BTO CH4

There were a lot of people in the office at this hour, mostly class representatives from various classes hurrying to hand in homework after the flag-raising ceremony. But this voice was truly hard to ignore, like a sudden gust of cold air popping up on a scorching summer day.

Aside from being hard to ignore, it even sounded a bit familiar. So much so that amidst the noise of an office bustling like a vegetable market, Xu Sheng heard the word “Reporting” exceptionally clearly.

“You’re just in time,” Meng Guowei put down his water cup. “Have you collected all the homework?”

“Missing one.”

Xu Sheng casually kept his eyes lowered. First, he saw the corner of a grayish-blue school uniform, and then the person beside him placed a stack of homework on the desk. Xu Sheng’s gaze shifted up two inches, and he saw a hand with distinct knuckles crossing his line of sight.

Prominent wrist bones and very long fingers.

Meng Guowei was about to ask who was missing, but upon seeing the guy standing next to him who had just come down from the reflection stage, he realized the question didn’t even need to be asked. He added, “You took leave yesterday, so you’re not too familiar with the people in the class yet. It just so happens that the person who didn’t hand in his homework is right here. Why don’t you two… get to know each other? It’ll make collecting homework easier in the future.”

“I never hand in homework, so it won’t make things any easier.”

As Xu Sheng spoke, he caught sight of the Study God’s face. Hearing this, Shao Zhan also happened to look over at him. As their eyes met, the rest of the sentence lingering in Xu Sheng’s mouth—Is there anything else?—took a sharp turn: “…Why is it you?”

Still that excessively rigid school uniform.

Because of his pale skin, the teenager’s hair looked exceptionally black. His facial features were actually very striking; it was only thanks to his cold, “stay away from me” expression that the aggressiveness of his features was somewhat diluted. Just standing there, it was as if his entire person was isolated from his surroundings.

Xu Sheng’s previous question of Does the Sixth High uniform really look that good? finally got its answer. Among all the people wearing uniforms in the office, he was simply the only one who made it look outstanding.

Meng Guowei was practically overjoyed, his delight evident in his words: “You two know each other?”

Know each other?

They practically had a feud going.

The two answered almost simultaneously—

Xu Sheng: “I guess so.”

Shao Zhan: “I don’t know him.”

Xu Sheng: “?”

Shao Zhan’s “I don’t know him” was said without a single fluctuation in tone, utterly cold.

Meng Guowei was a bit confused by the two of them, scratching his head and wondering: do they know each other or not?

Xu Sheng couldn’t quite put his finger on what mood he was in right now. He had spent the whole night writing his self-reflection, gritting his teeth the entire time, thinking that if he found out who it was, he might just storm into their dorm in the middle of the night, throw a blanket over their head, and beat them up. Yet, the other party didn’t even remember the incident.

“Dormitory building, three-thousand-word reflection,” Xu Sheng said. “Or maybe I should give a clearer hint: the wall.”

Shao Zhan had taken leave yesterday. He took a car back to school at night. Walking to the entrance of the dorm building, he saw someone climbing the wall, but he really hadn’t paid attention to who exactly it was. People were always coming in and out of the dorms, and plenty of them changed out of their uniforms once they were back in their rooms. It was only now that he connected the person in front of him with the guy who, just moments ago, had walked a long distance to the flag-raising platform and caused a school-wide sensation the moment he opened his mouth.

Shao Zhan clearly didn’t have much he wanted to say. Lowering his eyes to look at him, he begrudgingly offered a critique of the self-reflection: “The reflection wasn’t badly written.”

Xu Sheng: “…” Like I need you to tell me?

Xu Sheng’s current mood was just a massive capital “FUCK.”

Meng Guowei couldn’t understand what they were talking about, so he decided to cut straight to the chase. “If you two know each other, that’s just wonderful. It’s like this: a few students in the class applied to change seats, and I plan to make some minor adjustments to our class seating chart. The initial plan is to have you two sit together. You don’t have any objections, do you?”

The two of them spoke at the same time again—

Only this time, they were in perfect harmony.

“Yes.”

Xu Sheng really couldn’t bear to stay in the office any longer. In front of him was a new homeroom teacher whose thought process was completely baffling, insisting on introducing him to a classmate; and beside him was the very classmate he had just formed a grudge with yesterday.

