“Good morning, Classmate Sheng, you look so handsome today ah.” Tang Qi Yuan walked into the classroom, raised a bright smile, and said his first greeting of the day to his table mate.
He had been trying his best to compliment Sheng Cen every day in order to maintain the friendship between classmates, but Sheng Cen was not very active in this regard, aside for the first day, he had not complimented him again. However, he did not care too much and continued to compliment his table mate without stinting, hoping that one day his table mate would also respond positively.
Sheng Cen stood up from his seat with an unhappy face, he was half a head taller than Tang Qi Yuan, he looked down at him and said in a low, threatening voice: “Don’t compliment me again.”
He moved aside and gave way.
Tang Qi Yuan felt that his table mate is shy because he was being complimented, he glanced at his table mate and nodded perfunctorily as he walked towards his seat, “Yes, handsome Classmate Sheng.”
“……” Sheng Cen glared at him fiercely when he heard the words, but unfortunately Tang Qi Yuan was unmoved and had already picked up his book and starting reading it on his own, not caring about his reaction.
Sheng Cen sat back in his seat with anger, thought for a while, with a sneer at the corner of his mouth, he threw the paper on his desk to Tang Qi Yuan, “Little nerd, help me do my homework.”
The two students seated behind trembled at the same time and looked at each other. It’s been so many days, the school tyrant is finally going to bully the study tyrant!
Tang Qi Yuan looked at the paper thrown over by Sheng Cen, after freezing for a moment, he put down the pen in his hand with a huff and turned his head to look at Sheng Cen, “Classmate Sheng, when we were in kindergarten, our teachers taught us that we have to do our own things!”
“Heh……” Sheng Cen sneered in disbelief, “I didn’t go to kindergarten.”
“How is that possible?” Tang Qi Yuan blinked in surprise and looked at him incredulously, interstellar children were usually sent to kindergarten at a very young age.
Sheng Cen took a pen and twirled it in his hand, his voice cold as he said: “My elder brother is not well enough to go to school, so I was taught by a private tutor with him since young, and only started going to school in primary school.”
Tang Qi Yuan heard him mention Sheng Xi for the first time, Sheng Xi’s two legs had been disabled since he was a child, he rarely showed his face and has always been a hidden and intriguing presence, but Tang Qi Yuan didn’t ask more about Sheng Xi and just nodded and asked: “Didn’t the private tutor teach you to do things on your own?”
Sheng Cen’s hand that was turning the pen paused, the corner of his mouth twitched and he said with some exasperation: “No!”
“This private tutor is also too incompetent!” Tang Qi Yuan slapped the table angrily, looking at Sheng Cen as if he was looking at a deceived flower of the motherland.
He patted his chest and said: “Now, let me, your good table mate, tell you that in kindergarten, the teacher teaches the children on the first day that they have to do things on their own. Although you know it a little late, it’s not too late to correct it.”
Tang Qi Yuan helped Sheng Cen spread out his paper and put it in front of him, “Just start correcting yourself by doing your homework.”
“You……” Sheng Cen looked at Tang Qi Yuan and felt his voice stuck in his throat, not uttering a word for half a day.
Tang Qi Yuan patted his shoulder, “Classmate Sheng, you don’t need to thank me, this is all what I should do as a good table mate, I’m also happy to be able to see you improve.”
“Class president, the teacher wants you to go to the office.” A classmate walked into the classroom and spoke to Tang Qi Yuan from afar, he didn’t dare to go near Tang Qi Yuan’s place, Sheng Cen was sitting outside, like a very oppressive protective barrier, no one usually dared to go near their side easily.
“Ok.” Tang Qi Yuan replied, standing up and saying to Sheng Cen: “Continue working hard, table mate, I’ll go to the teacher’s office first.”
After Tang Qi Yuan left, Sheng Cen directly crumpled that paper into a ball with a black face and threw it into the bin, pinching his brow with a headache.
Tang Qi Yuan walked past the office door and knocked on the door in a regular manner, “Report!”
Teacher Deng looked up from her desk and pointed to the seat on the sofa at the side, “You sit first.”
