LRTH - 3

The preparatory bell rang, echoing across the campus, and people on the road hurried forward.

Only in the middle of the road, two figures moved leisurely ahead.

The tall, dark-skinned boy, Zhao Ke, had an anxious look on his face. “Guys, don’t just stroll. At this speed, the test papers will get moldy before we get to class!”

Li Yizhou didn’t seem to hear him. He glanced back and asked, “Where’s that girl you were with?”

Xu Yuanhe suddenly remembered the “tagalong” on the way to school today and looked back as well. The space behind them was empty; she was long gone. “I don’t know.”

After thinking for a moment, he added, “We’re at school already. She probably went to her classroom. She’s not an idiot.”

“What girl? Why were you with a girl? Holy crap, I haven’t seen you in one night, and you’re already in a relationship, Ah He?”

Xu Yuanhe didn’t understand how Zhao Ke could interpret a simple sentence as him being in a relationship. He kicked him. “In a relationship with your mom.”

Zhao Ke, his mind clouded by gossip, instantly forgot about the test papers. “So what girl? Why were you taking a girl?”

Xu Yuanhe was wary of Zhao Ke’s big mouth, which could easily twist facts in other places. So he patiently explained again, “A new neighbor moved in next to us. It’s her first day of school, and my mom told me to show her the way. Don’t be an idiot.”

“A new neighbor, and you had to personally escort her? Nice. What grade is she in? Is she pretty? Interested in a relationship?”

Xu Yuanhe fell silent, then rolled his eyes and walked straight ahead.

Unable to get an answer, Zhao Ke’s gaze turned intensely to Li Yizhou. Li Yizhou calmly looked at him. “I suggest you hurry. The first class is with Curly.”

The sentence instantly dragged Zhao Ke back to hell.

His expression froze, and he turned to scramble up the stairs.

In Class 4 of the first grade, it was English morning self-study today.

Amid the scattered sounds of reading, two lazy male voices were whispering.

“We have a new transfer student in our class today. I heard the homeroom teacher talking about it in the office yesterday. It’s a girl.”

“A girl! What does she look like?!”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her, but I peeked at a form on the homeroom teacher’s desk. Her name is... Fang Nanzhi. Let me write it down for you. It’s this.”

“Fang Nanzhi... that’s such a nice name,” another boy in the front row turned his head. “Could she be a big beauty!”

The surrounding boys were all drawn in by this comment. At this age, boys’ curiosity about girls was at its peak. Any small detail about a girl was worth discussing repeatedly.

A beautiful girl, of course, was even more so.

Suddenly, all the boys became excited. The girls who heard them nearby laughed as if watching a show, then said dismissively, “All you think about is beautiful girls. How do you know she’s a beauty?”

“With that name, she has to be!”

However, their high expectations plummeted to rock bottom when they saw the girl the homeroom teacher led in after the morning self-study ended.

The girl was wearing a school uniform, with short hair and thick bangs. She wore glasses, a black-rimmed pair, which made her skin look very fair. But, she was a bit chubby... her face was plump, and the school uniform was obviously not a small size.

No matter how pretty a face might be, a “fatty” just wouldn’t do.

Besides, with the double “buffs” of glasses and thick bangs, Fang Nanzhi’s facial features were not clear at all. To others, she was just an ordinary girl, as ordinary as they come.

All the boys’ interest vanished in an instant.

After a brief introduction, the homeroom teacher assigned Fang Nanzhi a seat—the third-to-last desk in the fourth row. As she walked to her seat, she vaguely heard someone nearby whisper, “That name doesn’t match the person.”

The person who said it was nudged by someone else, as if to stop them. But if you looked closely, their faces held the same expressions, full of amusement.

Fang Nanzhi paused slightly but didn’t react much, and she sat down in her seat.

She was used to it.

Used to the malice of some boys.

Her deskmate was a girl who had been slumped over the whole time since she came in. Her book wasn’t open, and it seemed like she had been sleeping ever since she arrived.

Because Fang Nanzhi made a small sound when she sat down, her deskmate’s head lifted from her arms and she glanced at her.

Fang Nanzhi looked over as well, and was a little surprised by what she saw.

Her deskmate was someone she knew—the sister from the twins next door, Xu Tingyou.

Xu Tingyou, however, showed no surprise at all upon seeing her. She probably already knew that her empty seat would be taken by this new classmate.

“You...”

“I’m so sleepy... don’t bother me while I’m sleeping,” Xu Tingyou’s eyes were blurry with sleep, but her words were firm. Her beautiful features, like her brother’s, always carried a hint of impatience.

Fang Nanzhi instantly fell silent, losing all hope of “getting along with my deskmate on the first day of school.”

She thought, “It’s fine... it’s not like I need to get along with others.”

After all, having no friends was a normal state for her.

After the first class, the girl at the desk in front of her turned around and asked where she had transferred from.

Fang Nanzhi told her the name, but the other girl’s face was blank, as if she had no idea where that obscure place was.

The girl then lost interest in her quietness and turned back around.

And so, the arrival of a new student in the class didn’t cause any waves. Only the class monitor came over to fulfill their responsibility, taking her on a simple tour of the campus and showing her where everything was.

Other than that, no one else came over to talk to her.

