Chapter 53: 51

Shao Zhan was not up to date with news about other students, but he frequently helped many subject teachers with marking assignments, totalling the scores, and he more or less remembered every name he saw. If his memory served him right, there was no “Kang Kai” in the entire second year.

And even if he was a student here, they would not be saying “hurry over”. 

Then, there was only one possibility left. This contact in Xu Sheng’s phone who went by the name “Kang Kai” was not from this school.

It was probably a friend.

 

 

In the chat window, this contact had the words ‘typing…’ flashing on and off next to their name.

Kang Kai: If you don’t get over here, I’m really going to die. 

Kang Kai: It’s Saturday tomorrow anyway, if you take the trip here it will be fine. Brother, I’ll be holding my very last breath and waiting for you!

 

Kang Kai: You have one hour. If you’re not here by 6, you can bury my corpse.

Shao Zhan, “…”

—

 

At the same time, in the teacher’s office.

“Shao Zhan.” Zhou Yuan organised the stack of question papers, then reached for the glass of water beside him. “Copy these ten questions down first.”

“Mn.” Xu Sheng lowered his head as he stood to the side, but two seconds later he looked up. “…Copy?”

 

Xu Sheng was now in Shao Zhan’s body. No matter what Shao Zhan said, the teachers would always take the initiative to look for him. Zhou Yuan said, “Don’t tell me you can memorise all of it? Your memory is good. If you can do that, then go ahead.” 

Sorry.

He can’t memorise it.

Xu Sheng just had to forge ahead and pick up the pen. He was being watched by Zhou Yuan, so his hand unconsciously kept trembling slightly.

He had not been practicing with the copywriting books that Shao Zhan had bought for him for a while now. 

Persevering was difficult, while giving up was easy. After giving up, Xu Sheng’s handwriting had returned to its ugly nature.

Perhaps the strictness and rigidity during that time had been too much, his handwriting…

Was even worse than before, even wilder.

Under Zhou Yuan’s gaze, Xu Sheng’s hand wobbled across the A4 sheet of paper, his pinky pressed against the paper. He tried his hardest to write the words ‘Question One’ as neatly as possible. 

Luckily, while Zhou Yuan was watching him, the phone rang, and he picked it up. “Hello, Director Gu. Ah, go ahead.”

Xu Sheng let out a sigh of relief, and started to write faster, wanting to take advantage of Zhou Yuan being distracted by the call to quickly finish copying the questions, then hurry and get out of this office.

 

If he continued staying in this office, he feared he would never make it out alive.

Although Xu Sheng mostly never handed in his assignments, or if he did he would just write the one word ‘solved’ on them, some subject teachers in his middle school life had a very bad temper, and in order to avoid having to talk to those teachers about his assignments, he would try to copy the homework from his classmates. 

His handwriting was illegible to begin with, so he was extremely fast at copying.

Who would have thought that this skill of his would be used on copying down questions.

Xu Sheng was almost done with the final question.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Itbe Tejc kjr jiwbra jybea ab fcv atf mbcnfgrjalbc jcv tjcu eq. “Qf’gf mjggslcu atja bea abvjs? Cii gluta, ecvfgrabbv.” 

We Vtfcu rqfv eq, kjcalcu ab olclrt mbqslcu atf ijra ofk kbgvr. Llr qfc mjgglfv bea atf olcji ragbxf, jcv jvvfv j qfglbv ja atf nfgs fcv.

Click.

Itbe Tejc tecu eq atf qtbcf, rja vbkc, jcv qlcmtfv atf yglvuf bo tlr cbrf jr tf rjlv ab We Vtfcu, “Pa’r ilxf atlr… Glgfmabg Xe pera abiv wf…” Qtfc tf rjlv atlr, tf atfc atf ragbxf bo atf qfc jr We Vtfcu vgfk atf qfglbv, jcv qjerfv lc tlr kbgvr.

No matter how fast Xu Sheng was, in the end, he was still too slow. 

