Chen Ying had lent his book to Sheng Renxing.
He placed the fat boy’s book between them and used a Chinese textbook on his desk as a prop, then lowered his head and played with his phone.
A short while later, a bang suddenly came from behind him.
It sounded familiar—the sound of a phone striking the inside of a desk.
When he turned around, he saw Sheng Renxing supporting his face with one hand, covering more than half of it, head lowered as though in deep thought.
“What’s wrong?” Chen Ying asked.
Sheng Renxing lowered his hand and calmly shook his head.
There was nothing unusual in his expression.
Chen Ying looked at him suspiciously.
Then he noticed both of Sheng Renxing’s ears were red, completely betraying him.
Understanding dawned on Chen Ying. “Are you…”
Sheng Renxing: “?”
Chen Ying leaned closer and lowered his voice, terrified someone else might hear.
“Are you secretly watching porn?”
Sheng Renxing: “…?”
That was not the association he had expected.
He speechlessly glanced at Chen Ying as though looking at a tiny idiot.
For the rest of the period, Sheng Renxing did not touch the phone in his desk again.
Only after class ended.
Chen Ying turned around and raised his brows suggestively. “What kind of material?”
He had apparently decided Sheng Renxing absolutely had been watching porn.
“…” Sheng Renxing stared at him expressionlessly.
He wanted to examine the internal construction of Chen Ying’s brain.
The man was so stupid Sheng Renxing could not even bring himself to argue.
The fat boy, who had been secretly listening to them, could not resist adding, “Better not watch it here, though.”
Sheng Renxing thought, Obviously.
Watching porn at school—what kind of fetish would that be?
Chen Ying nodded eagerly. “Right, right.”
Then he started laughing and gossiped, “Zheng Xian—your desk mate—we call him Captain Handgun.
You know why he hasn’t come to class?”
“Last week he was watching porn in class and even made us cover for him. But what he didn’t realize was…”
He started losing air from laughing, struggling to describe the scene.
“Our homeroom teacher was standing right behind him watching.”
He pointed at the window beside Sheng Renxing.
“…” Sheng Renxing’s expression became indescribable.
Now he understood what they meant by here.
“What’s even more incredible,” the fat boy said, biting his lip hard to hold back laughter, “was that he’d raised the flag at the time—pffft hahahahahaha!”
He even demonstrated, holding up a nine-like hand gesture before suddenly flicking the index finger straight upward.
Chen Ying gloated. “Hahahahahahaha, that idiot got sent home to reflect for an entire week!”
“…” Sheng Renxing was shocked by the campus culture.
He turned and looked at the empty seat beside him.
The desk compartment was stuffed messily with books and test papers, packed full.
Near the outside stood two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures.
One on the left and one on the right, facing outward like door guardians.
Sheng Renxing silently drew a breath and used his foot to kick the neighboring chair farther away.
He could not help remembering the hesitant expression his homeroom teacher had worn when he said he would sit here.
“His dad asked why he got suspended. That idiot said it was because he fought,” Chen Ying said, tapping his phone.
“His dad even praised him for being manly!”
“Hahahahahahaha! Captain told me yesterday that after the homeroom teacher scared him, his dick won’t even stand up in the mornings now. He’s worried he’ll never rise again.”
“Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.”
The two of them sat in front of Sheng Renxing laughing like kettles with holes in them.
Other boys were attracted by the sound and came over to ask what happened.
Chen Ying said they were talking about Captain.
The boys instantly understood, exchanged a look, and started laughing too.
Sheng Renxing: “…”
Chen Ying even showed him a QQ status post.
A person with an anime profile picture had posted an image with a black background and one white word:
SORROW.
The caption used rainbow-glittering text:
“Sorrow.”
You could tell this classmate was genuinely sorrowful.
Sheng Renxing stared at it speechlessly, allowing the noble glow of paid QQ membership to wash over his eyes.
Chen Ying took the chance to open the friend page. “Bro, add me.”
Before Sheng Renxing could refuse, he added, “I’ll pull you into the class group.”
Sheng Renxing took out his phone and recited a string of digits.
He opened QQ.
Soon, several friend requests arrived with buzzing notifications.
The boys in front of him were all looking down at their phones.
Sheng Renxing felt awkward asking which one was who, so he accepted all of them.
Then he created a new group called “Xuancheng” and threw them all inside.
One prestigious paid-member account with an English username sent him an emoji:
[Smug.]
A yellow little man wearing sunglasses and baring his teeth.
Then this user, cyyyacxx, added him to a group called Senior Year Two, Class Three.
