Chapter 22 Walkthrough: Day 22 Sweet Talk...

Since they were about to sit separately, Xiang Di wanted to do one last thing and offered to help him move his desk.

Bai Jiangxin refused outright: "No need."

Hindsight is 20/20, nothing new.

“Okay.” Xiang Di then asked him, “So, which side are you planning to sit on later?”

Chen Jinghua arranged the seats for Bai Jiangxin and Wang Sichen as follows: Chen Jinghua didn't care where Wang Sichen sat, since boys are tall and can sit in the last row anyway. But Bai Jiangxin couldn't leave the golden zone in the middle of the classroom. So, when one person gains power, all the others benefit. Wang Sichen, who was Bai Jiangxin's deskmate, naturally rose from the seat next to the podium to the golden zone of the academic elites.

Too lazy to rearrange the seats, Chen Jinghua simply asked the students in the next group to move back a row, and then let Bai Jiangxin sit in the middle row, which was both convenient and easy.

When Xiang Di asked him which side he planned to sit on, she was actually asking her whether he wanted to sit at the next table, which was just across the aisle from her, or sit on the other side.

She definitely hoped that Bai Jiangxin would only be separated from her by an aisle.

However, Bai Jiangxin said, "What does this have to do with you?"

She's already changed deskmates, so why does she care where he sits or what he does? It's none of her business where he sits anyway.

Xiang Di was once again taken aback by Bai Jiangxin's cold attitude. She didn't understand what was wrong with him this time. He was unhappy when the teacher didn't change his seat, and now that the teacher had changed his seat, he was still unhappy.

But she still wanted to try: "Could you sit in the seat next to me?"

Bai Jiangxin froze, seeing the pleading look in her eyes. He pursed his lips and asked, "...Why?"

"Because I think Wang Sichen talks too much, I'm afraid that if he sits next to me, it will affect me..." Xiang Di's tone was a little guilty, since she was talking badly about her classmate. "So it would be better if you sat next to me."

Bai Jiangxin remained silent.

It turns out she knew how much a talkative classmate sitting next to her would affect her. Now that she had affected him, she felt relieved and kicked him away.

She wanted him to sit next to her and separate her from Wang Sichen, but what about him? When Teacher Chen just arranged for him to be Wang Sichen's deskmate, why did she pretend to be mute and not say a word for him?

She was afraid of being influenced by talkative classmates, so did she already know in advance whether that mixed-race classmate was talkative or not? The teacher arranged for her to be deskmates with that mixed-race classmate, and she didn't refuse. Wang Sichen was no good, but the mixed-race classmate was fine. Actually, she just thought the mixed-race classmate was good-looking. Even if he was a chatterbox, she would be happy. What a double standard and superficiality.

Bai Jiangxin chuckled, his lips twitching slightly.

She has that mixed-race man but still won't let him go. She wants both, does she really think she has all the good things in the world? She's dreaming.

While Xiang Di was still discussing it with him, Wang Sichen had already moved his desk from next to the podium.

Wang Sichen carried the table all the way over, and facing Bai Jiangxin, he smiled obsequiously and asked, "Which side would you like to sit on?"

Feeling guilty for having spoken ill of Wang Sichen earlier, Xiang Di made an excuse to leave the classroom.

She still hoped to sit closer to Bai Jiangxin, but if Bai Jiangxin really didn't want to and was determined to sit away from her, then there was nothing she could do.

-

After quickly washing her hands and returning from the restroom, Xiang Di walked into the classroom full of anticipation. However, upon seeing Wang Sichen sitting across the aisle from her, she pursed her lips in disappointment.

As expected, God's favor is not always on her side.

But it's alright, at least she and Bai Jiangxin are only separated by an aisle and Wang Sichen, so they're not too far apart.

The class monitor and the new student hadn't returned yet, and the seat next to her was still empty. The people in the first two rows were too lazy to wait for the new student to come back and move the tables and chairs to make room for her, so the seats in the first two rows were just left scattered haphazardly until the new student returned.