Xu Sheng thought, Shao Zhan, I did my best.

Zhou Yuan opened his mouth. “Your… Your handwriting…”

“Sir.” Xu Sheng put his pen down, and racked his brain for anything related to try and save this. “… I’ve actually recently been practicing cursive script.”

Zhou Yuan, “?” 

Xu Sheng straightened up, and grabbed the questions he copied and took a step back. “The last time I was here, Mr. Meng asked me about my handwriting.”

Zhou Yuan suddenly remembered that something like that had indeed happened. At that time, Shao Zhan had failed his test, and the writing on his paper had been very messy. “You’re still practicing?”

Xu Sheng replied, “I thought about it, and I can’t choose to give up just because this style of writing doesn’t suit me. Giving up is easy, but I choose to persevere.”

Zhou Yuan, “…” 

Xu Sheng, “I’ll continue practicing.”

There was really no need.

 

His handwriting had been just fine before, why was he learning cursive script for no reason?

But Zhou Yuan didn’t know what to say to that. He was quiet for a couple of seconds, and decided to gloss over it. “It’s like this. Director Gu just called to say that all contestants have to go to conference room 3 after school for a meeting. Luckily you’re here, so I don’t need to make an announcement. You can head over there now.” 

Zhou Yuan finished speaking, and took a sip of his tea. He looked up to see “Shao Zhan” still standing in front of him with no signs of moving. “What are you still standing there for? Director Gu and the others are already in the conference room.”

Xu Sheng felt that the air around him was getting thin, and he found it hard to draw breath.

What contestant?

Contest? 

Xu Sheng slowly took a breath, and then remembered that Shao Zhan also had this side to him.

Of course, he knew that Shao Zhan had participated in many competitions in the past. His name filled the wall of fame in the school. He had many awards and was crowned the shining light of Lin Jiang Sixth.

Xu Sheng had actually passed by that wall countless times. He used to jump over the school’s back gate, and there was even a time when the security camera at the front gate was broken, so in his first year he would jump over the front gate right under Gu Yanwang’s nose.

When he leapt down from that wall, he would come face to face with that wall of fame. 

He never took a close look at the names, but he noticed rows and rows of trophies that shone under the sunlight and passed by the name of the owner of those trophies countless times.

Xu Sheng took a deep breath. “Understood.”

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He only saw the messages from “himself” when he exited the office.

Ten minutes ago. 

S: I’ll wait for you in class.

—

Students left very quickly after school on Friday. Throngs of people came and went, and quite a few of them also loitered near school, gathering at the market streets outside school to shop with classmates. The school became quiet and deserted once the noisy crowd left.

When Xu Sheng went to the classroom, Shao Zhan had his back turned to him and was sitting on top of the desk, facing the speaking podium. His two long legs were bent, feet on the ground. A breeze came in through the open window, causing the youth’s T-shirt to slightly lift upwards. 

No wonder Shao Zhan used to be the School Tyrant in Nan Ping. Just the way he sat there casually gave Xu Sheng the impression that he had a very strong and intimidating aura, more so than Xu Sheng usually had.

Some students from the neighboring class were packing up their things and leaving, and as they passed by Class Seven, they would cast a few glances from the corner of their eyes at “Xu Sheng”.

 

When Xu Sheng arrived, Shao Zhan glanced up.

They spoke at the same time. 

“Your friend is looking for you.”

“The contestants have to go to the conference room for a meeting.”

That was it.

They were silent. 

In that moment, neither of them knew which problem was worse.

Xu Sheng scratched his head. “Which friend? Let him deal with it himself. I’m too busy.”

Shao Zhan took out his phone and showed him the chat window. “Surname Kang. He said if you ignore him, you’ll have to bury his corpse.”

On the phone screen: 

Kang Kai: I’m begging you. Come save me.

Kang Kai: Didn’t you agree to help me?

