February 2nd, bitterly cold
The early spring morning mist hung like a gauze veil on the bare tips of the phoenix trees.
I tightened the scarf around my neck and pulled my wool cardigan closer as I stood on the steps in front of Yan Dong’s school building, but the biting chill still crept in through the sleeves of my blazer, and even the gaps between the stitches of my sweater were soaked with cold.
I glanced at the time on my phone screen—“8:55 AM,” thirty-five minutes until the parent-teacher meeting started.
My fingertip hovered over Yan Dong’s pinned chat window for a moment but in the end didn’t tap it.
Instead, I turned to smile politely at a girl walking toward me.
“Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the senior year remedial class?”
“Ah, are you talking to me?”
The girl with the ponytail flinched like a rabbit whose tail had been stepped on, jumping half a step back.
The cover of her “Five-Three” workbook rustled in her arms, and her big round eyes darted nervously from side to side.
Since it was my first time at Yan Dong’s school, I really didn’t know how to get to his classroom, so I stopped a girl on the way who looked like she’d be easy to talk to.
But she seemed a bit shy, and even her speech was a little hesitant.
Was I not friendly enough?
“I’m here for the parent-teacher meeting. You look like a senior student. Could you help me find the senior remedial class?”
“N-no problem, I’m headed that way anyway. I’ll take you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Y-you’re welcome.”
The girl gave a shy little smile, the kind of gentle smile girls her age should have.
As she came closer, I could even catch a faint scent of gardenia on her, which made me unconsciously smile back.
She must be a hardworking student.
Her right fingertips still looked pale from staying up all night doing problems, and the corners of her workbook were frayed and curled from overuse.
The high school Yan Dong attended looked pretty upscale, it was one of the top schools in the area.
The downside was that it wasn’t very friendly to first-time visitors.
If this girl weren’t leading the way, I’d probably have gotten lost for quite a while.
“By the way, which class are you going to, sis?”
“Sis?” The sudden title made my steps falter slightly.
Oh, right. With how I was dressed, I probably did look like a young woman who’d just started working.
Still, I felt compelled to point out that her sentence had two obvious mistakes.
First, I was a guy, not a girl, past, present, and future.
Second, a senior in high school should be about the same age as a college freshman like me, so how did I end up being bumped up a generation?
“S-sorry, I shouldn’t have called you that.”
Maybe she noticed I didn’t say anything and misread my expression.
She waved her hands in a fluster, her ponytail swinging sharply behind her.
Looked like she got the wrong idea about something.
“It’s fine. I should be the one apologizing, I was just lost in thought. Hmm… I think it was Class 7.”
“No way, that’s my class too!”
Her eyes lit up instantly, like someone had dropped a mint candy into a glass.
“I’m Li Nianke. You can just call me Keke!”
“Mm, I’m Lin Yunxia.”
“Then how about I call you Sister Xia?”
“Hmm…”
I hesitated briefly, then smiled with my usual warmth.
“Of course, Keke.”
The girl who smelled faintly of gardenia was named Li Nianke.
When she talked, she liked to twist the hem of her uniform with her fingers, like she was trying to rub every syllable into the cotton fabric.
Honestly, she was pretty cute.
As we walked through the ivy-covered corridor behind the teaching building, she suddenly turned around.
The look in her eyes beneath her bangs reminded me of a kitten hiding behind a mailbox on a rainy day.
“By the way, Sister Xia, whose family are you here for in our class?”
Logically speaking, anyone else would’ve answered that question without hesitation, but the moment I heard the word “family,” I really didn’t want to say Yan Dong’s name.
Calling what I have with him “family” would be an insult to the word itself.
“Yan Dong.”
“Is it… Brother Yan Dong?”
Li Nianke’s pupils shrank sharply, and her workbook slipped from her arms with a thud.
“But your last name is Lin… so does that mean…”
She suddenly covered her mouth as if something had just clicked, and her ears turned red enough to bleed.
“Are… are you lovers?”
“……”
The moment she blurted out that thunderbolt of a guess, I nearly coughed again from the shock.
After taking a while to soothe my still-healing throat, I looked at Li Nianke with the same expression someone would have after swallowing a fly.
How the hell did she jump to such a ridiculous conclusion?
“Sorry to disappoint you, I’m just his guardian.”
“I see…”
The girl sighed, her voice light as chalk dust, though her ears were still red as ever.
As she bent down to pick up her workbook, I accidentally caught sight of a band-aid peeking out from the stray hairs on the back of her neck, probably from her collar rubbing against her skin after leaning over her desk for too long.
That instantly reminded me of the time I caught Yan Dong gaming in the study last week, he had a fancy gold-trimmed band-aid on the exact same spot.
I guess only he could manage to grind skin off his neck from staying up all night gaming.
“Thank goodness.”
Her barely audible murmur as she stood up was carried off by the wind, brushing past my ear—and it made my eyelid twitch hard.
Wait… I didn’t mishear that, did I?
This… what’s going on with this girl?
Don’t tell me she actually likes Yan Dong?
The only time I can imagine anyone liking Yan Dong is when he’s been cremated and scattered into the ocean to feed fish.