As expected, I was met with the teacher's disapproval. The class was English, and the English teacher walked in smelling strongly of perfume. She immediately frowned in disgust.

"Oh my, your class is in such a mess! What's going on, some kind of mass exodus?"

A student reported: "Teacher, a mixed-race transfer student has joined our class."

“I know, I heard it from your teacher, Ms. Chen.” The English teacher said calmly, “They are genuinely raised abroad. We’ll have the new student give you a self-introduction in English later to show off their spoken English and compare it with your Chinese.”

The students were secretly indignant. What's wrong with Chinglish? What's wrong with Chinese? Anyway, the college entrance exam doesn't test oral English.

Two minutes later, the class monitor and the new classmate returned, chatting and laughing, even though they seemed like strangers when they left.

Ye Minjia had just sat down when Liang Qianqian nudged his arm.

Ye Minjia: "What?"

"How come you two became so close just by going upstairs?"

"What else?" Ye Minjia raised an eyebrow smugly. "With my social skills, I can even handle Bai Jiangxin, let alone a foreigner. I can win him over in no time."

Liang Qianqian pouted. Looking at his beaming face, she felt like he had been won over by a foreigner.

After setting up the desks and chairs, the English teacher sprayed a few puffs of microphone air onto the microphone, and finally, class began.

At this stage, teachers no longer teach new lessons. Every day, they present various past college entrance examination questions and mock exams. The English teacher is no exception. She directly asks everyone to take out the test papers distributed last week, check the answers first, and then go over the questions.

Seeing her new deskmate's bare desk, Xiang Di voluntarily moved her own test paper over: "Let's look at it together."

Zhou Linxiao smiled at her and said, "Thank you, you're so kind."

Xiang Di did the test at home by herself over the weekend. She didn't know if she did it right or wrong. It was okay for her to check and correct it by herself, but if she made too many mistakes, she was afraid that her new deskmate would dislike her.

Just like the English teacher said, she grew up abroad, and her English level is simply not on the same level as hers.

However, what she feared most came true. This test paper was quite difficult, especially the cloze test. She got seven out of twenty questions wrong, nearly half of them.

When I marked my mistakes with a red pen, I saw how many I had made and I couldn't even lift my head up.

She gave a dry laugh, trying to save face with self-deprecation: "I made so many mistakes, haha."

"Really?" Zhou Linxiao asked sincerely. "But you got thirteen right. Isn't that a lot?"

Xiang Di was stunned. When doing problems, she always only paid attention to how many she got wrong, never to how many she got right. She would usually skip the problems she got right.

“And I feel this answer is too strict.” Zhou Linxiao rested his chin on one hand and pointed to one of the questions with the other. “The prepositions here can actually be at, in, or on. If you’re communicating with foreigners, you can use any of them and they’ll understand.”

Xiang Di said, "...But this is the college entrance examination, there is only one answer, there is no other way."

“That’s true,” Zhou Linxiao said. “But when I took the SAT, my teacher taught me a good method for doing these kinds of grammar questions, and I can tell you about it.”

Xiang Di's eyes lit up: "Really?"

"Of course, but I can't teach for free. After all, I paid my teachers to teach me."

"Huh?" Xiang Di felt that his request wasn't unreasonable, but, "How much money do you want? I'm telling you beforehand, I'm very poor."

"I don't want your money," Zhou Linxiao said. "Is there anything good to eat at school? Can you take me there after class?"

"That's it?" Xiang Di nodded. "No problem."

Zhou Linxiao continued to smile at her: "Thank you, you're so kind."

Xiang Di's ears burned; she felt a little embarrassed to have been praised twice in such a short time.

However, Zhou Linxiao is really good at praising people, and he can find all sorts of details to praise.

When it came to the reading comprehension questions, he said, "Wow, you actually got all of these reading comprehension questions right!"

When it came to the translation question, he said, "Your Chinese is beautifully written."

Finally, when it came to the essay, he said, "Your English is also very well written."