He was afraid he’d lose his rationality.

“Sir, about this classmate Shao Zhan and me,” Xu Sheng didn’t know how to put it, finally forcing out, “the two of us are fucking incompatible.”

Meng Guowei: “…”

“Relationships between people depend on fate; a forced melon isn’t sweet. I get along great with my current desk mate. We love and care for each other, the atmosphere is very harmonious, and we share the same ideals. I sleep, he listens to the lecture, and neither of us bothers the other.”

Meng Guowei tried to interrupt him.

Xu Sheng threw in another sentence: “Forced camaraderie between classmates won’t end well.”

“…………”

As Xu Sheng spoke, even he felt that his words sounded weirder and weirder. So he changed the subject, simply pulling open the office door. “Anyway, I wrote the reflection. As for the punishment, do whatever you want with it. If there’s nothing else, I’m heading back to class.”

This was the second time Meng Guowei had been choked off by Xu Sheng like this. The moment this attitude came out, it was a giant rejection of communication, impervious to both the carrot and the stick. He couldn’t even find a starting point if he wanted to lecture him.

With one gone, there was still the other. Meng Guowei gathered his feelings and turned to Shao Zhan. “You don’t want to be desk mates with him either?”

“Correct.”

Meng Guowei had hit two brick walls in a row today. He barely managed to swallow his frustration. “Can I ask for your reason?”

Shao Zhan’s reason was much more realistic: purely because changing seats was too troublesome, and he had no interest in getting to know anyone. “Troublesome.”

Meng Guowei’s one-on-one mentorship plan had died in the womb before it even took its first step.

If people said Xu Sheng was hard to get along with, in Meng Guowei’s eyes, Shao Zhan was actually the one who was truly difficult to deal with.

The first time Meng Guowei met Shao Zhan was during his freshman year. Although he didn’t teach freshmen, he was in charge of various competitions for the high school division.

Evening study hall training began right after registration for the math competition. He was the only freshman in the entire conference room. Operating on the mindset that “participation is a victory in itself,” Meng Guowei specially prepared a set of fundamental competition questions for him.

As a result, the teenager sat in the back row for less than ten minutes before raising his hand. He walked up with the paper, slapped the filled-out test in front of him, and said: “You don’t need to specifically prepare fundamental questions for me next time.”

During the one-month competition preparation period, he was a lone wolf. He didn’t make enemies with anyone, but he wasn’t seen getting close to anyone either. The expression in his eyes when he stared at a test paper held much more warmth than when he looked at anyone in the conference room.

Meng Guowei stayed silent for two seconds, deciding to approach his plan from a different angle. “Alright then. There’s one more thing. You weren’t here yesterday, and our class committee hasn’t been fully elected yet. Is there any position you’d like to hold?”

“I’ll have to prepare for competitions later on, I probably won’t have the time or energy.”

Shao Zhan blocked Meng Guowei’s words right back.

But Meng Guowei refused to give up so easily. He slapped his thigh and said, “Isn’t that a coincidence! The position I saved for you just so happens to require neither time nor energy.”

Shao Zhan could hear that the homeroom teacher was dead set on having him on the class committee. “Go ahead and say it.”

Meng Guowei said happily, “Our class just so happens to be missing a Disciplinary Committee Member!”

“It won’t take up much time at all, right? It’s a perfect fit. When you’re managing Xu Sheng… ah, no, when you’re managing discipline, pay special attention to our classmate Xu Sheng.”

Meng Guowei: “He might frequently skip classes through various methods, sneak out over the wall, stay out all night, get into fights off-campus…”

When Xu Sheng returned to class, he had no idea that Meng Guowei had been charging up an ultimate move behind his back.

Zhang Feng heard that the Study God had canceled his leave and come to class today. After morning exercises, he was leaning by the window of Class 7 again, looking around. Since Xu Sheng wasn’t there, he found Xu Sheng’s desk mate to chat with. “Warrior, why do you think I keep brushing past the Study God every time? Am I really just not fated to meet him?”

Xu Sheng’s desk mate was a boy who wore glasses. He looked gentle and weak, yet his nickname was “Warrior.” Aside from the fact that his name happened to contain the character for courage, it was also because he dared to sit next to Xu Sheng and had successfully survived for two days.

