Chapter 4
Ruan Xinshu didn’t think for a second that she and Chu Yu could ever be friends.
One of them always ranked first in exams, while the other was always in the bottom fifty.
One was like a precision clock, never late. The other was late almost every day and, when she finally arrived, just sat in class drawing.
From what Ruan Xinshu had observed, Chu Yu would diligently memorize vocabulary every morning, meticulously work on exercises at noon, and even summarize all the questions she’d accumulated throughout the day to ask the teacher, using a dedicated little notebook.
Ruan Xinshu also saw her frequently helping other classmates answer questions. Whatever anyone asked of her, she almost always agreed and handled it with meticulous care, getting a perfect score on pretty much everything.
If there was some kind of “Perfect Goody-Two-Shoes” competition, Ruan Xinshu thought, Chu Yu would definitely be a top contender.
But she also felt that a life like Chu Yu’s was boring to the extreme.
If Ruan Xinshu hadn’t been moved to this class, she figured that years later, if they passed each other on the street, she would only think that person was very pretty, completely unaware they had ever gone to the same high school.
In Ruan Xinshu’s second week in the new class, it was the fourth period math lesson in the afternoon.
The math teacher, Shen Yue, was writing on the blackboard.
He was an old-school teacher who seemed to believe that students couldn’t learn without board work. Regardless of efficiency, he still insisted on this teaching method.
This class was about functions. Ruan Xinshu never paid attention, and math class especially was in a permanent state of “don’t understand it even if I listen.”
She stared at the board, not understanding what was going on, and after a few minutes, she settled in and started to draw a portrait sketch with her usual focus.
In complete contrast to Ruan Xinshu, Chu Yu was diligently taking notes, just like most of the students in the class.
The students in Class 1 were basically all destined for top universities, so their attitude toward studying was very serious.
But September was the beginning of autumn, and the lingering summer heat made the classroom warm. On top of that, it was the fourth period in the afternoon. Under the high-intensity study, one or two students were always drowsy.
The chalk made a shasha sound on the blackboard.
Maybe the sound of chalk had some sleep-inducing effect. A student sitting diagonally in front of Ruan Xinshu, propping his chin up with his hand, accidentally fell asleep.
When Shen Yue turned around, he seemed to notice the student. He paused for a moment, but the student’s eyes remained closed.
So, Shen Yue forcefully threw the chalk at the student’s head.
“Ah?”
The student, hit by the chalk, sniffled, seemingly still half-asleep.
“Zhou Yi,” Shen Yue called his name, then pointed at the blackboard. “Get up and solve this problem.”
The student named Zhou Yi stood up but stared blankly at the two problems on the board, not moving.
He was good at math, and while not as good as Chu Yu, he was still one of the top students in Class 1. But because he had just been asleep, he didn’t know which problem Shen Yue was asking about.
“Sorry, Teacher Shen, which problem is it?”
Hearing this, Shen Yue’s face darkened. He grabbed the yellow protractor he used for drawing on the board and slammed it against the blackboard.
“Zhou Yi, oh Zhou Yi, do you think you know everything already? You think you can just sleep in class because you did well on the opening quiz?”
Although Shen Yue was a math teacher, he looked like he did some kind of sport. His skin was tanned dark, like a mountaineer. When he yelled like this, it was incredibly intimidating.
“You’re a senior! How can you have the mind to sleep at a time like this?”
Shen Yue’s shouts pierced the walls. The English reading in the neighboring Class 2 seemed to stop because of his yelling.
Ruan Xinshu was also startled by Shen Yue’s sudden voice. She accidentally bumped her eraser, and it bounced off the desk, rolled onto the floor, and stopped right next to Shen Yue’s leather shoe.
Shen Yue glanced at the eraser by his shoe. He didn’t pick it up, but his gaze swept over Ruan Xinshu’s desk, and his brow tightened.
The worksheet in front of Ruan Xinshu was completely blank, not a single note on it.
The eraser in her hand was being used on a half-finished sketch, maybe some Greek statue. Shen Yue sucked in a breath, his dark face turning visibly red with anger.
He slammed his book on the lectern and walked over to Ruan Xinshu, tapping her desk with the protractor.
“…Stand up.” His voice was deep and low.