After checking the answers to the test paper, excluding the 30 points for the listening comprehension section which are not included in the total score, Xiang Di gave herself a score of 100 out of 120. It wasn't a very high score, but Zhou Linxiao said, "You got 100 even without considering the listening comprehension score. You're amazing."

Moreover, when he praised her, he was never perfunctory; his tone was honest, his lips curved slightly, and his olive-colored eyes were full of admiration for her.

"..."

For the first time, Xiang Di experienced what it meant to be praised to the point of being unable to lift her head.

After finishing the test paper, it was almost time for get out of class to end. The English teacher asked Zhou Linxiao what he thought of the difficulty of the questions.

Zhou Linxiao: "It's quite difficult."

"You're being modest. You grew up abroad, so is this kind of test difficult for you?" the English teacher said with a smile. "What score did your deskmate get?"

Xiang Di honestly said, "Not counting the listening comprehension, it's a perfect score of 100."

"If you can get 20 points in the listening section, and you're not aiming for a high score, 120 would be acceptable." The English teacher was quite satisfied, and then added, "However, I heard you recite an English essay before, and your Chinese accent is a bit heavy. You should practice it when you have time."

Xiang Di was a little confused when the teacher called on her for the first time regarding an oral exam question, but she still obediently nodded.

Since get out of class was almost over, the English teacher decided not to continue the lesson and lent her toy bee to Zhou Linxiao so that the new student could give a self-introduction entirely in English.

The homeroom teacher had already asked him to introduce himself once, but now he had to do it again, and in English no less. It felt like forcing a child to perform a show in front of relatives during Chinese New Year. Fortunately, Zhou Linxiao wasn't intimidated and readily agreed to the teacher's request.

The sound quality of the megaphone wasn't very good; it made a buzzing electrical sound. But it was the English teacher's favorite to use. However, when the megaphone was brought to Zhou Linxiao's lips, his voice was quite deep, his speech was slow, and he didn't spit out or swallow sounds when speaking English. The overall listening experience was excellent.

Zhou Linxiao's self-introduction contained neither complex sentences nor obscure words. Xiang Di had thought she wouldn't understand it, but she actually understood it completely.

This gave her even more confidence in her English proficiency.

The English teacher was very satisfied. After taking back the toy bee, she said to the whole class, "Did you hear that? This is standard spoken English. Listen to your own broken, Chinese-style English all the time. Do you know how much effort I put into practicing my spoken English when I went abroad to study, so that students from other countries wouldn't laugh at me?!"

As she spoke, the English teacher began to reminisce about the past and how she met her wealthy husband abroad.

"So you guys, don't think that just because the college entrance exam doesn't test your spoken English, you don't need to practice it. If you go abroad in the future, it'll be very embarrassing if people can tell you have your own accent, you know?"

The students were already immune to this kind of talk, and no one bothered to refute it, letting the English teacher talk more and more enthusiastically.

“The environment is very important for learning English. You should communicate with people more often. Listen to Zhou Linxiao. He grew up abroad and English is his native language. The pronunciation he makes is so much more advanced than yours.”

Just as Xiang Di had spoken a couple of sentences in English, the English teacher said, "Xiang Di, since Teacher Chen has arranged for you to be desk mates with Zhou Linxiao, it's a good opportunity for him to teach you more spoken English and straighten out your broken English."

Before Xiang Di could answer, Zhou Linxiao said directly, "Teacher, I can't teach Xiang Di."

"Why can't you teach them?" the English teacher said with a smile. "Are you complaining that they're difficult to teach?"

"No, you misunderstand. It's not that Xiang Di is difficult to teach; it's that my own spoken English is not good, so I can't teach her. I'm afraid of misleading her."

The English teacher exclaimed, "Huh?"

“English is not my native language,” Zhou Linxiao said. “I wasn’t born in an English-speaking country. I started learning English later than I started learning Chinese. My previous English teachers all said that my spoken English had a very strong Spanish accent, and it wasn’t even as standard as my Chinese.”

