Xing Ye said nothing. He only looked at them.
“…” Yellow Hair and the others, who had been making a racket, silently shifted their gazes away.
Cui Xiaoxiao also pretended she had never asked that question, turned back around, and started fiddling with her phone. Only Jiang Jing continued looking at him.
“What?” Xing Ye frowned slightly.
“Nothing.” Jiang Jing said, “It’s just rare to see you wearing someone else’s clothes.”
Xing Ye nodded. “Something happened last night.”
“Hm?” Jiang Jing leaned against the desk. “What, was it… Auntie?”
Xing Ye did not answer.
Jiang Jing deliberately sighed in a lighthearted way and patted his own chest. “Hey, you know, if anything happens, just say the word.”
Xing Ye neither agreed nor refused. He merely nodded to show he understood. Over on the other side, Yellow Hair and the others had somehow looped their debate about who was whose father back around to Xing Ye again.
Dong Qiu suddenly asked, “Brother Xing, are you coming tonight?”
“You guys are getting together tonight?” Xing Ye sounded surprised.
“Yeah. First Alley today.” Dong Qiu knew what he meant and grinned. “When the teachers called home after our fight, my brother happened to answer. He straight-up said he was busy and told them to call him again if I ever actually fought someone!”
He sighed in satisfaction. “Fucking awesome.”
“Fuck, his brother really is badass.” Yellow Hair’s face twisted with envy and jealousy. “While my mom and dad were tag-teaming me last night, his brother took him to an internet café to play games. This bastard even posted it on Qzone to show off. You’re paying tonight!”
As he spoke, he pulled out his phone to show Xing Ye, then asked, “What about you? Did Auntie yell at you yesterday?”
“My mom said she heard it,” Dong Qiu added, looking worriedly at him. “And sounds of things getting smashed.”
Lu Zhaohua asked, “So that’s why you were with Sheng Renxing last night?”
Xing Ye frowned faintly. “Mm.”
He did not say that he was currently in the middle of running away from home. If he told them, they would inevitably ask question after question and dig all the way to the bottom of it. He did not particularly want to talk about it yet. For a moment, everyone went quiet. All of them had met his mother before. None of them knew what to say now.
Then Yellow Hair abruptly shattered the strange atmosphere with a weird cry. “Ohhh—so it was you!”
Everyone looked at him.
He held his phone and stared at Xing Ye with a complicated expression. “Never would’ve guessed, Brother Xing!”
Xing Ye: “?”
He held out a hand. Yellow Hair turned the phone around and passed it over, making exaggerated tsk-tsk noises.
Yellow Hair’s phone had a touchscreen and could open Qzone.
The screen showed a post Sheng Renxing had made.
The photo showed Sheng Renxing’s hand holding a familiar piece of clothing—the very one Xing Ye had folded last night.
A corner of Xing Ye’s own clothes had even made it into the frame.
Caption: [Big Brother Housework Fairy]
It had been posted that morning and already had more than a hundred likes.
Xing Ye: “…”
Everyone else crowded around too, passing and snatching the phone from hand to hand.
“You folded that so well! Better than my mom!” Yellow Hair roared with laughter.
Xing Ye kept his face stiff and answered calmly, as though it meant nothing, “I fold all my mom’s clothes.”
If a girl they knew had posted something like this, the group could have teased him for ages. But since Sheng Renxing was someone they were not very familiar with, it never really got going.
After laughing for a while, Dong Qiu asked again, “So? Are you coming tonight?”
Jiang Jing also urged him, “Come on. Tonight Yellow Hair is going to share the touching story of getting dumped for the thirty-first time.”
“Fuck you!” Yellow Hair exploded and stepped over a desk to go hit him.
“Hey, my desk!” Dong Qiu grabbed the back of Yellow Hair’s pants and yanked.
The three of them immediately tangled into a fight.
Lu Zhaohua watched them with a smile and said to Xing Ye, “Want to ask Sheng Renxing to come too?”
Xing Ye paused. First Alley, where they planned to go tonight, was a barbecue place packed with hooligans and street punks, and the environment was terrible. His first instinct was that Sheng Renxing would not want to go.
But he did not reject the idea. He only said, “I’ll ask him.”
The teacher had not arrived yet. The back door was locked, so Sheng Renxing entered through the front.
He had only taken a few steps when a girl with a ponytail and glasses suddenly called, “Sheng Renxing?”
He turned toward her.
The girl’s eyes darted away. She half covered her mouth with one hand. “The teacher wants you.”