Ruan Xinshu glanced at her eraser, which Shen Yue had stepped past, and then at the protractor in his hand.
She felt that protractor looked a lot like a machine gun, so she obediently put her pencil down and stood up.
“What are you doing?” Shen Yue stepped in front of her. “Do you know what class this is?”
Ruan Xinshu said nothing, putting her hands behind her back.
Shen Yue glanced at the sketchbook on her desk, paused, then suddenly snatched it and made a move to throw it in the trash.
“Teacher—” Ruan Xinshu reflexively reached out to stop him.
Shen Yue ignored her. The sketchbook was thrown into the trash can.
Ruan Xinshu stared at Shen Yue, stunned. He just glanced at her, as if expecting an apology.
Ruan Xinshu looked at the trash can, pressed her lips together, and said nothing.
“Ever since you came to this class, the entire learning atmosphere has gotten worse.” Shen Yue saw she wasn’t speaking and slammed the protractor on her desk.
The sound of the ruler hitting the desk echoed loudly in the classroom.
Ruan Xinshu felt this was completely unreasonable. She was just collateral damage.
The guy in front sleeping has nothing to do with me.
Ruan Xinshu really wanted to say it wasn’t her idea to come to this class, but she knew saying that would only add fuel to the fire, so she remained silent.
She had known since elementary school that you couldn’t reason with adults.
They always felt they had their reasons, and kids should just shut up and understand.
But, noticing Ruan Xinshu’s unpleasant expression, Shen Yue got even angrier. “What? What are you glaring at me for? You think I’m being unreasonable? What kind of attitude is that?”
Ruan Xinshu’s throat bobbed. “I’m not glaring,” she said quietly.
“What did you say?”
“…” Ruan Xinshu remembered that arguing with this type of teacher would only provoke a stronger attack. She went silent again, took a breath, and said, “I’m sorry.”
“…” Shen Yue kept banging on the desk. “Sorry? Who are you sorry to? You don’t think saying sorry fixes everything, do you?”
“Is this the attitude a student should have?! I see you drawing every day, you haven’t drawn anything worthwhile. It’s nonsense.”
Ruan Xinshu’s fingers trembled. Her knuckles turned white as she gripped her pencil.
“I’m telling all of you, don’t think you can do whatever you want just because you have amazing parents,”
Shen Yue’s voice grew louder. He scanned the entire class.
His voice was powerful and resonant for his age, carrying easily.
“I don’t care if your parents are shareholders or if you got in through connections! I won’t think any more highly of any of you because of it, and I won’t give you special treatment because of your family background! Studying hard is the only thing that matters.”
None of the students in Class 1 spoke. Some kept their heads down, writing. Others watched Ruan Xinshu out of the corners of their eyes.
Some of these gazes were gloating, some were displeased and hostile. Maybe some just felt Ruan Xinshu was disrupting their class.
Ruan Xinshu kept her head down, feeling suffocated and annoyed, planning to tune it all out as usual.
But then she felt the gaze of Chu Yu—the one who was always buried in her work—on her. She held her breath.
For some reason, her ears felt scorching hot.
Ruan Xinshu didn’t know what expression Chu Yu was making.
She kind of wished Chu Yu would just keep her head down and focus on her textbook like always.
She hoped Chu Yu hadn’t heard what Shen Yue just said.
She hoped…
Stop looking at me.
“In the end, your parents can help you for a while, but can they help you for a lifetime?”
Shen Yue started banging on the wall behind him. “Can’t you think about your parents for a change?”
“…” Ruan Xinshu still said nothing.
“Go stand in my office! And you think long and hard about it!”
Ruan Xinshu stood from the last class of the afternoon all the way until the end of evening self-study.
Only when evening self-study ended did Shen Yue finally let her go.
She couldn’t remember his final criticisms. It was all about her attitude, her lack of virtue, her lack of ambition. He said that once she was out in society without her parents, she’d be nothing. He also said it wasn’t that he wanted to discipline her, but that once she was in the real world, no one would bother.
His tone was awful, but no matter how awful it was, Ruan Xinshu felt it wasn’t as piercing as Chu Yu’s gaze had been.
“Go home,” Shen Yue said angrily.
Ruan Xinshu walked out of the office in silence.