“Thank you, teacher.” Tang Qi Yuan sat down on the sofa.
Teacher Deng looked at him and smiled, not sure if it is because Tang Qi Yuan is a soldier’s child, his posture was very standard when he sat and stood, his back was straight, he looked very eye catching and comfortable, teachers liked such children very much.
She sat down opposite Tang Qi Yuan with a cup of freshly brewed hot tea and spoke with consideration, “Qi Yuan, I have seen your grades, your grades have been very good and stable, and teacher hopes you can continue to keep it up.”
“I will, teacher, as a student, I will fulfil my responsibilities well and get as many points as I can for exams!”
For the first time, Teacher Deng encountered a student who was so motivated and hardworking and treated studying as a responsibility, she couldn’t help but be stunned and nodded, “You’re right, students are supposed to study, and it’s also good to regard learning as a responsibility.”
She looked down and took a sip of tea and continued: “Your grades are good, but your table mate’s grades are a little worse than yours.”
“Is Classmate Sheng’s grades terrible?”
“En.” Teacher Deng nodded and took out a few papers and handed them to him, “These are Sheng Cen’s final exam results from last year.”
Tang Qi Yuan took the exam papers and looked at them, the more he looked at them, the more he frowned. Although Sheng Cen’s handwriting was beautiful, the papers were blanks after blanks, he only answered a few multiple choice questions, and all the answers were wrong, on the big questions in mathematics, Sheng Cen only wrote one word ‘solution’, people who didn’t know thought he was practicing calligraphy on the papers.
The hand of Tang Qi Yuan holding the test paper shook for a moment, read it from beginning to end, and could not help but let out a soulful sigh, “This is too tragic to look at!”
How is Sheng Cen’s result a little worse than his, Teacher Deng was really talking too politely!
Teacher Deng smiled awkwardly, took a sip of tea and said, “So teacher hopes that you can help him, infect him with your enthusiasm for learning. You are table mates, you might be able to have an influence on him and help him improve.”
After Teacher Deng finished speaking, she looked at Tang Qi Yuan expectantly. She had observed carefully over the past few days, although Sheng Cen had been acting impatient, his attitude towards Tang Qi Yuan was surprisingly tolerant, that was why she hoped that Tang Qi Yuan would have the chance to persuade Sheng Cen. After all, they were of the same age, and it is easier to communicate. Perhaps Sheng Cen will listen to what Tang Qi Yuan says, she knew that Sheng Cen is very smart, even if he studied hard now, he should still be able to make it.
Tang Qi Yuan pondered for a while, looking at the red zeroes on the papers one after another, and nodded heavily, feeling that the burden on his shoulders had grown much heavier. In the future, he not only had to shoulder the responsibility of being a student, but also take up the responsibility of guiding his table mate upwards.
“Teacher, don’t worry, I won’t let my table mate continue to indulge like this.”
These scores were really really really too ugly!
He felt that as a table mate he had a responsibility to help Sheng Cen find his motivation to study. The reason why Sheng Cen was studying so poorly now must be because he hadn’t built a good foundation as a child, and that private tutor hadn’t even taught him simple things like ‘do your own things yourself’, which showed how terrible that tutor was.
He looked at the test paper and couldn’t help but read, “So children must go to kindergarten, never just casually find a private tutor, if they find one that is unreliable, they will delay their academic performance for many years just like Sheng Cen!”
“Cough, cough……” Miss Deng choked on her tea for a moment, she coughed a few times and asked: “A private tutor?”
“Yeah, I heard from Classmate Sheng Cen that he didn’t go to kindergarten when he was a kid, he was taught by a private tutor.”
“…… “The ‘private tutor’ who taught Sheng Cen back then, Teacher Deng, held her cup of tea and coughed twice more, silently starting to blame herself. Could it be that she didn’t teach well back then, that’s why Sheng Cen is like this now?
She looked at the papers with zero marks and couldn’t help but wonder. She remembered clearly that at that time, Sheng Cen was smart and clever, learning everything faster than the average person, and she was in awe at that time, thinking that Sheng Cen would definitely become a great person when he grew up.
