Chapter 67
The group chat went dead the moment Wu Si dropped that line. It took a long while before anyone spoke.
[Wang Lu’an: It is not April Fools. Do not mess with us, deskmate. Did the Education Bureau not tell the school to shut down the honors class? How is No. 7 bold enough to restart it after one semester, and in secret?]
[Wu Si: I am not making it up. I only just found out too…]
[Wu Si: Looks like a bunch of parents signed together, so they finally gave in.]
Chen Jingshen leaned back, fingers resting on the screen. Before he could reply, his bedroom door swung open.
Ji Lianyi walked in with a cup. “I warmed you some milk. You are giving a speech at the senior-year rally tomorrow, right? Drink and sleep.”
The leadership at Nancheng No. 7 High believed in more than just pushing seniors to study. They believed in relentless pep. Other schools usually held a single hundred-day countdown rally. No. 7 liked to inject chicken blood from day one of twelfth grade.
A few days ago Hu Pang had asked Chen Jingshen to speak as the student representative on the first day.
She set the warm milk in front of him and glanced at his phone. “Still on your phone this late? I feel like you are obsessed with screens lately.”
He set his pen down, but kept the phone in hand. He darkened the screen, looked at the milk, then lifted his gaze. “You have known about the class transfer for a while, haven’t you?”
She paused, eyes settling on his face. “Yes. Has the school notified you yet?”
She had meant to handle the transfer herself, but the school reached her first. They thought it was unfair to throw the honors kids back into regular classes at this point. The honors curriculum was far ahead. If they returned now, they would only repeat content, which would definitely hurt their grades. The school collected parent signatures and filed an application with the Education Bureau.
After some thought, the Bureau agreed. Their year would be the last at No. 7 to have an honors class.
“This is a good start, right?” Ji Lianyi patted his shoulder. “Finish that and pack what you need for tomorrow, then sleep.”
After she left, he lit up the screen again. A new message had arrived.
[-: I will help you carry your books upstairs tomorrow.]
The holiday had been only twenty days, so most of their books had stayed in the classroom.
The message did not beg or brood. It was written like being in different classes was a small, ordinary thing that did not matter.
Chen felt his own breath loosen.
He thought about his mother offering to take him to report in. Under the desk lamp he opened Yu Fan’s chat a few times, then answered, a little regretfully: [No need.]
The next day, Ji Lianyi did not even call the driver. She drove him to school herself.
On the way she gave him a string of reminders in a soft voice. She had been doing that for days, as if trying to make up for half a year of missed nagging.
He listened without a word. The line “can I transfer back to my original class” circled in his mouth and never came out.
She would not agree, and he did not want to plant Yu Fan under her nose too soon.
Forget it. Two semesters.
At school, even though he kept saying it was not necessary, she could not stop bustling.
She chatted with teachers in the office, took his cafeteria card and loaded money on it, then went to his classroom and started sorting his books.
“Can you see the board from here?” she asked.
“Mm.”
“The AC is right behind you. Not good. I could ask the teacher to switch your seat.”
“No need.”
“Fine. I am back now. After every exam, give me your papers to look at. I flipped through your mistakes notebook too. It is a bit messy. Even for drafts, keep it neat.”
“Mm.”
As the new deskmate of the top student, Wu Si sat there with wide eyes, quietly listening for a long time. Then the woman looked at him.
“Hello,” Ji Lianyi smiled. “I am Chen Jingshen’s parent.”
“Hello, Auntie,” Wu Si said.
“Jingshen gets distracted easily. If you can, please do not disturb him during class…”
“Mom.” Chen lifted his eyes and cut her off, calm as ever. “The rally is about to start. You should go.”
By the time she got back to the car the assembly music was already playing on campus.
She wanted to stay to watch his speech. She loved seeing him shine in a crowd. After such a failed, ridiculous, humiliating marriage, her child had become her pride and her spine.
Work had only just shifted back to the domestic side. Nothing was settled. She still had a lot to do.
She buckled up, answered a couple of emails, put on her sunglasses, and was about to pull out.
Thump, thump. Someone rapped on her window.
She turned. A figure bent to peer in at her. She met his eyes and frowned without meaning to.
He grinned and knocked again. Fingers tightening on the wheel, swallowing her unease, she lowered the window a crack.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
With Class 1 reinstated, everyone else had to shuffle right on the field to leave room for their formation.
In Grade 12 Class 7, Wang Lu’an looked wilted, still refusing to accept reality.
“Why are we in class again? I swear I just went on break yesterday. How does twenty days count as summer vacation? I come back and why is my deskmate gone?”
“What are you yelling for?” Zuo Kuan in the neighboring line dug at his ear. “Sitting alone is better, is it not?”
“Better my a**. It is lonely. There is no one to talk to… huh?”
Something hit him and he twisted to the other newly deskmate-less person. “Yu Fan, does that mean we can share a desk again?”
“In your dreams,” said Zuo. “You think your homeroom teacher would put you two together?”
“It was impossible before. Not necessarily now.” Wang shot a thumbs-up over his shoulder. “My bro is top five hundred in the grade now. I improved too. If we ask Fangqin together, maybe she will…”
“No,” came a cold voice behind him.
“Why not?”
Hands in his pockets, eyelids half drooped, Yu Fan said, “Too noisy. Affects my studying.”