The English teacher was stunned. Zhou Linxiao smiled slightly and said, "Teacher, you have studied abroad. Didn't you notice that I also have a heavy accent? In fact, even people born in English-speaking countries have their own accents. As long as you can communicate normally with people, it doesn't matter what your accent is."

An eerie silence fell over the classroom for a few seconds. Zhou Linxiao spoke in a gentle tone and with clear logic. Everyone was smart enough to understand that he was subtly mocking the English teacher, who was using a feather duster as a weapon.

This made the English teacher feel a little embarrassed, but she couldn't refute it, so she could only nod and say, "Oh, maybe when I went abroad to study, I didn't come into contact with people whose native language is Spanish, so I didn't notice your accent. Since your spoken English is not standard, everyone can take Bai Jiangxin's spoken English as the standard. Bai Jiangxin went to an international school before, and international schools are taught by foreign teachers, so his spoken English must be good."

He tried to use Bai Jiangxin to salvage some of his understanding of spoken English, but Bai Jiangxin didn't give him any face at all and said directly, "No, my spoken English isn't very good either, I have a heavy Chinese accent."

English teacher: "..."

The classroom was completely silent; no one dared to laugh. Only Ye Minjia, who knew Bai Jiangxin's spoken English level, secretly chuckled.

Nonsense! This guy's spoken English teacher back then was a genuine Londoner, with that affected London gentleman's tone. He and his teacher were practically carbon copies of each other.

However, he wouldn't speak up for the English teacher, since the English teacher was the one who looked down on Chinglish first.

The English teacher didn't actually have any bad intentions; she was just showing off and satisfying her vanity by putting students down. Xiang Di was just unlucky to be caught in the crossfire. The teacher was now in an awkward position because of Bai Jiangxin's words. Fortunately, the bell rang, and the English teacher said "get out of class dismissed," then quickly left the classroom with her things.

The students only started laughing freely after the English teacher left.

"Cool!"

Xiang Di looked at Zhou Linxiao gratefully. To thank him, she immediately decided to treat him to a meal at the convenience store. She would pay, and he could eat whatever he wanted.

The prices at the convenience store were low, and she could afford them.

Zhou Linxiao said, "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go."

Before leaving, Xiang Di didn't forget her best friend Liang Qianqian and asked her if she needed anything.

The two left the classroom together. Liang Qianqian watched their departing figures and couldn't help but sigh to Ye Minjia, "Lin Xiao really knows how to handle people this week. Xiang Di is such an introverted person, and it took me half a semester to become best friends with her, but he won her over in just one class."

Ye Minjia pouted, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, and glanced at Bai Jiangxin sitting in another group.

I really can't understand why the teacher arranged for Zhou Linxiao to be Xiang Di's current deskmate. Isn't this just deliberately making Bai Jiangxin, the ex, feel bad?

Wang Sichen went to urinate, and he decided to go and talk to her. He got up and sat directly in Wang Sichen's seat.

“Brother,” he said.

Bai Jiangxin didn't even look up: "What?"

"You know the saying, 'Only the squeaky wheel gets the grease,' right?"

Bai Jiangxin turned her head, frowning as she looked at him: "What?"

"You just finished class, and you helped Xiang Di out of that situation, so why didn't you go and ask her for credit?" Ye Minjia said. "Xiang Di invited Zhou Linxiao to the convenience store, and you didn't get any."

Bai Jiangxin continued with his work, his head down, and said calmly, "No, you're overthinking it."

"Then why did you say your spoken English was bad? Versailles, huh?"

My spoken English has always been just average.

"Really?" Ye Minjia smiled. "So all those oral competition trophies in your room were won because your dad bribed the judges beforehand?"

Bai Jiangxin closed his eyes, put down his pen, and said to him impatiently, "What exactly do you want to say?"

"I don't want to say anything," Ye Minjia shrugged. "Xiang Di and her new deskmate are all lovey-dovey. If you don't care, then just pretend I didn't say anything."

