Chapter 7
“What exactly is your problem?! Why are you late again?”
The Director’s voice boomed from the doorway.
“I’m sorry,” a voice replied.
The voice was kept low, though there didn’t seem to be much reflection in the attitude.
“Stand here until morning self-study is over!” The Director’s voice was sonorous and forceful, practically a roar.
Inside the Class 1 classroom, the sound of students reading aloud continued undisturbed. Such conversations happened almost every few days; they were long past finding it strange.
When morning self-study ended, the Director finally let the person in.
Ruan Xinshu walked in carrying her bag, rubbing her eyes, looking as if this was just business as usual.
Chu Yu looked at Ruan Xinshu and raised her head slightly.
Ruan Xinshu walked to her desk. Her steps faltered involuntarily when her eyes met Chu Yu’s, but she quickly looked away, pulled out her chair, and sat down beside her.
Seeing her reaction, Chu Yu buried her head back in her work, reviewing vocabulary words.
Next, Ruan Xinshu began rummaging through her bag. Just as Chu Yu thought she was going to take out her sketchbook as usual, she discovered that a small glass jar had been quietly placed on the corner of her desk without her noticing.
Chu Yu glanced at it, then slowly moved her gaze away.
Seeing that Chu Yu was ignoring her, Ruan Xinshu pursed her lips solemnly.
Without making a sound, she used her finger to slide the glass jar, pushing it to the center of Chu Yu’s desk.
“For you,” Ruan Xinshu coughed once to emphasize.
Chu Yu looked at the glass jar again, seeming a bit puzzled.
Ruan Xinshu didn’t look at Chu Yu, staring instead at the gap between the desks in front of her. “I wanted to thank you.”
Ruan Xinshu didn’t like owing anyone favors.
In all fairness, she felt that Chu Yu had been quite nice to her yesterday, so she had gotten up early today specifically to ride her bike and buy this pudding.
Chu Yu looked at the pudding Ruan Xinshu had given her. Inside the jar was a cream-topped pudding; the cream was piped into a cute shape, resembling a cat.
There was no expression on Chu Yu’s face, and she didn’t even offer a comment on the cat inside. “You don’t need to thank me for yesterday. I didn’t really help much.”
Ruan Xinshu blinked at the cream pudding. The sunlight at seven or eight in the morning hit the small glass bottle, making it look a bit dazzling.
She wasn’t good at talking to begin with, and now, staring at that cream cat head which looked like it was about to melt, she felt words failing her.
After a long while, she still couldn’t squeeze out a sentence, so she just pursed her lips.
“You picked up my notebook for me.”
It was a very matter-of-fact statement.
Ruan Xinshu pushed the pudding further toward Chu Yu and stuffed the spoon into her hand. “This is really delicious.”
In the end, Chu Yu didn’t return the pudding to Ruan Xinshu.
Ruan Xinshu kept stealing glances at Chu Yu, but seeing that Chu Yu still hadn’t moved the spoon, she asked, “Aren’t you going to eat it?”
“I don’t really want to eat in the classroom,” Chu Yu said very seriously.
“…Oh.” Ruan Xinshu thought to herself that top students were truly particular. If it were Qin Tingsen, he would have eaten it already, not leaving even a speck of cream behind.
But, if this pudding sits out for too long, it might not taste as good. What if it melts…
Ruan Xinshu stared at the pudding and began to zone out.
Chu Yu quietly raised her head, saw Ruan Xinshu’s expression, and finally, silently pulled the glass jar in front of her.
Ruan Xinshu turned her body sideways to secretly peek at Chu Yu. After a moment of silence, Chu Yu reached out, picked up the small glass jar, scooped up a small spoonful of pudding and cream, and brought it to her mouth.
After taking a bite, Chu Yu didn’t say whether it was good or bad. She simply paused, spoon in hand, and looked in Ruan Xinshu’s direction.
Ruan Xinshu pricked up her ears. She was actually quite confident; not only Song Min, but even Qin Tingsen loved this pudding.
