pen spinning round and round on his fingertips. Everything looked no different, but only he knew he was spacing out.
He was a bit… restless.
An unfamiliar restlessness.
The students in the first row were earnestly looking up, the second and third rows were taking notes with heads down, in the middle of the classroom Ge Ran and Xu Qianyi were whispering together, in the back row some boys were sleeping while others were looking at him.
The sounds normally heard during class suddenly became noisy, and he didn’t catch a single word of the familiar problem-solving explanations.
Wen Yu repeatedly tried to concentrate, but in the end could only barely check answers. He couldn’t understand a single word of the solution process.
It was as if Chinese had become the most incomprehensible language in the world.
The only consolation was that the answers he wrote down were correct, meaning he knew how to solve the problems.
A class period had never passed so quickly.
The bell rang in a flash.
Wen Yu suddenly wanted to go back to the infirmary to see if Fu Yuhan had left, but just as he stood up, he saw the homeroom teacher who hadn’t left the classroom yet press his hands down and pat the podium, signaling for everyone to be quiet.
“I have something to say,” he said. “Everyone sit down. Chen Liwen, come back. Wait until I finish before going to the bathroom.”
Wen Yu had to sit back down.
“Next week is the second monthly exam, which is the midterm exam.” Zhou Wenkang said. “This time, our grade level contacted First High, as well as Second High, Fifth High… several schools, and together we created this midterm exam paper to gauge everyone’s level.”
Everyone sensed what was coming, and the classroom was very quiet.
“Last time’s monthly exam used papers created by our own grade level. Thinking everyone would be happier after returning from summer vacation, we made it relatively easy. This exam is different—it’s designed to be a bit harder than the college entrance exam.” Zhou Wenkang said. “First, to give everyone a baseline assessment and score estimate, so those who need to fill gaps can do so; second, for schools to see each other’s levels.”
“The college entrance exam is you competing with students from the entire province, even the entire country. I hope everyone can experience this atmosphere in advance…”
“Everyone prepare well for this exam. For those students whose exam results are unsatisfactory, the grade level teachers have discussed and plan to open an additional remedial class for underperforming students during evening self-study time, held in the lecture hall.”
“Although our Class 6 doesn’t publicly emphasize it, everyone knows we are honor class students. I hope I won’t see any of you in the lecture hall in the future.”
“Alright, that’s all. Everyone disperse.”
Zhou Wenkang waved his hand, and the classroom immediately became noisy. Students preparing to go to the bathroom or convenience store scattered like birds and beasts, and Wen Yu stood up again.
(advanced chapters available on kofi)
