“What’s wrong?”
Liang Qianqian, who was beside her, noticed her footsteps seemed to hesitate and asked curiously.
Xiang Di shook her head and gave a brilliant smile: “Nothing, I was just stunned by the exam, still haven’t fully processed it.”
Looking ahead again, the lively corridor was already devoid of the figure she had been expecting.
Isn’t loving someone just repeatedly oscillating between hope and disappointment? It’s okay, she’s already very good at comforting herself anyway.
“Let’s walk faster, I really need to go.”
Pulling Liang Qianqian, Xiang Di jogged towards the restroom.
Bo Jiangxin couldn’t face it for now.
He didn’t even know what he was hiding from.
Actually, he could have pretended he knew nothing, just like he had heard others’ thoughts before.
Anyway, Xiang Di was a coward; she wouldn’t be able to say it out loud.
However, the moment he saw her in the corridor just now, even though there was still a considerable distance between them, his heart suddenly tightened and stopped for a moment, as if bound and lifted by an invisible fishing line.
He couldn’t help but think of her few deadly cooing words, thought of her leg draped over his shoulder, her imagined expression of him during sex.
What would her expression be like during sex?
He didn’t know.
But it was hard to imagine such a well-behaved face also revealing such a lewd look.
Everything seemed to be a physiological instinct in a flash of lightning.
Bo Jiangxin’s brain didn’t even have time to react; his body was already subconsciously avoiding her.
His current state was truly too abnormal; it was better to avoid her. So Bo Jiangxin walked back to the office.
Chen Jinghua was a little surprised to see him back again: “Why are you back?”
Bo Jiangxin directly said he wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home to rest.
Perhaps he was truly suffering from neurasthenia due to Xiang Di’s thoughts these past few days, which was why he reacted that way.
Saying he wasn’t feeling well wasn’t a lie.
Teachers always have a natural favoritism towards good students.
Chen Jinghua readily agreed and even said that if he still felt unwell tomorrow, his parents should call again to ask for a few days off so he could rest well at home.
Unsure when his entanglement with Xiang Di would end, Bo Jiangxin directly asked: “Can I take a long leave of absence?”
Chen Jinghua: “How long do you want to take off?”
“Until before the college entrance exam.”
Chen Jinghua’s expression changed slightly.
“You mean you won’t come to school until before the college entrance exam?”
“Yes.”
“Then what about your college entrance exam?”
“I’ll just go directly to the exam when the time comes,” Bo Jiangxin said.
Chen Jinghua frowned immediately.
This child, no matter how good his grades were, he couldn’t act like this.
Even if he was truly disciplined enough to supervise his studies strictly every day at home, he couldn’t agree.
Most students don’t have this kind of self-discipline in learning, which is why they need the school’s supervision.
Even for Bo Jiangxin, Chen Jinghua found it hard to be at ease.
Bo Jiangxin wasn’t an isolated case.
This semester, several students had already applied for a leave of absence due to excessive pressure and fluctuating grades.
It wasn’t that he wouldn’t allow time off, but in the few decades one lives, there are many challenges on life’s path.
He’s still so young, yet he can’t even handle a college entrance exam, and his stress resistance is so poor.
To want to escape just because he can’t study anymore, what will he do in the future?
Moreover, for their current batch of test-takers, whether they could produce a top scholar depended on Bo Jiangxin.
Let alone him, the homeroom teacher, even the principal couldn’t agree. Chen Jinghua couldn’t take that risk.
Chen Jinghua had no choice but to reason with Bo Jiangxin, saying that taking a few days off to rest was fine, but he wouldn’t approve a long leave of absence.
“After all, the learning atmosphere at school is better. It’s hard to study effectively at home alone. If it delays your college entrance exam, I won’t be able to explain it to your parents either.”
Bo Jiangxin frowned and said, “I can’t study effectively when I’m at school.”
Chen Jinghua: “Why?”
Bo Jiangxin didn’t answer for a moment.
The boy’s dark and cold eyes, like an un-dissolvable ink stain, suddenly showed ripples of anxiety.
Out of a teacher’s instinct, Chen Jinghua quickly sensed Bo Jiangxin’s abnormality and tactfully asked, “Have you encountered something at school recently?”
“No.”
“Did you quarrel with Ye Minjia?”
“No.”
“Then with whom…?”
“No one,” Bo Jiangxin said faintly.
Chen Jinghua earnestly said, “Bo Jiangxin, if you have any worries, you can tell your teacher. As long as I can help, I will definitely find a way to solve it for you. Don’t keep it bottled up inside.”
Looking at his homeroom teacher’s worried expression, Bo Jiangxin knew Chen Jinghua was a good teacher.
But what did it matter? No one could solve his worries. What else could he do but keep it to himself?
What was the point of telling the teacher? Would the teacher believe him? Even if the teacher truly believed him, how would they solve it? Tell Xiang Di to go home?
There were only three months left until the college entrance exam. He had no grudge with Xiang Di; there was no reason to ruin her exam.
He was the one who had peeked into her secret. He couldn’t sacrifice her future just for his own peace of mind.
“Let’s just leave it at this,” Bo Jiangxin sighed silently.
“Forget it, Teacher, I won’t take leave.”
He hadn’t really expected his homeroom teacher to agree anyway.
Bo Jiangxin left, but Chen Jinghua didn’t feel relieved.
Now that the college entrance exam was approaching, all teachers were afraid of even the slightest psychological trauma to their students.
Bo Jiangxin wanting to take a long leave at this time was a red flag for any teacher.