He hesitated, then pressed Accept.
The moment he entered, a chain of welcome messages popped up.
Sheng Renxing froze, then opened the member list.
A row of names:
“Teacher Yu,” “Teacher Zhang,” “Teacher Li”…
He remembered No. 13 High’s school rules included a ban on bringing phones.
So… they were this blatant about it?
Messages were still jumping in the group.
Sheng Renxing looked up, intending to ask Chen Ying.
Then he saw:
Teacher Yu: [@X, welcome to the class. Remember to change your group card. /strong]
Sheng Renxing: “…”
He slowly typed:
[Thank you. /fist salute]
The group was too noisy.
After changing his display name, he casually switched on Do Not Disturb.
He opened the group again just in time to see another mention:
Teacher Yu: [@Sheng Renxing, come to my office.]
So modern.
So convenient.
Sheng Renxing now understood that the five minutes he had spent glancing through the school rules was a complete waste of time.
He shoved the phone into his pocket and left the classroom.
After only a few steps, he could still hear girls inside asking Chen Ying:
“You know the new student? The new student…”
After he turned the corner and went downstairs, the voices disappeared.
Their classroom was on the second floor.
The teachers’ office sat at the landing between the first and second floors.
Sheng Renxing knocked and went in.
Teacher Yu beckoned. “Come here.”
Then she organized some papers on her desk and showed him a form.
It was their class’s results from the previous exam.
Teacher Yu considered her words. “Because you transferred halfway through the semester, you don’t have any of these scores.”
She took out several more sheets. They were the results of each small mathematics quiz.
She tapped the math scores. “The quizzes don’t really matter, but this one—”
She pointed at the first sheet.
“This is the last monthly exam.”
“Our school has a comprehensive semester ranking calculated from three monthly exams. Every semester, classes are ranked. And our school places a lot of weight on monthly-exam results. It affects university admission later.”
Teacher Yu pushed the paper toward Sheng Renxing.
“Did your previous school already take the first monthly exam? If you have the papers, give them to me and I can enter that score.”
Sheng Renxing shook his head.
When his school had held its first monthly exam, he had been in the middle of fighting bitterly at home.
He had not had the slightest thought of sitting an exam.
Teacher Yu nodded.
“Then there’s another option. I can arrange a make-up exam, but the score will be multiplied by eighty percent. What do you think?”
Sheng Renxing did not answer immediately.
He stared at the form.
There was actually one more option:
not taking it at all.
Sheng Renxing nodded. “When can I make it up?”
Teacher Yu folded her hands on the desk. “Start this afternoon? Your textbooks haven’t arrived yet anyway.”
She even reassured him. “It’s fine. It was only a placement-style assessment after the classes were assigned. The questions aren’t difficult. It’s mostly to give you a score. Don’t feel pressured.”
Sheng Renxing paused for a second and nodded vaguely. “Got it.”
“Then this afternoon I’ll find you a classroom. When you come to school…”
While Teacher Yu was explaining the exam arrangements, the bell rang.
Several minutes passed before the teachers with classes slowly stood, looking as though they were heading to a battlefield, and pushed open the office door.
A female teacher sitting opposite Teacher Yu called toward a chubby male teacher diagonally across from her.
“Teacher Wang, want to go together?”
A book sat on Teacher Wang’s desk.
From Sheng Renxing’s angle, it did not look like a lesson plan.
He waved. “You go first. I’ll come in a bit.”
The female teacher raised her brows, picked up her teaching materials, and left.
When she passed Sheng Renxing, their eyes met and she even smiled at him.
Only then did Sheng Renxing notice she was wearing makeup: a white blouse, black short skirt, and black stockings.
A wave of perfume followed her past.
Teacher Yu frowned very slightly, making the lines beside her mouth look deeper.
By the time Teacher Yu finished speaking with him, nearly half the period was gone.
When Sheng Renxing left the office, Teacher Wang still had not moved.
Nor had any student come to call him.
At noon, classes ended.
The unusually bright sun was a little strong.
Chen Ying asked him, “Brother Sheng, want to eat with us at noon?”
Several boys he was close with stood beside him.
“I’ve got something to do at noon. Next time,” Sheng Renxing said.
As he walked along, students scattered and rushed past him in every direction.
He had arranged to meet Xing Ye at the main gate.
At this hour the gate was packed not only with students but with illegally parked motorcycles, cars, and bicycles.
Parents stood waiting beside delinquents who looked obviously like trouble.
At first glance, it was impossible to tell who was there to pick someone up and who was there to block someone.
Every group shouted over the others until the place sounded like a vegetable market.
