Chapter 41 – Lingering In Your Thoughts

Song Yu looked up again at the girl across from him.

She was now looking at him with an enchanted smile on her face. She immediately bowed her head when their eyes met, holding up the English book in her hand to block her face.

“……”

Was that necessary?

The corners of Song Yu’s mouth pulled down. He ignored her, his gaze once again landing on the post.

Someone brought the topic back to the main point after 41L was collectively ridiculed.

At the end of the day, they didn’t dare to push their CP so crazily in front of one of the people involved. They suppressed their inner ecstasy and excitement and typed out a line, asking a question in a lively, romantic, and innocent way.

[ Brother Yu, are you and God Xie studying together? Preparing for the monthly exams? [grinning][shy] ]

Song Yu was bored from waiting and replied.

121L Your Husband, Brother Yu: He’s helping me with my studies.

There was a wave of shrill screams on the forums.

[ Aaahhhhhhh!!! ]

[ Wuwuwu, what kind of magical day is this?! I suddenly feel energized again. Help me up, I feel like I can still write two math papers ]

[ Damn, you guys, don’t scare Brother Yu away! Go to the dedicated thread and keep the style here relatively normal ]

The crowd frantically tried to change the mood and style of the thread back to normal.

They asked. [ Is Brother Yu going to study hard? ]

Song Yu’s eyelids drooped. Wasn’t that nonsense? Ever since school started, hadn’t he been trying hard to study every day?

Was it that his identity as a forum troll had made these people misunderstand him a little? He felt that it was necessary for him to explain himself.

So, for once, Song Yu wrote something in the forums while he was in a calm, even mood.

Teaching by example, his tone sarcastic:

[ I’ve always been studying hard. Isn’t high school for studying, not fighting? ]

Across the network, a whole group of people: “………”

[ I’m sorry ]

Deep regret burst out after their initial shock—they looked at their unfinished test papers and, for a moment, they felt that they simply didn’t deserve the air they breathed.

Even the school bully was studying hard? What qualifications did they have to stay in the forums and waste time?

“Do you like matcha?”

At this time, Xie Sui came back from the line-up. He sat down across from him and asked the question out loud.

Song Yu put away his cell phone. His eyes widened slightly when he saw the small and attractive cake in the other’s hands, “I do, I do.”

Besides mint, his next favorite flavor was matcha. Strangely, Xie Sui hadn’t asked him about flavors when he went to line up.

Song Yu praised him from the bottom of his heart, “Our hearts are really connected.”

Xie Sui smiled briefly and didn’t deny or acknowledge it.

He set down a fork for him and passed it over. He’d basically figured out Song Yu’s preferences last time when he’d accompanied Song Yu to the supermarket, so there was no need to ask.

“Did you read the notes?”

“……”

Song Yu fed himself a piece of cake and then stiffened when he heard his words. He stared at him in a daze, half biting down on the fork. 

The atmosphere was suddenly a little awkward.

He’d been feeling restless ever since he’d had that dream. How could he be in the mood to study? So he’d gone to play on his cell phone and browse the forums.

Xie Sui looked at him.

The color of Song Yu’s lips was very pale. There was a little cream dabbed on them, and he was biting down on his fork, inexplicably giving off a clean yet seductive feeling.

Xie Sui looked away and smiled, “Don’t come crying to me when the monthly exam results come out.”

Song Yu swallowed the cake in his mouth. He felt very embarrassed and quickly said, “I won’t, I won’t. I’ve never cried in my life. I’ll memorize them when we go back. When we get back, I’ll memorize everything you wrote down for me.”

Xie Sui had originally been playing around when he said those words, but his eyes narrowed slightly when he heard him insist so vehemently.

A few bad emotions rose up in his heart again. For example, what would Song Yu look like when he cried?

Of course, this kind of thought was fleeting.

He remembered that Song Yu was very concerned about this monthly examination.

“What will happen if you do badly in the exams?”

