Lù YúnFēi looked at the monthly test ranking on the wall, his eyes locked onto the column for English results. He looked disbelievingly at the black text — 74.
74! 74! He had gotten 84 last time, why did he get 74 this time!!! Lu YunFei almost spat out blood. His gaze slowly raised up, to see Biān JìnYuán’s English score. The numbers were printed clearly — 148.
Fuck!!! Is he a cheat! 148, it was probably the essay portion which deducted the two marks! Is he human? Bian JinYuan is likely a foreigner!
Lu YunFei was so angered that he had a headache. He thought of how he had to burn the midnight oil till 1am, tirelessly memorising the vocabulary and readings, only to wind up with 74 marks. Lu YunFei fell into despair. He probably didn’t light up his talent for English when he was born. When everyone agonised over the Sciences, he was the only one who struggled in English, getting defeated in every battle.
Lu YunFei didn’t think that he had high standards for himself. He just wanted to attain a score of 90 marks, not too high, as long as he passed. Otherwise if he were the only student to fail in this express class, it would be so outstanding that it would be like standing naked in the middle of a crowd. Everytime the English teacher looks at him, her eyes are especially complicated.
Lu YunFei sighed. The student next to him patted his shoulder, “Wow YunFei, you got 147 for Mathematics, you’re too awesome.”
Lu YunFei shot him a perfunctory smile. He looked at the scores for his name; rank twenty within his class, rank fifty-one within the grade. This ranking is considered to be above average in class. After all, apart from his innate lack of talent in English, he was among the best in every other subject. He was able to rank within the first or second in class for Maths and Sciences. Oh, it’s no longer the first rank. He can only be ranked second now.
At this thought, Lu YunFei unconsciously raised his eyes to peer at Bian JinYuan’s Mathematics score — 149.
Fuck!!! Is this damn guy even human!!! 149!! Why doesn’t he just go ahead to score 150! Lu YunFei was filled with anger. During the placement tests, his Maths and Sciences were always lower than Bian JinYuan’s by a few marks. This time he had seriously revised for the exams, and even double checked his answers. In the end he still scored lower than Bian JinYuan!
Lu YunFei felt that he ought to stay away from this ranking board. How is this a ranking table, this is simply an electrocardiograph. The longer he looked at it, the closer his heart rate was going to become a straight line.
Since YunFei was born, then why did JinYuan need to be born too! His English is already ranked first from the bottom, so he had to depend on Maths and Sciences to fight for the first ranks from the top. Yet now, he’s still ranked first from the bottom, but he can no longer claim first rank from the top! He and Bian JinYuan’s five elements are not in harmony, their eight characters are clashing#! They should never have been put together in the same class!
Lu YunFei turned around in anger as he planned to return to his seat. Just as he turned around, he realised that Bian JinYuan had been standing behind him. Startled, Lu YunFei stepped backwards, and almost stepped onto the feet of the classmate behind him.
“Shit, Lu YunFei don’t squeeze, I haven’t found out what rank I am yet.”
Who the hell wants to squeeze you, do you know what a reflex is, Lu YunFei spat in his heart.
He pondered over whether he should get out from the crowd, when he saw Bian JinYuan lower his gaze to look at him and stepped aside for him, before lifting his eyes back to the ranking board.
Is he fucking showing disdain? The pettiness in Lu YunFei’s heart voiced out that this act of casually gazing at him before swiftly ignoring him was disdain! So what if he’s ranked first in the grade! Well actually it is something to be ranked first within the grade, Lu YunFei thought. If he were the top student in his grade, he also probably wouldn’t understand how on earth someone could fail English.
Sigh, Bian JinYuan’s English scores are twice his, twice! Lu YunFei felt hopeless. He even wanted to ask Bian JinYuan, bro, how did you study for English? Could you teach me?
However in reality, Lu YunFei never lacked English tutors. It might be hard to believe, but as a standard rich second generation, Lu YunFei has had English tutors since he was in elementary school. During middle school, he had even attained a good score of 115 out of 120 marks.