Or… could it be that Keke’s got some kind of dirt that Yan Dong’s holding over her?
Like those melodramatic plotlines you see in videos…
“Li Nianke, you wouldn’t want anyone else to know this secret, right?”
Or maybe, “Keke, you don’t want your parents to lose their jobs, do you?”
“As long as you behave, I promise it’ll only go as far as taking photos.”
“Photos are taken. You don’t want your humiliating pictures uploaded online, right? Be good. If you dare call the cops, they’ll auto-upload from my computer.”
Honestly, it wouldn’t even be surprising if Yan Dong was into illegal shit like that. Poor Keke, such a good girl, and her future’s about to be ruined by a scumbag like him.
“Keke.”
“Yes, Sister Xia?”
“Nothing, just… if you ever need legal help, you can always come to me.”
“Ah?”
……
The senior remedial class was tucked into a remote corner behind the main school building, in a row of old brick and tile structures.
The thick surrounding trees made it hard to spot.
After bringing me there, Keke said she needed to find the homeroom teacher and left on her own.
The parent-teacher meeting was scheduled to start at 9:30 AM.
According to yesterday’s notice, it would be a summary of the recent mock exam results and a planning session for the college entrance exam.
They even canceled half a day of regular classes for this, so it was clearly an important meeting, well, important for students who weren’t Yan Dong, anyway.
When I pushed open the peeling wooden door of the remedial classroom, years of chalk dust fell onto my shoulders.
Yan Dong’s seat was in the third row by the window.
A thin layer of dust had already settled on his empty desk, suggesting he hadn’t shown up in quite some time.
“Sigh.”
Judging by that guy’s slacker attitude, it was obvious he wasn’t cut out for studying.
If he couldn’t even be bothered to show up at school, what could he possibly succeed at?
This kind of naive assumption was completely shattered the moment I saw Yan Dong’s report card, because the bastard’s grades were actually good.
So good, in fact, that getting into most 985 or 211 universities wouldn’t be a problem at all.
It made me start to wonder if he’d cheated on the exam.
This can’t be right, can it?
Just thinking about how this lazy rich brat scored better than all those hardworking, sleep-deprived students made every cell in my body squirm with discomfort.
Clutching the report card, I double-checked to make sure I hadn’t grabbed the wrong one, then stared in disbelief at the glaring number printed on it: 645.
Suddenly, I remembered that ridiculous scene from last week when I caught him at his computer, doing practice problems while simultaneously playing mobile games and watching videos.
“Hey Lin,” he’d said, “watch carefully.
This is how you use brain power, my self-developed high-efficiency study method.
It lets your brain feel triple the happiness.
Learning efficiency increases by at least 150%.”
There’s no way to justify it.
No doubt about it, Yan Dong definitely cheated.
Damn it, if only I had surveillance footage as proof.
I shook the thought away and rubbed my temples before setting the report card down and pulling out my phone.
Whatever.
What does Yan Dong’s situation have to do with me?
I’m the one who got called out in today’s Marxist Philosophy class, and I still have to go explain things to the professor this afternoon.
And since I only just learned how to tie my hair last night, the result was barely presentable.
The downside?
Stray strands kept falling down, so I had to tuck my hair behind my ear every few minutes.
It’s such a pain—in every possible way.
“Mock exam results are out. Total score: 645.”
I sent his score along with a picture of the report card to Yan Dong, who was probably slacking off somewhere.
Just as I was about to put my phone away and focus on the meeting, his reply popped up.
“Expected. Photo in uniform.”
Unbelievable.
I’ll never understand rich people’s weird obsession with appearances.
I looked up at the still-empty podium.
The parent-teacher meeting hadn’t started yet, but the parents around me were already murmuring and chatting.
Outside, sparrows were hopping between bare branches, chirping noisily.
Once again, I tucked the loose strands of hair behind my ear and reluctantly raised my phone to take a selfie from above.
The reflection in the front camera made my stomach twist a little.
Even though I’d practiced for over half an hour last night using a tutorial, my tied-up hair still looked like a half-finished mess, with a rebellious lock hanging down over my forehead.
As for the hair tie Yan Dong gave me, the jasmine crystal petals rested three finger-widths behind my ear, and the slender red ribbon woven through my hair quivered gently with each breath, like a miniature noose dangling beside my artery.
The final photo wasn’t exactly polished, but since it was just for check-in, there was no need to fuss over it too much.
Still, even if the eggshell was seamless, Yan Dong’s mouth was like a damn drill bit, always managing to disgust me at the very end.
“Lin, how come that pretty face of yours looks so annoying when it’s on you?”
The classroom clock showed 9:37 AM.
I finally heard approaching footsteps from the hallway.
Sitting up straight, I neatly folded the report card and slid it into my pencil pouch before slowly replying to Yan Dong.
“Maybe it’s because Young Master didn’t wash his face this morning, and his eye boogers blurred his vision.”
“Get lost. Go attend your stupid parent-teacher meeting.”
“Understood. I’ll make sure to repeat the teacher’s comments to Uncle Yan, word for word.”
“Fuck.”
…