three

The first period in the afternoon was math. The heat in the air was neutralized by the cool air from the air conditioner, and the teacher's soft words became a catalyst for drowsiness. It was rare for the classroom of Class 3, Grade 12 to be so quiet.

Ning Yi'en wasn't sleepy, but he wasn't paying attention in class either. Actually, he didn't need the first or second round of review at all. As long as he maintained his feel for the questions, the college entrance exam was still a piece of cake for him.

Doing math during math class doesn't really count as doing B during class A. Although no one has explicitly mentioned it, it's generally accepted that if someone already knows the concept, they can learn it ahead of time or do reinforcement exercises in their original class.

However, he lost focus after writing for a short while. He didn't know when it started, but he had come to enjoy judging the teachers' teaching abilities. The teacher who was now lecturing on the podium seemed to be surnamed Li. His tone was so dull that it made people sleepy, and his lectures lacked focus. He would talk about whatever came to mind, which made people dizzy even if they had a clear idea.

Ning Yi'en blinked hard, trying to clear her mind of these jumbled thoughts. She casually twirled her pen a few times, preparing to write the next question.

Today's math class was eerily quiet. Li Xue surveyed the classroom with displeasure and found that almost everyone had their heads down, either "fishing" or writing something unrelated to the lesson.

Li Xue was furious and upset, and desperately wanted to find a place to vent his emotions. Many classmates said in private that he was teaching so that he could curse people. He knew this, but he himself did have this intention. So what? He had to admit that he liked the feeling of being above others and in control of power.

The lecture stopped, and some students noticed and looked up at him. "The last student in Group Seven," Li Xue said, his hands resting on the podium, as if he were looking down at someone and giving orders.

But the classmate ignored him, calmly twirling his pen and looking down at something. "Bad student!" he thought to himself, then shouted it out loud again before walking toward his seat.

It wasn't until the student in front of him gently nudged Ning Yi'en twice that he realized the teacher had stopped lecturing and called on him.

He put down his pen, pulled the workbook he had just been discussing from the side and covered it over the problems he had written, casually flipped to a page, and then lowered his head, pretending to be engrossed in studying the problem.

“Some people,” the math teacher said, walking down from the podium from the other side, his hands behind his back as he surveyed the room. “When you’re in class, pay attention and follow the rules.”

"If you're sitting in our classroom, you should listen to our lessons. Don't let your parents' money and effort go to waste."

It was obvious that Li Xue was subtly attacking Ning Yi'en, but she herself didn't seem to care. While Li Xue was pressing her aggressively, Ning Yi'en was studying the note her deskmate had just passed her.

"He writes very quickly and very hastily. He just likes to act crazy like this, we're all used to it, just ignore him and let it go in one ear and out the other." He also added a sad face emoji.

Ning Yi'en gave him an OK sign, then lowered her head and pretended to read a book—it wasn't really necessary, but the teacher seemed a little embarrassed by his lecturing style, and Ning Yi'en wanted to keep listening to see what he had to say.

"Although this is your first time in my class, is it your first day of school? Don't you know what you should and shouldn't do in class? Do you expect me to teach you all the classroom rules from scratch just for your sake?"

Jiannan is actually a very open-minded school, especially for students with good grades. If they feel that they have mastered all the knowledge taught by the teacher in class, they can study independently.

However, Li Xue didn't think so. In his classes, everyone had to listen attentively to him, whether he was talking about textbook knowledge or boasting about his own experiences. Regardless of whether his lectures were suitable for most of the class, everyone had to listen carefully to every word he said. Otherwise, how could they find a bit of joy in control in the boring teaching career?

He was still talking non-stop, swaying his head as he slowly walked towards Ning Yi'en. Ning Yi'en suddenly felt the person next to him getting closer. Before he could turn his head to look, Lu Yunian whispered to him, "Don't turn your head. Just keep talking to you like this, pretend I'm bothering you. He'll come and yell at me later."

Before Ning Yi'en could raise any objections, he added, "It's okay. I'm used to being taught a lesson, so I won't care at all. I'm very thick-skinned. Besides, my math grades are pretty good, so he won't do anything to me."

However, he was wrong this time. Li Xue ignored him and didn't even give him a second glance. He didn't know why he disliked the new classmate so much and completely ignored the other students who were behaving even worse in class.

"Oh right, I still don't know your name," he finally walked up to Ning Yi'en and tapped his desk a few times. "Why didn't you stand up when the teacher was talking to you? Hmm, are you Sanwu-ge?"

He smiled dismissively, which drew a burst of laughter from the class.