With this many people, forget spotting Xing Ye.
Even finding a place where he could stand still was difficult.
After a while, the tide of people thinned.
Then all kinds of vehicles began streaming out of campus.
Most were bicycles.
There were fewer motorcycles.
Sheng Renxing stared until his eyes nearly went blind and still could not find Xing Ye.
He raised his phone and called.
It rang twice before being answered.
“Where are you?”
Sheng Renxing had already lost patience from being jostled around.
Across the road stood several things with dyed hair, tight trousers, and flip-flops—things that obviously were not good people.
They stood with one leg bent, staring at him.
Their gazes were completely unrestrained.
Once Sheng Renxing noticed, he put one hand in his pocket, raised his chin, and stared directly back.
He looked even more arrogant than they did.
He had no idea what his own expression looked like, but the people opposite acted as though he had deeply provoked them.
One pointed at him and started crossing the road.
His mouth moved in what looked like a curse, but traffic was too loud for Sheng Renxing to hear anything.
Sheng Renxing curled his lip and raised a contemptuous middle finger.
The people opposite exploded.
Several returned the gesture, but traffic prevented them from crossing.
The two sides stood across the road, middle fingers raised in confrontation.
Sheng Renxing thought it was idiotic and hilarious at the same time.
So he adjusted the angle and took a photo.
He planned to post it to Moments later.
Ignoring the way the people opposite became even more furious at this move, he returned the phone to his ear.
“You said where are you?”
There was no answer from the other end.
Puzzled, he tilted the phone to check whether the call had disconnected.
Instead, he happened to see Xing Ye lowering his phone nearby and walking toward him.
“?”
Was Sheng Renxing seeing things?
Had Xing Ye just smiled?
Sheng Renxing walked over. “You were standing there the whole time?”
Xing Ye nodded and praised him. “Nice pose.”
“…?”
Sheng Renxing was now sure Xing Ye had seen him exchanging middle fingers with those idiots.
“Were you taking a picture of me just now?”
He had vaguely felt there was something suspicious about the way Xing Ye had been holding the phone.
Like he was taking a photo.
As they spoke and walked, Xing Ye suddenly pulled Sheng Renxing by the shoulder.
A noisy scooter roared past them, its engine blasting half the street apart while it recklessly traveled at twenty miles an hour.
Four boys were crammed onto it.
They ignored the frowns of pedestrians and wore faint expressions of pride, as though racing through wind and lightning.
Sheng Renxing wrinkled his brow and looked away in disgust.
Following the scooter with his gaze, he glanced back across the road and discovered with confusion that the tight-trouser gang had vanished.
Who knew where they had gone.
Had they left after seeing Xing Ye?
Sheng Renxing followed Xing Ye across a street and into an alley.
The alley was lively.
The entire street was full of food, with students making up most of the pedestrians.
Xing Ye led him almost to the end, to a place called Ah Tang Dumplings.
There were still seats inside.
Xing Ye grabbed a menu, claimed a table, then pushed the menu toward Sheng Renxing.
Sheng Renxing looked around the environment.
He was not very satisfied.
He also felt a little hot and had little appetite.
So he casually ordered a portion of the signature boiled dumplings and asked, “Do they have scallions?”
“Yes,” Xing Ye said. “You can ask for none.”
Sheng Renxing pushed the menu back.
Xing Ye took the pen and scribbled over the “1” beside his order, changing it to “2.”
He picked up the menu and stood to pay.
Sheng Renxing stopped him. “I’m treating.”
He took the menu from Xing Ye and went to place the order himself.
When he returned, he asked, “You’ll get full eating that little?”
He had looked at the portion.
One bowl of dumplings was not enough for a teenage boy still growing.
Sheng Renxing himself lost his appetite whenever he got hot.
Xing Ye did not look like someone with a tiny appetite.
“Mm.” Xing Ye nodded and pulled his school jacket zipper lower. “Just woke up. Not hungry.”
“You skipped class this morning to sleep?”
Sheng Renxing stared at him wide-eyed.
After getting confirmation, he was speechless.
He had assumed Xing Ye skipped class to go to an internet café, play billiards, or do some other kind of entertainment.
Who could have guessed the reason would be so simple and casual?
Sheng Renxing himself had skipped classes before.
His own group back at school had not exactly been model students attending every lesson either.
But deliberately skipping class specifically to sleep was a first for him.
Maybe Sheng Renxing’s thoughts showed too clearly.
Xing Ye unusually offered an explanation.
“The desks at school are too hard. My arms go numb when I sleep.”
“…” Because they’re not made for sleeping.