After that, with 115 marks as his pinnacle, he swiftly embarked on the road of descent. Ultimately, he was only able to maintain his score at around 80.
Lu YunFei felt that what was worse was that, compared to scoring 89 marks which was a fail mark near the passing point, it was still better than a score of 74, which was 16 points off from the passing mark.
He lifted his gaze to look at Bian JinYuan. Bian JinYuan is tall, Lu YunFei silently assessed, probably around 1.85 metres or so. And so, he didn’t have to squeeze to the front to view his ranking. He could definitely see it clearly. After all, he’s the first-ranked, at the very top of the ranking table.
Lu YunFei got more annoyed the more he thought about it. So even though Bian JinYuan made way for him, he still raised his hand to push him aside to get out.
Lǐ YuánQīng was slouched on the desk reading comics. Seeing Lu YunFei come back, and noticing his expression, he tentatively asked, “You failed again?”
Lu YunFei glared at him in annoyance, “Do you know how to talk? If you don’t then shut it.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Li YuanQing placed a bookmark in his comic and incredulously said, “Didn’t you study for this exam? How could you have failed again.”
Lu YunFei sneered in derision, “When have I not studied for any English exams, and when have I ever passed English?”
“But you had studied a bit more this time.”
“Yea, from 84 marks the last time, I got 74 this time. It’s too aggravating!”
“Then what about Bian JinYuan?”
“148!!!” Lu YunFei furiously slammed the desk, “Is he human? Can a normal human score so well? Do you think Bian JinYuan is a foreigner? Or mixed race?”
Li YuanQing: ……
Li YuanQing thought that his buddy probably got so angered that he’s gone mad. Bian JinYuan is handsome, but he has no relation to mixed-blood whatsoever.
“Forget it, don’t think about it anymore. It’s not like this guy has been awesome only recently. Don’t be bothered by this.”
“If you had scored 74 for English you wouldn’t not be bothered,” Lu YunFei said, and glanced in the direction of Bian JinYuan’s desk in irritation, to find that Bian JinYuan had already taken his seat, his head lowered, as if he were writing his exam papers.
“Li YuanQing, have you realised? Bian JinYuan doesn’t seem to have any hobbies outside of school. If he’s not doing homework, he’s reading books?” Lu YunFei said.
Li YuanQing recalled the few moments when he interacted with Bian JinYuan, and made a startling realisation, “I wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t mentioned it. Now that you’ve pointed it out, it really seems to be the case.”
“Then he’s quite hardworking, no wonder he could score 148.”
Li YuanQing found it logical, “Of course, after all apart from school and homework, you also split your 24 hours on reading comics, watching animation shows, and playing games and basketball. Shit, is this really the reason? Why don’t you try quitting all your hobbies to see if your English gets better?”
“You think I haven’t tried it before? It’s absolutely useless. Even when I had tried my hardest, I was only able to hover around the passing mark, and I wasn’t even able to pass then.”
Lu YunFei despaired, “This is my calamity. If I can overcome this calamity, Qīng Běi+ will be just around the corner.”
As they talked, Li YuanQing suddenly indicated for Lu YunFei to look at Bian JinYuan. Lu YunFei turned his head to see that a female classmate held her paper and stood in front of Bian JinYuan’s desk, seeming to ask him about the questions.
“Do you think Bian JinYuan would explain it to her?” Li YuanQing whispered.
Lu YunFei didn’t hesitate to say, “He won’t.”
After all, ever since he got into the same class as Bian JinYuan, he had never seen Bian JinYuan explain the answers to anyone. The girls would all flock to him because of his face, happy to be the next one to approach him, but they couldn’t endure how Bian JinYuan would never even spare them a glance to reply, “I don’t have time, go ask someone else.”
He always had on a face of indifference, uncaring for anyone else. Other than answering questions when he was called upon by the teacher, he would seldom be seen talking. This was completely in line with his character.
As expected, this time was no different. Lu YunFei looked at the back of the girl who had stood in front of Bian JinYuan’s desk as she quickly left. Bian JinYuan’s head was still lowered, the black gel pen moving up and down without pause.