The word sounded a bit harsh. Bai Jiangxin glanced at him and curled her lips: "Where's the sweetness?"

Ye Minjia patted his shoulder and said, "Anyway, it's sweeter than being your deskmate."

At that moment, Bai Jiangxin heard Ye Minjia's inner mockery.

[With your lips barely touching, you could poison yourself. You can't even string together a sweet talk. What makes you think you can compete with others?]

Sweet talk?

Bai Jiangxin looked disdainful.

He didn't know that the little pervert actually liked dirty talk, the rougher the better.

Only her face was sweet; the rest of her body was dirty and yellow.

-

Before coming to the convenience store, Xiang Di said it was her treat, but after she swiped her card, Zhou Linxiao suddenly pulled out a campus pass from his pocket and gently blocked it in front of her.

"It's enough that the lady has such a kind thought. Let us men handle the treat."

And just like that, Xiang Di was inexplicably treated to a meal again.

She didn't want to take advantage of him and insisted on returning the money to Zhou Linxiao, saying she would treat him to lunch in the cafeteria.

Zhou Linxiao said no, but she insisted. She said if he didn't eat today, she would treat him tomorrow.

Zhou Linxiao was left speechless, and could only say, "If you keep insisting like this, I'll think you're just making excuses to have dinner with me."

Xiang Di nodded, afraid he might misunderstand, and said, "Then I won't invite you. I'll just transfer the money to you directly. You have WeChat, right? I'll scan your QR code."

Zhou Linxiao said yes, and showed her the QR code of her WeChat account.

Xiang Di gave him a "hehe, you don't understand this as well as I do" look and kindly explained it to him.

"You don't need to add me on WeChat to transfer money. Just let me scan your QR code."

Zhou Linxiao tilted her head at her, her olive-colored eyes looking at her frankly: "I know, but I want to add you on WeChat."

“…Oh? Then add me.” Xiang Di didn’t forget her classmates’ request. “I’ll add you to our class’s WeChat group.”

She envied him so much; he could just ask for someone's WeChat directly. She had wanted Bai Jiangxin's WeChat for almost three years, and the last time she added him was because she transferred money to him.

Moreover, Bai Jiangxin didn't know why, but despite her being so polite, courteous, and keeping her distance, he suddenly ignored her.

Why?!

Xiang Di sighed, took out her phone, unlocked it, and opened WeChat. The chat interface opened automatically. Zhou Linxiao glanced at the profile picture that was pinned to the top of her screen; it was a Ragdoll cat.

-

"Damn, Zhou Linxiao joined the group."

Suddenly, someone in the classroom shouted.

Immediately, many people with mobile phones took them out to see what Zhou Linxiao's WeChat messages looked like.

"You joined the group so quickly? Who invited you?"

“Look at the small print, it’s from Xiang Di.”

"Yes, yes, Xiang Di is very quick. He brought the person in so fast."

Liang Qianqian took out her phone and quickly took advantage of the moment to browse Zhou Linxiao's WeChat Moments.

However, Zhou Linxiao's WeChat Moments were not open to the public. Just as he sighed in disappointment, Ye Minjia next to him also sighed.

Liang Qianqian said, "Didn't you say you'd already won over Zhou Linxiao? Why haven't you added him on WeChat yet?"

Ye Minjia didn't speak, she just sighed.

Zhou Linxiao was added to the class group by Xiang Di. What does this mean? It means that Xiang Di and Zhou Linxiao have already added each other on WeChat.

At this rate, they'll probably announce it tomorrow and get their marriage certificate the day after. The day after that, Bai Jiangxin will only be able to sing as a guest at their wedding. "Thank you for the special invitation to witness your love." Ye Minjia opened her music app and immediately shared the song link with Bai Jiangxin.

Bai Jiangxin happened to be searching for answers on his phone and quickly replied with: 【? 】

Ye Minjia: [Let me learn this.]

Bai Jiangxin: [?]

Ye Minjia: [I'll need this later.]