The students in the academic building had all left. Only a few green emergency lights lit the hallway.
When Ruan Xinshu got back to the senior building, her classroom was also empty.
She glanced at the trash can. The students in Class 1 were efficient at everything. The trash, along with her sketchbook, had been completely cleaned out by the students on duty.
Ruan Xinshu remembered that the trash was usually taken to the large bins on the landing. She hurried to the spot outside Class 1 where the large bins were kept.
But today, the cleaning lady had also been exceptionally fast. The blue trash bins stood in a row, all of them spotlessly empty.
“…”
Ruan Xinshu stood in front of the trash bins for a long time. Finally, she looked down the dark hallway and squatted down, completely drained of energy.
She had been standing since the fourth period all the way through evening self-study.
On top of that, because she was being punished, she hadn’t eaten dinner with Song Min and the others. She had no strength left.
Ruan Xinshu felt annoyance creeping up from the soles of her feet. She wondered how she was going to get dinner as she walked back toward the classroom.
The school cafeteria was closed.
The small restaurants and shops by the school gate were probably closed too.
And there was no one home.
So hungry.
As she was thinking, she suddenly heard other footsteps amidst her own.
Ruan Xinshu paused, then sped up.
The footsteps behind her also seemed to speed up.
Ruan Xinshu remembered a story Qin Tingsen had told her once.
—It’s a true story, it happened right here at Xuanbei Foreign Language! A student was walking home late.
The student was walking down the school hallway when he heard an echo of footsteps.
He thought, who else is here this late? He turned around, but the hallway was empty.
The student thought he was imagining it, so he kept walking. But then the echo of footsteps started up again…
The student was confused, so he stopped.
The echo of footsteps also stopped.
He turned around. Still no one.
He figured he must have just misheard his own echo.
But the student still felt weird, so he started walking faster. But the echo didn’t seem to expect him to speed up, and it fell behind by a few beats.
The student got anxious, but after a moment, the echo got quieter.
He figured the person had walked away and relaxed.
He turned around—
“And then what?” Ruan Xinshu had asked Qin Tingsen.
“And then…” Qin Tingsen, his back to her, had suddenly spun around with a scary face, “WAAAH—”
Ruan Xinshu had been so scared she’d fallen off her chair.
Remembering this story, Ruan Xinshu sucked in a breath. Her palms felt sweaty.
The hallway was terrifyingly quiet, with only the constant echo of footsteps.
To make things worse, the lights on the second-floor hallway had been acting up recently. The ones in her section were all out. The ones ahead were half-broken, flickering.
Staring at the flickering lights, Ruan Xinshu became more and more convinced Qin Tingsen’s story might be true.
She took a shaky breath and walked faster and faster.
But the footsteps behind her didn’t stop; they also seemed to get faster.
Ruan Xinshu bit her lip. When she saw a dark shadow seem to loom up behind her, she sniffled, clenched her teeth, and spun around—
Seeing Ruan Xinshu’s dead-serious expression as she spun around, Chu Yu couldn’t help but stop in her tracks.
“What are you doing?” Chu Yu asked, her voice as cool and clear as ever.
She was wearing the summer school uniform, holding a stack of books. She looked nothing like a ghost, and was actually quite pretty.
Ruan Xinshu looked at Chu Yu and let out a shaky breath, as if all her strength had left her.
Maybe it was because she had been so tense, or maybe it was the relief, but as she exhaled, a mist fogged her vision. When she blinked, tears just… fell.
Ruan Xinshu wanted to hide her tears but couldn’t. Her tone became accusatory.
“Why do you walk so quietly?”
Chu Yu looked at Ruan Xinshu’s tears and felt a flicker of doubt about her own actions. She paused for a few seconds before asking, perfectly serious:
“Is talking required while walking?”
“Yes!” Ruan Xinshu wiped at her tears.
Chu Yu looked at the tear streaks still on Ruan Xinshu’s face but didn’t say anything. She just lowered her gaze and quietly held out the object in her hand.
“I was just asking the teacher a question and saw you. I thought I’d give this to you.”
Ruan Xinshu stared at the incredibly familiar sketchbook in Chu Yu’s hand, dazed.
She froze for a few seconds, then rubbed her eyes again.
Unbelievable.
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