chapter three
Li Yuechen sat back in the cab and called Qi Xinyue: “Hey, I’m going home now. It wasn’t easy finding a taxi in the middle of this heavy rain.”
“Okay… I know, Okay. Okay. I’ll be home soon.”
(t/n: he was responding to his mother, who probably asked him some things but it wasn’t shown in the story text)
20 minutes after he hung up the phone, Li Yuechen finally arrived home.
Seeing Li Yuechen’s appearance, rain-damped clothes and all, Qi Xinyue urged him to quickly change his clothes to prevent himself from catching a cold. Li Yuechen couldn’t help but think, I’m not as delicate as she thinks, though?
He went upstairs, took a shower, changed clothes, and when he went down, Qi Xinyue was already seated at the table, and the dishes on the table were plenty in number.
And so, the mother and her son had their warm meal.
The next day, by the time Li Yuechen arrived for his class, Qi Xinyue had already boarded a plane to go on a trip to Europe with her best friend.
Looking at the numbers on the blackboard and listening to the teacher’s words, Li Yuechen felt his concentration slipping away. Gu Zhen’s face next to him returned to its usual paleness, and it seemed like his high fever from the day before was gone.
I took him to the hospital yesterday and stayed with him for so long, yet he still keeps acting as though he doesn’t know me. Li Yuechen felt a little upset in his heart.
Suddenly, Gu Zhen’s head turned to his side, right where Li Yuechen was sitting. The latter hurriedly averted his gaze to look back at the blackboard, and forced himself to listen attentively to the lesson discussion instead.
At the end of their second class, the school committee member of the class suddenly approached Li Yuechen and patted him on his shoulder, saying, “The teacher’s looking for you.”
He made his way to the teachers' office, and along the way he thought that although he began playing around a lot more often than he did recently, his grades weren’t being affected negatively, and the teachers had always turned a blind eye to him regardless of his stellar or poor performance, so what could’ve been the reason he was being called over?
Li Yuechen knocked on the door, called out that he was coming in, and pushed the door open.
In the office, their teacher was sitting there, and there was a male teacher in the corner who was typing on a computer.
Li Yuechen walked forward and called out to the teacher. Teacher Liu raised his head to hold up his glasses: “This time, you’ve done well in your examinations, and though I did call you over with the intention of discussing about some ‘problems,’ it’s not about you. It’s about your deskmate, Gu Zhen.” Teacher Liu paused like he didn’t know what to say and looked very troubled. He frowned, and then continued. “His family situation isn’t very clear to me, either, so I can’t say anything for sure, but his grades have always been one of the lowest among your batch for years now. Here, take a look at his test papers.”
Li Yuechen reached out to take the test paper behind handed over and saw that only the multiple-choice questions on the test paper were answered. The rest were not answered at all, leaving large blanks in the back of his paper.
Teacher Liu went on to say, “His answers to these multiple-choice questions are all correct, which is good, but the questions in the back portion here were never answered at all. This didn’t just happen in one subject, too. It happens to all the subjects.”
“So what this teacher is trying to tell me is that… I should help him,” Li Yuechen said.
“You are the class monitor. I made you sit next to him in the hopes that you might be able to talk to him and help him if you can. You don’t know how much the average score of the class is pulled down by him every time. I’ve tried to talk to him a few times, but he doesn’t respond at all. They do say that it is easier to talk to peers of your age than with people older than you, like me.”
Li Yuechen thought to himself, You think too highly of me. He really doesn’t talk to anyone, regardless of who they are or how old they are.
Though this was what he thought, he still reluctantly agreed to Teacher Liu’s request to help his deskmate. Finally, Teacher Liu gave him a few more instructions so as to not make Li Yuechen feel restless or pressured in his heart, and that there was still room for Gu Zhen to be able to improve, before he let Li Yuechen go back.
Walking down the corridor, Li Yuechen thought that if Gu Zhen had always gotten this kind of grade, he should’ve been kicked out of Class Six long ago, but he wasn’t. Even Teacher Liu himself asked him to help him, and he couldn’t help but frown when he thought of their teacher’s earlier words: “His family situation isn’t very clear to me either.”
In the afternoon, they had their P.E. class. Li Yuechen was profusely sweating a lot after playing a round of basketball for the entire class period. He saw from outside the window that his deskmate was still sitting there, exactly the same as before he left. With his fine, white skin and his attractive face, he almost looked like a still painting, only that he wasn’t as vibrant or colorful as one.
Somehow, Li Yuechen felt a little embarrassed and pulled down the clothes he had pulled up to reveal half of his chest, covering his beautifully shaped abs that had slight sweat on them, and he lifted his feet to return to the classroom.
When he walked inside the classroom, he saw that there was a bottle of mineral water on his desk. Li Yuechen’s heart skipped a beat, and he calmly asked: “Did you give this to me?”
Li Yuechen watched Gu Zhen turn his head to take a look at the former, his gaze pausing for a short while. Then, he raised his hand and slowly pushed over a piece of paper, one that had two neatly written words on it – thank you.
All of a sudden, his initial exasperation towards Gu Zhen for the past two days disappeared, and he felt that this person wasn’t as cold and unkind as other people have said he was.
The pent-up frustration from Li Yuechen’s side and the tension between the two were gone, just like that. Li Yuechen took a sip of the mineral water bought by Gu Zhen, and then took a look at the thick books that were pressed under Gu Zhen’s hand. Seeing this, he couldn’t help but lean closer to tell Gu Zhen, “What you can’t understand with our lessons, in the future, you can ask me, alright? I can help you.”
Gu Zhen backed away a little when Li Yuechen suddenly leaned closer without giving him any warning and formed a small distance between the two of them, but Li Yuechen was very enthusiastic with trying to help Gu Zhen with his studies that he wasn’t able to notice this.
In the end, seeing Li Yuechen’s eagerness, Gu Zhen’s eyebrows slightly moved, and if someone were to read his expression beyond the surface level, they would be able to see some doubt and confusion in it. However, for the most part, Gu Zhen wasn’t really against the idea, so he nodded in response.
This little nod was clearly seen by Li Yuechen but it still made him taste a hint of the other’s obedient behavior, and some inexplicable sense of accomplishment sprang up in his heart.
(t/n: literally, 乖巧的感觉)
When it was time to go to the canteen for lunch, Li Yuechen accepted the meal given to him by Feng Linhao and walked towards Song Yan, who was waving his hand enthusiastically at them while stuffing a chicken leg into his mouth.
On the way, Li Yuechen saw Gu Zhen in a small corner, a spoonful of soup in his mouth. His mouth opened and closed in small movements. The soup made his lips look a little wet, a tinge of red appearing in them, but this made his pale face suddenly appear a lot more lively than it did before. Looking at this, Li Yuechen’s heart felt as though it was being scratched by a cat’s paw. (t/n: he was touched LOL i think)
“Why’d you stop walking?” Feng Linhao asked, turning his head to look at Li Yuechen. He was holding a plate full of food, and the tempting and delicious smell of the food made him feel so hungry, especially after all those rounds of basketball that they did in their morning period.
Li Yuechen returned to his senses. “Nothing, let’s go.”