Chapter 8
Wednesday afternoon, after teaching other classes, Zhuang Fangqin returned to the office with her lesson plans.
Seeing someone leaning by her desk, she lifted a brow. “Well, a rare visitor.”
She unclipped her little voice amplifier and set it on the table.
“I was here yesterday,” Yu Fan said.
“I mean it is rare for you to come on your own.” She sat down. “Alright, what is it?”
“Change my seat,” Yu Fan said, straight to the point.
“To where?”
“Back row. Or by the podium. Anywhere.”
“Either give me a reasonable reason,” she said after a sip of water, “or stop wasting both our time.”
“My new deskmate is affecting my studies.”
“?”
She stared at him, genuinely baffled he could say something like that without blinking. “How is he affecting you?”
“His writing is too loud. He smells. He looks down on weak students.”
“Nonsense.” She tapped him with the lesson plan. “This seating was requested by Chen Jingshen himself. Why would he look down on you?”
Yu Fan paused. “He requested it?”
“Of course.”
F***.
How is this guy so annoying.
“And why does he get to sit wherever he wants,” Yu Fan said, and the words sounded familiar even to him.
Zuo Kuan had said something similar yesterday.
“What do you think,” Zhuang said. “The top student in the entire grade volunteers to help a classmate who struggles. That is a blessing.”
“Give the blessing to someone else. I do not want it.”
“Not your choice.” She twirled her pen. “Go back to class. When your math score grows a zero, come talk to me about moving seats. Sit wherever you like then. If you want to sit in Director Hu’s office, I will even try to make that happen.”
“…”
Yu Fan’s face was black when he walked back to class.
Seeing who sat in the neighboring chair made it darker.
It was the break between classes. Half the room was sleeping or chatting; a few had run to the cafeteria. Only Chen Jingshen sat perfectly straight, working through a problem set.
“Where did you go?” Wang Lu’an asked. He had been moved to the next group and, with Yu Fan’s front-row neighbors gone, had plopped into someone else’s seat.
“Restroom,” Yu Fan said, dropping into his chair without sparing the boy beside him a glance.
“Why did you not call me...” Wang Lu’an complained. “I could have stood watch.”
“What for. Lookout?”
“I mean, I could.” He spun the chair around and hooked both arms over the back. “You have no idea how miserable I am. That discipline monitor I sit with does not watch the board, she watches me. I cannot even use my phone. No way. I am asking Fangqin to move me. Whoever wants that cursed seat can have it.”
“I will take it,” Yu Fan said. “Swap with me?”
Wang Lu’an blinked and glanced at the deskmate.
Chen Jingshen’s eyes were lowered. His pen never paused.
Wang Lu’an peeked at the book under Chen Jingshen’s hand and felt sleepy on sight. He still thought there was something weird between the transfer genius and Yu Fan, not quite what Yu Fan claimed either.
“Not impossible,” Wang Lu’an said, seizing the angle. “But we should ask the top student if he is willing.”
“What has it got to do with him,” Yu Fan frowned.
“No,” came a quiet answer from the side.
Yu Fan, “.”
He had not expected a response. Wang Lu’an was stunned too.
“Then no, no. We were just talking. Fangqin’s seating is basically set in stone.” Wang Lu’an scooted, eyes shining. “By the way, top student, yesterday you said you sat closer because you liked to watch… watch what?”
Bang.
Yu Fan’s hand jerked and the phone he had just pulled out hit the floor.
“Watch—” Chen began.
“Director Hu,” Yu Fan said.
“.”
“…”
“Director Hu? Fat Tiger?” Wang Lu’an squinted. “What does he have to do with this seat?”
“From here,” Yu Fan said without blinking, “I can stand up and see his office downstairs.”
“How did I never notice,” Wang Lu’an muttered.
Normal. The person concerned had not noticed either.
Chen glanced at Yu Fan’s mouth and wondered how he could keep spinning s*** like this.
Wang Lu’an stood to check. “You cannot see anything.”
“You are too short,” Yu Fan said.
“F***.” Wang Lu’an turned to Chen. “Top student, do you like Fat— I mean, Director Hu? Why? He does not even teach our class.”
Feeling the murderous look beside him, Chen pinched his pen and went still for two seconds. “Mm. I like the math handouts he compiled,” he said tonelessly.
“…”
Yu Fan pulled his school jacket onto the desk and spread it into a pillow. “Go back to your seat. I am sleeping.”
The bell rang. The physics teacher walked in with his books.
“Stand,” the class monitor called. Chen Jingshen stood, then noticed the empty space beside him.
Yu Fan was already facedown on the jacket, asleep. He had started with his face buried, but once he settled, he turned his head to breathe, revealing half his face.