“Your nickname is quite famous. What kind of workbook are you working on?” Li Xue casually flipped through his desk. “Why don’t you work on the ‘53’ workbook? Work on that one, it matches your nickname perfectly.”

Ning Yi'en stood up, expressionless but seemingly unconcerned about the teacher's reprimand. Li Xue suddenly regretted letting him stand up, because Ning Yi'en was taller than him, and he felt overwhelmed in terms of presence.

So he decided to get back at them with some more hurtful words, even though no one was actually arguing with him.

"Wow, such dense black writing! Everyone should learn from him," he said, holding up the workbook Ning Yi'en had just been writing in to show the other students. "But it's not advisable to write anything else during class, understand?"

Ning Yi'en was disgusted by this behavior, but since the other party was a teacher, she couldn't figure out what he wanted to do, so she just frowned and didn't say anything.

Even Lu Yunian, as an observer, couldn't stand it anymore, so he quickly wrote another note—Don't listen to his babbling, he's really sick and hasn't even set off yet.

Then he shoved it into Ning Yi'en's hand, but Ning Yi'en couldn't see it before Li Xue finished speaking, and even if she secretly opened it, she might not be able to understand Lu Yunian's flying handwriting.

"You've worked so hard, your score last time must have been pretty high, right? By the way, what's your name?"

The words caused an uproar in the class. The two people who had deliberately picked a fight that morning even laughed and clapped mockingly.

Ning Yi'en probably guessed what he meant, but the math score didn't bother him or cause any harm, so he went along with it and said, "Teacher, you did really well on the math test, my name is Ning Yi'en."

"Were all the points lost due to carelessness? You could have gotten full marks if you weren't careless." Li Xue smiled contemptuously, then leaned closer to him and said, word by word, "Ning, Yi, En, Tong, Xue." — Actually, he felt the name sounded familiar, but he hadn't thought about it carefully. After all, he was a student from the previous year, so it was normal for him to have heard it before.

Then he turned around and said to the whole class, "Everyone, don't make stupid mistakes like filling in the answer sheet wrong, misreading symbols, etc., and then when the results come out, you'll say, 'Oh, if only I hadn't been so careless,' and you'll fall behind. If you have to repeat a year, no one can save you. By the way, speaking of repeating a year, not everyone can get into Jiannan High School. Even if someone scores 620 or 630, Jiannan might not accept them."

After saying that, as if she had just realized her offense, she smiled at Ning Yi'en and said, "Oh dear, I didn't mean anything by it. You won't mind, will you, Ning Yi'en? Don't blame me. After all, we've been together for almost a year. Oh, I forgot, if you do too badly in the monthly exam and get eliminated, we won't be able to get along for much longer. You have to work hard! I believe in you."

Then, in a provocative manner, he patted Ning Yi'en on the shoulder and asked, "Do you mind if your teacher finds out how many points you got on your math test in June?"

"Can't the teacher just teach properly? Class is about to end if he doesn't start teaching soon!" Lu Yunian couldn't stand it anymore, rolled her eyes at him several times, and then shouted.

Privately, he asked how he could find such enjoyment in it. Li Xue thought to himself, "Besides, you wouldn't listen even if I were to give a lecture." However, he was in a great mood right now and decided not to argue with this person.

“Ning Yi’en, you must be happy to share with everyone, right? It doesn’t matter what score you get. We are a team, and your classmates can help you if you share it.”

That's what he said, but he hoped Ning Yien's score would be as low as possible, so that he could "take care" of him more in the future. Ideally, he would fail and be at the bottom of their class. However, with a college entrance examination score of just over 550, his math score would be at most average.

"Of course I don't mind, teacher. I'm happy to share with everyone and I'm also very willing to help each other." Finally, the teacher asked about the score. Ning Yi'en had tolerated all the nonsense before and forced a fake smile at the teacher. The smile was quite curved—although that was just his own opinion.

"One hundred and forty-five," he said, his smile widening even further. This time it wasn't a fake smile but a genuine one, while Li Xue's face instantly darkened, almost making everyone burst out laughing.

"Really? That's great. But even though grades are important, honesty is more important." This score was among the best in the entire grade last year, let alone for a repeat student. Thinking this way, Li Xue felt a little better and forced a smile. He wanted to gently coax the child into revealing his true score so he could then teach the kid a lesson.

But as expected, a bad student is a bad student. What's the point of lying about a grade? Even if you were to lie, you wouldn't know how to make it up properly. He shook his head. "If you're worried about losing face, you can talk to me privately after class."

“There’s no need to lie to your teacher. One hundred and forty-five is one hundred and forty-five. If you’re going downstairs, my name should still be on the list of high-scoring math students on the first-floor display board. I’ll be third or fourth.” As she spoke, she gave him a very sincere wink, which made Li Xue so angry that he almost fainted.