Xie Sui asked this when they left the cake shop. He opened up the umbrella.

Song Yu looked up at the sky and muttered, “I’ll be summoned back by my father and you’ll never see me again.”

Xie Sui: “……”

The hand holding the umbrella tightened slightly.

Xie Sui paused for a moment, then he tilted his head and smiled a little, “Let me make you a study plan.”

Although his tone was light, it left no room for refusal.

“You can stop your endless sea of exam papers tactic.”

It was a waste of time.

Song Yu: “Ah?”

His face was still confused as he headed home, and he still hadn’t figured it out by the time he said goodbye to Xie Sui. Why had Xie Sui suddenly told him to stop doing test problems?

What was he doing?

Depriving him of his right to study?

Afraid that he would snatch his first place?

Monday, at school.

After the morning study period, the Chinese class representative came over to collect their homework. Song Yu had finally learned this little sister’s name. She was called Jiang Chunian1, and her name was quite poetic. 

Ma Xiaoding shook his desk from behind Song Yu when she was about to collect their little group’s homework, “Brother Yu, Brother Yu! What did you write for your composition? Can you show me?”

Student Ma Xiaoding loved Chinese, but he didn’t have the destiny of a study god. Instead, he’d picked up a study god disease and really liked to exchange ideas on Chinese homework.

Song Yu was particularly satisfied with his composition. It was both deep and broad, simply a masterpiece.

He took out his composition and tossed it backwards. He even warned him proudly, “You’re only allowed to appreciate it, not learn from it.”

“Okay, okay, okay.”

Ma Xiaoding opened it excitedly, and he was briefly stunned when he saw the title. After reading the whole composition, he was completely withered and his voice trembled, “Brother… Brother Yu, how come I feel that you’ve gone a little off-topic? Were you not listening carefully to Old Wang during class?”

Old Wang was their Chinese teacher.

Song Yu frowned, “Wasn’t it that sentence? I fell asleep in Chinese class that day and didn’t hear what he said before that.”

Ma Xiaoding wailed. He was very regretful, “Brother Yu! This sentence is a topic that Old Wang pulled out casually as a pretend topic in order to sound literary and artistic. It’s not the content for the composition.”

“Do you remember that 300 word term goal composition we handed in? Old Wang said, ‘Something that lingers in your thoughts will someday spring up in your life’, and something about how persistence would have its rewards. The content of the composition is to have us write about how we intend to achieve our goal.”

Song Yu: “……”

Ma Xiaoding: “The topic this time is linked to last time. It can totally be written like a diary, with the theme being how to strive towards your goal. Your composition has gone so far off-topic it’s gone to the moon already.”

Song Yu: “……”

Dammit. Why hadn’t anyone told him this?

He tilted his head and saw the sleeping Xie Sui. He leaned over and picked up a pen, poking him in the arm with it, “Xie Sui, Xie Sui, Xie Sui, wake up, they’re collecting homework. Did you write your composition yesterday?”

Ever since Xie Sui and Song Yu became deskmates, Xie Sui had basically made up for all the sleep he hadn’t gotten in his previous life.

But his sleep was very shallow. His eyes were particularly clear even after being woken up, it was just that his voice was a little hoarse and tone a little nasally, “Yeah, I did.”

Song Yu was eager for verification, “What did you write about?”

He thought about it for a moment.

Xie Sui pushed himself up and sat up, his tone unhurried, “You.”

Song Yu was stunned silly. Had the three of them worked on the same homework assignment?

“You wrote about me? You’re off-topic!”

“It’s not off-topic.”

Xie Sui’s voice held a bit of a smile. He’d just woken up and appeared careless and lazy.

He stared at him and said very naturally, “You’re my term goal, and you’re the one who lingers in my mind. It’s not off-topic.”

Song Yu: “……”

Ma Xiaoding finished listening to them and came to the conclusion, “Yeah, God Xie’s already someone who’s at the top of the school and doesn’t need a plan at all. His last goal was to help Brother Yu with his studies, so writing about you isn’t a problem.”