Sheng Xi and Sheng Cen were the first students she had taught after graduation, and she had always hoped that they would do well, but unfortunately they both did not do as she had hoped, instead one was despondent and the other was idle.
Tang Qi Yuan saw the teacher’s face change, did not speak for half a day, was silent for a while, stood up and said: “If there is nothing else, teacher, I will go back first.”
“Ah……ok ok……I’ll leave that Sheng Cen to you.” Teacher Deng hadn’t recovered from the shock and guilt that she might have actually ‘ruined someone’s child’.
“Don’t worry, teacher.” Tang Qi Yuan assured confidently, confident that under his supervision, Classmate Sheng would turn out to be a good and positive teenager.
He left the office and walked through the long corridor, and caught a glimpse of the boy who would surely be ‘a good and positive teenager’, standing in the doorway of the classroom smoking a cigarette.
Tang Qi Yuan: “……”
Sheng Cen had a cigarette in his mouth, leaning his back on the railing and exhaling lightly from the smoke, his head slightly lowered, playing with a lighter unconsciously in his hand.
The students passing by in the corridor were all looking at him secretly. In Huang Han High School, he was the only one who dared to smoke so blatantly. A “bad student” like Chen Zi Zhan, no matter how arrogant he was, would not dare to openly violate discipline like him.
Huang Han High School is mainly an academy for the princes, and Sheng Cen is an absolute authority here. Fortunately for these ordinary students, although Sheng Cen’s character is violent, he never bullies his classmates.
If they had met a tyrannical prince, their lives would have been much worse. Many of the students here would later become the right-hand man of the princes and the pillar of the empire, so they both respected and feared Sheng Cen, wanting to get close but not daring to get too close.
Some of the students unconsciously slowed down their steps and the eyes that looked at Sheng Cen gradually became obsessed.
Sheng Cen’s smoking posture was very handsome, his well-defined side profile looked somewhat sexy in the smoke, and he had a kind of mature charm that people of his age did not have, which made people unconsciously attracted to him, attracting everyone to look askance at him.
Unfortunately, the crowd didn’t have time to admire him for a while longer before they saw a delicate looking boy suddenly running over in a hurry.
Tang Qi Yuan walked up and snatched the lighter from Sheng Cen’s hand, saying disapprovingly: “Classmate Sheng Cen, you’re not an adult yet, you can’t smoke or play with fire!”
The surrounding suddenly quietened down, everyone’s eyes shot over, looking sympathetically at this Omega that suddenly appeared, who is really reckless.
Sheng Cen lowered his eyes and reached out his finger to poke Tang Qi Yuan’s angry cheek, sneering, “Then I’ll play with you ah, little nerd.”
The people around him laughed loudly, but only Tang Qi Yuan was still confused.
Sheng Cen lowered his eyes and puffed a mouthful of smoke on Tang Qi Yuan’s face, “Say something.”
Tang Qi Yuan ducked back, couldn’t help but cough a few times and raised his head to complain: “The smoke is very choking!”
Sheng Cen gave him a faint look, snatched the lighter back and threw it into his pocket, slightly tilting his head away.
When Tang Qi Yuan heard the laughter that was getting louder and louder from the students around him, he remembered Sheng Cen’s previous words and his cheeks turned red as he denied seriously, “You also can’t play with me!”
Sheng Cen took one look at his red cheeks and his gaze swept across the faces of everyone, his dark pupils were extremely sharp, everyone immediately stopped laughing and were as silent as cicadas in cold weather1噤若寒蝉 (jìn ruò hán chán): an idiom, means to be afraid to speak. What I used is the literal translation., timidly hurrying away.
Sheng Cen withdrew his gaze and glanced at Tang Qi Yuan, who was still clear-eyed and not in the least bit afraid, and put out the cigarette in his hand in annoyance. He put one hand in his pocket, didn’t look at Tang Qi Yuan again, and went straight back to the classroom.
“Classmate Sheng Cen, remember to throw the cigarette butt into the bin!”
Tang Qi Yuan hurriedly followed him, his table mate who hadn’t studied in kindergarten knew too little, he had to help him!