"If there's nothing else, I'll sit down now, teacher." After saying that, he sat down without waiting to see if Li Xue had anything else to do.

"Okay, very impressive," he said, having suffered such a huge setback, he could only blame himself for not picking an easy target. "Everyone should learn from... from this Ning... Ning Yi'en." Then he slunk back to the podium and continued lecturing.

"My god, senior!" As soon as Li Xue left, Lu Yunian couldn't wait to come up to him. "Really 145? That's amazing."

Before answering him, Ning Yi'en habitually twirled her pen a few times. Just as she was about to speak, Lu Yunian felt that what he had just said was not quite right and added, "It's not that I doubt its authenticity, it's just that it's so awesome and cool. I really want to see this old man get his comeuppance, it would be so satisfying."

He grinned foolishly at Ning Yi'en, but then, afraid that Ning Yi'en would think he was really stupid, he turned back and pretended to be doing homework while secretly laughing at his textbook.

"Thank you," Lu Yunian vaguely heard Ning Yi'en lean more towards him, "Don't get angry over someone like that, it's not worth it."

"You're great too." When the bell rang, Ning Yi'en said to Lu Yunian again, her voice light and airy, but somehow it made Lu Yunian's blood boil.

“I finally realized why your deskmate looks so familiar!” Wen Xi turned to Lu Yunian during the break between evening self-study sessions.

"I don't listen to negative gossip." Lu Yunian was in a particularly good mood, humming a little tune as he did his homework, "It will affect my mood."

“It’s not negative.” Wen Xi pouted. “Is this how you see me?”

"No, it can't even be called gossip! Do you want to listen?"

He waved for Yan Ting and Lu Yunian to move closer to him.

“Well, actually there’s nothing exciting or mysterious about it.” Wen Xi thought for a moment and then shook her head to herself. “But Ning Yi’en doesn’t know that he was among the top three in the annual Jiannan School Heartthrob poll.”

"He's so handsome, why is he only in the top three, not number one?" Lu Yunian's focus was clearly not on the same wavelength as Wen Xi's.

"Actually, they're tied for first place." Yan Ting chimed in, "These few people are so authoritative that even students who are completely oblivious to the world around them probably know that Jiannan University has such handsome students, and there's more than one."

"Moreover, there was a complete gap, and even the fourth place, which was quite good, was overshadowed."

"Never mind that, next time you talk to someone about this, just say he's the number one heartthrob in the school. The fourth one is probably just average-looking, nothing special. Actually, I haven't seen many handsome guys in Jiannan. Yeah, except for Ning Yi'en." Lu Yunian waved his hand to indicate that it was decided.

“Yes, and me too,” he added.

After he finished speaking, the two people at the table in front of him kept laughing.

"Lu Yunian," Yan Ting said, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth, "do you want to see what the fourth one looks like?" She cleared her throat solemnly, "It'll definitely be more than you imagine..."

While carefully choosing his words, Lu Yunian cast a look of pity at his two deskmates, saying, "I didn't imagine. They're definitely not handsome. Everyone would pale in comparison to the brilliance of such a great senior." He shook his pen.

"Wenxi, your strong reaction means the fourth one isn't you, is it? That fault line isn't surprising at all; if there wasn't a fault line, it would be completely unbelievable."

"Lu Yunian, what do you mean?" Wen Xi suddenly roared in protest. Yan Ting turned around and rummaged through her bag.

But it didn't work out.

“I’m just kidding. You can look out the window at fourth place,” she said.

"Is the window or the glass fourth, or the tree?"

"Don't talk to him anymore. Lu Yunian is already hopelessly infatuated with his senior's good looks. He's gone mad." Wen Xi gestured for Yan Ting to turn back.

"If someone can't even be narcissistic, they're probably really stupid." Yan Ting agreed.

"What do you mean? I'm the fourth one who was displaced."

"uh-huh."

"That just proves that my senior's looks are still too ahead of their time."

During the next evening self-study session, Lu Yunian found the note under his textbook. It was the one he had slipped to Ning Yi'en later. It was a little crumpled from being tucked in, and Ning Yi'en had replied with a line after his flamboyant handwriting—

I didn't hear it.

There's also a hastily made smiling face that looks like a kitten's head.

Lu Yunian stared at the note for a while, then realized what was happening and straightened it out, putting it in his pencil case. He then spaced out for a long time before slowly starting to write his tedious math and physics problems.

He was in an absurdly good mood throughout the entire evening self-study session, especially after Ning Yi'en accepted his friend request. He was overjoyed and even enjoyed doing his most hated subject, chemistry.