Jiang Chunian had come to pick up their homework at this time. She started laughing when she heard Ma Xiaoding’s words, “Who’s writing about who?”

She was dressed in their school uniform, with her hair tied back in a ponytail and some loose strands falling from behind her ears. She looked young and pretty, her skin pale and pink, and there were two small dimples at the corners of her mouth. She gave off a quiet and scholarly temperament while holding a pile of paper in her arms.

Ma Xiaoding unexpectedly blushed, faltering and unable to speak.

Xi Bowen helped explain the situation, “It’s nothing much, just that God Xie wrote about Brother Yu in his composition.”

Jiang Chunian’s eyes brightened, “???”

The class representative’s entire temperament changed.

“What composition?”

Ma Xiaoding’s youthful heart couldn’t be any more obvious. He scratched his head and was happily willing to say a few more words in front of a girl he had feelings for. He coughed and blushed, “What other composition could it be? It’s last week’s homework. Ah, Brother Yu, isn’t that so?”

Song Yu couldn’t bear it anymore, “Enough already, shut up!”

Xie Sui laughed from beside him.

“!!!”

Jiang Chunian’s hands quivered slightly around the homework. Had she really shipped a real CP?

She handed in the homework and returned to her seat.

Jiang Chunian held her pen in her hand and thought for a long time, then she turned her head to speak to her deskmate, “I’m going to go write on the forums.”

Her deskmate was a short-haired, slightly chubby girl. She’d opened up a bag of potato chips after class ended and was stuffing them into her mouth one by one. She vaguely asked, “What story are you writing? Overbearing president?”

Jiang Chunian’s lips curved in a smile and she meaningfully answered, “No—distant and cold school grass.”

Her deskmate: “??? Are you crazy! You dare to use God Xie as the inspiration?”

Jiang Chunian was immersed in her own fantasy. She propped up her face between her hands, “More than that. I’m going to write about Brother Yu. Last time when I went to ask about the domain of definition, I felt that the way God Xie looked at me was like he was looking at an idiot, making me feel so angry and ashamed that I wanted to drill underground. But you know, his eyes weren’t like that when he looked at Brother Yu just now. There was a gentle breeze in his gaze when he looked at him.”

Her deskmate: “……”

666, a gentle breeze? There was a breeze in his eyes? It must be blinding. And the most important point is, you really must be tired of living to write about Brother Yu.

“Would you like a potato chip to calm yourself down?”

Jiang Chunian couldn’t wait anymore. She took out her notebook and pen, her lips unable to refrain from rising, “I can’t calm down anymore! I’ve already thought of the name. It’s, ‘You’re the one who lingers in my thoughts’.”

Her deskmate: “… You really mustn’t let Brother Yu see it.”

Jiang Chunian puffed out her chest. She was very confident, “If I send it out in the dedicated forums, he won’t find it in this lifetime.”

The first class on Monday was English class. The whole class fell silent for a few seconds when their new English teacher came in. Their teacher was male and around 30-40 years old with sparse hair. He wore a suit and a pair of glasses, and he held a thermos in one hand and a teaching plan in the other. He looked polite and refined.

He introduced himself briefly. He was surnamed Cheng and would take over Class One and become its class teacher in the future. He wasn’t clear on what had happened with Ou Yilian and bypassed the topic vaguely.

Their new teacher seemed to be someone who was very good-natured. He was funny and spoke English very fluently. Everyone was particularly serious during his first class.

At the end of the class, Teacher Cheng tossed out a sentence, “There are forty-five students in our class, right?”

A girl in the first row shook her head, “There are forty-eight. Some students didn’t come to class today.”

Teacher Cheng pushed up his glasses, then picked up a pen and made some mark in his roster, “Forty-five. The three students who didn’t come won’t be coming in the future.”

Ma Xiaoding’s eyes grew wide, “W-w-w-what? Did Wang Ci drop out of school?”