So, she guessed Chu Yu would definitely like it too.
Chu Yu held the spoon between her fingers, propping her chin up with her hand in a seemingly casual manner, and looked at Ruan Xinshu in front of her.
Even her inadvertent gesture of resting her chin looked incredibly moving.
“Did you draw that picture during class?”
Ruan Xinshu froze, not understanding what Chu Yu was talking about.
It took a long time for her to react, and her ears instantly turned bright red.
Then, Chu Yu watched as Ruan Xinshu quietly stood up from her seat and gave an answer completely irrelevant to the question. “Class is about to start. I’m going to the restroom first.”
With that, Ruan Xinshu bolted out of the classroom.
“…” Chu Yu looked at her retreating back and somehow detected a trace of panic.
After entering autumn, the temperature began to drop gradually.
After evening classes ended.
A student came over to ask Chu Yu a question. Ruan Xinshu glanced at Chu Yu, who took the student’s workbook, wrote a few notes on her scratch paper, and began to explain.
“For this part, you need to substitute the whole variable into the section under the square root—”
Chu Yu’s voice carried a sense of politeness and seriousness, the angle of her slender fingers as she turned the pages appearing meticulously perfect.
“Oh, I didn’t think of doing it that way…”
Chu Yu had good relationships with the classmates. She was serious with everyone; if someone asked her a question, she would be even more earnest about solving it than the person asking.
Ruan Xinshu guessed that if you grabbed any random student from Class 1 and asked for their impression of Chu Yu, absolutely no one would speak ill of her.
No matter how you looked at it, Chu Yu was a near-perfect model student in this class.
The student standing in front of Chu Yu finally finished asking their questions and sat back down with a satisfied smile. Ruan Xinshu wordlessly withdrew her gaze and continued copying the math test paper.
Just then, Chu Yu looked at the notebook in front of Ruan Xinshu.
Yesterday, Ruan Xinshu hadn’t done her math homework. Shen Yue, upon discovering this, was furious. After a harsh scolding, he ordered Ruan Xinshu to copy the math test paper once, saying that if she didn’t finish before leaving school, she would have to stay behind.
Chu Yu seemed to look with some interest at the part Ruan Xinshu was copying. Although Ruan Xinshu’s grades in every subject were a complete mess, her handwriting was pleasing to the eye, making even the numbers look neatly embellished.
Ruan Xinshu felt the gaze, so she stole a glance at Chu Yu.
Even though it was already autumn, Chu Yu was still wearing short sleeves. Her pale arms rested on the desk as she naturally leaned her head closer to Ruan Xinshu.
From Chu Yu’s collar, Ruan Xinshu smelled a refreshing floral scent that felt like summer.
What? Why is she looking at me?
Ruan Xinshu became a bit distracted. Just then, Chu Yu pointed to the process Ruan Xinshu had just written.
“You wrote this step wrong. The ‘-1’ is outside the square root, otherwise, you won’t get the result below.”
How can she spot the mistake at a glance? Is this what top students are like?
“Oh.”
Ruan Xinshu gave a grunt of acknowledgement, quietly shifted her gaze back, and scribbled a correction over that step. Just as she was correcting it, Chu Yu’s voice sounded in her ear.
“Have you been avoiding me these past few days?”
Chu Yu looked at Ruan Xinshu, her voice neither loud nor soft.
She was wearing the summer school uniform, her pale, soft arms propped on the desk surface.
Ruan Xinshu glanced at her arms and immediately looked away.
“Me? No, I haven’t.”
But actually, Chu Yu was right; Ruan Xinshu was avoiding her.
Ever since Ruan Xinshu gave the pudding to Chu Yu, she hadn’t dared to speak to her for several days.
Because she was afraid Chu Yu would bring the topic back to that drawing.
She only felt regret. She must have been possessed to draw such a picture at that time.
And to make matters worse, Chu Yu knew about it, and they were deskmates. Now, even just sitting there, she felt her existence was incredibly awkward.