In reality, Li Mingyong wasn’t all that courageous at all. Because his bus broke down unexpectedly, he arrived late too, coming in right on Xu Sheng’s heels. He simply didn’t have a choice.

The moment he walked into Class 7, he almost wanted to end his high school career right then and there.

Li Mingyong also harbored a deep reverence for this friend of the school tyrant. “The Study God went to the office, you can come back next period.”

Zhang Feng: “Why is your voice shaking? What are your thoughts on sitting next to our boss?”

Desk mate Li Mingyong, who had just been described by Xu Sheng in the teachers’ office as “loving and caring, sharing a harmonious atmosphere and the same ideals”, said in his heart: I want to drop out.

“Our boss doesn’t beat people up, and he rarely curses either. He’s very civilized,” Zhang Feng said. “There’s no need to be so afraid.”

As they spoke, Xu Sheng happened to walk up to the window. He didn’t enter the classroom; standing next to Zhang Feng, he leaned against the windowsill and asked, “Afraid of what?”

Zhang Feng: “We were talking about you. Your desk mate seems pretty scared of you.”

Xu Sheng had absolutely zero self-awareness. He figured he hadn’t done anything these past few days; during class, he either slept or played on his phone, and when he went out to stand for punishment, he even created an absolutely quiet learning environment for his desk mate. So what he told Meng Guowei wasn’t entirely a lie: “My desk mate and I have a great relationship.”

After saying this, Xu Sheng asked, “Right, Li Yong?”

Li Mingyong: “…”

Zhang Feng: “His name is Li Mingyong. Even I, who’s all the way over in Class 1, remember it. What’s wrong with you?”

Xu Sheng touched his nose, avoiding the subject. He had been busy all morning and hadn’t eaten anything yet. Only now did he belatedly realize he was hungry. “Got anything to eat?”

Zhang Feng pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

Xu Sheng shot him a glance.

Zhang Feng consciously shoved the cigarettes back in. This Sixth High school tyrant didn’t smoke; this non-smoking trait didn’t fit his character profile at all.

Zhang Feng dug around in his pocket for a long time before pulling out a lollipop. “This is all I have. It was a freebie from the convenience store to round up the change when I bought the smokes. You didn’t eat breakfast?”

“I was too busy writing the reflection last night, so I overslept this morning.” Xu Sheng had been resting his elbow against the window. After taking the lollipop, he turned around, putting his back to the window as he peeled off the wrapper. “What are you wandering around Class 7 for again?”

Zhang Feng didn’t have time to blurt out his I’m here to laugh at you, didn’t you say you wouldn’t get caught?, as the class bell rang just then. He hurriedly walked backward, talking as he went. “Gotta go, next period is Old Li’s class. If I enter the room a second late, he’ll flay me alive.”

With one hand tucked into his pants pocket, Xu Sheng casually waved at him, then walked into the classroom with the lollipop hanging from his mouth.

He sat in his chair, only now remembering to check what class this was. He leaned all the way back and narrowed his eyes, only to find the corner of the blackboard blocked by a person. He could only see a school uniform button fastened to the very top, and further up, the teenager’s prominent Adam’s apple, black hair, and an icy expression.

Only when Shao Zhan walked toward the back of the classroom and the angle shifted did Xu Sheng see clearly that the words written on the blackboard were “Mathematics.”

Xu Sheng crunched the candy in his mouth into pieces with a few bites. Then, maintaining this posture of leaning back with the front legs of his chair off the ground, he looked down to dig through his desk for his textbook. His books were in the exact same condition as when he had received them; he hadn’t even written his name on the title pages.

As he was searching, he heard someone in the class let out a gasp, followed by the entire class breaking into whispers.

Xu Sheng didn’t look up, but he noticed that the sunlight streaming in from the window had been blocked. Originally, he was bathed in sunlight, but now it suddenly darkened as if the weather had changed, casting a large shadow over his desk.

He was forced to look up.

Shao Zhan bypassed the front few rows of students, but didn’t go straight back to his own seat. He walked to the other side of the aisle, leaned over slightly, and pinched the stick of the lollipop dangling from Xu Sheng’s mouth with two fingers. Xu Sheng froze for a second as the white plastic stick was pulled right out of his mouth by Shao Zhan: “No eating candy during class.”