The whole day was calm and ordinary. The only thing that made Fang Nanzhi a little excited was a place the class monitor showed her during the tour that she found very interesting.

It was the art studios in the school’s arts building. The class monitor said that some students were art specialists, and the studios were for them, but ordinary students could also use them if they liked to draw.

Fang Nanzhi wasn’t an art specialist, but she loved to draw. Back in her small town, she had taught herself to draw many pictures in between her studies.

For her, drawing was a form of relaxation and healing.

She had thought that her first day of school would end peacefully like this, but it was unexpectedly broken at the end of the evening self-study session.

When the bell for the last class rang, Fang Nanzhi hadn’t finished today’s homework. She found that Junhua’s pace was faster than her previous school’s, and she hadn’t learned this material, so it was difficult. She decided to take it home, study the book, and then finish the homework.

Xu Tingyou had already left while she was packing up her homework. She had spent half of the evening self-study session reading a novel, and when she left, she didn’t take any books with her. She probably hadn’t finished her homework either.

But that was none of her business. Fang Nanzhi finished packing up her things, ready to go home.

Just then, there was a sudden commotion in the classroom. The students who were packing up their things all turned to look at the back door.

Fang Nanzhi was confused, and she also turned to look, then she was stunned.

A tall boy was standing at the back door. The classroom’s fluorescent lights shone on him, giving him a unique glow, like the opening scene of a school manga, where the protagonist suddenly breaks through the dimensional wall and steps right into the hearts of everyone present.

“Holy crap, why is Li Yizhou here?!”

“He must be looking for Xu Tingyou.”

“Why would he look for her? I’ve never seen him come looking for Xu Tingyou before, and she just left.”

“Well, who else in our class knows him?”

“True. Ah, quick, check my hair. Does it look okay?”

“...”

Li Yizhou was a well-known figure at Junhua. From the first year to the third year, there was no one who didn’t know him.

His superior family background and outstanding looks went without saying, and his grades were always at the top.

He rarely dropped out of the top three on the exam rankings. There were also the competition rankings, and many students from the younger grades called him the “Competition Demon King.” He won so many awards that his hands were sore, and the guaranteed spot at a top university next year was undoubtedly his.

But because the third and first grades were not in the same building, the first-year students had never seen him appear here before.

So what was going on today...

As they were thinking this, they saw that after Li Yizhou’s eyes swept across the classroom, they locked onto one person.

“I’m heading back. Are you coming?” he suddenly said, addressing that person.

Everyone’s gazes simultaneously turned in the direction he was looking—toward Fang Nanzhi.

“...”

“...”

Fang Nanzhi’s movements to pack her things froze, and under the concentrated stares, her face began to turn red uncontrollably.

Everyone in the classroom was looking at her, either confused or surprised, as if they wanted to stare a hole through her.

He was also looking at her, and from this, she was sure he was talking to her.

But why?

Fang Nanzhi was at a loss. She didn’t know why he was here or why he was asking if she wanted to go back.

Was it because of Auntie Huang? But even so, Xu Yuanhe should have been the one to come...

But she couldn’t think too much at the moment, because he was just standing there looking at her, which made her want to escape the situation immediately.

So Fang Nanzhi quickly shoved her books into her backpack, stood up, and walked toward the back door of the classroom. But a few steps from the door, she stopped abruptly, afraid to get too close to him.

Fortunately, Li Yizhou didn’t say anything more. Seeing that she was following, he turned and walked toward the hallway.

During the break, people were pouring down the stairs. Class 4 of the first grade was on the fourth floor. As Li Yizhou walked down the stairs, people on the side all stared, just as they had in the classroom.

Fang Nanzhi realized this and slowed down, increasing the distance between them.

“Yuanhe should be waiting at the school gate.”

Fang Nanzhi was walking with her head down, looking at the road. She had just reached the first floor when she suddenly heard that voice. She stopped instantly and looked up.

Li Yizhou cleared his throat, as if he also didn’t know how to explain the current situation. He said, “He... had something to do and asked me to come get you. It’s dark at night, and Auntie Huang was worried, so she called and told him to make sure he brought you back with him.”

Fang Nanzhi looked at him, speechless, but she knew she couldn’t hold his gaze for long and quickly looked away again.

“Oh... thank you, but I think I know the way now. I can walk by myself.”

The boy in front of her smiled briefly, a fleeting smile like a cool breeze on an early autumn night, making people feel particularly comfortable.

“Let me take you one more time. It’s night now, and Auntie Huang is worried you might get lost and it won’t be safe.”

“I’m pretty safe...” Fang Nanzhi murmured subconsciously.

She thought that she wasn’t pretty, so there was nothing unsafe about her.

But the boy in front of her didn’t seem to have thought of that. He just raised an eyebrow slightly and said, “Don’t be overly confident. You’ll cry when you run into a bad guy.”

“...”

“Come on, let’s go back together.”

He turned and continued walking. Fang Nanzhi, however, stood there stunned for several seconds.

She didn’t know what she was thinking, she just felt that he was different from others.

People came and went around her, a bit noisy.

Fang Nanzhi still followed him.

She kept a distance, neither too short nor too long, between herself and Li Yizhou. Under the school’s streetlights, his shadow stretched behind him, and she watched it, following his every step.