“Is that so? Good, as long as you aren’t,” Chu Yu said softly.
“…Mm.”
Ruan Xinshu wrote a few more strokes but felt that Chu Yu was still watching her.
Sure enough, a moment later, Chu Yu spoke again.
“Studying like this isn’t very efficient.”
Ruan Xinshu paused, looking at her arm. She tapped the needle-point drawing pen in her hand against the desk lightly, feeling that Chu Yu was being a bit meddlesome.
She wanted to say that if Chu Yu hadn’t reminded her, she wouldn’t have corrected that step even if someone else pointed it out. But thinking about it, that sounded a bit strange, so she said:
“I’m not studying. I’m dealing with Shen Yue.”
Ruan Xinshu certainly knew this work was inefficient, or rather, she wasn’t learning anything at all. The function deduction process in front of her was no different from Siberian script to her; it was all just foreign language anyway.
Copying the test paper like this, she personally felt she wouldn’t make any progress in math. Copying it didn’t mean it entered her brain; calling it calligraphy practice might be more fitting for her actions.
Chu Yu stared at Ruan Xinshu’s face without moving.
Ruan Xinshu felt that Chu Yu definitely wouldn’t understand what a poor student like her was thinking, so after a thought, she added:
“Fundamentally speaking, Shen Yue doesn’t actually want me to learn. He just can’t stand me and wants to punish me. Maybe he wants me to take the initiative to tell my dad something so the principal will switch me back to Class 5, but that’s not something I can make happen.”
“It’s just that, by doing what Shen Yue says now, I get a bit more peace and meaningful time in my life.”
Ruan Xinshu looked away.
“If I have to listen to his grumbling and verbal abuse every day, I’d rather live like a savage in the Amazon forest with a black bear demon that can’t speak, drinking blood and eating raw meat.”
Hearing this, Chu Yu rested her chin on her hand, seeming to think of something, and let out a soft laugh. “You’re quite articulate when you’re critiquing others.”
“Huh?”
Ruan Xinshu looked up at Chu Yu, unsure if she should react to the remark or to the fact that someone who never smiled had suddenly laughed.
“What do you mean, critiquing?”
Did I critique something?
“I remember you said the students in Class 1 were ‘inmates,’ didn’t you? I also recall you saying I was—” Chu Yu seemed to recall for a moment, then prompted, “‘A model inmate’?”
Ruan Xinshu froze, remembering her complaints to Qin Tingsen and the others a few weeks ago.
“You… how can you eavesdrop when people are eating?”
“Eavesdrop? You guys were saying my name quite loudly; it didn’t sound like you were saying anything that couldn’t be heard.” Chu Yu tilted her head. “I just happened to overhear it by chance.”
“…” Ruan Xinshu fell silent.
At that time, she hadn’t even met Chu Yu, so how could it count as speaking ill of someone behind their back?
Chu Yu stared quietly at the gap in the desk. Ruan Xinshu didn’t know what she was thinking, but she felt Chu Yu’s expression held a hint of slyness.
“Mn, but, I won’t target you or tattle to the teacher just because of that.”
Chu Yu spoke very politely, but Ruan Xinshu knew Chu Yu was teasing her. Yet, she couldn’t come up with a strong rebuttal.
“Do you still think I’m a model inmate now?” Chu Yu rested her chin in her hand, looking at Ruan Xinshu with a shallow smile.
Ruan Xinshu looked at Chu Yu and felt that smile was marvelous, like a sudden breeze from the sea in summer, carrying a gentle warmth.
After dodging those smiling eyes, she looked gloomily at the window and shook her head.
How is Chu Yu anything like a model inmate? She’s practically a fox.
Thinking about it, aren’t white-collar criminals usually very smart? Aren’t they all as cunning as foxes? Why did she ever think Chu Yu was a bookworm?
“Is that so?” Chu Yu’s voice was very soft.
Ruan Xinshu stole another glance at Chu Yu.
She seems to look quite pretty when she smiles.
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