The moment Shen Fu entered the classroom, every eye in the room turned toward her.
A new transfer student? Her backpack looked expensive. She had black hair, fair skin, and was very pretty. She didn’t look like an ordinary person at all.
But if she was transferring in, why had nobody heard about her before?
The homeroom teacher swept her gaze around the room and pointed to an empty spot. “The class had an even number of students before,” she said briefly. “Sit there for now. When we rearrange seats next week, I’ll assign you a deskmate.”
Shen Fu looked a little confused. The spot was near the windowsill. There wasn’t even a desk or chair there.
But the bell had already rung. The homeroom teacher hurriedly handed the classroom over to the subject teacher and left with her lesson plans for another class.
Left with no choice, Shen Fu walked over under the gaze of an entire classroom full of strangers.
People nearby immediately began peppering her with questions.
“What school were you at before?”
“Why did you transfer here?”
Seeing that Shen Fu merely pressed her lips together and didn’t answer, they quickly lost interest and turned away.
“Why aren’t you sitting down?” the teacher asked in confusion.
Shen Fu was about to answer when someone in the front row chuckled. “She doesn’t have a seat.”
“Oh,” the teacher said. “Then go to the supply room and move a desk and chair over yourself. Hurry back, we’re having a quiz this period.”
Shen Fu nodded. Out of habit, she started heading for the front door she had entered through. The teacher frowned. “Use the back door.”
The class burst into laughter again. There was no malice in it, but Shen Fu’s face still turned red. She hurriedly opened the back door and left. Alone, carrying her backpack, she walked down the empty corridor, trying hard to remember where the supply room was.
Meanwhile, Jiang Shu had been detained at the school gate and lectured by the dean for ages. Still annoyed, he stormed into the classroom, dropped his backpack onto the desk beside the window with a loud bang, and pulled out his chair.
The teacher who was explaining practice problems was interrupted and nearly lost track of where he had been. Unable to help himself, he shot Young Master Jiang a look.
Behind him, Wang Xuanheng struggled not to laugh. “Couldn’t you get up a little earlier? When the school sends your attendance report to your grandfather at the end of the month, you’re definitely getting beaten again.”
At first, the school had assumed that Jiang Shu, as the Jiang family’s young master, needed special treatment. But the more they indulged him, the unhappier Old Master Jiang became. The more equally they treated him, the more money Old Master Jiang donated. Eventually, the administration understood the old man’s intentions and simply treated Jiang Shu like everyone else.
Among the students, very few dared approach Jiang Shu. He wasn’t exactly the school bully. His status was simply comparable to one.
Jiang Shu was about to snap back at Wang Xuanheng when he suddenly caught sight of something outside. Across the way, in the corridor of the opposite classroom building, was a tiny figure.
Shen Fu.
She was struggling to carry a desk back by herself. Every few steps she would set it down to rest, then continue. After moving the desk partway, she went back for the chair. Back and forth. Stop and go. Like a snail slowly crawling forward.
Jiang Shu stared then immediately pulled out his phone and called Assistant Zhou. “What happened? Why is Shen Fu in the building across from mine?”
The school’s middle school and high school sections were separate. Everything here belonged to the high school division. There were six classroom buildings in total for the three grades.
The two Grade 10 buildings faced each other from over fifty meters apart, separated by a lawn. Every floor was connected by uniquely designed skybridges for teachers and students to move between buildings.
Assistant Zhou felt a headache coming on. “Young Master, if I’ve calculated correctly, you’re supposed to be in class right now. Making phone calls during class…”
“Cut the nonsense,” Jiang Shu snapped. “Was she supposed to transfer into Grade Nine?”
“Who told you she was going to middle school?” Assistant Zhou replied. “She’s in the same grade as you. Her academic performance was excellent, so she skipped a grade.”
Jiang Shu: “…”
“Jiang Shu!” The teacher finally called him out.
The class erupted into laughter. Several girls took the opportunity to sneak a few extra looks at him. Frowning, Jiang Shu hung up as though he hadn’t heard the teacher at all and turned back toward the window.
He had already asked some students in the lower grades to prepare a desk and chair for the transfer student arriving today. Who knew Shen Fu would end up in Grade Ten instead? Why hadn’t anyone told him earlier?
The matter bothered him more than he expected. In his mind, middle school students were basically still babies. Practically kindergarteners. Whereas he was a mature, independent high school student.