“Won’t the teachers catch you if you skip?” Sheng Renxing pulled several tissues and began wiping the table.
Xing Ye rubbed his face.
He still looked slightly sleepy.
He shook his head.
What he did not say was that perhaps no teacher had even noticed he had skipped the entire morning.
Sheng Renxing looked at him. “After lunch, are you going back to sleep?”
Xing Ye thought seriously. “If I’m still sleepy then.”
“…”
Sheng Renxing poured plain water into a disposable cup.
Using water as wine, he toasted him.
Xing Ye smiled.
The circumstances of their first two meetings had both been unusual.
Sheng Renxing’s impression of Xing Ye was that he was a cool guy.
And cold.
Like an ice machine that was always running.
But now, maybe because they were at school, Xing Ye was visibly more relaxed.
He did not have the same feeling of pushing everyone a thousand miles away.
He was easier to be around.
Sheng Renxing drank another cup of water.
Because it had rained for the past few days, he had dressed too warmly today.
And he was wearing a single-piece hoodie.
There was nowhere to take anything off.
After eating, he needed to go back to the hotel and change.
Not only because it was thick.
This white top had gone through one fight with Yellow Hair and his group and then another round rolling around the grove with Xing Ye.
The thought of wearing it all afternoon made his entire body uncomfortable.
Thinking of that, he looked at Xing Ye’s visibly dirtier school jacket—
also his fault.
Feeling a little guilty, he asked, “Are your injuries any better?”
Sheng Renxing meant the injuries from Xing Ye’s ring fight.
Xing Ye paused, then nodded.
The red antiseptic at the corner of his brow was gone now.
The wound had scabbed over and seemed to be healing well.
But Sheng Renxing obviously was not asking about the injury on his face.
At that moment, their dumplings arrived.
Sheng Renxing lifted both hands from the table and pointed toward the left side of his own ribs.
“What about here?”
That night, he had noticed Xing Ye occasionally pressing that area as though suppressing pain.
During their fight today, Xing Ye had protected that part especially carefully.
Xing Ye nodded too and pulled apart a pair of chopsticks before handing them to Sheng Renxing.
Sheng Renxing accepted them. “Did you go to the hospital afterward?”
“Mm.”
Seeing Sheng Renxing still looking at him, Xing Ye covered his left ribs with one hand.
“Only a slight fracture here.”
His tone was so casual it sounded like, “It’s a little cold today.”
Sheng Renxing’s eyes immediately widened. “And you still fought me today?!”
Xing Ye shook his head. “That didn’t count.”
It truly had not counted.
Not only had Xing Ye not struck back, but later even Sheng Renxing had deliberately aimed for places Xing Ye could block.
The two had almost been feeding each other moves in boxing practice.
Still, through that fight Xing Ye had discovered that Sheng Renxing had some kickboxing foundation.
He had probably received systematic training.
No wonder he had dared fight several people at once.
Sheng Renxing watched Xing Ye shake his head.
An inexplicable anger flared inside him.
He gave a mocking laugh. “Pretty proud of being a punching bag?”
He tried to remember whether he had hit Xing Ye’s ribs during the fight.
But at the time his emotions had been too intense, and he had not paid attention.
And even if Sheng Renxing had never hit the spot directly, he refused to believe Xing Ye’s movements had not tugged the fracture.
Sheng Renxing looked at him, wanting to get angry.
Yet Xing Ye himself looked completely unconcerned, which only made Sheng Renxing seem like he was overreacting.
So he stabbed hard at a dumpling in his bowl.
The skin broke and filling floated to the surface.
He asked resentfully, “Why did you fight me today?”
His tone softened despite himself.
Xing Ye froze, then unconsciously knitted his brows.
Because at the time, Sheng Renxing had been looking at him.
He had looked as though if Xing Ye did not give him some way to vent, he was going to cry.
So Xing Ye had instinctively suggested a fight.
In that instant, he had forgotten his own injuries.
The real reason he had gone back to sleep that morning was that the pain required rest.
But looking at the dumpling remains Sheng Renxing had already dismembered in his bowl, Xing Ye swallowed the explanation.
He had a feeling that if he said it, there would not be a single whole dumpling left.
Sheng Renxing kept staring at him, as though he would not give up without a definite answer.
After a pause, Xing Ye said, “You hit me first.”
Sheng Renxing choked.
Thinking back, it really had been him who attacked first, and Xing Ye truly had not struck back.
Sheng Renxing immediately abandoned the interrogation.
He gave a quiet “Hmph” and changed the subject.
“Do you have QQ?”