Wang Lu’an: “…”
Zuo Kuan: “…”
Well. Yu Fan had been studying lately, yes, but maybe his aura had not caught up. Hearing those words in his voice was a little surreal.
Wang opened his mouth to argue. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a familiar figure and blurted, “Hey, it is the top student’s turn.”
All the dozing heads popped up.
Chen Jingshen’s uniform was so clean and bright it made Hu Pang’s white shirt look yellow. His broad straight shoulders filled the jacket. His fingers did not bother to hide the script in them.
“Hello everyone. I am Chen Jingshen from Class 1,” his cool voice carried across the field.
He clearly did not care about speeches. He had not prepared much and read from start to finish. Which meant Yu Fan could tip his chin up and openly watch him.
He finished the page without a hint of feeling, pinched the paper, and came down. As he was about to pass their class, Yu Fan straightened by habit, ready to shift his shoulder aside when he came by.
Chen walked past Class 7’s row and kept going.
Yu Fan paused, then sagged back into his lazy slant.
Many in the class did the same, heads tracking him.
Wang stared toward the distant Class 1 and muttered, “Tsk. It is almost unreal. Did the top student really spend time in our little dump of a class?”
Yu Fan did not answer. He turned to look in the same direction. Amid all the heads he found the most upright one and scowled.
The tidy uniform that had made him crane above chickens in Class 7 looked much more at home in Class 1. The kids around him were all model students, buttons done up to the top. None of them wore it as well as he did.
When he heard about the transfer last night, Yu Fan had not thought it was a big deal. Chen had never been on the same pace as their class. Going back to the honors track was best.
They were still in the same school. They could see each other any time.
But once it actually happened, it felt farther than he expected. Four floors between classrooms. PE split onto different days. Even the field formations put six classes between them.
And.
Chen had gone up and come down without looking at him once.
Tsk.
Just as Yu Fan was about to look away, that upright head dipped and an arm bent.
A second later, Yu Fan’s pocket buzzed.
[s: Wait for me after school.]
“…”
Yu Fan stared at the words for a moment, typed back a very cool “ok,” and lifted his head, languid again.
Last period. Chen was grinding through problems when a soft murmuring rose around him.
“What is he doing here?”
“No idea. Scary. Looks like trouble…”
“He must be here to beat someone up. We should walk home in groups.”
Chen sat in the very back group of desks. He set his pen down and followed their eyes to the front door.
He saw his boyfriend.
Yu Fan leaned against the short outer wall of Class 1’s corridor. His oversized uniform slouched around him. He chewed gum and swept a lazy, insolent gaze over the classroom.
Their eyes met. Yu Fan popped a bubble without changing expression and motioned with his eyes: hurry up.
Chen raised his brows back: I cannot.
Yu Fan was not born with patience. Five minutes later he flipped over and peered down at the specks on the basketball court, looking for the friends he had stood up for a game.
Ten minutes later he was by a window, glowering at the blackboard.
What the hell. How does anyone understand a single line of this.
The students by the window trembled and did not dare lift their heads.
Fifteen minutes later he slid to the front door, shoulder to the frame, face full of annoyance.
The teacher looked up and met his eyes. “…”
Yu Fan: “?”
Chen turned his face toward the window, finally unable to hold it in. He dodged his boyfriend’s stare and laughed silently.
He was the first out the door when the bell rang.
When he stopped in front of Yu Fan, Yu Fan asked with a scowl, “Why does your teacher drag class so long?”
The teacher walking behind them: “…”
“Sometimes,” Chen said. “How did you get up here?”
“You told me to wait.”
“I told you to wait in my class.”
Many in Class 1 stayed to study after school, so he could not go over problems there. Chen adjusted his bag strap and brushed his fingers lightly against the back of Yu Fan’s hand. “Come on. Back to Class 7.”
With a stack of summer worksheets to grade, Zhuang Fangqin rose from her desk. She had barely left the office when she ran into a math teacher who had just finished class.
“Heading out, Teacher Zhuang?” he asked.
“Not yet.” She smiled. “I will not be in tomorrow morning, so I am dropping the papers on the lectern to hand out later.”
“Oh.” He hesitated, then said, “Teacher Zhuang, I just saw that boy in your class with two moles on his face at Class 1’s door looking for Chen Jingshen…”
Catching the implication in his expression, she nodded right away. “It is fine. They were deskmates in my class. They get along well.”
He let out a breath. “Alright then. I will go. You should hurry.”
They parted and she headed for her classroom.
School had been out for a while. With the new term just starting, everyone had left early. The third floor was quiet as if empty.
Mulling over seating charts, she drifted to the back door of Class 7.
There were people inside.
Teachers have a bad habit of popping in without warning. Hearing a sound, she slowed and peeked through the back door. Then she smiled, relieved.
Last row, last desk. Two boys in white uniform tees sat shoulder to shoulder, just like before.
One held a pen, sketching on scrap as he explained in a cool low voice. The other had no posture at all, arm crooked on the desk under his head. It was hard to tell if he was really listening.
She had just stepped in when the problem wrapped up. The one explaining set his pen down, lifted a hand, pushed the hair back from the other’s forehead, and leaned in.
The sun was sinking. The panes cut the light into long strips.
Bathed in that hot gold, as the whole campus fell silent, they shared a quiet, intimate kiss.
Zhuang Fangqin’s foot froze in midair. Her heart went still with it.
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