After that day, Sheng Renxing stopped avoiding Xing Ye.
His life in Xuancheng gradually settled into a routine too. It seemed he had adapted to the city’s pace.
Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he was simply too busy to spare any attention for it.
After all, the Mathematics Olympiad qualifier was getting closer and closer, and before that came the monthly exams. Sheng Renxing planned out what he needed to do each day and followed his own rhythm. Which meant he often did English during math class and read physics during English.
He couldn’t be bothered doing homework either.
He planned to copy Chen Ying’s.
So he tapped Chen Ying with his pen. In front of him, Chen Ying and Fatty were busy drawing Rolex watches on each other’s wrists. “Did you do the homework?”
Chen Ying was concentrating so hard on his drawing that he didn’t even look up. “No. The last time I did homework was a week ago. Don’t move! You’re making me draw it crooked!”
“You poked me!” Fatty yelled.
Sheng Renxing stared speechlessly at their childish behavior. “Then whose homework did you hand in today?”
“Oh.” Chen Ying released Fatty’s wrist and tapped his phone. “Glasses from Class Four does it for me. One yuan per workbook. Add him on QQ for details.”
“…” Sheng Renxing looked at the phone Chen Ying held out. The profile signature read: No bargaining. No credit. No refunds.
Quite professional.
Sheng Renxing topped up a hundred yuan as casually as recharging a meal card. Chen Ying brought over his homework and stacked Sheng Renxing’s together with his own. Fatty and Captain added several more workbooks. Once Chen Ying and Fatty finished drawing their watches, the two of them burst out laughing. “You bought a watch last year!”
Then they happily carried the stack over to Glasses. So there was an entire customer base? Sheng Renxing almost laughed. He shook his head and took a sip of water.
Beside him, Captain explained the situation. “Most of the homework from our class and Class Four is handled by Glasses and his group. Other classes have different people. I’m not sure who.”
His group?
“Pretty clear division of labor.” Sheng Renxing laughed.
Captain’s face flushed slightly. He pushed up his glasses and shook his cup at Sheng Renxing. “Going to get water?”
Sheng Renxing didn’t own a cup. He bought bottled mineral water each day and bought a new bottle the next.
But there was only a mouthful left in his bottle now. Faced with the choice between filling it at the stairwell or going all the way to the school shop to buy another one, Sheng Renxing nodded to Captain. There was a water dispenser by the stairs on every floor. During every break, a long line formed there, mostly girls. The two of them quietly joined the end of the line.
Before long, the number of girls coming to get water visibly increased. Captain looked around, then moved one step forward. Sheng Renxing had one hand in his pocket and his phone in the other, his mineral-water bottle tucked beneath his arm. Without looking up, he assumed the line had moved and stepped forward too. He nearly walked straight into Captain.
“?”
Sheng Renxing backed up a little and raised his head, looking puzzled. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a girl taking a photo of him.
Sheng Renxing looked over. He actually didn’t like people photographing him very much.
Did you pay me before taking that picture? The girl seemed startled when he looked at her, and her hand jerked. The next second, someone pulled the bottle out from beneath his arm. Sheng Renxing turned and saw Xing Ye standing behind him, holding a bag in one hand. It looked like breakfast.
Sheng Renxing smiled at him, then glanced down at his phone. “Pretty early.”
Xing Ye nodded, tiredness still visible on his face. “Got woken up.” Then he lifted the bag toward him. “Want some?”
“If I survive one more class, I can eat lunch.” Sheng Renxing refused. He could practically feel the air around them boiling. Even more girls were coming over for water.
What were they getting so much water for, a bath? Out of the corner of his eye, Sheng Renxing glanced at one girl who had only just filled her bottle but was stubbornly lining up to fill it again, and clicked his tongue inwardly.
Captain in front had already finished. He shifted aside to make room for Sheng Renxing. Sheng Renxing pressed the cold-water button. Captain didn’t leave while he filled his bottle, waiting to go back together.
Xing Ye draped one arm over Sheng Renxing’s shoulders and glanced at Captain. Captain immediately looked away as though afraid to meet his eyes.
“Want some?” Once the bottle was full, Sheng Renxing offered it to Xing Ye.
Xing Ye took it and drank a mouthful.
“Didn’t sleep last night?” Sheng Renxing asked when he saw Xing Ye’s half-lidded eyes and the red veins in them.
Xing Ye nodded. After a pause, he said, “Watched a place for someone.”
Internet cafés, billiard halls, arcades… places where all kinds of people mixed together needed someone capable of keeping the peace, someone who could sit there and stop troublemakers from causing problems. Xing Ye might still be a high school student, but thanks to his performances in the ring, he was already capable of keeping certain places under control.