Chen Jinghua worried if Bo Jiangxin had some psychological issue.
Generally, good students have stronger self-esteem and are thin-skinned.
Moreover, Bo Jiangxin wasn’t the type to confide in teachers. If he refused to say, Chen Jinghua couldn’t force him.
He pondered whether to call Bo Jiangxin’s parents, but Bo Jiangxin came from a single-parent family. His father was busy with work, even having his secretary call to ask for leave for his son.
The last parent-teacher conference for the third-year high school students was about to be held, and he wasn’t sure if his father would even be able to make it then.
This was a bit difficult.
Soon after the bell rang for the second evening study session, Bo Jiangxin returned to the classroom, packed his bag, and prepared to leave directly.
Ye Minjia called out to him, “Where are you going again?”
“Home.”
“Going home again?!” Ye Minjia asked, “Are you coming tomorrow?”
“We’ll see.”
Then Bo Jiangxin, carrying his bag, walked out without looking back, in front of the entire class.
Taking frequent leaves at such a time, he didn’t look like a high school student fully preparing for the college entrance exam at all.
Even if he was the top student in the grade, he shouldn’t be so arrogant.
As soon as he left, discussions immediately broke out in the classroom, with various speculations about the reasons for Bo Jiangxin’s frequent absences these past few days.
Even Liang Qianqian was curious and sought out Xiang Di to discuss it. Xiang Di shook her head, also feeling bewildered.
“Hey, did you notice? We ran into him and the class monitor at the milk tea shop on Monday, right? It seems like Bo Jiangxin started taking leave from that day on.”
Liang Qianqian stroked her chin, speculating, “Could Bo Jiangxin have caught the flu at the milk tea shop?”
“Oh my god, let’s not buy milk tea there these days. It would be awful if we caught it too.”
“Oh, okay.”
Xiang Di answered distractedly, also speculating in her mind.
She hadn’t told Liang Qianqian that it was also on Monday that Bo Jiangxin accidentally drank her milk tea.
If one had to pinpoint when Bo Jiangxin started acting strange, the more accurate time was when he accidentally drank her milk tea.
Could it be related to her milk tea?
Could it be that she was carrying the flu virus, which caused Bo Jiangxin to get the flu?
No wonder he looked at her several times during evening study earlier, and in the corridor, it was highly likely that he also turned and left because he saw her, the source of the virus.
Xiang Di covered her face with her hands in horror.
Oh my god, she was simply screwed!
What now? It would be even more impossible for them to have any interaction in the future.
Xiang Di blamed herself and felt dejected, falling onto her desk and drawing circles.
Suddenly, the classroom became quiet.
Her arm was forcefully nudged, and Liang Qianqian whispered, “The old class teacher is here!”
Xiang Di quickly sat up again.
Chen Jinghua appeared at the classroom door at some point, but he wasn’t there to enforce discipline during evening study.
“Ye Minjia, come out for a moment.”
“Coming.”
It wasn’t unusual for the homeroom teacher to talk to the class monitor, and no one paid attention.
As soon as Chen Jinghua left, the class immediately became lively again.
After calling Ye Minjia to the office, Chen Jinghua’s first question was, “Have you noticed anything unusual about Bo Jiangxin these past few days?”
Ye Minjia: “Huh? What’s unusual?”
So Chen Jinghua told Ye Minjia about Bo Jiangxin wanting to take a long leave and asked him, “Have you two been having problems recently?”
Ye Minjia shook his head: “No, we’re doing fine.”
“Then has anyone else been having problems with Bo Jiangxin?”
“No.”
Who would be foolish enough to have problems with Bo Jiangxin? Once it reached the teacher, even an idiot would know who the teacher would favor.
Moreover, that person always put on an aloof, unapproachable facade; to put it nicely, he was a cold, high-and-mighty flower; to put it bluntly, he was a cold, hard, smelly rock.
Who would bother him for no reason?
Chen Jinghua frowned: “Then what’s wrong with Bo Jiangxin? Why has he suddenly become averse to studying?”
Ye Minjia’s eyes widened: “What? He’s averse to studying?”
After the setback from the last joint exam, even he wasn’t averse to studying. Why would Bo Jiangxin, the perennial top student, be averse to studying?
“Impossible,” Ye Minjia didn’t believe it.
Chen Jinghua: “Then why doesn’t he want to come to school?”
Teacher and student remained silent for a long time, neither able to figure it out.
Just then, the biology teacher returned to the office with the collected test papers.
Seeing Chen Jinghua, he specifically walked over and said, “Teacher Chen, Bo Jiangxin in your class isn’t in a good state these past two days.”
Saying that, he handed Bo Jiangxin’s recently completed biology test paper to Chen Jinghua.
“It’s a paper he just finished. The last two 20-point questions weren’t even touched. He couldn’t possibly be too lazy to write them because he thought the paper was too simple, could he?”
Looking at the blank spaces on the paper, Chen Jinghua truly felt the situation was getting serious now.
He sighed and also told the biology teacher about Bo Jiangxin wanting to take a long leave.
“He wants to take such a long leave?” the biology teacher asked in surprise.
“The college entrance exam is coming up soon. How can that be allowed?”
“Exactly,” Chen Jinghua said.
“But when I asked him why, he wouldn’t say. I asked Ye Minjia, and he said Bo Jiangxin didn’t have any conflicts with his classmates either.”
The biology teacher thought for a moment and speculated, “If it’s not a conflict with classmates, then is he heartbroken, which is why he doesn’t want to come to school?”