As a mature high school student, he was supposed to be little Shen Fu’s guardian. And now Shen Fu had suddenly jumped into his own grade level?
What kind of guardian attended the same grade as the person being looked after?
How was he supposed to save face?
“Who is that? Your adopted little stray?” Wang Xuanheng stretched his neck out like a turtle poking its head from its shell and looked toward the opposite building.
Jiang Shu became even more irritated.
Look, look, keep looking. Look again and I’ll gouge your eyes out.
Casually kicking backward, he shoved his chair against Wang Xuanheng’s desk and pushed the boy’s head back.
Shen Fu’s classroom should be the one at the very end. That meant Class Fifteen.
Jiang Shu’s class was Class Seven. The two classrooms happened to sit diagonally opposite each other.
Watching Shen Fu slowly inch her way down the corridor all alone, he could tell she was afraid of making noise and didn’t dare drag the desk along the floor.
Jiang Shu couldn’t help pulling out his phone again. He sent messages to two students who were currently skipping class.
A little while later, Shen Fu finally set the desk down with difficulty and turned around to fetch her chair and backpack. Suddenly, two boys came running up. They looked as though they’d been playing basketball and had been called over in a hurry. Sweat was still dripping down their faces.
The two boys grabbed her desk, hoisted it up, and immediately ran off with it.
Shen Fu: “!”
They’re stealing my desk?! She had worked so hard to move it all the way here!
Her eyes immediately reddened with panic. She hastily set down the chair and chased after them. Only to see the two boys carry the desk straight into her classroom and place it in the empty spot reserved for her.
Shen Fu: “…”
When she caught up, they were already heading back out to retrieve her chair.
The students of Class Fifteen, who were in the middle of a quiz: “……”
After setting up both the desk and chair, the boys wiped away their sweat and left without even giving their names.
Under the astonished gazes of her classmates, Shen Fu sat down in confusion.
She opened her test paper and hurriedly wrote her name. The girl sitting in front of her couldn’t resist turning around and whispering: “How do you know people from Class Seven?”
Shen Fu blinked. She didn’t understand. “Which class is Class Seven?”
Seeing the genuine confusion on her face, the girl turned back around, puzzled. “Nothing.”
The teacher noticed Shen Fu writing her name and hurried over. “Student Shen, don’t write your name. It makes grading difficult for the upper-grade students who help mark papers.” He pointed to a chart in the upper-left corner. “Just fill in your number with pencil. There are forty-eight students in the class. You’re number forty-nine, so write forty-nine.”
Many customs at this school differed from those at Shen Fu’s old school. Embarrassed, she quickly used tape to cover up the two characters of her name, “Shen Fu.” The tape couldn’t completely hide it. In the end, the teacher had to fetch her a brand-new test paper.
The students in front kept turning around to look at her, laughing even harder.
From very far away, Jiang Shu rested his chin on one hand and watched from across the gap between buildings. Although he couldn’t hear what was happening in Shen Fu’s classroom, he could see the students in the front rows repeatedly turning around and laughing while looking at her. His face darkened immediately.
“What the h*ll are those idiots laughing at?”
Right now, Jiang Shu looked at Shen Fu the way one might look at a baby bird whose nest had been blown away by a typhoon, leaving it stranded on the ground with no home and no parents to rely on.
Seeing people laugh at her made him extremely unhappy.
Wang Xuanheng was reading a comic book with his head lowered when he suddenly heard a loud bang from the front. Young Master Jiang had angrily thrown open the window, ripped a page from his textbook, crumpled it into a ball, and hurled it toward the classroom building across the lawn.
“…” What was wrong with him now?
There was a fifty-meter gap between the buildings. Of course the paper ball didn’t make it across. But the moment Jiang Shu stood up in a fit of irritation, another crumpled paper ball hit him on the head and bounced to the floor.
The teacher at the podium was even angrier than he was. Slamming the desk, the teacher roared: “Jiang Shu! Wang Xuanheng! If you don’t want to study, then stand outside in the hallway!”
Wang Xuanheng: “…”
What did that have to do with him?!
The two tall boys ended up standing in the corridor outside the classroom. Wang Xuanheng held a comic book. Jiang Shu held his phone.
Teachers passing by occasionally couldn’t help glancing at them. Setting aside the fact that they were little troublemakers, the two boys were undeniably handsome, tall, long-legged, and eye-catching.