“This type of person is a studying machine,” Li YuanQing said, “also known as a nerd, it’s just that he doesn’t look like one.”
Lu YunFei didn’t think so. Compared to a nerd, Bian JinYuan seemed more like someone who couldn’t be bothered to talk to them.
He’s probably quite arrogant, Lu YunFei thought, but then again he’s top of the grade, being arrogant is normal.
During the afternoon, Li YuanQing had stuff to attend to at home. Lu YunFei originally wanted to work on one last question before heading for lunch, however as he was halfway through it, he felt a shadow cast over him.
He looked up to find his good friend Wēn MíngYì looking back at him gloomily.
“Could we have lunch first? I’m hungry.”
Lu YunFei retrieved a pack of biscuits from his bag and passed it to him, “Eat this first to stave your hunger and give me three minutes, I’m almost done.”
Wen MingYi sighed. He peeled open the biscuit wrapper and used a sorrowful tone to say, “Three minutes, it’s not enough time to take a nap~”
Lu YunFei: ……
Lu YunFei silently bowed his head to continue working on the problem sum, however his mind was filled with that famous ad, what can you do in three minutes?
When Lu YunFei was done solving the final problem, Wen MingYi had also finished the biscuits. He waved the biscuit wrapper, “Is this dry or wet rubbish? Do you think it belongs to something pigs would eat or if the pig would die after eating it?”
Lu YunFei was speechless, “We don’t separate our trash here, you don’t need to know about this.”
Wen MingYi stated, “It’s something we have to know about sooner or later, what I’m doing is prepping for a rainy day.”
Lu YunFei ignored him. He packed up his desk and left the classroom with him.
Wen Mingyi doesn’t eat food from the school canteen, so the both of them visited a backstreet near the school which offered a variety of delicacies for a meal. It was already past 1pm when they were done. Lu YunFei carried a ròujiāmó and headed back to the classroom with Wen MingYi. When they got to the second floor, Lu YunFei suddenly thought of something and halted: “The water dispenser in our classroom has no more water, I have to go buy a drink from the school canteen.”
“Go get water from my classroom then.”
“But I want to drink something else,” Lu YunFei confessed, “You go ahead, I’ll buy a drink from the canteen. Do you want anything?”
“No need, then I’ll go off first.”
“Mmm.” Lu YunFei said, and turned around to head back down the stairs and made his way slowly to the school canteen.
It was late September and the weather was still hot. Lu YunFei got a bottle of iced cola and left the canteen carrying it and the roujiamo. As he walked past the abandoned auditorium beside the canteen, Lu YunFei heard the sounds of scuffling. He initially didn’t pay attention to it, but then he thought he heard Bian JinYuan’s name.
Lu YunFei unconsciously stopped in his tracks and turned around to head towards the auditorium.
No student knows just when this auditorium was built, just as how no student knows when it was abandoned. All they know is that it has been engulfed in ivy, as if the ivy is covering up the auditorium’s facade and glory days. Lu YunFei knows that guys would sometimes arrange to fight at the empty land behind the auditorium.
He carried the cola and roujiamo to a corner and saw Bian JinYuan, his side facing him, and surrounded by five people. Bian JinYuan was still a picture of indifference. The leader spoke some words to him, but seeing that he was unmoved, got so angry that he brought his fists forward.
Lu YunFei carefully hid at a corner to see Bian JinYuan as one person against five. Judging from his evaluation of their strengths, he shouldn’t need to help out. However just as he was observing, he saw someone from behind Bian JinYuan silently fish out a foldable fruit knife.
Fuck! They’re even playing dirty! Lu YunFei tossed the cola in his hands. Just as the person got close to Bian JinYuan, he raised his arm to throw the cola at him.
The other party was struck by the cola which fell from the sky, and was momentarily stunned. The rest immediately looked towards Lu YunFei’s direction.
Lu YunFei smiled as he emerged. He raised his hands in greeting, “Hi classmates, are you doing midday exercises? Let me join.”
The author has something to say:
Bian JinYuan gong, Lu YunFei shou. A summer sweet biscuit, let’s enjoy this dessert.