With his eyes closed, his bridge of the nose high, the two small moles at the corner of his right eye and on his cheek sat in a delicate balance. He looked far less combative than when awake.
So moles do not grow with age after all.
“Sit,” the physics teacher repeated.
Chen Jingshen pushed his glasses up and sat.
Yu Fan woke to the crack of a stack of papers hitting the lectern.
He looked up into one of Zhuang Fangqin’s cool stares.
Seeing him awake, she stopped rapping the podium and raised the papers. “Put everything away. We are using these two study periods for a test. You have had a very long break. I want to see how many truckloads of knowledge you have forgotten. I am grading this one. Take it seriously. First student in each row, come get the stack and pass it back.”
Yu Fan’s fingers twitched. He buried his face again until the papers reached him, then dragged himself upright.
Zhuang proctored sternly. Her gaze roamed, but rarely landed on Yu Fan.
Every teacher knew this much: he was brutally honest on exams. Whatever he deserved, he got. Too lazy to cheat.
He scrawled his name with sleep-weak strokes and planned to doze once Zhuang looked away.
Then he remembered something. He lifted his head slowly.
What had Fangqin said earlier?
If he scored over 90 in math, he could sit wherever he wanted.
The thought sharpened him. He rubbed his face, sat up straight, and for once gave the math paper a serious look.
Great.
He did not understand a single problem.
He gripped his pen and for the first time since switching seats, assessed his surroundings. The two at the next desk were only marginally better than he was. On the left sat Wang Lu’an and the discipline monitor. In front, Zhang Xianjing and a short-haired girl who had spoken no more than three sentences to him in three terms, quiet and self-contained.
Either they were uncopyable, or copying them would not hit ninety.
He stared, fighting sleep, for a while.
Only when Zhuang shifted in her chair did he grudgingly swing his eyes sideways to the boy next to him.
Most people were still on page one, staring at multiple choice. Chen Jingshen was already at the end of page two.
Yu Fan did not struggle long. He just wanted to hug a desk under the class bulletin board as soon as humanly possible.
Two minutes later, when he was sure Zhuang was not watching this side, he propped a hand to shield his face and flicked a glance at the test under Chen Jingshen’s hand.
One perk of not studying: his eyesight was perfect.
He had just focused on the first bubble when Chen lifted his scratch paper and covered the worked-out parts.
“?”
Yu Fan’s eyes climbed to the paper’s owner.
Chen Jingshen kept his head down. He did not flick a single look back. “Do your own paper,” he said.
With Zhuang proctoring, he could not use his phone or sleep.
Yu Fan gave up and slouched farther back, hands in his pockets, staring out the window.
“Some people should rein their minds in,” Zhuang’s cool voice drifted down. “If you want to pick up trash for a living, at least wait until after graduation.”
“Some people” turned his head back, bored out of his skull.
Lines and numbers swam. He let his eyes drift and began a tour of the room.
Everyone else was working hard. Two, like him, were not.
Zhang Xianjing had guessed her way through the multiple choice and was now splitting her split ends.
Wang Lu’an… had one palm up by his face to block Zhuang’s line of sight and was peeking at the discipline monitor’s paper. His head did not move, only his eyeballs twisted to a ridiculous angle. If Yu Fan was not looking closely, he would have missed it. The discipline monitor certainly had.
So how had Chen Jingshen noticed? Yu Fan had been so careful.
Also, was he not supposed to like him?
Would not even let him copy a test?
What use was a top student’s “liking,” then.
He glanced aside again.
Chen’s scratch sheet lay neatly over the test. He was still working. Most people’s scratch looked like a storm. Chen’s was clean, organized, like an answer key.
His gaze was on the last question. His mouth set, he lifted a hand to press his temple as if to think.
Two seconds later, his brow smoothed. His fingers spun the pen lightly. He pulled the scratch sheet closer and began to write.
“One minute left,” Zhuang announced. “When time is up, pens down. Not a single stroke more. No one gives you extra time in the college entrance exam.”
Yu Fan snapped back and looked away.
Some top student. He was still solving in the last minute too.
He grabbed his jacket to leave the instant papers were collected.
Then came a soft swish. A filled scratch sheet slid onto his desk.
Yu Fan froze mid-motion. He stared at it and recognized Chen’s page, packed with formulas.
He checked it did not say any dumb study-guide titles and asked, cold, “What is this?”
“The answers and solutions,” Chen said, dropping his pen into his case. He turned his head. “Did you not want to look?”
“…”
Yes. I wanted to look. I f***ing wanted to look. In the last minute of the exam.
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