Jobs like that paid fairly well. If nobody caused trouble, they were easy enough. There was only one drawback: they were usually at night, which meant no time to sleep. Sheng Renxing tilted his head and sniffed. There was a clean, fresh scent of laundry powder.
He had actually wanted to ask Xing Ye for ages what brand he used. As far as Sheng Renxing’s nose was concerned, it smelled good.
“Do I smell like smoke?” Xing Ye asked.
“No.” Sheng Renxing took back the bottle from the hand Xing Ye had resting over his shoulders and squeezed it until it crackled. “You smell like perfume.”
“Bothering you?” Xing Ye asked.
“Choking me to death,” Sheng Renxing replied.
Xing Ye followed him into the classroom.
Chen Ying and the others still hadn’t returned. Captain hadn’t said a word the whole way back; he didn’t even put his water at his seat before hurrying to the front of the room to sit with someone else and chat, never looking back once.
“You two have some kind of grudge?” Sheng Renxing was a little puzzled. He had Xing Ye sit in his seat while he sat in Captain’s.
Before meeting Captain in person, Sheng Renxing wouldn’t have sat there after hearing only the rumors about him. But once he got to know him, he found that Captain was quite clean and had a reserved personality. He looked exactly like an obedient model student. No matter how you looked at him, it was hard to imagine him doing something as wild as watching porn in class.
Still, Sheng Renxing hadn’t asked about it.
Xing Ye shook his head and set the bag he was carrying on the desk. “He’s afraid I’ll beat him up.”
“?” Sheng Renxing moved his own books off the desk. “Why?”
Xing Ye concentrated on eating and didn’t answer.
Sheng Renxing watched him for a while, then took out his phone and snapped a picture.
Xing Ye’s current state was amusing. If he suddenly turned around and told Sheng Renxing, “I’m sleepwalking,” Sheng Renxing wouldn’t even be surprised.
“After you finish eating, are you going back to class or going to the fifth floor to sleep?” Sheng Renxing put his phone back in his pocket and took his own books off Xing Ye’s desk.
A long moment later, Xing Ye turned to him. “What?”
“…” Sheng Renxing lifted his chin, signaling, Just eat.
Xing Ye ate quickly. He finished before class began. A while later, the bell rang.
Sheng Renxing looked up from his phone. “You…” Then he realized Xing Ye was already asleep on his desk.
“?”
Xing Ye slept with his head on the desk. Only a small part of his face showed between his folded arms. His slightly long black hair looked very soft, half covering his faintly furrowed brows and eyes.
Sheng Renxing watched him and ultimately didn’t wake him.
Captain had already returned from the front of the room. Sheng Renxing looked at him, trying to figure out what to say, but Captain smiled first and pointed at another seat. “Liu Meng isn’t here today. I’ll sit over there.”
Sheng Renxing glanced at the seat and nodded. “Thanks.”
Captain smiled without showing his teeth and quietly gathered up his books, looking almost demure. Their class was never completely full. There were always empty seats. If the school chased down every student who skipped every single class, probably more than half the students would lose the chance to graduate.
Sheng Renxing didn’t know what use graduating like this was either. But the school administration still cared. After all, if more than half the students failed to graduate, it wouldn’t exactly look good for the school.
So they had come up with a solution. The solution was simply to stop taking attendance. Brilliant. Every classmate who noticed Xing Ye was startled. No one knew why someone from another class was sleeping in their room, but everyone was wary enough that their voices dropped considerably.
The teacher at the front didn’t notice the extra person at all. Eyes practically closed, he lectured away by himself. Halfway through, he even looked surprised. “Did everyone in your class fall asleep today? Why is it so quiet?”
Sheng Renxing sat in Captain’s seat working through a problem. In front of him, Chen Ying and Fatty were unusually not bickering and were quietly playing with their phones.
He couldn’t help laughing. Looking at the sleeping Xing Ye, he thought, You’re more effective than the homeroom teacher.
The pen spun once around his fingers. He thought through the solution, and as his thoughts wandered…
He realized Xing Ye’s eyelashes really were long.
Sheng Renxing propped his head on one hand and used the cap of his pen to lift the hair covering Xing Ye’s face. Then, because his hands were apparently incapable of behaving, he poked at Xing Ye’s eyelashes too.
Xing Ye’s lashes fluttered. Frowning, he swatted out with his right hand.
Sheng Renxing pulled his hand back, amused for a while, then continued solving the problem.
After working for a while, he tossed down his pencil. He found a black pen in his pencil case, uncapped it, and pulled Xing Ye’s hand toward him.