“You dragged me down with you this time,” Wang Xuanheng complained. “Buy me a game cartridge later.”
Jiang Shu ignored him. He stared aggressively at the building opposite them, looking thoroughly displeased.
Shen Fu’s seat was also beside a window.
The quiz wasn’t particularly difficult for her. Although she had missed many classes over the past few months, she had actually begun previewing this year’s coursework last year… Back when nothing had happened to her family.
She lifted her head and looked around the unfamiliar classroom.
The unfamiliar teacher.
The unfamiliar classmates.
For a moment, it felt like a lifetime had passed.
Her gaze drifted absentmindedly out the window.
Then she suddenly froze. Across the way, among the two students being punished in the hallway, one figure looked very familiar.
Shen Fu: “…?”
At that moment, Jiang Shu was leaning lazily against the wall with one leg bent, secretly watching Shen Fu from afar. The instant he noticed her looking over, his entire body stiffened. He reacted immediately, spun around, and faced the wall with his back toward her.
“What are you doing?” Wang Xuanheng asked, baffled.
Wasn’t he punished all the time? He’d never cared about losing face before. Why had his skin suddenly become so thin today?
“Don’t talk to me!” Jiang Shu snapped in embarrassment and fury. Then, as fast as possible, he yanked off his jacket and threw it over his own head.
Wang Xuanheng: “…”
Fortunately, Shen Fu hadn’t finished her quiz yet. Although she felt suspicious, the distance was too great to see clearly who it was.
The teacher approached her desk. She quickly lowered her head and continued writing.
When the dismissal bell rang, Young Master Jiang sprinted back into the classroom with his jacket still covering his head. Only after sitting down did he remove it.
The jacket was one he’d put on in the car after leaving home. Shen Fu had never seen him wear it before. She probably wouldn’t recognize it.
His handsome face was completely red. His pale forehead was damp with sweat from being covered up.
Wang Xuanheng found today’s Jiang Shu utterly incomprehensible.
“So weird…” he muttered. After school, he still couldn’t help asking: “Can I come to your house today?”
Jiang Shu casually stuffed several books into his backpack, he didn’t even seem to know what he was putting in, slung on his earphones, grabbed the bag, and headed for the door.
His rejection was ice-cold. “No.”
“Why?!” Wang Xuanheng wailed.
How had the friendship he’d worked so hard to build suddenly regressed by ten years?
Jiang Shu thought of Shen Fu hanging laundry in the sunlight. The way the sun illuminated her face. The way her earlobes had looked almost translucent in the light. Then he imagined his friend drooling over her. His mood instantly soured.
Even though none of that had actually happened. He still shot Wang Xuanheng a vicious glare in advance.
Wang Xuanheng: “…”
Still trying to salvage their mysteriously deteriorating friendship, Wang Xuanheng followed Jiang Shu toward the family car waiting outside the school gates.
Then he noticed Jiang Shu suddenly looking in a certain direction. His gaze paused.
Wang Xuanheng followed his line of sight.
Before he could see anything, Jiang Shu slapped a hand over his eyes.
Wang Xuanheng: “…”
Jiang Shu, d*mn you. I’m cursing you in my head. Can you hear me?
Meanwhile, Shen Fu was also walking toward the school gates with her backpack, quietly searching for the Jiang family car that had come to pick her up.
Jiang Shu was impossible to miss in a crowd. His height stood out. His handsome face stood out. Even his pale skin and permanently impatient expression stood out.
The moment she exited the school, she immediately spotted him getting into a car with another boy.
Then she noticed his jacket…
Shen Fu frowned. Didn’t that look exactly like the jacket the punished student had been covering his head with?
The moment Jiang Shu noticed her gaze, his eyelid twitched.
He immediately ripped off the jacket and threw it over Wang Xuanheng’s head. Then he barked: “Your jacket! Hold onto it yourself! It’s getting dark and cold, put it on!”
Shen Fu: “…”
By the time Wang Xuanheng managed to untangle the jacket covering his face, Young Master Jiang had already regained his idol image. He put on the white earphones hanging around his neck.
Glanced at Shen Fu. Opened the car door. And climbed into the car with an expression of icy coolness before driving away.
Wang Xuanheng, standing there in the wind holding Jiang Shu’s jacket: “????”