“…” Xu Sheng glanced at it, and remembered that night when he had absentmindedly agreed that he would be Kang Kai’s mentor. “…Fuck.”

When Xu Sheng thought about Kang Kai’s wailing and insane griping, his head hurt. “You have to go.” 

Shao Zhan, “Give me the address.”

Xu Sheng, “I’ll send it to you in a bit.”

In this kind of situation, there was no way they could swap their phones and WeChat accounts, otherwise it would be very easy for Auntie Kang to find out, so Xu Sheng said, “Let’s figure out our phones later.”

“What’s up with the competition?” 

Meng Guowei had already talked to Shao Zhan about the competition since their time at the military base.

He had only asked Xu Sheng for his opinion but had not told him

 

Shao Zhan, “It should just be a normal meeting. There haven’t been any other announcements regarding the competition. The contestants are all from different classes, so they’ll sometimes meet up to practice.”

It was okay if it was just a normal meeting. 

Xu Sheng was relieved.

Now the most urgent problem was that Shao Zhan had to meet up with Kang Kai. Shao Zhan was a science student. How could he possibly guide Kang Kai?

Xu Sheng did not have the chance to bring that up before Shao Zhan beat him to the chase. He hopped off the table, and said, “Explain it to me. Who is he?”

With regards to the art studio, Xu Sheng did not want to say too much. He did not know what he should say either. The important bit was this situation of theirs. He had to go to the competition meeting for “Shao Zhan”, and they were running out of time. 

Finally, Xu Sheng just said, “Kang Kai… He’s someone I met at the art studio. He’s a friend. When I was younger, I would attend art… lessons.”

That was more or less what happened.

Shao Zhan raised a brow, and asked, “And?”

Xu Sheng did not know what he was even asking about. “And what?” 

When Shao Zhan spoke, the cold aura and his chilly tone of voice deepened. When he got close, Xu Sheng could almost feel his breath, and could see himself clearly reflected in the other’s pupils, speckled with flecks of light. “You’re just friends?”

When students finished their classroom chores, they would switch the fans off.

There was only the breeze flowing in from the corridor.

Xu Sheng spoke as if testing the waters, “He’ll sometimes get on his knees and call me dad. Does that count?” 

Shao Zhan. “…” Forget it.

The two of them came to an agreement. Shao Zhan left first. If he could get Kang Kai under control, then he would try to do so. Xu Sheng would also try to find opportunities to excuse himself from the meeting.

The meeting was just like Shao Zhan described. Everyone sat in groups and discussed questions.

Gu Yanwang stood on the podium, impassioned, “It is once again time for our practice session-” 

Xu Sheng kept his head down the entire time and fiddled with his phone.

– Are you there yet

 

On the other side.

Shao Zhan went to the address Xu Sheng had given him. He walked into a small area, and as soon as he walked through the door he could see the paintings hung up on the walls, along with messy easels. 

– I’m here.

Just as he replied to Xu Sheng’s message, someone walked out of the door. He was not very tall, and he was carrying a blue water pail. He had his head down, and when he saw someone standing in front of him, he glanced up.

The pail in his hands shook. “Sheng ge?”

Shao Zhan did not even recognise him, let alone want to be this close. He took a step back, putting some distance between them, and forcing out an acknowledging “Mn”. 

Kang Kai was still holding an ink liner pen, and he was getting excited. “Wait. I’ll change the water. You can head inside and wait for me.”

Shao Zhan gave a cursory glance at the easels. They did not have traces of being painted on, and after looking through them, there was a booth on the right with the lights still on. When he entered, there were still paints not fully dried yet left on the table. He did not see any water pail, and the colors on the brushes were the same ones that the person outside had been clutching.

Shao Zhan pulled up a chair and sat down next to this empty space.

Not much later, Kang Kai returned with a bucket of fresh water. He gestured to the painting on the easel, and the first thing he said was, “Help me take a look at this painting.” 

t/n: when shao zhan tries to be jealous and it fails spectacularly lol

 

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