Sheng Renxing answered, “Okay, thanks,” and continued toward his seat.
First he put down his schoolbag. Chen Ying immediately blurted, “You ate at Guests Go with Uncle yesterday?”
“Hm?” Sheng Renxing straightened his desk and noticed that the seat beside him looked as though someone had touched it. “Yeah. He came back to class?” He pointed to the desk next to him.
“Yeah. His dad thought he’d stayed home long enough, made a fuss with the teacher, and sent him back.” Chen Ying said it casually, then immediately continued, “Hey, I was supposed to go yesterday too! Then I could’ve eaten with you guys! Oh, right—does Uncle know about the fight?”
“Oh.” Sheng Renxing’s gaze swept over the model figures in the other student’s desk, their backsides facing outward. He smiled at Chen Ying. “He does. Thanks to you.”
Chen Ying: “Huh?!”
“Your Moments. My uncle saw it.”
“!” Chen Ying looked horrified. “Fuck, I didn’t block him?!”
The Fatty beside him stared in equal horror. “You didn’t block Uncle Wei?!!!” His shout nearly pierced the ceiling.
Chen Ying instantly pulled out his phone, while using his other hand to stop Fatty from strangling him. “Uncle won’t tell your dad! His lips are really tight!”
Sheng Renxing looked at them and tilted his head in apparent confusion. “Then how do you think I found out?”
“?” Both of them froze. Chen Ying stared at him in disbelief.
Fatty immediately let out a piglike squeal. “Chen Ying, I’m going to kill you!”
Sheng Renxing left them behind, slipped his phone into his pocket, and headed for the teachers’ office.
He knocked twice.
“Come in.”
When he entered, several teachers were crowded around Teacher Yu’s desk. The moment they saw him, all of them whipped their heads around. One male teacher looked so worked up he seemed ready to beat Sheng Renxing up.
Sheng Renxing paused, counted the people in the room, and walked in without closing the door.
Teacher Yu greeted him enthusiastically. “You’re here! Come, come.” Nothing unusual showed on her face.
Sheng Renxing walked over and glanced at the desk everyone was gathered around. He immediately spotted his own test papers and understood. His body relaxed.
Sure enough, the next second Teacher Yu said, “We finished marking your exams!” She pushed the papers across the desk and stared at him eagerly.
“Mm.” Sheng Renxing flipped through them and looked at the questions he had gotten wrong.
For a while, no one spoke. Teacher Yu finally could not hold back. “These scores of yours…”
Sheng Renxing’s gaze stopped on one wrong answer, and he clicked his tongue.
The male teacher who had looked ready to hit him earlier loudly said, “Young man, you did pretty well!”
Even though none of them had ever seen a student at their school score this high, teachers instinctively still said things like “pretty good” and “not bad,” never anything as direct as “excellent.”
Beside him, the female teacher who wore perfume shot him a look, then smiled brightly at Sheng Renxing. “You’re Sheng Renxing, right? If you hadn’t written one extra character wrong in your essay, this would have been the highest essay score on the whole monthly exam!”
“Really?” Sheng Renxing turned to the essay and answered the male teacher, “It’s okay. Not that good.”
The male teacher: “…”
None of them had expected him to say that, and for a moment the teachers all froze.
After a pause, the female teacher laughed delicately. “I like your personality!” Her expression became slightly exaggerated. “This isn’t good? Do you know what your total score is? First place!”
“Wasn’t my score supposed to be reduced to eighty percent?” Sheng Renxing was not surprised by first place itself. But they had said from the beginning that they would discount his scores. He looked at Teacher Yu. Had they decided not to anymore?
Teacher Yu thought for a moment and did not lie to him. “Even after the reduction, you’re still first.”
“…?” Sheng Renxing stared at her in disbelief. “Then what did the previous first place get?”
“Ahem! The student who usually ranks first was also absent last time.” The male teacher coughed and changed the subject. “A score like yours is rare!”
Teacher Yu cut him off and looked at Sheng Renxing. “After your results came out, we asked Director Li about your previous grades. I believe this is your usual level!”
Sheng Renxing frowned faintly. If this were his usual level, Sheng Qiong would have mocked him from Antarctica all the way to the Arctic by now. Still, considering that even after an eighty-percent reduction he could sit firmly in first place, Sheng Renxing chose not to say anything. It would sound like he was mocking them.
He nodded and waited for Teacher Yu’s inevitable but.
“But,” Teacher Yu said, “these scores of yours… let me put it this way. Our school has never had them before!” Her expression was solemn. “And you took a make-up exam. If we suddenly announce them like this, we think some students may have… certain ideas.”
Sheng Renxing raised a brow.
“Of course the teachers absolutely believe you! But for students who have been working very hard, the impact could be significant. And the second monthly exam isn’t far away. We’re worried some of them may lose their balance.” Teacher Yu unconsciously tapped the desk. “So we’ll record your scores, but we’ve decided not to announce them yet.”
She asked, “Of course, it’s only this one time. Next month, you’ll all take the exam together. Once those scores come out, no one will have anything to say. What do you think?”
Sheng Renxing was silent for a while, working hard to extract the actual meaning from the mountain of roundabout nonsense. So she was saying his grades were so high other students might suspect they were fake, and this was also to protect the mental health of students who studied hard but still got poor scores? This teacher really took the scenic route whenever she spoke.
Sheng Renxing was speechless for a moment. In truth, he did not especially want the scores announced either. Just thinking about what would happen if Sheng Qiong found out made his entire body uncomfortable.
So he nodded indifferently. “Whatever.”
Compared with that, he cared more about something else. “Can I see everyone’s scores from the last monthly exam?”
“Huh?” None of the teachers expected that question. Teacher Yu paused, then pulled a folder from beside the desk. “Sure.”
She continued, “The principal is very interested in your score too. He praised you and will probably call you in to talk later! We’ll also mail your results to your parent.”
“Oh. Thank him for me.” Sheng Renxing nodded, neither delighted nor nervous. He lowered his head and started flipping from the first page, his finger moving down the list of names.
“…” He left the other teachers with no idea what to say. They simply stood there watching him read the score sheet.
Teacher Yu asked, “Are you looking for someone’s grade?”
She reached over. “This is the student who has always ranked first. He took a make-up exam too, so his score was reduced to eighty percent and he dropped farther down.”
“Not him.” Sheng Renxing thought about it and decided searching was too much work. “I’m looking for Xing Ye.”
“?”
The moment he said it, the teachers went silent.
“What are you looking for his score for?” The female teacher reached over. “How long are you planning to search like that?” She directly flipped to the last page for him.
Sheng Renxing: “?”
He stared at Xing Ye’s name for a long moment, then raised his phone and took a picture.
After leaving the office, he opened QQ and sent over a photo of his own test papers.
X: [/shy]
He casually picked an emoticon, then changed Xing Ye’s contact name.
A moment later—
18: [Your grades?]
Sheng Renxing smiled.
X: [First place. /hug /hug /hug]
For some reason, he especially liked using built-in emoticons when chatting with Xing Ye, and not even sticker packs. Last time, he had unconsciously used one while talking to Big-Head Qiu too, and Big-Head Qiu had replied with an entire screen full of question marks.
18: [You’re still in the office?]
X: [Just came out. Why?]
He typed while walking downstairs. Just after rounding the landing, he saw Xing Ye leaning there.
Sheng Renxing’s eyes widened. “Why are you here?” He glanced around Xing Ye. “Getting ready to skip class?” None of Xing Ye’s brothers were around.
Xing Ye shook his head. “Came to find you.”
Only then did Sheng Renxing notice Xing Ye seemed to have been smiling the entire time.
“Damn. I knew you’d get jealous and come beat me up.” Sheng Renxing pretended to retreat in fear, but he could not stop himself from smiling too.
Then Xing Ye actually stepped forward, raised his arms, and hugged him hard.
Sheng Renxing could feel Xing Ye’s excitement.
At first, he froze stiffly. Then the very next second he hugged Xing Ye back just as hard, laughter in his voice. “What are you doing?”
Xing Ye let go. He himself did not know why. He was simply happy, like soda bubbling over. The kind of happiness that swept away every bad feeling he had carried since yesterday.
But he did not know how to explain it, so he smiled. “Didn’t you tell me to hug you?”
“Huh?” Sheng Renxing frowned in confusion.
“The emoticons,” Xing Ye reminded him.
“Ohhh.” Sheng Renxing drew out the sound and nodded as though contemplating something.
Xing Ye pressed his lips together. He felt he had acted impulsively just now, and now that he had calmed down, some awkwardness crept in. “Come on. Back to class.”
But Sheng Renxing stepped sideways and blocked him.
Xing Ye looked at him. “What?”
Sheng Renxing smiled, eyes curving as he opened his arms. “I remember sending three, right? You still owe me two hugs.”
